[DB] TALLINN, Estonia—Chinese military intelligence recruited an Estonian national working at a NATO research institution focused on maritime and submarine research, The Daily Beast has learned.
The spy, Tarmo Kõuts, renowned in the Estonian scientific community for his research, was convicted last week and sentenced to three years in prison. The Baltic country’s intelligence services had warned for years of the growing Chinese threat, but the conviction was the first of its kind. So far, Estonia’s counterintelligence service, known domestically by its acronym KAPO, has been praised for its success in catching spies recruited and run by Russia.
According to Aleksander Toots, the deputy director of KAPO and Tallinn’s top counterintelligence official, Kõuts was recruited in 2018 by China’s Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission—as Beijing’s military intelligence agency is known—along with an alleged accomplice who is yet to be tried in court. Both were arrested on September 9, 2020, with no publicity or discussion of the case in the Estonian media.
Kõuts pleaded guilty to conducting intelligence activities against the Republic of Estonia on behalf of a foreign state. The charges were one stop short of treason. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
Kõuts was recruited on Chinese territory, said Toots, who spoke exclusively with The Daily Beast and Estonia’s Delfi newspaper: "He was motivated by traditional human weaknesses, such as money and need of recognition."
Toots added that Kõuts received cash payments from his Chinese handlers as well as paid trips to various Asian countries, with luxury accommodations and dinners at Michelin star restaurants. The intelligence operatives handling him were operating under cover of a think tank. Inna Ombler, the prosecutor handling the case confirmed that Kõuts earned €17,000 -- a little over $20,000 -- for his espionage, which the Estonian government has since seized from him.
[NYPOST] The Federal Communications Commission levied a record fine of $225 million on two Texas-based telemarketing companies for ’spoofed’ robocalls, the agency said Wednesday.
Rising Eagle and JSquared Telecom were slapped with the fine after placing close to one billion robocalls in 2019 to falsely sell short-term health insurance plans.
"John C. Spiller and Jakob A. Mears, who used business names including Rising Eagle and JSquared Telecom, transmitted the spoofed robocalls across the country during the first four-and-a-half months of 2019," says a statement issued by the FCC.
"Mr. Spiller admitted to the USTelecom Industry Traceback Group that he made millions of spoofed calls per day and knowingly called consumers on the Do Not Call list as he believed that it was more profitable to target these consumers."
According to an anti-spam app, Robokiller, spam calls have risen 26 percent over the last year.
The FCC also announced Wednesday that it will be allocating 51 employees to form a "Robocall Response Team" in response to the increased robocalls. The DOJ, FTC and state attorney generals have also been asked to help out with the issue.
Cease and desist letters have been sent to all companies who have violated the FCC rules or who the FCC thinks have violated.
"Today’s cease and desist letters should serve as a warning sign to other entities that believe the FCC has turned a blind eye to this issue. We certainly haven’t and we’re coming for you," Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.
The FCC has issued over $450 million in fines in recent years.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2021 00:00 ||
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#1
And they will never collect a penny of it. Civil cases.
They need to add a criminal federal felony component for cases like these where the telemarketers deliberately flouted the law. Lets say forfeiture of all monies and property, and a minimum of 3 years in federal prison with loss of voting and federal licensing eligibility, say... Victorville. Hard time.
Posted by: These Forkbeard7574 ||
03/19/2021 2:26 Comments ||
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#2
Instead every Phone # owner being charged a background fee for the Federal No Call List.
Why not make it a fine of $25 per NO CALL violation
With 50% going to the Fed's and States to support better Internet Privacy and Connectivity.
An 50% to the victim Ph # owners. As Non-Taxable Income.
At least this way I'd get free Cell Phone service for the month about every 2 weeks.
[THEHILL] An elderly woman in the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... fought off an attacker on Wednesday, with both the woman and the assailant taken to a hospital after the incident.
Xiao Zhen Xie, 76, told KPIX 5 in the Northern Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, city that she was waiting at a traffic light when a man allegedly punched her in her left eye. KPIX 5 described it as just the latest attack against an Asian American person in the city. Such attacks have been rising amid the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic.
Xie fought back against the man with a nearby stick and, after authorities arrived at the scene, the man was taken away in a stretcher.
The woman’s daughter, Dong-Mei Li, told the outlet that her mother is "very traumatized" and her eye was still bleeding later on Wednesday. She has also been unable to eat and is scared to leave her senior retirement home.
Xie, a 26-year resident of San Francisco, told KPIX 5 that the attack was completely unprovoked.
She and the man were both taken to a hospital for treatment after the incident. Xie had returned to her home by Wednesday night.
KPIX 5 sports director Dennis O’Donnell tweeted video from the scene after the woman was attacked. It shows her face swollen and bruised as she cries. The man appears on a stretcher with injuries to his face.
"You bum, why did you hit me?" Xie says in the video.
San Francisco police told KPIX 5 that they are investigating the incident. They said that an 83-year-old Asian man was also identified as the victim of an attack, and a 39-year-old man is being investigated for both incidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2021 00:00 ||
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#5
^ Yeah, y'all are totally right -- it's waaay too much work to wipe the slobber off your leer, websearch the lady's name, and see the Shaggy-looking paleface dude whose ass she kicked. Sheesh.
#7
White guy. CBS national news showed his pic, unlike all the other attacks on Asians. You can see him bleeding on a stretcher in the video at the link. Not my idea of a right wing militia type but will do to advance The Narrative.
#8
Simple rule of thumb, if the picture materializes in the lame stream media within hours of the event, its a white dude. If it takes trollers to find the pic, its other.
#11
GofundMe page set up for her injuries (two black eyes, one of which has ruptured blood vessels, eyes closed shut from swelling) was asking for $50,000.00 to cover medical etc.. In a little over 24 hours has raised $612,342.00. Family says she is still traumatized. Appears she had a board for defensive purposes on her due to attacks on others of her race in the area.
#16
White dude probably so hyped up on the SF drug culture he takes instructions from the narrative and could land two sucker punches.
No offense to Tiger Mom for whooping his ass; two sucker punches and damn near toe tags him.
I understand the Asian community is gunning up. Good. The democrats have activated their privateers against you, and they will beat you until they get the cover they need to power push gun confiscation, the very guns you need to protect yourselves from them. Democrats have been hating on Asians for 10 years now, that ain't going to stop after they get their gun control, and their privateers will still be amped up and encouraged by your disarmament.
2nd Amendment groups better get going with the "Gun Control Laws are anti-Asian" pitch, like right now with the big drums.
#20
Wasn't there a craze a few years ago where people punks would try to "one punch" strangers on the streets while using their phones to film it? Is this guy a "white guy" copying a ghetto craze?
Mr. Jenkins is clearly a blond white man. She was his second victim of the day, the other being an elderly gentleman. Given it’s San Francisco, the odds are good that Jenkins is either unmedicated crazy, on drugs, or both. I wonder if he is connected to Antifa or BLM? That’s the only reason I can think of for avoiding trumpeting his skin colour to the skies.
#22
^ location of the deed(s) is right around the corner from SF's Tenderloin neighborhood. The Tenderloin is ground zero for SF's homeless, nutjobs, addicts, unwashed hominids barking at the moon or screaming at strangers.
#23
^^^
With franchisees in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, Baltimore, New York...(your city here) anywhere the Blue Jack Ass party rules.
[Free Beacon] Skidmore College’s student government refused to recognize a progressive, pro-Israel student group due to its "troublesome" perspective despite recently recognizing the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine.
...a pro-BDS campus group known for bullying Jewish students, SJP has over 200 chapters in the U.S. and Canada alone...
The Skidmore College Student Government Association denied Progressive Zionists for Peace’s request for a club trial period in a Zoom meeting on March 13. The organization’s leaders were told the group would need to "gain more diverse perspectives" before receiving official club status. Student senator Sarah Baker said a "dialogue focused" group with "one perspective" could be "troublesome."
In its request for recognition, Progressive Zionists for Peace said their intention was to "create a space for pro-Israel, pro-peace students" to promote a "more peaceful, secure, and democratic future for both Israelis and Palestinians." The group said they would provide a "supportive environment" wherein students can learn about "peaceful Zionism" and how to fight anti-Semitism.
"Ultimately, we hope to create an environment that facilitates mutual understandings between Skidmore students with regards to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and all its nuances," Progressive Zionists for Peace’s mission statement reads.
[MIDDLEEASTEYE.NET] Egyptian social media users have lashed out at security services after a man was reportedly beaten to death by a police officer on Wednesday.
According to eyewitnesses and family testimonies shared on social media, a police officer beat Mohammed Youssef inside a poultry shop the latter owned in the village of Monshaat el-Karaam in the Nile Delta province of Qalyubia.
The story was corroborated by the testimony of journalist Ahmed Abdeen, who says he comes from the same village and used to be the victim’s neighbour.
"A police officer from the Shebeen Qanatir municipality accompanied by two junior officers stormed the shop of Mohammed Youssef, a young man from my village Monshaat el-Karaam, beat him with their rifles, killed him, then left," he wrote on Facebook.
"The man is now dead, his corpse is still in the shop and people are afraid to remove it, while the police services refuse to respond."
Protests erupted soon after the incident, with locals chanting "We want his rights."
Egypt’s interior ministry has yet to comment on the incident, but state news agency MENA cited a security source on Thursday as denying that Youssef was killed by an officer.
Egyptian media under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi are known to be tightly controlled by the intelligence services.
"I have contacted dozens of journalists in Egypt to publish a story on the crime of murder of the young man who was my classmate in school. They promised me to publish something, but then there seem to be orders to cover up the story," Abdeen said.
Videos by locals, however, have been widely shared on social media, including one in which MP Mahmoud Badr is seen being forced out of the village by protesters over the authorities' silence.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2021 00:00 ||
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[DAILYTIMES.PK] Experts have finally come forward to address Prince Charles’ decision to cut Prince Harry off financially. This news was brought forward by Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers and ITV’s Lorraine and during their chat Mr. Myers claimed, "There have been reports that Charles wasn’t taking Harry’s calls. Now perhaps this was about Harry asking for more money."
"We already know that he said himself that his father had cut him off. ’’
"However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... people I’ve spoken to have said that Charles was just frustrated at the fact that Harry kept changing his mind. So, listen, this is just going to run and run and run. I’m sure the Queen wants to deal with it in-house like she said. Not have it all spread over the airways of American television.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2021 00:00 ||
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#8
I wonder how far the Queen / royal establishment will have to be pushed by H&M before they release Harry's DNA test results. That would most likely include being disowned by the Queen & Prince of Wales.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Mexican customs officials have seized purported vials of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine en route to Honduras that the Russian entity that bankrolled the vaccine’s development said Thursday were fake.
The seizure came aboard a private plane in the Gulf coast state of Campeche, according to a statement from Mexico’s tax agency late Wednesday.
Customs agents and soldiers found 1,155 vials containing more than 5,700 doses inside two coolers packed with ice and sodas. The crew and Honduran passengers were turned over to the Attorney General’s Office.
Mexican officials did not identify the doses as fake, but the Russian Direct Investment Fund said in a statement Thursday that after reviewing photographs of the packaging, they determined the vaccine to be fake.
"Analysis of the photographs of the seized batch, including the design of containers and labels, suggests that it is a fake substance which has nothing to do with the original vaccine," according to the RDIF statement. "The shipment’s procedure was also in violation of packaging and transportation protocols for the official Sputnik V vaccine."
It said the Russian Health Ministry would cooperate with Mexican authorities to analyze the contents of the vials.
The RDIF also drew geopolitics into the mix, saying, "This is an example of possible provocations against Sputnik V just as Russian officials warned last week. Mexican government stopped and prevented this provocation possibly aimed at discrediting Sputnik V vaccine through shipment of fake vaccine."
Russian state-funded news agencies last week cited an anonymous high-ranking Kremlin source saying that "the US and its allies" are plotting "a large-scale information campaign aimed at creating a bias" towards Russian scientific products designed to counter COVID-19.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/19/2021 00:00 ||
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[NYPOST] Moscow on Thursday demanded President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family...
...... 46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family...... apologize for calling Russian leader Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... a "killer" — and said the comments are further harming an already frosty relationship between the two countries.
The demand came a day after the Kremlin recalled its ambassador to Washington, DC, for consultations after Biden made the remark in an interview that aired Wednesday morning.
Asked by ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos whether he thought Putin is a "killer," Biden said, "I do." "Just like Corn Pop"
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s front man, said it was a ""very bad statement by the U.S. president" that indicated "he doesn’t want to normalize relations."
"We will proceed accordingly," Peskov said, adding "there was nothing like that in history."
Konstantin Kosachev, a deputy speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper house, said Biden’s "boorish statement" represents a watershed moment for Moscow-Washington relations.
"Such assessments are inadmissible for a statesman of his rank," Kosachev said. "Such statements are unacceptable under any circumstances. They inevitably lead to a sharp exacerbation of our bilateral ties."
#9
Former Russian President Medvedev: "Time hasn’t spared” the 78-year-old Biden... [quoting Sigmund Freud], “Nothing costs so much in life as illness and stupidity."
Andrei Turchak, leader of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, described Biden’s remarks as a reflection of “the U.S. political miasma and its leader’s dementia.”
Can Biden even correctly pronounce miasma or dementia?
[Breitbart] Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi rebuked U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan during a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday, citing the Black Lives Matter movement on U.S. human rights abuses.
The summit was the first bilateral meeting between the two countries under President Joe Biden, who has traditionally been soft on Beijing, and has struggled to balance a desire to break with Trump’s tough policies with the need for a strong stance.
Ahead of the meeting, the White House boasted that it had successfully insisted that the summit happen on home soil. Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki also promised earlier Thursday that the U.S. would bring up concerns about human rights in China.
But when Blinken spoke of the "rules-based international order," and expressed "deep concerns" with China’s behavior in "Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States, economic coercion toward our allies," Jiechi struck back.
He objected to what he called a violation of diplomatic protocol, and said the U.S. could not lecture China from a position of strength.
#3
What would the Uyghurs have to say? China cites BLM as U.S. human rights abuse. China got this wrong. Yup, BLM has been abusing U.S. citizens for the past year or so with their burning, looting and even murder.
#6
7/25/2020: The Chinese Consulate General in Houston has closed following Tuesday's order to do so after US officials alleged it was part of a larger Chinese espionage effort using diplomatic facilities around the US, a State Department spokesperson confirmed to CNN late Friday.
US federal agents and local law enforcement entered the Chinese consulate compound in Houston earlier Friday in a series of black SUVs, trucks, two white vans and a locksmith's van as a crowd of observers and news cameras observed from the edge of the diplomatic compound.
US officials speaking to reporters Friday said the consulate had been implicated in a fraud investigation at a Texas research institution and that Chinese consulate officials "were directly involved in communications with researchers and guided them on what information to collect."
The activities of consulate officials in Houston "are a microcosm, we believe, of a broader network of individuals in more than 25 cities that network is supported through the consulates here," a US Justice Department official said Friday. "Consulates have been giving individuals in that network guidance on how to evade [and] obstruct our investigation. And you can infer from that the ability to task that [a] network of associates nationwide."
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/19/2021 10:41 Comments ||
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#7
Right now we're spending more energy trying to convict Derek Chauvin than we are trying to contain the CCP.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/19/2021 12:01 Comments ||
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#8
All the Chinese have to do is repeat the same half truths they and the Dems were saying about Trump, but this time about Biden. The Democrats don't have a response because they still don't know they're the &*(& patsies.
#10
Sure, Sheger, sure. There's no Chinese money or training behind BLM or Antifa.
Sure.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/19/2021 12:28 Comments ||
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#11
All I asked was for a citation, and all I got was something about spying in universities. If you do have a citation for the claim, I'd gladly spread it all over my social media sites.
#14
Sheger, the easiest way for the Chinese - or you or me or anyone - to funnel money to a pet cause without it being traced back to the donor is via dark money donations. Literally billions of dollars are now flowing into the US political system in this manner -- the vast majority of it to Democrat and left-wing groups and causes.
From OpenSecrets.org:
[PACs and other] groups are required to reveal their backers, but they can hide the true source of funding by reporting a non-disclosing nonprofit or shell companyas the donor. By using this tactic, dark money groups can get around a 2020 court ruling that attempts to require nonprofits running political ads to reveal their donors.
#15
The Houston consulate was ostensibly closed because the were coordinating PLA agents in academic research. It would be silly to think they only had one arrow in their quiver, though.
A quick search of the Rantburg archives gives this and this.
#16
Gordon Chang: China Engaged in 'an Act of War' by Enflaming Antifa Riots in the U.S. Yet he also mentioned something far more sinister, something he described as “an act of war.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), based an intelligence unit in the then-open Houston consulate, helping Chinese soldiers to infiltrate American society.
According to a ChinaScope report from August, that PLA unit “sent staff members from a large network company, with fake IDs, to China’s Consulate in Houston. Those technicians used a large video platform’s backend data to identify people who might participate in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and ANTIFA’s protests and then created and sent them customized videos on how to organize riots and how to do promotions.”
As PJ Media’s Bryan Preston put it at the time, “It sounds an awful lot like the Chinese Communist Party used PLA officers armed with fake Huawei IDs to access TikTok data to target likely protesters in cities around the United States.”
ChinaScope also claimed the PLA officers sent the videos directly to likely protesters and rioters, ostensibly to keep them private from the media or the public at large.
[Gateway] It began in the 1990s as a trickle of Chinese military scientists trained by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and arriving at U.S. universities and research institutions.
Then, via the scientific exchange equivalent of chain migration, U.S. virus research programs were flooded with scientists from Communist China, where Chinese scientists already working in the U.S. invited close colleagues to their laboratories
Thus, was created pockets of U.S.- based de facto Chinese research programs linked to the Chinese military, much of which was directly or indirectly funded by the U.S. government.
[Newsmax] Beijing reportedly plans to seek reversal of many Trump administration policies targeting China at Thursday’s meeting in Alaska with senior U.S. officials.
Yang Jiechi, a member of the Communist Party ruling body, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi plan to urge Blinken and Sullivan to dismiss sanctions and restrictions on Chinese entities and individuals put in place by the Trump administration, the Journal said.
Chinese officials intend to suggest re-establishing regular high-level meetings between the two nations and scheduling a virtual summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Biden in April.
China is also looking to reverse restrictions on American sales to Chinese firms such as its telecommunications company Huawei Technologies Co., and chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. ; visa restrictions on members of the Communist Party, Chinese students, and state-media journalists; and the shutdown of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, the newspaper reported.
[LI] The United Auto Workers (UAW) told Ford employees at an Ohio plant the company wants to move production of a new line to Mexico instead of their Ohio Assembly Plant (OHAP).
Ford has not made its decision public, but the union insists it received "strategically limited information," and the situation is "rapidly evolving."
It’s weird (not really) this happens only a few months after President Donald Trump left office.
UAW - Remember you support the Democrats.
An they darn sure never attempted to rescind NAFTA the several times, when they had COMPLETE House/Senate and Oval control after it was pass.
Also remember one of the driving agenda points for passage was it would REDUCE Illegal Immigration.
Which the Democrat party has openly screwed over the US workers by opening the Illegal flood gates.
#7
Can't we move the uaw to Mexico instead? Their little uaw symbol shows united workers around the world doesn't it? Maybe they can go down there and unite the mexican workers since the American ones don't have jobs anymore...
#1
The World Health Organization (WHO) repeated that it was better to take the AstraZeneca vaccine than not.
Yeah, trust the WHO to make important decisions for you. Suckers.
Norway and Sweden said they were not ready to resume using the vaccine.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health said it "took note" of the EMA's ruling, but it was "premature" to draw conclusions and it would announce its own opinion by the end of next week.
Nords, ever the skeptics. Good for them to do their own research.
Posted by: These Forkbeard7574 ||
03/19/2021 2:36 Comments ||
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#2
Occasionally, very occasionally, the world shows a glimmer of sanity - probably a trick.
[Red State] Ron DeSantis took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal today, penning a scathing op-ed that takes apart the government and media’s response to the COVID pandemic. The Florida governor addressed how politics got so infused into actions taken prior and present regarding the virus.
He also noted how the pandemic was a boon to the mainstream media, meaning they have had every incentive to keep the fear porn rolling.
Here are some of the best passages with a hat tip to Logan Hall from The Daily Caller for putting this together.
[Just The News] The Federal Emergency Management Agency will help reimburse residents who have paid for the funeral of a family member who died of COVID-19 complications.
Only those who incurred funeral expenses after January 20, 2020, will be eligible for reimbursement. The virus arrived the U.S. as early as late-December 2019 or early-January 2020.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has brought overwhelming grief to many families," FEMA says in an undated post on its website. "Our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters. We are dedicated to helping ease some of the financial stress and burden caused by the virus.
#1
"Our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters. We are dedicated to helping ease some of the financial stress and burden caused by the virus.
If the border "emergency" requires additional augmentation and manpower, the National Guard could be subordinated to the FEMA Region 6 office, located in Denton, Texas. Really no need for the Governor of Texas to get involved.
The proliferation of "assault weapons" is yet another area where FEMA expertise and assistance could be leveraged.
#2
If you were the governor of Texas, Besoeker, would you trust any federal organization to take the lead on protecting Texas from this invited invasion?
[CBSNews] The French government announced Monday that it will return a Nazi-looted Gustav Klimt landscape painting to its rightful owners more than 80 years after it was stolen from a Jewish family in Austria in 1938.
The colorful 1905 oil work by the Austrian symbolist painter titled "Rosebushes under the Trees" has been hanging in Paris' Musée d'Orsay museum for decades. More at the link
#2
the 2015 movie 'Woman in Gold' is about this although the movie makes a fair number of changes (e.g., in movie, Austria rather than France holds the painting).
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/19/2021 14:04 Comments ||
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#3
"I was just admiring your wife's Klimt."
Back To School (1986ish)
Posted by: Bigfoot Prince of the Jutes ||
03/19/2021 15:43 Comments ||
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BERLIN (AP) — The scientist who won the race to deliver the first widely used coronavirus vaccine says people can rest assured the shots are safe, and the technology behind it will soon be used to fight another global scourge — cancer.
Ozlem Tureci, who founded the German company BioNTech with her husband Ugur Sahin, was working on a way to harness the body's immune system to tackle tumors when they learned last year of an unknown virus infecting people in China.
Over breakfast, the couple decided to apply the technology they'd been researching for two decades to the new threat.
Britain authorized BioNTech's mRNA vaccine for use in December, followed a week later by the United States. Dozens of other countries have followed suit and tens of millions of people worldwide have since received the shot developed together with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
"It pays off to make bold decisions and to trust that if you have an extraordinary team, you will be able to solve any problem and obstacle which comes your way in real time," Tureci told The Associated Press in an interview.
Among the biggest challenges for the small, Mainz-based company were how to conduct large-scale clinical trials across different regions and how to scale up the manufacturing process to meet global demand.
[FinanceYahoo] A trove of recently declassified files on the tragic 1963 sinking of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Thresher confirm the U.S. Navy didn’t cover up the mysterious accident—and, in fact, there was no single event or error that caused the sub to sink.
Last year, a retired Navy submarine commander won a lawsuit forcing the service to release its report on what happened to the Thresher, which sank during diving tests in April 1963, claiming the lives of the entire 129-person crew. The Navy has since released several sets of documents that shed new light on the sinking. More at the link
OK we are talking 50 plus years ago.
In the ITSEC Audits and Investigations world, verify evidence & printed materials by also speaking with those that collect it.
I personally wouldn't 100% trust any documents to be authentic and not manipulated prior to storage for US Naval/Contractor CYA self serving reasons.
A point like shared by many that have work Rotten-Groton. ☺
#4
...That headline is kinda misleading, because we've known since 1963 what killed Thresher. It's good to see though that the BoI looked at and recognized the other factors involved.
Kind of a personal angle here too - my wife's grandfather was on the Thresher commission (weapons side of things) and he banged heads pretty hard with Admiral Hyman Rickover during the course of the inquiry. I would like to point out that it wasn't Granddad who backed down.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/19/2021 10:59 Comments ||
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#5
Granddad outfought Hyman Rickover? I assume he got the Navy Cross.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/19/2021 11:30 Comments ||
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#6
#5 Granddad outfought Hyman Rickover? I assume he got the Navy Cross. Posted by: Matt 2021-03-19 11:30
...Better than that: Granddad was a former enlisted gunner aboard one of the old four-stack destroyers, and when he got out decided he really liked things that went boom, so used his GI Bill benefits to go to school for it. Ended up with his Ph.D in physics and was the USN's senior civilian explosives safety guy when he retired in the 70s. I can only imagine what Admiral Rickover's thoughts were on being swatted down by a former Gunner's Mate.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/19/2021 14:06 Comments ||
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#7
^ Heh. Humbling
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/19/2021 14:18 Comments ||
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#8
Awesome. That should be a "Fullbore Friday" essay over at the CdrSalamander blog.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/19/2021 14:51 Comments ||
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#9
I've always known the truth about the loss of the Thresher, too much water in the people tank.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DB] TALLINN, Estonia—Chinese military intelligence recruited an Estonian national working at a NATO research institution focused on maritime and submarine research, The Daily Beast has learned.
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
[Free Beacon] Skidmore College’s student government refused to recognize a progressive, pro-Israel student group due to its "troublesome" perspective despite recently recognizing the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine.
There is of course, one other long-held frustration. 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Mexican customs officials have seized purported vials of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine en route to Honduras that the Russian entity that bankrolled the vaccine’s development said Thursday were fake.
...... 46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family......
[Red State] Ron DeSantis took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal today, penning a scathing op-ed that takes apart the government and media’s response to the COVID pandemic. The Florida governor addressed how politics got so infused into actions taken prior and present regarding the virus.
"Our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters. We are dedicated to helping ease some of the financial stress and burden caused by the virus.
