WASHINGTON (Reuters) – FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate panel on Wednesday that the law enforcement agency is “deeply concerned” about any company like China’s ZTE gaining positions of power in the U.S. telecommunications market.
Read Full Story Here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-zte-fbi/fbi-chief-says-agency-deeply-concerned-about-any-company-like-chinas-zte-idUSKCN1IH2T0
Chinese railway police are using facial-recognition sunglasses to catch suspects at train stations in Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan province.
New York, January 18, 2018) –The Chinese government under the leadership of President Xi Jinping expanded its sustained offensive against human rights both at home and abroad in 2017, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2018. The death of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo in a hospital under heavy guard in July epitomized the authorities’ deep contempt for people’s rights. China used its increasing global influence to threaten the protection of rights internationally.
Liu Xiaobo died from cancer in a Shenyang hospital, surrounded by state security, after serving nearly 9 years of his 11-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion.” During his hospitalization, authorities isolated Liu and his wife, Liu Xia, from family and supporters, and denied Liu’s request to seek treatment outside the country. Since Liu’s death, authorities have forcibly disappeared Liu Xia.
Read Full Story Here: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/18/china-rights-crackdown-goes-global
(Reuters) – Chinese wind turbine maker Sinovel Wind Group Co was convicted on Wednesday of U.S. charges that it stole trade secrets from AMSC, causing the Massachusetts-based company to lose more than $800 million.
A federal jury in Madison, Wisconsin, found Sinovel, once AMSC’s largest customer, guilty on all charges it faced, including conspiracy, trade-secret theft and wire fraud, the U.S. Justice Department said.
The conviction exposes Beijing-based Sinovel to hundreds of millions of dollars in potential fines, according to the Justice Department. It is scheduled to be sentenced on June 4.
Sinovel, which saw its shares slide 4 percent in Thursday morning trade on the news, will take legal measures to protect its rights and interests as well as those of its shareholders, it said in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange.
The stock has lost 46 percent since the charges were brought in June 2013, giving it a market value of about $1.4 billion.
The charges were announced amid heightened concern about Chinese theft of U.S. trade secrets and a legal battle in the Chinese courts pitting Devens, Massachusetts-based AMSC against Sinovel, one of the world’s largest turbine makers.
The conviction also comes as the United States studies possible intellectual property action against China. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday China’s tech ambitions represent a direct threat that is being implemented by disrespect for “intellectual property rights, by commercial espionage.”
Read Full Story Here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sinovel-wind-gro-usa-court/chinas-sinovel-convicted-in-u-s-of-trade-secret-theft-idUSKBN1FD2XL
The English word “cult” conjures images of sinister organizations performing Jim Jones-led mass suicides. So the Chinese regime took full advantage of the power of the cult label to launch one of the most vicious hate campaigns in its history.
In the late summer of 1999, then-Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin had a public relations problem. Beginning on July 20 he had convulsed China with mass arrests of practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong, followed by round-the-clock propaganda, book burnings, and the purging of Party members.
But to the outside world, there was no clear rationale for the violence the dictator had unleashed on a peaceful group of meditators.
Falun Gong, with Buddhist and Taoist moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, was introduced to the public in China in 1992. Those who took up the practice reported improvements in health, better relations with family members and colleagues, less stress, and new insight into the meaning of life. It spread rapidly by word of mouth, and a 1999 state survey estimated 70 to 100 million adherents in China.
The Falun Gong practice was independent of Party control, something unheard of in China. In 1997 and 1998 the Party ordered the Public Security Bureau to conduct nationwide investigations gathering evidence of the harm done by Falun Gong. On both occasions, the investigators came back empty-handed.
In the latter half of 1998 the formerly high-ranking official Qiao Shi organized retired cadres to do their own investigation of Falun Gong. Qiao had previously served for ten years on the Standing Committee of the Politburo—the highest ranking body in the CCP—and had headed the domestic security apparatus. According to his study, Falun Gong had brought “hundreds of benefits” to Chinese society, and “not a single harm.”
Read Full Story Here: http://www.ntd.tv/2018/01/23/western-voices-promoting-the-chinese-regimes-propaganda-of-hate/
A pyramid scheme in China has been revealed to have ensnared millions of investors, who have jointly lost 30 billion yuan (about $4.7 billion) in investment capital.
Back in December 2017, Zhang Xiaolei, founder of online platform Qianbao.com, turned himself into the police, admitting that he had been running a Ponzi scheme since the company’s founding in 2012.
Caixin, a Chinese business publication, reported that the case involved total funds of roughly 70 billion yuan (about $10.9 billion).
A report published on Jan. 20 by the Chinese regime’s mouthpiece, Xinhua, revealed how the company defrauded its customers.
The company’s purported business model was an online platform that would reward its users for their activity on it, eventually attracting enough users to start selling advertising on the site.
Read Full Story Here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-a-massive-pyramid-scheme-in-china-defrauded-millions_2421983.html
Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) on Wednesday released the results of a nearly yearlong bipartisan investigation showing the ease of which drug traffickers in China can ship powerful synthetic opioids into the United States.
The 100-page report found that when it comes to fentanyl — which can be up to 50 times more potent than heroin — those selling online in China prefer to ship the drug into the country through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) rather than private mail shippers, reportedly because the sellers think there’s less of a risk that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will seize the package.
Lawmakers and the White House are grappling with how to curb an opioid epidemic that’s led to skyrocketing death rates. The number of deaths from drugs like fentanyl more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This bipartisan investigation has uncovered how incredibly easy it is to buy these deadly drugs online and have them shipped here through the mail,” Carper said in a statement.
“We have also learned how ill-equipped federal agencies were to prevent drug smugglers from taking advantage of a massive surge in recent years of e-commerce and international mail to ship synthetic opioid, like fentanyl, into our communities.”
The report’s release comes ahead of a hearing on the issue Thursday, where officials from various agencies will be called to testify before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on investigations led by Portman and Carper.
In performing the investigation, subcommittee staff told reporters that they googled “fentanyl for sale.” Though they didn’t ultimately buy the drug, they said they communicated with six sellers over the course of three months.
Read The Full Story Here: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/370598-congressional-probe-finds-synthetic-opioid-easily-shipped-from-china-to-us
