Vision Times Newspaper VOL.5 FEB 5,2021

FEB 5 - 11,

2021

VISION TIMES

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Why the CCP Wants Your DNA

By Steven Li

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ast year, China publicly declared plans to expand its global DNA database. According to state propaganda organ Xinhua, at the 15th G20 Leaders’ Summit on November 21, 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said,“We need to further harmonize policies and standards and establish ‘fast tracks’ to facilitate the orderly flow of personnel. China has proposed a global mechanism on the mutual recognition of health certificates based on nucleic acid test results in the form of internationally accepted QR codes.” We hope more countries will join this mechanism.”

While Xi promotes development of technologies and global unification as a means of rising above the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus pandemic, he does not address privacy concerns and the ramifications of a widespread DNA database.

Indeed, a New York Times article revealed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been working on a genetic map of its approximately 700 million males by forcibly collecting blood samples beginning in 2014, culminating in the creation of a national database in late 2017. Authorities have targeted men and boys in particular because they “commit more crimes, statistics show,” said the Times’ article. Those that refuse blood collection are listed as a socalled “black household” and can be stripped of benefits such as the right to travel and visit a hospital. ny@visiontimes.com

A March 2020 statement from Guanwen township officials in the southwestern Sichuan Province, found by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, states that the DNA database has already been used to ramp up surveillance efforts.

The Sharp Eyes Project is a local surveillance program that encourages neighbors to report each other for suspicious activity, especially in rural areas where the presence of police and security cameras is relatively low.

Rights activists worry that genetic science will give Chinese authorities unrestricted access to genetic secrets and family connections. The data collected has already been used by a biotechnology company, Anke Bioengineering, to build a “DNA Skynet” that integrates video surveillance and big data to create a powerful policing system.

Activists are concerned that officials will go so far as to plant DNA evidence at crime scenes to unfairly frame and prosecute dissidents.

Newsweek reports that additional goals of the CCP may be to “dominate the biotech industry” by amassing genetic data and to develop “biological weapons designed to target certain ethnic groups.” Chinese state media claim that China already has the largest genetic database in the world with over 80 million profiles.

To gather this many genetic profiles, the CCP has employed a wide variety of methods.

By conducting Phase III trials of its coronavirus vaccine in Morocco and other countries, China has been able to gather DNA from participants.

To coerce countries that may

The authoritarian government of China and its leader Xi Jinping have been boldly open about their ambitions to beat the west and reap the benefits of advances in DNA science and technology. The communist regime even has a published manifesto with a catchy name... Made in China 2025.

Edward You, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI

be hesitant about joining the clinical trials, such as Nigeria and other African countries, CCP officials have privately stated that access to the vaccines may be restricted from nonparticipants.

In the United States, China has gathered genetic data by acquiring American companies, such as Complete Genomics in 2013. In September 2020, a bankrupt GNC was sold to Chinabased Harbin Pharmaceutical Group Co for $770 million. At least 23 Chineseassociated companies are accredited to perform genetic testing on United States citizens, and seek access to genetic data by working with genealogy companies such as 23andMe. Furthermore, the CCP agenda has been reinforced by efforts to prevent transfer of Chinese data to foreign countries. In May 2019, the CCP’s State Council published an order to regulate its human genetic resources, including barring

foreign entities from collecting or preserving human genetic resources in China and transferring human genetic resources abroad.

An episode of 60 Minutes on CBS News titled, “Left Behind, The Biodata Race, DNA For Sale,” aired on January 31, 2021 and reported results of an investigation into China’s efforts to collect Americans’ DNA. The largest biotechnology company in the world, BGI group, is based in China and reportedly sent letters to multiple states offering to “provide technical expertise,” provide “high throughput sequencers,” and “make additional donations” to help with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing. BGI has been involved in collecting genetic data from ethnic Uyghurs and received $1.5 billion from the Chinese government in 2010.

Sophie Richardson, director of the China program for Human Rights Watch, elabo-

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rates on how more than one million Uyghurs, Chinese citizens who are predominately Muslim, are jailed in camps and banned from worshipping or speaking in their native language. Collection of DNA and other biometric data from these minorities is “used specifically to identify people, target other family members and refine facial recognition software.”

The U.S. government has criticized these actions by the Chinese government as a crime against humanity.

Additionally, Chinese companies are obligated to share data with the CCP and are not given the same privacy protections as in the United States. The situation in China would be like companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook being required to give information to the CIA on demand. Officials in multiple states were thus suspicious of BGI’s intentions due to its close ties with the CCP, and refused to accept the offers to help with COVID19 testing.

Although the possibility of direct DNA collection from nasal swabs is uncertain, Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NSC), warned that BGI was likely attempting to establish partnerships with U.S. companies that could later be exploited.

Supervisory Special Agent Edward You, a FBI investigator with a background in biochemistry, stated, “The authoritarian government of China and its leader Xi Jinping have been boldly open about their ambitions to beat the west and reap the benefits of advances in DNA sci-

ence and technology. The communist regime even has a published manifesto with a catchy name… Made in China 2025.” China wants to dominate the biotechnology sector as a leader in development of vaccines and precision medicine.

The country with the largest dataset is most likely to win, You explains: “Think of DNA as the ultimate treasure map, a kind of doublehelixed chart containing the code for traits ranging from our eye color to our susceptibility to certain diseases. If you have 10,000 DNA samples, scientists could possibly isolate the genetic markers in the DNA associated with, say, breast cancer. But if you have 10 million samples, your statistical chances of finding the markers improve dramatically, which is why China wants to get so much of it.”

The global biotechnology sector is a booming industry with an estimated worth of up to $4 trillion per year, which is more than the valuation of Amazon and Apple combined. Given that China has made its intentions clear, the U.S. must continue to be vigilant to protect the genetic data of its citizens. While certain benefits of analyzing genetic data are overwhelmingly positive, such as the potential development of life-saving cures and treatments, the underlying truth is that private genetic data is a way for companies to profit off of consumers. In the case of the Chinese government, the combination of artificial intelligence, surveillance, and genetic data have paved the way for unprecedented persecution of dissidents.

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NATION

A2 | FEB 5 - 11 , 2021

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Infectious Disease Expert Gives Ominous Warning About

Upcoming American Pandemic Challenges

By David Wagner

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r. Michael Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He is also a member of President Biden’s COVID19 Advisory Board. Recently, he gave an ominous warning about the new strains of the coronavirus and the upcoming American pandemic.

“Expect the unexpected in the days ahead,” Osterholm proclaimed.

During a recent interview on NBC’s Meet the Press with host Chuck Todd, Osterholm was asked if we need to call an audible. Meaning, do we have to change from our original plans suddenly? To which he replied: “We do have to call an audible… The fact is that the surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next 6 to 14 weeks, and

Osterholm said that the UK’s new strain will not necessarily be vaccine-resistant and could lead to more cases, serious illnesses, and disease. (Image: Gerry Images)

if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tell us we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country. In advance of this surge, we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can to reduce the serious

illness and deaths that are going to occur over the weeks ahead.”

“Right now, you and I are sitting on this beach, where it’s 70 degrees, perfectly blue skies, gentle breeze, but I see that hurricane category 5 or higher 450 miles offshore,

and you know, telling people to evacuate in that nice bluesky day is going to be hard, but I can also tell you: that hurricane is coming. So, I think we have to understand that because of this surge, we do have to call an audible,” Osterholm warned ominously. “At

120,000 and 130,000 people hospitalized at one point, we saw our health care system literally on the edge of not being able to provide care. Imagine if we have what has happened in England, twice as many of those cases that is what we have to prepare for.”

He felt that the new strains from South Africa and Brazil were much more concerning, saying: “We’re very concerned about the ones from South Africa and Brazil that may in fact lead to evasion of the immune protection from either natural disease or from a vaccine.”

Americans need action to prevent the spread of infections and disease

Osterholm sympathized with how “we are all” fatigued and angry with the pandemic, acknowledging how some frustrated people do not even believe it exists. He felt that even though Americans were in such

Miami Shooting Costs FBI 2 Agents in Deadliest Day Since 2008

By Neil Campbell

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he Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tragically lost two field agents on Tuesday in a shooting that occurred during the execution of a federal court-ordered search warrant in a child exploitation case in Sunrise, Florida. According to Reuters, the warrant sought evidence of possession of child pornography.

In a statement, FBI Director Chris Wray identified the Special Agents as Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger. Wray said that three other agents were also wounded by gunfire, with two requiring hospitalization. All three are in stable condition.

The suspect barricaded

himself inside an apartment and was later found dead, according to The New York Times: “A law enforcement official said it appeared that the man had killed himself before agents were able to arrest him.” The identity of the suspect has not been released pending notification to his family.

The Times reported video footage from local police stations revealed a “grisly scene” where “A SWAT truck had rammed into staircase railings that lay on the ground in tatters. There were blood stains on the floor outside the apartments. The police swarmed to the complex, shutting down the roads and keeping people out for most of the day.”

Director Wray honored Alfin and Schwartzenberg-

er’s sacrifice, saying the pair “exemplified heroism today in defense of their country. The FBI will always honor their ultimate sacrifice and will be forever grateful for their bravery. We continue to stand by our FBI Family, and the families of these special agents, in the days to come, bringing every resource we can to get through this together.”

President Joe Biden told reporters at the Oval Office on Tuesday: “My heart aches for the families… To put their lives on the line, it’s a hell of a price to pay.”

According to USA Today, Schwartzenberger was a 15+ year veteran of the FBI, working in the Miami office since 2010. The 43-year-old left behind a husband and two children, and was primarily investigating traffickers and

sexual exploiters who targeted children on the Internet.

Alfin joined the Bureau’s New York office in 2009 before transferring to Miami in 2017. Alfin, 36, specialized in crimes against children and is survived by a wife and child.

Tuesday marked the deadliest day in FBI history since 2013 when two agents died during a training event for the Hostage Rescue Team.

According to Reuters, the last fatal shooting of an FBI agent was in 2008 during the execution of a federal arrest warrant associated with an investigation into a drug trafficking ring in Pittsburgh. Agent Samuel Hicks was killed.

Marc Ruskin, an FBI Agent with 20 years of undercover experience, told The Epoch

Times the only comparable incident in his memory is the infamous 1986 Miami shootout where two agents were killed and five others were wounded in a battle with bank robbery suspects. Both suspects died in the shootout.

“Over the past few years the Bureau has been heavily politicized due to the actions of the upper management, but this is a real reminder that the field agents — the ones who toil day and night and put their lives on the line — are still there protecting people, even in this age of defund the police,” said Ruskin.

Ruskin said when he was a young agent, he often remembered “really feeling fear” and would often question why he chose such a risky career.

“I was lucky I survived

a tired and worn-out state, they needed action in vaccinations, surveillance, and restrictions.

Osterholm said: “We’re going to have to change quickly. As fast as we’re opening restaurants, we’re likely to be closing them in the near term.”

“We’re really good in this country at pumping the brakes after we wrapped the car around the tree,” Osterholm said in jest, showing his lack of faith in the government’s bureaucratic procedures. He then expressed optimism in the Biden administration’s plans for action in the future, saying: “The good news is that I actually see action being taken with this new administration unlike we’ve seen before,” stressing the importance of congress passing Biden’s covid relief spending initiative.

Biden’s covid relief project titled American Rescue Plan is a $1.9 trillion deal that Republicans are skeptical of and are trying to renegotiate.

27 years, with 20 years of undercover work… I was often in fear. Being courageous doesn’t mean you don’t have fear, it means you have fear and you acknowledge it and you face it. You don’t let it overcome you, you overcome it.”

Ruskin, who was awarded five commendations from the Bureau Director for his undercover work, noted that federal law enforcement faces challenges “different from being an accountant or a politician or any other job.”

“The public should appreciate what these agents are doing.

“When you do go to work in the morning, especially when you’re going to do an undercover meet, or executing a search warrant, you may not come home that night.”

South Florida is now the single region in the country where the most FBI agents have been killed in the line of duty, according to the Miami Herald.

NJ Hospital Gives Coronavirus Vaccines to Relatives of Executives and Donors

By Arvind Datta

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publ i she d re p or t revealed that Hunterdon Medical Center in New Jersey administered coronavirus vaccines to some of its trustees, donors, and top executives’ relatives. Only front line healthcare workers and employees at long-term care facilities should be prioritized for vaccination. The information was disclosed by a local radio station that obtained the hospital’s registry of vaccine recipients by an unknown person.

Medics conducted the vaccinations in December and late January. The beneficiaries included two donors from the

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hospital and seven spouses, including two adult children of high-ranking management employees. Some recipients were in their early 20s, an age group unlikely to qualify for the vaccine for quite a few months. The hospital is claiming that its actions are consistent with established policies.

“More than 99 percent of the doses Hunterdon Healthcare has administered so far have gone to prioritized health care workers, clinicians, seniors, and at-risk individuals…

When additional Hunterdon Healthcare employees or physicians wanting the vaccine could not be located before a vaccine dose expired, we vaccinated volunteers who were

easily contacted and immediately available, including family members of the clinic staff, board members, community members, and family members of the leadership team. This was in keeping with a protocol approved by the Department of Health,” spokesperson Jason VanDiver said in an email statement.

The hospital claimed that it only provided excess vaccines to non-essential people

However, the registry shows that two donors were vaccinated on Dec. 18, just a day after the first shipment was received. Unless all employees at the hospital were inoculated on that same day, this

would mean that the hospital gave shots to the donors even before their frontline workers were vaccinated.

The two donors are said to have donated $10,000 to the hospital. The state of New Jersey has only been receiving 100,000 vaccines per week, far less than what the health officials are requesting. Many residents have complained of not getting a shot and have waited several months for appointments.

While hospitals like Hunterdon Medical Center are finding loopholes to get vaccines into the hands of ineligible people, scammers are taking advantage of people’s fear of vaccine scams. In Washington, D.C., a scam encour-

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aged people to buy vaccines from unauthorized sources as quickly as possible. A potential victim who pays for the shots will lose money since the vaccines cannot be procured in this manner.

“The only places you can get a vaccine are through hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, and doctor’s offices and authorized on-site clinics by an enrolled and approved provider…

There are no off-site sales of vaccines; no one will have to purchase a vaccine for price and have it administered by anyone who considers themselves a health care provider or otherwise… We want to ensure that all of our residents have equitable access to vaccines in the District of Colum-

bia. And we like to have all scams reported,” D.C. Health Director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt said in a statement.

Online scammers exploit the pandemic to collect credit card numbers and other private data of people by promising them non-existent vaccines and cures. Tony Pepper, CEO of cybersecurity firm Egress, said that such scams could appear “incredibly convincing.”

Combined with the fact that many people might be desperate to protect themselves and their families, it isn’t surprising that scammers are finding easy targets. Pepper adds that it is older people who are particularly vulnerable to such scams. ny@visiontimes.com

NATION

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Silver Markets Gap Up Bullion Dealers Report Weekend Inventory Shortage Amid Retail Hype

By Neil Campbell

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number of precious metal bullion dealers have reported inventory shortages and closed order taking on Sunday, citing unprecedented weekend purchasing demand.

The U.S.-based MoneyMetals and APmex closed acceptance of new orders until metal markets opened at 6:00 p.m.

EST on Sunday. Simultaneously, JM Bullion advised an expected 5 – 10-day delay in shipping after receiving cleared payment. Canadian vendor SilverGoldBull notes a 10 to 15-day delay.

According to EpochTimes, SDBullion’s CEO Tyler Wall wrote on his company’s website that “In the 24 hours proceeding Friday market close, SD Bullion sold nearly 10x the number of silver ounces that we normally would sell in an entire weekend leading to Sunday market open.”

“In a normal market, we normally can find at least one supplier/source willing to sell some ounces over the weekend if we exceed our long position (the number of ounces we predict we will sell over the weekend).

However, everyone we talk to is afraid of a gap up at Sunday night market open,” said Wall.

A “gap up” is when a market opens higher than it closed in the previous session.

Silver CFDs (Contracts for Difference, a financial derivative of the physical market trading price) on OANDA closed last week at $26.990.

Silver set a seven-year high at

$29.85876 in August of 2020 but has lagged behind its big brother gold in setting a new all-time high. Silver’s all-time high was $49.81428 set almost ten years ago in April of 2011.

Some speculate the run on silver bullion due to Reddit’s WallStreetBets, who had a post calling for “THE BIGGEST SHORT SQUEEZE IN THE WORLD” on the iShares Silver Trust ETF (Exchange Traded Fund), which moderators have since deleted. A Jan. 31 post called for Redditors to stay away from SLV as Citadel Advisors LLC is the 5th largest SLV stockholder because the hedge fund they allegedly seek to destroy would benefit from a parabolic increase in price.

Canadian precious metal bullion vendor SilverGoldBull advising customers of 10 to 15 day delays in transactions

Citadel became a sub-Reddit target after it bailed out Melvin Capital, the self-inflicted victim of an ill-advised and poorly timed massive short position on Gamestop (NYSE: GME).

According to BusinessInsider, short-sellers lost an estimated combined $19 billion trying to short GME in January.

According to reports, President Biden’s new Secretary of Treasury and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, made $810,000 in speaking fees at Citadel Advisors LLC in 2019 and 2020.

Citadel is also reportedly the retail trading app Robinhood’s largest client. Robinhood has come under intense fire after restricting users’ ability to purchase Gamestop shares after the meteoric rise.

When Whitehouse Press Secretary Jen Psaki was questioned about the Gamestop controversy, Psaki decided to point out Secretary Yellen was a woman rather than answer the question: “I’m also happy to repeat that we have the first female Treasury secretary.”

When Psaki was questioned about the apparent conflict of interest between Yellen and Citadel, she seemed to imply it was irrelevant: “Separate from the GameStop issue, the secretary of the Treasury is one of the world-renowned experts on markets, on the economy. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone she was paid to give her perspective and advice before she came into office.”

An ETF is a fund that invests in an underlying commodity, such as silver, gold, oil, or natural gas, that is traded as stock on exchanges. Most retail investors have access to give retail-level inves-

%

tors exposure to the underlying market. For example, to trade silver on Forex.com, the minimum “lot size” is 500 ounces, which is approximately $13,500 for the minimum trade, and every $1 increase or decrease in the price of silver would represent $500 in risk or reward.

By comparison, retail traders according to PlexusMedia, have an average total investment size across all assets of only $12,000. SLV closed the previous week at $24.99 and since traders can purchase as little as one share, ordinary people have exposure to potential gains and losses in the underlying silver market.

However, a collection of Robinhood traders purchasing SLV, a stock with almost 650 million outstanding shares, a total market cap of over $16 billion, and a daily volume of approximately 31 million shares traded, will not make the silver spot market move in one direction or another regardless of how institutions like the top three holders of SLV, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and UBS Group, which hold more than 25 million shares combined, decide to inflate the price to meet retail “dead money” demand for the ETF on Monday.

What is much more likely to have happened with the silver bullion vendors is savvy investors converting their hardearned USD into physical silver, anticipating a new 7-year high in the silver markets in the coming weeks based on the previous 60 days of price activity that saw silver complete a “double bottom” pattern at $21.89956 on Nov. 30 and immediately regaining upside momentum.

The silver spot market “gapped up” almost $2 an ounce on Sunday’s opening from $26.99 to $28.93, the highest price the metal has traded at since Sep. 1, 2020.

Image: Adobe Stock

ny@visiontimes.com

VISION TIMES

FEB 5 - 11, 2021 |

A3

Trump Changes Legal Team, Both Sides Declare Arguments Ahead of Impeachment Trial

By Neil Campbell

D

onald Trump has shuffled his legal defense team ahead of his Feb. 8 impeachment trial in the Senate. According to a Fox News report on Sunday, Butch Bowers, Deborah Barbier, and former federal prosecutors Greg Harris, Johnny Gasser, and Josh Howard all departed Trump’s camp.

The Associated Press reports that an unnamed source said Bowers and Barbier left the team because Trump wanted his team to bring up the issue of election fraud in the Nov. 3 Presidential Election during the trial.

The team of five have been replaced by David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor, Jr. In a letter released by the 45th President, Castor remarked: “I consider it a privilege to represent the 45th President. The strength of our Constitution is about to be tested like never before in our history. It is strong and resilient. A document written for the ages, and it will triumph over partisanship yet again, and always.”

According to Newsweek, David Schoen previously represented Al Gore in his famous 2000 court battles following a contentious election against George W. Bush and Roger Stone who was targeted in the Russiagate hoax and pardoned by President Trump on Dec. 23.

Schoen’s most notorious client is convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who allegedly committed suicide while in prison in 2019. Cohen has gone on record saying he doesn’t buy that story. “The reason I say I don’t believe it was suicide is for my interaction with him that day.”

“The purpose of asking me to come there that day and over the past previous couple of weeks was to ask me to take over his defense. We came to an agreement during the course of that discussion.” In a September interview with the Atlanta Jewish Times, Schoen directly stated: “I still think he [Epstein] was murdered.”

In late January, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tabled a Point of Order to declare the trial unconstitutional. The verbiage of Section II Article IV of the Constitution specifically applies Impeachment to a sitting President or Vice President.

Paul’s motion failed in the Democrat majority Senate 55-45, with five Republicans — Mitt Romney (UT), Ben Sasse (NE), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Pat Toomey (PA) — voting against.

“If we are going to put every politician in jail, are we going to impeach every politician who has used the words ‘fight’ figuratively in a speech?

Shame,” he said. “I want this body on record. Every last person here,” said Paul, according to The Epoch Times.

During the Impeachment Trial, scheduled to begin Monday, Feb. 8, the Senate, however, must vote to convict by a 2/3rds supermajority. For this to happen, 17 Republican Senators would

have to cross party lines, and the voting record on Paul’s point of order casts doubt on the viability of this scenario.

In an official response to the Articles of Impeachment filed by the House of Representatives against Trump, Schoen and Castor argue that the charges run “void ab initio as a legal nullity that runs patently contrary to the plain language of the Constitution” because President Trump is no longer a sitting president.

The team maintains that the specific verbiage in Article 1 Section 3 of the Constitution: “‘[j]udgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy an office of honor…’ (emphasis added),” specifically requires removal from office, so “the present proceedings are moot and thus a nullity since the 45th President cannot be removed from an office he no longer occupies.”

Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor .

(Image: Clem Murray — Pool / Getty Images)

The Trump team also formally denies he ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ They said that the President engaged in his First Amendment right to free speech during his address to a crowd during the beginning stages of the Jan. 6 Joint Session of Congress.

The Democrats’ trial memorandum selectively quotes Trump’s speech, specifically the portion where he said “fight like hell [or] you’re not going to have a country anymore.” However, the President’s actual statement was about his legal team’s efforts to challenge the Nov. 3 General Election’s integrity. His full statement was: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Dems also cites a statement saying: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong,” as evidence of inciting insurrection. But the sentence before he made this statement shows he was referencing lawmakers: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them,” Trump said at the Jan. 6 rally.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned Democrats against attempting to call witnesses during the trial: “If you open that can of worms, we’ll want the FBI to come in and tell us about how people pre-planned this attack and what happened with the security footprint at the Capitol. You open up Pandora’s Box if you call one witness,” he told Fox News.

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CHINA

A4 | FEB 5 - 11 , 2021

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The website in China is circulating that people who have done the "anal swab" nucleic acid test walked like penguins.

(Image: Sina weibo)

China Begins Invasive Coronavirus

Anal Swab Testing on Public

By Neil Campbell

T

“Our study was limited by the small number of studies, with small sample sizes,” said the paper.

“High‐quality studies are urgently needed to characterize better the magnitude of SARS‐CoV‐2 viral persistence in body secretions, as well as its potential for disease transmission and infection, and possible implications for COVID‐19 discharge and isolation policies.”

he Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has begun anal swab testing for the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in a questionable new approach to tackling an increasingly expanding COVID-19 pandemic.

On Jan. 20, Party mouthpiece CCTV reported the Beijing municipal government announced it had used anal swabbing to test 1,298 students, staff, and teachers at a school where a 9-year-old boy was allegedly diagnosed having contracted COVID19 on Jan. 18.

CCTV quoted an infectious disease specialist from Beijing’s Youan Hospital as saying: “The asymptomatic carriers and COVID-19 patients with mild-symptoms can recover very quickly. In three to five days after the infection, their pharynx will be virus-free.” The specialist reasoned that: “Stool samples will contain the virus for a longer time … testing from the anus can improve the detection rate and reduce the false-negative rate.”

China’s 163.com, or NetEase, similarly reported citizens of Shandong, Hebei, and Liaoning provinces were subjected to the invasive testing method.

According to the world’s leading Chinese-language independent media outlet, Epoch Times, Chinese netizens had pushed the phrase “I’d rather not travel than allow a nurse to pick up anal swabs” to prominence

A May 2019 study in the Journal of Medical Virology focused on the batch analysis of studies and reports in Medline and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, which purported to examine the validity of the anal swab or fecesbased testing methods. Only 12 studies were found to meet search criteria, and all were from China.

on mainland social media platforms. State-run media reportedly posted schematics for how anal testing would be conducted, downplaying the intrusion by saying the procedure would only take 10 seconds.

Global News cited a statement from Dr. Yang Zhanqiu to another Chinese government publication, Global Times, that pointed out the SARS-CoV-2 virus primarily transmits through the upper respiratory tract: “There have been cases concerning the coronavirus testing positive in a patient’s excrement, but no evidence has suggested it had been transmitted through one’s digestive system.” Other than this, Western big media outlets such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, Reuters, and Global News all repeated the CCP propaganda without casting doubt on their reports’ veracity or the methodology’s merit.

Some experts on China and the CCP had referred to the novel coronavirus and COVID19 simply as the “CCP Virus,”

because Beijing covered up an emerging pandemic in Wuhan for weeks by suppressing information and censuring and arresting doctors and journalists who attempted to alert the public during late 2019 and early 2020, the earliest and most crucial timing that would have allowed countries to restrict their borders and stop the spread before it happened.

By comparison, officials from Taiwan, or the Republic of China (ROC), a small democratic island off the coast of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), took the earliest news seriously. Taipei understood Beijing’s way of handling crises from decades of battling for sovereignty against the Communist threat. The ROC quickly closed the country’s borders to the mainland while taking strict measures to isolate and monitor those who had recently entered and tested positive.

As a result, Taiwan, a country excluded from the World Health Organization, with a population of 23.78 million people, has lived a lockdown

Currently China is only using the "anal swab test" for mandatory testing of SARS-CoV-2 on public. (Image: Sina weibo)

free life, experiencing only 893 cases and 7 deaths over the entire course of the coronavirus pandemic.

A May 2019 study in the Journal of Medical Virology focused on the batch analysis of studies and reports in Medline and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, which purported to examine the validity of the anal swab or feces-based testing methods. Only 12 studies were found to meet search criteria, and all were from China.

Out of 324 patients across all studies, 107 had a positive rectal or stool sample after testing negative in the nasopharyngeal test. Still, it was considered “noteworthy that a significant proportion of these patients are within the pediatric age‐group.”

The study pointed out that the RT-PCR test method “does not usually distinguish between the infectious virus and noninfectious nucleic acid,” but noted that one study did find four specimens that could, upon culturing, demonstrate a live sample of the virus through electron microscopy.

“Our study was limited by the small number of studies, with small sample sizes,” said the paper. “High‐quality studies are urgently needed to characterize better the magnitude of SARS‐CoV‐2 viral persistence in body secretions, as well as its potential for disease transmission and infection, and possible implications for COVID‐19 discharge and isolation policies.”

“I’d rather not travel than allow a nurse to pick up anal swabs” to prominence on mainland social media platforms.

Billionaire Jack Ma Resurfaces After 3 Months

By Max Lu

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t the Bund Finance Summit in Shanghai on Oct. 24, 2020, Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba and fintech giant Ant Group Co., raised quite a few eyebrows by making some controversial statements, like drawing parallels between Chinese banks and pawn shops and by stating that China does not encourage innovation, thereby reducing chances of growth and development.

It is important to note that the Bund Finance Summit was attended by many financial regulators and political leaders. The speech given by Mr. Ma set off a chain of events that

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After disappearing for over three months, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has resurfaced.

(Image: Gerry Images)

ultimately led to his disappearance for over 3 months.

After the Finance Summit in Shanghai concluded, Jack

Ma’s businesses began receiving high-level scrutiny from Chinese authorities, with multiple probes investigating alleged anti-competitive behavior. Multiple summonses were issued to Mr. Ma and Ant Group Co. All these steps were considered to be in reaction to statements made by Mr. Ma at the Shanghai summit and gave rise to a long series of speculations.

Regulators began compiling reports on Ant Group’s microlending practices and concluded they were to blame for encouraging people to build debt. There were multiple meetings between financial regulators, Mr. Ma, and a few top Ant Group Co. executives, and soon the biggest IPO

in history, the Ant Group Co. IPO, was called off. The Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchange halted the US$37 billion IPO. After the scrutiny and meetings began, Jack did not appear for the final episode of a TV show, Africa’s Business Heroes, in which he was to appear as a judge. People started questioning his absence and wondered what might have happened? Some even suggested that he might have been arrested due to the ongoing scrutiny of his businesses or for statements targeting China in his address at the Bund Finance Summit. His sudden disappearance created quite a stir worldwide. many people were concerns about his

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safety and whereabouts.

However, after over three months of laying low and being almost untraceable, Jack Ma was recently seen addressing rural teachers via a video conference. The speculations and rumors came to a halt.

Jack Ma addressed over 100 teachers in rural areas via the video conference. The spokesperson of his foundation and several Chinese media reports further confirmed his virtual appearance.

Mr. Ma, who appeared to be very relaxed throughout the video conference session, received praise from foundation members for his dedication and commitment to education. During the video conference, Mr. Ma’s state-

ments suggested that his absence was due to the spread of COVID-19 and that he looked forward to meeting the group in person next time.

Shortly after, another video appeared in the news showing Jack Ma visiting a primary school in Tonglu County, near Hangzhou, China. Mr. Ma was seen wearing a black cap and jacket. However, the video did not disclose any details or the reason behind his visit.

The chain of events started with his address at the Bund Finance Summit in Shanghai and led to his sudden disappearance and scrutiny of his businesses by the financial regulators. It is still unclear whether the Chinese government is putting pressure on Mr. Ma. ny@visiontimes.com

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A5

Bezos Steps Down as CEO of Amazon, Will Focus on Space Exploration, Washington Post, Charities

Image: by SAJJAD HUSSAIN / AFP via Getty Images

By Neil Campbell

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mazon founder Jeff Bezos announced he is transitioning away from CEO and to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board of Directors in a letter to staff on Tuesday. Bezos will transition away from his current role during Q3 of 2021 and his successor will be Andy Jassy, head of Amazon Web Services.

In his parting words, Bezos praised his company’s leadership on two social issues: a voluntary $15 an hour minimum wage and the “Climate Pledge,” a self-start initiative to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, 10 years earlier than required by the Paris Climate Agreement that President Joe Biden re-subscribed the United States to as one of his first executive actions.

Bezos also displayed an awareness of his company’s position in providing critical infrastructure to countless other companies around the world: “Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods.”

The world’s first or second richest man, depending on who you ask, did not display a

sense of irony in his own comments after he promoted the CEO of the division that deplatformed Twitter-rival Parler in a concerted, cartel-like effort by Big Tech compatriots Google and Apple in early January. The Jan. 6 Capitol break-in was used as a pretext to ramp up censorship of conservative voices associated with Donald Trump all across the Internet.

As of Feb 2, Parler still has not been able to find a suitable hosting company to restore services, although its domain is active again with a basic landing page after the company registered with hosting company and domain registrar Epik Holdings.

In a blog post by Epik on Jan. 11 where the company addressed “calls to deplatform dozens of online communities,” Epik said they had “no contact or discussions with Parler in any form regarding our organization becoming their registrar or hosting provider.”

“At this decisive moment in history, it is worth noting the growing transparency of media owners utilizing the most extreme examples possible to characterize events for the purposes of shaping narratives and public perception.

The Amazon founder says he intends to focus his efforts on his space exploration project, Blue Origin, which describes its vision as “a future where millions of people are living and working in space,” and that “In order to preserve Earth, our home, for our grandchildren’s grandchildren, we must go to space to tap its unlimited resources and energy,” his far-left big media outlet Washington Post, and his charities the Day 1 Fund and Bezos Fund.

They rarely reflect the truth anymore, but rather serve as propaganda for strategic purposes whereby managed bias is employed with the intent of controlling others,” read Epik’s post.

The Amazon founder says he intends to focus his efforts on his space exploration project, Blue Origin, which describes its vision as “a future where millions of people are living and working in space,” and that “In order to preserve Earth, our home, for our grandchildren’s grandchildren, we must go to space to tap its unlimited resources and energy,” his big media outlet The Washington Post, and

his charities the Day 1 Fund and Bezos Fund.

Amazon started as an online bookstore from Bezos’s garage in 1994 before becoming the iconic personification of “the American dream,” propelling his company into success as the world’s largest vendor of goods and online services worth slightly under $1.7 trillion and a stock price of $3380 as of Tuesday market close.

Amazon released Q4 2020 earnings as well on Tuesday, showing an increase in net sales of 44% year-over-year to a total of $125.6 billion. Amazon nearly doubled its 2020 net income to $21.3 billion from its 2019 figures through net sales

of $386.1 billion.

If Amazon were a country, it would be the 29th largest in the world by Gross Domestic Product, exceeding the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and New Zealand.

The company also said it was working to “ensure that its front-line employees receive vaccines as soon as possible” for the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus pandemic, which causes the disease the China-centric World Health Organization coined Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID19). Amazon also boasts they test 700 employees an hour through their in-house testing programs.

Blinken Wants Refugee Status for Fleeing Hongkongers

By Prakash Gogoi

U

.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken believes that Hongkongers who flee the city should be welcomed into the United States with refugee status. His comments come when the freedoms in Hong Kong are increasingly curtailed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP seeks to stamp out all Western influences in the region, including democracy, free speech, and human rights.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Blinken once again condemned the attack on Hong Kong’s freedoms

Blinken stated that the United States should have

Rogers notes that Britain has a moral responsibility toward Hong Kong.

acted sooner concerning the infringement on Hong Kong’s democracy. He raised the possibility of offering asylum to fleeing Hongkongers.

Blinken also wanted Washington to take a “hard look” at the U.S. position regarding Hong Kong companies and institutions and whether the city will remain a globally recognized financial center.

UK citizenship

While the U.S. is thinking of giving asylum to Hong-

Image: pixabay

kongers, the UK government has officially opened up a visa scheme to offer Hongkongers who have British National (Overseas) status a path to citizenship. The scheme was first announced in July last year after Beijing imposed the National Security Law in Hong Kong.

The visa program will allow qualified individuals to live, work, and study in the United Kingdom for a period of five years. Afterward, they will be eligible to apply for citizen-

ship. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he was “immensely proud” of the visa scheme that honored his country’s historical ties with Hong Kong people.

“We’ve seen China act egregiously to undermine the very commitments it made during the handover of Hong Kong from Britain. And we see people who are, again, in Hong Kong standing up for their own rights, the rights that they felt were guaranteed to them… If they’re the victims of repression from Chinese authorities, we should do something to give them haven,” he said in an interview with MSNBC. Blinken also confirmed that Washington is reviewing the tariffs that the Trump administration had added to $300 billion worth of Chinese imports.

In early January, Hong

WHO Scientist Warns Coronavirus Vaccination Might Not Prevent Transmission

By Jonathan Walker With more people getting inoculated against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus every day, there is a growing belief that vaccinated people are now free to do what they want without following any safety or hygiene protocols. This is a misconception. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), admitted in December that getting a coronavirus vaccination is not a guarantee of preventing transmissions.

“I don’t believe we have the ny@visiontimes.com

evidence on any of the vaccines to be confident that it’s going to prevent people from actually getting the infection and therefore being able to pass it on…

We need to assume that people who have been vaccinated also need to take the same precautions till there’s a certain level of herd immunity. This is a dynamic in an evolving field,” she said in a press conference.

WHO Health Emergencies director Mike Ryan stated there is no guarantee of eliminating the infectious disease even with a high efficacy vaccine. He believes that the likely scenario for COVID-19 would be that by the time it

is brought under control, the virus will have turned endemic in nature, becoming a “very low-level threat.’

A blueprint that can help predict the course of the CCP virus would be the spread and eventual influenza containment.

The most used flu vaccine is an inactivated virus. Combined with the fact that inoculation rates tend to be around 50 percent among adults and the virus’s ability to move between species, scientists have been unable to eliminate the influenza vaccine. However, annual flu vaccines have cut down hospitalizations among adults by up to 82 percent.

SARS-CoV-2 may end up as another type of ‘flu,’ one we need to be protected against every year

“Measles, diphtheria, pertussis, polio, hepatitis B — these are all epidemic-prone diseases… They show that we don’t need 100 percent effectiveness at reducing transmission, or 100 percent coverage or 100 percent effectiveness against disease to triumph over infectious diseases,” Natasha Crowcroft, senior technical adviser for measles and rubella at the WHO, told Scientific American.

Tal Zaks, the chief medical

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Kong police arrested 50 people, including prominent lawmakers, for carrying out an informal primary election last year. Blinken had condemned the police action, calling it an assault on citizens who advocated for human rights.

He promised that the Biden administration would stand with Hongkongers against the atrocities perpetrated by the communist regime.

Benedict Rogers, chief executive of British NGO Hong Kong Watch, said that allowing Hongkongers to migrate into the UK will benefit the country since they are highly educated and entrepreneurial. He said that giving them a path to citizenship is a good decision.

“I think it’s absolutely right because Britain does have a moral responsibility to Hong Kong, and indeed

a legal responsibility under the Sino-British Joint Declaration as well… Given the fact that Hong Kong’s freedoms are being dismantled, freedoms that were promised to Hong Kong as under the Joint Declaration. I think it’s absolutely right that we now offer those who want to, to be able to come to the UK and to have a place of safety and freedom,” he said in an interview.

Beijing has stopped recognizing the British National (Overseas) passports as valid travel and identity documents since Jan. 31. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian lashed out at the UK’s visa scheme for Hongkongers.

She called it interference in communist China’s internal affairs and an attempt to turn a large number of people from Hong Kong into “second-class British citizens.”

officer of Moderna, believes that his company’s vaccine might be able to prevent transmission. However, he admitted that there was not sufficient evidence to support his claim.

To define when the pandemic has been brought under control might depend on the reduction in mortality rates. Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, said: “Even if we are unable to reduce transmissions, bringing down the fatality rate is a key factor in restoring normalcy back to everyday society.”

This would push the coronavirus pandemic from a lethal public health threat to a moderate threat or even just a nuisance. Once mortality rates

are down, systems can be put in place to cut down transmissions as much as possible.

January was the deadliest month in the U.S. ever since the coronavirus began to spread last year. More than 95,000 people died in January, taking the total death toll beyond 440,000.

However, by the start of February, the number of infected people in the hospital fell below 100,000 for the first time in two months. The daily number of new infections is around 148,000, well below 250,000 per day during mid-January. More than 32.2 million Americans have been vaccinated to date according to the CDC, up from 16.5 million when Biden took over office on Jan. 20.

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Military Coup in Myanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD Party Leaders Detained

By Kalina Valqurey

A

lthough military leaders in Burma (Myanmar) asserted for a second time Sunday that no coup was in progress, according to a spokesman for the opposition party, National League for Democracy (NLD), a coup seems to be exactly what took place on Monday when Associated Press (AP) reported that internet and phone access to the capital, Naypyitaw, had been cut, and that State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party could not be reached.

Myanmar Visual Television and Myanmar Voice Radio posted to Facebook around 6:30 a.m. that their programs were not available to broadcast regularly. News of the overthrow did not reach other areas of Burma until around lunchtime, with people making withdrawals from banks and some taking leave of their workplaces. In the former capital of Yangon, mobile networks were down although

Activists hold a portrait of Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a protest outside the United Nations University building in Tokyo on February 1, 2021, after Myanmar’s military seized power in a bloodless coup. (Image: by

In the days leading up to the arrests, citizens had noted a heightened presence of military vehicles in major cities.

broadband was operable. Municipal government workers were turned away from their workplace; markets stayed open and some people shopped for emergency food. The Skynet satellite provider stopped providing BBC or CNN and the national broadcaster MRTV was not available.

According to South China Morning Post (SCMP), NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt said that Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were detained in pre-dawn arrests and AP stated that Aund Sang Suu Kyi is believed to currently be under house arrest. Frontier Myanmar reports the chief ministers of the country’s states and regions have also been arrested.

Later in the day on Monday, the Tatmadaw (military) confirmed via their television station that they had declared a state of emergency lasting for a period of one year.

They did not call the situation a ‘coup’ and maintained that their actions were lawful, resulting from a constitutional clause allowing for a state of emergency.

According to Frontier Myanmar, a statement broadcast just after 8 a.m. on military-controlled media cited Constitutional Article 417, permitting a military takeover during emergencies that threaten Myanmar’s sovereignty or that threaten to “disintegrate the Union.” The

Thai pro-democracy protesters throw a barricade at riot police in Bangkok on February 1, 2021, close to where Myanmar migrants were demonstrating after Myanmar’s military detained the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the country’s president in a coup. (Image: LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP via Getty Images)

statement said that Vice President U Myint Swe would be the interim president and further explained that “huge” instances of fraud alleged in the November 8 election had endangered the “sovereignty of the people”.

Military sources had been repeatedly alleging massive fraud since the General Election on Nov. 8, and this, together with unrest between opposing parties, was cited as reasons for the emergency action. Momentum for effective pandemic prevention was also listed as a benefit of the coup in a statement by the Tatmadaw. According to the BBC, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing will now be principally

in charge of Burma during the state of emergency. Frontier Myanmar said that Swe, who was already a military appointee, had ceded his power to Hlaing.

The first session of Parliament since last year’s contested election was to be Monday. However, comments last week by the military — related to taking issue with the election as fraudulent — were widely believed to have threatened a coup. In the days leading up to the arrests, citizens had noted a heightened presence of military vehicles in major cities.

Burmese media and the NLD party maintained that with no evidence of election fraud, the people had fairly and overwhelmingly heightened the power of Suu Kyi’s party with their vote, giving her party 396 seats in parliament and only 33 for the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Aung San Suu Kyi is currently a member of the globalist bloc World Economic Forum, with speeches and addresses at the bloc’s Davos summits prevalent on Youtube spanning back at least 10 years.

Many consider Suu Kyi to be

A military armored vehicle is seen along a street in Myitkyina, Kachin State, on February 2, 2021, as Myanmar's generals appeared in firm control a day after a surgical coup that saw Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy detained.

PHILIP FONG / AFP via Getty Images)

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Image: STR / AFP via Getty Images

the country’s de facto leader, even more so than the President, Win Myint, who was also detained, according to NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt. Nyunt told Reuters by phone Monday that he himself also expected to be detained: “With the situation we see happening now, we have to assume that the military is staging a coup.” Nyunt also said: “I want to tell our people not to respond rashly and I want them to act according to the law.”

The military in Myanmar, the Tatmadaw, said that there was, according to AP, “massive voting fraud” in the general election in early November.

As reported by Frontier Myanmar, the military claimed that there were 10 million suspect votes according to their investigation and they asked that the full electoral roll be released by the Union Election Commission for scrutiny. AP claims that there was no evidence of fraud and that the state Union Election Commission rejected these allegations last week.

The Tatmadaw last Tuesday ramped up political tension when a spokesman at its weekly news conference, responding to a reporter’s question, refused to speak against the possibility of a coup. Local and worldwide media reported that Sr. Gen. Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief, told senior officers in a speech Wednesday that the constitution could be suspended if the laws were not being honored properly. However, according to SCMP, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun later said the military would “follow the laws in accordance with the constitution.”

According to a statement released by the Tatmadaw, Hlaing was intentionally misquoted and issued what they said was a more complete statement as a correction, which, according to them, was as follows: “As the Tatmadaw is an armed organization, it needs to abide by the Constitution.

So, we all need to follow all the existing laws, not beyond the 2008 Constitution. The Constitution is the mother law for all laws. So, I’d like to note we all need to abide by the Constitution. If one does not follow the

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Aung San Suu Kyi (C) and the Myanmar military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (R) arrive for the handover ceremony at the presidential palace in Naypyidaw on March 30, 2016. A close aide to Aung San Suu Kyi was sworn in as Myanmar’s president on March 30, a role that will see him act as a proxy for the pro-democracy figurehead and carry the hopes of a nation emerging from military rule. (Image: YE AUNG THU / AFP via Getty Images)

law, such law must be revoked.”

The statement further clarified that the general’s words had been intended to clarify “on [the] nature of the Constitution for the senior officer trainees.” It is worth noting that what is referred to by “2008 Constitution” is the Burmese Constitution framed in 2008 that forms a multiparty democratic system and overrides prior socialist constitutions.

However, the BBC reported that Hlaing iterated what many media had written, which was that he warned that “the constitution shall be abolished, if not followed” and further clarified that when he spoke he cited the example of previous military coups in 1962 and 1988.

Nevertheless, many people had taken the Tatmadaw’s clarification statement to be a promise that there would be no seizure of power. Frontier Myanmar said that sources in the capital Naypyitaw informed the paper that things fell apart after the dialogue on Sunday between senior NLD and USDP officials had failed to find common ground, and that the NLD government had refused the USDP’s demands to delay opening parliament until allegations of election fraud had been addressed.

In the days leading up to the overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, the military said that organizations, the media, and some foreign embassies had taken words out of context and asked observers “not to make unwarranted

assumptions about the situation.” At present, with the arrests made and a state of emergency declared, the military continues to deny that a coup is in progress.

The Burmese generals also claimed that they were acting according to law and they said that new elections would be held at the end of the year.

Burma has only had democracy since 2008, with society opening up in 2011, and for some time Aung San Suu Kyi

The Burmese generals also claimed that they were acting according to law and they said that new elections would be held at the end of the year.

Burma has only had democracy since 2008, with society opening up in 2011, and for some time AUNG SAN Suu Kyi and Hlaing appeared to have been working in tandem for the interests of their country.

and Hlaing appeared to have been working in tandem for the interests of their country.

For fallout related to her defense of Burmese military actions before the United Nations’ highest court, in which Aung San Suu Kyi explained that the military had been responding to attacks from “militants” and “terrorists,” Suu Kyi was stripped of multiple international humanitarian awards.

Many questioned how could the Nobel Laureate defend the military that had once imprisoned her, with some positing it was because the military still retained control of Burma. The BBC suggested that she was acting out of loyalty to her nation and that she too needed to win the people’s votes. This might suggest that, within Burma, the military was

not unpopular.

Sr. Gen. Hlaing was a law student before he was a general and writer. Hla Oo, who claims to have known the general during childhood, described him as “a battle-hardened warrior” who was yet still a “serious scholar and gentleman.” Notably, Hlaing did not enter senior leadership in the military until Burma’s transition to democracy in 2011 and he has only held power under the democratic constitution of 2008. Photos of the general working cordially with Suu Kyi are not uncommon.

One might hope that a law student and “serious scholar and gentleman” who is not part of the socialist old guard in Burma would keep his word regarding a time of emergency followed by fair elections. In light of worldwide question-

A7

ing into broader issues of election fraud, the question can be asked: might the Elections Council have worked with the Tatmadaw by simply providing the voter rolls to restore confidence in the elections, and if so, why didn’t they?

However, Law Professor Melissa Crouch, author of the book The Constitution of Myanmar, does not have the same curiosity and opines: “This is a manufactured emergency. The military has provided no evidence of voter fraud.”

The Tatmadaw states two complaints related to the lack of diligence put into the discovery of evidence related to election fraud despite requests.

It appears that an investigation had been carried out by the military that was never verified by the Union Election Commission despite the military’s request for them to do so.

Professor Crouch also speaks from her knowledge of the Burmese constitution to add that the invoked “Section 417” “is supposed to be at the initiative of the President in consultation with the National Defence and Security Council.” In another writing, she says: “The military claims there was a meeting of the Council, but this is impossible.”

Although this claim has not yet been verified, this is most likely due to a shortage of time.

But the Tatmadaw has countered: “The President refused the submission for two times to hold the National Defence and Security Council Meeting.” Crouch does add that in emergencies the constitution allows under Section 417: “All power is transferred to the Commander-in-Chief. The Commander-in-Chief may suspend rights as he sees fit.

The constitutional emergency lasts for one year.” The top priority of the state of emergency appears to be to resolve the alleged voter fraud, according to the BBC. The White House has not taken a position asking for any evidence related to the Burmese election either. According to USA Today, Biden issued a statement that the military’s actions were a “direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and rule of law.”

He warned that it would “necessitate an immediate review of our sanction laws and authorities, followed by appropriate action.”

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken called on the military to release government and civil society leaders and expressed “grave concern and alarm.”

Image : Claude TRUONG-NGOC/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

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A8 | FEB 5 - 11 , 2021

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the personal data they supply to the apps they use and review permissions they have granted to the apps regarding the use of cameras, locations, and microphones. They can view everything at a glance, which allows them to identify the apps that misuse their personal data.

This is a huge breakthrough for users, enabling them to reject apps whose privacy practices seem shady.

By Jack Roberts

I

n the world of conflicting information, and with news credibility on the wane, who can you trust anymore? In the cybersecurity world, Apple has taken a bold step in the right direction by introducing the “nutrition label” concept that now requires app developers to disclose the privacy data they collect from their app users.

“Inspired by the nutrition labels on food products, Apple, with the launch of iOS 14, will start showing privacy details of apps across 31 categories of data in the product pages itself.”

In the digital age, the safety and usage of private data is still in the world of the wild, wild West. Introduced on December 8, 2020, the Apple “nutrition label” follows the same concept as a regular nutritional label found at the back of food and beverage products listing details of the ingredients in the product. Apple intends for the “nutrition label” to give users a better idea about applications downloaded from all the apps found in their app stores, including iOS 14, iPad, OS, Mac OS.

The ‘nutrition label’ will assist app users in keeping a check on the data that an app collects about them

Privacy label features

Apple’s Privacy ‘Nutrition Label’ Introduced

The “nutrition label” will assist app users in keeping track of the data that an app owner collects on them and help identify whether their data will be used to track them. To avail of the new services, app developers are required to provide information about their app’s privacy practices on the basis of the different sections included in the new Apple label.

What does the Apple ‘nutrition label’ have in store for developers?

The new rollout is a big step toward data transparency. It will bring advantages to credible developers who earlier gathered data in line with their privacy agreements.

Apple has provided a platform for the developers to disclose to users details regarding the data collected by their apps and has made it possible for them to stick to their commitments of respecting the privacy of users. Alternatively, it could be a nightmare for some developers who gather more information than what is required and harvest it for economic opportunities.

This transparency will motivate developers to respect users’ privacy and change the functions of the app to build a new niche in the circle of trust. It would foster a developers’ culture of transparency and would leave little room for predatory apps that prey on personal data without the user’s consent.

The “nutrition label” would also serve as a warning to such developers to tread carefully. Apple is going out of its way to create a relationship of trust between developers and their customers.

Apple has good news for app users!

Apple has made it easier for users to view

“In the Privacy Information section on the App Store product pages, the types of data collected will be represented to users as data link to you, not linked to you, data used to track you or data not collected” Apple said.

Apple’s privacy labels inspired summary will give users a heads-up on what data apps are tracking and collecting on them, and what they are doing with the data, such as your financial transactions, contacts, friends, browsing history, location, contact information… The privacy label helps the end consumer identify and clarify:

Data used to track you:

This feature identifies what information is collected for advertisement purposes.

Data linked to you:

This will tie users identity to their account on the app.

Data not linked to you:

This feature will collect data that is not linked to the account on the app.

These categories ensure that users are aware of the data that is accessed and shared. It is a conscious effort made by Apple to establish itself as a defender of users’ privacy data.

What will businesses gain from the nutrition label?

For businesses that are not concerned with making profits by exploiting users’ information collected by apps and data brokers, the new privacy labels will greatly assist them as well. It will help enable businesses to assess and approve apps that can be used by their own enterprise networks and users on their enterprise-related machines. This will help to prevent their system from being victims of cyberattacks and hacks.

It is safe to assume that developers will be thrown out of the app stores if they fail to disclose their privacy practices and meet the requirements of the new feature. As quoted

by Apple’s Vice President of Software Craig Federighi: “Never before has the right to privacy the right to keep personal data under your control-been under assault like it is today. As external threats to privacy continue to evolve, our work to counter them must, too.” Youtube. Apple has debuted a magnificent feature to let users exercise their right to data privacy by making the functionality of the apps more transparent.

The Apple move has shifted the burden of responsibility from users onto the developers PRIVACY

Image:Freepik

The move has shifted the burden of responsibility from users onto the developers. It is a significant move that would enable developers to gain the users’ trust and keep them updated about how their personal data will be collected and used. Apple’s “nutrition label” will create a safe digital world to live in by generating awareness among the users and will help them make informed choices.

Astronomers Discover First Cloudless, Jupiter-Like Planet

By Troy Oakes Harvard & Smithsonian astronomers have detected the first Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze in its observable atmosphere. The findings were published this month in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Named WASP-62b, the gas giant was first detected in 2012 through the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) South survey. Its atmosphere, however, had never been closely studied until now. Munazza Alam, a graduate student at the Center for Astrophysics who led the study, said: “For my thesis, I have been working on exoplanet characterization. I take discovered planets and I follow up on them to characterize their 212-730-6963

atmospheres.”

Known as a “hot Jupiter,” WASP-62b is 575 light-years away and about half the mass of our solar system’s Jupiter.

However, unlike our Jupiter, which takes nearly 12 years to orbit the Sun, WASP-62b completes a rotation around its star in just four-and-a-half days. This proximity to the star makes it extremely hot, hence the name “hot Jupiter.”

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, Alam recorded data and observations of the planet using spectroscopy, the study of electromagnetic radiation to help detect chemical elements. Alam specifically monitored WASP62b as it swept in front of its host star three times, making visible-light observations, which can detect the presence of sodium and potassium in a planet’s atmosphere. Alam said:

“I’ll admit that at first I wasn’t too excited about this planet. But once I started to take a look at the data, I got excited.”

While there was no evidence of potassium, sodium’s presence was strikingly

Artist illustration of WASP-62b, the first Jupiter-like planet detected without clouds or haze in its observable atmosphere. The illustration is drawn from the perspective of an observer nearby to the planet. (Image: M. Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian)

clear. The team was able to view the full sodium absorption lines in their data, or its complete fingerprint. Clouds or haze in the atmosphere would obscure the complete signature of sodium, Alam explains, and astronomers usually can only make out small hints of its presence, adding:“This is smoking gun

VISION TIMES

evidence that we are seeing a clear atmosphere.”

Cloud-free planets are exceedingly rare; astronomers estimate that less than 7 percent of exoplanets have clear atmospheres, according to recent research. For example, the first and only other known exoplanet with a clear atmosphere was discovered in

2018. Named WASP-96b, it is classified as a hot Saturn.

Astronomers believe studying exoplanets with cloudless atmospheres can lead to a better understanding of how they were formed. Alam said their rarity “suggests something else is going on or they formed in a different way than most planets.”

Clear atmospheres also make it easier to study the chemical composition of planets, which can help identify what a planet is made of.

With the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope later this year, the team hopes to have new opportunities to study and better understand WASP-62b. The telescope’s improved technologies, like higher resolution and better precision, should help them probe the atmosphere even closer to search for the presence of more elements, such as silicon.

Provided by: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics[Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.]

ny@visiontimes.com

WISDOM

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Image: The U.S. National Archives

T

he Korean War in 1950 was the last battle commanded by the legendary General Douglas MacArthur. At that time, the United States Truman administration wanted to avoid direct conflict with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the Soviet Union and ended his career.

After that, MacArthur went to Congress to deliver a classic speech: “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away,” publicly bringing his 52 years military service to an unwilling conclusion.

After retreating behind the scenes, he initially wanted to exile himself. However, following an incident, he changed his mind, which prompted his idea of leaving a precious record for human history. Before his death, he made the prophecy that the Republic of China will regain mainland China.

In December 1952, after being dismissed, MacArthur presented a memorandum to President Eisenhower to end the Korean War. He suggested that in addition to resisting the global penetration of the Communist Party, the United States should formulate a sound China policy.

He said: “The current failure of the United States strat-

egy towards China will cause a series of disasters, which will be the most significant political failure in the United States in a century. If we tolerate the red catastrophe, we will have to pay a heavy price in future generations, perhaps a hundred years.”

After making his final statement to the authorities, he gradually withdrew from the political arena. He was over 70, and his physical health was not as good as before. He accepted a friend’s invitation to serve as a board member of Remington Rand Corporation and became the Chairman.

In the first few years of his retirement, he hardly participated in public activities.

Many publishers approached him, hoping to help him write memoirs, and some Hollywood studios offered to make an epic movie with his life for a million dollars, but he declined them one after another.

God’s revelation: I will come back

In January 1960, MacArthur, who had just had his 80th birthday, stayed at the hospital because of an illness. During the hospitalization, he reflected on his past life experiences and felt that he still had an unfinished mission to the world.

MacArthur prayed and pleaded for God’s mercy. Soon,

his body healed quickly like a miracle. After he recovered from the severe illness, he said to the pastor next to him: “In the past 36 hours, I chanted the first verse of the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John in the Bible, and then I felt that God had gifted my life again; a new life was born from death.”

He said to his wife, who was waiting: “Jane! I will come back again.”

After he recovered, MacArthur began to write his memoirs. He wrote in the foreword: “This memoir may provide future historians to explore these great wars’ actions and motivations.

“At the same time, it is also for the next young generation in the United States to let them sacrifice their lives for their ideals when necessary to their own country, to understand the real value of life. It is what I expect.”

However, the authorities did not take his advice seriously. In 1962, 82-year-old MacArthur returned to the United States Military Academy at West Point to give a classic speech on “Duty, Honor, and Country.” In this hour-long public speech, he repeated the school motto (Duty, Honor, and Country).

He mentioned that the U.S. military soldiers are the noblest figures, and the process of fighting the enemy is a personal life history. No mat-

ter how the world changes in the future, the will to win is irreplaceable.

After the speech, the whole venue was silent. Many people wipe their tears away.

The spirit left by MacArthur moved everyone present.

At the end of 1963, Douglas MacArthur received Chiang Ching-kuo, who was visiting the United States as a member of the Executive Yuan and arrived in New York for their third meeting. The first meeting was during the Korean War when MacArthur led a delegation to visit Taiwan to discuss anti-Communist plans with President Chiang Kaishek and had a good impression of his son, Chiang Chingkuo, who was accompanying the President.

The second meeting was during Chiang Ching-kuo’s visit to the United States as the political director to the Department of Defence. In his apartment, he talked to Chiang about the US-Soviet issue, China issue, and the world situation. Chiang Ching-kuo once praised MacArthur’s insights in his biography for being accurate and broad.

The third meeting was during Chiang Ching-kuo’s visit to the United States. At that time, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was gradually becoming more robust and would replace Soviet Russia, and the diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and the United States was in crisis.

That day was Sunday. MacArthur gave up his plan to travel after learning about Chiang’s visit and met Chiang at home. They each sat on the same chairs where they had sat and talked ten years ago.

After leaving the military, MacArthur used his past influence to ask the U.S. gov-

“The current failure of the United States strategy towards China will cause a series of disasters, which will be the most significant political failure in the United States in a century. If we tolerate the red catastrophe, we will have to pay a heavy price in future generations, perhaps a hundred years.”

ernment to support Taiwan.

During the talks, he encouraged Chiang to stick to the anti-communist base of Taiwan. He said to Chiang: “The existence of Taiwan today is not only a base for the

Important Message From the Hopi Elders on Current World Events

By Sofia Roma

Y

ou have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.

“Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.”

ny@visiontimes.com

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves ! For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lonely wolf is over.

Gather yourselves!

Time to speak your truth

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing

Here are the things that must be considered:

Take nothing personally

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know our garden.

There is a river flowing now very fast.

It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.

Message from the Hopi Elders: "Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour." (Image: Charles Marion Russell /Wikimedia/CC 0 1.0)

They will try to hold on to the shore.

They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

See who is there with you and celebrate.

VISION TIMES

A9

Image: The U.S. National Archives

Image: wikimedia / CC0 1.0

MacArthur’s Post-War Years and His Prediction

By Vision Times Staff

FEB 5 - 11, 2021 |

Banish the word struggle

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we have been waiting for! Ahoy!

Hopi Nation, Oraibi Arizona — September, 2001

counterattack against China and restoration of the country, but its greatest significance is to make the world understand that the Chinese problem has remained unresolved. As long as Taiwan exists for one day, the Communist bandits cannot be peaceful.”

“I firmly believe that the Republic of China can recover the mainland one day and become a stable force in Asia.”

In early 1964, MacArthur’s health deteriorated suddenly.

After several significant operations, there was still no improvement to his health.

Before his death, MacArthur shook President Johnson’s hand and begged him that outside the Vietnam battlefield, not to forget to support the Republic of China in Taiwan. He has always believed that the Republic of China will win the anti-communist war.

On the afternoon of April 5, MacArthur passed away at the age of 84. President Johnson ordered a 19-gun salute in his honor at U.S. military bases around the world to mourn him. After that, the government held a funeral for him in New York and lowered the flags to half-mast until the funeral to mark his death.

After MacArthur’s death, the West Point Military Academy erected a bronze statue in his memory. His military thoughts have influenced countless American officers and soldiers. He was outstanding on the Asian battlefield, and later war historians generally ranked him alongside General Patton on the European battlefield as the greatest general of the modern American army.

Although General Douglas MacArthur died, his achievements will live in people’s admiration forever, and his spirit will be eternal in the victory of the anti-communist struggle in the world!

Food for thought from the Hopi Elders

The Hopi Americans left behind some powerful words of wisdom to help us better understand ourselves, the nature of the cosmos and the flow of life.

As they once said: “There is a river now flowing very fast, and there are those who would be afraid and hold on to the shore..”, (the old world they used to depend on), and so these people will suffer profoundly in their resistance against the powerful forces of Nature.

It is important we let go of all that we cling to, free ourselves from anything that is holding us back, and truly cherish the opportunity to assist one another in making this world a better place for ourselves and future generations, while on our journeying back to the Light and Truth.

Hopi Nation 212-730-6963

HEALTH

A10 | FEB 5 - 11 , 2021

www.VisionTimes.com

7 Things to Avoid

By Armin Auctor

C

oronavirus lockdown or not, selfisolation or not, regardless of the circumstances, people still need to take care of themselves even if you have no symptoms or very mild symptoms of COVID-19.

Protecting yourself well will help to prevent becoming infected or relapsing.

According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the human body is likened to a small country. The reason why a person can be attacked by a virus and that it can invade the body is because the person does take care of themselves.

Viruses then get past the body’s natural immune system and invade the body. If the person’s immune system is weak the virus will attack any underlying health problems that the person may have.

Once the virus enters the human body and attacks the cells. The human body will then mobilize its positive energy, the immune system (diseasefighting function), to fight the virus. It’s an amazing fact that if the positive energy of your body is stronger than the energy of the virus (disease-causing agent), you will be able to clear out the virus. If the positive energy of your body is weaker than the negative energy of the virus, your condition will worsen.

Regardless of whether the body’s positive energy is strong or weak, it will consume energy in the process of fighting the invader, so it is very important to take care of yourself.

Here are 7 things you shouldn’t do during the quarantine period of the coronavirus infection.

1

During the Coronavirus Lockdown or SelfIsolation

Alcohol

Some reports say that the coronavirus can be killed by alcohol. Alcohol gel of a 70 percent concentration can be effective in destroying the virus on the hands or surfaces.

As for drinking alcohol, the concentration entering the body is not high enough to kill the virus. When alcohol enters the body, it circulates through the whole body, including the blood vessels in your lungs.

When the blood of the lungs is inundated by alcohol, the chances of infection may be greatly increased, and the symptoms are also more likely to worsen.

4

Too much sex

Being a couple and sleeping together is a wonderful feeling. It’s also natural to have normal marital relations. But If you are infected with COVID-19 and not well, it means the virus has already entered your body. So to protect yourself and your loved one you should maximize and mobilize all your strength to deal with the attack. If you use up too much of your vital essence the virus may become stronger and attack you further. It would be best to abstain and even sleep in separate rooms until cured.

5

Anger

Many scientific studies have now discovered that emotions are inextricably linked to immunity. A happy mood will make the immune system stronger and your ability to fight viruses will be greatly improved. An unhappy mood will suppress your immune system. Chinese medicine believes that anger will hurt the liver, and the liver is the most combat-ready organ — your body’s general as it were.. If the general is hurt, the enemy, of course, will easily take advantage.

6

Inactivity

Regular and moderate exercise is a good fitness routine. It can promote the circulation of the blood so that the body’s organs and tissues are fully supplied with positive qi and oxygenated blood. It can also let the blood flow into the liver and kidneys, flushing toxic components out of your body. This enables the lungs to be purified so that infections cannot stay in the lungs. The lungs of inactive people do not function smoothly and the virus can easily lodge in their lungs and reproduce.

Staying up too late at night

Staying up too late may weaken your health, particularly if you are “burning the candle at both ends.” This routine could weaken the internal organs. Staying up too late at night may weaken the immune system, which in turn may lead to immune deficiency.

2

3

7

Smoking

Greasy food

Too much fatty fried food is not healthy. It uses a lot of energy to digest and assimilate, offering the virus an easy way to win get inside the human body. Fresh fruit, vegetables, and soups have all the right nutrients to help you fight viruses effectively.

Smoking damages the lungs, as we all know. Since the main target of the coronavirus attack is the lungs, the lungs become polluted by cigarette smoke. This is why experts state the number of smokers infected is much higher than non-smokers.

Translated by Yi Ming and edited by Helen

Adobe Stock

Press This Acupoint to Take Care of Your Heart and Avoid Myocardial Infarction

By Raven Montmorency

H

eart disease and myocardial infarction are more likely to occur in winter. There is an acupuncture point in your palm that can help you take care of your heart. According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), when you press the Laogong acupoint in the center of the palm, this will help protect the heart and relieve the fire/heat and inflammation.

Myocardial infarction usually occurs in men 45 years of age and women over 55 years of age, but the age of the onset is getting younger and younger.

“The elasticity of blood vessels in women is much better than that of men,” said Sha Zhengping, director of the Dahan Chinese Medicine Clinic. “Also, men generally have poor living habits, have many social activities, and often smoke, so the age of onset of myocardial infarc-

212-730-6963

tion is lower than women. In middle age, at the peak of life, myocardial infarction is likely to occur.”

It is recommended that you massage the Laogong point frequently in your free time to keep your heart healthy.

Gently fold the middle finger and ring finger of your hand toward the center of your palm. The Laogong point is the place where your fingertips touch. Press it slightly harder, and it will feel uncomfortable and tingle.

The Laogong point is a unique acupuncture point for treating heart disease, for it can relieve heart fire and clear blood heat. It is located in the pericardial meridian, the role of which is to protect the heart. Sha said that the Laogong point is suitable for modern people to practice self-care.

Down from the Laogong point, there are two crucial acupoints of Neiguan and Jianshi, which are located in the pericardial meridian and can also be massaged.

The Neiguan acupoint is situated between the two tendons of the wrist, and three horizontal finger-widths of the wrist stripes in the arm’s upper direction, which specializes in chest and abdominal diseases. The Jianshi point is located in the upper four horizontal finger-widths of the wrist stripes.

Eat more red, bitter foods to eliminate cardiovascular fat and avoid myocardial infarction

Chinese medicine says that red enters the heart. To protect the heart, eat more red heart foods, such as apples, tomatoes, red yeast rice, and red beans.

Among the “five flavors,” bitterness enters the heart.

Bitter gourd and lotus seeds are very bitter flavors, which can relieve the heart’s fire and stress. For those who often stay up late, work overtime, and have a dry mouth, you may wish to add a handful of lotus seeds to your tea.

“Sha said that most Chinese medicine treats heart disease with a little bit of Danshen.

Most people with heart disease have too much fat in their blood, which makes the blood too thick; hawthorn can lower blood fat. Cassia seeds have the effect of smoothing the intestines, improving defecation, and reducing stress.”

VISION TIMES

The Laogong acupoint is located in the center of the palm corresponding to the fingertips of the middle finger, which has the effect of maintaining the heart. (Image: Milos Vymazal/Dreamstime )

Heart-protecting tea Formula:

Danshen, hawthorn, cassia seed.

Recipe:

Take equal amounts of the restorative ingredients and make the tea.

Tradit iona l Chinese medicine says: “Danshen also has the effect of Siwu (Rehmannia, white peony, angelica, and chuanxiong),” which has the excellent func-

tion of promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis, and nourishing the blood.

Most people can drink this tea. If you have gastrointestinal problems such as stomach ulcers, you can use less hawthorn.

With all medical and dietary concerns, it is recommended to consult your trusted medical practitioner.

Translated by Joseph Wu and edited by Helen

ny@visiontimes.com

ARTS

www.VisionTimes.com

FEB 5 - 11, 2021 |

A11

Hanfu Craze in China

By Vision Times Staff

H

or “clothing for the head.” According to Chinese text, the earliest iteration of guan is made from leather, fashioned in the form of animals and adorned in feather panaches. Guan has different styles but shares similar components in all designs, which are called zhangtong, yanti, er, and hong.

Zhangtong, “front face,” is where decors are ingrained, sewn, or etched. At the bottom band of guan is yanti, which is decorated with sewn patterns, jade, or precious gem. Er is the earlike part of the headwear that protrudes up from the yanti.

And there’s the hong, a fashionable sash from two sides of the guan functioning mainly as a stabilizer for the head.

anfu is the clothing that was worn by the Han ethnic majority in China prior to the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1912).

After communists took over and Western clothing started becoming prevalent, wearing Hanfu was seen as dangerous since it might indicate a love for tradition. In the past decade, there has been a huge surge of interest in Hanfu clothing.

Jin: Headwear for all

Jin is made from cloth. Unlike the formal nature of guan, jin is closer to the heart of the common man as it is typically matched with everyday clothing. It is distinctive with its black silk ribbon scarf and net kerchief. This headwear rose in popularity during the middle ages, which slowly sidelined guan as the ancient Chinese’s main headwear.

Gradually, its design leaned more toward a formal look, which resembles guan styles. Aside from the materials used, jin is different from guan because of the absence of hairpin as a stabilizer. By the end of the Han Dynasty, jin was favored more by the literati and warriors.

Reviving tradition

“When I saw it, I really liked it… They looked fairy-like, dreamy. I was completely drawn by the beauty of these clothes, and then eventually came to understand the culture of Hanfu, and I liked it more and more,” a young Chinese woman said to CNN. Interestingly, most Hanfu enthusiasts tend to be youngsters. Since they have grown up during a period where everything related to Chinese tradition and culture was labeled as “backward” by the Communist Party, the youth have largely felt cut off from history.

The resurgence of ancient clothing in modern China

Ancient Headwear of China: A Symbol of Elegance and Social Status

Some teenagers wear ripped jeans and brow-raising shirts to tell the world they are a rebel, and some decorate themselves in glam fashion, showing everyone that they’ve made it in the world. Fashion is truly a statement.

Likewise, people in ancient China embodied this concept that fashion is tied with your individuality, in terms of social status particularly. Intriguingly, headwear was closely tied to social standing or profession.

Let’s dive back and talk about some of the headwear worn by ancient Chinese.

Guan: Headwear for Chinese officials

Traditionally, guan encompasses all forms of headwear and is commonly called shoufu

(Photo:Dai Bin)

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Today, one movement is taking China by storm — the hanfu movement. Translated as “Han clothing,” the idea is to revive the ancient clothing from past Han ethnicity eras. Whether the hanfu that an enthusiast wears hails from Ming, Song, or Tang dynasties, Shoufu (headwear), Tiyi (clothes), Zuyi (shoes and socks), and some accessories complete the set.

The author of the book The Great Han, Kevin Carrico, said that Hanfu is a combination of history and fantasy, stating that it is “very much taking a modern concept and projecting it into the past.”

Thanks to social media, the Hanfu movement has been growing steadily. Dai, a public relations manager at Chong Hui Han Tang, said to Reuters that “everyone wants to share what is beautiful, and has spread the word via platforms like Little Red Book, Weibo, and Wechat.”

Some wear hanfu as a fashion statement, and some for its historical significance. As told by one hanfu lover to Nextshark, “It’s to propagate China’s traditional culture.” Something that the communists almost extinguished.

At Vision Times, we endeavour to provide our readers with timely and insightful coverage on a broad range of issues, placing special emphasis on China and its shifting relationship with the rest of the world. Our take on current events is informed by an appreciation for the enduring traditional heritages of both the East and the West, which we seek to highlight and promote across all our platforms.

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A12 | FEB 5 - 11 , 2021

CULTURE

2021 Year of the

OX

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Chinese New Year is approaching this February 12th and 2021 is the Year of the Ox. It looks to be a favorable sign, which is exactly what we want to hear as some of us very cautiously enter this new year.

Good-bye year of the metal rat 2020.

By Jessica Kneipp

What do we know about the Ox?

The positive attributes of an Ox are not just found in the Chinese Zodiac. The Ox is a highly-regarded, deeply symbolic animal in eastern art, religion, and literature.

The Ox is gentle and trustworthy, a grounded and loyal animal that denotes discipline, strength, endurance, positivity, and honesty. The Ox can save us from disaster and help us rebuild because the Ox is a builder.

It’s element is earth which represents stability and nourishment. The OX helps us plough the fields, plant crops, and harvest our food. It is itself also a source of food, milk and clothing.

In Feng Shui the Ox is known to grant wishes. The Ox is seen in such a positive light due to its ability to self-sacrifice and serve mankind and for this reason is commonly used in Korean Proverbs.

The Ox was seen as ‘Buddha-nature’ in ancient times

Statues of an Ox and imagery in temples are found in many religious places in Japan, the symbolism of the Ox in Buddhism stems from Daoism — a philosophical practice originating in China. In Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism, the Ox represents “Buddha-nature,” a nature we all have in us. Therefore, in the Year of the Metal Ox, we can look forward to having more self-reflection and gain greater enlightenment.

Illustration of a boy riding an ox playing a flute. This is one of a series of ten images, generally known in English as the Ox-herding (or Bull-herding) pictures, by the 15th century Japanese Rinzai Zen monk Shubun.

Chinese Zodiac and the Metal element in 2021

The Chinese calendar rotates in 60-year cycles and it represents 12 zodiac animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.

The five Taoist elements are Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. 2021 is a metal year, and autumn is the most favorable season in a metal year.

Metal is linked to the lungs and large intestines, white color, white food, and pungent tastes and flavors. In Feng Shui, metal represents cleanliness, like the shine from a metal surface, and the bedroom is where to focus this the most, as the ox is hardworking and does best after a peaceful sleep.

People who are Oxen in the Chinese Zodiac are born in these years: 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, and 2021.

Here’s wishing you goodwill for 2021 with all the strong will in the Year of the Metal Ox.

Image: Adobe Stock

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