China: The Real Sick Man Of Asia?

(Walter Mead's article from the WALL STREET JOURNAL on 03 February 2020.)

China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia. Its financial markets may be even more dangerous than its wildlife markets. The mighty Chinese juggernaut has been humbled this week, apparently by a species-hopping bat virus.

While Chinese authorities struggle to control the epidemic and restart their economy, a world that has grown accustomed to contemplating China’s inexorable rise was reminded that nothing, not even Beijing’s power, can be taken for granted.

We do not know how dangerous the new coronavirus will be. There are signs that Chinese authorities are still trying to conceal the true scale of the problem, but at this point the virus appears to be more contagious but considerably less deadly than the pathogens behind diseases such as Ebola or SARS—though some experts say SARS and coronavirus are about equally contagious.

China Paying WaPo & NYT Millions For Propaganda

(Yuichiro Kakutani's article from the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON on 18 December 2019.)

China routinely broke federal law by not disclosing how much it spent to publish regime propaganda in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers, an expert review of foreign agent registration filings concluded.

China Daily, an official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, has published hundreds of propaganda articles designed to look like ordinary news stories in some of America's most influential newspapers. 

While foreign agents may place ads in the United States, the propaganda outlet has repeatedly violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) by failing to provide full disclosures about its purchases.

China Daily has published propaganda in mainstream outlets for decades, but did not disclose its purchases of space in American newspapers to the Department of Justice until 2012. Even after it began acknowledging its relationship with the papers, the regime mouthpiece continued to violate federal disclosure requirements.

Bookies Predict 2020 Election Results: Donald Trump!

(Megan Henney'e article from the FOX BUSINESS on 17 February 2020.)

Bookmakers taking bets on who will win the presidential election in November mostly agree that President Trump is the favorite in the November race — unless he’s running against three-time New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

According to numbers published by Bet Online, an online bookmaker, oddsmakers gave Trump a 61.5 percent chance of winning the presidency by once again capturing the Electoral College but losing the popular vote.

Still, betting lines gave Bloomberg the best odds among Democratic candidates to win the Electoral College when running against Trump. The lower the number, the more the candidate is favored to win. The site puts Bloomberg at -125 against Trump in the Electoral College, while every other candidate is above +100.

ITER: Largest Commercial Nuclear Fusion Reactor

(Nathanial Gronewold's article from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN on 24 July 2019.)

World’s Largest Nuclear Fusion Experiment Clears Milestone and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is set to launch operations in 2025. A multination project to build a fusion reactor cleared a milestone yesterday and is now 6 ½ years away from “First Plasma,” officials announced.

Yesterday, dignitaries attended a components handover ceremony at the construction site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in southern France. The ITER project is an experiment aimed at reaching the next stage in the evolution of nuclear energy as a means of generating emissions-free electricity.

The section recently installed—the cryostat base and lower cylinder—paves the way for the installation of the tokamak, the technology design chosen to house the powerful magnetic field that will encase the ultra-hot plasma fusion core.

Diamond Princess: Wuhan Virus Cruise Ship

(Julia Belluz's article from the VOX NEWS on 15 February 2020.)

It’s a hypochondriac’s worst nightmare and a startling public health crisis: The largest coronavirus outbreak outside of mainland China is currently floating in Japanese waters, on a cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises.

The outbreak was first detected when an 80-year-old passenger tested positive for the virus on February 1, a week after disembarking in Hong Kong. By February 4, the remaining 3,700 passengers and crew of the Diamond Princess — currently docked at the port city of Yokohama, Japan — were asked to stay on the ship under quarantine orders.

Since then, the number of passengers and crew aboard the Diamond Princess with the disease — known as Covid-19 — has surged to 218. While those who’ve tested positive are allowed to leave the ship for treatment, the rest have to remain there until at least February 19 with the exception of Americans on board. On Saturday, the US Embassy in Tokyo announced a chartered flight would arrive to evacuate citizens by Sunday.

Wuhan Virus: Will Eventually Kill Millions?

(Nicole Hao's article from the EPOCH TIMES on 09 February 2020.)

Hundreds of bodies waiting to be cremated.

Funeral Home Workers in Wuhan Are Working 24/7 to Cremate Bodies: Workers at crematoriums in Wuhan City, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, say their workload has increased dramatically in recent days, as they constantly transfer the bodies of victims from hospitals and private homes.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, a worker described long working hours to cope with the sudden increase in bodies to be cremated. Meanwhile, videos from workers dealing with the crisis have been circulating on social media, including one from a worker at a Wuhan funeral home who shared footage of more than 10 bodies lying on gurneys, lined up for cremation.

Some netizens also shared videos they shot within different hospitals in Wuhan, showing bodies waiting to be transferred from the hospitals to funeral homes. Since funeral home workers don’t know for sure whether the person died from the coronavirus, they wear protective suits and masks in order to defend themselves from potential infection.

Wuhan Virus: BioWar Weapon Escaped From A Lab?

(Staff article from the GREAT GAME INDIA on 03 February 2020.)

India To Investigate Wuhan Institute Of Virology on CoronaVirus: After Indian scientists were forced to withdraw their study concluding Coronavirus was injected with HIV AIDS virus amidst massive online criticism from Social Media experts, now Indian authorities have launched an investigation against China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The Indian government has ordered an inquiry into a study conducted in the Northeastern state of Nagaland by researchers from the U.S., China and India on bats and humans carrying antibodies to deadly viruses like Ebola, officials confirmed to The Hindu.

The study came under the scanner as two of the 12 researchers belonged to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Department of Emerging Infectious Diseases, and it was funded by the United States Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). They would have required special permissions as foreign entities.

Hymn To A Gothic Beauty: Notre-Dame

(Ken Follet's article from the SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - October 2019.)

On September 1, 1830, the 28-year-old poet Victor Hugo sat down to write Chapter 1 of a book called Notre-Dame de Paris. His wife recalled: “He bought himself a bottle of ink and a huge gray knitted shawl, which covered him from head to foot; locked away his formal clothes, so that he would not be tempted to go out; and entered his novel as if it were a prison.” (Writers are often swathed in wool, by the way; we sit still all day, so we get cold.)

By the middle of January 1831 the book was, astonishingly, finished. Hugo had written something like 180,000 words in four and a half months. It got poor reviews but the public loved it, and it was quickly translated into other languages. The English edition was called The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, a title at once more vulgar and more alluring. And Hugo became world famous.

The quality of Hugo’s writing is well illustrated by a passage in which he imagines, with spooky prescience, a fire at Notre-Dame:

Pelosi Rips Trump's SOTU Speech: Disgusting!

(AFP article from the TIMES OF ISRAEL on 05 February 2020.)

WASHINGTON, United States — US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy of Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday, in a pointed political gesture after listening tight-lipped to the US president tout his achievements to Congress.

The tension between Trump and his Democratic nemesis was palpable from the outset, as Pelosi extended her hand for a handshake — and the president failed to return the favor. Seated in silence behind Trump in the House of Representatives, Pelosi frowned, repeatedly shook her head and smiled disbelievingly until he finished speaking and Republicans erupted in applause — at which point she rose and very visibly tore up the papers in front of him.

Asked afterwards by a reporter to give a reason for her gesture, Pelosi replied: “Because it was the courteous thing to do, considering the alternatives.” And in a follow-up tweet, the 79-year-old Pelosi said Democrats would “never stop extending the hand of friendship to get the job done.”