SecState Pompeo to UNSC to Invoke Iran Snapback Sanctions

Posted on August 20, 2020August 20, 2020 by Denise Simon

President Trump confirmed on Wednesday that he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to notify the UN Security Council that the U.S. intends to initiate “snapback” sanctions on Iran. The formal request is expected on Thursday, Israeli officials told Axios.

The backdrop: This move could create a diplomatic and legal crisis unlike any seen before at the Security Council. It comes days after the U.S. failed to mobilize support at the council to extend an international arms embargo on Iran.

The big picture: Despite having withdrawn from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the U.S. is invoking its terms in an attempt to force sanctions lifted under the pact to snap back into place.

The deal says any of the signatories — the U.S., Russia, China, France, Germany and the U.K. — can demand sanctions be reimposed automatically if they believe Iran has committed substantial violations. No country can veto such a move.
Russia and China contend that the U.S. gave up its right to reimpose the sanctions when it withdrew from the deal. That view is shared by others on the council, and even by John Bolton, the hawkish former national security adviser.
The U.S., on the other hand, claims it has the right to initiate the snapback mechanism because it is a party to the Security Council resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal and included the snapback mechanism.
The European signatories, who have tried desperately to save the nuclear deal, also oppose the U.S. move.

How it works: Pompeo is expected to arrive in New York on Thursday and present formal letters to the UN secretary-general and the UN ambassador from Indonesia, who holds the Security Council’s rotating presidency.

The letter will then be circulated to other members, beginning a 30-day consultation period.

What to watch: Israeli officials and Western diplomats both say they expect a major diplomatic crisis over those 30 days.

If any member of the Security Council submits a resolution to stop the snapback move, the U.S. will be able to veto it.
U.S. officials believe that the renewal of international sanctions will lead Iran to withdraw from the nuclear deal — and likely make it impossible for Democratic nominee Joe Biden to put the deal back together if he wins in November.
Israeli officials were notified on Monday that the Trump administration intended to submit the official complaint on Thursday.

The latest: “When the United States entered into the Iran deal, it was clear that the United States would always have the right to restore the UN sanctions that would prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” Trump claimed in a press conference on Wednesday.

*** UN crisis looms as US readies demand for Iran sanctions ...

For background and context:

In May of 2020 –

State Dept: The 13-year-old arms embargo on the Iranian regime will expire in October. The embargo was created by the United Nations Security Council but is scheduled to end because of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, leaving the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism and anti-Semitism free to import and export combat aircraft, warships, submarines and guided missiles. To prevent this, the Security Council must pass a resolution to extend the arms embargo. If this effort is defeated by a veto, the Trump administration is prepared to exercise all legally available options to extend the embargo.

We face this circumstance because the Obama administration acceded to Iran’s demand that the U.N. embargo end in the fifth year of the deal. It is only one of many restrictions on Iran scheduled to expire over time. President Obama hoped concessions would moderate the regime’s behavior. “Ideally,” he said in 2015, “we would see a situation in which Iran, seeing sanctions reduced, would start . . . re-entering the world community [and] lessening its provocative activities.”

Instead, Iranian provocations accelerated under the nuclear deal. Emboldened by repeated diplomatic wins and flush with cash, the Iranian regime increased its ballistic-missile testing and missile proliferation to terrorist proxies. Iran built out a “Shiite crescent” in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen, arming its proxies to the teeth.

The U.S. and partners have used the arms embargo to disrupt Iran’s sending advanced weaponry to terrorists and militants. This diplomatic tool has rallied the international community to interdict and inspect weapons shipments, building global condemnation of Iranian violations.

Among many examples, on Feb. 9, a U.S. Navy ship interdicted a ship attempting to smuggle Iranian weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen. American sailors found 150 antitank guided missiles, three surface-to-air missiles, and component parts for unmanned explosive boats.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani sees a bright future when the embargo lapses. In November 2019, he said: “When the embargo . . . is lifted next year, we can easily buy and sell weapons.” He went on to hail the provision as a “huge political success” for Iran.

Kerry: Agreement on Iran issue only alternative to force ... John Kerry/Wendy Sherman negotiators of JCPOA

The regime plans to upgrade Iran’s aging air force, improve the accuracy of its missiles, and strengthen its ability to strike ships and shoot down aircraft. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—a terrorist group with a long history of targeting and killing Americans—could then reverse-engineer technologies in these systems for domestic weapons production and export.

Iranian weapons already put American and allied troops in the region under threat and endanger Israel. Letting the arms embargo expire would make it considerably easier for Iran to ship weapons to its allies in Syria, Hamas in Gaza, and Shiite militias in Iraq.

Mr. Rouhani understands the stakes. Last week he appeared on Iranian television to declare that “Iran will give a crushing response if the arms embargo on Tehran is extended.” This threat is designed to intimidate nations into accepting Iran’s usual violent behavior for fear of something worse.

The Security Council must reject Mr. Rouhani’s extortion. The U.S. will press ahead with diplomacy and build support to extend the embargo. We have drafted a resolution and hope it will pass. Russia’s and China’s interests would be served by a “yes” vote—they have more to gain from Mideast stability than from selling weapons to Iran for its sectarian wars.

If American diplomacy is frustrated by a veto, however, the U.S. retains the right to renew the arms embargo by other means. Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) lifted most U.N. sanctions but also created a legal mechanism for exclusive use by certain nations to snap sanctions back. The arms embargo is one of these sanctions.

Mr. Obama explained how “snapback” works in 2015: “If Iran violates the agreement over the next decade, all of the sanctions can snap back into place. We won’t need the support of other members of the U.N. Security Council; America can trigger snapback on our own.” As of today, Iran has violated the nuclear deal at least five times.

The Trump administration’s preferred strategy is for the Security Council to extend the arms embargo while the U.S. continues to apply maximum economic pressure and maintains deterrence against Iranian aggression. Nearly 400 House members, an overwhelming bipartisan majority, have signed a letter backing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s diplomacy to extend the arms embargo. Iran certainly hasn’t earned the right to have it lifted. One way or another, the U.S. will ensure it remains in place against the violent and revolutionary regime in Tehran.

Cold War with China Escalating due to S. China Sea?

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

South China Sea dispute - INSIGHTSIAS source

WSJ/HONG KONG—The U.S. plans to formally oppose a swath of Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, according to people familiar with the matter, as Washington takes a harder line against Beijing’s efforts to assert control over the strategic waters.

While Washington has previously said it sees Beijing’s expansive sovereignty claims over most of the South China Sea as unlawful, the State Department is preparing to issue a position paper that officially rejects specific Chinese claims for the first time, the people said.

Such a gesture departs from past U.S. practice of not taking sides on territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the people said.

The paper could be issued this week, the people said, just after the fourth anniversary of a 2016 ruling by an international tribunal that found no legal basis for Beijing’s claims to historic and economic rights in most of the South China Sea.

Recently, the Trump administration has criticized Beijing for asserting “unlawful maritime claims” in the South China Sea while ramping up naval operations to challenge those claims This month, the U.S. sent two aircraft carriers to participate in one of its largest naval exercises in recent years in the South China Sea—at the same time that China was holding drills in the area.

The State Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

China has repeatedly rejected the ruling, issued by a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague following a legal challenge brought by the Philippines in 2013. Beijing didn’t take part in the tribunal, which it has insisted had no jurisdiction on the matter. Instead, China continued efforts to build artificial islands around disputed South China Sea features and fortify them with weaponry.

At the time of the ruling, the Obama administration called on relevant parties to respect it while stating that the U.S. doesn’t take sides on specific territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Washington has long insisted that it has an interest in maintaining freedom of navigation in the area.

In the paper, the U.S. would state that “China’s maritime claims pose the single greatest threat to the freedom of the seas in modern history,” according to a draft seen by The Wall Street Journal. “We cannot afford to re-enter an era where states like China attempt to assert sovereignty over the seas,” the draft said.

The U.S. rejects a number of Chinese claims to certain areas and features in the South China Sea that are also claimed by Southeast Asian countries, including Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, according to the draft.

Washington also states its view that Chinese efforts to “harass Southeast Asian fishing or hydrocarbon development, or to unilaterally undertake such activities on its own, in these areas, are unlawful,” according to the draft.

***

The U.S. is not a party of the UN Law of the Sea treaty that sets out a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Despite that, the State Department noted that China and its neighbors, including the Philippines, are parties to the treaty and should respect the decision.

The United States has no claims to the waters but has deployed warships and aircraft for decades to patrol and promote freedom of navigation and overflight in the busy waterway.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea and routinely objects to any action by the U.S. military in the region. Five other governments claim all or part of the sea, through which approximately $5 trillion in goods are shipped every year.

China has sought to shore up its claim to the sea by building military bases on coral atolls, leading the U.S. to sail warships through the region in what it calls freedom of operation missions. More here.

Sanction China by Stopping World Bank Loans to CCP

Posted on May 28, 2020May 28, 2020 by Denise Simon

Decoupling the United States from China is a convoluted and complicated process. Some lawmakers make it sound easy by just terminating manufacturing agreements by U.S. companies and bring it stateside. Ah but hold on…it is important to know some other details that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are not telling you.

Consider the items below:

1. Commerce Department official warned Congress recently that China is raising billions of dollars in U.S. capital markets and the activity could undermine American security.

Nazak Nikakhtar, assistant secretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, testified last month that Chinese companies raised $48 billion from American capital markets from 2013 through the end of last year.

Ms. Nikakhtar told the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission that 172 Chinese companies in September were listed on the three largest U.S. exchanges — Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange and the NYSE American — with a total market capitalization of more than $1 trillion. More here.

Confucius Institutes and U.S. Exchange Programs: Public ...

2. Charles Lieber, the chair of Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and two Chinese nationals who were researchers at Boston University and a Boston hospital were charged by the U.S. Justice Department with lying about their purported links to the Chinese government. But hold on, it is much worse. China has a real impact on all levels of the U.S. education system. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a 96 page report describing the Confucius Institute and how those agreements work with domestic universities. Further, major universities failed to report the other monies they receive from China among other countries. It is shocking how foreign money has infiltrated the U.S. education system and to learn which country does what and how much, click here.

China moon landing: Spacecraft makes first landing on moon ...

3. China launched its Long March 5B rocket into space. This is an effort by China to build a modular space station. It did however fall out of orbit falling for the most part into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa near the Ivory Coast. Additionally, as China continues to launch at least 12 more space operations it already has landed on the dark side of the moon. China and Russia are in fact collaborating on lunar operations including for shared bases. Russia’s operations coordinating with China are centered and funded by Roscosmos for Space Activities and the Skulkovo Foundation. This is the foundation where Hillary Clinton created U.S. technology (Silicon Valley) and Skulkovo via the Clinton Foundation via a major donor known as Viktor Vekselberg. This is the other scandal of technology transfer(s) to rogue nations.

4. We are already somewhat versed in Chinese complicity in the pandemic and the World Health Organization but lets go to the World Bank shall we? As of early 2019, China was sitting on cash reserves of some $3 trillion. It is the world’s second-largest economy, behind the U.S. It directly lends more money to other nations each year than the $2 billion or so it borrows from the World Bank annually. The World Bank, based in Washington, D.C., was established after World War II to help European countries rebuild. Its mission has evolved over the years and is now to finance development in low- and middle-income countries with the goal of eliminating extreme poverty.

“From a pure economic vantage point, there is no good reason for the World Bank to continue making loans to China,” says Eswar Prasad, a professor of economics at Cornell University.

“The Chinese don’t need the money,” Prasad says. “There is a glaring optics problem.” He adds that the argument could be made that the money lent to China could be put to better use elsewhere.

And it’s not as if the World Bank has an infinite amount of money to parcel out. Its lending budget, drawn from reserves, donations and the interest it earns on capital, is limited. So a dollar lent to China is a dollar that is not available for a project somewhere else in the world. The Trump administration, which regularly beats up on China, accusing it of manipulating global trade rules for its own benefit, has blasted the World Bank for lending too much to China.

Prasad says the World Bank’s lending to China is becoming “untenable” and will have to stop fairly soon.

Bert Hofman, the World Bank’s country director for China, says the amount of money China is borrowing each year from the global bank is just a small fraction of what the country is investing each year in domestic programs. And he believes that a motivation for China’s borrowing goes beyond money.

“The reason they still borrow is because they feel that the expertise of the World Bank is valuable to them,” Hofman says.

World Bank loans come with advisers and auditors who help implement (and monitor) bank-funded projects.

China gets access to international experts. The World Bank remains engaged with China and is able to see how new projects play out in this booming middle-income country. Hofman sees it as a win-win.

Prasad agrees that there are still some good reasons for the World Bank to remain engaged with China. Many of the bank’s loans to China are for projects addressing climate change and mitigating pollution from the country’s booming factories.

“The risk the World Bank faces is that if it only lends to very poor countries, it might end up not having much of a role to play in the large, fast-growing emerging-market economies,” Prasad says. “So the World Bank, in a bid to remain relevant and push its agenda on issues such as climate change and social development, has continued to lend to China.” More here.

***

The World Bank said its board adopted a new plan to aid China with $1 billion to $1.5 billion in low-interest loans annually through June 2025, despite the objections of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and several U.S. lawmakers.

World Bank approves $300mn for agriculture reforms in ...

Mnuchin told a House Financial Services Committee hearing that the Treasury’s representative on the board had objected on to the plan on Wednesday, adding he wants the World Bank to “graduate” China from its concessional loan programs for low- and middle-income countries.

The five-year lending strategy plan was published on Thursday afternoon after the World Bank’s board “expressed broad support” for the multilateral development lender’s engagement in China’s structural and environmental reforms.

The World Bank said its lending would decline over the “country partnership framework” plan, in line with reformsagreed under a $13 billion capital increase agreed in 2018.

The World Bank loaned China $1.3 billion in the fiscal 2019 year ended June 30, down from about $2.4 billion during fiscal 2017. The new plan calls for lending to “gradually decline” from the previous five-year average of $1.8 billion.

“Lending levels may fluctuate up and down from year to year due to normal pipeline management based on project readiness,” the World Bank said in its plan.

*** So we have a collection of reparation options due to the pandemic when it comes to China, we have a building space battlefield, we have corruption within China and now we have the U.S. at major odds with the Chinese Communist Party’s in violation of the One Country, Two Systems Act of 1997 with regard to Hong Kong. Secretary of State Pompeo declared to Congress that Hong Kong was no longer autonomous with The CCP which is correct but this will spark continued hostilities between the two nations even as naval conflicts continue in the South China Sea.

None of this will be easy but the reader should know more details to assess what may be ahead in global relations.

Pandemic Playbook Faults

Posted on May 15, 2020May 15, 2020 by Denise Simon

Several weeks ago, Politico published an article describing how President Trump failed to adhere to the 2016 Pandemic Playbook complete with the document itself. That is found here.

Here's the Pandemic Playbook That Trump Ignored

After it was brought to my attention, I read it thoroughly and began to break it down to determine the failures and faults. NBC News has picked up the same blame mission posted today.

The summary is noted below.

Pandemic Playbook Faults

It begins with Congress when in the funding process of 2015 to 2016 or even to 2017, appropriations were never allocated to specific pandemic outbreaks other than the normal funding architecture for what is known as ICBRNR. This includes the omission of the Strategic National Stockpile inventory that was not adequate for a national outbreak, yet is annexed by individual state stockpiles including medical facility inventories. FAULT 1

The World Health Organization is the lead global organization of which the United States is the largest financial contributor to provide recommendations from assessments that include epidemiology, humanitarian/development/ public health impact, transmission/outbreak/potential for public concern. WHO was willingly prevented from doing this by the Chinese Communist Party.

Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergencies expert, asked about an international business meeting held at a Singapore hotel on Jan 20-22, said it did not appear to have spread the virus widely.

“No, I think it is way too early and much more of an exaggeration to consider the Singapore conference event a ‘super-spreading event’,” Ryan said. ( Reuters: February 10, 2020) FAULT 2

The WHO is to advise on travel, perform surveillance, infection control, tender medical cure(s) to the host country. After this advise and action by WHO, U.S. Health and Human Services then based on WHO assessments and recommendations, launches the National Emergency Action Center. WHO finally under pressure from the international community, admitted an error in its assessment of the Wuhan Laboratory on January 28, 2020. FAULT 3 (2 days later, President Trump restricted/halted flights from China into the United States).

Meanwhile, the United States through the U.S. State Department had several operations launched to address the potential global outbreak and that included running private flights to various locations around the globe to retrieve American citizens and bring them home. Further, earnest offers were being provided to Wuhan and Beijing by the USG to send in virologist and medical personnel to examine research protocols, gather lab samples, perform specimen sharing, collaborate on pharmaceuticals and treatments as well as to review global stockpiles, medical treatment infrastructure (read hospitals) and to offer proposed budget items to the U.S. Congress. Not only did were these offers extended to China, but to any other nation that was lacking in resources including Italy and Iran. FAULT 4 for China

Meanwhile as the Senate impeachment hearings began on January 16, 2020, the Trump administration launched the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29, 2020. The first known case of COVID -19 was reported in Washington State on January 20, 2020 as a 35 year old man had just returned from Wuhan on January 15. It was not until March 11, 2020 that WHO declared COVID -19 a pandemic. FAULT 5

As for all the other U.S. Federal agencies, they take the lead from HHS which takes the lead from WHO. The number of Federal agencies is substantial and not only do they include the normal well known agencies, they also include the Veterans Administration, USAID, Office of Global Affairs, embassies, FBI, CIA, GOARN otherwise the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network. There of course is the CDC with clinical trial research papers, various trial invitations, there is the Customs and Border Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard for cross border travel and sea travel, the FAA and the branches of the U.S. military. Orchestrate all that for the benefit of the state Governors who hold the most significant power and responsibility when outbreaks occur. It is the Federal government that only provides guidance and assistance as a multi-state event occurs.

This summary comes from reading the Politico article on how President Trump failed the Pandemic Playbook. That is hardly the case if one actually reads the whole playbook. After the 2016 playbook was authored and published in 2015 for 2016, did Congress standup a hearing to determine funding specific to a pandemic? The playbook recommended early budget and financial analysis and supplemental funding from Congress. Did that happen? NO Fault 6.

There is more but based on the items in the playbook, it was done by committee as a result of the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The playbook per the text is merely a checklist for domestic and international guidance.

5 Eyes Has Memo/Evidence on China Virus Deception

Posted on May 1, 2020May 1, 2020 by Denise Simon

Primer: Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo is correct, China is using the same fake/false propaganda tactics well known and exploited for decades by Russia’s FSB. Further, while Beijing refuses to allow foreign (read U.S.) scientists into the Wuhan Laboratory for review/investigation, Beijing is also refusing WHO scientists as well.

China sends thousands of medical staff to Wuhan as ...

***

FNC: A research dossier compiled by the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance states that China intentionally hid or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of lives around the world.

The 15-page document from the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, was obtained by Australia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper and states that China’s secrecy amounted to an “assault on international transparency.”

The dossier touches on themes that have been discussed in media reports about the outbreak of the virus, including initial denial that the virus could be transmitted between humans, the silencing or “disappearing” of doctors who tried to speak up, the destruction of evidence in laboratories and refusal to provide live samples to international scientists working on a vaccine.

Specifically, the file notes that China began censoring news of the virus on search engines beginning Dec. 31, deleting terms including “SARS variation, “Wuhan Seafood market” and “Wuhan Unknown Pneumonia.”

Three days later, on Jan. 3, China’s National Health Commission, ordered virus samples to be either moved to designated testing facilities or destroyed, while simultaneously enforcing a “no-publication order” related to the disease.

Perhaps most damningly, the dossier states that Chinese authorities denied that the virus could be spread between humans until Jan. 20, “despite evidence of human-human transmission from early December.”

The dossier is similarly unsparing about the World Health Organization (WHO), stating that it toed the Chinese line about human-to-human transmission despite the fact that”officials in Taiwan raised concerns as early as December 31, as did experts in Hong Kong on January 4.”

As of Friday night, the WHO’s official Twitter account still featured a tweet from Jan. 14 that stated: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.”

Whoops! We couldn’t access this Tweet.

At the same time, the dossier states that throughout February, “Beijing [pressed] the US [sic], Italy, India, Australia, Southeast Asian neighbours and others not to protect themselves via travel restrictions, even as [China] imposes severe restrictions at home.”

At the same time, the file states: “Millions of people [left] Wuhan after the outbreak and before Beijing lock[ed] down the city on January 23.”

The dossier continues the litany of Chinese defensiveness, stating: “As EU [European Union] diplomats prepare a report on the pandemic, [China] successfully presses Brussels to strike language on [China] disinformation.”

Similarly, “As Australia calls for an independent inquiry into the pandemic, [China] threatens to cut off trade with Australia. [China] has likewise responded furiously to US [sic] calls for transparency.”

The Telegraph report does present one point of divergence between the allied governments, with Australia believing the virus most likely originated in the Wuhan wet market and putting the chances it accidentally leaked from a lab at “5 percent.”

By contrast, Fox News reported April 15 that U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly confident that coronavirus likely originated in a Wuhan lab as a consequence of China’s attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States

President Trump said Thursday that he’s seen evidence suggesting the virus came from a lab after Fox News and others asked if he knew of anything that gave him confidence that the outbreak originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Yes, I have,” he replied, “And, I think that the World Health Organization should be ashamed of themselves because they’re like the public relations agency for China.”

Multiple sources previously told Fox News that it is believed standards in Wuhan were disregarded before the virus leaked, prompting Beijing to initiate a cover-up. Sources also claimed the WHO was complicit from the beginning in helping China cover its tracks.

The WHO and China have denied any wrongdoing.

The Telegraph also reported that key figures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology previously worked or trained in Australian government labs where they conducted research on pathogens in live bats as part of an ongoing partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

According to the dossier, the team’s work at the Wuhan lab involved discovering samples of coronavirus within a cave in Yunnan province and synthesizing a bat-derived coronavirus that could not be cured.

***

KEY DATES IN COVID COVER-UP

November 9, 2015:

Wuhan Institute of Virology publish a study revealing they created a new virus in the lab from SARS-CoV.

December 6, 2019

Five days after a man linked to Wuhan’s seafood market presented pneumonia-like symptoms, his wife contracts it, suggesting human to human transmission.

December 27

China’s health authorities told a novel disease, then affecting some 180 patients, was caused by a new coronavirus.

December 26-30

Evidence of new virus emerges from Wuhan patient data.

December 31

Chinese internet authorities begin censoring terms from social media such as Wuhan Unknown Pneumonia.

January 1, 2020

Eight Wuhan doctors who warned about new virus are detained and condemned.

January 3

China’s top health authority issues a gag order.

January 5

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission stops releasing daily updates on new cases. Continues until January 18.

January 10

PRC official Wang Guangfa says outbreak “under control” and mostly a “mild condition”.

January 12

Professor Zhang Yongzhen’s lab in Shanghai is closed by authorities for “rectification”, one day after it shares genomic sequence data with the world for the first time.

January 14

PRC National Health Commission chief Ma Xiaowei privately warns colleagues the virus is likely to develop into a major public health event.

January 24

Officials in Beijing prevent the Wuhan Institute of Virology from sharing sample isolates with the University of Texas.

February 6

China’s internet watchdog tightens controls on social media platforms.

February 9

Citizen-journalist and local businessman Fang Bin disappears.

April 17

Wuhan belatedly raises its official fatalities by 1290.