Vision Times Newspaper VOL.40 OCT 08,2021

VOL.040 OCT 8 - OCT 14 , 2021 (Image: Adobe Stock)

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CHINA WILL BE FULLY CAPABLE OF INVADING TAIWAN BY 2025

Defense Minister Warns

By Leo Timm Vision Times

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hiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan’s defense minister, said on Wednesday, Oct. 6, that the communist regime in mainland China would be prepared for a full-scale invasion of the island by 2025.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC), is already capable of invading Taiwan — which it claims as a renegade province — at present, but such an operation would be very costly, Chiu told the China Times.

“By 2025 China will bring the cost and attrition to its lowest. It has the capacity now, but it will not start a war easily, having to take many other things into consideration,” Chiu said.

The defense minister also warned of misfire incidents amid the rising tensions.

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Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan’s defense minister. (Image: SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images) Then-Trump administration official Alex Azar (left) meets with President Tsai IngWen (right) during his visit to Taiwan. (Image: ROC president/flickr)

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), has been technically in a civil war with the PRC since 1949, when communist armies forced the ROC off the mainland.

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Chiu’s remarks came as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air force sent more than 150 aircraft into the Taiwanese air defense identification zone over a period of four days. While such shows of force have been common in recent years, the latest moves are unprecedented in scale.

And though the Taiwanese air force has been recently equipped with new F-16V fighter jets, the

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constant harassment by the PLA is keeping the island’s defenses on edge, piling stress on pilots and machinery.

The same day as Chiu’s warning, U.S. President Joe Biden said he had spoken with PRC leader Xi Jinping and that the two leaders had reached an agreement concerning Taiwan.

“We agree … we’ll abide by the Taiwan agreement,” he said. “We made it clear that I don’t think he should be doing anything other than abiding by the agreement,” Biden said in the morning.

Regarding the PLA’saerial activity, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington “strongly urge[s] Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure and coercion directed at Taiwan,” and that the U.S. was firmly committed to the island’s defense.

Continued on A4

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NATION

A2 | OCT 8 - OCT 14 , 2021

VISION TIMES

Supply Chains Pressured as Ships at California Ports Face 4-Week Unloading Time

By Neil Campbell Vision Times

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s Christmas rush approaches, the North American supply chain is under pressure with ports in California and New York have ships waiting as long as four weeks to unload their cargo.

An Oct. 1 article in the UKbased Daily Mail showed footage of “more than a dozen cargo ships and oil tankers anchored outside New York’s harbor, waiting to unload their goods.”

The piece also noted two of the United States’ largest ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach are “currently housing vessels that have been left anchored for four weeks.”

Photos in the article taken by a photographer for the paper at a New York port showed the extensive backlog of ships carrying goods from China and other places in Asia, as well as long lines of semi trucks waiting to load.

A Sept. 30 article by the Wall Street Journal counted a backlog of 73 ships on Sept. 19, which had fallen somewhat to 64 by the end of the month based on data from the Marine Exchange of Southern California.

“Containers at the ports waited, on average, 5.4 days to be picked up from the docks by truck in August, according to the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, a trade group, up from an average 2.5 days before the pandemic,” added the article.

A second Sept. 21 piece by WSJ said, “Before the pandemic, it was unusual for more than one ship to wait for a berth.”

WSJ went on to attribute the issue to California’s proximity to mainland China, “Last year, the two ports handled the equivalent of 8.8 million loaded import containers, more than double the 3.9 million loaded boxes that arrived at the nation’s next busiest port at New York and New Jersey.”

“The California ports are in easy range of China and the factories that churn out big volumes of elec-

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

tronics, apparel and an array of other consumer goods.”

A Sept. 28 article by CBS Los Angeles estimated the ships comprised as many as 500,000 shipping containers. Semi drivers interviewed by the outlet were paraphrased as saying “that a trucker shortage is not the problem, instead, the port needs to speed up wait times and have more dock help ready to offload.”

One driver told CBSLA that the dock was only operating one of its three cranes while a line of 60 truckers, who are paid per delivery and not hourly, waited for hours in line to load.

It is described as the size of 500 football fields, being backed up as far as 25 miles, Daily Mail noted.

An executive for TRAC Intermodal, a marine chassis company, told the outlet, “Instead of getting 30 or 40 boxes off a block of cars every day, you’re getting full trains coming in with 250 to 275 containers…Recently, we had a train arrive in Cleveland from a western railroad interchanged with the

The issue wasn’t only affecting ships, but also Chicago’s rail system

CSX with around 272 boxes on it.”

“That’s very unusual and we’re just not fleeted for that.”

An Oct. 2 article by The Washington Post illustrated the massive increase in cost of importing from China the problem has produced, “This month, the median cost of shipping a standard rectangular metal container from China to the West Coast of the United States hit a record $20,586, almost twice what it cost in July, which was twice what it cost in January.”

“The seven largest publicly traded ocean carriers — including companies such as Maersk, COSCO and Hapag-Lloyd — reported more than $23 billion in profits in the first half of this year, compared with just $1 billion in the same period last year,” added the author.

“Revealing the situation helps the industry’s biggest players, but hurts small businesses, “ The Post continued, “The soaring freight bills that fueled those profits, however, have put smaller shippers at a disadvantage to giants like Walmart or Amazon. The biggest companies not only can more easily absorb higher costs. They also negotiate more attractive contracts in the first place, which means they can reliably get their goods across the ocean while smaller companies struggle.”

A Los Angeles port workers union representative was also paraphrased as telling The Post, “Twenty union members have died of covid-19 while working through the pandemic.”

NIH Director Francis Collins Resigns After FOIA Disclosure Showed Wuhan Lab Gain of Function Funding

By Neil Campbell Vision Times

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irector of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, resigned suddenly on Oct. 5, less than a month after The Intercept obtained 900 pages of documents in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request confirming the NIH and Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) laboratories through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance.

In a resignation statement on the NIH website, Collins said “the decision to step down was a difficult one,” adding, “I fundamentally believe, however, that no single person should serve in the www.visiontimes.com

position too long, and that it’s time to bring in a new scientist to lead the NIH into the future.”

The statement also lauded Collins achievements in “garner[ing] broad bipartisan Congressional support for NIH research,” noting that “during his 12-year leadership, NIH’s budget grew by 38%, from $30 billion in 2009 to $41.3 billion in 2021.”

The release also promotes the creation of the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPAH), which the NIH describes as, “Modeled after DARPA in the Department of Defense, ARPA-H is envisioned to support and conduct high-risk, high-reward biomedical and health research in a way that is radically different than NIH’s grant-based system.”

In May, Unlimited Hangout warned of a troubling pattern of

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Many scientists were concerned about the potential dangers associated with such experiments.

--read the article.

Francis Collins. (Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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HARPA, a Trump era proposal to create a health-focused DARPA spinoff, which served as the spiritual predecessor to ARPA-H, to collect biometric data from citizens from wearable devices to use in massive artificial intelligence processing for the purpose of predictive pre-crime law enforcement.

On Sept. 6, The Intercept obtained documents that showed the NIH had funded EcoHealth Alliance with $3.1 million USD, $599,000 of which was given directly to the CCP’s Wuhan Institute of Virology “used in part to identify and alter bat coronaviruses likely to infect humans. Even before the pandemic.”

On Sept. 9, The Intercept published further information revealing the NIH had funded Daszak’s organization to conduct gain of function research with a second ad.ny@visiontimes.com

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Wuhan Lab, Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment, this time a Biosecurity Level 3 laboratory, “To study bat coronaviruses combined the genetic material from a ‘parent’ coronavirus known as WIV1 with other viruses.”

“They twice submitted summaries of their work that showed that, when in the lungs of genetically engineered mice, three altered bat coronaviruses at times reproduced far more quickly than the original virus on which they were based. The altered viruses were also somewhat more pathogenic, with one causing the mice to lose significant weight,” said The Intercept.

The article noted the research “included subawards to Wuhan Institute of Virology and East China Normal University.”

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OCT 8 - OCT 14, 2021 |

A3

Facebook Comes Back Online Following Widespread Outage, Millions Disrupted

By Jonathan Walker Vision Times

F (Image: OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

Pentagon-backed Study Shows Large Percentage of Vaccinated Elderly Got COVID-19

By Neil Campbell Vision Times

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study of 20 million U.S. Medicare beneficiaries performed by a Department of Defense-backed artificial intelligence project revealed that 71 percent of COVID cases are fully vaccinated breakthroughs.

The study also admitted that “Prior COVID-19 infection has a major protective effect against breakthrough hospitalization.”

The report is a weekly update dated Sept. 28 titled Effectiveness of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Against the Delta Variant Among 5.6M Medicare Beneficiaries 65 Years and Older and is published on the public-facing website of Humetrix, a data collection and artificial intelligence firm that works with the DOD and the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC).

The weekly update, which is branded with the DOD, JAIC, and Project Salus logos, uses the following dataset: • Cohort: 20 million Medicare beneficiaries; focusing on 16 million aged 65+; • Exposure: 5.6 million fully vaccinated individuals (2.9 million Moderna & 2.7 million Pfizer); • Period: January to August 21, 2021; and • Key Metrics: 161,000 breakthrough infections and 33,000 breakthrough hospitalizations with 10,400 ICU admissions.

In a July 9 Trump administration-era article posted on the DOD’s website that boasted America’s artificial intelligence powers are greater than that of Communist China because the United

States does not devote its energy to “spying on its own people and using facial recognition technology to identify political dissenters,” the article described Project Salus as “puts artificial intelligence to work helping to predict shortages for things like water, medicine and supplies used in the COVID fight.”

The article said Project Salus was developed by the National Guard and the U.S. Northern Command.

The PowerPoint for the presentation hosts the disclaimer, “Medicare data and Humetrix software are hosted in a secure government enclave of the Department of Defense.”

The study notably defined a breakthrough case as a COVID19 diagnosis “occurring no earlier than 2-weeks post the second vaccine dose.” [emphasis added] Humetrix defined a COVID19 diagnosis as having occurred so long as the International Classification for Disease 10 code for COVID-19, U071, was found in any claim type, but disclaimed that only 29 percent of claims had either a PCR or antigen test.

Hospitalizations were defined as claims that have a “primary admitting diagnosis” of U071 and admission within 14 days of diagnosis. Deaths were defined as claims that had either a discharge code of 41, which the deck defines as “expired in facility,” or a date of death within 60 days of diagnosis.

Overall, of the 161,000 breakthrough infections, Humetrix found 2.1 percent, or approximately 3,400 people had passed away. For the purposes of assessing vaccine efficacy, the data compares itself against data from March to December of 2020 when

the nationwide vaccination drive had yet to begin, finding that the 2.1 percent death figure had fallen by a factor of six from 12 percent pre-vaccine.

In examining the 16 million claims aged 65+, Humetrix found COVID-19 diagnoses increased by a factor of five as the Delta variant became prominent. Data estimated that 97 percent of all diagnoses were Delta variants by Aug. 28.

A graph in the deck showed that as Delta replaced vanilla SARSCoV-2, this group suffered from as many as 40,000 new cases per week, up from 20,000 or less between April and July.

The report admitted that 71 percent of cases were breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated individuals and 60 percent of hospitalizations were fully vaccinated.

In examining the difference in infection rates between 65 to 74, 75 to 84, and 85+ year olds, the data showed that age only “has a minor contribution to the reduced vaccine protection.”

However, age appeared to play a significant role in the hospitalization rate. As Delta became prevalent, the 85+ group showed 50 percent more weekly hospitalizations per 100,000.

In the final slide, titled Risk Model for Breakthrough Hospitalization, Humetrix found that End Stage Renal Disease and prior hospitalization had the greatest odds ratio for serving as a hospitalization risk, followed by factors such as being native american, hispanic, black, morbidly obese, and male.

Notably, the group that had the lowest odds ratio for breakthrough hospitalization were those who had a prior COVID-19 diagnosis.

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acebook recently went down, triggering a frenzy worldwide as millions of businesses and individuals became increasingly worried about not being able to access the platform.

Though the outage has now been resolved, the downtime demonstrated how dependent the world has become on such platforms.

On Oct. 4, Facebook together with WhatsApp and Instagram went offline starting at 11:30 a.m.

ET. After approximately six hours, the problem was resolved and services resumed as usual.

In a blog post, the company said that it understands people and businesses across the world depend on their service to remain connected and apologized to “all those affected” with the downtime. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also issued an apology to Facebook’s users.

Faulty configuration change

Facebook said that the root cause of the issue was a “faulty configuration change” and that they have seen no evidence to suggest that user data has been compromised as a result of the outage.

“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication.

This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt,” said the post.

The problem seems to have begun with a routine Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) update at the company. BGP is a mechanism that allows ISPs to share information about how providers route internet traffic to specific internet addresses. It is basically a map that tells the world’s computers how to find Facebook and its various services.

With the BGP update, this map was taken away and users were not able to access Facebook servers.

Though Facebook has not indicated that there was a hack, some experts have raised the spectre of such a possibility. “In the past year or so, we’ve seen a lot of these big outages where they had some sort of update to their global network configuration that went awry…

We obviously can’t rule out someone hacking them, but they also could have done this to themselves,” Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at the network monitoring company Kentik, told Krebs On Security.

The outage also disrupted Facebook’s internal operations.

Employees couldn’t use the company’s internal message boards and had to rely on Outlook to communicate. Employees at Facebook’s Menlo Park campus faced difficulties entering buildings since their security badges were rendered useless.

In an interview with the Associated Press (AP), Rachel Tobac, a hacker and CEO of SocialProof Security, said that so many people across the world are now dependent on Facebook and its associated platforms for communication that they can become vulnerable to criminals looking to benefit from the downtime.

(Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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CHINA

A4 | OCT 8 - OCT 14 , 2021

VISION TIMES

Surge in Procurement of PCR Tests Months Before Official Declaration of COVID-19 Suggests Early Outbreak in China

By Jonathan Walker Vision Times

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ccording to Beijing, the first symptomatic case of COVID-19 was recorded on Dec. 8, 2019. Some experts have raised the possibility that the virus may have been in circulation much earlier. A cybersecurity company based in Australia recently released a report that lends credence to this theory.

The company, Internet 2.0, collected data about the sale of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests in China over several years. PCR tests are used to detect viruses in humans and animals. It is one of the most widely used tests to detect COVID-19.

In the province of Hubei, 67.4 million yuan ($10.5 million) was spent on PCR tests in early 2019, which is double the money spent in 2018. Orders for PCR tests from animal testing bureaus jumped ten times while those from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) went up by about five times.

The use of these tests began to rise from May 2019, more than six months before the first reported case. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the CDC made significant purchases of these tests.

Between July and October, orders from the Wuhan University of Science and Technology also began to rise. In 2019, the university spent eight times more money on these

tests. The university is involved in responding to outbreaks of new diseases.

The Internet 2.0 report is based on an analysis of 1,716 procurement contracts between 2007 and 2019.

The city of Wuhan, where the first reported cases emerged, is located in Hubei province.

Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the laboratory which is at the center of the lab leak theory, is also located in the province.

Though PCR tests are used for purposes other than COVID-19 testing, the fact that more money was spent just months before the pandemic officially emerged raises questions regarding the true situation.

“We assess with high confidence that the pandemic began much earlier than China informed the [World Health Organization] about COVID-

Continued from FRONT

(Image: AdobeStock)

The jump in PCR orders came at a time when the CDC and the NIH were helping Beijing expand its surveillance capacity of infectious diseases.

--The source added

A medical worker takes samples during a mass Covid-19 test in a residential block on Aug. 6, 2021 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. (Image: Getty Images)

19,” the report states.

In an interview with The Australian, a U.S. government source stated that the data in the report raises “a lot of questions.” He noted that the surge in PCR test procurement coincided with China’s Global Virome Project that began in 2017. The project aims to “discover zoonotic viral threats & stop future pandemics.”

“I think there’s more than just smoke here, I think there’s fire from a whole bunch of different sources… I think that would be ­another compelling piece of evidence, if you need more. I don’t need more,” John Ratcliffe, former director of U.S. National ­Intelligence, told the media outlet.

A Black-Market Tutoring Industry has Sprung up in China Following Education Reforms by Beijing

By Todd Crawford Vision Times

I

n China, finding some extra math help for your gradeschooler has never been more difficult than it is now and the lengths some people are going to in an attempt to give their child an edge in school is bordering on the bizarre.

On June 15, the Chinese Ministry of Education established a new department to monitor off-campus education and training provisions and implemented controversial “reforms to the off-campus education and training sector.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) banned training institutions from offering subject-based

tutoring on national statutory holidays, rest days, or winter and summer vacations, typically the time students have to brush up on subjects they may be struggling with or to study ahead.

In addition, out-of-school training centers and cram schools were also banned.

In 2016, studying outside regular school hours was the norm in China. More than 75 percent of students in primary and secondary school attended after-school tutoring, according to the most recent industry figures. This is a practice communist party leader, Xi Jinping, criticized in March, saying the extra studying was a barrier to boosting birth rates.

China is currently in the throes of a deepening aging crisis where

A teacher teaches first graders in Han Chinese clothing to write Chinese characters with Chinese brushes for calligraphy during a first writing ceremony in Xingzhi Primary School at Qiaoxi District on Aug. 31, 2016 in Xingta. (Image: VCG/Getty Images) www.visiontimes.com

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China Will Be Fully Capable of Invading Taiwan by 2025, Defense Minister Warns

many regions across China are experiencing a population much older than what would typically support a robust and growing economy.

Despite the CCP’s reforms the market for after-school tutoring has not gone away, it has simply gone into hiding.

“Parents are turning to private tutoring, either in-person or online, and are relying on private introductions or hiring tutors to come to their homes in the guise of domestic helpers or electrical appliance repair workers,” Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.

The reforms introduced by Beijing were intended to ease pressure on parents and students however they appear to be having the opposite effect.

Parents are now under even more pressure than before due to the fact that it has become harder to find teachers on the newly established educational services black-market.

If parents are able to find a tutor, the price tag that comes with it would give anyone sticker shock.

Zhou Xia, a former cram school insider, told RFA that tutoring fees are now hovering around 3,000 yuan (US$465) per hour.

In the city of Shenzhen, authorities recently carried out inspections of more than 5,000 tutor centers and cram schools, closing hundreds of them, according to a social media post by the city’s

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municipal education bureau.

Authorities are also on the prowl looking for tutors entering people’s homes disguised as other kinds of service providers.

Wang Zeng, a current affairs commentator in China, said that the private tuition industry has gone underground in order to survive.

“They are now conducting one-to-one tutoring in the guise of housekeeping and other services,” Wang told RFA, adding that, “Far from falling, the fees may be increasing.”

Wang said that the exorbitant fees are due to the high risks tutors are taking in order to supply their services, under wraps, adding that the new teaching model “may affect students’ learning.”

It’s psychologically harmful for the kids to do this on the quiet when they used to do it openly.

The new reforms were implemented after CCP general secretary, Xi Jinping, referred to the practice of after hours studying as “a stubborn disease that is hard to manage,” in a speech in March. ad.ny@visiontimes.com

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“Beijing sees the “reunification” of Taiwan as a political necessity, despite the fact that the PRC has never ruled the island. “ Beijing has vowed to take Taiwan by military force if needed, and warns of consequences should Taiwan declare independence.

Prior to 1971, the United Nations recognized the ROC as the legitimate representative of China, but this status was shifted to Beijing as more countries, including the U.S., warmed up to the mainland.

In 1979, Washington dropped official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, though it maintains a de facto embassy.

Taiwan has recently boosted its military spending, with $8.7 billion to be allocated over the next few years.

On Tuesday, an essay by Tsai was published in Foreign Affairs, with the Taiwanese leader warning of the consequences should Taiwan fall to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Tsai noted that Taiwan “represents at once an affront to the narrative and an impediment to the regional ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party.”

“As countries increasingly recognize the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses, they should understand the value of working with Taiwan. And they should remember that if Taiwan were to fall, the consequences would be catastrophic for regional peace and the democratic alliance system. It would signal that in today’s global contest of values, authoritarianism has the upper hand over democracy,” she wrote.

Jessica Drun of the Asia-focused think tank Project 2049 told the Guardian that it was unclear which agreement or phone call Biden’s remarks on Oct. 6 referred to.

The U.S. abides by a “one China policy,” which recognizes Taiwan as a Chinese territory, but does not specify whether that means the ROC or the mainland regime. The Taiwan Relations Act, meanwhile, carries the expectation that Taiwan’s future status is to be determined by peaceful means.

Drun said it’s possible that the “agreement” Biden spoke of was the one China policy, but said that she would not characterize that as a consensus between the U.S. and PRC leaders.

“From my understanding it’s standard procedure in interactions with Chinese counterparts for each side to convey its respective views. For Washington, that is affirming its “one China” policy – which is its own policy, formulated independently, and which is assuredly not the same as Beijing’s ‘one China’ principle,” she told the Guardian.

The PRC on Oct. 4 said that the U.S. “one China policy” was something Washington had “cooked up” unilaterally.

On Sept. 9, Biden had a 90-minute phone call with Xi, during which they discussed how to amend U.S.-China relations within a broad “strategic framework,” according to the White House.

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CHINA

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OCT 8 - OCT 14, 2021 |

Fu Zhenghua, China’s Former Justice Minister and Head of Infamous ‘610 Office’, Is Purged

By Leo Timm Vision Times

O Fu Zhenghua in a file photo. (Image: File photo via Sina)

All these men and many more purged by Xi have served in the ‘610 Office,’ a security organ established to persecute religious faiths deemed “cults” by the CCP.

n Oct. 2, the Chinese Communist Party’s disciplinary committee announced an investigation into Fu Zhenghua, the official best known for his long career in the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). He had also served as justice minister between 2018 and 2020.

Fu, currently serving as deputy director of the Social and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), is suspected by the Central Committee for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of “serious disciplinary violations.”

Prior to becoming justice minister, Fu was Executive Deputy Minister of Public Security, a position he held starting in 2013. Before

Chinese police detain a Falun Dafa adherent in Tiananmen Square . (Image: minghui.org)

that, he was head of police in Beijing starting in 2010.

Sun and Fu are two high-ranking police officials to be recently snared by Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, which China watchers believe to be in fact driven by factional intrigue

between Xi and his rivals in the CCP. Two previous vice-heads of the MPS, Li Dongsheng and Meng Hongwei, have been investigated and tried for corruption. Another recently purged security official is Peng Bo, who was deputy head of China’s cyberspace administration.

All these men and many more purged by Xi have served in the ‘610 Office,’ a security organ established to persecute religious faiths deemed “cults” by the CCP. Fu headed the secretive agency, officially called the “Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Cults,” starting in 2015.

Targeting a rival faction

Sun, Li, Meng, and Peng were all senior officers in the 610 Office, which was originally set up in 1999 by then-CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin to carry out the

A5

repression of Falun Gong, a popular Chinese spiritual practice.

China watchers see Xi’s anti-corruption campaign and extensive targeting of officials connected with Jiang and Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong as a result of the factional struggle between the current and former Party bosses.

According to analysts at New York-based think tank SinoInsider, Fu’s downfall was likely a matter of time, given his deep involvement with previously purged officials and the Jiang faction.

“Fu Zhenghua was Sun Lijun’s boss when they were in the 610 Office. It is possible that Sun divulged incriminating information about Fu to investigators, leading to the latter’s arrest,” Larry Ong, a researcher at SinoInsider, said in a written statement to Vision Times.

Ong believes that more highranking officials associated with the Jiang faction could be purged in the coming months, particularly those in the political and legal affairs apparatus, the CCP organizations that control the courts, prosecution, and police.

Hundreds of Chinese Companies Might Soon be Delisted From American Stock Exchanges

By Jonathan Walker Vision Times

C

hinese firms have long secured funding from American capital markets without proper checks and balances. Such activities are heading towards their end as the U.S. implements new rules to hold foreign companies, raising capital from America, to a stricter standard.

Three years audit results required

In Dec. 2020, then-President Donald Trump signed into law the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) that requires overseas firms trading securities in America to produce audit results for three consecutive years.

Failure to comply with the guideline will result in the foreign company being delisted from the securities exchanges.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is designing the rules around the law and will be determining how they are to be implemented.

The agency believes that Chinese companies might start being f lagged by regulators beginning next year in the event that the firms do not submit their 2021 audits. www.visiontimes.com

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange while the price of Alibaba Group's initial price offering (IPO) is decided on September 19, 2014 in New York City.(Image:Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

On Sept. 14, SEC Chairman, Gary Gensler, said that Chinese stocks that do not allow the United States to review their audit briefs for the past three years would be expelled from American stock markets starting in 2024.

On Sept. 22, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a nonprofit corporation tasked with overseeing the audits of public companies, approved a new framework. Foreign companies not audited by American audit firms need to reveal more information to the PCAOB that will help the agency to implement the HFCAA. Once the SEC gives the green light, the framework will immediately become effective.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Gabriel Wildau from the global business advisory firm Teneo stated that the new framework approved by the PCAOB does not have any loophole that would allow Chinese firms to

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Failure to comply with the guideline will result in the foreign company being delisted from the securities exchanges.

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avoid delisting in the case of noncompliance.

Though China’s State Council and the China Securities Regulatory Commission have shown signs that they want to negotiate on the matter, the Biden administration “does not seem inclined to accept this officer,” meaning that the issue would end up in a stalemate.

Among all international companies listed in American exchanges, only Chinese ones do not allow PCAOB to review their audit records, mostly by citing national security concerns.

According to China’s Securities Law, domestic companies issuing securities are prohibited from submitting relevant documents abroad without gaining Beijing’s approval.

Out of 270 Chinese firms that have issued securities overseas, only 14 have offered audit working papers. As such, PCAOB’s new rule puts many Chinese companies listed in U.S. exchanges at risk of being delisted over the coming years. ad.ny@visiontimes.com

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Investors will go to the Hong Kong-listed names

Given the possibility of Chinese companies getting delisted from U.S. exchanges, some American investors have begun trading their American Depository Receipts (ADR) in Chinese firms for shares that trade on Hong Kong exchanges. An ADR is a certificate issued by a U.S. depositary bank that represents a specific number of shares of a foreign company’s stock.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Wim-Hein Pals, head of the emerging markets equity team at Netherlands-based asset manager Robeco, revealed that he has swapped most of his Chinese ADRs for shares listed in Hong Kong. Such ADRs now only make up 1.5 percent of his $1.4 billion portfolio.

“We see liquidity moving gradually but consistently to Hong Kong over the next couple of years. More and more investors will go to the Hong Kong-listed names, and neglect their U.S.listed shares,” Pals said.

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WORLD

A6 | OCT 8 - OCT 14 , 2021

VISION TIMES

Chinese Army Entered India and Blew Up Bridge: Reports

Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

By Leo Timm Vision Times

R

ecent reports by Indian media reveal that on Aug. 30, more than 100 soldiers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intruded on a border region and destroyed a bridge before returning to Chinese territory.

According to The Economic Times, the Indian military didn’t notice or react to the intrusion in the Barahoti region at first, insiders told the Mumbai-based outlet. By then, the PLA troops — who came in on horseback — had already left the way they came, through the Tun Jun La mountain pass.

The Chinese attack was reported by local civilians, who said the intruders had spent several hours destroying the bridge and other infrastructure.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has shown more aggression toward India in recent months, echoing border tensions from the 1950s and 1960s.

A source in the Indian Home Ministry told The Economic Times that it wasn’t the first time the PLA had tried to infiltrate the Barahoti area, prompting the Indian military to deploy more troops there.

But the scale of the Aug. 30 incident has Indian officials worried, as

STR/AFP via Getty Images

This photo taken on January 4, 2021 shows Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers assembling during military training at Pamir Mountains in Kashgar, northwestern China's Xinjiang region.

A general view of Zoji La, a high mountain pass bordering China, on June 13, 2021 in Ladakh, India. The Zoji La mountain pass, considered to be the world's second most dangerous pass at 3529 metres, connects Kashmir Valley and Ladakh.

previous Chinese incursions were minor and the area was mostly free of military presence.

The PLA first invaded Barahoti, located in the high-altitude HimaYawar Nazir/Getty Images

Indian paramilitary trooper stands guard near the Zojila tunnel construction, which will connect Kashmir with Ladakh in Baltal 100 km east of Srinagar.

laya mountain range, in 1954. Skirmishes broke out between China and India the next year; in 1962, the conflict resulted in a brief war.

In recent years, there have been multiple confrontations between PLA and Indian military troops.

In 2017, two Indian bunkers were reportedly destroyed during a skirmish in the Doklam region, after which the Indian troops formed a human wall to stop further incursions.

Last May, four Indian soldiers and seven Chinese troops were injured

The Feds Are Using ‘Keyword Warrants’ to Compel Google to Turn Over Personal Search Data

By Neil Campbell Vision Times

The federal government is using the legal process to compel Big Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to hand over data and records on users who search certain keywords, according to a new report.

The usage of the tactic, albeit not new, has not surfaced more than a handful of times. On Oct. 4, Forbes published an exclusive article relying on a search warrant that was “accidentally unsealed by the Justice Department in September” involving a 2019 case where federal investigators searched for perpetrators in a trafficking and sexual abuse of a minor case.

Forbes stated they had “reviewed the document before it was sealed again and is neither publishing it nor providing full details of the case to protect the identities of the victim and her family.”

The article said the “keyword warrant” compelled Google for “information on anyone who had searched for the victim’s name, two spellings of her mother’s name and her address over 16 days across the year,” includwww.visiontimes.com

ing “all relevant Google accounts and IP addresses of those who made the searches.”

In the case, federal investigators also sought to obtain cookie data from Google for those who were flagged in the search results.

Forbes says Google provided the data to the government in the middle of 2020. The case is still ongoing, and the Department of Justice “didn’t comment on whether or not any charges had been filed.”

According to the outlet, only two other keyword warrants have been made public. In 2020, investigators were able to track down the perpetrator of arson, Michael Williams, an associate of R Kelly, against a witness in the case by asking Google for the IP addresses of anyone who searched for the victim’s address.

According to CNET, “Court documents showed that Google provided the IP addresses of people who searched for the arson victim’s address, which investigators tied to a phone number belonging to Williams.

Police then used the phone number records to pinpoint the location of Williams’ device near the arson.”

In a wire fraud case in 2017, a Min-

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nesota judge authorized Google to hand over to law enforcement “names, email addresses, account information, and IP addresses of anyone who searched variations of the victim’s name over a five-week period of time,” according to researcher Tony Webster.

A lawyer for the ACLU told Forbes that keyword warrants are a technique that is certainly putting its toes over the line, “Trawling through Google’s search history database enables police to identify people merely based on what they might have been thinking about, for whatever reason, at some point in the past.”

“This is a virtual dragnet through the public’s interests, beliefs, opinions, values and friendships, akin to mind reading powered by the Google time machine.”

“This never-before-possible technique threatens First Amendment interests and will inevitably sweep up innocent people, especially if the keyword terms are not unique and the time frame not precise. To make matters worse, police are currently doing this in secret, which insulates the practice from public debate and regulation.”

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In the case, federal investigators also sought to obtain cookie data from Google for those who were flagged in the search results.

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in a clash in Naku La, as reported by the Times of India. The altercation involved more than 150 personnel and several people were injured.

The Himalayan border falls under the purview of the PLA’s Western Theater Command (WTC), which has just seen a leadership change.

Sinologist and senior research fellow with the India-based Usanas Foundation Frank Lehberger told The Epoch Times that the recent incident in Barahoti could be connected to the August promotion of Gen. Wang Haijiang to head the WTC. Lehberger noted that Wang is an expert in patrols and reconnaissance in mountainous terrain.

According to Lehberger, the PLA could have intended the operation as a means to gauge the Indian reaction should Beijing decide to make a bolder move in future. Another goal could be to keep the Indian military on edge.

Forbes also found records of the existence of another keyword warrant in a California Court dated 2020.

The warrant, which is under seal, but mentioned in a publicly available docket, has a name that reads like a directive issued directly by the Chinese Communist Party: “Application by the United States for a Search Warrant for Google Accounts Associated with Six Search Terms and Four Search Dates.”

After the article was published, the Electronic Frontier Foundation provided Forbes with copies of a trio of keyword warrants from the 2018 Austin serial bombings, where the FBI asked the courts to compel Google to surrender data on a series of broad search terms, including generic words such as cardboard or package in connection with bomb or pipe bomb, PVC bomb, or explosive from Jan. 1 to March 2, 2018.

A second warrant asked the search engine to provide search engine data for locations near the scene of the crime, including Google Maps and Waze data within a half mile radius from March 12 to March 18 of 2018.

In the third, Google was asked to hand over all search data on four specific addresses over the course of an entire month between February and March of 2018.

Similar warrants were provided to Microsoft and Yahoo as well.

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WORLD A7 Fumio Kishida Elected Japanese PM, Pushes for More Cooperation Between Taiwan and Japan

VISION TIMES

OCT 8 - OCT 14, 2021 |

By Ryan Wu Vision Times

T “Kishida recently stated that managing issues around the Taiwan Strait, particularly in regards to mainland China, will be the prime minister’s first priority.”

he election for the president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the ruling party of Japan, was held on Sept. 29. The winner, Fumio Kishida, became Japan’s 100th prime minister, following the resignation of predecessor Yoshihide Suga.

In the first round of voting none of the four candidates received more than half of the votes, and the top and second candidates, Fumio Kishida, and Taro Kono competed in a second round of voting. Seiko Noda and Sanae Takaichi were both eliminated in the first round, each losing the chance to become the first female prime minister in Japanese history.

Kishida, 64, is only six years older than Taro Kono, and the two men are seen as representing stability and change respectively. Taro, who studied in the United States, speaks fluent English, and uses social media well with more than 2.3 million followers on Twitter.

He has enjoyed support by the LDP House of Representatives, which he has been elected to seven times and has consistently attracted younger voters.

His platform promised reform and advocated for the abandonment of nuclear weapons and rejected the opposition to a female emperor. “ “His platform promised reform and advocated for the abandonment of nuclear weapons and rejected the opposition to a female emperor. “ In contrast, Fumio Kishida, who has a more conservative demeanor and has the support of more senior party members.

As the LDP currently holds the majority of seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives, Fumio’s ascension to president was all but guaranteed.

Kishida will be the 27th president elected from the Liberal Democratic Party.

“Kishida recently stated that managing issues around the Taiwan Strait, particularly in regards to mainland China, will be the prime minister’s first priority.”

Kishida was the first to say that after being elected prime minis-

ter of Japan, he would set up special officials for human rights and economic security to be in charge of Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

In addition, he said he would

also pay attention to Xinjiang and Hong Kong and other human rights issues created by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Fumio Kishida, Japan's prime minister.

(Image:STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images)

Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine Linked to Blood Clotting Condition

By Jonathan Walker Vision Times

The European Union’s (EU) drug regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), has discovered a potential link between Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine and incidents of blood clots in an individual’s deep veins. The issue was highlighted in a Phar-

A Premise Health healthcare worker loads a syringe with the Covid-19 Johnson & Johnson Janssen vaccine.

(Image:Stephen Zenner/Getty Images)

macovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) meeting during the last week of September.

In its meeting highlights, published on the EMA website, the agency states that PRAC has “concluded” there is a possible link between rare cases of venous thromboembolism (VTE) and the Janssen vaccine. VTE is a medical condition in which a blood clot forms in a deep vein, potentially traveling to the lungs. This can cause a blockage of blood supply that could threaten a person’s life. The deep vein clot is usually formed in the arms, leg, or groin.

According to the EMA, VTE was included in the risk management plan for Janssen. This was done after it came to light, in a recent study, that a higher proportion of VTE cases occurred among a vaccinated group rather than the placebo group. Taking “all evidence into account,” PRAC concluded

If an individual has a history of ITP, healthcare professionals should consider the risk of developing low platelet levels prior to administering the vaccine.” that there is a “reasonable possibility” of VTE risk from the vaccine. As such, the committee has recommended J&J to list VTE as a rare side effect of the Janssen vaccine in its product information.

PRAC also identified potential ties between Janssen and immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), a condition in which the blood cells

Chinese Authorities Euthanize Pet Cats After They Test Positive For COVID-19

By Ashok Ramprasad Vision Times

Three pet cats in China were recently put to death by authorities, against the will of their owner.

Officials claim that both the owner and the cats tested positive for COVID-19. The incident took place in the city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province.

Miss Liu, the owner of the cats, www.visiontimes.com

tested positive for COVID-19 on Sep. 21. She was ordered by authorities to isolate herself in a state hospital. In order to ensure that her pets would not starve while she was away, Miss Liu left food and water out for them at home.

Soon after, a community worker dropped in to conduct a test on the cats. The felines were found to be positive for COVID-19 in both the first and second tests.

This resulted in the authorities

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taking drastic action. Despite Miss Liu’s appeals, the officials opted euthanize the felines.

The incident has drawn significant backlash on social media, with a report by The Beijing News attracting over 52,000 comments online.

A community worker tried to justify the decision to kill the cats, saying that there was no available medical treatment for animals infected with COVID-

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called platelets are mistakenly targeted by the immune system.

As with VTE, PRAC also recommended including ITP as a potential adverse reaction in the product information of Janssen.

“If an individual has a history of ITP, healthcare professionals should consider the risk of developing low platelet levels prior to administering the vaccine.”

“In individuals with a history of ITP, it is recommended to monitor platelet levels following vaccination with COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen,” the agency said in its meeting highlights. The risk of VTE should also be taken into consideration when administering the Janssen vaccine to people with high risk factors for blood clots.

The EMA decision comes as one of the EU’s member states, Slovenia, temporarily suspended the use of the J&J vaccine on Sept. 29 following the death of a 20-year-old

19. According to the worker, the cats would have continued leaving viral traces. If left untreated, they might have ended up infecting the owner as well as posed a risk to other residents of the apartment complex, the worker added.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the risk of animals spreading the COVID-19 virus to humans is “considered to be low.”“People with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should avoid contact with animals, including pets, livestock, and wildlife… ad.ny@visiontimes.com

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woman. The victim died of a stroke and had been administered a J&J vaccine two weeks earlier. The suspension will continue until experts are able to ascertain whether there was a link between the woman’s death and her vaccination.

Around 120,000 people in Slovenia have been administered the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The government has placed an order for an additional 100,000 doses.

Slovenia has seen large protests against the administration’s vaccination measures.

In the United States, the company is seeking Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for using its vaccine as a booster shot among citizens aged 18 and above. J&J claims that booster shots administered after six months of the one-shot vaccine increase antibodies by 12 times in the first month.

At this time, there is no evidence that animals play a significant role in spreading SARSCoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to people,” the CDC in a Sept. 24 update.

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NATURE

A8 | OCT 8 - OCT 14 , 2021

4

VISION TIMES

Cultivating flowering plants in your garden or growing them in pots on your patio or balcony is the first step to attract and feed bees, with the added bonus of butterflies and hummingbirds.

Bees need two types of food: pollen, and nectar, but different bees have their own unique requirements, depending on their environment. For example, the desert bee thrives on the flowers grown in arid conditions, and bees found in the mountains like wildflowers that bloom during their foraging season. Bees in urban areas thrive on the flowers that were present before industrialization and urbanization.

By planting trees, shrubs, and wildflowers that are native to your region, you can help attract the most appropriate pollinators. A variety of plants, including annuals, which offer an abundance of flowers, and perennials, which have different bloom times, are likely to bring pollinators in and entice them to return regularly.

Depending on your area, common annuals and perennials that are easy to sow may include asters (Asteraceae family), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia family), catnip (Lamiaceae, or mint family), clover (Fabaceae family), forget-me-not (Boraginaceae family), mustards (Brassicaceae, or cabbage family) and sedum (Crassulaceae family).

Shrubs and small trees to consider include blueberries (Ericaceae family), willow (Salicaceae family), chokecherry (Prunaceae, or rose family), and lilacs (Oleaceae, or olive family).

Flowering aromatic herbs provide a double benefit, as these plants often offer medicinal properties to help boost bees’ immunity and enable them to ward off disease.

While foraging and gathering pollen, bees get thirsty.

A small birdbath or even a bowl with fresh water is a welcome oasis. Small stones in the pool will prevent the bees from drowning, as it gives them something to settle on as they drink.

1 Plant a

Things You Can Do

Bee Garden

to Help Bring Back the Bees

By Ila Bonczek

B

uzzing bees busily gathering nectar and pollen is a heartwarming sight, especially when we remember that bees pollinate many of our favorite food crops, including fruits, nuts, vegetables, and herbs. For a variety of reasons, many species of pollinators are in decline around the world. Loss of habitat, the use of pesticides, competition, and the spread of disease have weakened and decimated large populations, threatening our own food supply.

With the situation coming to light, especially revolving around the honey bee, kind hearted people have sought to help our industrious little friends.

Understanding the honey bee At the very mention of bees, most minds fly directly to the honey bee. While we have become dependent upon these pollinators for modern agriculture, they originate from Europe, and only after being introduced to North America in the 1600s did they replace many of our native bees.

Agricultural practices like the use of pesticides and monoculture have weakened large populations of honey bees, making them more susceptible to disease. A heightened need for pollinators led to the practice of farming honey bees out to different farms as needed, which is likely to have contributed to the further spread of disease.

Honey bees are indeed a great asset, and ought to be protected from further injury; but the solitary native bees are also invaluable, and bringing their populations back is a worthwhile endeavor. These simple measures are recommended for homeowners and gardeners wishing to assist bees as pollinators.

2 Spare

the weeds

Many plants that people consider weeds are valuable forage plants for pollinators that require little or no care from you. Here in the Northeast, dandelions (Asteraceae family), creeping Charlie and bee balm (both in the Lamiaceae family), Joe Pye weed (Asteraceae family), and wild geranium (Geraniaceae family) are all prime candidates for adoption.

While you don’t need to let these tenacious herbs run amok in Pesticides, herbicides, and funyour garden, letting them finish their bloom will give you gicides are all harmful poisons that and the bees the benefit of their flowers. Cutting them can kill bees. Some pesticides, like neoback before seeds form will keep them in check. nicotinoids, are systemic, making all comDandelions are especially nice, as they proponents of the plant toxic to bees, including the duce early pollen for the bees, and edible bitter greens for the gardener. The root is nectar and pollen.

To avoid harming bees, use only organic products to conoften roasted to make a coffee-like tea, trol other insects, and never spray plants that are in bloom. In which is said to aid digestion. addition, with today’s genetically modified botanicals, we have little knowledge of the impact such organisms have in nature, so it is important to purchase seeds that are both organic (always non-GMO) and free of neonicotinoids.

Keep these things in mind as you embark on your adventure in bee stewardship, and you will As Elizabeth Lawrence said, likely gain a greater appreciation of nature and a feeling of being truly “present” in your garden.

3 Avoid

chemicals

4 Provide

habitat for native bees

“The hum of bees is the voice of the garden.”

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Of the 20,000 bee species on the planet, most bees are solitary and nest in the ground. Unlike honey bees, which must protect a colony, many solitary bees are tiny and do not sting. Even if they can sting, a solitary mother bee is unlikely to risk getting smashed, as there would be no backup to take care of her young. Zero male bees have the ability to sting.

Now that you are comfortable with the idea of bees living below your feet, you can create a simple habitat for them to take up residence. Let a section of your garden or yard stay untidy and undisturbed. A natural area strewn with leaves, hard-packed soil, or scraps of wood will provide lodging and protection for your local pollinators. Simone Jonker contributed to this report.

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CULTURE

VISION TIMES

OCT 8 - OCT 14, 2021 |

A9

SHAKING OUT THE

BEST SALTS FOR HEALTH

Salt, or sodium chloride (NaCl), is an essential nutrient necessary for keeping our bodies in working order. A small amount daily helps to cleanse our cells, maintain a balance of fluid, regulate the circulatory system, and maintain proper muscle and nerve impulses.

Pixabay

Types of sea salt

By Ila Bonczek

R

ock salt, or halite, usually comes from underground salt mines, deposited long ago by evaporating sea beds. In its natural form, it is coarse and full of minerals, and we use it to keep our roadways ice-free and safe.

Through extensive processing, this rock salt can then become “table salt.” Heating it to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit removes impurities, including 80 percent of its naturally occurring trace elements. Iodine and anti-caking agents are commonly added to make the product more useful and practical.

While table salt is by far the most commonly used culinary salt, it may not be the most nutritious. Some suggest that this highly refined substance is harmful to the body, and health authorities have put a limit on salt intake. Many believe that the minerals removed from table salt have numerous health benefits, and opt for the more natural, and less refined sea salt.

Because sea salt gets many of its properties from the surrounding soils, it is highly variable, depending on where it is sourced. The whiter sea salts are harvested from the surface of salt ponds, while darker varieties are harvested from the bottom and have higher concentration of minerals and soil particles.

A look at all the gourmet qualities of the many varieties available would be a lengthy discussion, so we will look at a few of the most popular sea salts.

Himalayan pink salt While this salt is harvested from salt mines in the Himalayan Mountains, it is still classified as a sea salt, as the caves where it is found were once submerged under the ocean in what is now Pakistan.

It is one of the purest salts in the world, consisting of 98 percent natural sodium chloride. Some 80 trace elements and minerals make up the rest, giving this salt a delicate pink color and mildly sweet flavor.

Benefits of sea salt Sea salt is mainly derived from the evaporated salt water of oceans or salt lakes. This salt is naturally of a finer texture than rock salt. It is minimally refined, retaining its many trace elements, which give it its characteristic flavor and color and bring numerous health benefits to your table.

We are, perhaps, all aware of the benefits of salt water. Throughout history, many cultures have found that salt baths are purifying and rejuvenating, but how many have considered the benefits of consuming this nutrient rich mineral?

It has been found that the trace elements iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc often present in sea salt all help boost our immunity against allergy, cold, fever, and flu.

Unlike table salt, sea salt appears to be good for the heart, as it does not increase blood pressure, reduces hypertension, and offers potassium, which is instrumental in maintaining a normal heartbeat.

The anti-inflammatory properties that make salt baths so soothing carry through internally, as well. Including sea salt in your diet can be effective in reducing pain and inf lammation from arthritis, and also improve respiratory health, helping to clear phlegm and relieve sore throat, congestion, and even asthma.

Digestion is also enhanced with the use of sea salt. It not only stimulates the taste buds to secrete salivary amylase, which begins breaking down carbohydrates; it also stimulates the production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach, which aids in digestion, thereby reducing bloating, stomach cramps, abdominal distention and heartburn.

Sea salt can also help reduce anxiety and stress.

Its adaptogenic and sedative properties play an important role in regulating serotonin and melatonin, hormones responsible for relaxation. www.visiontimes.com

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Celtic sea salt’s briny flavor is especially nice with meat and fish, but it is also suitable for general cooking, baking, and finishing.

Fleur de sel Fleur de sel, or “flower of salt” may be the most expensive salt in the world due to its exacting harvesting process. Ultra-thin crystals are carefully collected from the surface of tidal pools in Brittany, France. The weather conditions must be optimal: sunny and dry with a slight breeze; and the work is done with traditional wooden rakes. At $16 a pound, it is often called the “caviar of salts.”

This light and flaky salt also retains moisture, and has a bluish tint due to its oceanic origins. Because of its relatively high cost, it is mainly reserved for finishing purposes, adding a special briny flavor to main dishes, sides, and even desserts.

Interior view of a Himalayan pink salt mine in Khewra, Pakistan, where the salt is mined in large translucent blocks.

While Himalayan pink salt is currently found on just 0.2% of menus all over the world, its presence has increased by 119.9% over the past four years, according to market research firm Datassential. (Image: Muhammad Dawood Hashmi via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)

Because it is mined like rock salt, it can come in large crystals, which are often made into lamps, candle holders, or even embedded into walls. These are said to be good air purifiers, reducing mold and allergens, while rendering a calming effect in the room.

Thin flakes of flor de sal, (fleur de sel) are painstakingly harvested using traditional tools like this fine sieve. (Image: ArtSal

Celtic sea salt

Iodine

Genuine Celtic sea salt is harvested through evaporation and sun drying of water from the Celtic Sea off the coast of France. After sinking, salt crystals are raked from the bottom of tidal ponds.

This sel gris, or “grey salt” is known for retaining moisture and has a clumpy tendency. Like most sea salts, it is a good source of many minerals important for optimal health. It’s briny flavor is especially nice with meat and fish, but it is also suitable for general cooking, baking, and finishing.

While some sea salts do contain trace amounts of iodine, they are not generally considered a source of this essential nutrient. Consuming seafood, seaweed, or dairy products will ensure that you have sufficient quantities for a healthy thyroid, even if you don’t consume any table salt.

via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)

h plas Uns

Consuming seafood will ensure that you have sufficient quantities for a healthy thyroid.

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LIFESTYLE

A10 | OCT 8 - OCT 14 , 2021

VISION TIMES Adobe Stock

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By Lucy

E

If a person wears frightful images, carrying them around all day on his or her body, wicked thoughts and negative energy are invited. This is decidedly not “good feng shui.”

Personal grooming is also very important. If we compare the human head to a landscape, with the hair representing a meadow or forest; a beautiful landscape with healthy, natural vegetation is the most pleasing to the eye.

If we insert all sorts of unsightly objects, or if the plant life is dying or strewn about as if a natural disaster just hit, the landscape loses its appeal.

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When the landscape looks good, it means it is healthy and thriving. When it looks neglected and marred, life and energy are absent.

The same principle can be applied to your head!

One can dye one’s hair to almost any color imaginable these days, and it is considered “hip.” Yet dying your hair to unnatural hues may take its toll on your health.

Not only are the dyes themselves often toxic and dangerous, the altering of one’s God-given appearance can invoke bad luck.

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Traditional Chinese culture believes in the unity of heaven and human beings. As Lao Tzu said in the Tao-Te Ching, “Man follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows what is natural.” Human beings and nature exist within a harmonious relationship in the eternal cosmos.

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Each land traditionally has its own people and culture. Different races have different appearances.

When people alter themselves so as to look as if they belong to a different race, heaven frowns upon them. It is a violation of cosmic rules and brings disharmony or misfortune.

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Regardless of what the latest magazines portray as fashionable; men, women, and children alike should use their wisdom to keep their appearance pleasant and respectable. This is in keeping with cosmic principles and will ensure a positive aura that will enhance noble thoughts and good fortune.

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LIFESTYLE

VISION TIMES

OCT 8 - OCT 14, 2021 |

A11

ck) be Sto e: Ado (Imag

For thousands of years, the East and West remained a mystery to one another.

But the birth of the Silk Road acted as a bridge that allowed people to share ideas and heritage, feeding the people culturally and literally. The Silk Road is as mucha story about food as it is about travel across an ancient trade route. Meals we eat today bear the fingerprints of exotic cuisines that traveled between the East and West across this route.

The Silk Road

By Nadia Ghattas

SHAR ING CULTUR E & CULINARY TR ADITIONS

T

he Silk Road was not one single path. It was a shifting network of trails and shipping routes that opened and closed throughout history. It began to emerge in the first century BCE. In the East, China had been torn apart by hundreds of years of war until the emergence of the Han Dynasty. Under this new empire

Lasting exchange

The “Silk Road” earned its name from silk, since it was such an important commodity. For nearly 3,000 years, China monopolized the guarded secret of sericulture, or silk production.

Roman author Pliny the Elder said that Rome lost tens of millions of dollars every year to the East in the trade deficit, mainly over silk. But traders also shared ideas, religions, culture, and ways of life that would profoundly influence each other.

The Silk Road also contributed greatly to the evolution of the world’s cuisine. Wherever people go, they are sure to be

(206 BCE – 220 CE), commerce and safe travel became possible across a much larger land area.

The West simultaneously enjoyed a unique period of harmony.

Expansion by Alexander the Great led his Greek Empire deep into central Asia by the mid-third century BCE. After the Roman Empire

united by the one thing they all share in common: the love of food. Fervet olla, vivit amicitia!

“While the pot boils, friendship endures.”

One famous legend illustrates the origin of Italian spaghetti. When Marco Polo returned home from China, he described the noodles he had seen in the Orient. His stories gave birth to one of Italy’s most revered culinary traditions.

Further proof of China’s long heritage of noodles came during a discovery at an archaeological site along the Yellow River in China. In 2002, archeologists at the Lajia site discovered an earthenware bowl containing perfectly preserved

Philosophical Food

Spices were also some of the earliest commodities traded along the Silk Road. Christopher

‘The Nectar of the Gods’

Perhaps the influences of the early colonists trading with China, albeit through Britain, brought back more than tea, silk, and porcelain.

Tea is one of the oldest and most beloved beverages in the world.

Tea was discovered 4,000 years ago, around the same time noodles were first made. www.visiontimes.com

Columbus discovered the Americas simply because he was searching for an easier way to the rich spice markets of India. Although the same spice can be used in different kitchens, how they are used differs depending on the culture.

There are many legends about how people first discovered tea. The most enduring is the tale of Shennong, a semi-divine mythological emperor from ancient China. One day he was boiling

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supplanted it, the conditions were ripe for trade and travel.

But the Silk Road we think of today was at its prime in the 13th and 14th fourteenth centuries CE. The era was known as the Pax Mongolica, or Mongolian Peace.

The name was a nod to the Pax Romana — the Roman Peace, the period of stability one thousand years earlier.

The Mongolians were originally a loosely affiliated group of nomadic tribes in

Mongolia’s harsh plains. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan —“Universal Ruler” — the tribes united and created the largest landbased empire in history.

It was an era of adventure. Famed travelers, such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, roamed the land, recording stories of their traveling exploits.

However, as the Chinese say:

Marco Polo

4,000-year-old noodles. These early noodles were made of millet, not wheat. They pre-dated noodles in Europe and also Japan’s ramen noodles.

Historically, the Chinese culinary arts were steeped in philosophy. Traditional beliefs say that everything in human society is an expression of the Tao, or the Way. Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism, wrote: “Man follows the earth. The earth follows

water in his garden when a leaf from a nearby tea plant fell into his cup. He enjoyed the enticing aroma and drank it, starting this timeless tradition.

Tea was originally used as medicine. Shennong would eat plants and note which were poisonous.

When he ate something toxic, he would drink tea to heal himself.

Tea, which became known as “nectar,” is comprised of six main varieties: white tea, green tea, yellow tea, oolong tea, Pu’er tea, and black tea.

Each category is further divided into hundreds of distinct types.

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The early travelers from the Fertile Crescent along the Silk Road trade met Chinese noodle makers. The Fertile Crescent is rich in wheat, so it became the core ingredient.

Over time, these food staples evolved to support large proportions of the world’s cuisine. In northeast China, in the

the heavens.

The heavens follow the Tao. The Tao follows nature.”

The Tao is living in harmony with the natural order. It’s the root of traditional Chinese cuisine, suggesting that eating should help balance, strengthen, and restore the human body. Chinese chefs are expected to master what is called “the five flavors”: hot, sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. Chefs

Although black tea makes up a small percentage of tea produced in China, it became beloved by the British. It was one of the most traded commodities in the British East India Company.

The plant was exported to India under British control, where the flavors of the tea became deeper and stronger.

In China, tea is drunk plain, whereas, in England, milk, cream, sugar, and lemon are added to the warm elixir. Imported from China, the British spread their

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Ibn Battuta

“The Empire, long divided, must unite. Long united, must divide.”

An outbreak of the Black Death in Asia and the break-up of the Mongolian Empire ended this period of relative peace and security. The two ends of the world were once again locked off from each other for hundreds more years. provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, the famous noodles, dumplings, and steamed bun recipes were all made from wheat.

Rice was often used to pay for the wheat. The use of rice then spread throughout the Middle East, Latin and South America.

Even rice fusion with curry grew in India and Japan.

should blend them in harmony with each other to enhance the dish’s natural flavors. Sichuan cuisine combines these basic flavors to create up to 20 more “compound flavors,” like numbing spicy, tingly spicy, chili-oil spicy, and fish spicy, for example.

The third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, would agree with that ancient Chinese sentiment: “The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

favorite beverage to all parts of the empire, including the American colonies. Since the 1840s, high tea has become an honored part of daily life for millions.

The Silk Road contributed greatly to the evolution of international cuisine. Though we are not traveling on camels across the Silk Road, the spirit of sharing culture is alive today. Now, more than ever, it is important to share traditional culture and values as new cultural hubs are created in this modern era.

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HEALTH

A12 | OCT 8 - OCT 14 , 2021

VISION TIMES

Traditional Chinese Tips

for Boosting Your Immunity This Fall Part 1 Aut u m n , a ccor d i ng to t r ad it ion a l C h i ne s e me d ic i ne , i s t he t i me of f r u it ion , i nt ro s p e c t ion , s et t i ng l i m it s , prote c t i ng b ou nd a r ie s , t a k i ng i n t he pu re a nd let t i ng g o, a t i me whe n t he Lu ng me r id i a n a nd l a r g e i nte st i ne c h a n ne l s t a ke ce nte r st a g e .

By Crystal Fang

C

hinese medicine talks about health and wellness through harmonizing with nature by balancing the Five Elements in the body – Earth, Metal, Water, Wood and Fire. In traditional Chinese medicine, every organ has a series of things associated with it.

The lungs need dry energy to keep them as clean in order to function, yet they are sensitive to the excessive dryness sometimes encountered in the fall. Hence, the lungs need extra care in this season. As the energetic partner of the lungs, Take the lungs for example: the large intestine supports all lung functions.

Paired Organ Large intestine Together, they are the first defenders against Element Metal bacterial and viral infecSeason Fall tions.

To give our immunity Climate Dry a boost, we need to Emotion Grief/sadness optimize lung and Orifices Nose bowel health – breathing in the Tissues Skin fresh and letFluids Mucous ting go of the waste, includFlavor Pungent ing both physColor White ical and emotional baggage.

Direction West According to Dr. Victoria Maizes, one of the leading physicians of Integrative Medicine, and author of 4 Immune-Boosting Tips From an Integrative Medicine Expert, recent studies have discovered, “aside from the elderly, most people who died with COVID19 infection have coexisting conditions such as hypertension, obesity, and diabetes. These chronic diseases are highly correlated with unhealthy lifestyles.”

Dr. Maizes added that an estimated “90% of cardiovascular deaths could be prevented if Americans adhered to four preventive health recommendations (not smoking, maintaining a body mass index of <25, engaging in regular physical activity, and eating a healthy diet) and maintained healthy levels of three biomarkers (cholesterol <200, blood pressure <120/<80, and blood sugar <100).”

Sleep, diet, stress and emotion management are some of the key elements to look at in modulating our immunity.

Here we will share some time-tested TCM tips as well as recommendations embraced by Integrative Medicine and supported by clinical research and/or observations.

1

The traditional Chinese view

O pt i m i z e you r s le e pi n g p at ter n The Western medical observation Sleep has a significant impact on how well the immune system functions. One research study has found that a persistent lack of sleep (defined as a week of fewer than five hours per night) increased the risk of catching cold by more than three times. It should be noted that adequate sleep also ensures the secretion of melatonin, a molecule which may play a role in reducing COVID-19 virus virulence.

The average adult needs seven or more hours of sleep.

If possible, it’s best to go to bed earlier in the night and wake up early each day.

Sleep studies have discovered that going to bed and waking up in sync with natural light cycles is important for maintaining a balanced circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms refer to natural biological processes in humans and other mammals. These internal clocks roughly follow a 24-hour cycle and correspond to exposure to light and darkness. In addition to affecting sleep patterns, circadian rhythms play a crucial role in appetite and digestion, body temperature regulation, hormone release and immune functions.

Similarly, Chinese medicine also recommends retiring for the day no later than 11 p.m., and rising between 5-7 a.m.. But traditional Chinese medicine and western health science differ in their understanding of the human body and wellness.

According to traditional Chinese medicine, the body has its own “organ clock.” Every organ has a specific time of day when it spends two hours, called a shichen (時辰) for repair and maintenance in order to continue functioning properly.

For example, the gallbladder is resting in the shichen between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m, while its paired organ, the liver, is off-duty from 1 to 3 in the morning.

The gallbladder and liver are energetic organs, working to break down foods and detoxify the body. Energy stagnation is associated with rage, resentment and frustration. Over-eating, eating late, and worse, binge-eating in the wee hours, can overwhelm the gallbladder and liver. As energy flows continuously from one organ to the next, overloading the gallbladder and liver can cause the lungs and large intestines to function poorly.

Lung time follows, from 3-5 am; and 5-7 am is the time for the large intestine.

The lungs and large intestine act on breathing in the fresh and letting go of the waste. When lung energy is out of balance (due to smoking, drug use, respiratory infection, celiac disease, or similar conditions), one wakes up with shortness of breath, asthmatic symptoms, or coughing. Imbalance of lung energy can cause sadness and grief.

Some early birds rise during lung time to engage in deep breathing, meditation and Qigong exercises to help cleanse the body and mind, and regulate emotions.

Most of us rise during large Intestine time. To start the day off right, drink water upon getting up, take some deep breaths, have a bowel movement, and avoid coffee.

Morning is the worst time to have caffeine. It is a diuretic which takes water to the kidneys and bladder for evacuation, and away from your colon and large intestine, where it is needed to keep up the morning repair and maintenance program.

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