Alexei Navalny's Sudden Siberian Illness

Despite the campaign Alexei Navalny's supporters waged against a constitutonal amendment allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to remain in office until at least 2036, past the current two consecutive term limit, the change passed in July, 2020. To preclude a challenge from a government-in-exile or any other "foreign" opponent, another constitutional amendment prohibits future Russian presidents from having established citizenship or permanent residency in another country. These constitutional changes are just the latest maneuvers Putin has made to eliminate domestic and foreign challenges. Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 determined to restore Russia to pre-Communist collapse status. He switched from President to Prime Minister in 2008, but, when President Dmitry Medvedec's term was about to end in 2012, he decided to return to the presidency. His decision was greeted by an outbreak of protests about corruption, movtiated by Navalny, and a speech in Europe criticizing Russia's less than fair parliamentary election by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Putin determined to get his revenge on both the protests and Secretary Clinton. Yet, he saw red flags. Navalny unexpectedly won 30% of the vote in Moscow's 2013 mayoral contest with a Putin crony, and opposition to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovch's decision not to partner with the European Union and the following bloody protest led to his departure in February, 2014. Unmarked Russian troops moved into and gained control of Ukraine's Crimea by March, 2014. Back in Russia, Boris Nemtsov was collecting evidence that the so-called volunteeers fighting in Crimea were there at Putin's direction. On February 27, 2015, an assassin's bullet ended Nemtsov's life near Red Square. Unlike Nemtsov, Navalny was not as concerned about Putin's role in Crimea and the US and other countries' sanctions that followed. He seemed to take the annexation as a given. Putin turned his attention to providing support for Secretary Clinton's 2016 presidential rival. According to The Atlantic magazine's review (September, 2020) of Catherine Belton's book, PUTIN'S PEOPLE, Russian operatives had been tracking Donald Trump for 30 years on the chance that he some day would be useful. After a one-on-one 2018 meeting with President Putin in Helsinki, President Trump absolved Russia of interfering in his 2016 election. In 2017, Putin managed to eliminate Navalny as a political opponent by barring convicted criminals from running for office and by having both Alexei and his younger brother, Oleg, arrested on questionable charges. A judge suspended Alexei's five year sentence, but, in an unsuccessful attempt to put pressure on Alexei to end opposition protests, Oleg was sent to a penal colony for three and a half years. The brothers were reunited on June 29, 2020, shortly before Alexei fell ill in Siberia. Although Alexei was barred from running for office himself, his platform of anti-corruption and support for an increased standard of living, once considered only appealing to Russia's urban middle class, began to attract a wider audience of low-paid unskilled, agricultural and transportation workers, healthcare professionals and teachers in the public sector, some trade unions and those dissatisfied with the age increase for state pensions. By September, 2018, Putin's candidates for four regional elections were defeated. Viktor Zolotov, commander of Putin's 300,000 protective force, challenged Navalny to a duel, never fought. On August 20, 2020, after a month earlier Russia's Constitution was ready to declare Putin president for life, it was no surprise Navalny suddenly became seriously ill while returning from a meeting with opposition candidates for local elections in Siberia. Originally, it was thought Navalny was poisoned by drinking tea laced with a toxic substance. After he was transferred to Germany for treatment, doctors discovered a nerve agent probably was sprinkled in his underwear or socks. One final note, in 2017, President Putin arrived with flowers and champagne to show his respect on the 90th birthday of Crimean-born, human rights agitator, Lyudmila Alexeyeva. She pressed the case for Alexei Navalny and denounced Boris Nemtsov's "awful political killing."

Spies Fail Lie Detector Tests?

How do the CIA, FBI and US Army explain the long periods Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, Jerry Chun Shing Lee and Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins spied for China and Russia without being detected? Mr. Ma was employed by the CIA for 22 years and the FBI for six. For nine years, Mr. Lee first worked for the CIA and then the FBI, and Mr Debbins spent his nine years in chemical and Special Forces units within the US Army. Each man provided highly classified national defense material to US enemies. Mr. Ma also compromised US human assets in China, and Mr. Debbins recommended fellow Green Berets who might cooperate with Russian intelligence. Periodic lie detector tests, identifying suspicious coincidences, "walking back the cat" investigations to discover those who had access to information about a failed operation, security clearance questionnaires and other procedures for uncovering spies exist. But Robert Hanssen, an FBI counterintelligence analyst, never had a polygraph test during the 15 years he spied for Moscow. Another spy revealed he had been able to convince a new lie detector operator results that indicated he was lying were inconclusive. What methods should prevent US spies from escaping detection before they are able to undermine US national security?

China and Russia Play A Long Game; So Must We

Why should kids stay off the TikTok app, when all they want to do is dance, watch kids lip-sync and try out their comedy routines? Along with collecting the location, unique device identies and message content data of TikTok users that will last forever, just as Pavlov conditioned a dog to associate food with a bell, China can associate the images kids throughout the world see on TikTok with a warm and fuzzy feeling about all things Chinese. Big Bird helps kids learn on SESAME STREET. What can a Chinese cartoon character with a cuddly pet panda or "Mulan" do to grab a kid's attention and to begin conditioning him or her to ignore warnings about Chinese motives? This morning a PBS kids cartoon show already taught children to associate the "Golden Rule" exclusively with China's Confucius. China also is taking advantage of the opportunity to reach adults by running propaganda ads in TIME magazine and other respected, but revenue-starved, publications. Why not subsidize travel/study trips to China for high school and college students, offer senior centers a documentary about the advanced civilization Marco Polo found, not playing in a commercial's swimming pool, but in 13th century China or include a souvenier pin from the 2022 Winter Olympics near Beijing in cereal boxes? China's payoff would be worth these and other investments that dull US precautions, such as when a US graduate student obliviously agrees to help a Chinese professor obtain classified documents for a research project that compromises US national security. Similarly, a US business executive, conditioned over the years, may see nothing wrong with a sale that transfers US intellectual property to China. Chinese-Americans are especially vulnerable. Both fiction, QUANTUM SPY by David Ignatius, and the FBI case against Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, who worked 34 years for the US government, illustrate Chinese agents use a pitch asking them to start supporting their "motherland", not the "foreign" land of their birth. Russian agents use more traditional methods to recruit spies, but they too play a long game. They target those who have access to classified information who run into financial problems, are susceptible to compromising affairs or can be blackmailed because they are hiding a secret. A review of Catherine Belton's book, PUTIN'S PEOPLE, in THE ATLANTIC magazine (September, 2020), lists the Russian operatives who tracked Donald Trump for 30 years on the chance that he could be politically or commercially useful. Looking back at how Westeren democracies contained the USSR after World War II suggests a way forward. NATO brought together a coalition ready to deter Communist expansion. The US cannot go on blithely providing the food, commodities and safe financial haven China and Russia need, while these countries are free to concentrate on their legal and illegal efforts to make military, surveillance and other technological progress, as well as on using social media and other means to destabilize societies throughout the world. Neither on-again, off-again sanctions by the sole US government, nor agreements with and assurances from China and Russia, offer the promise of long-term peace the way a democratic alliance would. When Britain concluded a review of an April 24, 2019 decision to build its 5G (fifth generation) network with a limited amount of equipment from the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, the decision was overturned on July 14, 2020. Following the UK's decision, Britain suggested forming a 10-country alliance of democracies to develop alternatives to Huawei and other Chinese suppliers. Such a NATO-like coalition of G7 members (Britain, Canada, the US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan) and Australia, South Korea and India represents the brainpower, financing and determination needed to offset the continuing threat China and Russia pose.

Has China Overplayed Its Hand?

Xi Jinping, Chairman of China's Communist Party, envisions a "China Dream", not to cool or feed the planet, but to regain China's place, center stage in world history. Kublai Khan's civilization, superior to Europe's in the 13th century, waited for Marco Polo to discover Chinese people paid for their goods with paper money and healed their wounds with a kind of vasoline. Unwilling to wait for China to be discovered in the 21st century, Chairman Xi chooses to dream of world domination by following Deng Xiaoping's 1978 advice, "It is a glorious thing to be rich." To be a rich country in the 21st century requires the technological superiority the world associates with Silicon Valley. When Chairman Xi learned, in April, 2018, a US ban on microchip exports could cause the bankruptcy of a Chinese firm, ZTE, he saw how the patent a US company held on a specific semiconductor chip established the international standard for an item essential in every device connected to a cell phone network. From that point on, his "Made in China 2025" program aimed for self reliance and acquiring standard essential patents (SEPs). Using a SEP without being licensed subjects a user to the charge of infringement. According to a German patent data source, Huawei now holds 2000 5G SEPs. Normally, a firm has to license its monopoly rights to anyone on FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms. The US wants to withhold licensing its SEPs to competitors because of national security concerns. To be fair, Huawei would have to be allowed to do the same. The chip situation is very complicated, because Washington has not been able to resist lobbying from US firms that want to continue selling chips to Huawei, a short term gain, since China is determined to end reliance on US supplies. Nonetheless, as of September 26, 2020, the US Commerce Department requires US suppliers to obtain hard-to-come-by licenses to export what China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), considered a supplier to the Chinese military, needs to upgrade and maintain its manufacturing and hardware equipment. Not easy to replicate or fund are the processes of: 1) designing the delicate silicon microchips created for different purposes, such as operating driverless cars, and 2) constructing the automated, super-cooled and shock resistant facilities where chips are manuractured. Ironically, Taiwan, which Beijing claims under its "one country, two systems" policy framework, currently is among the countries with facilities capable of fabricating microchips. Yet, Beijing is at odds with the democratic government Taiwan re-elected in January, 2020. Chairman Xi's detrmination to maintain stability through surveillance-guaranteed control and conformity undermines a relationship that provides Taiwan's top tier brainpower and technology. What steps is China taking to reduce external dependency, even from Taiwan, on foreign sources of semiconductor chips? - Enhanced domestic training of top quality skilled workers - Using experienced Chinese hackers to scoop up foreign researh and development progress in a wide variety of high tech industrial, medical, engineering, solar, gaming and military fields - China Talent Plan, a spy-like program for recruiting foreign individuals with access to intellectual technology property who are willing to work with Chinese partners - Huawei, a Chinese company with total annual earnings of over $100 billion annually from 170 countries, sells smartphones and cellular and internat gear that give Beijing potential access to big data from around the world. Some US professors targeted by the China Talent Plan have seemed oblivious to the way China uses them, but the FBI has been concerned for more than a decade. Yanqing Ye, for example, would see herself on an FBI wanted poster after she entered Boston University's Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering without declaring, on her visa application, her status as a Lieutenant in China's military, her membership in the Chinese Communist Party and her association with China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). The FBI found a Princeton professor working on unmanned drones and autonomous submarines with a scientist from NUDT. Although Huawei has global sales, its biggest customer is China, where a 2017 law requires any citizen or organization, including Huawei, to comply with all government requests. Therefore, the US attempts to prevent countries from making Huawei purchases, especially the countries in the "Five Eyes" spying pact that shares intelligence among Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and US. When Britain concluded a review of an April 24, 2019 decision to build its 5G (fifth generation) network with a limited amount of Huawei equipment, the decision was overturned on July 14, 2020. In October, 2020, Sweden also decided not to use Huawei products in its 5G network. Following the UK's decision, Britain suggested forming a 10-country alliance of democracies to develop 5G technology and to eliminate dependence on Huawei and other Chinese technology companies. With 6G technology already on drawing boards, an alliance of G7 countries (Britain, Canada, the US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan) and Australia, South Korea and India represents an important source of brainpower and financing to develop future networks. Such a NATO-like coalition also could more than match China's future investments in computing power to handle big data, the semiconductor industry, drones, robotics, autonomous weapons and other advanced technology. By attempting to gain world domination, China has stirred up widening opposition to its transgressions, such as internment of one million Uighur Muslims in so-called re-education camps, disregard of Hong Kong's 50-year guarantee of rights under China's takeover agreement with Britian and an expanding claim to the South China Sea. What some are calling a tech Cold War is more. Chinese Communism and the democratic ideals of human rights, the rule of law and representative government are waging a battle for history's center stage.

What Can Be Learned about North Korea: Defectors, COVID, Accidents

North Korea's Chairman, Kim Jong-un, surfaced on September 25, 2020, to send a letter to South Korean President Moon Jae-in's Blue House apologizing for the North Korean troops who killed an official from South Korea's Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries on Septemebr 22. North Korea later claimed the official crossed North Korea's maritime border south of the Yeonpyeong islands it controls in order to defect to the north. This explanation occurred shortly before reports began to claim Jo Song Gil, North Korea's acting ambassador to Italy, who disappeared with his wife in Rome in November, 2018, had been living in South Korea since July, 2019. A North Korean diplomat in London, Thae Jong ho, and his family had defected to South Korea in 2016. Originally, Chairman Kim expressed condolences that the incident involving the death of the South Korean official had occurred at a time when both countries were suffering from COVID-19. On October 3, after President Trump was found to have COVID-19, Chairman Kim also expressed his wish that the president would recover. Commercial satellite imaging has shown the Yongbyon area, where North Korea's Nuclear Scientific Research Center is located, suffered severe damage from typhoons in September, 2020. The breach of a dam caused the lake that provides a steady water level for cooling when reactors are operating, which they are not now, dried up. Elsewhere, flooding in the area damaged grain in the country's already suffering economy. Grain is now drying on every available surface. At the UN in September, 2020, North Korea announced it is satisfied with the strength of its nuclear deterrent and intends to concentrate on economic development. A party conference is planned for January, 2021, in order to develop a new 5-year economic plan. Sanctions imposed to block North Korea's nuclear and missile program remain in place, although they have not been very effective. As usual, reports direct from North Korea, where citizens are afraid to talk to reporters, were not forthcoming immediately after neighboring countries announded North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, was in a coma on August 25, 2020, and observers saw explosions across China's border at Changbai on August 3, 2020. Since the sister of Kim Jong-un, Kim Yo-jong, who was anticipated to assume interim North Korean national and international duties while her brother was in a coma, had not been seen in public since July 27, 2020, some suggested a power struggle for leadership might be in progress. This no longer seemed the case, when Kim Yo Jong was seen with her brother, Kim Jong Un, inspecting the flooded area in Yongbyon in September. The August explosion in North Korea occurred in the Tapsong neighborhood of Hyesan City on North Korea's eastern border with China. These explosions caused articles to reference a July, 2020, train fire in Sinuiju on North Korea's western border with China. Firefighters were unable to contain the fire, because extinguishers at the train station were empty. In the process of describing how the explosion began with a gasoline fire and spread to LPG storage cylinders, we learned that homes in Hyesan each rely on their own stored gasoline or LPG. Finally, besides reporting on North Korea from South Korean and official Chinese sources, initial reports of the explosion revealed there are Chinese activists who help those trying to escape from North Korea.

Punishment for Human Rights' Abuses

Like two aspirins for those whose heads ache, because they feel powerless to do anything about unspeakable human rights' violations, the concept of Magnitsky laws is a cure. These laws impact the individuals and organizations responsible for inhuman abuses, who often seem to escape prosecution, to accummulate fortunes by leveraging their high-level contacts and to laundeer and stash their wealth in safe havens throughout the world. Countries, including the US, UK, Canada, the Baltics and members of the European Union, enact a version of the Magnitsky law to freeze accounts of those responsible for human rights' abuses, thereby preventing them from financing their anticipated luxurious lifestyles. While the laudible aim of Magnitsky laws and fate of Sergei Magnitsky are well known, some details are disputed. Mr. Magnitsky, a 37-year-old tax expert, sometimes represented as an attorney, worked for Bill Browder's London-based Hermitage Capital Management investment firm. When Browder's Russian investments in state-owned corporations, especially Gazprom, prospered, he appears to have involved Magnitsky in a scheme to limit his tax liability by claiming a discount for employing disabled workers firms did not employ. In connection with an investigation two Moscow police officers made into Broder's alleged $230 million tax fraud case, Magnitsky ended up in a Russian prison, where a doctor discovered he needed pancreatic surgery he never received. Magnitsky died in prison on November 16, 2009. Mr. Browder effectively tells the story that the two police officers who initiated the tax fraud investigation were responsible for Magnitsky's death. In any case, the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) maintains a list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) sanctioned under various laws, including the Global Magnitsky Act of 2012. On Friday, August 7, 2020, the OFAC list added 11 Hong Kong officials for undermining autonomy guarantees and restricting freedom of expression or assembly. In mid-July, 2020, the UK's Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations imposed asset freezes and travel bans on: - 25 Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky's death - 20 senion Saudi intelligence officials allegedly involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi - 2 Myanmar generals connected to ethnic Rohingya autrocities - 2 North Korean organizations that run the concentration camps for political prisoners The UK's sanctions regulations provide review provisions.

You Don't Have to Be Catholic to be Helped by Nuns

On the passing of John Lewis, the young 1963 Civil Rights leader who went on to represent Georgia in Congress for 33 years, one tribute mentioned nuns who administered a Selma, Alabama, hospital took care of him when he was beaten by police in 1965. A female Muslim student wrote a prize-winning story about a nun, the principal of a college in Bangladesh, who saw she was absent, visited her family and arranged to help her continue her education after her unemployed father could no longer afford tuition. Shamima Sakendar's story is now a film, "The Soul," which can be viewed on Facebook and YouTube. Taken together, these mentions of the unheralded contributions religious orders of women reminded me of the legally-trained nuns who represent immigrants in courts at the US border and the recently deceased Sister Carolyn Farrell, who had helped plan, at the invitation of Iowa's governor, the State's long-term goals. She also was elected to the City Council in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1977 and became mayor in 1980, since Council members held that office on a rotating basis. The work nuns do in Africa is extremely important. To prevent young women from being lured into the human trafficking trade, nuns in Bukoba, Tanzania, help students become self-sufficient in a 3-year sewing program. At graduation, they receive their own sewing machines. Since 1989, nuns in Kampala Uganda, have provided a home for as many as 30 abandoned babies and children under five at a time. When mothers die in childbirth after traveling long distances to deliver their newborns, relatives often cannot be found to care for the babies. In other cases, women flee from abusive husbands who are left with children they don't want, husbands leave to seek work in cities or abroad and never return and friends and relatives shun women and children who are HIV positive. With help from volunteers, the nuns carry the babies, sleep with them and maintain a cow and chickens to provide milk and eggs to feed them. The nuns try to find caring relatives by posting children's photos in local newspaper ads. If no relatives are found and the children have not been adopted by age 6, they are transferred to a children's home and then a group home until they can support themselves. As carbon dioxide's greenhouse gases continue to raise the Earth's temperatures, the organic farming practices of nuns in drought-ridden Chilanga, Zambia, provide a valuable example of how to produce a variety of indigenous fruits, cabbage, kale, maize, tomatoes, onions and beans as well as how to raise cows, goats and chickens. By drilling a borehole, the nuns were able to install an irrigation system to spray water over crops. They also use manure as organic fertilizer and crop rotation to keep from depleting soil nutrients. Mixing crops grown on the farm helps control insect damage. Without becoming Catholic, people around the world benefit from the care nuns provide.