Ajax to external URLs does not work in Windows 10 UWP Cordova application

I have an Ionic 3 application, already deployed and working 100% on Android and iOS platform. I wish to now include it as a Windows 10 UWP, but any ajax calls (https) to any external URLS just do not work. Status returns is always 0, and statusText is empty, Calls to a localhost service (when running on my dev desktop) does work

I have asked various forums, including this post and have no answers.

I have the

<allow-navigation href="*" />
 <access origin="*" />

tags set in config.xml

I also tried a complete new blank Ionic 3 application and also a Cordova application created by Visual Studio (no Ionic framework and just vanilla JavaScript ajax), this these had the same result.

As explained in in the SO post, the white list plugin located in the `cordova_plugins.js` appears in the module.exports.metadata object but not the module.exports, not sure if this is normal or may be related.

Being able to call an external REST service URL is pretty fundamental , I have no idea how to further diagnose this.