03a China

Blurb:

Critical minerals are mined all over the world but the majority of the supply ends up passing through China. For a broad range of key metals and minerals, China is either the largest miner, the dominant refiner, or both. This is true for rare earths, lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and many other metals and minerals that are essential to defense, energy and high-tech applications.

It is less about where ores are dug out of the ground and more about where they are turned into usable components. In other words, Chinese processing plants are essentially the gatekeepers of global supply.

Blurb:

BEIJING: China warned the United States on Thursday (Mar 26) against bringing “conflict and the chaos of war” to the Asia-Pacific, after Washington and its allies said they would weigh building a weapons base in the Philippines.

A US-led intergovernmental defence group agreed last week to assess funding for a new ammunition assembly and production line in the Philippines, according to a joint statement.

The decision was made by the 16 members of the Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR), which also includes Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

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Could being a “morning person” improve your health … on the moon? Scientists have identified what appears to be a “cavity” of reduced cosmic radiation near Earth’s moon. The finding could help lower astronauts’ exposure to harmful radiation on future lunar missions by timing some surface operations for local morning hours.

The discovery, based on data from China‘s Chang’e-4 lunar lander, suggests Earth’s magnetic field may affect distances in space farther than scientists previously expected. According to the researchers, the finding challenges the long-held assumption that galactic cosmic rays are roughly uniform throughout the space between Earth and the moon outside our planet’s protective magnetic field.

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While the world fixates on the Strait of Hormuz, China is working to make the entire conversation obsolete.

Each flare up in US Iran tensions sends oil markets into overdrive, with prices swinging and supply fears dominating global narratives. But Beijing is not playing that game. It is building an alternative system designed to sidestep the very risks others are pricing in.

At the centre of this effort is State Grid Corporation of China, a sprawling network that already covers more than 80 percent of the country and powers over a billion people. Alongside China Southern Power Grid, it is constructing what increasingly looks like a long term energy power play. A nationwide supergrid meant to reduce reliance on imported oil and the fragile sea lanes that carry it. LIVE UPDATES

The blueprint is expansive. Ultra high voltage transmission lines are being rolled out at speed, linking inland regions rich in coal, wind and solar to the industrial coastline where demand is concentrated. The aim is to electrify more of the economy, move power efficiently across vast distances, and reduce exposure to external shocks.

Blurb:

On Monday, the Hong Kong government gazetted amendments to the implementation rules of the National Security Law that would significantly expand the powers granted to law enforcement, including the ability to compel suspects in national security investigations to reveal their device passwords under threat of fines or jail time. Hong Kong’s Legislative Council was not consulted on the changes, but the government has announced that it will provide a public briefing on Tuesday.

Despite administration claims that the new rules “will not affect the lives of the general public” and that they were implemented to address “national security risks [… that] may arise suddenly and unexpectedly,” many legal experts and human rights groups have warned that the broadly defined amendments are “open to abuse” and represent a ratcheting up of the Beijing-imposed 2020 National Security Law that has long been used to undermine democratic freedoms and crush political dissent.

At Hong Kong Free Press, Hans Tse reported on the amendments, their potential penalties, and the expansion of who can be compelled to disclose password or decryption information—including even those with a “duty of confidentiality or any other restriction on the disclosure of information,” such as journalists, doctors, and lawyers):

Under the new rules, police can require people under national security investigation to provide passwords or help decrypt their electronic devices. Failure to do so can be punished by up to one year behind bars and a HK$100,000 [$12,760 U.S.] fine.

Providing a false or misleading statement can be punished by up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of HK$500,000 [$63,815].

Police can also compel anyone believed to know of the password or the decryption method of a device under investigation to disclose such information. Similarly, those who own, possess, control, or have authorised access to a device, as well as current or former users, can be subject to such an order.

The new rules have also empowered customs officers to freeze or confiscate assets relating to national security crimes or to forfeit “articles that have seditious intention.” [Source]

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China is conducting a vast undersea mapping and monitoring operation across the Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans, building detailed knowledge of marine conditions that naval experts say would be crucial for waging submarine warfare against the United States and its allies.

In one example, the Dong Fang Hong 3, a research vessel operated by Ocean University of China, spent 2024 and 2025 sailing back and forth in the seas near Taiwan and the U.S. stronghold of Guam, and around strategic stretches of the Indian Ocean, ship-tracking data reviewed by Reuters shows. In October 2024, it checked on a set of powerful Chinese ocean sensors capable of identifying undersea objects near Japan, ‌according to Ocean University, and visited the same area again last May. And in March 2025, it criss-crossed the waters between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, covering approaches to the Malacca Strait, a critical chokepoint for maritime commerce.

Blurb:

On February 1, Chengdu Public Security Bureau officers detained renowned journalist Liu Hu while he was traveling to Beijing. On February 2, Liu’s family learned that Chengdu authorities had placed Liu under criminal detention on suspicion of “making false accusations” and conducting “illegal business operations,” according to Chinese-language site Rights Defense Network (RDN).

Also on February 1, Chengdu public security officers traveled over 1,300 kilometers to Hebei Province to detain Liu’s colleague, Wu Yingjiao. RDN reported that authorities could be targeting Liu and Wu over an article they published on January 29 on their WeChat public account. The article alleged abuse of power and corrupt behavior by a Sichuan county party secretary. Wu faces the same charges as Liu.

“The detentions illustrate a familiar pattern: instead of investigating allegations of official wrongdoing, Chinese authorities persecute the journalists who expose abuses,” said Shane Yi, researcher at CHRD. “Authorities should immediately release Liu and Wu, and investigate the allegations of corruption.”

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Part 1 of a five-part Fox News Digital series investigation follows the money that created the “Revolutionary Base” for a transnational network of organizations allegedly waging cognitive warfare on U.S. citizens on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

As far-left American activists flood Cuba to support its flailing communist regime, U.S. officials have opened a sprawling investigation into an anti-America, pro-China nonprofit network forged during a wedding celebration in late February 2017, off Runaway Bay on Jamaica’s northern coast.

There, beneath a canopy of palm trees, an elite cadre of activists, intellectuals, celebrities, political organizers and comrades in a global Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement assembled to celebrate the “Revolutionary Love” of two luminaries, both 62 at the time: Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai, and Jodie Evans, a red-haired veteran activist and co-founder of CodePink Women for Peace.

Like the opening scene of “The Godfather,” where powerful families consolidate power, the wedding celebration was about much more than the union of two people.