February16, 2007:
The 25th meeting of the IADC ( Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination
Committee) takes place this April 23-26. IADC is an international organization
that coordinates the exchange of information, and space operations, as they
relate manmade and natural "debris" in orbit around the earth. This
years meeting is hosted by the China National Space Administration, and
will be held at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing. All IADC
members, except possibly China, are keenly interested in dealing with the 900
fragments recently put into orbit by China's recent anti-satellite weapon test.
February
15, 2007: China appears to be following an ancient Chinese strategy of trying
to substitute superior combat forces with superior knowledge. By obtaining
secret data on high tech American weapons, those missiles and electronic
devices can be made to fail, or perform very poorly. This is a tricky strategy
to carry out, but the extent of Chinese spying indicates that an attempt to
gain a decisive military advantage this way, is being made.
February
13, 2007: China sponsored peace talks with North Korea have achieved an
agreement. North Korea will close its nuclear reactor and shut down its nuclear
weapons program, in return for billions of dollars worth of food and fuel. The
exact size of the bribe is still being negotiated.
February
10, 2007: China has established a website allowing anyone to access a database
containing names, photos and ID numbers of everyone in China who has a
government ID card (in China, that means everyone.) This database was
established to help prevent identity theft and fraud. Anyone can check to see
if ID numbers, names and pictures match on anyone else.
February
8, 2007: In the far west, China executed a Moslem man, Ismail Semed, convicted
in 2005 for "anti-China" activities. Semed was arrested in Pakistan
and extradited to China in 2003. Samed is a Turk, belonging to the Uighur
people, who used to be the majority in western China. But Han Chinese from the
coast have been migrating to the far west for years, and Uighur
protests have been labeled as Islamic terrorism.
