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A Picasso masterpiece fetched more than $179 million in <keyword id="6355838" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="New-York">New York</keyword> on Monday, smashing the world record for the most expensive art sold at auction in what was dubbed the "sale of the century."<br />
<br /> The oil painting, "The <keyword id="624" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Women">Women</keyword> of <keyword id="147983" type="CITY" weightage="80" keywordseo="ALGIERS">Algiers</keyword> (Version 0)," sold for $179,365,000 after more than 11 minutes of furious bidding from telephone buyers at a packed auction room at <keyword id="56712" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Christies">Christie's</keyword>. <br />
<br />
Applause erupted when the sale was finalized in an atmosphere of feverish excitement, accompanied by laughter and jokes, fetching way over its pre-sale estimate of $140 million.<br />
<br /> The previous world record for a painting sold at auction was $142.4 million, set for British <keyword id="6448302" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Painter">painter</keyword> <keyword id="367925" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Francis-Bacon">Francis Bacon</keyword>'s "Three Studies of <keyword id="194194" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Lucian-Freud">Lucian Freud</keyword>," which was sold by Christie's in New York in 2013. <br />
<br /> The 1955 painting by <keyword id="105893" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Pablo-Picasso">Pablo Picasso</keyword> is one of the last major paintings by the Spanish master still in private hands. He painted several versions until he settled on the nearly four-by-five-foot (121-by-152-centimeter) canvas.<br />
<br /> A rival highlight of the evening sale is a bronze statue by <keyword id="105892" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Alberto-Giacometti">Alberto Giacometti</keyword> called "Man Pointing," estimated to be worth $130 million, which has also been tipped as a potential record breaker. <br />
<br />
"Those two works can set a world record," Loic Gouzer, senior vice president of Christie's, said ahead of Monday's auction. <br />
<br /> "You don't have another chance to get them." Swiss sculptor Giacometti already holds <keyword id="818966" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="the-record">the record</keyword> for the most expensive sculpture sold at auction with his "Walking Man I" fetching $104.3 million in London in 2010.<br />
<br />
Christie's is offering a total of 35 lots spanning more than a century from 1902 to 2011, and expected to score in excess of $500 million at its swanky New York premises at Rockefeller Plaza.<br />
<br />
Other highlights are Picasso's "Buste de femme" oil painting, valued at $55 million, a painting from Claude Monet's "The House of Parliament" series, valued at $35 to $45 million, and Mark Rothko's 1958 "No 36, Black Stripe," with an estimated value of $30-$50 million.<br />
<br />
Exponential growth in the art market, particularly for modern and contemporary works, is attributed to a growing number of private investors around the world and burgeoning interest in Asia and the Gulf.<br />
<br /> The proceeds from public art auctions rose 26 percent from $12.05 billion in 2013 to $15.2 billion in 2014, and grew 422 percent between 2000 and 2014, according to <keyword id="913814" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Artprice">Artprice</keyword>, a leader in art market information.<br />
<br /> Artprice CEO <keyword id="2743769" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Thierry-Ehrmann">Thierry Ehrmann</keyword> told AFP that interest would be particularly strong for the Giacometti statue, which it believed could go as high as $175 to $200 million and eclipse the Picasso.<br />
<br />
"This will be the sale of the century," said Ehrmann. "It's a tipping point in the history of art."<br />
<br />
There are only six casts in the world of "Man Pointing," which shows a wiry, nearly six-foot (1.8-meter) man holding up one hand and pointing with the other.<br />
<br /> New York's spring auction season began last week at <keyword id="165441" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Sothebys">Sotheby's</keyword>, which sold a Vincent <keyword id="89453" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Van-Gogh">van Gogh</keyword> painting for more than $66 million, the most paid for a work by the Dutch post-impressionist since 1998.<br />
<br /> Van Gogh's "Les Alyscamps," which depicts a stand of autumnal trees, had been expected to go for around $40 million but was finally snapped up by an Asian <keyword id="6371177" type="POSITION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Collector">collector</keyword> after an intense bidding war.<br />
<br />
The sales continue on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Artprice says the art market offers yields of 10 to 15 percent per year for works valued at over $100,000.<br />
<br />
But even if auction records are broken Monday, the Picasso and Giacometti are unlikely to eclipse the $300 million reportedly paid privately by Qatar for Paul Gauguin's 1892 painting "When Will You Marry?" in February.<br />

This painting's the most expensive art sold ever, for a whopping $179 million

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>We're about to get another look at how weak the Chinese economy is.</p>
<p>At 9:45 PM, we get Flash PMI for September, our first reading at the health of the manufacturing sector for th emonth.</p>
<p>The Chinese economy has been expanding at a very weak pace of late. Last month, <a href="https://twitter.com/gregorhunter/status/514213860387983360">the reading was 50.2 </a>(anything above 50 is growing) and this month it's expected to go negative.</p>
<p>We'll have the data in a moment.</p>

Here Comes Chinese Flash PMI...

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>The incoming government in Athens is already making waves: Greece's minimum wage will be hiked by 10%, from about €680 per month now to over €750. </p>
<p>That's according to <a href="https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&amp;tl=en&amp;js=y&amp;prev=_t&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skai.gr%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Farticle%2F274144%2Fskourletis-proteraiotita-i-epanafora-tou-katotatou-misthou-sta-751-euro-28-1-2015%2F%3Futm_source%3Drss_news_politics%26utm_campaign%3Dskai200905190000%26utm_medium%3Drss&amp;edit-text=&amp;act=url">Syriza's new labour minister, speaking to Greek TV station Skai</a>. </p>
<p>It's not the only big change they're moving quickly on.</p>
<p>The government had previously been planning the sale of two thirds of the Port of Piraeus, Greece's biggest. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/28/us-greece-election-finmin-idUSKBN0L00QU20150128?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=topNews">But that was immediately halted yesterday</a>, according to Reuters. </p>
<p>Greece's wide-ranging privatisation programme is a part of its bailout agreement, so it's yet to be seen how the country's major international creditors react. </p>
<p>Here's some more from the same Reuters report: </p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In a separate step, the deputy minister in charge of administrative reform, George Katrougkalos said the government would reverse some layoffs of public sector workers, rolling back another key bailout measure.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"It will be one of the first pieces of legislation that I will bring in as a minister," he told Mega TV.</p>
<p>They're not wasting any time.</p>
<p>Newswires reported yesterday that German Chancellor finds the debate about Greece's debts "astonishing", presumably suggesting that she's not very happy with the idea of significant reductions. She's not the only one: <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-happens-next-syriza-victory-greece-election-2015-1">Finnish Prime Minister Alex Stubb has voiced his disapproval</a>, along with senior European Central Bank and European Commission functionaries. </p>
<p>The government in Athens still likely has to negotiate an extension to its current bailout to cover its immediate financing needs, and its rapid reversal of the last government's austerity measures is likely to make those negotiations <em>very </em>interesting.</p>

Greece's New Government Is Already Hiking The Minimum Wage And Reversing Privatisation 

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Flickr / thierry ehrmann</span></p><p class="caption">There's no memorial like this at the Kirkland House</p></div><p></p></div></div>No one wants to live in Mark Zuckerberg's old dorm room.</p><p>The suite - Room H33 in Harvard University's Kirkland House, where "The Facebook" was born 2004 - doesn't have a plaque on the door or commemoration of any kind. One might assume that the room that spawned a $265 billion company with 1.4 billion users would have a waitlist of eager, tech-loving students, but, instead many actually don't realize its significance before they move in, <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2015/10/14/what-life-like-inside-america-most-famous-dorm-room-cramped-mostly/BGgg2mVQQKMX7Z7zjAOfKN/story.html">according to Dugan Arnett at The Boston Globe</a>.</p><p>The room is small with thin walls, too few power outlets, and no air-conditioning. The three women who live there now had no idea what spot they'd ended up with until move-in day. And because they're in a "forced triple" (technically, it should only hold two), they tell Dugan they'd rather ditch the dorm, despite its history.</p><p>"The history is exciting for a couple of minutes, or whenever you're talking to someone new," one of the suite's former occupants, Reid Bergsund, said. "But at the end of the day, it's just a dorm room."</p><p>Although it might not be the hottest ticket for residence, random people do occasionally try to visit:</p><p>One of his roommates, Bergsund, summed up the best part of living in Zuck's old room <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/2/20/zuckerberg-suite-10-years-later/">to The Harvard Crimson last year</a>.</p><p>"What it really boils down to is that it made a great Facebook status when we found out we had this room," he said. "A lot of likes."</p><p>Read the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2015/10/14/what-life-like-inside-america-most-famous-dorm-room-cramped-mostly/BGgg2mVQQKMX7Z7zjAOfKN/story.html">rest of the funny piece over at The Boston Globe. </a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/south-koreans-tech-watching-people-eat-online-mukbang-2015-9">14-year-old makes up to $1,500 a night eating dinner in front of a webcam in South Korea</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="MwMDZkdzr7V54pSPAwMT1JU7p7MqmuY1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Living in the dorm room where Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook means random visitors and cramped quarters

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/home_of_chaos/5074310539/">Flickr/Thierry Ehrmann</a></span></p></div><p></p></div>Whenever there is an earthquake in southern California, a system called Quakebot analyzes notifications from the US Geological Survey and automatically creates a blog post for the Los Angeles Times. </p>
<p>We first noticed this in a post titled "<a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/earthquake-27-quake-strikes-near-westwood-california-rdivor,0,3229825.story#ixzz2wEWmfUmX" target="_blank">Earthquake aftershock: 2.7 quake strikes near Westwood</a>" in the LA Times today via <a href="https://twitter.com/adamclarkestes/status/445581418396413952" target="_blank">Gizmodo's Adam Clark Estes</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> At the bottom of the post it reads, "This information comes from the USGS Earthquake Notification Service and this post was created by an algorithm written by the author."</span></p>
<p>That author is <a href="http://schwanksta.com/" target="_blank">Ken Schwencke</a>, a journalist and web developer who lives in Los Angeles. </p>
<p>Schwencke created the Quakebot system about three years ago, but it has been functional for about two, Schwencke tells Business Insider. </p>
<p>Quakebot is an automated system that lives on the Los Angeles Times's servers. The system receives emails from the US Geological Survey, runs through a checklist of where it is, and then determines if it's newsworthy based on the magnitude.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It then parses out content from the email and inputs it into the LA Times's content management service. The post is structured on a formula based on previous posts. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"It saves everyone the initial rush to write something," Schwencke says. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>If there's a 6.0 quake in Los Angeles, Quakebot automatically set a post live. But if it's anything smaller than 6.0, Schwencke says, the blog post goes to the copy edit desk, and then the editors can decide whether or not to post it. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Other than earthquakes, the LA Times uses roboposting for </span><a href="http://homicide.latimes.com/" target="_blank">The Homicide Report</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, which tracks every homicide victim in LA County, and <a href="http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/" target="_blank">Mapping L.A</a>.</span></p>

How An LA Times Reporter Got An Algorithm To Write Articles For Him

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>Despite assurances that the regime of Syria's Bashar al-Assad <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/04/25/306770818/syria-gives-up-chemical-weapons-but-a-war-rages-on">had given up the country's stockpile of chemical weapons</a>, US intelligence suspects that the regime could use large-scale chemical weapons attacks to maintain control of government strongholds, The Wall Street Journal <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/assad-chemical-threat-mounts-1435535977">reports</a>.</p><p>US officials believe the Assad regime has created a new type of chemical bomb filled with chlorine and obtained the chemicals needed to make nerve agents sarin or VX, according to the Journal. Assad agreed to give up his chemical arsenal after a 2013 sarin attack that killed 1,400 people, averting the threat of US-led airstrikes.</p><p>Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of the British army's chemical-weapons unit, told the Journal: "Even if the regime had only one ton of VX left, that would be enough to kill thousands of people."</p><p>A US official told the Journal that Assad is "getting desperate" in its bid for control of key areas of Syria.</p><p>This <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-assads-air-force-is-now-a-force-multiplier-for-isis-2015-6">might even include a tacit, occasional alliance with the Islamic State terror group</a> (also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh), which is also fighting for control of Syria.</p><p>ISIS has been <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-state-militants-open-major-new-offensive-in-aleppo/2015/06/01/9b834f64-085c-11e5-951e-8e15090d64ae_story.html?postshare=9591433231730292">pushing toward Aleppo</a> in Syria, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/world/middleeast/new-battles-aleppo-syria-insurgents-isis.html">seemingly aided by air strikes</a> from the Assad regime. Assisting ISIS in its fight against rebel forces helps get rid of the more moderate opposition fighters who threaten Assad's power. While the rebels focus mostly on taking down the Assad regime, ISIS fights both the rebels and regime forces.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Though US officials are aware of this and have publicly condemned Assad and vowed to wipe out ISIS, the Obama administration seems reluctant to intervene too much in the Syrian civil war.</p><p>Experts have suggested that President Barack Obama's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-its-my-name-on-this-if-iran-nuke-deal-backfires-2015-5">determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran</a>, Syria's main ally in the Middle East, most likely informed his decision to refrain from getting too involved in Syria.</p><p>US officials also worry about a security vacuum forming if the Assad regime was forced out of certain areas that would then be vulnerable to a takeover by ISIS or the Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, according to the Journal. If the Assad regime does have the chemical weapons the US thinks it has, they could then come under control of the militants.</p><p>The factions competing for control of territory Syria have made the Assad regime increasingly desperate, the Journal notes, and Assad might use the chemical weapons in a last-ditch effort to protect key areas.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-omega-globemaster-watch-unboxing-2015-5">Forget the Apple Watch - here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="5iaDNwdDrYYMm2yipFb14ndbRkPnemqO" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

US intelligence thinks Assad could use chemicals on a massive scale 'because he's getting desperate'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>The Islamic State terror group is <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-state-militants-open-major-new-offensive-in-aleppo/2015/06/01/9b834f64-085c-11e5-951e-8e15090d64ae_story.html?postshare=9591433231730292">pushing toward Aleppo</a> in Syria. And the jihadists are <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/world/middleeast/new-battles-aleppo-syria-insurgents-isis.html">seemingly aided by air strikes</a> from the regime of dictator Bashar Assad.</p><p>This might seem counterintuitive since the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh) is a major threat to Assad's regime.</p><p>But Assad has something to gain from allowing ISIS to operate in certain areas. He's portrayed those who are opposed to his regime as "terrorists," and ISIS is fighting moderate rebels in Syria as well as the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate, and Assad's forces.</p><p>So ISIS' presence in Syria bolsters Assad's argument that those who oppose his regime are terrorists, and assisting ISIS in its fight against rebel forces helps get rid of the more moderate opposition fighters who threaten Assad's power. While the rebels focus mostly on taking down the Assad regime, ISIS fights both the rebels and regime forces.</p><p>"Assad sees the defeat of ISIS in the long term and prioritizes in the more short- and medium-term, trying to cripple the more mainline Syrian opposition," <span>Christopher Kozak, a Syria Analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, explained to Business Insider.</span> </p><p>"ISIS is a threat that lots of people can rally around and even if the regime trades … territory that was in rebel hands over to ISIS control, that weakens the opposition, which has more legitimacy. There's no risk of ISIS gaining international legitimacy, while there is more risk that … an opposition could actually form a challenge of [Assad's] legitimacy."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Assad has been trying to market himself as the lesser evil in Syria compared to ISIS and the Nusra Front, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra.</p><p>"The regime still feels that ... at the end of the day, if it really comes down to [the Nusra Front], ISIS, and Assad in a room, you have to side with Assad," Kozak said.</p><p>And while the Assad regime might be assisting ISIS in the short-term as the militants advance across the countryside north of Aleppo, that doesn't mean that ISIS and Assad are actually collaborating or that Assad supports ISIS. Since Aleppo, Syria's largest city, is still strategically important to Assad, he's unlikely to allow ISIS to take the city itself, Kozak said.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>"Aleppo is really important for asserting the regime's legitimacy," Kozak said. "What the regime does think is that allowing ISIS to advance in that northern countryside threatens the supply lines of the rebels inside the city."</p><p>Assad is taking a risk by aiding ISIS' movements in the countryside, however. Part of ISIS' strategy is to look for weak spots the group can exploit. The Assad regime makes itself somewhat vulnerable by allowing ISIS to establish a strong presence north of Aleppo.</p><p>While the Nusra Front and other rebels might currently be a more immediate threat to the Assad regime, Assad will turn on ISIS eventually and look for support to neutralize the group's threat to Syrian state, Kozak said.</p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/USEmbassySyria/status/605474120273395713">US officials</a> have said that they don't consider Assad to be a legitimate ruler and that he will never be a viable counterterrorism partne. But Assad is likely banking on that to change if the moderate opposition is pushed out of Syria and only the most radical jihadists are left.</p><p>Despite the atrocities the Syrian regime commits against its citizens and the suspicions that Assad's air force is leaving ISIS untouched while it bombs other rebels, the US still <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-obama-administrations-isis-strategy-faces-a-crippling-contradiction-2015-6">won't touch Assad</a>. Iran is Syria's primary ally, and Shia militias backed by Iran are fighting ISIS on the ground in Iraq as Baghdad's security forces crumble in the face of a recent ISIS offensive.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ian-bremmer-vladimir-putin-most-powerful-man-world-2015-5">Why Putin is the most powerful man in the world </a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RhNTFkdTovrJg1rP-s9ZqAiCXm6cMBEh" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Why Assad's air force is now a force multiplier for ISIS

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/home_of_chaos/9918515283/in/photolist-g7sZ3c-btbEgc-btbGZB-goHvkU-goHYK4-goHKWt-goJ66F-goHBZX-goJ8kw-buAAPg-bxjF54-bxjuPB-bxjCkB-bxjAN4-bxjziK-bxjxfK-bxjupx-bxjCda-bxjBy4-bxjHe4-bxjHxM-bxjxzR-bxjBC4-bxjvKT-bxjAiz-bxjykM-bxjzXe-bxjGUP-bxjum2-bxjFc4-bxjDT8-bxjExV-bxjBT8-bxjwNP-bxjD1V-bxjEZi-bxjzGi-bxjx66-bxjFrZ-bxjAdX-bxjvPV-bxjA1c-bxjGPt-bxjE8t-bxjwcR-bxjEQP-bxjDHt-bxjucV-bxjwgZ-bxjA9H">Flickr/Thierry Ehrmann</a></span></p><p class="caption">Chinese President Xi Jinping</p></div><p></p></div></div>Chinese President Xi Jinping has been attending a lot of funerals lately, and it's because he needs friends, badly.</p><p>For months, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-four-funerals-and-a-wedding-chinas-xi-mends-political-bridges-2015-9">Reuters</a> reports, the president has been attending to the funerals of high-level, retired party officials from various factions of the Chinese government.</p><p>All of them are members of the all-encompassing Chinese Communist Party (CCP),  but some are from right-wing, market-friendly faction, and others are in the left-wing faction, which believes in a more pure version of communism.</p><p>Where Xi sits on the spectrum is a bit murky, a good thing for a politician who needs to build support at an incredibly delicate time.</p><p>For a little over a year the Chinese economy has been slowing down. That slow down was crowned, most recently, with two major market meltdowns this summer and a devaluation of the Chinese yuan.</p><p>During that time, Xi instituted a party-wide anticorruption campaign which experts also consider his way of consolidating power. He promised to go after "flies" and "tigers," even ensnaring the country's former security czar <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/zhou-yongkang-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-2015-6">Zhou Yongkang</a>.</p><p>Yongkang, sentenced to life in prison at age 73, was the most powerful person to go down since the brutal purges of Mao Zedong.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></p><p>So Xi, who will be in power until 2023, has made some powerful enemies, and we know he knows it.</p><h2>Read it in the news</h2><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Twitter via Weibo</span></p><p class="caption">Zhou Yongkang at his sentencing.</p></div><p></p></div></div>"It should become a norm for officials to relinquish their power after retirement," said an editorial published last month in government </span><span>mouthpiece </span><a href="http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/936632.shtml">The People's Daily.</a> </p><p>That was a not-so-veiled message from Xi to members of the party who may not be happen with the direction in which things were going. The message was: Back off.</p><p>This after Xi and other officials attended an annual agenda-setting meeting at a seaside resort in Hebei, China. </p><p><span>"The in-depth reform touches the basic issue of reconfiguring the lifeblood of this enormous economy and is aimed at making it healthier," the article said. "The scale of the resistance is beyond what could have been imagined."</span></p><p><span>It was written under the pen-name <span>"Guoping", a name used by party leadership when it wants to get its message across.</span></span></p><h2><span><span>The visits</span></span></h2><p>Reuters reports that Xi has visited attended the funerals of the following officials:</p><ul><li><span>Deng Liqun, a leftist, who died aged 99. Xi went to the funeral in February, even though Deng was an enemy of his father.</span></li><li><span><span>Xi sent a wreath when <span>Zeng Yanxiu died in March at age 93.  Zeng was the first rightest to be purged from the Communist party in 1957.</span></span></span></li><li><span><span><span>Xi also attended <span>General Zhang Zhen's funeral. He was a very powerful military official who died in September.</span></span></span></span></li><li><span><span><span><span>Finally Xi attended former parliament chair <span>Qiao Shi's funeral. He was a legal reformer who died in Beijing at age 90.</span></span></span></span></span></li></ul><p><span><span><span><span><span>State-related funerals are carefully orchestrated affairs in China, so Xi is sending a message by even showing up. Likely he's letting his enemies know that he can still derive power from all over the CCP.</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">A woman takes pictures of wreaths sent by Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders to Zeng Yanxiu at Zeng's flat, in Beijing, March 10, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div><br /></span></span></span></span></span></p><h2><span><span><span><span><span>Results</span></span></span></span></span></h2><p><span><span><span><span><span>Regardless of his friends, though, Xi will have to show that his policies are producing results. He's grabbed more power than any president is Mao, and as such bares more responsibility. </span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span>For example, economic matters used to be under the purview of the office of the Premier - in this case Li Keqiang. </span></span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But when Xi took over, he created special committees called "small leading groups" that supersede the power of everyone else in the party.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And so even though <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/xi-just-changed-the-rules-of-the-game-in-china-2015-8">Li Keqiang is getting blamed for the governments botched handlin</a>g of its stock market crisis, it's well known that Xi was and is at the helm.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">What's more, this isn't just about the stock market, or even the fact that the country's economy is slowing down rapidly with indicators flashing warning signs unseen since the darkest days of the global financial crisis. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The deadly chemical blasts that leveled parts of the port city of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tianjin-blasts-foment-unrest-in-china-2015-8">Tianjin blasts last month have also outraged citizens. </a>They embody the corruption and environmental destruction that Xi and his people have vowed to stamp out. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To the Chinese people, these are broken promises.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And when the government break promises, the people start to break away. That's why Xi's enemies are sharpening their knives. That's why he's attending funerals.</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-military-budget-china-weapons-technology-2015-8">China has been upgrading its military and is now stronger than ever</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="41MmUydzqxiexrPA9bpJYVdtPkxyGiXP" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

China's president has been going to funerals lately - it's a sign of trouble 

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>The morning before President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address, three former US intelligence and diplomatic officials&#xa0;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfaVxQmrypo">testified</a> before the House Armed Services Committee, describing the major issues with the US fight against ISIS.<p>Former CIA Director Michael Morell, former Undersecretary of <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> for Intelligence Michael Vickers, and former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford had common threads that outlined two major problems with the US strategy to defeat the terrorist group ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh).</p><p>The first problem is that air power alone won't be enough to defeat the group.</p><p>The second, related, issue is that there aren't local ground forces in Iraq and Syria that are capable of both clearing and holding territory.</p><p>And while the US has been fighting terrorism directly in the Middle East for more than a decade, ISIS is a much more evolved version of America's old foe, al-Qaeda.</p><p>"I believe ISIS poses a significant strategic and lethal threat to the United States of America," Morell said.</p><p>"The nature and significance of the threat posed by ISIS flows from the fact that ISIS is at the same time a terrorist group, a quasi state, and a revolutionary political movement. We have not faced the likes of it before."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>The US has been fighting both an ideological and a literal war with ISIS. At home, the US government has been working to counter ISIS' very effective online propaganda messaging, and abroad, the military has been running airstrikes and training ground forces in Iraq and Syria.<p>The propaganda war <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-administration-plans-shake-up-in-propaganda-war-against-the-islamic-state/2016/01/08/d482255c-b585-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html">isn't going well for the US</a>, and the officials who testified on Tuesday emphasized that the air war is falling short as well.</p><p>"Air power is not gonna win this thing alone," Morell said. "We need a ground force."</p><p>Morell is more optimistic about Iraq than he is about Syria. This sentiment was echoed by Ford, who said that he was "much less upbeat, much less optimistic" about the Syrian side of the fight.</p><p>"There is a strategy in Iraq to get that ground force. Ramadi showed that that strategy has potential," Morell said. Ground forces backed by US air power recently drove ISIS out of the Iraqi city of Ramadi.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Still, Iraqi ground forces have a long way to go, Ford said.<p>"I worry, frankly, that we do not yet have enough people, friendly indigenous fighters, in places like Ramadi, Anbar province, Diyala province" to hold territory retaken from ISIS, he said. "I'm not sure that 30,000 [soldiers] is going to be enough to secure that Syrian border and control those towns."</p><p>Meanwhile, the&#xa0;US is struggling&#xa0;to figure out how to seize territory back in the first place in Syria.</p><p>"There is no ground force on the Syrian side that carries the same kind of potential as the Iraqi military carries," Morell said. "We can do more I think with the moderate opposition, but at the end of the day, I think, [Syrian President Bashar] Assad's got to go, and we have to take the Syrian military [and] security resources, as degraded as they've become, and turn them into a force that the international community supports in taking on ISIS."</p><p>Ford agreed that Assad, whose forces have been known to barrel-bomb civilians and commit other atrocities, must be forced out if we want to see a successful ground fight in Syria.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>"The only way to generate more indigenous forces is to help the Syrian opposition and to see the removal of Bashar al-Assad at some point and the creation of a new national unity government," Ford said. "The sooner that can be done in Syria, the better. Only a new national unity government in Syria is going to be able to mobilize enough Syrians to fight and destroy the Islamic State."<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>It's unclear, however, if Assad will be removed from power anytime soon. Russia recently jumped into the fray in Syria under the guise of fighting ISIS.<p>But it seems that Russia's real aim is propping up its ally the Assad regime since much of Russia's airstrikes in Syria have hit anti-Assad rebels rather than ISIS fighters.</p><p>And while Russia has been increasing its presence in Syria, the US-led coalition has been focusing on Iraq.</p><p>"Two-thirds of coalition efforts have really been against Iraq and not against Syria, where the more dangerous threat has existed," Vickers said.</p><p>Syria is a much more chaotic theater than Iraq considering the all-out civil war that exists there, and ISIS' de-facto capital and center of operations is based in Raqqa, Syria. The group is deeply entrenched there and US-backed forces haven't yet been able to take back Mosul, ISIS' main Iraqi base, let alone go into Raqqa.</p><p>And while the US has seen some success in training Iraqi forces, that has not been the case in Syria. In October, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/middleeast/pentagon-program-islamic-state-syria.html">the US ditched its program to train rebels in Syria to fight ISIS</a>. This came after&#xa0;<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/31/key-rebels-ready-to-quit-u-s-fight-vs-isis.html">reports that rebels had been told that they couldn't fight Assad</a> or the regime's allies, including Iranian-backed militias in Syria.</p><p>Even if the US took the advice of experts who say Assad must&#xa0;go in order to achieve peace in Syria, it's unclear who would replace him.</p><p>"It has to be negotiation," Ford said.</p><p>"Had we asked the question 'who would follow Saddam Hussein,' we wouldn't have known the answer to that in 2003," he continued, referencing the US toppling former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after the 2003 invasion.</p><p>"Just as the wobbly government in Iraq … needed help, that will be the case also in Syria. I do not believe that if Assad goes, only the Islamic State takes over. I think that is wrong on multiple levels and is indicative of the sense that there is no hope, when actually there is quite a bit of hope."</p><h3>Here's a video of the full testimony:</h3><p><div></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-spread-iraq-and-syria-islamic-state-2015-11">Animated map shows the spread of ISIS through Iraq and Syria</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="52OXUxeTr17d4Hpe3aGrCC6lb75LB0uA" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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