Category Archives: Whistleblower

China Forces International Criminal court to be Useless

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With Beijing not a signatory to the ICC, those bringing the claim of genocide have pointed to the alleged forcing of Uighur people from Tajikistan and Cambodia into China as evidence. Both countries are signatories to the Rome statute setting up the ICC.

“The US government has reason to doubt the honesty of the ICC. The Department of Justice has received substantial credible information that raises serious concerns about a long history of financial corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of the office of the prosecutor,” Barr said.

He referred to the ICC as “little more than a political tool employed by unaccountable international elites”.

***

Apart from genocide, China has reservations over the definitions of all the other core crimes, namely, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crime of aggression. Throughout the negotiation process, one of the major guiding principles in defining the crimes under consideration was that these definitions should be reflective of customary international law. China opposed the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes against humanity committed during peacetime, because, it argued that customary international law required a nexus to armed conflict, and without such nexus, the major attributes of the crimes would be changed. China’s objection towards the ICC’s jurisdiction over war crimes committed in non-international armed conflict was similarly raised in the context of customary international law. Moreover, China resisted the inclusion of the crime of aggression under the ICC’s jurisdiction due to the lack of a precise definition on state act of aggression underlying the crime.

So, while world leaders have confirmed Covid-19 came from Wuhan, China, it is unlikely the ICC will ever bring a case against China for the nefarious actions of the pandemic. Meanwhile, there is the matter of the human rights violations by China against the Uighurs.

Uighur model sends rare video from Chinese detention | Fox News

NYT’s: The International Criminal Court has decided not to pursue an investigation into China’s mass detention of Muslims, a setback for activists eager to hold Beijing accountable for persecution of ethnic and religious minorities.

Prosecutors in The Hague said on Monday that they would not, for the moment, investigate allegations that China had committed genocide and crimes against humanity regarding the Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, because the alleged crimes took place in China, which is not a party to the court.

The abuses described “have been committed solely by nationals of China within the territory of China,” said a report by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda of Gambia.

For months, Uighurs in exile had urged the court to investigate China’s repressive policies against Muslim minorities, the first attempt by activists to use the force of international law to hold Chinese officials accountable for the crackdown. They accused the Chinese government of carrying out a campaign of torture, forced sterilization and mass surveillance against Muslims, among other abuses.

China has faced growing international condemnation for its harsh treatment of Muslims, including the construction of vast indoctrination camps in the western region of Xinjiang. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign described China’s actions in Xinjiang as genocide, a position also taken by other Western leaders.

China has denied that the camps are abusive, describing them instead as job training centers aimed at countering religious extremism and terrorism, despite a preponderance of contradictory evidence.

Many Uighurs said on Tuesday that they were disappointed in the court’s decision not to investigate. They vowed to continue to lobby global leaders to punish China for the abuses.

“The I.C.C. was formed for one and only one reason: to confront the most horrific international crimes,” said Fatimah Abdulghafur, a Uighur poet and activist who lives in Australia. “The atrocities of the Chinese regime toward Uighurs are countless.”

Products you buy may have been made in China by forced Uighur labor - Los Angeles Times article

The complaint against China was filed by two Uighur exile groups, the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement.

In addition to abuses against Muslims inside China’s borders, the Uighur groups had also lobbied the court to investigate Beijing for pursuing the repatriation of thousands of Uighurs through unlawful arrests in or deportation from other countries, including Cambodia and Tajikistan.

In its report on Monday, the prosecutor’s office said there was “no basis to proceed at this time” because there did not appear to be enough evidence to show that Chinese officials had committed crimes over which the court had jurisdiction.

“Not all conduct which involves the forcible removal of persons from a location necessarily constitutes the crime of forcible transfer or deportation,” the report said.

Lawyers representing the Uighur groups said they were still hopeful that the court would open an investigation after considering new evidence.

“We have explained we’ve been hampered by Covid restrictions,’’ said Rodney Dixon, who is the lead lawyer in the case. “The prosecutor needs further and concrete evidence from Cambodia and Tajikistan to establish jurisdiction, and we will be providing that early in the year.”

Lawyers following the court said that the prosecutor, whose mandate is coming to an end, had been under time pressure to present her final report to the annual assembly of court members now meeting in The Hague. A new prosecutor will be elected in the coming weeks.

Is Small Business Aware of California’s $21 Billion Surplus?

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A report from the bipartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says California’s savings account could grow to more than $18 billion by the end of 2021.

California had a record $21.5 billion surplus in the state budget in 2018. Newsom and the Democratic-controlled state Legislature spent more than half of that money on paying down debts and boosting reserves.

About $4 billion of it went to support ongoing programs while the rest was used for one-time projects. Where did it go exactly and where is it going? Small Business owners deserve to know.

As Congress debates more funding, a contentious point was Federal dollars bailing out states…we see now that Pelosi is lying as California does not need a bailout.

Coronavirus crisis could deplete California's $21-billion ...

With a looming recession and possible federal cuts, where will the money go?

By Evan Symon

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the state will have an extra $7 billion that wasn’t spent in the budget. And by 2021 there can be as much as $18 billion in the state’s general fund.

This is a long way away from a decade ago when the state was about that much in the red.

While the number may go down $2 billion if the Trump administration removes the state Medicaid tax, which it has strongly indicated it will do, it still leaves billions of dollars of extra money sitting in California’s coffers. It’s just a matter of deciding what to do with it.

A Rainy Day Fund

The most likely option for state lawmakers would be to save the extra money, put it into a savings account, and let it accumulate money from both interest and additional surpluses until the next major financial crisis.

A recession is likely coming, and a major natural disaster such as an earthquake is always possible. The LAO even made it clear in the report that “This does not necessarily mean a broader economic slowdown is imminent in the near term. Nonetheless, there likely is greater risk in the economic outlook for 2020-21 than in previous budget cycles.”

Nevertheless, an additional $18 billion would get California through a recession with minimal budget cuts. And after what happened to California during the last recession, where the state was cutting back working days of state employees and giving literal IOUs to banks, a rainy day fund would give California a lot of much needed breathing room, not to mention having an advantage over most states.

And with tax revenue expected to level out in the coming years due to a slow down of wage growth, it may be the most percipient option.

Paying Debts

Despite a surplus in the budget, California still has debt. A LOT of debt.

In 2017 it was estimated that California is still in the red somewhere between $26 billion and $1.3 trillion. Much of that comes from state pensions – pensions of which will be draining more soon due to more baby boomers retiring.

This is another popular option, as Governor Newsom spent half of last years surplus of $21.5 billion paying off this debt. While this won’t nearly pay it all off overnight, eating into some of that now could help future debt issues in the future.

Protection against Federal cuts
Currently California is standing to lose $2 billion each year in surplus due to losing the aforementioned state Medicaid tax. If it is lost, the surplus takes care of that lost revenue, right off the bat.

Due to the Trump administration’s dislike of California, and other Federal program cuts that are possible in the upcoming years, a surplus could help fill in the gap of anything taken away. Lawmakers across California have mentioned this being a scenario before, with a federal cut hurting Californians across the board.

“The state is not in this alone,” said Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood). “Federal actions may hurt our budget in three ways: by damaging the economy as a whole, by hurling fiscal threats at our revenues, and by withholding funds for programs that benefit Californians.”

Like a rainy day fund, this would only be for the worst case scenario. And it’s one where it can’t even be estimated on because of likely shifts in the Presidency, House of Representatives, and Senate next year.

Infrastructure

California currently has about $187 billion in infrastructure needs. Many roads, highways, bridges, rail lines and other transport repairs, upgrades, demolitions, and new constructions are needed across the state. Former Governor Jerry Brown himself had been very adamant about extra money going towards neglected transportation needs.

Like the overall state debt, a few billion a year going to new infrastructure would only put a small dent into what is needed. But with many bridges and other vital facilities possibly failing and causing injury and death if their problems are ignored for too long, infrastructure also makes sense for surplus spending.

A good lesson for the state
A budget surplus is a good problem to have. California has, for now, learned its’ lesson on overspending on immediate budget needs, and has gone from being the butt of national jokes to becoming the budgetary model for the United States.

“President Trump talks a lot about America’s economic growth under his presidency, but when you look behind the numbers, you see it’s California’s growth that has provided the economic rocket fuel for the nation,” Governor Newsom said about the budget surplus. “The federal government would be wise to look to California as a model for how to get its fiscal house in order.”

When it comes to immediate budgeting, California is back on track. How it decides to spend the current surplus would only validate that.

However the surplus is tiny compared to how much California really has in debt, which is well over a trillion dollars when state employee pension and healthcare plans are added in. The Globe will take a look at the other side of the surplus and California’s debt in Part II.

Ghislaine Maxwell and her Husband offer $28.5 M Bail Package

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NYP: Jeffrey Epstein’s accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell has proposed a $28.5 million bail package — that represents all of her and her husband’s assets — in a desperate bid to spring her from federal lockup, according to a new motion unsealed Monday.

Jeffrey Epstein Case: No Bail For Ghislaine Maxwell | NBC New York - YouTube

The suggested package is “exceptional in its scope and puts at risk everything that Ms. Maxwell has — all of her and her spouse’s assets, her family’s livelihood, and the financial security of her closest friends and family — if she were to flee, which she has no intention of doing,” wrote her lawyer Mark Cohen.

Although her spouse’s name is redacted from the documents, his identity has been widely reported as tech CEO Scott Borgerson.

 

The package is composed of a $22.5 million bond co-signed by her and her husband, according to the motion that was filed under seal on Dec. 4.

Who Scott Borgerson is, the tech CEO with ties to Ghislaine Maxwell - Business Insider

Scott Borgerson, 44, is the CEO of CargoMetrics, a data-analytics company for maritime trade and shipping. He cofounded the Boston-based company in 2010, and it was most recently valued at $100 million in 2016.

Five additional bonds totaling $5 million will be co-signed by seven of Maxwell’s closest friends and family members whose names were redacted.

She would be released to home confinement with a GPS ankle monitor — although the name of the person with whom she’d reside was withheld.

Maxwell’s security firm would post the remaining $1 million bond.

The British socialite would also sign waivers of her right to contest extradition from two countries where she holds passports: France and the United Kingdom.

A team of private security guards would tail her 24 hours a day, seven days a week to ensure her safety after she received threats against her and her family, the filing says.

At a bail hearing shortly after her arrest in July, US District Judge Alison Nathan refused to release her to home confinement on a $5 million bond over concerns she had been evasive about her finances and was a serious flight risk.

The British heiress wouldn’t disclose her husband’s name to pretrial services, prosecutors had said.

In the motion, Maxwell describes living a “quiet family life” in an oceanfront mansion in Manchester-by-the-sea, Mass. with her spouse for four years prior to her indictment in Manhattan federal court.

She fled to a New Hampshire compound, not to evade authorities as prosecutors contended at her first bail hearing, but due to an “intense media frenzy and threats” that endangered the “safety and wellbeing of herself and her family,” wrote Cohen.

Her husband did not initially come forward to co-sign her bail package for these reasons, the filing says.

But the restrictive jail conditions, which have amounted to solitary confinement, have been unbearable, and the 58-year-old daughter of disgraced media titan Robert Maxwell has been relentlessly skewered in the press, according to her lawyers.

In the first three months she was locked up, she was pilloried in more than 6,500 national media articles.

“That exceeds the number of articles that mentioned such high-profile defendants as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, and Keith Raniere in the 90-day period following their arrests, combined,” her attorney wrote.

She has denied the allegations and is eager to defend herself against a case that lacks corroboration and “boils down to witness testimony about events that took place over 25 years ago,” the papers say.

She’s charged with recruiting and grooming girls and young women to be sexually abused by her and Epstein and lying about it.

Warnock’s Voter Registration Group Failed to Pay Unemployment Taxes

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Primer: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has launched investigations into several groups, including one founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, for seeking to “aggressively” register “ineligible, out-of-state, or deceased voters” before the state’s Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections. When New Georgia Project CEO Nsé Ufot spoke with Teen Vogue earlier this week, it was on the heels of Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger announcing that he was investigating the organization for potentially violating election laws when registering voters, as the Associated Press reported. In her interview, Ufot blasted the investigation as “sad and desperate” and “ridiculous.”

Image of Nse Ufot from the chest up she is holding a microphone to her face in both hands and has a look of skepticism...  All In: The Fight For Democracy Review: Stacey Abrams on Voting Rights | IndieWire  Georgia Senate runoffs: Raphael Warnock sermon attacks could backlash on GOP

Nse Ufot                                                        Stacey Abrams                                         Raphael Warnock

Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock’s voter registration group was hit with thousands of dollars in tax liens for unpaid unemployment insurance, according to state records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The New Georgia Project, where Warnock served as CEO from 2017 until February 2020, owes $7,808 to the Georgia Department of Labor for allegedly failing to pay state unemployment contributions in 2018. The liens are still outstanding, according to records.

The tax liens could pose an obstacle for Warnock, who has campaigned for the expansion of unemployment benefits and vowed to crack down on tax loopholes. They could also draw more scrutiny to the New Georgia Project, which is currently under investigation by the Georgia secretary of state for allegedly attempting to register out-of-state voters.

The Georgia Department of Labor issued a $4,385 lien against the New Georgia Project in February 2019, according to records from the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority. The amount included $3,847 in estimated unpaid unemployment taxes for the quarters ending June 30, 2018, and Sept. 30, 2018, plus interest, penalties, and fees.

The department issued a second $3,423 lien against the group in May 2019, which included $3,009 in estimated unemployment taxes, according to the records.

Neither the Warnock campaign nor the New Georgia Project responded to requests for comment.

The unemployment insurance tax is used to pay out benefits to workers who lose their jobs.

The organization was ordered to pay the assessment within 60 days, but records indicate that both liens are still pending.
Harvey Bezozi, an accountant who specializes in tax debt resolution, said tax authorities typically give multiple notices before filing a lien.

“In almost all circumstances, it takes quite a while before a lien is filed against an individual or business taxpayer by the IRS or any state taxing authority,” Bezozi said. “Throughout my career, I have only seen liens filed when an individual or business blatantly ignores ongoing written correspondence sent to them by a taxing authority.”

Warnock has made the extension of unemployment benefits a centerpiece of his campaign, arguing that his opponent, Republican senator Kelly Loeffler, won’t do enough to help Georgians who are out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have to make sure that the people who can’t work have the benefits they need,” said Warnock in an interview with the AARP in October. “And we have to make sure that when people are unemployed, that unemployment insurance benefits are there.”

Warnock, a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, is locked in a tight runoff race against Loeffler. The Jan. 5 election is one of two runoffs in Georgia that will determine party control of the U.S. Senate next year.

US Companies Riddled with Members of Chinese Communist Party

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Latest CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY | The Straits Times

Primer:

In his speech just a few days ago at Georgia Tech University: Pompeo called China’s Communist Party “the central threat of our time” and highlighted efforts by Chinese security services to pressure and recruit Chinese academics and students as spies.

“Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party is poisoning the well of our higher education institutions for its own ends and how those actions degrade our freedoms and American national security,” Pompeo said.

“If we don’t educate ourselves, if we’re not honest about what’s taking place, we’ll get schooled by Beijing.”

NYP: As we try to come to terms with the extent of Chinese influence over the Biden family, a leaked database of registered members of the Chinese Communist Party has exposed a mass infiltration of American companies — with serious national security implications.

Boeing, Qualcomm and Pfizer are just three US companies that have employed dozens of CCP members in their Chinese facilities, the database reveals.

As well, three female employees of the US consulate in Shanghai have been identified in the list of 1.95 million party members that was leaked to an international group of legislators, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which includes Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ).

All CCP members swear an oath to “fight for communism throughout my life, be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party and the people, and never betray the party [and] guard party secrets, be loyal to the party.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said yesterday: “CCP agents have no place in US government facilities, and this report should serve as a much-needed wake-up call to Washington, DC, and corporate executives, who continue to welcome the Chinese government with open arms.

“[It] is just more evidence of the extent to which the CCP has successfully infiltrated American companies and government.”

While none of the people listed in the database have been identified as spies, mounting concerns in the State Department about the CCP have resulted in tightened visa rules for its members earlier this month. CCP members and their immediate families now are limited to one-month, single-entry US permits.

The database was verified by international cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, which found it was originally leaked on encrypted messaging app Telegram in 2016. It was passed on to IPAC six weeks ago by a third party.

“We have high confidence this list is authentic,” Internet 2.0 co-founder David Robinson, a former Australian army intelligence officer, told me Sunday.

“Someone — an insider, a dissident — managed to get physical access to the server [in Shanghai] from outside the building. They didn’t have to hack it over the internet.”

Each data entry contains the CCP member’s name, ethnicity, place of birth, education level, identification number and, in some cases, a phone number and address.

Robinson has verified the identity of three women who work at the US consulate in Shanghai.

The three, all listed as ethnic Han college graduates, are registered in a 31-strong Communist Party branch listed as Shanghai Foreign Institutional Service Co., which is a state-owned employment agency, which provides local staff for foreign consulates, schools and news media.

A department spokesperson yesterday had no comment about “an allegedly leaked database of Communist Party members” and said “the department does not discuss security protocols or personnel matters.”

However, she said: “Influence and interference operations are fundamental to how the Chinese Communist Party engages with the world.

“China’s role in the world today cannot be understood without reference to the wide array of malign activities that the [CCP] undertakes to influence our societies in ways that are covert, coercive and corrupting.”

The CCP database is split into 79,000 branches.

For example, Boeing has 17 branches, totaling 252 CCP members. Sixteen members are part of Boeing’s Hongqiao Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Division . . . First Workshop Party Branch; 22 are in the Second Workshop Party Branch; 13 are in the Third Workshop Party Branch, 14 in the Fourth Workshop Party Branch.

There are four subdivisions of the Pudong Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Branch, totaling 49 members.

Two branches of the Pudong Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Branch Cargo Aircraft Line Maintenance total 33 members.

Also listed are 27 members of the Party Branch of Boeing Fourth Branch of the Flight Department of Eastern Airlines Yunnan Co. and 23 members of the China Eastern Airlines Beijing Maintenance Department Party Committee Boeing Maintenance Workshop Party Branch.

Boeing spokesman Bradley Akubuiro said last night the company was satisfied with its security.

“As a global company, we enforce strict security protocols and maintain secure firewalls to protect both our customer and company proprietary data in all countries we operate in.”

According to the database, 96 members in the Qualcomm Wireless Communication Technology (China) Co. Ltd. Party Branch, and 133 additional members spread over six party branches of Qualcomm Enterprise Management (Shanghai) work for semiconductor manufacturer and 5G wireless technology company Qualcomm, a US-based multinational.

Qualcomm was awarded a contract by the Defense Department in 2018 to develop multifactor authentication security systems for US military computers.

Another US company crucial to national security is pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which began rolling out COVID-19 vaccines Sunday.

The database lists 69 CCP members in four Pfizer branches in Shanghai.

Neither Qualcomm nor Pfizer responded to inquiries yesterday.

New York University also appears with 71 members attached to a branch named East China Normal University Shanghai New York University Faculty and Labor Party Branch.

The database leak comes just days after a number of disturbing revelations involving CCP infiltration of American institutions:

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe warned that China has targeted members of Congress and poses “the greatest threat to democracy and freedom” since World War II.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned of China’s infiltration of US universities, which are “hooked on Communist cash” and stifle criticism of Beijing.
Media reports identified Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of House Intelligence Committee, as one of several San Francisco politicians courted by Chinese spy Christine Fang.

It was confirmed last week that Joe Biden’s son Hunter is under federal investigation over tax fraud and potential money-laundering over his foreign business dealings, including in China.

“Communist China has been allowed to infiltrate our universities and corporations with people loyal to only the Communist Party,” former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell said Sunday.

“Our beloved Chinese American community has been warning us about these tactics for many years, and the political class has ignored those warnings.”

*** Communist party is 'leader of all religions' in China - world news - Hindustan Times

Sensitive data of around two million members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have been leaked, highlighting their positions in major organizations, including government agencies, throughout the world.

According to reports from The Australian newspaper, featured in the Economic Times, the information includes official records such as party position, birthdate, national ID number and ethnicity. It revealed that members of China’s ruling party hold prominent positions in some of the world’s biggest companies, including in pharmaceutical giants involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer and financial institutions such as HSBC.

The investigation by The Australian centred around the data leak, which was extracted from a Shanghai server in 2016 by Chinese dissidents.

It noted that CPC members are employed as senior political and government affairs specialists in at least 10 consulates, including the US, UK and Australia, in the eastern Chinese metropolis Shanghai. The paper added that many other members hold positions inside universities and government agencies.

The report emphasized there is no evidence that spying for the Chinese government or other forms of cyber-espionage have taken place.

In her report, The Australian journalist and Sky News host Sharri Markson commented: “What’s amazing about this database is not just that it exposes people who are members of the Communist Party, and who are now living and working all over the world, from Australia to the US to the UK, but it’s amazing because it lifts the lid on how the party operates under President and Chairman Xi Jinping.

“It is also going to embarrass some global companies who appear to have no plan in place to protect their intellectual property from theft, from economic espionage.”

In September, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the US Department of Justice issued a joint advisory warning US government agencies and private sector companies to be on high alert for cyber-attacks by threat actors affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).