Vision Times Newspaper VOL.3 JAN 22,2021

JANUARY 22-28,

2021

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Trump and Administration

Call Out China for Genocide, Emphasize Founding Values in Final Hours

By Neil Campbell

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s the Trump administration’s final hours wound down on Jan. 19, the President wished the new administration luck and asked Americans to pray for its success, while some of the key members of his staff put the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on blast for its persecution of Uyghur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners.

Outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not mince words with Beijing, describing the surveillance state in Xinjiang and the atrocities committed against Uyghurs nothing short of for “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.”

“This is a very serious and tragic set of actions that are taking place there in the Western part of China… This is forced labor, this is forced sterilization, forced abortions. The kind of things that we haven’t seen in an awfully long time in this world,” said Pompeo in an interview with Fox News America Reports.

Pompeo said that his department had conducted “an exhaustive review of the facts” and determined that the CCP has indeed not only committed the crimes they have been accused of, but seek to “deny these people, not just the Uyghur Muslims, but other faiths as well, the simple capacity to continue to exist.

“I’ve referred to this over time as the stain of the century. It is truly that.”

The Secretary of State released a strongly worded Press Statement on Tuesday titled “Determination of the Secretary of State on Atrocities ny@visiontimes.com

Four years ago we launched a great national effort to rebuild our country, to renew its spirit, and to restore the allegiance of this government to its citizens. In short, we embarked on a mission to make America great again for all Americans.

in Xinjiang” where he called “the nature of the Chinese Communist Party” a ”Marxist-Leninist regime that exerts power over the long-suffering Chinese people through brainwashing and brute force.”

Pompeo recalled the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II that brought Hitler’s perpetrators of crimes against humanity and genocide to justice, leading to the elimination of the Nazi Party and fascism from the world’s stage. He noted that the trials “prosecuted perpetrators for crimes against humanity, the same crimes being perpetrated in Xinjiang.”

On a similar note, U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, challenged the CCP for its 21-year-long persecution of the spiritual practice Falun Gong, as well as the forced organ harvesting of its adherents. Brownback wrote: “What does the number 6,600 mean? It’s the approximate number of practitioners that Falun Gong report the CCP arrested in 2020. How many times will the CCP harass and arrest Falun Gong practitioners for refusing to

renounce their beliefs before the world confronts this injustice?”

In his farewell address, President Trump wished the incoming Biden-Harris administration luck and asked Americans to “pray for its success in keeping America safe and prosperous.”

“Four years ago we launched a great national effort to rebuild our country, to renew its spirit, and to restore the allegiance of this government to its citizens. In short, we embarked on a mission to make America great again for all Americans.”

“This week we inaugurate a new administration and we extend our best wishes. And we also want them to have luck, a very important word,” Trump said.

Trump’s approval rating on leaving office was 51 percent according to Rasmussen Reports, although all other polls show his approval rating between 29 percent and 47 percent. Trump expressed in the 19-minute address his gratitude to his family, Vice President Mike Pence, and his wife and family, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and all White House Staff. (minghui.org)

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (R) shakes hands with State Department Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback (L) during a press event at the State Department May 29, 2018, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

The president again condemned the riots in the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 Joint Session of Congress, saying that “all Americans were horrified by the assault on our Capitol.”

“Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated. Now more than ever we must unify around our shared values and rise above the partisan rancor and forge our common destiny.”

Trump called himself the “only true outsider ever to win the Presidency” because he “had not spent [his] career as a politician, but as a builder looking at open skylines and imagining infinite possibilities.”

While Trump will join a small club of presidents who only served one term, he lauded his “America First” principles that benefitted a diverse range of Americans: “We reignited America’s job creation and achieved record low unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women, almost everyone.”

“Income soared. Wages boomed. The American dream

was restored and millions were lifted from poverty in just a few short years. It was a miracle.”

But what the 45th President emphasized the most passionately was the values America’s founding fathers left to posterity more than 200 years ago.

“Above all, we have reasserted the sacred idea that in America, the government answers to the people. Our guiding light, our north star, our unwavering conviction has been that we are here to serve the noble everyday citizens of America. Our allegiance is not to the special interests, corporations, or global entities. It’s to our children, our citizens, and to our nation itself,” he said.

“We restored the principle that a nation exists to serve its citizens. Our agenda was not about right or left, it wasn’t about Republican or Democrat, but about the good of a nation, and that means the whole nation.

“We fought for the principle that every citizen is entitled to equal dignity, equal treatment, and equal rights because we are all made equal

by God. Everyone is entitled to be treated with respect, to have their voice heard, and to have their government listen.”

Donald Trump recognized the external threats the country constantly faces, but said the most dangerous factor America faces today “is a loss of confidence in ourselves, a loss of confidence in our national greatness. A nation is only as strong as its spirit.”

“No nation can long thrive that loses faith in its own values, history, and heroes, for these are the very sources of our unity and our vitality,” Trump said.

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A2 | JAN 22-28, 2021

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Biden Appoints Laura Rosenberger to Lead China Policy P resident-elect Joe Biden appoints Laura Rosenberger, a former ChinaKorea policy veteran under the Obama administration, to Senior Director of China Policy at the National Security Council (NSC).

Rosenberger was previously the NSC Director for China and Korea and Chief of Staff to former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken will return to office as Biden’s replacement for China hawk Mike Pompeo as the next Secretary of State.

She also served as policy advisor to Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign. After Clinton was defeated by outgoing President Donald Trump, Rosenberger headed the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a branch of the German Marshall Fund think tank where she is a Senior Fellow. The Alliance focused on the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. In 2018, Rosenberger attempted

to conflate China’s influence in U.S. politics with that of Russia, when she said the communist regime’s effort should be “viewed through a single national security lens with Moscow’s.”

Rosenberger said she was “humbled by the enormity of the task and privileged to once again serve the American people alongside an incredible team” in a Jan 14. tweet.

Her Twitter profile’s banner includes the iconic poem written by World War II Nazi dissenter Martin Niemoller First They Came…

The Hill Editor-at-Large Steve Clemos congratulated Rosenberger on her appointment in a tweet, suggesting a dovish approach to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), “the key with #China will be bank shots, ways of demonstrating US power and strength that are not always head on.”

Kurt Campbell, another Obama-era veteran, will over-

see Rosenberger at the NSC. He will take the seat of Senior Coordinator for IndoPacific Policy. Campbell was the chief architect of Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy, a policy that reportedly sought to contain Chinese influence in the Asian region, but instead led to increased dominance by the communist menace.

Katherine Tai, a Mandarin speaker who was formerly Chief Counsel for China trade enforcement, will become Biden’s trade negotiator.

In April, Rosenberger criticized the CCP’s actions that aided the spread of the pandemic across the world during the crucial early weeks. In an article in Foreign Affairs, she said that the Party “focused on control — not only of the coronavirus itself but also of information about it” and “suppressed initial reporting and research about the outbreak, thereby slowing efforts to understand the virus and its pandemic potential.”

President-elect Joe Biden appoints Laura Rosenberger, a former China-Korea policy veteran under the Obama administration, to Senior Director of China Policy at the National Security Council (NSC).(wikidata)

“They called for ‘increased Internet control’ when the Politburo Standing Committee met in early February. They even sent ‘Internet police’ to

threaten people posting criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and its handling of the virus.”

In her article, Rosenberger

demonstrates that she saw the CCP’s motive clearly: “As it began to contain the outbreak within its own borders, Beijing launched an assertive external information campaign aimed at sculpting global discussion of its handling of the virus.

“This campaign has clear goals: to deflect blame from Beijing’s own failings and to highlight other governments’ missteps.”

Her analysis also ridiculed Beijing’s narrative that its authoritarianism was superior to democracy in handling the spread of a pandemic: “A press release issued by the Chinese embassy in Paris hailed the success of China’s ‘dictatorship’ over the United States’ ‘flagship of democracy,’ pushing the message that Beijing’s model is superior and that it, rather than Washington, is the reliable partner to countries in need.

“Notably, state media outlets have paid to promote these stories to U.S. audiences, in undisclosed political ads on Facebook and Instagram — platforms that are blocked in China.”

Rosenberger has not yet made any indications about what her stance toward the Party in the Biden administration will be.

‘SMART Health Cards’ Raise Concerns About Invasive Tech mons Project and the WEF announced the Airport Council International would join the CommonTrust Network. Airlines included in the move were JetBlue, Lufthansa, Swiss International Airlines, United Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic.

Christoph Wolff, Head of Mobility at the WEF, said; “As the Forum, we are committed to bringing our health, supply chain, aviation, and maritime sectors together to ensure the success of this global common utility… The CommonTrust Network is the kind of concrete, swift, cross-sector collaboration needed to enable a unified action to restore confidence in travel. Siloed efforts will only create more confusion and hinder the industry’s recovery.”

CommonPass and the CommonTrust Network are both formally recognized on the WEF’s website. The initiative relies on a “CommonTrust Registry,” which is described as “enabled by a global registry of trusted laboratory and vac-

cination data sources, standard formats for lab results and vaccination records, and standard tools to make those results and records digitally accessible.”

The Registry is composed of two parts, “DataSources,” which formally cites Apple Health for iOS and CommonHealth for Android, as well as “other digital wallet apps” such as SMART Health Cards, and “Destination Rules” described as: “Participating countries, jurisdictions and other destinations (airlines, ships, public transport, hotels, venues, events, offices, schools…) [who] agree to publish and maintain their health entry requirements using a standard machine-readable format in the CommonTrust Registry.”

This type of monitoring system is already in place in Communist China.

In April of 2020, CNN covered a story titled China is fighting the coronavirus with a digital QR code. Here’s how it works. In the report, the

AT&T-owned broadcasting giant posited: “Imagine your daily routine being entirely dependent on a smartphone app. Leaving your home, taking the subway, going to work, entering cafes, restaurants, and shopping malls — each move, dictated by the color shown on your screen. Green: you’re free to proceed. Amber or Red: you’re barred from entry.”

“Relying on mobile technology and big data, the Chinese government has used a color-based ‘health code’ system to control people’s movements and curb the spread of the coronavirus,” stating that “in many cities, citizens without the app wouldn’t be able to leave their residential compounds or enter most public places.”

The article added that although the Party claimed at the time to have the CCP virus under control in China, with lockdowns and other measures mostly lifted, “the small square barcodes have remained in place and are still ruling people’s lives.”

Parler’s CEO Targeted by Hacker Group, Death Threats

In a Jan. 17 interview with Fox News, Matze said that his company had not received any prior notice or threats from Amazon, Apple, or Google in the past: “It’s very, very interesting that they all, on the exact same day without previously indicating, they never indicated to us that there was any serious or material problem with our app. But on the same day, you know, all on the same day, they send us these very threatening notices.”

Matze said his company attempted to look into Google’s complaint after being removed from the Play Store, but received no notice and had no contact information. With Apple, he says his rep at the Silicon Valley giant “basically shrugged it off and made no indication that this was deadly serious, despite … their email being very serious.”

As for Amazon, Matze says they, too, “[were] basically

saying: ‘Oh, I never saw any material problems. There’s no issues,’” saying the web service “played it off very nonchalantly.”

“And so we had still even, you know, on the 8th and the 9th, you know, we had no real indication that this was, you know, deadly serious.”

Matze says he’s being targeted by a group called UGNazi (Underground Nazi Hacktivist Group): “They published my street address, they threatened to come through my front door.”

In 2019, two members of UGNazi, Mir Islam and Troy Woody Jr., were charged in the Philippines in connection with the murder of Woody’s girlfriend, Tomi Masters. According to a Buzzfeed article: “CCTV footage shows both men loading a box containing Masters’ body into a taxi early in the morning of Dec. 23. They later threw the box in a local river.

By Neil Campbell

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he Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI) emerged on Thursday touting itself as a “coalition of public and private partners committed to empowering individuals with digital access to their vaccination records based on open, interoperable standards.”

The Initiative is backed by companies like Microsoft, the Mayo Clinic, Salesforce, Oracle, and The Commons Project. The intent is to use the SMART Health Cards specification to have citizens present proof of vaccination via either a digital wallet or a printable QR code format in order to “safely enable people to return to work, school, events, and travel.”

In the SMART Health Cards framework, “Issuers” will generate a certificate distributed to citizens in their digital “Health Wallet” app, which they will then be able to present to a “Verifier” when required.

As for who the issuers

By Neil Campbell

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arler’s CEO has gone into hiding following death threats made toward him and his family, according to a Motion to Seal filed in the case Parler v Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle on Jan. 15 The lawsuit is a result of Amazon’s decision to de-platform the Twitter competitor in the wake of the Capitol Building riots during the Jan. 6 Joint Session of Congress that confirmed Joe Biden as Presidentelect. The Motion to Seal seeks to redact names and identifying information of employees from both Parler and Amazon that were filed in Exhibits pursuant to the original lawsuit.

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will be and how they will be determined, the Framework describes the pilot project as a “willing set of issuers” with “define[d] expectations/ requirements,” while in a live setting, “…a network of participants would define and agree to a formal Trust Framework.”

In an example scenario provided on the webpage, a participant would use their Health Wallet to scan a QR code when checking in to an issuer. The code would register their identity via their app to the test they are about to take or the vaccine they are about to receive. Following the procedure, the results would be electronically assigned to their Health Wallet, allowing them to pass scrutiny from Verifiers.

Oracle’s Executive Vice President Mike Sicilia said in a VCI Press Release that the process “needs to be as easy as online banking.” Bill Patterson, Client Relation Management SAAS provider Salesforce’s Executive Vice President, implies that these initiatives will take root in the workplace and cor-

The filing says the “social turmoil swirling around this dispute has sometimes been acute and troubling” and notes that “AWS both blamed the rift on supposed failures in Parler’s already controversial content moderation policies, and aired the dispute in the court of public opinion by leaking its termination message to the media.”

Parler, as Plaintiff, is filing the Motion to Seal because its employees are “suffering harassment and hostility, fear for their safety and that of their families, and in some cases have fled their home state to escape persecution.” CEO John Matze himself has “had to leave his home and go into hiding with his family after receiving death threats and invasive personal security breaches.”

The Exhibits Parler wishes

porate sales world. He claims Salesforce will “help organizations easily and safely customize all aspects of the vaccination management lifecycle and integrate closely with other coalition members’ offerings, which will help us all get back to public life.”

“The article added that although the Party claimed at the time to have the CCP Virus under control in China, with lockdowns and other measures mostly lifted, ‘the small square barcodes have remained in place and are still ruling people’s lives.”

April, 2020 CNN Article Titled “China is Fighting the Coronavirus With a Digital QR Code. Here’s how it Works“ The VCI is using work from The Commons Project’s international CommonHealth and CommonPass systems, according to Breitbart. The Project is working with The Rockefeller Foundation in partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In November, the Com-

to seal are composed of a Declaration given by Matze, two emails from an Amazon employee to Parler, a screenshot of a Tweet from slain Air Force Veteran Ashli Babbitt, text messages between an Amazon employee and Matze, and emails between Parler’s Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff and another Parler employee.

Fox News reported during the suit’s first hearing that Parler’s attorney, David Groesbeck, argued: “Millions of lawabiding Americans have had their voices silenced…There is no evidence, other than some anecdotal press references, that Parler was involved in inciting the riots.”

Amazon’s attorney Ambika Doran countered with evidence showing Parler users made posts calling for the assassination of Nancy Pelosi,

Chuck Schumer, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and members of the media. Doran did not explain how Parler was responsible for these posts.

Nor did he provide any reason why Parler was not shielded from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, as rivals Twitter and Facebook would be.

Instead, Doran argued that the Capitol riots were a justified pretext to enact censorship through deplatforming Twitter’s main competitor: “The events of January 6 changed the way we think about the world. It took what was merely hypothetical and made it chillingly real.” According to Doran: “Amazon had every right, after that happened, with the surge of violent content on Parler, to take that into account when it made the decision it did.”

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What Trump Accomplished in

JAN 22-28, 2021 |

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4 Years

By Arvind Datta

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resident Trump will leave the White House in a few days.

According to a Bloomberg reporter, West Wing walls are now bare, with only a few pictures and paintings. Most desks have been emptied out. On Jan. 20, Trump is expected to leave early in the morning with a departure ceremony planned to send him off. The White House has published a report listing what Donald J. Trump has achieved for America in his four years as the 45th President of the United States.

1

Economic boom Seven million new jobs were created and middle-class family income rose by $6,000. Jobless claims hit a 50-year low.

Seven million people went off food stamps. The wealth of the bottom 50 percent of Americans surged by 40 percent. DOW touched 20,000 in 2017 and 30,000 in 2020 for the first time in history.

2

Middle-class tax relief Tax reform benefited 6 million American workers as their wages and bonuses rose. A family of four making $75,000 per year benefited from an income tax savings of over $2,000. Trump almost eliminated the Death Tax and Estate Tax. The child tax credit doubled. The business tax rate was brought down from 35 percent to 21 percent.

3

Energy independence: Trump turned America into a net energy exporter for the first time in 70 years. The U.S. became the world’s number one oil and natural gas producer. Lower electric bills and gas prices saved an average American family $2,500 per year. From 2016 to 2019, wind energy production rose 32 percent.

4

Deregulation policies The Trump administration eliminated eight regulations for every one new regulation. The reforms added $1,300 per annum to an average American household. The government modified the fuel economy regulations of the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule, lowering the price of new vehicles by $2,200. Cutting red tape in the healthcare sector enabled Americans to save 10 percent on prescriptions.

5

Fair trade deals Trump withdrew the U.S. from trade policies like the TPP and NAFTA that were costing American jobs. He introduced a USMA deal with Canada and Mexico that will create more than 550,000 new jobs in 10 years.

He made China agree to buy an additional $200 billion worth of American goods every year. He took steps to punish Chinese companies that steal and then profit from American IP. He entered into 50 agreements with various nations to boost exports of American agricultural products.

Helping American families and workers: More Americans began benefiting from Child Tax Credit; almost 40 million families received $2,200. He enabled federal workers to get 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Forty companies committed to providing up to 16 million jobs.

6

Healthcare Medicare Advantage premiums were lowered by 34 percent, the lowest level in 14 years. Trump eliminated Obamacare taxes. Association Health Plans allowed employers to cut the cost of health coverage for workers by up to 30 percent. Drug prices were reduced for the first time in 51 years.

7

Responding to the CCP virus Trump’s administration repatriated more than 100,000 Americans who were stranded abroad due to the coronavirus outbreak. Millions of doses of vaccines were made available by late 2020. Trump temporarily suspended all H1B and H2B visas, ensuring more jobs for Americans rather than foreign workers. He approved more than $525

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million in forgivable loans to 5.2 million small businesses, supporting the jobs of 51 million Americans. 160 million relief payments were distributed.

8

Border policy 400 miles of a border wall was built, dropping illegal crossings by over 87 percent. Trump’s administration blocked refugees originating from dangerous, terror-afflicted regions from migrating to the U.S. Trump implemented rules to combat “birth tourism.”

9

America’s international position Trump made NATO allies agree to a $400-billion increase in defense spending by 2024. He withdrew from the disadvantageous Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump became the first president to meet with the leader of North Korea. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the American embassy into the city. He established peace agreements between Israel and Arab nations like Bahrain and UAE. He strengthened American policies against communist and socialist nations like Cuba and Venezuela. He secured hosting rights for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics.

10

Safer communities Since 2016, murder and violent crime rates have fallen by more than 7 percent and 5 percent respectively. Trump created a White House position dedicated exclusively to fight human trafficking. He set up a task force to investigate missing Native American women.

11

Religious freedom Trump was the first U.S. president to convene a UN meeting to end religious persecution. He blocked the Johnson Amendment that sought to interfere in pastors’ freedom of speech. He signed an executive order aimed at promoting religious freedom worldwide. He called out and punished communist China for large-scale human rights abuses and religious persecution of Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, Christians, and others.

12

Military and veterans: Trump secured three pay raises for military personnel and their families. He established the Space Force.

He defeated ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq. He signed a $110-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the largest ever. He took action against the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons against civilians. Homelessness among veterans decreased by 49 percent in 2019 when compared to a decade ago. More than 600,000 veterans were employed through American Job Center services.

13

Boosting education Trump promoted a pro-American lesson plan. He allocated $200 million per year for the education of women and minorities. He signed the FUTURE Act that approved $255 million annual funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). He enacted the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, giving 13 million students access to high-quality vocational education.

14

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Federal judiciary

Trump nominated and confirmed more than 230 federal judges. All the Court of Appeals vacancies were filled for the first time in 40 years. Environmental protection: America achieved the largest carbon decline in the world in 2019. The reduction in carbon emissions made air cleaner by 7 percent between 2017 and 2019. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, after which America cut down more carbon emissions than any other country in the world.

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CHINA

A4 | JAN 22-28, 2021

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COVID-19 May Have Escaped From Wuhan’s High-Security Biolab, State Department Says ByLeo Timm

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ultiple researchers at Wuhan’s highsecurity biolab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), developed symptoms indicative of COVID19 months before Chinese authorities announced the outbreak at the end of 2019, according to a fact sheet released by the U.S. Department of State on the evening of Friday, Jan. 15.

The announcement adds weight to a common but difficult-to-verify theory that the novel coronavirus outbreak began when the pathogen escaped the confines of the high-security bioresearch facility, rather than jumping naturally from animals to humans.

It also comes as the World Health Organization begins its long-delayed onsite investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its origins in China.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his department was making available the “new information concerning the activities inside China’s government laboratories in 2019” so as to assist the WHO efforts.

According to the top diplomat, Washington “has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak,” Pompeo’s statement reads.

That the employees suffered symptoms consistent with COVID-19 “raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli,” who claimed a “zero infection” rate among the lab’s staff and students.

Neither transparent nor consistent According to Chinese official accounts, the first known cases of the COVID-19 appeared in December 2019. However, the Communist Party authorities muzzled early reports about the virus, claiming for weeks that there was no evidence that it could transmit among humans. Chinese leader Xi Jinping and other officials only

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory (C) on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on May 13, 2020. Opened in 2018, the P4 lab, which is part of the greater Wuhan Institute of Virology and conducts research on the world's most dangerous diseases, has been accused by top U.S. officials of being the source of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. ( HECTOR RETAMAL / AFP via Getty Images)

Any responsible country would have invited world health investigators to Wuhan within days of an outbreak,” the State Department said. “China instead refused offers of help — including from the United States — and punished brave Chinese doctors, scientists, and journalists who tried to alert the world to the dangers of the virus.

admitted human-to-human contagion on Jan. 20, 2020, after the Chinese New Year migration was in full swing and multiple cases had been confirmed abroad.

“Any responsible country would have invited world health investigators to Wuhan within days of an outbreak,” the State Department said.

“China instead refused offers of help — including from the United States — and punished brave Chinese doctors, scientists, and journalists who tried to alert the world to the dangers of the virus.”

The Chinese authorities initially claimed that the coronavirus jumped naturally from animals to humans, possibly in unsanitary conditions at a wet market in Wuhan, which is located in the central province of Hubei.

The State Department says that WIV had been researching coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 since at least 2016. Pompeo said the Institute, which is the only P4-security level bio-research facility in China, was not forthcoming about its study of the pathogens, and that WIV’s links to the Chinese military made it particularly suspect.

“Since the outbreak, the

WIV has not been transparent nor consistent about its work with RaTG13 or other similar [corona]viruses, including possible ‘gain of function’ experiments to enhance transmissibility or lethality.”

“Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017,” the State Department said.

According to the fact sheet, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to “withhold vital information that scientists need to protect the world from this deadly virus, and the next one.”

As of Jan. 16, the pandemic has sickened nearly 100 million people worldwide. More than 2 million are dead.

Coronavirus politics and the Wuhan P4 lab The WIV’s presence in the same city where SARS-CoV-2 infections were first registered has fueled widespread speculation since the beginning of the pandemic.

Last May, Pompeo said

U.S. intelligence agencies had “enormous evidence” to suggest a lab origin for the virus, but did not elaborate at the time.

China watcher Bill Bishop tweeted on Jan. 15 that according to a source, the initiative to expose the links between the coronavirus and the WIV went beyond Mike Pompeo, who leaves office on Jan. 20 along with the rest of the Trump administration.

“Will be interesting if/how team Biden follows up on these allegations,” Bishop wrote.

Safety standards in Chinese facilities are suspect. The State Department fact sheet notes that in 2009, the SARS virus was accidentally released from a Beijing lab studying the coronavirus that in 2002 and 2003 spread from China around the world and killed more than 10,000 people.

A special report released last May by China political risk consultancy SinoInsider, in examining the available evidence and the CCP’s reaction to COVID-19, concluded that there was a strong possibility of the pathogen having escaped from the Wuhan P4-level bio-research lab in September 2019.

The SinoInsider report,

which focuses on the effects of the pandemic in Chinese elite political circles, notes several suspicious coincidences.

These include the holding of drills concerning the accidental release of a coronavirus at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in September 2019, and the sudden increase in the stock value of CanSino Biologics Inc., a Hong Konglisted pharmaceutical company.

In March 2020, CanSino Biologics announced that it was developing a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. Leading the development of the vaccine was Chinese military Maj. Gen. Chen Wei and her team of researchers who had earlier been sent to Wuhan.

According to Taiwan-based Chinese economist Wang Hao, one of the four controlling shareholders of CanSino Biologics became a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in March 2018. Maj. Gen. Chen’s research into the vaccine could have begun in September or October 2019, with well-informed CCP officials driving up the stock price of CanSino Biologics by providing the company with an influx of investment.

China’s Coronavirus Vaccine Barely Meets WHO Standards ByPrakash Gogoi

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hina has been hyping its CoronaVac vaccine, manufactured by Sinovac Biotech.

It’s presented as the ultimate solution for controlling the epidemic, especially in developing nations. On Jan. 7, a study conducted by Brazil’s Butantan Institute claimed that China’s coronavirus vaccine had a 78 percent efficacy rate. However, new data submitted by the institute shows that the vaccine only has an efficacy rate of 50.4 percent.

That’s only barely above the 50 percent level mandated by the World Health Organization in order to get regulatory approval.

Brazil recently placed an order for 100 million doses of CoronaVac. The latest efficacy report has raised concerns

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about whether these vaccines need to be purchased. In October last year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stated that his people will not be “anyone’s guinea pig.”

On Jan. 13, after new data on CoronaVac came out, the President said that he was correct to question the credibility of Chinese vaccines. Bolsonaro stated that he has no role in approving the vaccine; the decision will be made by the country’s health regulator, Anvisa.

“This 50 percent is good, is it?

All the [criticism] I got for my comments, and now they are seeing the truth. Four months of being lambasted because of the vaccine,” he said in a statement.

When the Butantan Institute had initially claimed a 78 percent efficacy rate for CoronaVac, it attracted huge criticism

(pixabay / CC0 1.0)

China's CCP virus vaccine barely passes the minimum efficacy rate.

from the international scientific community for using too little data. Some also reported that China had suppressed the institute from expressing their opinions freely. The 78 percent efficacy rate came from a study that only looked at volunteers who were suffering mild to severe cases of the CCP virus.

But when data from all the volunteers were included, the effi-

cacy rate dropped to 50.4 percent.

After the low efficacy rate of CoronaVac was reported, communist China quickly began spreading propaganda to boost the vaccine’s reputation. The state-backed Global Times quoted an expert saying that CoronaVac was “good enough.” It completely avoided all negative critiques of the

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vaccine and only projected its benefits.

Brazil has sent a special plane to India to secure 2 million doses of vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. The institute has partnered with AstraZeneca to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford.

However, Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Anurag Srivastava stated that supplying vaccines to other nations could “take some time.” India and Brazil are two of the three nations with the most coronavirus cases.

“In so far as requests from countries for vaccines from India, you would recall that the Prime Minister has already stated that India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity would be used for the benefit of all humanity in fighting this

crisis… As you know, the vaccination process is just starting in India. It is too early to give a specific response on the supplies to other countries as we are still assessing production schedules and availability to make decisions in this regard,” he told The Indian Express.

Sinovac recently published medical disclaimers and contraindications for the CoronaVac vaccine. The notice asked people who have a history of asthma, rhinitis, dermatitis, and allergies to not be vaccinated. For those who get a shot, they can expect side effects like skin eczema, abdominal pain, angioedema, urticarial, and dyspnea. People suffering from mental illnesses, bleeding disorders, autoimmune diseases, and progressive neurological diseases should avoid taking CoronaVac. ny@visiontimes.com

CHINA

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JAN 22-28, 2021 |

A5

North Korea’s Undisclosed Aid from China Revealed by Leaked Government Documents (GETTY IMAGES)

By Vision Times Staff

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eaked internal government documents obtained by The Epoch Times have revealed details about the financial and agricultural aid provided to North Korea by Communist China.

China still remains North Korea’s biggest trading partner, despite trade reductions due to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus.

One of the documents, published in 2016, showed the CCP’s funding of 15 projects in Jilin, the northeastern province bordering North Korea.

With the goal of developing North Korea’s economy, most of these projects were classified as “overseas investment” by the Jilin provincial government, while two projects, involving cement grinding stations in Pyongyang and the Rason Special Economic Zone (SEZ), were classified as “contracted projects.”

The total investment from China into the cement grinding stations was about 1 billion yuan ($150 million) each.

China has also invested 468.6 million yuan (about $69.82

million) into an electrical project, and 31.5 billion yuan (about $470 million) into an island Trade Cooperation Zone project in North Korea.

China also did not directly

invest in the trade zone project, but instead used Hong Kong companies to advance the development of a mutual trade zone, according to a 2018 South Korea report.

The other leaked document, published in 2014, displayed China’s exportation of advanced agricultural technology to North Korea. It revealed that Jilin Jinong High-tech

WHO Arrives in China for CCP Virus Investigation, but Beijing Blocks Inspector (ADOBE STOCK)

By Prakash Gogoi

O

n Jan. 14, 13 members of the World Health Organization (WHO) investigation team arrived in China with the aim of studying the origins of the CCP Virus. The team is actually composed of 15 members. Two of them were detained in Singapore as their COVID-19 test results came out positive. The second round of tests was conducted and one of the negative scientists has joined the team.

“Among the 15 members of the WHO expert group, there was one expert from the UK and one Sudanese expert from Qatar who tested positive for the IgM serum antibody in Singapore airport during the transit… We have agreed that the British expert will come to

China, and we will continue to maintain communication with WHO on related matters and make joint efforts to cooperate on tracing the origin of the virus,” Zhao said in a statement.

In November, China implemented the “double-negative” test, which requires people to

produce negative results for a nucleic acid test and serum IgM antibody test. Passengers from Singapore to China are required to take a serum test, nucleic acid test, and a third test for IgM antibodies. The passengers will then have to obtain the double-negative test results at least two days prior

to boarding.

Earlier, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had expressed disappointment at China’s delaying tactics when it came to allowing the investigating team inside the country. China had downplayed the incident as a “misunderstanding.”

Included in the investigation team is Australian virologist Dominic Dwyer, who is looking forward to determining whether the virus came from an animal source and whether the outbreak started in Wuhan or elsewhere and got amplified in the city. He is apprehensive about finding patient zero, but hopes to get some answers about how the virus initially spread out.

The 13 members of the investigation team have been quarantined in a hotel. After

a two-week quarantine, they will visit the wholesale meat market in Wuhan from where the virus is believed to have spread (as heavily propagandized by the CCP). Dwyer also wants to visit the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab that some say is the real origin of the virus, as well as hospitals that treated the first set of patients.

Meanwhile, some Chinese citizens are critical of the WHO visit, saying that the investigation team is too late and will not find anything useful. “WHO is just a figurehead in my eyes — a tool, to put it bluntly. It is now looking for the source of the virus, and the first anniversary of the outbreak has passed, and all (evidence) is gone… The local governments have never admitted to concealing information

Mexico: President Obrador Preparing for Global Action Against Big Tech Censorship

By Prakash Gogoi

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ikening big tech to the Spanish Inquisition, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has announced that he will spearhead a global fight against big tech censorship by online giants. The announcement comes after major American tech platforms like Facebook and Twitter banned the account of President Donald Trump, triggering concerns worldwide that free speech would be curtailed and dictated by tech behemoths.

Obrador revealed that he is already contacting various governments around the world to take action on the issue.

“I can tell you that at the first G20 meeting we have, I am going to make a proposal on this issue… Yes, social media should not be used to ny@visiontimes.com

incite violence and all that, but this cannot be used as a pretext to suspend freedom of expression… How can a company act as if it was all-powerful, omnipotent, as a sort of Spanish Inquisition on what is expressed?” Obrador said to Associated Press.

Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretary, revealed that they have already received responses from officials in the EU, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

President Obrador has instructed the drawing up of a joint proposal to curb big tech censorship. Obrador also asked his Facebook followers to switch to Telegram.

Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, pointed out that the tech companies are underestimating the influence Trump has among overseas governments

and other influential foreigners. He predicts that targeted censorship by companies like Facebook and Twitter will drive users towards newer platforms and that in a few years these companies will be complaining about how they destroyed their business model, eradicating billions of dollars’ worth of shareholder wealth. The shares of Facebook and Twitter have already taken a combined plummet of $51 billion dollars in market value in the course of only two trading sessions, that is, two days.

Faced with this loss of value, Facebook and Twitter don’t seem to be flinching, which makes one wonder: Could their moves have been incentivized in some way, or was pressure somehow irresistible? In light of the plummeting value and the questions this raises, various state govern-

ments in the U.S. are swiftly moving to divest their funds away from these tech firms.

Notably, the administrations of Florida and Tennessee are exploring ways to get rid of all debt and equity they hold in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet.

In Poland, the ban on Trump has triggered the government to speed up a proposed law to counter big tech censorship. The plan is to create a Free Speech Board that will be composed of five people selected by the parliament through a three-fifths majority. Each of them will have sixyear terms. Social media users can approach the Free Speech Board in the event of any platform unjustly banning content or deleting their account. If it is found that the tech company took action against the

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Obrador wants to lead a global fight against tech censorship. (wikimedia commons / CC0 2.0)

user for speech that is considered legal according to Polish law, the firm can be fined up to 50 million zloty (approx. $13.3 million).

Zbigniew Ziobro, the Polish Minister of Justice, noted that the function of the Free Speech Board will be to prevent censorship by social networks and not to act like censors themselves. “Polish citizens, while carrying out such discussions and debates on the internet… should have a guarantee of their basic rights that ensure

Development Co., owned by the Jilin government, proposed a project construction period from 2015 to 2017 in a Chinese project site in North Korea, which would be funded by the Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The document stated the agriculture project to be an “aid to the North Korean government,” and had an investment of 9.97 million yuan (about $1.5 million) from China. The document supported this by pointing out North Korea’s rice, corn, and vegetable production being hindered by its lagging production technology as well its lack of agricultural machinery and details.

North Korea was willing to provide construction land and experimental land free of charge, handle Chinese worker immigration processes and land permit procedures, and provide Chinese workers with office space and accommodation, the company said.

about the outbreak. The WHO definitely won’t be able to find out anything, so that the officials will have more reasons and excuses not to admit that they concealed information [about the virus], which killed many,” Zhang Hai, a Wuhan resident whose father died from the CCP Virus, said to The Epoch Times.

In June last year, Zhang filed a lawsuit against three government entities — the Wuhan city government, the General Hospital of Central Theater Command in Wuhan, and the Hubei provincial government.

The lawsuit alleged that the government’s decision to cover up details of the viral outbreak caused his father’s death and sought compensation of 2 million yuan ($286,730).

The Wuhan municipal court rejected his lawsuit.

When Zhang filed a new lawsuit at Hubei Higher Court, it was again rejected. Finally, he filed a civil complaint in the Supreme Court in Beijing, but has yet to receive a response.

Zhang’s father was a military veteran.

the respect for their civil rights and freedoms that the Polish constitution guarantees to them,” he said in a statement.

Notably, Poland was the first European country to break from Communism and has held fast to freedoms necessary for a healthy representative democracy. Ziobro’s statement also emphasized: “The freedom of speech and freedom of debate is the essence of democracy; there is no democracy if the state does not guarantee freedom in these two areas….”

In Trump’s view, the big tech censoring tactics are a move that will only end up angering more Americans. The president noted that he has been warning about the threat of big tech censors for a long time but wasn’t taken seriously, and now they have banned his accounts. He feels that conservatives are getting increasingly enraged at the biased way in which the mostly Silicon Valley-based companies are censoring content.

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In Silencing Conservative Voices, Big Tech Takes the Chinese Communist Path

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POINTS

By Vision Times staff

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ormer U.S. United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley denounced widespread censorship of President Donald Trump and other conservative figures in a tweet on Friday saying that silencing voices are what happens in Communist China, not in America.

Haley, who served as Governor of South Carolina from 2010 to 2017 before resigning to take on the role of Ambassador, was referring to Trump being permanently banned from Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Instagram and Snapchat in the last several days as Big Tech has used the opportunity of the Jan. 6 Capitol Building riots as a pretext to implement Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-style censorship in the name of preventing “incitement of violence”.

The former Ambassador said in a follow up Tweet 18 hours later, “There are no excuses or defense for this moment.

There is only one way for wa rd.

Those who broke the law must be punished. We must condemn those responsible.

We must recommit ourselves to upholding our American ideals.

And we must all promise: We will never let this happen again.”

Hayley did not follow the trend of blaming Donald Trump for what transpired.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed Haley’s concerns on Jan. 9, posting from his personal Twitter account, saying “We cannot let them silence 75M Americans.

This isn’t the CCP.” Learning from the Chinese Communist Party Twitter cited two Jan. 8 Tweets by the President as jus-

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JAN 22-28, 2021 |

tification for censorship.

The first, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” and the second, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Twitter has truly taken a page out of the Communist propagandist playbook, using what they call their “Glorification of Violence” policy to twist Trump’s tweet about not attending the Jan. 20 inauguration into an instruction for his voters to attack the inauguration because he will not be present.

Twitter further claims the term “American Patriots” is to be “interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.”

The social media giant also conflates Trump’s remarks that his nearly 75 million voters, a record turnout for an incumbent President, will have a “GIANT VOICE long into the future,” is “being interpreted” by Twitter that “President Trump does not plan to facilitate an ‘orderly transition’ and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.”

The United States Census Bureau, the Current Population Survey found 153.1 million eligible voters. According to the vote results reported by Associated Press, 157,373,102 votes were cast between Biden, Trump, and Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgenson.

In criticizing Trump’s support for the 75 million people who voted for him, Twitter has effectively alienated nearly 50 percent of the nation’s eligible voters.

But Twitter goes one step further, claiming that further violence is already being organized by Trump supporters, “Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

No evidence is provided and no connection to Trump is offered by Twitter in this accusation.

By contrast, Twitter has never taken any action against CCP Department of Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijan for his Nov. 29 Tweet of a photoshopped propaganda piece depicting an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghani child, despite enormous pushback from all levels of the Australian government.

Twitter also does not censor dictators from Iran, Venezuela, or any of the CCP’s official accounts.

On May 11, Twitter imported Beijing influence when they appointed Dr. Li Feifei to the Board of Directors.

Li was

A comparison of available federal funding versus funding offered by Mark Zuckerberg’s charity, the Centre for Tech and Civic Life, to run the 2020 Presidential Election at the Dec.16 Amistad Project press conference on election funding by Facebook’s founder. Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin accepted CTCL funds under contract with clawback provisions despite available federal funding being greater. (Source: NTD)

former Vice President and Chief Artificial Intelligence scientist at Google Cloud. She tied Google with Tsinghua University, China’s top AI institute and was named by CCP thinktank Center for China and Globalization as “among the 50 most successful Chinese who have studied abroad”.

Tsinghua’s AI operation received over 100 million yuan from the CCP’s Science and Technology Committee of China’s Central Military Commission.

A week after Li was appointed, Chinese Twitter user Caijinglenyan was removed under allegations that they posted under multiple accounts. One of the user’s posts before removal was “Li Fei-Fei is coming, I have to run.”

Twitter’s actions seem to be cut from the same cloth as Beijing’s campaign to silence voices in its own country. In October, leaked documents showed the CCP using a targeted campaign to silence social media influencers on Chinese platforms who dissented against the Party’s official narrative as part of a campaign to “crackdown” on internet rumors”.

The ‘virulent strain’ of Chinese communist censorship Last July, on the 99th anniversary of the CCP’s founding, Pompeo spoke of the Party’s attempts to spread a “virulent strain of communism” worldwide. Today, the outgoing state secretary’s words are proving more prophetic than most would have expected.

It’s not enough for Twitter to drive users off its platform. After all, there are alternatives.

Like in the Eastern communist dictatorships, the aim of this brave new world of censorship appears to be to crush all dissenting voices. Apple and Google have flexed the might of their monopolies on the mobile app market by requiring Twitter competitor Parler to self-censor and enact policies and ideologies on freedom of speech the twin tech giants approve of, unless Parler wishes to be removed from the App Store and Google Play permanently.

Parler is currently unavailable through the Play Store, affecting all Android users. Parler was also removed from the Apple App Store on Saturday for not complying with

censorship demands, while Amazon has denied Parler service effective midnight Jan. 10.

“We were too successful too fast.

You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out,” said CEO John Matze in a statement.

Yet, the problem with the entire argument justifying censorship is simply that there is no basis in reality that Donald Trump incited violence during the Jan. 6 Joint Session.

Mark Zuckerberg virtue-signaled in a self righteous monologue that “[Trump]’s decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building” had supposedly “rightly disturbed” people.

But what Trump said in a video after the rioting broke out is entirely different from the spin Zuckerberg is selling, “We have to have peace. We have to have law and order and we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt.”

But according to “Zuck” when it comes to a President the left couldn’t possibly be more biased towards, what Trump actually said doesn’t matter because “we judged that their effect -- and likely their intent [emphasis added] -would be to provoke further violence.”

Zuckerberg’s statements constitute an opinion, and perhaps more accurately, a conjecture. This is the same Mark Zuckerberg who “donated” $500 million to election officials, more than the federal government itself contributed to the 2020 Election, through his charity the Centre for Tech and Civic Life to run the 2020 Presidential Election in the way

A7

that he liked.

The donations were provided under contract with explicit “clawback” provisions requiring the cities who received money from the charity to pay back all of what was given unless stipulations on how elections were conducted were followed.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Tweeted on Friday that he is “more determined than ever to strip Section 230 protections from Big Tech (Twitter) that let them be immune from lawsuits.”

Hollow pretexts Moreover, the rioting at the Capitol building not only is much more consistent with agents provocateurs than Trump’s demographic, but the Associated Press revealed that D.C. Police rejected the National Guard’s assistance on Jan. 3 and the FBI’s assistance on Jan. 6.

Donald Trump himself ordered the National Guard to the Capitol, and shortly before curfew was enacted at 6:00 p.m, a contingent of the National Guard arrived on the scene, formed a phalanx of tower riot shields, and pushed the protestors away from the Capitol building.

The violence, which Big Tech condemns with such sanctimonious conviction, appears to have not only been instigated by leftists, but was allowed

by Capitol Police. The only thing that supposedly made the rioters Donald Trump’s supporters is that they put on MAGA hats and were present among the nearly half a million other people who attended the protest.

Whatever the exact circumstances of what happened in the afternoon at the Capitol, responsibility for the lives of the four rioters and one police officer who were killed during the event lies with those who orchestrated and allowed the riots to happen, rather than with Donald Trump.

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A8 | JAN 22-28, 2021

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7 A

Amazing Psychological Ways Our Brains Are Affected

human brain is one of the most sophisticated machines on the planet against which even a supercomputer is no match. However, our brains are affected by psychological phenomena that can fool us into a certain way of thinking or condition we may not have thought of.

1. The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

“Baader-Meinhof is the phenomenon where one stumbles upon some obscure piece of information — often an unfamiliar word or name — and soon afterward encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly,” according to Damn Interesting. For instance, you might see a new style of handbag on your way back home from work.

Starting tomorrow, you might see it everywhere, in a newspaper ad, on a billboard, while scrolling through social media, in the hands

of a passenger in the metro, with a lady who is paying the bill at a coffee shop, and so on. The fact that you saw something new recently apparently makes your brain more alert to notice it the next time it comes across.

2.The Pratfall Effect

Though we are asked to be perfect, the reality seems to be that people usually like individuals who are imperfect.

This is the result of the Pratfall Effect, which posits that those who make mistakes are perceived as more likable than those who never commit any mistakes.

When this was tested out on subjects who heard recordings of a quiz, the theory was confirmed.

Some of the recordings included the sound of a person knocking over a coffee cup while answering the question.

The subjects rated them as highly likable, above other people who never made a sound.

3. The Paris Syndrome

Some tourists who visit Paris often end up with the Paris Syndrome. This mostly happens with Japanese tourists who experience delusions, paranoia, nausea, hallucinations, etc., when they visit Paris for the first time.

“French psychiatrists speculate that about 20 Japanese tourists a year suffer these symptoms because the reality of Paris (a normal, bustling big city with normal-looking people) diverges radically from the romantic Paris portrayed in Japanese media, in which all Parisians are pencil-thin fashion models, and the very air of Paris is suffused with magic,” according to Psychology Today.

4. The Choice Paradox

Sometimes, we have to choose from several options. Even if we make the correct decision, we might end up feeling unhappy about it. This is the paradox of choice. This concerns every type of decision, whether it is about career, life, shopping, and so on. The more options we have and the more effort we have to put in to make a choice, the more our happiness from the decision declines.

5. The Pygmalion Effect

The Pygmalion Effect says that when you expect something to happen with all your heart, it is likely to happen. This was tested out in a classroom setting by psychologist Robert Rosenthal.

“At the beginning of the year, all the students took an assessment test, and Rosenthal led the teachers to believe that certain students were capable of great academic achievement. Rosenthal chose these students at random, regardless of the actual results of the IQ tests. At the end of the year, when the students were retested, the group of earmarked high achievers did indeed show improvement over their peers,” according to Buffer.

The teachers apparently got so influenced by Rosenthal’s suggestions that they subconsciously ended up giving greater attention, opportunities, and feedback to the selected students.

6. Blindsight

When the visual cortex of the brain gets damaged, a person becomes completely blind. However, such people also experience a unique phenomenon called “blindsight.” Such people might walk across the room or cross over multiple obstacles casually as if they had eyes.

They might even catch a ball tossed at them. It is speculated that this is a primitive form of vision usually seen in animals that lack a visual cortex.

7. The Uncanny Valley Hypothesis

People might be happy to see a robot that roughly resembles a human being.

Beyond a certain point of human similarity, people start feeling revulsion. But once the robot is almost indistinguishable from real humans, people end up feeling empathy for the robot. The phase where the robot’s motion and appearance are between “barely human” and “fully human” is called the uncanny valley. People tend to find such robots in the “uncanny valley” strange and eerie.

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JAN 22-28, 2021 |

A9

Health & Beauty Hacks With

Mint M

any people think that the use of mint is limited to things like food flavoring or mouth fresheners. Just half an ounce of mint contains 12 percent of the recommended dietary intake (RDI) of Vitamin A, 8 percent of the RDI of manganese, 9 percent of the RDI of iron, and 4 percent of the RDI of folate. It is also an excellent source of antioxidants.

Health benefits Mint leaves and oil have a positive effect on the brain.

A study that looked into the effects of smelling mint oil found that it increased alertness while driving. “Peppermint administration led to increased ratings of alertness, decreased temporal demand, and decreased frustration over the course of the driving scenario. In addition, peppermint scent reduced anxiety and fatigue,” the abstract of the study states. Another study that looked at 144 adults found that smelling peppermint oil for about 5 minutes before testing resulted in an improvement in memory.Women who breastfeed infants often experience cracked and sore nipples. This can make the breastfeeding process a difficult and painful experience. Applying mint to the nipples can help relieve such problems. A study found that only 3.8 percent

of the participating mothers who had applied peppermint gel experienced cracks in the nipples in contrast to 6.9 percent of women who used lanolin. The chances of pain and intensity of the cracks decrease when women apply menthol essential oil to their breasts after every feeding.

You can also use mint for indigestion.

One study found that “peppermint oil enhances gastric emptying, suggesting the potential use of peppermint oil in clinical settings for patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders.” Another clinical study discovered that peppermint oil together with caraway oil in capsule form affected indigestion in the same way that existing medications do. The menthol found in peppermint oil also helps alleviate symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) by relaxing the muscles of the digestive tract. A study that tracked people who took

When people were given peppermint oil to smell, they became more alert and had improved memory.

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peppermint oil for four weeks found that 75 percent of them saw an improvement in IBS symptoms.

Benefits for the skin Having dull skin can be quite disheartening. But there is an easy remedy for it — mint. The leaves lock moisture inside the skin by tightening the pores.

As such, the skin looks glowing and smooth. The antioxidants also help in rejuvenating the skin and diminishing the signs of aging. Just make a paste of mint leaves and some banana, apply it on your face, leave it for about 20 minutes, and wash it off.

Breakouts and blackheads can ruin even the healthiest, most beautiful of faces. Breakouts are due to dead skin cells, bacteria, and excess oil. Create a face pack using mint leaves, rose water, and honey.

Wash it off after 15 minutes of applying. Do this about twice a week and you should see the breakouts minimized. Blackheads occur when pores of the skin are clogged by dirt particles and excess oil. Mint can unclog these pores, remove the dirt, and tighten them.

Prepare a mixture of mint, milk, honey, and oats. Use the paste to scrub your face for about two to three minutes on a daily basis.

Dark circles under the eyes can be caused by a myriad of factors, like too much exposure to sunlight, lack of sleep, genetics, dehydration, etc.

Whatever the cause, getting rid of them is necessary in order to have a healthy-looking face. And all you need for it is some mint and cucumber juice.

Mix both, apply to the affected area, and let it sit for about 15 minutes before washing it off.

Do this three times a week and you should see the dark circles diminish.

When people were given peppermint oil to smell, they became more alert and had improved memory.ADOBE STOCK

Taking Good Care of Your Houseplants Have you decided to buy a houseplant for your home?

If so, do you know how to take good care of it? Without proper care, your houseplants can wither and die off quickly. To avoid this, some basic knowledge of plant care is necessary.

Overwatering Houseplants need timely and proper watering to grow and thrive. You should ideally wet the entire root ball and allow the extra water to settle at the bottom of the pot. Unfortunately, many

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people end up overwatering their plants. “Nine times out of 10, it’s better to underwater than to overwater… Overwatering is one of the easiest ways to kill a houseplant. You may be tempted to water your plants on a strict schedule, but the best bet is to only water when needed. Always check the soil before watering. If it’s still moist, wait to water,” Eliza Blank, founder of The Sill, said to Glamour.

You can identify whether you are overwatering or underwatering the plant by checking the color of the

leaves. If you overwater the plant, the leaves will turn yellow. Reduce the watering for a week and let the plant dry out. This should bring the color of the leaves back to normal. If you underwater the plant, you will see that the leaves have become brownish in color, especially at the tips.

Increase the water provided to the plant until its color returns to normal.

Location and light A simple rule of thumb is that plants love direct sunlight. Just check the label on the plant and

you should find what its light requirements are. If the label mentions that the plant needs high amounts of light, place it near a sunny window facing southwest or south. For low light plants, dark rooms and northfacing windows are ideal. If the plant needs medium or indirect light, place it on windows facing the east. If the plant gets too much sunlight, the foliage will turn yellowish and the leaves might start to wilt. In contrast, plants that have received little sunlight will get leggy, meaning that the stem or petioles can become abnormally long.

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Humidity Houseplants generally tend to like humidity, especially if the indoor air is dry. You can increase the humidity by grouping multiple plants together, misting the plant with water, or by using a humidifier.

You can also place plants on a tray filled with pebbles and water. As far as possible, keep the plants away from doorways, vents, and drafty windows.

During winter, indoor humidity can drop significantly. It is better to place the plants in the kitchen or a humid bathroom during such times. When winter passes and spring arrives, you can move the plant back to its original location.

Temperature On average, people tend to buy tropical plants as houseplants. Hence, it is critical that such conditions are maintained in the room where the plants are located. The temperature during daytime should ideally be 65°F to 75°F. During the night, reduce the temperature by about 10 degrees.

However, night temperature should not fall below 55°F or the plant will start to suffer. Make sure that houseplants are kept away from fireplaces, heat registers, and so on. The room should not experience sudden or frequent temperature changes.

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FEATURE

A10 | JAN 22-28, 2021

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The Goodness of Perseverance

By Tatiana Denning

T

he dictionary definition of perseverance lets us know that it is continued effort; to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition; the action or condition or an instance of persevering; steadfastness.

Perseverance. It’s not something you are really taught, and sometimes you are not even sure if you have it — until you are called upon to dig deep and find it.

For me, one of those times I needed to dig deep was during my medical training. Before starting medical school, I knew it would be tough, but little did I know just how tough. Between medical school, internship, and residency, I endured things that I would have previously said I could not.

Medical training required sacrificing time with family, being on duty for long days and late nights — and even nights with no sleep at all. It required learning and regurgitating massive amounts of information with a sleepdeprived brain, working while having pneumonia so as not to burden others with my responsibilities, being humiliated and yelled at by residents and attendants, and being threatened by patients “who knew people.”

Training in inner-city Philadelphia meant that murders, stabbings, robberies, and drug overdoses were the norm. There was even a bombing at the 7-Eleven down the street. Security was frequently called on to deal with belligerent patients, or walk us to our cars when our shifts were over.

Most days during my internship, I was too busy to even take a two-minute bathroom break, let alone stop for food or water. With the motto of “see one, do one, teach one,” I had to learn, on the spot, how to inject, poke and prod patients by day, while by night, I had to learn, with only one other equally scared intern, how to manage a floor full of ill patients. My program was known to be hardcore, and this was part of being “thrown into the fire,” as they called it.

While going through it all, there were times when I questioned if I could make it. But I didn’t let my mind think too much about it. I just did what I had to do.

Looking back, I’m not even

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sure how I did it. The important thing is, somehow I did it. I don’t attribute it to being intelligent or book-smart, to being savvy or having common sense, or to any special gift.

I attribute it to perseverance.

What perseverance is not Psychologist Angela Duckworth, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, likens perseverance to grit. Grit, she says, is “passion and perseverance for long-term goals.”

Let’s first consider what perseverance, or grit, is not.

Duckworth says: “Grit isn’t talent. Grit isn’t luck. Grit isn’t how intensely, for the moment, you want something.”

It’s not impulsivity, or laziness, or complacency, and it’s not being afraid of failure or rejection. It’s not being stopped by uncertainty or what you don’t know, and it’s not being hampered by hardship.

What is perseverance It’s said that perseverance is one of the greatest attributes a person can possess.

In fact, religions tout their virtue. The Bible says: “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4), while the Buddha declared: “Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it’s to the one who endures that the final victory comes.”

Perseverance, or grit, implies a certain ruggedness, a mental toughness, and an ability to suffer and endure the most difficult of hardships. It’s the ability to get up, brush yourself off, and find a path forward, despite what the naysayers may say, and even what our own minds may say.

It’s a belief that sometimes defies logic and reason — a lesson Jedi Master Yoda teaches young Luke Skywalker in the iconic Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back.

To demonstrate the error in Luke’s thinking, Yoda telekinetically lifts Luke’s starship from a murky swamp.

Luke, who believed his ship was hopelessly lost, exclaims: “I don’t believe it!”

“That is why you fail,” replies Yoda.

nal of Abnormal Psychology, which followed thousands of Americans over an 18-year period, found that those who had higher levels of perseverance and optimism had less depression and anxiety than their counterparts.

Nur Hani Zainal, the lead author of the study, told Science Daily: “Perseverance cultivates a sense of purposefulness that can create resilience against or decrease current levels of major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder.

“Our findings suggest that people can improve their mental health by raising or maintaining high levels of tenacity, resilience, and optimism.”

Perseverance can also help you stick to healthy routines, such as eating a good diet or exercising. And while even those who are determined may fall off the track, they can pick themselves up and get back to business.

Garden harvest of fresh vegetables in a basket.

People who are determined are also more likely to push through pain or other challenging health problems and still achieve their goals.

Drawing inspiration from others We learn the skill of perseverance through practicing it and through watching others demonstrate determined behavior.

In fact, the best way to instill persistence in our children may be to model it ourselves.

A study in Science looking at 15-month-old infants discovered that “seeing just two examples of an adult working hard to achieve her goals can lead infants to work harder at a novel task relative to infants who see an adult succeed effortlessly.”

Not only can you draw inspiration to persevere from direct observation, but you can also draw it from the stories of others.

For example, Henry Ford experienced multiple failed business attempts, resulting in five bankruptcies, before finally finding success with the Ford Motor Company, while Thomas Edison failed over 10,000 times before finally inventing the light bulb.

Of course, in Edison’s view, he had not failed 10,000 times, but rather proven 10,000 ways his invention wouldn’t work, before finally discovering the one that would. He viewed his numerous attempts as stepping stones, famously saying: “Many of life’s failures are people who

“Perseverance is trusting in the face of uncertainty and seemingly insurmountable odds.”

It’s good for your health Not only does perseverance help you achieve your goals, it also improves your health. A study published in the Jour-

did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

President Abraham Lincoln showed undaunted perseverance during his lifetime, losing elections eight times before becoming president of the United States. The Biblical figure Job went from prosperity to suffering unimaginable hardships, which he endured thanks only to his unwavering faith and perseverance. And I recently wrote an article on family friend Larry Cluff, who has shown tremendous determination in the face of living with brain cancer.

Our first president, George Washington, was known for uncommon valor and his dogged determination to see the American experiment succeed. The Revolutionary War was marked by setbacks on and off the field, but his tireless efforts to train and lead the Continental Army led to success over what was commonly held to be the superior forces of Great Britain.

Even nature offers lessons in perseverance, whether it be the slow drip of mineral-rich water over centuries to form stalagmites and stalactites, the emergence of a sprout of pale green grass after a forest fire, or the slow formation of a diamond from a piece of coal due to nothing more than pressure and time.

In the words of our 30th president, Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence…

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race.”

Perseverance in action They say that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

When you persevere, you develop the capacity to face and endure life’s challenges.

Like all things, the more you do it, the better you get.

So what are some ways we can strengthen our perseverance?

First, you need to know your core values. By having a strong moral compass, composed of honesty, integrity, and ethical behavior, you will be filled with the conviction needed to help persevere in the face of hardship. When your starting point is upright, you can better develop an uncompromising resolve and ability to look at the big picture, always reminding your-

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self of what matters most.

Next, take action, even if it’s just a small step. You can then use small victories as well as past successes to strengthen your resolve.

It’s also important not to overthink things. I know I’ve sometimes suffered from “analysis paralysis,” something that can lead to your mind defeating you. Remember, you don’t have to believe everything you think. If your thoughts aren’t aligning with who you want to be, you should work to eliminate and replace them.

Being consistent and keeping a schedule also helps, rather than doing things only when you feel motivated.

This requires self-control and resisting temptation despite what you may think you want at the moment.

You must also face your fears and push through them.

While your first instinct may be to run away, how will you ever learn to overcome fear if you strive to avoid it? Staying optimistic in the face of fear and hardship, while learning from the negative and working to improve yourself, is also important. This is where selfreflection is critical.

One thing you should never do is become trapped in discouragement. You must manage your frustrations and worries, and control your thoughts and actions. It’s also important that you take responsibility for your actions; otherwise, you will feel detached rather than truly invested, making perseverance impossible.

Reflecting back and looking ahead Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my hardships taught me not only how to persevere, but that I can persevere.

As difficult as things may get, I’m grateful for the lessons.

My hardships have tempered me, strengthened me, and helped mold me into a better person.

I draw inspiration from the founders of our great nation, who endured incredible hardship and exhibited tremendous perseverance.

They held an unshakable belief in their cause — because theirs was a cause based on not only strong moral convictions, but a deeply held faith in our country and, more importantly, our Creator.

May you show the same courage and unwavering determination to do what’s right and hold on even when we think you cannot. May you never lose hope — even in the face of overwhelming difficulties.

As you enter a new year and reflect upon where you would like to improve, making perseverance a regular part of your life would serve us well, and make for a great New Year’s resolution.

Let us end with some inspiration from a snippet of Rudyard Kipling’s poem If, which is full of wisdom.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

That’s perseverance.

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Arts & Culture

www.VisionTimes.com

JAN 22-28, 2021 |

A11

Su Shi,

the Ancient Poet Who Put the People First Translation by Lucile Guo

O

ne of the greatest literati of ancient China, the ancient poet Su Shi (蘇軾), also known by his alias Su Dongpo (蘇東坡), was not just an accomplished man of letters, but also a dedicated and decisive leader.

Su Shi (pronounced roughly “soo shrr,” not “sushi”), lived in the 1000s, during the Northern Song Dynasty.

His poetry, calligraphy, prose, painting, and other works have a unique place in the long river of Chinese culture.

In addition to his extraordinary literary achievements, Su Shi was a wise and decisive imperial official. He often took it upon himself to aid the people in times of hardship or disaster.

An example of this is when Shu Shi had just been transferred to the city of Xuzhou, in eastern China. Floods from the Yellow River were approaching the city, having breached the riverbank in Cao village. Facing the flood, Su Shi built a small thatched hut atop the Xuzhou city walls so that he could better observe the disaster and make decisions.

Su Shi said: “The survival or demise of the country depends on its morality, not its strength. The longevity of a dynasty lies in the respect they have for their traditions, not whether they are wealthy or poor.”

The water rose higher and higher up the city walls, and it soon seemed they might collapse at any moment. The wealthy residents of Xuzhou hurried to leave the city. But Su Shi said: “If the rich leave, it will demoralize everyone in the city. As long as I am here, the flood will never destroy the city wall.” Seeing that the prefect did not waver, the wealthy returned to Xuzhou.

Su Shi then called up the army. When he arrived at the military base, he told the commanding officer: “The overflowing river is about to bring down the city wall. The situation is urgent. Although you are imperial guards [responsible for national, rather than local defense], please do your best to help.”

The officer responded: “The flood is coming, but not even the prefect is afraid, so what do

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we have to be afraid of?” And so the generals led the soldiers out with scoops and shovels to build dikes and erect dams.

Living out of his little hut, Su Shi directed flood control efforts day and night, never returning to his main residence even when passing by as part of his work.

Torrential rain poured down constantly, and at times, the city wall barely remained above water.

Under the example set by Su Shi’s leadership, the army and the people of Xuzhou worked together, finally diverting the flood and saving the city.

When the floods died down, Su Shi attended to unrest throughout Xuzhou and had wooden revetments erected to help mitigate future flooding.

Enforcing discipline and the law Su Shi also applied the law strictly to enforce fallen standards of military discipline. After Emperor Zhezong assumed the throne in 1085, Su Shi requested a job as magistrate and was sent to Dingzhou, an area on the border with the Khitan Liao empire.

In Dingzhou, both civil and military officials were corrupt; the law was nonexistent. The military academy cannibalized the soldiers’ rations and bonuses, the soldiers were arrogant and disobedient, and the old magistrate did not dare to do anything to bring them into line.

Upon his arrival in the region, Su Shi took a series of measures to rectify this sorry state of affairs. He appointed corrupt officers to new positions where they would have fewer opportunities to commit their malfeasance, renovated the barracks, and cleaned up the military culture. He prohibited drinking and gambling, saw to it that the clothes and rations for the sergeants would not be seized, and used various other means to restrain the soldiers’ conduct.

However, those in the military establishment were frightened by Su’s actions. A number of soldiers raised complaints about their commander. The unrest caused concern among the officers. Su Shi said: “Let me handle this personally. Letting you file a complaint would cause chaos in the army.” The

commander was immediately published with exile, and the atmosphere in the military returned to normal.

Then came time for the spring review of the troops.

However, the military bureaucrats had long let the ranking protocol fall into disuse. Seeing their organization in this state, Su Shi ordered that the old ranks be reinstated, and that the inspection ceremony be carried out with all officers and men wearing uniforms according to the proper hierarchy.

A poet of the people Su Shi was a man of the people and took hardship with joy.

Although he was frequently reassigned to new locations during his career, he never complained and fulfilled his duties the best he could no matter where he was.

While stationed in Hangzhou of eastern China, the city faced a three-in-one disaster: drought, famine, and plague at the same time.

Su Shi restored and improved on the infrastructure around the West Lake (Xi Hu), bringing prosperity to the people of Hangzhou.

Su Shi allocated 2,000 taels of silver from the public surplus and allocated 50 taels of his own gold to set up a charity hospital, which treated the impoverished and needy. In the spring of the next year, he sold rice at a reduced price, had porridge and soup prepared, and sent officials to take doctors to the neighborhood to treat the sick. Many people’s lives were saved through this timely aid and the plague receded.

Hangzhou f irst became a metropolis in the Song Dynasty. But prior to this time, the area was considered remote and backward. Because of its coastal location, the spring water

was turbid and saline. Starting in the Tang Dynasty (the empire preceding the Song), local administrators had dug wells and drawn fresh water by dredging the West Lake. The efforts of Bai Juyi, an official and also a renowned poet of the Tang, to link the lake with the Grand Canal had paid off and allowed agriculture in the area to thrive.

However, constant dredging of the West Lake was necessary to maintain the supply of water for irrigation. After the chaos following the end of the Tang empire, there was no one to do the dredging. Both the lake itself and the connecting canals were covered in aquatic weeds and mud. The wells were also clogged due to lack of maintenance.

Knowing that the lake was the key to solving the drought and by extension end hunger, Su Shi had two canals dug and a 12-mile-long embankment constructed to retain the lakewater and increase its depth.

The wells were re-drilled, and the West Lake embankment also served as a convenient avenue for traffic. It became known as the “Lord Su Causeway.”

The weeds were eradicated by a simple and productive

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solution: Su Shi had farmers cultivate water chestnuts on the surface of the lake, blocking sunlight from the underwater weeds and halting their growth.

While an effective leader who knew how to get things done, Su Shi was not adept at political maneuvering and typically lost out amidst the intrigues of the Song imperial court. The great poet was exiled from Hangzhou.

But 20 years later, when Su Shi returned to the city, he found that the people of Hangzhou had his portrait hanging in almost every home. Some

people built a shrine to honor his deeds and show their gratitude. Su remained modest, saying that he had merely done his job as a magistrate.

Su Shi said: “The survival or demise of the country depends on its morality, not its strength. The longevity of a dynasty lies in the respect they have for their traditions, not whether they are wealthy or poor.”

Throughout his life, Su Shi met with setbacks and political misfortune, but never gave up on the principles of true and good governance.

He validated these principles with his actions, and expressed them with his verses.

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Arts & Culture

A12 | JAN 22-28, 2021

www.VisionTimes.com ADOBESTOCK

Invented sometime around 1700, the piano quickly became one of the most popular instruments in the world. During the last few hundred years, several masters have also emerged, enthralling people with their mastery over the piano.

Here are five such legendary piano players.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Ludwig van Beethoven

Vladimir Horowitz

(1756 – 1791)

(1770 – 1827)

(1903-1989)

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Arguably the single most influential pianist in history, Mozart was born in Austria and began creating music from the very young age of just 5 years old.

His sister described young Mozart’s ability to play the piano as “faultless and with the greatest delicacy,” which indicates that he was probably born with an innate sense of music. Throughout his short life that spanned 35 years, Mozart composed over 600 works, many of which are considered some of the greatest classical works in the world. Some of his best compositions include “Overture” from The Marriage Of Figaro — K492, Symphony No. 41 In C — K551, and Requiem Mass In D minor – K626.

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This German pianist ranks right up there with Mozart as one of the greatest classical composers. Just like Mozart, Beethoven’s musical talents emerged from an early age. Beethoven is specifically admired for the way he used legato as well as the singing tone he could produce.

One of his contemporaries, Carl Ludwig Junker, noted that Beethoven’s playing style was so different from what others used in those times that it seemed as if he had blazed a new path in playing piano all by himself. Unfortunately, we do not have any recordings of his performances. However, he has left behind an impressive collection of works that continue to enthrall piano enthusiasts even today.

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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Martha Argerich (1941-present)

Horowitz was a Russian born American composer hailed as one of the greatest musicians in America. His style was said to trigger excitement in audiences, especially when he performed Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. One of the standout features of Horowitz is that he never mimicked the scores of great composers’ works.

Instead, he altered the scores in order to make the music sound more pianistic. Well known for his excellent dynamic range, Horowitz could play the piano astonishingly fast. Some of his most popular performances were of the music

by Rachmaninov, Schumann, and Chopin.

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The most famous pianist from Poland, the majority of Chopin’s works are for solo piano. Polish folk music had a great influence on his style.

Much of his piano works are quite demanding technically.

His performances were notable for the sensitive way of playing the instrument. “One may say that Chopin is the creator of a school of piano and a school of composition. In truth, nothing equals the lightness, the sweetness with which the composer preludes on the piano; moreover, nothing may be compared to his works full of originality, distinction, and grace,” one of his contemporaries said, according to Classic FM. Like Mozart, he died quite early at the age of just 39 due to a medical condition called pericarditis.

Born in Argentina, Argerich is considered by some as the best among piano players living today.

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She started playing the piano while only 3 years old and ended up performing her first piano concert around the age of 8. After she won the International Chopin Piano Competition in 1965, Argerich’s fame rose rather quickly. She is the president of the International Piano Academy Lake Como. Since she does not like much public attention, Argerich has always stayed away from the press and avoided the spotlight. Diagnosed with cancer in 1990, Argerich is currently cancer-free.

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