Today’s News 23rd June 2022

• Mapping Europe's Incarcerated
  Mapping Europe’s Incarcerated

  Russia and Turkey had the highest incarceration rates of the Council of Europe in 2021, according to the organization’s Annual Penal Statistics on Prison Populations.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, their latest figures show that Russia had 328 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021, while Turkey followed close behind with 325 out of 100,000.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Scotland, England and Wales also had fairly high rates of incarceration, coming out well above the 102 median average of European countries, with 135 and 132, respectively.

  Liechtenstein and Monaco represented the least incarcerated countries per 100,000 population, with 31 and 33, respectively.

  According to the Council of Europe, Europe saw its prison population fall between 2020 and 2021.

  This has been attributed to delays and the slowing down of the judicial systems through the pandemic, as well as the release schemes used in some countries to prevent or reduce the spread of Covid-19.

  For this reason, the decline is expected to be temporary, with reports already emerging of figures climbing once more.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/23/2022 – 02:45

• Ukraine War Blows Up EU's Superpower Delusion
  Ukraine War Blows Up EU’s Superpower Delusion

  Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

  The leaders of France, Germany and Italy have jointly visited Ukraine in an attempt to present a unified European front regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. The one-day visit was long on rhetoric but short on substance: European unity remains elusive.

  When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the European Union responded the following day with a package of unprecedented economic sanctions aimed at isolating Russia.

  The EU, which was praised for displaying “determination, unity and speed” in its response to Putin, was said to be facing a “transformative moment” that would allow the bloc to become a “geostrategic actor” on the global stage. An observer claimed that the EU had become “a top geopolitical protagonist” and that Europe “discovered that it’s a superpower.”

  On March 21, less than a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, European officials announced an ambitious plan for the EU to achieve “strategic autonomy” aimed at placing the 27-member bloc on equal footing with China and the United States. The implicit objective was to enable a “sovereign” EU to act independently of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in matters of defense and security. That plan is now in shambles.

  As the war has dragged on, European unity has collapsed and efforts to transform the European Union into a European superstate — a United States of Europe — have been exposed for what they are: delusions of grandeur.

  

  The EU’s largest member states — France and Germany — have sought to appease Putin at the expense of Ukrainian sovereignty. French President Emmanuel Macron, the strongest backer of European strategic autonomy, insists that Putin should not be “humiliated” and has even called on Ukraine to make territorial concessions to help the Russian dictator save face.

  Meanwhile, German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, for reasons that remain unclear, has stubbornly refused to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself against Russian aggression.

  The Franco-German appeasement has infuriated most Central and Eastern European members of the EU and NATO. They rightly fear that if Putin’s imperial pretensions are not stopped in Ukraine, he will set his sights next on them.

  Russian revanchism, and the EU’s divided response, has produced a clear shift in the bloc’s balance of power on security matters. France and Germany have long arrogated to themselves de facto leadership of the EU — and have expected other member states to fall into line. The failure of Paris and Berlin to confront Putin’s aggression has created an EU leadership vacuum that Poland, the Baltic states and other former communist countries have filled. A return to the pre-war status quo seems unlikely.

  Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has underscored the indispensability of the United States and NATO for European defense and security. France and Germany, by failing to defend the most basic Western values, have undermined their own trustworthiness and dependability. Other EU member states can be expected to strongly oppose any efforts to develop an independent European military capacity that undermines the transatlantic alliance.

  Humiliating Putin

  Macron and Scholz in particular have repeatedly sought to accommodate Putin. Both, for instance, have held numerous one-on-one telephone calls with the Russian leader — calls that other EU member states have criticized as counterproductive because such conversations may convince Putin that he can end the war on his terms. After one such phone call on May 13, Scholz called for a ceasefire in Ukraine but did not demand that Russia immediately withdraw all its troops from Ukrainian territory.

  Germany, despite repeated promises, still has not transferred a single heavy weapon to Ukraine, according to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Some say Scholz is playing for time. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel recently reported that Scholz refuses to utter the words “Ukraine must win” because he believes that Ukraine cannot achieve victory.

  Others think the German chancellor is waiting for the war to end so that German industry can resume doing business with Russia. Whatever his motivation, Scholz’s dithering has seriously damaged Germany’s credibility, according to policy experts from across the political spectrum. Scholz seems unable or unwilling to consider, after the lessons of Britain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, that if Putin wins in Ukraine, he might turn his sights next on Europe.

  Meanwhile, Macron has clung to his pretense of turning the EU into a sovereign superstate. During a speech to the European Parliament on May 9, the French president called for building a “stronger and more sovereign Europe” that can become “the master of its own destiny.” He added that the war in Ukraine “must not distract us from our agenda.”

  Macron, who has provided military support to Ukraine, also warned against humiliating Putin and called for reaching an agreement with Russia “to build new security balances” in Europe. That was widely interpreted as a call for Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Putin.

  On June 3, Macron repeated his warning about humiliating Putin. Speaking to French media, he said:

  “We must not humiliate Russia so that when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic channels. I am convinced that France’s role is to be a mediating power.”

  Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba responded:

  “Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives.”

  Polish President Andrzej Duda, in an interview with the German newspaper Bild, said that the phone calls with Putin were akin to talking to Adolf Hitler:

  “I’m amazed at all the talks that are being held with Putin at the moment. By Chancellor Scholz, by President Emmanuel Macron. These talks are useless. What do they do? They only legitimize a person responsible for the crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin. He is responsible for it. He made the decision to send the troops there. The commanders are subordinate to him. Did anyone talk to Adolf Hitler like that during WWII? Did someone say Adolf Hitler had to save face? That we should proceed in such a way that it is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler?“

  John Chipman, head of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, tweeted:

  “The end of French exceptionalism. Once you claim your main role to be a mediator between right and wrong, days of grandeur are over.

  “‘Saving face’ is a weak diplomatic aim; Putin can take personal responsibility for his face.

  “Humiliation: a mild punishment for war crimes.”

  National Interests

  Some observers have speculated that Macron’s obsession with Putin’s humiliation stems from a faulty understanding of the June 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I. Long-standing orthodoxy has held that the terms imposed on Germany were humiliating and fueled the nationalist sentiment that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and World War II, but contemporary scholars have challenged that narrative: the Treaty of Versailles, they say, was not tough enough on Germany.

  Others suspect that Macron and Scholz are seeking a new 19th century-style Concert of Europe in which France, Germany and Russia agree to divide Europe into spheres of influence. Such an agreement would, presumably, turn Ukraine into a vassal state of Russia.

  Still others believe that France and Germany are primarily concerned with protecting national business and financial interests in Russia.

  German Member of the European Parliament Reinhard Bütikofer noted:

  “As Moscow hardliners question whether Europe will ‘survive’ the current crisis, President Macron says: ‘We must not humiliate Russia.’ Macron appears not to realize that defending Ukraine against Russia’s aggression is also about defending Europe’s common security. Putin wants more than just to dominate Ukraine. Macron sees France’s interests decoupled from those of Eastern and Central Europe.”

  Bütikofer’s comment goes to the heart of the issue: national interests still matter. One of the EU’s founding myths has been that national sovereignty is an outmoded concept and that the national interests of the EU’s 27 member states can be subsumed under a new “European interest.” The war in Ukraine and the differing responses to it have proven that national interests still matter and will continue to do so.

  Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, in an interview with Politico, argued that the only way to achieve lasting peace and security in Europe is for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine:

  “The difficulty is that some of my colleagues have a false belief … peace at any cost. Peace at any cost is what we have done for 20 years with Putin. Peace at any cost means Putin wins. We end up losing. Now, in the self-interest of Germany, and France and Italy and everyone else, if we really want security in Europe, Russia has to lose, they finally have to realize they cannot operate in this way. And collectively, we have the ability to make that happen.”

  Transatlantic Relations

  Meanwhile, transatlanticism is enjoying a surge in popularity. A new survey by Globsec, a think tank based in Bratislava, found broad support (79%) across nine countries in Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) for NATO’s role as security guarantor.

  The survey also found significant growth in the CEE countries’ perception of the United States as a strategic partner. In Poland, for instance, such perceptions increased from 54% in 2021 to 73% in 2022. By contrast, Polish perceptions of Germany as a strategic partner plummeted from 48% in 2021 to 27% in 2022.

  “The perception that the US is a strategic partner has soared by 10 percentage points since 2021,” according to the report. “Washington is now viewed as a key ally in NATO by 3/4 of respondents in the CEE region.”

  German analyst Marcel Dirsus noted:

  “Without American support, Ukraine would already be done. Countries like Germany and France have made European autonomy even more difficult because nobody east of the Oder River trusts them to come through when things get rough….

  “What good are more German tanks to Poland or Estonia if neither they nor Russia thinks that Berlin would be willing to use them to defend Warsaw or Tallinn?

  “I very much doubt central Europeans who were already skeptical about European autonomy or sovereignty or whatever the phrase of the day is are looking at Macron and Scholz and think now is the time to rely more on Paris and Berlin. If anything, they’ll double-down on America.”

  Polish analyst Konrad Muzyka agreed:

  “Ukraine’s shown that France and Germany are unwilling to increase costs on Russia for its attack on Ukraine. Paris and Germany are unwilling to send equipment to Ukraine, what makes people think its soldiers will die for Tallinn, Vilnius, Riga or Warsaw?”

  American foreign policy expert Elliot Cohen concluded:

  “President Macron continues, perversely, to talk about an exit from the war, to include European security guarantees for Ukraine. Why on earth would any Ukrainian think France or Germany could or would fight on their behalf? This is vanity, not statesmanship, at work.”

  Rhetoric versus Substance

  On June 16, Macron, Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, joined by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv for the first time since the beginning of the war. The visit was designed, apparently, to dispel criticism of European disunity and inconsistent support for Ukraine.

  The leaders pledged that the EU would not force Ukraine to surrender or give up territory to end the war. “Ukraine will choose the peace it wants,” Draghi said. “Any diplomatic solution cannot be separated from the will of Kyiv, from what it deems acceptable to her people. Only in this way can we build a peace that is just and lasting.”

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was also invited to attend the G7 Summit to be held in Germany on June 26-28, and the NATO Summit in Madrid on June 29-30.

  The three leaders expressed support for Ukraine to be given candidate status for EU membership, but Macron stressed that such status would be accompanied by a “roadmap” that would include “conditions.” Previously, Macron, Scholz and Draghi all said that Ukraine’s EU bid could take decades.

  German MP Norbert Röttgen criticized Scholz’s trip to Ukraine as political showmanship:

  “Chancellor Scholz created high expectations for his trip to Ukraine. He did not fulfill them with the ‘yes’ to EU membership and the invitation to the G7 summit. Ukraine needs quick help now, we owe it. EU membership is a matter of decades.”

  Europe analyst David Herszenhorn, writing for Politico, noted:

  “Despite the encouraging rhetoric, the trio of leaders — representing the EU’s biggest, richest and most powerful countries — did not announce any dramatic new military or financial assistance for Ukraine, which might help tip the war in Kyiv’s favor.

  “By contrast, U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced an additional $1 billion in support for Ukraine….

  “While Ukraine has been pushing hard to win candidate status, that designation alone offers little indication about when, or even if, Ukraine would ever formally become a member….

  “Many EU officials and diplomats said it is difficult to imagine Ukraine making much progress toward actual membership until it is no longer at war, and Macron has said that the overall process could take a decade or longer.”

  Correspondents Guy Chazan, Roman Olearchyk and Amy Kazmin, writing for the Financial Times, concluded:

  “French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi did not just have warm words for Ukraine — they also backed its bid to join the EU.

  “But once the euphoria wore off, some Ukrainians wondered whether the visit of the three leaders, who were also joined by Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, marked a triumph of ceremony over substance.

  “Andriy Melnyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin, summed up the ambivalence. EU membership for Ukraine lay far off in the future, he told Germany’s ZDF TV. ‘But right now what we need is to survive,’ he said. ‘And for that we need heavy weapons.’

  “Anyone hoping the visit would break the logjam in the delivery of such kit will have been disappointed. The only new pledge came from Macron, who said France would supply six additional Caesar howitzers, on top of the 12 it has already given Ukraine….

  “The issue of weapons continues to loom over relations between Ukraine and its allies. Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted earlier this month that Ukraine needed 1,000 howitzers, 300 multiple rocket launchers, 500 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and 1,000 drones to achieve parity with Russia and ‘end the war.’ The equipment western countries have committed to provide so far falls far short.”

  Expert Commentary

  Irish analyst Judy Dempsey, in an article — “German Ambiguity Is Deciding Ukraine’s Future” — published by the Brussels-based think tank Carnegie Europe, wrote that Scholz’s delay in sending heavy weapons to Ukraine was hurting Kyiv’s chances of preserving its sovereignty, and that it was damaging Germany’s standing across Europe:

  “Scholz’s position reveals a lack of leadership and with it a lack of conviction and consistency. It is also about a fear of antagonizing the Kremlin. The German political elites that grew up during the Cold War don’t want to give up their special business and political ties to Moscow. They are still reluctant to accept Russia’s motives in Georgia, Syria, Belarus, and now Ukraine.

  “These motives are about Russia positioning itself to reshape Europe’s post–Cold War order. The longer Scholz continues his ambiguity toward Ukraine, the greater the likelihood that Putin will use the German chancellor and French President Emmanuel Macron to push Ukraine into a compromise and ultimately change Europe’s security architecture.

  “In practice, that would have devastating consequences for the transatlantic relationship which Putin has long sought to weaken. It would divide Europe. As it is, Poland and the Baltic states are deeply distrustful of France’s and Germany’s relations with Putin. They are also frustrated that Paris and Berlin do not take the Russian imperialist agenda seriously.

  “Beyond Ukraine, Scholz’s ambiguity is hurting all of Europe. Putin will not hesitate to exploit it both militarily and politically.”

  Former MI6 head John Sawers, in an article — “Macron is Playing a Risky Game on Ukraine” — published by the Financial Times, warned that the French president’s insistence that Putin should not be humiliated could lead to a premature ceasefire that locks in Russian gains:

  “The west has two goals in the war in Ukraine: to uphold Ukrainian sovereignty and to deter Russia from any similar assaults on European countries in the future.

  “However, the fighting in the Donbas region is ugly and it is tempting to support any move that would bring it to an end. Unsurprisingly, there have been calls for an early peace initiative, while French president Emmanuel Macron has said that it is important not to ‘humiliate’ Russia over its invasion — a remark that drew a frosty response from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff.

  “The problem is that a ceasefire now would lock in Russia’s military gains on the ground. There is no reason to think that Vladimir Putin would agree to pull back….

  “If another round of European diplomacy leaves Russia once again sitting on its military gains in Ukraine, then Putin will regain political strength at home and feel empowered to launch new military adventures in the future. The Ukrainians want to fight on and they need our continued support — advanced weapons and ever tougher sanctions on Russia. That means several more months of ugly fighting. But a premature ceasefire will help Putin snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. No western leader should be his enabler.”

  Austrian political scientist Ralph Gert Schöllhammer, in an article — “Why Europe Hedges Its Support for Ukraine” — published by The Wall Street Journal, argued that Paris and Berlin worry that an EU with Ukraine could lead to a competing Warsaw-Kyiv axis:

  “Despite the supranational ambitions of the EU and its most ardent supporters, national interests still dominate the political calculations of member states. For Paris and Berlin the Ukraine crisis isn’t only a security issue, it could also determine the EU’s future power distribution.

  “The most prestigious positions in the EU are held by Western European politicians, reflecting a power imbalance between Eastern and Western Europe, from Ms. von der Leyen (Germany) and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde (France) to the high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell (Spain) and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel (Belgium). Eastern European governments have made clear that this status quo is increasingly unacceptable to them, and the war in Ukraine has given them additional confidence to change it.

  “The EU is built around Germany and France, and both states have jealously guarded their position as the ultimate decision makers in Europe. Policy makers in both countries are aware that an EU with Ukraine could lead to a competing Warsaw-Kyiv axis, something neither France nor Germany wants. Ukraine is politically and culturally closer to Poland than Germany, meaning that German power in the EU could be diminished significantly and replaced by growing Eastern European influence.

  “These thoughts might seem cynical in light of the heroic struggle of Ukraine and its people, but it would be a mistake to believe that power politics has been replaced by universally held ideals.”

  Europe expert Stefan Auer, in an opinion essay — “Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom Exposes ‘Sovereign Europe’ as a Delusion” — published by the Financial Times, wrote that Central Europeans understand better than France or Germany the connection between national independence and security:

  “The shared outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine initially strengthened European unity. But the challenges that the war has generated appear to be reinforcing European disunion. Central and eastern European states, with the notable exception of Hungary, strongly support Ukraine’s fight for territorial integrity, while Germany, France and Italy seek ways to accommodate Russia.

  “For the EU, the return of sovereignty is unexpected. European integration supposedly made nation states increasingly obsolete. Dialogue, not threats of violence, would uphold peace….

  “Rather than enemies, Europeans thought they had partners, competitors or at worst rivals. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced an abrupt re-evaluation of this view….

  “It was once a truism that France needed the EU to conceal its weakness, while Germany needed it to hide its strength. In relation to Russia, one could argue that Germany uses the EU’s relative weakness to justify its own inaction….

  “But when it comes to assisting Ukraine in the war itself, it is national capitals that matter, not Brussels. What Moscow wants and many of Putin’s western supporters appear willing to accept is the division of Europe into spheres of influence. This is redolent of the Grossraum thinking articulated by the crown jurist of Nazi Germany, Carl Schmitt: a theory of large economic spaces controlled by major powers….

  “German chancellor Olaf Scholz echoes such arguments when he declares that ‘Russia must not win this war,’ rather than unambiguously advocating a Ukrainian victory. This is as logical as it is misguided. Where there are no enemies, there can be no victors.

  “By contrast, leaders in central and eastern Europe are not afraid to combine the language of values with power politics. The French and German visions for peace imply Ukrainian territorial concessions. Such ideas are foolhardy and will not ensure security for Europe or Ukraine. A sovereign Europe must not be pursued at the expense of Ukrainian sovereignty….

  “In fact, for Europe to have a future in freedom, Ukraine must win this defining battle of our times. The losers will include not just Putin’s Russia. The defeat of Russian imperialism should finally put to rest Franco-German delusions, whether they aim at a sovereign or a post-national Europe.”

  German analyst Ulrich Speck, in an essay — “The Ukraine War and the Rebirth of NATO” — published by the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, concluded that the actions of Macron and Scholz has cemented NATO, not the EU, as the cornerstone of European security:

  “Three developments have catapulted NATO back into the center of events.

  “First: Russia’s open attack on Ukraine in February 2022. This time, not only East Central Europeans, but also West Europeans and North Americans were shocked by the breach of all norms on which the European peace order is based: an open war of aggression and conquest with countless atrocities and war crimes. It is therefore clear that Putin is ready to implement his project of a new Russian empire, even at great expense. It is also clear that if he is successful, he will probably not stop at Ukraine.

  “The second reason for the renaissance of NATO is that the United States is fulfilling its classic leadership role in the Western alliance. For the Biden administration, the revival of alliances is at the center of foreign policy: close cooperation with allies is seen as providing a decisive advantage over China and Russia, which allows it to deal with the autocratic challengers from a ‘position of strength.’

  “The third reason is that the EU leaders, France and Germany, have been very reluctant to react to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. While the United States made decisive progress on arms deliveries and sanctions, flanked by a resolutely acting Great Britain, it seemed that Paris and Berlin were hoping to the last to be able to change the mind of the Russian President. Both are reluctant to supply arms to Ukraine, and they are more likely to play along than lead when it comes to sanctions. The fact that Macron and Scholz have not been in Kyiv since the beginning of the war underscores the distance they maintain from Ukraine.

  “With this attitude, Berlin and Paris have discredited themselves in the eyes of East Central Europeans and Scandinavians as reliable partners in the event of a Russian threat. More than ever, Eastern and Northern Europe will rely on the United States and Great Britain — ​​that is, on NATO — for security policy.

  “This means that there is no alternative to NATO — at least as long as Russia takes a revisionist stance, does not respect borders and does not recognize the reorganization of the region after the end of the Cold War. The lesson of current experience is that only the United States is capable of holding Russia in check. The vehicle for this remains NATO, which has not outlived itself, but is more important as the security policy core of a free West than it has been for decades.“

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/23/2022 – 02:00

• Shanghai Tech Expert And Fiancée Detained By CCP Over Allegedly Helping Develop Firewall Circumvention Tool
  Shanghai Tech Expert And Fiancée Detained By CCP Over Allegedly Helping Develop Firewall Circumvention Tool

  Authored by Kelly Song via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  He Binggang, 46, is the owner of a computer and electronics firm in Shanghai. Since October last year, He and his fiancée, Zhang Yibo, a former business manager at Siemens Shanghai, have been detained for allegedly helping the Chinese public gain access to uncensored information by circumventing the communist regime’s internet firewall.

  

  Their alleged crime, Article 300 of Chinese Criminal Law barring “using a heretical organization to undermine the implementation of the law” has been used excessively by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the adherents of a spiritual practice called Falun Gong. Both He and Zhang are Falun Gong practitioners.

  

  Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline including five meditative exercises and a set of moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Its popularity peaked in the late 1990s in China, with estimates putting the number of practitioners at 70 million to 100 million.

  Perceiving this popularity to be a threat, the CCP launched a brutal campaign against Falun Gong in 1999. Since then, millions of adherents have been detained in jails, labor camps, and detention centers across the country, where they are subjected to torture, slave labor, indoctrination, and forced organ harvesting.

  Circumventing the Firewall

  The Epoch Times has confirmed with sources close to the case that the CCP police had been monitoring He and Zhang for some time. By sniffing internet traffic, they traced some packets to a firewall circumvention tool called oGate.

  The Chinese regime runs the world’s most sprawling and sophisticated online censorship and surveillance apparatus, known as the Great Firewall, blocking internet traffic in and out of China.

  Many Chinese inside the country thus use circumvention tools to bypass the CCP’s firewall to access uncensored information from the outside world, such as virtual private networks (VPNs).

  Over the years, Falun Gong practitioners have developed a suite of firewall circumvention tools, which are free to use. oGate is the latest such tool. It does not require the user to install any software. Because of its ease of use, oGate enables millions of page views per month.

  Held in Isolation

  At around 9 p.m. on Oct. 9, 2021, two dozen officers from Shanghai’s Changning District Police Station arrested He and ransacked his home, without an arrest warrant or search warrant. Neither did they provide the list of confiscated items, which included He’s personal computers and cell phone, according to a friend of Zhang’s.

  Zhang was also taken by police, and the couple have been held in Changning District Detention Center since then.

  

  During their first five months in detention, He and Zhang’s only way to communicate with the outside world—through their lawyers—was denied by Changning District Detention Center stating it was an order “from the above,” Zhang’s friend told The Epoch Times.

  In early March, the lawyers were finally allowed to talk to their clients over the phone, without video.

  He Binggang

  He Binggang displayed exceptional technical acumen since he was a teenager. His invention of a voice-activated system that helped blind people to use the computer won him a top prize at the age of 15. He passed the programmer’s certificate exam when he was 16, according to Minghui.org, a U.S.-based website that serves as a clearinghouse for the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

  At 18, He was accepted, without having to do an exam, to the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai. Four years later, he was again accepted without an exam to graduate school at the university.

  

  However, everything changed for He after the persecution of Falun Gong started. Fudan University forced him to drop out of graduate school in 2000 because he wouldn’t give up the spiritual practice.

  Since then, He has been arrested, detained, and tortured many times to the point he was almost paralyzed. But whenever he could, he tried to keep abreast of the developing internet technology and became a self-taught computer expert.

  In 2007, He opened a computer and electronics firm after a 6-year prison term.

  He once said, “I was very much into philosophy, searching for the purpose of life until I found my belief [Falun Gong]. I do business honestly, and I don’t fight with others for profit. My heart is at peace, and I made a lot of friends.”

  His business grew rapidly, although He and his company were under police surveillance. The CCP police would not tolerate He’s success in business and in April 2010 planted “illegal items” in his business, to use a pretext to raid his company and put him in detention, according to Zhang’s friend.

  While in detention, He was beaten so badly that he developed spinal compression. He suffered excruciating pain but received no medical care for nine months from July 2010 to March 2011.

  Zhang Yibo

  Zhang Yibo, 43, started practicing Falun Gong soon after the persecution started in 1999, Minghui reported.

  On June 4, 2009, Zhang and her mother Li Yaohua, also a practitioner, were taken from their home by police for distributing information on Falun Gong. Despite rescue efforts by Zhang’s older brother, who is in the United States, and her grandfather, who lives in Taiwan, Zhang and Li were both given prison terms.

  Zhang was sentenced to 18 months. This ended Zhang’s career as a business manager at Siemens Shanghai.

  

  Zhang’s mother was given a three-and-a-half-year sentence. She became very ill in prison with sciatic nerve and cervical spine disease, and vomited when she ate. She also had high blood pressure and angina. In March 2010, she was sent to the hospital, but the prison refused to release her on medical parole.

  Li to this day has not recovered her health.

  Continued Persecution

  Now, He Binggang’s health has been deteriorating inside the detention center. He told his lawyer in March that he was suffering from continuous headaches, abnormal digestion, abnormal clotting, and urinary incontinence, the friend told The Epoch Times. At times, he could not move his limbs and could only lie in bed.

  The cases of Zhang and He were forwarded to the Changning District Court on March 15, 2022. Their wait for a court date has been three months and counting.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 06/23/2022 – 00:05

• Global 5G Adoption To Hit One Billion In 2022
  Global 5G Adoption To Hit One Billion In 2022

  While mobile internet connections on 4G networks are quick enough for most average users, enabling them to stream HD video or download music, apps and games on the go, 5G, the next evolution of wireless networks, has really taken over in the last year.

  While Samsung and several other smartphone makers released their first 5G handsets in 2019, Apple jumped on the 5G bandwagon in the fall of 2020, bringing the new standard to the entire iPhone 12 product line. As Statista’s Felix Richter reports, having sold more smartphones in the last three months of 2020 than any company ever before in a single quarter, Apple’s 5G debut definitely provided a major boost to the new technology.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  According to estimates from Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report, the number of 5G smartphone subscriptions worldwide will blow past one billion this year, almost doubling from 2021. That would mean 5G reaching that milestone two years earlier than 4G did after its introduction, and, according to Ericsson’s estimates, subscriptions will double once again by 2024.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 23:45

• California Border Patrol Finds 27 Pounds Of Meth In Booster Seat
  California Border Patrol Finds 27 Pounds Of Meth In Booster Seat

  Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

  U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents in Murrieta, California, arrested the driver of a car carrying 27 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in child booster seats, authorities announced June 17.

  

  Border Patrol K9 team alert agents to children booster seats, and with further inspection agents found several packages of methamphetamine in Murrieta, Calif., on June 20, 2022. (Courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

  The suspect, a U.S. citizen, was driving on Interstate 15, north of a Border Patrol station, on June 15.

  “Drug smugglers will use any means necessary to get their poison onto our streets. Nothing is sacred to them, not even family,” Aaron M. Heitke, Chief Patrol Agent at the San Diego Sector said in a release.

  A man was driving with his wife and four of their children when agents stopped the car. A K9 team was dispatched and located the narcotics in three booster seats inside the car. Several packages were found containing methamphetamine, U.S. Border Patrol reported.

  The estimated street value is $60,000, agents said.

  

  Agents turned the driver over to the Inland Crackdown Allied Taskforce for prosecution. The vehicle was seized by Border Patrol. The four children and their mother were released.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 23:25

• China Just Achieved A "Brain Scale" AI Computer
  China Just Achieved A “Brain Scale” AI Computer

  Today in “Skynet does Asia” news, Chinese scientists are boasting about a new supercomputer that is so fast, it can run AI at the speed of a human brain.

  The computer, referred to as the Newest Generation Sunway supercomputer, is now on a par with the latest machine built by the US Department of Energy, called Frontier, according to The Star and the South China Morning Post.

  Earlier this month, Frontier had been named the world’s most powerful computer.

  The Chinese scientists named their AI model ‘bagualu’, which means “alchemist’s pot”. It was trained by the Sunway machine to have 174 trillion parameters, on a par with that of a human brain for the first time, the report says. 

  

  The Sunway “has a speed of a billion billion operations per second, expressed as 5.3 floating-point operations per second (exaflops), and more than 37 million CPU cores,” the report says. This is four times as many as the Frontier machine.

  It also has nine petabytes of memory, which is enough to hold 2 million different DVD quality movies. Communication between “brain” nodes is so quick it rivals a human changing his or her mind. 

  Potential uses for the AI could be in facial recognition and autonomous driving, the report says. It could also be used for life sciences, chemistry and language processing. (The article left out eventual machine-run world domination, for some reason…)

  The technology debuted at a virtual meeting of Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming 2022, an international conference put together by the Association for Computing Machinery, a U.S. based organization. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 23:05

• 'Such Courage': Trump Praises Texas GOP For Disavowing Result Of 2020 Presidential Election
  ‘Such Courage’: Trump Praises Texas GOP For Disavowing Result Of 2020 Presidential Election

  Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former President Donald Trump has praised the Texas GOP for adopting a platform on June 18 that rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election.

  “Wow! Look at the Great State of Texas and their powerful Republican Party Platform on the 2020 Presidential Election Fraud,” said Trump on Truth Social on June 21.

  “After much research and study, they disavow the national result for President. Such courage, but that’s why Texas is Texas!!! They know that a Country cannot survive without Free and Fair Elections (and STRONG BORDERS!),” he added.

  

  The former president’s comments came days after Texas Republicans passed a resolution stating that President Joe Biden was “not legitimately elected,” and that “substantial” election fraud in key metropolitan areas influenced the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden.

  “We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that various secretaries of state illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple ways, including by allowing ballots to be received after November 3, 2020,” states the GOP’s resolution passed on June 18, the last day of a three-day biennial Texas Republican convention held in Houston, Texas.

  “We believe that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”

  James Wesolek, communications director for the Republican Party of Texas, previously told The Epoch Times that 5,500 delegates attended the convention, which offers Republicans an opportunity to set priorities for the next legislative session in 2023 and elect party leaders.

  The state GOP’s position on the 2020 election results formed part of a new party platform adopted at the convention that also recommends numerous measures to bolster election integrity, including implementing voter photo ID and in-person voting, and tightening the voter registration process.

  The declaration by the nation’s largest GOP has since drawn attracted heavy criticism from media and political figures. The lone star state Republicans, however, have been undeterred.

  “Texas Republicans rightly have no faith in the 2020 election results and we don’t care how many times the elites tell us we have to,” said Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, in a statement published on the Texas GOP’s website on June 20.

  “The Texas Republican Party is raising record funds for election integrity, and we’ve made election integrity a top priority to ensure Texas never goes the way of Pennsylvania, Georgia, or Arizona. We refuse to let Democrats rig the elections in 2022 or 2024.”

  According to the U.S. National Archives, Joe Biden received 306 electoral votes in the 2020 election and Donald Trump received 232 electoral votes. Trump and conservative figures across the country immediately challenged the results, alleging that substantial fraud influenced the 2020 election. Democrats and mainstream media have vociferously denied such allegations, claiming them to be unfounded.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 22:45

• NASA's Moon Rocket Halted At T-29 Seconds During Countdown Rehearsal 
  NASA’s Moon Rocket Halted At T-29 Seconds During Countdown Rehearsal 

  It only took the fourth attempt for NASA to complete a partial countdown for its huge new moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), scheduled to launch later this year. 

  SLS wrapped up a 50-hour launch simulation known as a “wet dress rehearsal” on Monday evening at the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after several failed attempts in April, according to NYTimes. 

  SLS has never flown and is the rocket that will power NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts back to the moon. 

  Monday’s rehearsal concentrated on filling SLS’ fuel tanks. Multiple attempts to fuel the rocket in April ended wet dress rehearsals early. Problems that occurred during the last countdown rehearsals were resolved, but a new leak emerged in a quick disconnect point connecting cables from the mobile launch platform to the SLS. 

  

  Besides the new leak, the launch countdown for the 322-foot tall rocket stopped at T-29 seconds, just shy of the nine seconds typically before engines ignite. 

  

  “I think it was a very successful day and again accomplished a majority of the objectives,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the launch director, told reporters on Tuesday. 

  Today’s #Artemis I wet dress rehearsal activities concluded after a modified countdown configuration and successfully adding propellant to the rocket. We will review the data and are meeting to discuss next steps. For updates: https://t.co/rZxnWJ0Kbi pic.twitter.com/dKtFZeVWDF

  — NASA (@NASA) June 21, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Thomas Whitmeyer, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development, said filling the fuel tanks with propellant and counting down near zero were significant milestones. 

  “We’re looking at the pieces of the puzzle to decide what are the pieces that we didn’t get. 

  “But we also got an awful lot of pieces to the puzzle put together, and we have a pretty good idea of what the puzzle looks like at this point,” Whitmeyer said.

  Here’s the final countdown as the wet dress was halted at T-29 seconds. 

  Now NASA will examine the leak to determine if this wet dress is suitable for the next — a T-9 second target for wet dress launch abort. It will be in preparation to launch the Artemis 1 mission and send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the moon. 

  Testing delays might push Artemis 1’s launch to the end of August. The second Artemis flight is a crewed mission around the moon in 2024. In 2025, the third launch will be a crewed lunar landing. 

  Even though NASA plans to put the first ‘woman’ on the moon in 2025, with how woke culture is going, what’s to say the first gender-non-binary astronaut will beat a woman to the lunar surface? 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 22:25

• TikTok An 'Invasive Tool' For Beijing: Lawmakers Warn Of Threat After Report Shows US Data Accessed In China
  TikTok An ‘Invasive Tool’ For Beijing: Lawmakers Warn Of Threat After Report Shows US Data Accessed In China

  Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The hugely popular short-video app TikTok is but “another invasive tool” for Beijing’s espionage campaign on America, U.S. lawmakers said after news of leaked internal recordings allegedly showing the app’s private U.S. user data being repeatedly accessed in China.

  

  Between at least September 2021 and January, engineers in China had access to the app’s U.S. data, according to leaked recordings of 80 internal meetings cited by BuzzFeed News. In addition, TikTok employees at times had to turn to their colleagues in China to determine how U.S. data was flowing, which the U.S. staff weren’t authorized to independently access, the report said.

  TikTok is owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance and has drawn concern in the United States and elsewhere over whether its data can be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), given that its laws compel companies to cooperate with security agencies when asked.

  “Everything is seen in China,” a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department said in a September 2021 meeting, according to the report. The same month, a director addressed a Beijing-based engineer as a “Master Admin” with “access to everything.”

  “No surprise there, TikTok is just another invasive tool for communist China to infiltrate Americans’ personal and proprietary information,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) told The Epoch Times. “This app presents a very real threat to our national security, and the United States should take strong action to stop the CCP’s espionage campaign.”

  The popular China-owned platform has for years sought to minimize its links with Beijing—concerns that triggered efforts from the Trump administration to ban TikTok from operating in the United States. In a number of public statements, the company has maintained that it stores U.S. user data locally and wouldn’t share them with Chinese authorities if asked.

  The Chinese national intelligence law requires all organizations and citizens to “support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law” and “protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.” Because of that, Chinese firms have no option but to hand over whatever data the authorities demand and to deny doing so publicly, experts have said.

  In August 2021, a state-backed firm linked to the country’s top internet watchdog also took a 1 percent stake in one of ByteDance’s subsidiaries, heightening worries of potential influence Beijing could exercise over the platform.

  

  “Any U.S. user data that can be accessed by a ‘private’ company in China can undoubtedly also be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party,” Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) told The Epoch Times.

  In a congressional hearing in October 2021, Michael Beckerman, vice president and head of public policy in the Americas for TikTok, denied that ByteDance employees have access to TikTok user data. He told lawmakers that “a world-renowned U.S.-based security team” handles access to U.S. user data, and it stores backups in Singapore.

  The leaked recordings, Zeldin said, suggest that Beckerman “possibly lied to Congress, which is a felony.”

  “Even the possibility that the private data of millions of Americans, many of them only teenagers, was accessed by the Chinese government and could have been used for any number of the CCP’s nefarious activities should set off alarm bells in our government and private sector, and for anyone who uses this app,” he said.

  “The U.S. government needs to urgently determine what data was collected, what the Chinese government had access to, and how the data has been used.”

  Shortly before the June 17 Buzzfeed article, TikTok announced that it was migrating all U.S. user traffic to Oracle servers in the United States. It added that it would continue to use its U.S. and Singapore data centers for backup storage, but it expects to delete U.S. users’ data from those sites over time.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 22:05

• American Airlines Ending Service In These Three US Cities Amid Pilot Shortage 
  American Airlines Ending Service In These Three US Cities Amid Pilot Shortage 

  Right before the Memorial Day holiday — the start of the busiest US travel season — we outlined major airlines were axing flights from their schedules. Now carriers are at it again, with American Airlines saying it’ll eliminate service to three cities (Islip and Ithaca, New York, and Toledo, Ohio) after the Labor Day holiday weekend due to staffing shortages. 

  “We’re extremely grateful for the care and service our team members provided to our customers in Islip, Ithaca, and Toledo, and are working closely with them during this time,” American Airlines said in a statement to Fox Business.

  The airline blamed the “difficult” decision to slash service because of a shortage of pilots that has plagued the industry at a time when travel demand is robust. 

  We recently noted Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, and Alaska Airlines removed flights to minimize disruptions and bounce back faster when challenges arise, though, as of last weekend, more than 10,000 flights were canceled due to staffing woes, and airlines were paralyzed to resolve issues that left some travelers stuck at airports for more than 24 hours. 

  United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby warned last month that the “pilot shortage for the industry is real” and said airlines are short more than 12,000 pilots. He said training new pilots take years, and “there’s no quick fix.” 

  Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned airlines that the federal government might take action if disruptions continue:

  “That is happening to a lot of people, and that is exactly why we are paying close attention here to what can be done and how to make sure that the airlines are delivering,” Buttigieg said on Saturday.

  TSA checkpoint data traveler throughput shows no signs of demand destruction, meaning travel chaos because of pilot shortages could be a weekly occurrence this summer. 

  

  All this comes as ticket prices are sky-high, and reduced flights make it harder and harder to catch flights to small metro areas. And forget traveling by car. The national average for regular gas is still priced at around $5 a gallon. 

  What a mess… 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 21:45

• Logistics Giant DB Schenker Announces Layoffs In Texas
  Logistics Giant DB Schenker Announces Layoffs In Texas

  By Noi Mahoney of Freightwaves

  DB Schenker said it’s laying off 130 employees from a Kraft Heinz distribution center near Fort Worth, Texas, according to a notice sent to state officials Tuesday.

  “Kraft has notified us that they will be closing in Fort Worth, effective June 26,” according to a notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission.

  “The layoffs are permanent. [DB Schenker] has no plans at this time to operate at the Fort Worth site.”

  

  Kraft Heinz said it’s not closing the distribution center, which will remain open and employs almost 200 workers.

  “Recent reports related to closing our product distribution facility located near Fort Worth are inaccurate,” Kraft said in an email to FreightWaves.

  “The Kraft Heinz distribution center will remain open and we will continue to ship Kraft Heinz products to customers in the region.”

  Kraft operates a 747,528-square-foot regional distribution center in Haslett, just north of Fort Worth. The company uses the facility as product storage for its logistics operations for all of the southwestern U.S., according to a 2011 article in the Dallas Morning News.

  Pittsburgh-based Kraft Heinz said it’s ending its relationship with DB Schenker as the third party logistics provider for the facility.

  “DHL will serve as the new logistics provider, effective June 26,” Kraft Foods said.

  DHL is a German logistics company providing global transportation services. Germany-based DB Schenker is the logistics division of German rail operator Deutsche Bahn.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 21:25

• Sri Lanka’s Economy Has 'Completely Collapsed': PM
  Sri Lanka’s Economy Has ‘Completely Collapsed’: PM

  Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Sri Lanka’s prime minister is increasing efforts to revive the country’s “completely collapsed” economy amid a lack of foreign exchange reserves and severe shortages of essential items.

  “We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond the mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity, and food. Our economy has faced a complete collapse,” Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament on June 22.

  “It is no easy task to revive a country with a completely collapsed economy, especially one that is dangerously low on foreign reserves,” he said.

  

  Sri Lanka will hold a credit aid conference with India, China, and Japan for loan packages. Wickremesinghe said the goal is to reach a “general consensus” on the lending processes as each country has its own system for granting loans.

  “However, there have been some conflicts and disagreements between us in the recent past. We are working towards resolving these and fostering friendly relations once again,” he added.

  The government will also seek help from the United States, with representatives from the U.S. Treasury Department visiting Sri Lanka next week.

  Australia said it would provide Sri Lanka with a $50 million development-assistance package following Wickremesinghe’s meeting with Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil on Monday.

  Wickremesinghe said that Sri Lanka has received a $4 billion credit line from India and requested additional loan assistance from the neighboring country.

  A top-level Indian delegation is expected to meet with Sri Lankan leaders on June 23 to discuss extending an additional $500 million credit line to Sri Lanka for the purchase of oil, local media Daily Mirror reported.

  “But even India will not be able to continuously support us in this manner. Even their assistance has its limits. On the other hand, we too must have a plan to repay these loans. These are not charitable donations,” he added.

  Wickremesinghe said that negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had made progress, with the government expecting to reach an official level agreement with the IMF by the end of July.

  “If we receive the IMF seal of approval, the world will once again trust us. It will help us to secure loan assistance as well as low-interest loans from other countries in the world,” he said.

  “The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is $700 million in debt. As a result, no country or organization in the world is willing to provide fuel to us. They are even reluctant to provide fuel for cash,” Wickremesinghe said.

  Sri Lanka had also requested China to amend the terms of a $1.5 billion yuan-denominated swap facility that it signed last year, which stipulates that the fund can only be used provided that Sri Lanka has enough foreign reserves to last three months.

  

  The country is on the verge of bankruptcy, with its foreign exchange reserves plummeting by 70 percent in the past two years. The government stated on April 12 that it was suspending foreign debt repayments.

  About 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s $51 billion external debt is owed to China, and the government had requested help from China to restructure its debt obligations.

  Wickremesinghe said that Sri Lanka would not be experiencing its worst economic crisis in decades if the government had acted sooner.

  “If steps had at least been taken to slow down the collapse of the economy at the beginning, we would not be facing this difficult situation today. But we lost out on this opportunity. We are now seeing signs of a possible fall into the very bottom,” he said.

  

  Thousands of Sri Lankans have taken to the streets to protest the government’s mishandling of the country’s economic crisis, leading to the resignation of then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on May 9.

  The country’s unprecedented economic crisis has left millions of its people in need of life-saving aid, with the severe shortages of essential medicines and frequent power cuts jeopardizing the country’s health care system.

  The United Nations launched a worldwide public appeal on June 9 to provide $47.2 million of aid between June and September to 1.7 million people whose livelihoods and food security are most at risk.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 20:45

• Uvalde Police Chief Put On Administrative Leave "Effective Immediately"
  Uvalde Police Chief Put On Administrative Leave “Effective Immediately”

  Uvalde police chief Pete Arredondo was put on administrative leave Wednesday – just one day after the the Austin American Statesman and KVUE released a bombshell report which revealed that officers were well equipped to neutralize Robb Elementary mass shooter Salvador Ramos – yet were ordered not to engage for most of the 77 minutes they were on scene.

  

  Ramos, 18, killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers while police – who we now know had semiautomatic rifles and ballistic shields – waited outside until a member of the Border Patrol’s tactical unit (BORTAC) ignored orders and entered the classroom, killing Ramos.

  Arredondo’s suspension is effective immediately according to Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District superintendent Hal Harrell, and is due to “the lack of clarity that remains,” as well as the “unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations.” Harrell had initially said he would wait to make any personnel decisions until after the investigation was complete.

  

  More via the Texas Tribune:

  In the weeks since the tragedy in Uvalde, questions have swirled around the actions of police and whether some lives could have been saved if officers confronted the barricaded gunman sooner. Authorities have shared conflicting information about who was in charge, who confronted the shooter and when. A debate over whether the locked classroom doors could be breached gave way to the discovery that they may never have been locked at all.

  Revelations have trickled out in the press: The New York Times has described officers’ doubts about the decision to wait; breakdowns in communications and tactics; and the fact that officers held off from the confrontation even though they knew people were injured, and possibly dying, inside. The San Antonio Express-News reported that there is no evidence that officers tried the doors on rooms 111 and 112 — contradicting a key assertion by the Uvalde schools police chief, Pete Arredondo, who told The Texas Tribune that officers tried the doors, found them locked and had to wait for a master key to unlock them. On Monday evening, the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV revealed that the officers, in effect, had more than enough firepower, equipment and motivation to breach the classrooms.

  According to Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Arredondo made “the wrong decision” by not breaching the classrooms during the incident. Arredondo’s excuse? He thought the shooter was barricaded inside and that it was not an active-shooter situation. Arredondo’s lawyer, George Hyde, said his client didn’t think he was the incident commander on the scene, since he was acting as a first responder to the shooting.

  

  Meanwhile, Arredondo was sworn in as a city council member at the end of last month, and was accused of ignoring state investigators’ requests for comment during their initial probe into the shooting. The police chief hit back, saying that he was open to cooperation as long as he can see his previous transcripts first, according to Axios.

  Lieutenant Mike Hernandez will assume the duties of the police chief.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 20:25

• Half Of Americans Didn't Save During Pandemic, Leaving No "Savings Cushion" Amid Recession Fears
  Half Of Americans Didn’t Save During Pandemic, Leaving No “Savings Cushion” Amid Recession Fears

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

  Roughly half of Americans did not build up savings during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey by YouGov, as fears mount that a recession could be looming on the horizon.

  

  YouGov’s survey covered 20,000 adults across 18 major economies including Sweden, Spain, Australia, China, and India, and challenges the idea that households within the world’s major economies have a savings cushion that could bolster spending amid a potential economic downturn.

  According to the survey, shared exclusively with Bloomberg, 51 percent of respondents stated that they had not added to their savings during the global pandemic, with Germany seeing the lowest rate of savings at 39 percent, while Italy stood at 40 percent.

  The United States, United Kingdom, and Canada also saw results below 50 percent when respondents were asked if they had added to their savings.

  Elsewhere, the survey showed that of those who did manage to build up their savings during the pandemic, just 53 percent have managed to hold onto them, while 26 percent have spent the savings on bills or other essential purchases.

  Another 13 percent said they spent the cash on holidays and social events after lockdown restrictions were lifted, while 19 percent used their savings on home improvements or to move into a new house.

  The latest survey comes as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said June 19 that she expects the U.S. economy to slow in the months ahead, but remained optimistic that a recession is “not at all inevitable,” despite concerns among economists that a downturn is on the horizon.

  In an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” Yellen said that consumer spending remains strong, in spite of increased prices for everything from fuel to food, and that bank balances among Americans remain “high,” allowing for them to weather increased inflation.

  “It’s clear that most consumers, even lower-income households, continue to have buffer stocks of savings that will enable them to maintain spending,” Yellen said.

  “So I don’t see a drop-off in consumer spending as a likely cause of the recession in the months ahead, and the labor market is very strong, arguably the strongest of the postwar period.”

  The national saving rate was about 4.4 percent in April 2022, the lowest since September 2008, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published on May 27.

  Separate data from Northwestern Mutual’s 2022 Planning & Progress Study showed that the average amount of personal savings dropped 15 percent from $73,100 in 2021 to $62,086 in 2022, although year-over-year numbers show that savings levels remain high, with 60 percent of those surveyed stating that they’d been able to build up their personal savings over the past two years.

  However, inflation has reached a 40-year-high, surging to 8.6 percent in May, leaving Americans splashing out more for everyday essentials.

  In an effort to bring down those inflation figures, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate three-quarters of a percentage point on June 15 and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said he expects “either a 50-basis-point or a 75-basis-point increase” at the July meeting.

  “Overall economic activity appears to have picked up after edging down in the first quarter,” the Federal Open Market Committee said on June 15. “Job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher energy prices, and broader price pressures.”

  “The Committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2 percent objective,” the statement added.

  Despite the concerns that lay ahead, Northwestern Mutual’s report found that 73 percent of American adults say they’ve adopted better financial habits due to the COVID-19 pandemic and all 73 percent expect to continue with those habits going forward, while 35 percent believe inflation will subside this year.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 20:05

• Digital Afterlife Program: Alexa Will Soon Read Stories As Your Dead Grandma 
  Digital Afterlife Program: Alexa Will Soon Read Stories As Your Dead Grandma 

  Amazon’s global AI event for machine learning, automation, robotics, and space is underway at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. One of the top scientists in charge of the smart assistant “Alexa” revealed to the audience that it would soon be able to learn the voice of a deceased loved one.

  TechCrunch reports Amazon’s Senior Vice President and Head Scientist for Alexa, Rohit Prasad, spoke at the Amazon re:MARS 2022 this week and said an upcoming Alexa feature would synthesize short audio of a loved one into longer speech. He used a scenario of Alexa learning the voice of a dead grandmother that can then be used to read a bedtime story to a grandson. 

  Prasad said the new technology is awe-inspiring and can achieve high-quality audio output with just one minute of learning speech. 

  “This required inventions where we had to learn to produce a high-quality voice with less than a minute of recording versus hours of recording the studio.

  “The way we made it happen is by framing the problem as a voice conversion task and not a speech generation path. We are on questionably, living in the golden era of AI, where our dreams and science,” he said. 

  

  TechCrunch points out that details about the upcoming feature are limited, and there’s no timeline on when it will be released. 

  The technology sounds like the beginning of a “digital afterlife program,” made famous by the Amazon Prime Video show “Upload.”  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 19:45

• Texas Woman Pleads Guilty To 26 Counts Of Voter Fraud In 'Vote-Harvesting' Operation
  Texas Woman Pleads Guilty To 26 Counts Of Voter Fraud In ‘Vote-Harvesting’ Operation

  Authored by Gary Bai via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Texas woman pleaded guilty on June 16 to 26 counts of voter fraud committed during a local water board election in 2018.

  

  Monica Mendez, 36, of Port Lavaca, Texas, ran a “vote-harvesting operation on behalf of a subsidized housing corporation in order to influence the outcome of a utility board election,” the Texas Attorney General’s (AG) Office said in a June 17 statement. The election in question was the 2018 Victoria County Water Control and Improvement District 1 Election in Bloomington, Texas.

  Mendez pleaded guilty to 26 felony counts of voter fraud, including three counts of illegal voting, eight counts of election fraud, seven counts of assisting a voter to submit a ballot by mail, and eight counts of unlawful possession of a mail ballot, the office stated.

  Victoria County District Judge Eli Garza sentenced Mendez to five years of deferred adjudication probation.

  Victoria County Elections Administrator Margetta Hill told The Epoch Times on June 20 that Mendez worked as a volunteer deputy registrar voter and assisted residents to register to vote during Bloomington’s 2018 water board election.

  Mendez was signing applications to register to vote and also applications to vote by mail, Hill said.

  According to a local media outlet, the Victoria Advocate, the 2018 water board election appeared on the radar of the AG’s office after about 275 of the 2,500 people who registered to vote used the same mailing address, which is associated with rental properties linked to a local housing nonprofit called ALMS. The nonprofit operates as La Raza Unidos, the outlet reported.

  According to the nonprofit’s 2018 tax filings, La Raza Unidos described its mission as distributing “new and gently used clothing to men, women, and children, free of charge.”

  Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of Texas election integrity group True the Vote, told The Epoch Times that this case is just the tip of the iceberg.

  “This is not about one renegade person harvesting ballots,” Engelbrecht said. “It’s happening in hundreds of communities all over the country.

  “And this is just one front of a thousand-front war on our elections.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 19:25

• Watch: Over 1,300 Southwest Pilots Picket Outside Love Field
  Watch: Over 1,300 Southwest Pilots Picket Outside Love Field

  Over 1,300 pissed off Southwest Airlines pilots picketed outside of Dallas Love Field on Tuesday, demanding better treatment from the airline for both passengers and employees.

  

  The protest, led by the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association – the union representing the pilots – called the demonstration an “informal picket” to raise awareness over pilot fatigue, stress, the pilot shortage and other issues that have caused chaos across the country, according to NBCDFW.

  The pilots are lining the entrance to Love Field. They will be in place until noon holding signs in silence. pic.twitter.com/J7TlZv7I5r

  — Shannon Murray (@ShannonMFox4) June 21, 2022

  “Our pilots have had to address the fatigue issue with management publicly, which is something that we never want to do, but ultimately, our pilots have been tired and have been trying to do everything they can,” said Capt. Casey Murray, a pilot and president of the SWA Pilots Association. “Our contract is going to provide a framework to correct some of these inefficiencies we are actually seeing on a day-to-day basis and that our guests feel every day.”

  

  “I think all of our guests have seen where pilots aren’t in position. They are taking delays, cancellations at times.“

  According to Fox4, pilots are sick of having to tell passengers “I’m sorry” over delays and cancellations on just about every flight.

  The union has warned that this will be a challenging travel season as the industry grapples with pilot shortages, poor scheduling, pressure to work overtime, and insufficient downtime between flights.

  According to SMU economist Mike Davis, there’s no easy fix.

  “There’s an awful lot of forces of nature that the airlines have to deal with. The pilot shortage… the airlines can’t automatically create people who are good pilots. It takes a long time and at the end of the day the cost of all this mess is going to be born by the consumer,” he said.

  

  Meanwhile, American Airlines announced earlier this week that it’s terminating service to three cities due to staffing shortages – Islip and Ithaca, NY and Toledo, Ohio.

  “The airlines, if they do cut back on their schedules it’s going to make it much more difficult to book a flight and when you can find a flight it’s going to be more expensive,” said Davis.

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 19:05

• Iran's Oil Exports Surge In June
  Iran’s Oil Exports Surge In June

  By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

  Iran’s crude oil exports are estimated to have jumped to an average of 961,000 barrels per day (bpd) between June 1 and June 19, according to data from seaborne oil trade analytics company Petro-Logistics cited by commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo.

  To compare, the average crude oil exports out of Iran stood at 461,000 bpd for the entire month of May, per Petro-Logistics data. 

  

  Despite the diplomatic impasse over the nuclear deal, Iran has been preparing to rejoin the global oil market. The country has boosted production, as well as exports to its main market, China. If a new deal is reached between Iran and the world powers, the flow of Iranian oil abroad could increase by between 500,000 bpd and 1 million bpd, according to analysts.  

  China has been the main outlet for Iranian crude oil exports since the U.S. re-imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s oil industry in 2018 when then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the so-called Iranian nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

  Most recently, Iran on Monday blamed the U.S. for the stalled talks on the revival of the nuclear deal.

  China has never stopped importing Iranian crude since 2018, and even the Chinese General Administration of Customs officially reported earlier this week that China did indeed import Iranian crude in May.

  Last week, China received 2 million barrels of Iranian crude, most likely with the purpose of sending the oil to state reserves, tanker-tracking firms told Reuters on Wednesday.

  According to Reuters, the crude cargo, delivered by a tanker owned by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), would be the fourth cargo to go to state reserves that China has imported since the end of last year. The shipment is also likely to be reported in the Chinese crude import data for June when figures are released in July.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 18:45

• JPMorgan Fires Hundreds Of Mortgage Bankers As Housing Market Breaks
  JPMorgan Fires Hundreds Of Mortgage Bankers As Housing Market Breaks

  Late last week we warned that according to real-time indicators, such as soaring mortgage rates and collapsing demand, a housing market crash appeared inevitable. Today we got the clearest sign that the banks agree when out of the blue – or rather out of the “hurricane” –  JPMorgan announced it was cutting over a thousand home-lending employees and reassigning hundreds more after soaring interest rates dried up mortgage demand. 

  Jamie Dimon pulled off his best Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg impression when the bank decided that more than 1,000 workers will be affected by the slowdown in housing, with roughly half fired and the other half moved to other (less paying) divisions within the bank, Bloomberg reports.

  “Our staffing decision this week was a result of cyclical changes in the mortgage market,” a JPM spokesperson said while probably eyeing the record move in the 30Y mortgage which has doubled from just over 3% at the start of the year to a stunning 6.13%, a move which has unleashed an affordability crisis. 

  

  JPM spokesperson continued: “We were able to proactively move many impacted employees to new roles within the firm, and are working to help the remaining affected employees find new employment within Chase and externally.”

  Translation: we made the remaining mortgage bankers serve dessert in the cafeteria, and in a few weeks they will all be quietly fired for gross incompetence.

  It’s not just JPM: Wells Fargo, recently the biggest mortgage lender among US banks (nobody knows anymore what Wells really does any more with all the rampant crime and corruption at the bank), has also been laying off and reassigning employees in its home-lending division, Bloomberg also reported. And earlier this month, real-estate giants such as  Compass and Redfin also announced plans to trim their workforces amid the cooling US housing market. Compass said in a regulatory filing that it will cut about 10% of its workforce, or about 450 employees, while Redfin plans to layoff about 6%, amounting to roughly 470 workers.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 06/22/2022 – 18:25

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