2) Japan plans to buy 147 F-35 fighters to replace half of its aging F-15J fleet, signing a recent deal for 105 such aircraft. That contract, which is valued at around $23 billion, also includes 110 Pratt & Whitney F135 engines, spares, training gear & associated equipment.
3) 42 of Japan’s F-35 jets will be of the F-35B variety—a short take off/vertical landing (STOVL) variant. The F-35B fighter does not need long runways as its F-35A counterpart, allowing Japan a greater degree of operational flexibility to operate in remote island territories.
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2) Tiny Palau invited the US Pentagon to build ports, bases and airfields on its Pacific islands after Chinese President Xi Jinping bullied the Pacific island nation by destabilizing its fragile economy, according to defiant President Surangel Whipps.
3) “President Whipps’ frank assessment of Chinese pressure – and invitation to host US bases – are unusually blunt for a Pacific leader,” Australia Pacific Security College director Meg Keen said in an interview.
Biowarfare history of #China's Sinopharm vaccine maker raises questions
Suspicions among biowarfare experts, the #US government & #Taiwan's military over whether it continues to serve as a dual-use biological warfare (BW) facility for the #PLA. taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4137284
2) In 1993 and again in 1995, China declared the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products (WIBP), the hub of Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine development, to be one of eight dual-use BW research facilities under its "national defensive biological warfare R&D program."
3) Although China denied having an "offensive" biological warfare program since signing the Biological & Toxin Weapons Convention, in 1984, the US in 2005 alleged that "China maintains some elements of an offensive biological weapon capability in violation of BTWC obligations"
Nicholas Wade sorted through the scientific facts, which hold many clues as to what happened & provide readers with the evidence to make their own judgments. nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covi…
2) Neither the natural emergence nor the lab escape hypothesis can yet be ruled out. There is still no direct evidence for either. So no definitive conclusion can be reached.
3) That said, the available evidence leans further in one direction than the other. Readers will form their own opinion. But it seems that proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those favoring natural emergence.
Colonization by other means: #China’s debt-trap diplomacy
“There are 2 ways to conquer & enslave a country: By the sword or by debt.”
China, choosing the 2nd path, has embraced colonial-era practices & is now the world’s biggest creditor. japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/0…
2) Instead of first evaluating a borrower country’s creditworthiness, including whether new loans could saddle it with an onerous debt crisis, China is happy to lend, because the heavier the debt burden on the borrower, the greater China’s own leverage becomes.
3) China leverages its state-sponsored loans to developing countries to aggressively advance its trade and geopolitical interests, with the study reporting pervasive links between Chinese financial, trade and construction contracts with other countries.
Last month, China’s state media claimed that Huawei is the only Chinese company that is capable of competing with Tesla. Huawei’s first smart luxury all-electric car was launched in Shanghai on April 17.
3) The CCP atracts foreign firms using deception. When it grows stronger, it gets rid of them.
Taiwanese & Japanese firms have known this for a long time.
Now the CCP has thrusted the knife into Tesla, because it already learned to make electric cars & no longer needs Tesla.
#Australia needs to ‘do more’ to shore up defence of country’s north
Australia’s defences are in a worrying state as the threat of future conflict with #China grows. It’s so bad the #US is taking matters into its own hands. news.com.au/technology/inn…
2) Air bases that can only be accessed by dirt roads, naval facilities not fit for the future & special forces stationed thousands of kilometres away – Australia’s sparsely populated north is lacking the military muscle needed in a world of increasingly “unpredictable” conflicts.
3) That’s the view of a leading defence watcher who has said the Government needs to immediately beef-up its military capability and manpower in the country’s north given its own advisers have said war could be less than a decade away.