China has a problem and it's not the Wuhan flu.

[RayThom]

"The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Wednesday that could ban many Chinese companies from listing shares on U.S. exchanges or raising money from American investors without adhering to Washington’s regulatory and audit standards. The bill, sponsored by Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy, would require companies to certify that “they are not owned or controlled by a foreign government.” Alibaba, the e-commerce giant based in China, saw its U.S.-listed shares fall more than 2% on the news. Though the law could be applied to any foreign company that seeks access to U.S. capital, lawmakers say the move to strengthen disclosure requirements is aimed principally at Beijing. "

Darren's source on this post is: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/20/senate- ... lower.html

[Darren]

"The U.S. Department of Education says it is opening an investigation into Yale and Harvard universities for failing to disclose hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts and contracts from foreign donors.

The two Ivy League schools have been singled out in a federal crackdown on institutions of higher learning for allegedly not reporting foreign donations of more than $250,000, as required by law under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act.

The Department of Education said Yale failed to disclosed a total of $375 million in foreign money and that it was concerned that Harvard may not have fully complied with reporting requirements."

[MajGenl.Meade]

That was news on February 13, Darren. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/13/8055486 ... -donations

Once again . . .

[Darren]

That was news on February 13, Darren. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/13/8055486 ... -donations

Once again . . .

That is correct. The investigation has since expanded along with the arrest of various Chinese associates.

[Darren]

"A probe by the Department of Education into colleges that accept foreign investments and donations has uncovered $6 billion in previously unreported foreign donations from US adversaries including China and Russia, a report said Friday."

[MajGenl.Meade]

And the source is . . . Town Hall, that well known bastion of integrity. It's been picked up by all the usual sleeze conspiracy nut, right wing, fascist and just dumb "outlets" (see toilet) such as the NY Post which "reports"

"While the Town Hall report does not mention a single school, the Wall Street Journal reported in February that Harvard and Yale were under investigation as part of a review that found US universities failed to report at least $6.5 billion in foreign funding from countries such as China and Saudi Arabia"

Let's see . . . the POS-in-chiefs daughter and two apparently young male progeny and attachments are of course heavily involved in China while dad sucks Putin's Brighton Rock as often as possible. Maybe they'd know more of this evil plan to accept donations? Perhaps the probe should be extended into contributions made by big corporations to Republican and Democrat politicians? Who knows what there might be in the swamp?

[Darren]

"India has voiced a rare note of criticism of China’s assertive actions in the South China Sea, amid a tensions between the two Asian powers on their long land border.

A New Delhi-based analyst said India is concerned over China pressuring South China Sea claimant nations that India considers partners. India is also wary that China could seek to assert itself in the Indian Ocean.

On Thursday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs commented on the recent incidents along the Line of Actual Control – the nearly 2,200 mile unsettled border between China and India. Chinese and Indian troops clashed on May 5 over road construction the Indian side was completing at Pangong Tso, a glacial lake bordering Ladakh and Tibet. They clashed again May 9 near Doklam, which borders India China, and Bhutan. Soldiers were reportedly wounded on both sides in the clashes.

At the same news conference, ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastave was also asked about recent unilateral actions by China in the South China Sea: the establishment of two new administrative districts for the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands and the naming 80 obscure geographical features over the objections of other claimants."

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/ ... 82130.html

[Darren]

And the source is . . . Town Hall, that well known bastion of integrity. It's been picked up by all the usual sleeze conspiracy nut, right wing, fascist and just dumb "outlets" (see toilet) such as the NY Post which "reports"

"While the Town Hall report does not mention a single school, the Wall Street Journal reported in February that Harvard and Yale were under investigation as part of a review that found US universities failed to report at least $6.5 billion in foreign funding from countries such as China and Saudi Arabia"

Let's see . . . the POS-in-chiefs daughter and two apparently young male progeny and attachments are of course heavily involved in China while dad sucks Putin's Brighton Rock as often as possible. Maybe they'd know more of this evil plan to accept donations? Perhaps the probe should be extended into contributions made by big corporations to Republican and Democrat politicians? Who knows what there might be in the swamp?

"Colleges and universities previously failed to report upward of $6.5 billion in gifts from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other foreign countries, an ongoing investigation by the Trump administration uncovered.

Ten schools, including Cornell University, Yale University, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Boston University, Texas A&M University, and Carnegie Mellon University, accounted for half of that figure, disclosing $3.6 billion in previously unreported foreign gifts."

[RayThom]

"The U.S. Department of Education says it is opening an investigation into Yale and Harvard universities for failing to disclose hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts and contracts from foreign donors.
The two Ivy League schools have been singled out in a federal crackdown on institutions of higher learning for allegedly not reporting foreign donations of more than $250,000, as required by law under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act.
The Department of Education said Yale failed to disclosed a total of $375 million in foreign money and that it was concerned that Harvard may not have fully complied with reporting requirements."

YIKES!

And we were all worried about the college admission scandal swirling around Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli.

[Darren]

YIKES!

And we were all worried about the college admission scandal swirling around Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli.

If it's not incompetence it's corruption. I'm shocked I tell you! What's the educational system been up to? No good?

In case you missed it, I recently bought nine used books at a tent sale where the price was 8 for $10. The two teen aged attendants couldn't figure out what I owed even with a calculator. You and I can do that in our head.

Is this a great country or what?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Now you're back to February 13th again. Catch up, Darren, do. Oh . . . Darren do . . . that's kinda rude! Or is it what Douglas Fairbanks exhibited. Clarify it for us, Dobbin!

"Colleges and universities previously failed to report upward of $6.5 billion in gifts from China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other foreign countries, an ongoing investigation by the Trump administration uncovered.

Ten schools, including Cornell University, Yale University, the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, Boston University, Texas A&M University, and Carnegie Mellon University, accounted for half of that figure, disclosing $3.6 billion in previously unreported foreign gifts."

[Darren]

"The United States is pushing relations with China to "the brink of a new Cold War", China's foreign minister said Sunday, rejecting Washington's "lies" over the coronavirus while saying Beijing was open to an international effort to find its source."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ch ... ifmo5emkPg

[RayThom]

"The United States is pushing relations with China to "the brink of a new Cold War", China's foreign minister said Sunday, rejecting Washington's "lies" over the coronavirus while saying Beijing was open to an international effort to find its source."https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ch ... r-BB14wnBL

I hope it doesn't get too cold.

[Darren]

"Taiwan will provide the people of Hong Kong with “necessary assistance”, President Tsai Ing-wen has said, after a resurgence in protests in the Chinese-ruled territory against newly proposed national security legislation from Beijing.

Taiwan has become a refuge for a small but growing number of pro-democracy protesters fleeing Hong Kong, which has been convulsed since last year by protests."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... curity-law

[Darren]

"Chairman Xi Jinping has lost patience. His nation’s economy is suffering. COVID-19 has strained the seams of his credibility. He needs a win. So he’s doing what strongmen do best – upping the military ante.

Both of Beijing’s new aircraft carriers are deploying together for the first time. They’ve been warming up in the secure Yellow Sea. Soon, they’ll be headed south.

The People’s Liberation Army navy (PLAN) Liaoning and Shandong are engaged in combat readiness training in the tightly controlled Bohai Bay. It’s just the second week of an intensive 11-week simulated conflict that will eventually reach deep into the South China Sea.

And it’s just one of a barrage of military and diplomatic moves – extending from Japan across Asia to the mountain borders with India – that are escalating international tensions."

[Darren]

"When soldiers from the world’s two most populous countries, which together spend more than $300 billion on their military every year, clash, one might expect bloodshed.

But so far, Chinese and Indian troops have only thrown rocks and tried to shout each other down along an undefined and disputed border located thousands of feet above sea level.

The skirmishes are not the sort the region normally sees in the case of India and Pakistan, who fire artillery shells and use heavy weaponry on each other - often inflicting civilian casualties."

[Darren]

"US Federal Government authorities seized a 226-tonne electricity transformer made by Chinese company Jiangsu Huapeng Transformer Company at Houston port last summer and took it to Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for unspecified reasons, The Wall Street Journal reports."

https://www.itwire.com/government-tech- ... s-why.html

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm just wonderin'. Shouldn't that read, "China has a plobrem...."?

[Darren]

I'm just wonderin'. Shouldn't that read, "China has a plobrem...."?

We all have a problem. From 2017:

"At midnight, a week before last Christmas, hackers struck an electric transmission station north of the city of Kiev, blacking out a portion of the Ukrainian capital equivalent to a fifth of its total power capacity. The outage lasted about an hour—hardly a catastrophe. But now cybersecurity researchers have found disturbing evidence that the blackout may have only been a dry run. The hackers appear to have been testing the most evolved specimen of grid-sabotaging malware ever observed in the wild.

Cybersecurity firms ESET and Dragos Inc. plan today to release detailed analyses of a piece of malware used to attack the Ukrainian electric utility Ukrenergo seven months ago, what they say represents a dangerous advancement in critical infrastructure hacking. The researchers describe that malware, which they’ve alternately named “Industroyer” or “Crash Override,” as only the second-ever known case of malicious code purpose-built to disrupt physical systems. The first, Stuxnet, was used by the US and Israel to destroy centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in 2009."

https://www.wired.com/story/crash-override-malware/

[ex-khobar Andy]

I'm just wonderin'. Shouldn't that read, "China has a plobrem...."?

Not politically correct, but a true story.

Saudi Arabia, 1983, Andy is in the local hardware store talking to his Pakistani buddy behind the counter.

Two guys come in from a Chinese contractor. I step aside so they can talk to Ali.

"Prease, we need something to crean tires."

"Crean?" say Ali, eyebrows raised.

"Yes, we want to crean tires."

Andy helpfully explains to Ali that speakers of some Oriental languages have trouble with the alveolar lateral approximant of the letter L and replace it with the postalveolar approximant which is closer to the letter R. "He wants to clean tires."

"Why does he want to clean tires? What sort of thing do you use to clean tires? Why can't he just use a brush?" says Ali.

"Well I don't know" says Andy. "You're the hardware guy. I just do the translations."

Frustration all around. Eyes popping, eventually the younger of the two Chinese guys gets on his hands and knees and mimics scrubbing the floor of the hardware store. The tile floor.

One of those lightbulb moments that stays with you, forever.