Erdogan/Turkey Floods Greece with Migrants

Posted on March 9, 2020March 9, 2020 by Denise Simon

Primer: Erdogan broke his pledge to Europe on the Syrian migrant issue.

Ankara opened the door for migrants last week after 33 of its soldiers were killed in a Syrian government airstrike in Idlib, north-west Syria.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a military offensive in the north of the war-torn country late last year, aimed at creating a safe zone to accommodate the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.

The other aim was to oust from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which it considers an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey says the PKK — which launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in the 1980s in a bid to form an independent Kurdish state within Turkey — is a terrorist organisation.

A fire broke out at a refugee center on the Greek island of Lesbos Saturday night amid tensions with Turkey over the flow of tens of thousands of mostly Syrian migrants who’ve tried to cross into Greece by land and sea last week.

Flames engulfed the Swiss-run One Happy Family refugee center Saturday night, causing property damage but no injuries, according to Greece’s firefighting service.

The center is located outside the island’s capital Mitilini near the Kara Tepe refugee camp, where about 1,500 refugees live, Swissinfo reported. It served as a meeting place and offered school lessons, a hairdresser, a café and a library to hundreds of migrants daily.

Residents on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios have been protesting government plans to build new migrant detention centers amid a renewed influx of refugees, mostly coming across the sea from Turkey. Dozens of police officers were injured when demonstrations turned violent last month with protesters attacking those guarding construction sites for new centers.

After years of living on the front line of the migrant crisis, residents on Greece’s Aegean islands oppose the government building any new migrant detention centers on their islands, and, instead, want asylum seekers relocated to the mainland while they’re processed or await deportation. Existing migrant camps on the islands are already several times over capacity.

Meanwhile on the mainland, the European Union, in an effort to curb rising tensions at its borders, announced Saturday it is allocating nearly $800 million in funding for Greece to be used for establishing and keeping up “infrastructure” at the border.

The dramatic move came amid a sharply escalating crisis after Turkey opened the country’s border to Greece as part of an apparent push to make Europe offer more support in dealing with the fallout of the Syrian war. Late last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government said it would no longer prevent migrants and refugees from crossing over to EU countries, prompting thousands to flock to the country’s land border with Greece.

The mass movement of migrants and refugees to Greece’s borders appears to be organized. Buses, cars and cabs were organized in Istanbul to ferry people to the border, while some of those who managed to cross have said they were told by Turkish authorities to go to Greece and that the border was open.

Meanwhile on the mainland, the European Union, in an effort to curb rising tensions at its borders, announced Saturday it is allocating nearly $800 million in funding for Greece to be used for establishing and keeping up “infrastructure” at the border.

The dramatic move came amid a sharply escalating crisis after Turkey opened the country’s border to Greece as part of an apparent push to make Europe offer more support in dealing with the fallout of the Syrian war. Late last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government said it would no longer prevent migrants and refugees from crossing over to EU countries, prompting thousands to flock to the country’s land border with Greece.

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The mass movement of migrants and refugees to Greece’s borders appears to be organized. Buses, cars and cabs were organized in Istanbul to ferry people to the border, while some of those who managed to cross have said they were told by Turkish authorities to go to Greece and that the border was open.

Greece deployed riot police and border guards to repel people trying to enter the country. The border area has seen violent confrontations between the migrants and Greek security forces, with officers in Greece firing tear gas to block the migrants and Turkish police firing tear gas back at their Greek counterparts, according to the Associated Press.

Erdogan said his decision to open the border has pushed more than 100,000 people to cross into Greece so far. That estimate is higher than those of Greek authorities, who on Wednesday said 32,000 people have attempted to cross the border. About 230 people, mostly from Afghanistan, had been arrested.

On Saturday, youths threw rocks at Greek police and tried to break down a border fence in a desperate attempt to enter Greece. At least two migrants were injured in the skirmishes.

Erdogan will travel to Brussels on Monday to talk with top EU officials about a 2016 Turkey-EU agreement, which has now collapsed, on containing the refugee flows to Europe. The two sides have accused each other of failing to respect their commitments. More here.

DOJ New Unit to Strip US Citizenship of Criminals and Terrorists

Posted on February 27, 2020February 27, 2020 by Denise Simon

Hoorah…it is a great start.

new unit staffed with an estimated 30 lawyers will review cases that point to those that fraudulently obtained citizenship by failing to disclose past convictions for serious crimes — including terrorism and war crimes.

The section, which will be within the DOJ’s Office of Immigration Litigation, will be dedicated to denaturalizing those who had failed to disclose they had been involved in criminal activity on their N-400 form for naturalization. It requires the government to show that citizenship was obtained illegally or “procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.”

That form includes questions asking whether an applicant has been involved in genocide and torture among other serious crimes, if they have ever been part of a terrorist or totalitarian organization, if they had been associated with the Nazi government in Germany, and if they have been charged or convicted with a crime or served prison time. Targets for denaturalization are those who have made material breaches of those questions.

“When a terrorist or sex offender becomes a U.S. citizen under false pretenses, it is an affront to our system — and it is especially offensive to those who fall victim to these criminals,” Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt said. “The new Denaturalization Section will further the Department’s efforts to pursue those who unlawfully obtained citizenship status and ensure that they are held accountable for their fraudulent conduct.”

The department has seen an increase in such cases both because of an increased effort by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to root out fraud, as well as Operation Janus — an operation which began during the Obama administration and that identified hundreds of thousands of cases where paper fingerprint data was not entered into the centralized fingerprint database.

Officials have pointed to recent cases whereby the DOJ has secured the denaturalization of terrorists, war criminals and sex offenders. They include:

An individual convicted of terrorism in Egypt who admitted recruiting for Al Qaeda in the U.S. He was denaturalized while in Egypt and had his passport taken away from him.

An individual who received military training in an Afghan jihadist camp and coordinated with 9/11 mastermind Usama Bin Laden. He “self-deported” to Somaliland.

An individual who was convicted in Bosnia of executing eight unarmed civilians and prisoners of war during the Balkans conflict. He was denaturalized while serving a sentence in Bosnia.

One individual who engaged in sexual contact with a 7-year-old family member and another who sexually abused a minor for multiple years.

The department has filed 228 civil denaturalization cases since 2008, and 94 since 2017. Officials say it has increased its filing rate by 200 percent in the past three years and has seen an increase in referrals by over 600 percent.

Such denaturalization proceedings are not targeted at people who commit crimes after they become citizens, only those who have made fraudulent citizenship applications and left out crimes they committed on that form. A number of cases involve those who were initially denied entry to the U.S. or removed from the country, only to re-enter under a false identity.

Citizens cannot be deported, but those who have been stripped of citizenship revert back to permanent residency status, which allows deportation or barring of entry from the U.S. in the case of serious criminal offenses. Source

Dem Senators Meet in Secret with Zarif/Iran Last Week

Posted on February 17, 2020February 17, 2020 by Denise Simon

Did you hear about Senator(s) Whitehouse and Murphy and their secret meeting and delegation?

*** “Murphy is a frequent speaker at the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group with alleged links to the Islamic Republic of Iran.” He also criticized the killing of Soleimani, the world’s most notorious terrorist, who also killed more than 600 US soldiers in Iraq.

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Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. Murphy’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time.

Such a meeting would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because he had a phone call with his counterpart-to-be in Russia.

“Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – even during a transition period – may be illegal and must be taken seriously,” Murphy said in 2017 after anonymous leaks of Flynn’s phone call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak were published. He also strongly criticized the open letter some Republican senators sent Iranian leaders during the Obama administration’s campaign for a nuclear agreement.

However, Murphy has previously defended rogue meetings if they’re done by Democrats such as former Secretary of State John Kerry.

“Unless it was authorized by the president or secretary of state, conducting independent foreign policy sends mixed signals to our adversaries,” said Christian Whiton, former State Department senior advisor in the Trump and George W. Bush administrations. “It seems very unpalatable. If we want to talk to Iranians, they know how to reach us and they don’t need to go through an intermediary.”

A State Department official who spoke on background said that the State Department was not aware of any side meetings with Iranian officials that Murphy was engaged in.

The Munich Security Conference, an annual forum on international security policy, welcomes hundreds of world leaders each February. This year’s conference featured robust debate on the United States’ maximum pressure policy against Iran, China’s handling of the coronavirus and technology concerns, and the European alliance with the United States. Other Democrat senators at the conference included Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Former Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts also attended.

Both Murphy and Zarif spoke publicly during a two-hour session on Middle East policy, with Murphy and Zarif both fiercely criticizing U.S. policy.

President Donald Trump has reoriented American policy in the Middle East away from President Barack Obama’s friendly posture toward Iran. He departed from Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a nuclear arrangement with the Republic of Iran that was not ratified by the United States Senate.

Trump has exerted instead a “maximum pressure” campaign against the regime, with 12 demands on Iran before a new deal is reached. Those demands include a full account of its nuclear program, ending its proliferation of ballistic missiles, releasing all U.S. citizens held on spurious charges, ending support to terrorist groups, withdrawal of forces in Syria, and cessation of its threatening behavior against its neighbors.

The “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions has devastated the Iranian economy, which is in recession and faces rising inflation. It has made it difficult for Iran to pay foreign fighters engaged in supported terror operations. Iranians have taken to the streets in protest.

Iran recently killed an American contractor in Iraq and the United States killed Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian leader who was responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of U.S. soldiers. Iran’s retaliatory strike for that killing resulted in no U.S. deaths, but the country did shoot down a Ukrainian passenger plane then lied about it for days.

At the conference, Zarif said official retaliation for the killing of Suleimani had ended, although he suggested independent attacks from others in the country might follow.

Murphy is a frequent speaker at the National Iranian American Council, a lobbying group with alleged links to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Republican Sens. Mike Braun of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Ted Cruz of Texas recently asked the Department of Justice for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

They wrote that the influential lobbying group “purports to improve understanding between American and Iranian people but in reality seems to spread propaganda and lobby on behalf of the Iranian government.” Evidence indicates that evidence Zarif himself was involved in founding the group. Hat tip/Federalist

Hunter and The Truman National Security Project

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Denise Simon

Turn the corner and we find yet another swampy organization where Hunter Biden had a parking space called the Truman National Security Project. Yeesh, this outfit is really a left-leaning organization founded by Rachel Kleinfeld. She is also a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The roster of young Truman fellows in high places includes Matthew Spence, who co-founded Truman with Kleinfeld and is now a senior aide to Obama’s National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and Eric Lesser, who until he left for Harvard Law this summer worked in the White House, first as David Axelrod’s right-hand man and then as director of strategic planning for the Council of Economic Advisers. (He also organized the annual White House Seder.) Others have worked in the Department of Homeland Security, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Pentagon offices of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There are journalists, like Patrick Radden Keefe, and analyst-bloggers like Micah Zenko, of the Council on Foreign Relations. And there are people like Liz McNally, a West Point graduate and Rhodes Scholar who worked as a speechwriter for Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq—and who, in August, wound up on the cover of Time magazine under the headline “The New Greatest Generation.” More context and details here.

Okay, back to Hunter…

In 2011, two years into his father’s term as vice president, Hunter Biden was appointed by the Truman National Security Project, a left-leaning foreign policy network, to its board of directors. The younger Biden was, at the time, one of just six members of the governing board, where he served alongside the organization’s founder and CEO, Rachel Kleinfeld, and a handful of corporate leaders. He had no obvious qualifications for the position.

As the Truman Project expanded, Democratic national security heavyweights including Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy guru who ran the Department of Policy Planning during her tenure at Foggy Bottom; Matthew Spence, a Defense Department veteran who served as a senior aide to Obama national security adviser Tom Donilon; and Steve Israel, the former Democratic congressman and head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, eventually joined Biden on the board.

A cached version of the organization’s website shows that Biden rose to the position of vice chairman of the board, serving there until at least March of 2019. It is not clear precisely when—or why—Biden stepped down from the board, and the Truman Project did not respond to requests for comment. But during his tenure on the board, according to the New Yorker, he was in and out of drug rehabilitation facilities several times and, in 2014, joined the board of the Ukrainian gas giant Burisma and was discharged from the U.S. Navy after he failed a drug test. He later claimed that cigarettes he had smoked outside a bar may have been, unbeknownst to him, laced with cocaine.

Founded in 2004 by Kleinfeld, a Yale University graduate and Rhodes Scholar, the Truman National Security Project was intended to mirror conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. Funded by the Ploughshares Fund, the organization awards dozens of fellowships every year and aims to mentor a new generation of Democratic foreign policy leaders.

(Sidebar: The Ploughshares Fund was a major funder promoting the Iran Nuclear deal and remember lil Ben Rhodes of the Obama White House later joined Ploughshares.)

Kleinfeld, who left the organization in 2013 and now serves as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, did not respond to a request for comment. The Truman National Security Project did not return multiple requests for comment. A lawyer for Hunter Biden did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for John P. Driscoll, the chairman of the board of the Truman National Security Project, did not respond to a series of questions including why Biden was appointed to the board and when he stepped down from the position.

Kleinfeld has, however, written about her deep concern about corruption in Ukraine, writing in 2014, the year Biden joined Burisma’s board, that “Iraq’s fall on the heels of Ukraine’s collapse should be compelling. Curbing corruption before it tips into Kalashnikov-carrying rebels and public crucifixions is good security policy. And we need to get better at it.”

Biden was appointed to the Burisma board as the oil and gas giant faced a slew of corruption investigations involving its owner, Mikhail Zlochevsky, who was facing a money laundering investigation.

During Biden’s time on the board of the Truman Project, the organization joined a network of other left-leaning national-security oriented outlets with which it is closely linked, decried the Trump administration’s foreign policy initiatives and called for the resignation of Attorney General William Barr. Defend American Democracy, which identifies the Truman National Security Project as a “partner organization,” ran a national ad urging Americans to “hold the president accountable for abusing his office and risking national security for his own gain.”

Biden wasn’t the organization’s only connection to Burisma. Throughout his tenure on the board he sat alongside Sally Painter, the chief operating officer of the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, which was hired by Burisma to improve the company’s image in the United States. A November Wall Street Journal report detailed how Painter’s colleague, Karen Tramontano, used Biden’s name in an effort to secure meetings with senior State Department officials, though the paper said it was not clear “whether the younger Mr. Biden knew his name was being used by Blue Star in its contacts with State Department officials on Burisma’s behalf in early 2016.”

While it is unclear when, exactly, Burisma retained Blue Star Strategies, Biden and Painter were serving together on the Truman board while Blue Star was working for Burisma.

As a tax-exempt organization, the Truman National Security Project is required to file tax returns indicating whether any of its officers or key employees have a “business relationship” with any others. Though Burisma tapped Painter’s public relations outfit while Biden was a member of the board, the Truman Project answered “no.” It further indicated that its officers had been briefed on their duty to disclose any conflicts of interest and that it was “regularly and consistently” monitoring compliance with the policy.

Michael Breen, president and CEO of Human Rights First, who served as president and CEO of the Truman Project when the tax returns were filed, and who is identified on them as the individual who possesses the organization’s books and records, did not respond to phone calls or emails seeking comment.

Truman fellows can now be found throughout the D.C. foreign policy establishment. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright; Senators Chris Coons (D., Del.), Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.) and Kamala Harris (D., Calif.); and former undersecretary of defense for policy Michele Flournoy are board members of its sister organization, the Truman Center for National Policy.

The Truman National Security Project’s current president and CEO, Jenna Ben-Yehuda, whose contact information is not publicly listed on the organization’s website, did not respond to a request via Twitter for an appropriate point of contact for media inquiries. A page listing the group’s membership is “currently under construction,” according to the group’s website, and the email address listed for press inquiries was inoperative.

On Tuesday—even before his disappointing fifth place finish in New Hampshire—Joe Biden fled the state for South Carolina, where he is hoping African-American voters will revive his flagging campaign. If that hope proves futile, it will be in part because of the perception that, as vice president, Biden either used his name and influence to help friends and family or looked the other way while they did so at places like Burisma and the Truman National Security Project.

***

As of June 2017, it is composed of 16 chapters from 47 different states across the nation and claims more than 1,600 members. It supports American leadership, using its defense and diplomacy in the world on issues involving shared security and democracy promotion abroad. Many of its members are former or current military personnel, diplomats, foreign policy lobbyists, and political activists. The Truman Project has been criticized for giving the impression that it is bipartisan and independent while being supportive of the Democratic Party.

Chinese Spy Leading California Public Pension Fund?

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Denise Simon

This may add some very new and different questions when it comes to the Biden foreign operations….read on….

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., joined “Mornings with Maria” to explain why he wrote a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom highlighting his concerns about the state public pension fund’s chief investment officer having ties to China.

The fund has invested $3.1 billion in Chinese companies, some of which have been blacklisted by the U.S. government, Banks told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo.

“If this were up to me, I would fire [Chief Investment Officer Yu Ben Meng] immediately because of these suspicious ties,” he said. “We learned that Mr. Meng, who is the chief investment officer of CalPERS, was actually recruited to this position by the [Chinese Communist Party] through something called the Thousand Talents Program. Now he’s denied it.”

CalPERS stands for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest public pension fund in the nation.

“What is unusual is that many of these companies are companies that we’ve blacklisted, that make Chinese military equipment or are responsible for technologies like Hikvision, which is the equipment that’s used by the Chinese for surveillance on the Uighur Muslim population that they’ve been abusing in their own country,” Banks said.

The Commerce Department blacklisted Hikvision in October “for engaging in or enabling activities contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States.”

CalPERS defended Meng.

“This is a reprehensible attack on a U.S. citizen. We fully stand behind our Chief Investment Officer who came to CalPERS with a stellar international reputation,” a CalPERS spokeswoman told Reuters.

Hold on, it is actually worse… going back 4 months ago….

(Reuters) – Some of the biggest public pensions funds in the United States have invested in one of the world’s largest purveyors of video surveillance systems that the U.S. government claims are used in wide-scale repression of the Muslim population of western China.

The Trump administration’s decision to put the company, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co (002415.SZ), on a blacklist last week has prompted at least two of the pension plans to say they are reviewing or monitoring that development.

The blacklist applies to Hikvision and seven other companies because they allegedly enabled the crackdown that has led to mass arbitrary detentions in the Xinjiang region.

“We are tracking the situation given this new development with the Department of Commerce’s announcement,” a spokeswoman for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) said in an email.

CalSTRS owned 4.35 million Hikvision shares at the end of June 30, 2018, the last data available. The holding, owned directly and through emerging market exchange-traded funds, would be worth $24 million at that share count.

The New York State Teachers Retirement System also owned Hikvision, reporting 81,802 shares at the end of June, up from 26,402 shares at the end of 2018, fund disclosures show.

“Our holdings are primarily held according to their weights in passive portfolios matching the MSCI ACWI ex-U.S. index, our policy benchmark. We are monitoring the situation,” said a spokesman for the teachers’ fund. The ex-U.S. All Country World Index includes stocks from 22 developed and emerging markets.

The blacklisting means Hikvision and the other companies will not be able to buy U.S. technology, such as software and microchips, without specific U.S. government approval. It does not prevent U.S. investors from buying the companies’ shares. In August, Hikvision had been banned from selling to U.S. federal agencies because the government said its products could allow access to sensitive systems.

Hikvision’s General Manager Hu Yangzhong told Reuters on Wednesday it has been talking to the U.S. government about Xinjiang and has hired human rights lawyers to defend itself against the blacklisting.

A spokeswoman for law firm Sidley Austin LLP, which has lobbied for Hikvision this year, declined to comment.

Another major fund investing in Hikvision shares is the Florida Retirement System (FRS), with 1.8 million shares at the end of June.

A spokesman for the fund said it was working closely with external money managers “related to the issue in order to meet all regulatory and fiduciary requirements.”

POSTER CHILD

Risk consultants say the ease with which money used for the retirements of tens of millions of Americans is being invested in such companies should concern U.S. authorities at every level, as well as Americans generally.

“Hikvision has emerged as the corporate poster child for enabling Chinese human rights abuses, with its surveillance cameras visible atop the walls of detention camps incarcerating some one million or more Uighurs in Xinjiang,” said Roger Robinson, president and CEO of Washington DC-based risk consultancy RWR Advisory Group.

Beijing denies any mistreatment of people at the camps, which it says provide vocational training to help stamp out religious extremism and teach new work skills.

Robinson said that many Americans are unwittingly owning shares in such companies because they are in index funds. “They are picked up by the index providers in sizable numbers and sluiced into U.S. investor portfolios with seemingly very little, if any, due diligence or disclosure in the categories of national security and human rights.”

MSCI Inc (MSCI.N), whose products are designed for global investors, added Hikvision to its benchmark emerging markets index last year. MSCI declined to comment.

One other company among the blacklisted eight that is owned by some of the big pension funds is iFlytek Co Ltd (002230.SZ), a speech-recognition firm. Its shares were owned by funds in Florida, New York State as well as CalSTRS and the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) indirectly through the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF at their last disclosure dates. IShares, a top ETF provider owned by BlackRock Inc (BLK.N), declined to comment.

CUTTING TIES

Not all the funds have stuck with Hikvision.

The New York State Common Fund, one of the country’s biggest pension funds, liquidated its position months ago. It had owned 2.7 million shares worth $14.2 million at the end of March through an external fund manager, but sold them in May, a spokesman said, declining to say why.

U.S. mutual funds have also cut or eliminated positions in Hikvision amid the negative publicity, which included it being named in a Human Rights Watch report on mass surveillance in Xinjiang in May.

Just 9% of global emerging markets funds now own Hikvision, down from 20% in 2018, according to Copley Fund Research. One fund to pull out is the $2.7 billion Artisan Developing World Fund (APDYX.O), which had a $66 million position in Hikvision at the end of March but reported holding no shares three months later, fund disclosures show. Artisan did not respond to a request for comment.

At least one U.S. pension fund had worried this summer about whether to invest in the Chinese surveillance company.

The $33 billion Alaska Permanent Fund had considered an investment in a China fund featuring Hikvision as a top holding, according to minutes of a June meeting of its trustees and staff. The minutes were published last month.

Schroders Global Asset Management, a finalist for the fund’s mainland China investment mandate, touted Hikvision as a top performer.

Some Alaska trustees, however, worried about “headline risks” of investing in companies that aid the Chinese government’s surveillance activities, according to the minutes.

Jack Lee, portfolio manager of the China fund, assured Alaska pension officials he had spoken with Hikvision executives. Hikvision will “try to avoid that kind of business,” the trustees were told, but “they don’t necessarily know how their equipment is used,” Lee told the trustees, according to the minutes.

Reuters could not determine whether Alaska made an investment in the Schroders fund that included Hikvision stock.

A spokeswoman for the Alaska Retirement Management Board, which oversees the pension, said it does not have any additional information to share regarding Schroders’ efforts. A Schroders spokesman declined to comment.