Category: SILICON VALLEY

‘Wuhan, you can do it!’: Quarantined residents sing from their balconies in stirring VIDEOS

CAP

1/28/2020

As China fights the worsening coronavirus outbreak, residents under quarantine in Wuhan have shared videos online of their battle against cabin fever, showing how they are lifting each other’s – and the nation’s – spirits.

The city, home to roughly 11 million people, was the epicenter for the coronavirus outbreak which has now spread across the globe. Residents have been told to remain in their homes as authorities fight to bring the outbreak under control, but many have grown understandably restless waiting for the crisis to end.

The best medicine? Song, apparently, with rousing eyewitness video posted on Twitter showing people singing the national anthem and chanting “Wuhan, you can do it!” from their apartment balconies.

The total number of confirmed  ‘2019-nCoV’ coronavirus cases in China had surged to 4,515 as of January 27, while the death toll jumped to 106 as the number of new infections in one day almost doubled.

China’s PM calls for ‘resolute fight’ against coronavirus outbreak as death toll climbs to 106 with over 1,700 new cases

CAP

China has taken extraordinary measures to curb the outbreak, including the aforementioned quarantine of the entire city of Wuhan, as well as the construction of an entirely new hospital to house the infected, which is expected to be completed by February 3.

The government has also urged citizens to refrain from travelling abroad, while extending national holidays with the aim of keeping people at home to reduce the likelihood of further contamination “in order to protect the health and safety of Chinese and foreign people.”

“Reducing people’s cross-border movement helps to prevent and control outbreaks,” the National Immigration Administration said in a statement.

For now, at least, the city of Wuhan remains a ghost town, with only the haunting song of its quarantined residents left to lift the city’s spirits.

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Fake News Blacks Out Trump Defense Lawyer Pam Bondi Exposing Hunter Biden’s Ukraine Corruption

They refused to cover her destruction of the Democrats’ narrative.

By Shane Trejo – 1/28/2020

During the Senate impeachment trial on Monday, Trump defense lawyer Pam Bondi destroyed the false narrative pushed by the Democrats regarding Ukraine.

“When the House managers gave you their presentation, when they submitted their brief, they repeatedly referenced Hunter Biden and Burisma. … They referenced Biden or Burisma over 400 times. And when they gave these presentations they said there was nothing to see, it was a sham,” Bondi said to the Senate. “This is fiction.”

Bondi exposed the details of Hunter Biden’s dealings in the Ukraine. She noted that he received $83,333 per month from Burisma Holdings because of his connections, and his dad made sure that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was let go after he attempted to investigate.

She also referenced the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Unit, law enforcement in Ukraine, deputy assistant secretary at the State Department George Kent, and many different news outlets including the Washington Post, ABC News and the Kyiv Post to make the case that Biden’s shady business dealings were worth investigating.

“You’ve heard from the House managers that there is not anything to see here; that all of this is baseless,” Bondi concluded. “All that we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue. And that is enough.”

While Bondi may have been the star during today’s impeachment hearings in the Senate, the fake news media made sure to do everything possible to ignore her.

Hoover Institution media fellow and best-selling author Paul Sperry reported about the blackout on his Twitter account.

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CNN attempted to “fact check” Bondi’s arguments by presenting globalist spin to obscure the plain truth of the matter. They cited several stooges who toe the Democrat line.

“Shokin was not investigating. He didn’t want to investigate Burisma,” said Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center, to the Washington Post in July 2018. “And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation.”

“Rather than supporting Ukraine’s reforms and working to root out corruption, corrupt actors within the prosecutor general’s office are making things worse by openly and aggressively undermining reform,” said Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine under Barack Hussein Obama.

The fake news has shamed themselves yet again as they work with the Democrats in an attempt to overthrow the 2016 election. However, Bondi’s arguments will be on the public record forevermore regardless of the attempts by the fake news to censor her.

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Perfect Timing: Anonymous Sources Claim Bolton Book Manuscript Accuses Trump of Tying Ukraine Aid to Biden Investigations

by Kristinn Taylor

Several anonymous sources have reportedly told The New York Times that a book manuscript by Ambassador John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor to President Trump, accuses Trump of tying the hold up of aid to Ukraine last year with his desire for investigations into the Bidens and interference by Ukraine in the 2016 election, something Trump has vehemently denied but has been impeached by the House and is on trial for in the Senate.

The Times reported on descriptions of the manuscript Sunday evening, as the President’s defense team prepares for day on two Monday of their rebuttal to the Democrat House Managers’ case against Trump. Bolton was blocked by Trump from testifying in the House impeachment inquiry on national security grounds of executive privilege, however Bolton has said he would testify in the Senate trial if he was issued a subpoena. Motions to allow witness testimony in the trail have been tabled until after the first stages of the trial are complete: Prosecution, defense and then questions from senators. The report by the Times is timed to influence the votes of Republicans to allow witnesses as the Democrats are all on record as being in favor.

The Times does not claim to have seen the manuscript, but is basing its report on anonymous sources who claim to have given The Times descriptions. There are no quotes from the manuscript.

Excerpt:

President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.

The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.

Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.

Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair.

The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.

…Key to Mr. Bolton’s account about Ukraine is an exchange during a meeting in August with the president after Mr. Trump returned from vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Mr. Bolton raised the $391 million in congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine for its war in the country’s east against Russian-backed separatists. Officials had frozen the aid, and a deadline was looming to begin sending it to Kyiv, Mr. Bolton noted.

He, Mr. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper had collectively pressed the president about releasing the aid nearly a dozen times in the preceding weeks after lower-level officials who worked on Ukraine issues began complaining about the holdup, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Trump had effectively rebuffed them, airing his longstanding grievances about Ukraine, which mixed legitimate efforts by some Ukrainians to back his Democratic 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, with unsupported accusations and outright conspiracy theories about the country, a key American ally.

…In his August 2019 discussion with Mr. Bolton, the president appeared focused on the theories Mr. Giuliani had shared with him, replying to Mr. Bolton’s question that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine…

End excerpt. The entire Times article can be read at this link at MSN.com. It includes Bolton going after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Attorney General William Barr.

Democrats have responded to the report with renewed calls for Bolton’s testimony.

The Democrat House Managers issued a statement:

CAP

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), “John Bolton has the evidence. It’s up to four Senate Republicans to ensure that John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, and the others with direct knowledge of President Trump’s actions testify in the Senate trial.”

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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), “For months there just hasn’t been any question what happened. But Republicans hung on to the idea that if they kept Trump’s top people from testifying, they could plausibly deny he was behind it all.
The game is now up. Their coverup has fallen apart. BOLTON MUST TESTIFY.”

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Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), “Last month, I wrote in @nytimes that we need to hear from John Bolton—who shopped his testimony to book publishers instead of speaking with Congress—because he clearly has a lot to say. It’s undeniable now: Bolton must testify in Trump’s trial.”

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UPDATE: Statement from Bolton aide Sarah Tinsley reported by many in the media, “Several weeks ago, the ambassador sent a hard copy of his draft manuscript to the White House for prepublication review by the National Security Council. The ambassador has not passed that manuscript to anyone else for review. Period.”

CAP

More from Tinsley, “Bolton spokeswoman says he did not leak his own manuscript to the NY Times — and had only submitted it for pre-review to the National Security Council.”

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And, “The ambassador transmitted a hard-copy draft of his manuscript to the White House for pre-publication review by the National Security Council. The ambassador has not passed the manuscript to anyone else, only the NSC.”

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Oil prices plummet over fears of coronavirus outbreak spreading

CAP

The price of crude continued to plunge on Monday, dragged down by fears of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, raising concerns about the global economic growth.

International benchmark Brent crude was down 2.95 percent to $58.90 a barrel, after hitting $58.68 earlier, the lowest level since late October. US West Texas Intermediate crude nosedived more than three percent to $55.52, after falling to a four-month low of $52.1 a barrel.

The coronavirus could cut into demand by around 260,000 bpd and reduce oil prices by about $3 per barrel, according to a report from Goldman Sachs.

Why the coronavirus is a real threat to China’s economy

CAP

Saudi Arabia’s minister of energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said OPEC will be closely monitoring developments in global oil markets amid “gloomy expectations” of the outbreak’s impact on the Chinese and global economy.

“Such extreme pessimism occurred back in 2003 during the Sars outbreak, though it did not cause a significant reduction in oil demand,” he said.

The coronavirus, was identified in December and was linked primarily to stallholders who worked at Wuhan’s Hunan Seafood Market in China, has already killed 80 people and infected nearly 2,800 worldwide. The virus has spread to South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United States, among other places. On Friday, the CDC confirmed the second case in the US.

Chinese coronavirus spreads with no visible symptoms as death toll grows to 81, over 2,800 infected worldwide

CAP

Oil prices are also down due to flight disruptions during one of China’s busiest travel seasons — the Lunar New Year holiday. Chinese authorites have put on lockdown cities in Hubei province, including Wuhan, believed to be the epicenter of the outbreak, affecting millions of travelers.

China has announced an extension of its Lunar New Year holiday through February 2 and suspended sales of package tours to help battle the spread of the disease.

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Chinese Researcher Removed from Infectious Disease Lab for Alleged “Administrative Matters”

By Jose Nino – 1/27/2020

According to a story published on CBC news on July 14, 2019, a researcher connected to China was escorted out of the National Microbiology Lab (NML) in Winnipeg during an RCMP investigation into what was described as a possible “policy breach.”

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng, and an undisclosed number of her students from China were removed from Canada’s only level-4 lab on July 5, according to a CBC News report.

A Level 4 virology facility is a lab with the equipment to work with the most threatening human and animal diseases. This made the Arlington Street lab one of the very few labs in North America that is able to handle pathogens demanding the highest level of containment, such as Ebola.

According to sources who worked at the lab and did not want to be identified, the couple and the Chinese students had their security access revoked.

Sources claim that this came several months after NML IT specialists entered Qiu’s office after-hours and replaced her computer. Qiu’s frequent trips to China were also being denied.

During meetings on July 8, NML staff were informed that the researchers were on leave for an indefinite period of time. They were instructed not to communicate with them.

Qiu is a renowned virologist who helped out in developing ZMapp, an ebola virus treatment.

Qiu is a medical doctor hailing from Tianjin, China. She migrated Canada for graduate studies in 1996. She was still connected to the university there and has brought in many students over the years to help with her work.

She was leading the Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapies section in the Special Pathogens Program at the lab. Qiu’s main research field is immunology and she mostly focused on vaccine development, post-exposure therapeutics, and quick diagnostics of viruses like Ebola.

On May 24, 2019, the RCMP received a referral from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).

“Based on information received to date, the RCMP has assessed that there is no threat to public safety at this time,” Robert Cyrenne informed CBC News in an email.

PHAC described it as a policy breach and “administrative matter” and said the department took steps to “resolve it expeditiously,” Eric Morrissette, the health agency’s chief of media relations, said.

“We can assure Canadians that there is absolutely no risk to the Canadian public and that the work of the NML continues in support of the health and safety of all Canadians,” communications director Mathieu Filion communication in an email.

No one from the Chinese Embassy commented on the situation

Many experts speculated that this could have been a case of intellectual property theft or technology leakage to China.

“The National Microbiology Laboratory would have some pretty sensitive biological research material that … could be shared either with or without authorization with foreign countries,” claimed Gordon Houlden, director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute.

“All of this is unproven, but even microbiology, sometimes especially microbiology, can have issues that involve national security.”

No matter the country, China uses its geopolitical leverage to advance its own interests.

Not just America, but the rest of the West should reconsider how it handles diplomatic and economic relations with China.

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