By Chris Menahan

This is the system our ruling oligarchs are trying to implement in America.

China restricted 2.56 million discredited entities from purchasing plane tickets, and 90,000 entities from buying high-speed rail tickets in July: NDRC #socialcredit pic.twitter.com/4zAwJ7hrBn

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) August 16, 2019

This video taken in a bullet train in China went viral last year:

Here’s a dystopian vision of the future: A real announcement I recorded on the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train. (I’ve subtitled it so you can watch in silence.) pic.twitter.com/ZoRWtdcSMy

— James O’Malley (@Psythor) October 29, 2018

Big Tech has already implemented their own “social credit score” system where they punish people for their political views by deplatforming them, censoring their websites and closing their PayPal/bank accounts.

On the other hand, media outlets which push propaganda in accordance with the desires of our ruling oligarchs are rewarded by having their content algorithmically artificially boosted and handed millions of dollars.

This article was sourced from Information Liberation.

Follow InformationLiberation on Twitter, Facebook, Gab and Minds.

Image credit: Pixabay

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By Mac Slavo

Companies in the United States, and more specifically, Silicon Valley, are building a social credit system for individuals.  Much like the social credit system communist China uses to control its population, this authoritarian control is different in one way: it is being done by corporations as opposed to the government.

Make no mistake, though, the corporations building a social credit system in the U.S. are already another arm of the government. They are lobbying and using the money made to get certain politicians elected. This is the very definition of crony corporatism.  If anyone thinks we live in a democracy or constitutional republic, they are either wholly uninformed, brainwashed or willfully ignorant.

China’s tyrannical social credit system is a technology-enabled, surveillance-based nationwide program designed to nudge citizens toward better behavior (or government-approved behavior). The ultimate goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to the Chinese government.

Social Media, Universal Basic Income, and Cashless Society: How China’s Social Credit System Is Coming To America

According to Fast Company, China’s social credit system has been characterized in one pithy tweet as “authoritarianism, gamified.” And it’s already here in the United States.

While many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system, they need to realize that they live under a system that is similar. Such systems are not unique to China. In fact, a parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.  Big Tech is helping advance totalitarian control over the population by censoring information they deem goes against the government’s agenda.

For example:

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Profit outside the rigged system! Protect yourself from tyranny and economic collapse. Learn to live free and spread peace!


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The New York State Department of Financial Services announced earlier this year that life insurance companies can base premiums on what they find in your social media posts. That Instagram pic showing you teasing a grizzly bear at Yellowstone with a martini in one hand, a bucket of cheese fries in the other, and a cigarette in your mouth, could cost you. On the other hand, a Facebook post showing you doing yoga might save you money.

Airbnb can disable your account for life for any reason it chooses, and it reserves the right to not tell you the reason. The company’s canned message includes the assertion that “This decision is irreversible and will affect any duplicated or future accounts. Please understand that we are not obligated to provide an explanation for the action taken against your account.” The ban can be based on something the host privately tells Airbnb about something they believe you did while staying at their property. Airbnb’s competitors have similar policies.

It’s now easy to get banned by Uber, too. Whenever you get out of the car after an Uber ride, the app invites you to rate the driver. What many passengers don’t know is that the driver now also gets an invitation to rate you. Under a new policy announced in May: If your average rating is “significantly below average,” Uber will ban you from the service.

You can be banned on WhatsApp if too many other users block you. You can also get banned for sending spam, threatening messages, trying to hack or reverse-engineer the WhatsApp app, or using the service with an unauthorized app.-Fast Company

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An increasing number of societal “privileges” related to transportation, accommodations, communications, and the rates we pay for services (like insurance) are either controlled by technology companies or affected by how we use technology services all while Silicon Valley’s rules for being allowed to use their services are getting stricter.  All of the companies participating in these types of behavioral controls want one thing, and it’s the same thing the government wants: power over people.

Also Read from Activist Post: Want Cheaper Insurance Rates? You Can Have It If You Let Companies Track and Manage Your Life

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This article was sourced from SHTFPlan.com

Image credit: EFF.org

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By MassPrivateI

It is no longer speculation, American law enforcement has been lying to the public about the expansion of CCTV camera surveillance.

A recent report released by Comparitech confirmed what I have been warning people about for years: American law enforcement has become a world leader in spying on its citizens.

Cities in China are under the heaviest CCTV surveillance in the world, according to a new analysis by Comparitech. However, some residents living in cities across the US, UK, UAE, Australia, and India will also find themselves surrounded by a large number of watchful eyes, as our look at the number of public CCTV cameras in 120 cities worldwide found.

According to Comparitech, London and Atlanta were the only cities outside of China to make the top 10.

Comparitech measured the amount of CCTV cameras per 1,000 people in a city and two U.S. cities made the Top 20.

Atlanta has 7,800 cameras for 501,178 people or 15.56 cameras per 1,000 people and Chicago has 35,000 cameras for 2,679,044 people or 13.06 cameras per 1,000 people.



But that only scratches the surface of American police surveillance.

Despite what the mass media and law enforcement want you to believe, America is slowly being turned into a surveillance state that rivals China.

Thirteen U.S. cities lead the world in spying on people

If this were the Olympics of Spying, China and the U.S. would be tied for the lead with 13 gold medals a piece.

Comparitech’s spreadsheet revealed, that a staggering 13 U.S. cities lead the world in spying on people!

#10- Atlanta, GA
#12- Chicago, IL
#27- Washington, DC
#37- San Francisco, CA
#41- San Diego, CA
#45- Boston, MA
#57- New York City, NY
#65- Miami, FL
#68- Detroit, MI
#78- Houston, TX
#83- Philadelphia, PA
#96- Dallas, TX
#119- Los Angeles, CA
(Spreadsheet numbers were off by one because they used #1 as the heading.)

I was surprised that the city of New Orleans did not make the list. Especially after the Executive Director of ProjectNOLA, Bryan Lagarde proclaimed it to be “America’s largest HD networked crime camera system” back in 2017.

On a more disturbing note, if you include Singapore and Hong Kong, China only has 13 spying cities in the top 120. Which would tie them with the U.S., for the unenviable title of World Champions of Spying on the Public.

In what screwed up world do we live in? Where America is now tied with China for the most spied-on cities in the world.

Brazil would win the silver medal with 9 spying cities and the U.K. would get the bronze medal with only 3 spying cities.

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To most people this news will come a shock, to others they will see it as fear-mongering.

But sooner or later, Americans are going to have to admit, that when it comes to spying on everyone: there really is little difference between our law enforcement and China’s People’s Armed Police Force.

If we do nothing and let law enforcement and politicians decide how much public surveillance is best for us, we may end up living in a country that more closely resembles China than America.

So the next time you see a cop, please thank him or her for helping turn 13 cities into world-class surveillance centers.

You can read more at the MassPrivateI blog, where this article first appeared.

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By Matt Agorist

Beijing, China — The US State Department issued a health alert to US citizens in China on Wednesday after an American embassy employee suffered a traumatic brain injury. According to the State Department, the injury was due to a “abnormal sensations of sound and pressure.”

The incident is ominously reminiscent of a series of similar attacks in Havana, Cuba that left 21 State Department employees with serious injuries. Now, after urging Americans not to visit Cuba, the government is similarly warning US citizens to be on the alert in China.

The State Department reports:

A U.S. government employee in China recently reported subtle and vague, but abnormal, sensations of sound and pressure.  The U.S. government is taking these reports seriously and has informed its official staff in China of this event.  We do not currently know what caused the reported symptoms and we are not aware of any similar situations in China, either inside or outside of the diplomatic community.

The incident comes as the new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is preparing to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Washington on Wednesday to discuss trade.

As NBC reports, Jinnie Lee, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the employee reported the symptoms from late 2017 through last month and was eventually taken to the U.S. for further evaluation.

“On May 18, the embassy learned that the clinical findings of this evaluation matched mild traumatic brain injury,” she said. “The department is taking this incident very seriously and is working to determine the cause.”

According to the State Department, citizens in China should take the following actions:

• If you have concerns about any symptoms or medical problems that developed during or after a stay in China, consult a medical professional.


• While in China, if you experience any unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena accompanied by unusual sounds or piercing noises, do not attempt to locate their source. Instead, move to a location where the sounds are not present.

President Donald Trump has yet to respond to the incident in China, although the incident in Cuba was met with backlash.

“Some very bad things happened in Cuba,” Trump said at the time. “They did some bad things.”

After the alleged attack in Cuba, the State Department issued a similar warning, telling Americans not to visit the country which prompted a drop in tourism to Cuba.

In March, a team of computer scientists claimed to have cracked the mystery behind the Cuban sound attack.

Professor Kevin Fu and members of the Security and Privacy Research Group at the University of Michigan say that the incident in Havana could’ve been caused by two sources of ultrasound — such as eavesdropping equipment —  placed too close together could generate interference and provoke the intense sounds described by the victims.

Whether or not this was a deliberate attack, however, remains a mystery.

As the Free Thought Project has previously reported, the idea of a sonic attack is not some far-fetched conspiracy theory. In fact, the US Army has been exposed for studying audio and visual technologies in order to use them as weapons.

On December 16, 1997, children across Japan plopped down in front of their TVs to watch an episode of Pokemon.

700 of them never saw the end.

Hundreds of children experienced seizures and were rushed to the hospital after witnessing Pikachu use his lightning powers to blow up missiles.

The episode, called ‘Electric Soldier Porygon,’ was banned from airing again, even in edited form.

The effects were so damning to Pokemon that the entire show was removed from the air for four months.

However, while the world was scrambling to understand what could’ve possibly caused this reaction, the US Army quietly began researching the episode — to weaponize it. Seriously.

The Army wanted to blast pulses similar to those used in the episode into the faces of its adversaries to overload their brains and cause them to convulse.

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Application of “electromagnetic pulses” could force neurons to all fire at once, causing a “disruption of voluntary muscle control,” reads a description of the ominous “seizure” weapon, contained in a declassified document from the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center. “It is thought by using a method that would actually trigger nerve synapses directly with an electrical field, essentially 100% of individuals would be susceptible to seizure induction.”

The report was discovered thanks to an activist filing a Freedom of Information Act request. It revealed the Army’s sinister intentions in making electromagnetic weapons — propaganda.

According to a report in Wired, the military needed weapons like these because TV news had hamstrung the military’s traditional proclivities to kill its way to victory: It now lived in a world where “You don’t win unless CNN says you win,” the report lamented. But while the Pentagon still laments the impact of the 24/7 news cycle on the U.S. military, it hardly thinks less-lethal weapons are a solution to it. In fact, the U.S. has kept most of its electromagnetic arsenal off of the battlefield, in part because the idea of invisible pain rays would sound so bad coming out of an anchor’s mouth.

This disturbing Pokemon weapon would disrupt chemicals in the brain and induce an immediate seizure — in 100% of the population.

“The onset of synchony and disruption of muscular control is said to be near instantaneous,” the 1997 Army report reads. “Excitation is directly on the brain.” And “100% of the population” is supposed to be susceptible to the effects — from distances of “up to hundreds of meters” — “[r]ecovery times are expected to be consistent with, or more rapid than, that which is observed in epileptic seizures.”

The report showed how Army officials likely drooled over the notion of inducing seizures in their unwitting victims, specifically mentioning the Pokemon episode.

“The photic-induced seizure phenomenon was borne out demonstrably on December 16, 1997 on Japanese television when hundreds of viewers of a popular cartoon were treated, inadvertently, to photic seizure induction,” the analysis noted.

Naturally, the Army has denied any such weapon exists. However, as we have consistently reported, the US government also has no problem lying.

Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project, where this article first appeared. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Facebook.

By Daisy Luther

Have you heard about China’s dystopian new “social credit” program? If you haven’t, there’s a terrifying infographic from Bored Panda that I’ll be referencing throughout this article.

The good news is that this is happening in China, where we all know a Communist government has long been crushing freedom for the residents of the nation. You may think this doesn’t affect you because you’re in America, gosh-dang-it, but we’ve seen over and over again how a “great idea” in another country, no matter how dystopian, can spread like a viral contagion.

The bad news is that it is incredibly close to happening here. Heck, it is happening here.

Don’t believe it’s already happening? Let’s take a look.

Here’s some information about data collection in the United States.

We all know that our data is being mined and sold to the highest bidder all over the internet. A while back, I was looking for a new rental for the time that our lease runs out. I got some emails from landlords from Craigslist, made an agreement with one of them, and then the very next day, a utility company that I had never contacted sent me a creepy email reminding me of the length of time ahead I needed to schedule relocating my service.

Everything you do online is scanned and sent to people who will profit.

photo credit: Bored Panda

So what if someone on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, and everyplace else on the Internet was collecting every single thing you typed, everything you read, and everything you searched up?

What if all that stuff got combined to create a picture of you, your beliefs, your moral convictions, and the way you think?

photo credit: Bored Panda

Don’t delude yourself into thinking that this will only be limited to China. This is something that will spread based on its “effectiveness.” Effectiveness at what?” you ask. Effectiveness at predicting your every move, from likeliness to pay a bill or honor a contract, to who you will most likely vote for in the next election.

There’s a reason that Mark Zuckerberg had to go to Congress and sit on a stack of books and testify. It’s because the information he has harvested and sold is so incredibly, horribly detailed. When you read the following infographic, you’ll see where I’m going with this.

photo credit: Bored Panda

This information is already being collected in the United States. You are tracked everywhere you go when you are online.

There’s very little you can do about it, but here are some options.

• Use browsers that are not Google Chrome. These are said to be the most anonymous browsers. (Remember that “secure” browsers will still track you.)


• Use search engines like DuckDuckGo and StartPage. (Here’s a list of search engines that don’t track you.)


• Use encrypted email. Here’s a list of some of the most secure services. (Proton Mail is the ONLY system that the NSA can’t get into and I’m in the process of switching over as much as possible.)

Of course, a lack of available information can also make you look sketchy in the eyes of those who wish to snoop. You know the old adage, “You have nothing to worry about unless you have something to hide.” Well, that’s not really true anymore. Privacy is important.

photo credit: Bored Panda

Right now, in China, the program is optional. But as more and more service providers join in, it will become more difficult to avoid. We see the same thing happening here in the United States. I literally went for almost a decade with no phone whatsoever. No cell, no landline. When people would ask for a number and I said I didn’t have one, they all thought I was lying. Finally, my phone number or lack thereof became such a detriment that I was forced to get one to be able to participate in things that were important to me.

The same thing is true of bank accounts. Over the past 20 years or so, with the advent of direct deposit and direct withdrawal, you simply cannot function in this country without a bank account. Then, of course, the banks are able to help themselves to a hefty fee from everyone and all the money in and out can be tracked. Good times.

Apple, by the way, is already giving people “trust scores” based on their phone calls and emails. Just in case you think I’m being far-fetched.

Here’s how this will be “sold” to any country adopting the practice.

It will make life “easier.” It will make things “cheaper.”  After all, if you’re a “good” person, it won’t be a problem, right?

photo credit: Bored Panda

How nice. Well, maybe.

But what if you run into a rough spot? You like an unpopular candidate or political philosophy? You are the voice of dissent? You homeschool instead of sending your kids to public school? You have some money problems? You have “too many” children? You think your friends are being idiots about something and you try to help them see the error of their ways through discourse?

Oops. Not so good anymore.

photo credit: Bored Panda

And that’s just for starters. Things could really, really go downhill from there. Welcome to rationing registration, and restriction in every single facet of life.

It could easily turn into a situation in which you can no longer function, have money, or be employed unless you toe the digital line.

photo credit: Bored Panda

That social aspect in the photo above? We’re already seeing this in spades in America since the last election. How many people lost friendships over politics? How many families saw strained relationships over the candidates? How many people now think their former friends are complete morons? How many people actually lost jobs and promotions and work buddies over it?

Take that to the next level. What if your popular opinions could ruin your life? A lot of folks would be much less likely to speak out if this happened. And dissent is the American way. Our country was quite literally BORN from dissent.

Here’s an example of how this could go bad if you find yourself on the “wrong” side of the political fence. If you get Blacklisted, suddenly everything you’ve worked for and built all your life is GONE.

photo credit: Bored Panda

If you don’t think it could happen here, you need only to look at Alex Jones. I don’t like him much, but he’s lost everything because some companies got together to ban him. He’s lost all his social media accounts. He’s lost his email list. He’s lost his ability to accept PayPal. I assure you it’s only a matter of time until he can no longer accept credit cards. If he can’t finance his business and can’t reach people on social media, he is completely silenced. If my site costs a couple thousand a month to operate, his would cost exponentially more with his populous staff of writers and the server capacity he’d need for all the traffic he gets.

You don’t have to like or support Alex Jones to see the broad, sweeping arm that took him down. None of us with a public profile is immune.

I wrote more about the social media purge here. Just because it doesn’t directly affect you or you’re not on social media doesn’t mean that it won’t have an effect.

photo credit: Bored Panda

Insidious bills get stealthily passed all the time while we are distracted by ridiculous things like the Kavanaugh hearings and the Kardashians and the Kaepernicks of the world. People are freaking out about football while algorithmic governance is creeping up, unchecked.

You can find that episode of Black Mirror on Netflix. It’s terrifying because you could honest-to-goats see it happening.

Start distancing yourself from “the system” as fast as you can. And then, fight this crap tooth and nail. We, the good people of America, have raised our voices before on things that we see as injustice and we’ve won.

This is the fight of our lives. This is the fight FOR our lives. If this goes down on the scale that it is in China, the ONLY recourse would be pulling the plug. Ending the system altogether and going back 200 years in time for a do-over. No more grid, no more system.

I hope it never gets to that, but I’m far from optimistic.

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, leaving all links intact, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio. Daisy is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting, homeschooling blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper., where this article first appeared. Daisy is the publisher of The Cheapskate’s Guide to the Galaxy, a monthly frugality newsletter, and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. She is the best-selling author of 4 books and lives in the mountains of Virginia with her two daughters and an ever-growing menagerie. You can find Daisy on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Also Read: Life Insurance Company Will Add Fitness Tracking Data to ALL Policies Next Year

By G. Owen Schaefer, National University of Singapore

The idea of scientists tinkering with the genes of babies was once the provenance of science fiction, but now it’s apparently entered the realm of reality: On Nov. 26, Chinese scientist He Jiankui reported the historic live births of twin girls whose genes he had edited. The goal may have been noble: to use CRISPR to alter their genes to include a variant protective against transmission of HIV. But the announcement – yet to be verified – has quickly become mired in a deluge of scientific and ethical criticism of He as a reckless researcher who overstepped well-established boundaries.

Professional outcry

The reaction from the professional community of scientists and ethicists was swift and essentially universal in its condemnation, including by over 100 of He’s colleagues in China.

A central objection is that the study was simply too risky. Researchers have stressed that the risk of off-target effects (unintentionally changing other genes) and mosaicism (only altering the target gene in some of the child’s cells rather than all of them) could lead to unexpected and harmful health effects such as cancer later in life. There is general agreement that at present these risks outweigh any potential benefits, and more basic research is needed before proceeding.

Interestingly, some of the strongest ethical objections to the experiment came from ethicists who have in other venues defended gene editing. Julian Savulescu, for example, has gone so far as to argue that, if it were safe and not too costly, we would even have an obligation to edit our children’s genes. Yet he called the reported experiment “monstrous,” in light of the serious risks and lack of necessity. The twins were never in danger of inheriting a deadly genetic disorder, and there are far less risky ways to prevent HIV transmission.

Public perception

This backlash may have caught He by surprise. According to one report, He commissioned a large-scale public opinion survey in China a few months prior to the announcement. The survey found that over 70 percent of the Chinese public was supportive of using gene editing for HIV prevention. This is roughly in line with a recent Pew poll in the United States that found 60 percent of Americans support using gene editing on babies to reduce lifetime risk of contracting certain diseases.

But polling tells only part of the story. The same Chinese poll also found very low levels of public understanding of gene editing and did not mention the details of He’s study. Abstract polling questions ignore the risks and state of the science, which were crucial to most objections to He’s experiment. It also obscures the involvement of embryos in gene editing. In the American Pew poll, despite overall support for gene editing, 65 percent opposed embryonic testing – a necessary step in the process of gene editing to address disease.

Moreover, polling is a crude and simplistic way to engage in public debate and deliberation over the controversial issue of gene editing. Various bodies, such as the National Academies of Sciences, Medicine and Engineering in the U.S. and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in the U.K., have emphasized that, for gene editing to proceed to human trials, a robust public discussion is first needed to establish its legitimacy.

Yet He decided to proceed in the least transparent way possible, hiding his study from public view, colleagues and his institution, and even going so far as to ban participants from sharing with anyone their participation in the trial, on pain of financial penalty.

He’s recklessness, then, was not limited to risk but also failing to earn public trust and buy-in before proceeding.

IVF can be prohibitively expensive, even without editing the embryos’ genes. AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Consent and Inducement

A further failing of He’s experiment was the consent process. The study recruited couples with an HIV-positive husband and HIV-negative wife. Ostensibly, the couples had a particular interest in ensuring their children never contracted HIV, in light of the intended father’s experience. But looking a little closer reveals other, more problematic motivations.

For such couples, it is possible to safely conceive an HIV-negative child using robust IVF procedures. Such therapy is expensive, prohibitively so for many couples. But He’s study offered a particularly enticing carrot – free IVF treatment and supportive care, along with a daily allowance and insurance coverage during the treatment and pregnancy. According to the consent form, the total value of treatments and payments was approximately US$40,000 – over four times the average annual wage in urban China.

This raises a serious concern of undue inducement: paying research participants such a large sum that it distorts their assessment of the risks and benefits. In this gene editing context, where the risks are incredibly uncertain and there is substantially limited general understanding of genetics and gene editing, society should be especially concerned about the distorting effect of such a large reward on the participants’ provision of free and informed consent.

Aftermath

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In a video announcing the birth of the twins, He announced he was willing to take on all personal responsibility for the conduct and outcomes of the experiment. And indeed, the consequences of this unethical experiment are already piling up. His own university has disavowed him, having previously suspended him, while multiple investigations are being launched into He, his American collaborator and the hospital ethics committee that approved the experiment.

The outcome of those investigations remains to be seen, but it is part of a disturbing pattern in reproduction: rogue scientists bucking international norms to engage in ethically and scientifically dubious reproductive research. Indeed, just within the last two years another set of renegade scientists flaunted established norms to bring about the first “three-parent IVF” babies; there was tremendous outcry, but the procedure now seems to be continuing in the relatively lax regulatory environment of Ukraine.

Hard work is now needed by scientists, ethicists, policymakers and the public at large to figure out how to reverse this trend and return reproductive medicine to a path of responsible research and innovation.

 

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G. Owen Schaefer, Research Assistant Professor in Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Top image caption and credit: Chinese scientists led by He Jiankui claimed they used CRISPR to modify human embryos that eventually were born as twin girls. AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Ken Teh
Associated Press

JINAN, China — Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hotpot meals are not as famous yet as the staff who never lose their patience and never take tips.

The restaurant, which opened this month in Jinan in northern Shandong province, is touted as China’s first robot hotpot eatery where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.

More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists. Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path so customers can reach for dishes they want.

The service industry in China has not always kept up with the country’s rapid economic growth, and can be quite basic in some restaurants, leading customers in the Dalu restaurant to praise the robots.

“They have a better service attitude than humans,” said Li Xiaomei, 35, who was visiting the restaurant for the first time.

“Humans can be temperamental or impatient, but they don’t feel tired, they just keep working and moving round and round the restaurant all night,” Li said.

Inspired by space exploration, robot technology and global innovation, the restaurant’s owner, Zhang Yongpei, said he hopes his restaurant will show the world China is a serious competitor in developing technology.

Read Full Article

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars

On Saturday, the Gray Lady of establishment propaganda, the New York Times, passively admitted that the Stuxnet virus responsible for crippling Iran’s nuclear energy program was engineered by Israeli and U.S. intelligence.

“Officially, neither American nor Israeli officials will even utter the name of the malicious computer program, much less describe any role in designing it,” writes the Times. “But Israeli officials grin widely when asked about its effects.”

A number of computer scientists, nuclear enrichment experts and former officials, say the covert race to create Stuxnet was a joint project between the Americans and the Israelis, with help from the Germans and the British.

The effort to sabotage Iran began during the Bush administration. In early 2009, Bush signed off on an effort to undermine the electrical and computer systems around Natanz, Iran’s major enrichment center. Obama was briefed on the plan before he took office.

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RC Christian
Coup Media

Reporters Sans Frontieres(RSF) points out Chinese journalists and bloggers are to undergo six-month training courses that will teach them how to eradicate false news, improve the feeling of social responsibility and reinforce journalistic ethics. In short, to make journalists and bloggers themselves actors in censorship. The initiative comes from the Propaganda department, directly linked to the Communist Party, and follows its announcement of 10 directives relating to the press in 2011.

They impose a blackout on social and economic problems with a view to reassuring the people and defending the concept of fair growth. Many issues are off-limits, so that the party line is not challenged. They include the property market, rising prices, corruption, the demolition of housing and compulsory relocation, residence permits, the absence of social security, inadequate transport during the Chinese New Year and popular discontent that finds expression in anti-government demonstrations.

Emulating the disgusting paradigm of infamous Graecokleptocrats, who persecute and jail dissident bloggers, the government of China terrorizes dissident bloggers. Blogging in China and Greece, the most corrupt country of Fourth Reich(EU), is considered an extreme-risk avocation. Freakish kleptocrats accuse dissident bloggers of treason, confiscate their computers, and lock them in jail! These prisoners of conscience follow the long tradition of Socrates, who was killed by the Athenian democracy.

Premier George Papandreou of Greece crossed the Rubicon on October 18, 2010, when his deranged minister destroyed a distinguished professor and dissident blogger. That’s why the Global Tax Revolt declared October 18 as the International Day Against Cybercop Brutality. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globaltaxrevolt

RSF notes the Chinese media, including blogs, are forbidden to talk of major criminal affairs, now ranked according to four levels of seriousness. Quotas have been set for the publication of articles and posts dealing with natural disasters or major accidents. In these last two cases, the department also proposes limiting the amount of information made available by banning regional news outlets from exchanging information and journalists and bloggers from answering questions from foreigners.

RSF condemns this escalation in the control of information. The Propaganda Department shows itself to be ever more inventive in working out new directives to put pressure on journalists. This training takes the form of banning among journalists any critical sprit and making out of them state employees in the service of state ideology.

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China’s so-called Great Firewall © AFP/File

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) –  The United States plans to pump millions of dollars into new technology to break through Internet censorship overseas amid a heightened crackdown on dissent in China, officials have said.

State Department officials said they would give $19 million to efforts to evade Internet controls in China, Iran and other authoritarian states which block online access to politically sensitive material.

Michael Posner, the assistant secretary of state in charge of human rights, said funding would support cutting-edge technology that acts as a “slingshot” — identifying material that countries are censoring and throwing it back at them.

“We’re responding with new tools. This is a cat-and-mouse game. We’re trying to stay one step ahead of the cat,” Posner said.

The announcement came shortly after the United States and China wrapped up wide-ranging annual talks in which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed exasperation at Beijing’s intensifying clampdown on domestic critics.

China routinely blocks sites that present non-official viewpoints on topics such as Tibet’s exiled leader the Dalai Lama, the banned Falungong spiritual movement and the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

More recently, Chinese authorities blocked search results for “Hillary Clinton” after she gave a speech championing Internet freedom and for “Jasmine,” an allusion to pro-democracy uprisings sweeping the Arab world.

“In effect, we’re going to be redirecting information back in that governments have initially blocked,” Posner said.

“This can be done through email or posting it on blogs or RSS feeds or websites that the government hasn’t figured out how to block,” he said.

The funding comes out of $30 million which the US Congress allocated in the current fiscal year for Internet freedom.

The failure until now to spend the money led lawmakers to accuse the State Department of kowtowing to China. A recent Senate committee report called for another government body to be put in charge of the funds.

Falungong supporters developed the so-called Global Internet Freedom Consortium, a software to evade China’s Internet firewall that was so effective that Iranians sought it out during 2009 protests against the clerical regime.

Posner said that the State Department would not identify the recipients of funding due partly to “reasons of security.”

Another US official who requested anonymity said that the State Department received requests for funding totaling $180 million and that it chose which ones appeared most effective.

The funding grants still need the green light from Congress, but the official voiced hope that it would happen quickly.

Clothilde Le Coz, Washington director of the media rights group Reporters Without Borders, welcomed the news and its timing, saying that China is jailing 77 people due to their Internet activities.

“It is a good news to know that more netizens will certainly be helped in getting their word out,” she said.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

But she said that circumvention tools for the Internet were a “Band-Aid” as the larger issue was ensuring freedom of expression.

In a speech in February, Clinton called the Internet “the public space of the 21st century” and pledged US efforts to ensure that it develops in a way that allows freedom of expression and association.

However, she also criticized activist site WikiLeaks for publishing secret US cables. She accused WikiLeaks of “theft” and said the issue did not contradict the US commitment to an open Internet.

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license

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© AFP/File Li Xin

AFP

BEIJING (AFP) –   China said Thursday it was “unacceptable” to blame it for a cyberspying campaign which Google said had targeted the Gmail accounts of senior US officials, journalists and Chinese activists.

The comments marked the latest salvo in a battle between the Chinese government and Google dating back to last year when the US Internet giant revealed it had been the victim of a separate China-based cyberattack.

“To put all of the blame on China is unacceptable,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters.

“The so-called statement that the Chinese government supports hacking attacks is a total fabrication… It has ulterior motives.”

Google said Wednesday it was hit by a cyberspying campaign that appeared to have originated in Jinan, capital of the eastern Chinese province of Shandong.

The company did not specifically point the finger of blame at Chinese authorities.

“We recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing,” Google security team engineering director Eric Grosse said in a blog post.

“The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings,” he said.

Those affected included senior US government officials, Chinese political activists, military personnel, journalists and officials in several Asian countries, mainly South Korea, Grosse said.

“Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails,” he said.

“We have notified victims and secured their accounts,” he added. “In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities.”

The “phishing” ruse used to trick Gmail users into revealing account names and passwords reportedly involved sending booby-trapped messages that appeared to come from legitimate associates, friends or organisations.

The White House is investigating the situation but has no reason to believe that Gmail accounts of senior government officials were hacked, an official told AFP.

Briefing reporters on a new White House strategy statement about cyber-security, the Pentagon Tuesday did not rule out a military response if the United States was hit by an online attack.

“A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber response,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Google said the California-based firm’s systems and servers were not attacked.

There was no indication whether the Gmail spying campaign was related to the China-based cyberattack on Google that prompted the company early last year to stop bowing to Internet censors and reduce its presence in the country.

Google, whose motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, had initially threatened to close its Chinese operations altogether because of censorship and cyberattacks it said originated from China.

At that time, Beijing virulently denied any state involvement in the cyberattacks that Google said targeted email accounts of Chinese human rights activists, saying such claims were “groundless”.

Beijing tightly controls online content in a vast system dubbed the “Great Firewall of China”, removing information it deems harmful such as pornography and violent content, but also politically sensitive material.

Noting that China too had been a victim of cyberattacks, Hong said: “The Chinese government always disapproves of criminal activities including hacker activities and other activities that impair the Internet.”

The spokesman added: “We punish these activities in accordance with law.”

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license

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The Pentagon has seen its budget double since the September 11 attacks © AFP/File Marwan Naamani

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Army has said it had awarded nearly $900 million in contracts to British arms manufacturer BAE Systems and US firm General Dynamics to develop its next-generation ground combat vehicle.

The Pentagon said it had given $450 million to BAE and $440 million to General Dynamics to develop “competitive, affordable and executable designs for a new Army Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV)” over the next two years.

The vehicle, which is expected to be able to transport nine infantrymen, is due to be operational by 2018, replacing the aging Bradleys and Strykers, it said in a statement.

The Pentagon, whose budget has doubled since the September 11, 2001 attacks, is bracing for drastic cuts in the coming years as the United States attempts to rein in the spiraling deficit.

The launch of the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) program before the severity of the cuts is known allows the Army to ensure it will not die on the chopping block.

“Given the economic environment the nation currently faces, the Army recognizes that it is imperative to continually address requirements as we build a versatile, yet affordable, next-generation infantry fighting vehicle,” Secretary of the Army John McHugh said, according to the statement.

“This is an important milestone in our Army’s modernization program,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.

“GCV is the first combat vehicle designed from inception for an IED (improvised explosive device) environment. It will provide armor protection and the capability to maneuver cross-country with the nine-man infantry squad.”

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license

Janet C. Phelan
Activist Post

Amidst allegations by a highly placed Colonel in the Chinese army that the U.S. has released a bioweapon in Mainland China, concerns are ramping up that this year’s version of the avian flu, H7N9, may turn into a major pandemic.

The last few years have seen several false alarms on the pandemic front. Neither the bird flu of 2004 nor the swine flu of 2009-2010 ended up being of much concern, although agencies from the WHO on down certainly created quite a flurry around both of these flu bugs.

H7N9 has already shown itself to have a high mortality rate, higher in fact than the Spanish flu of 1918, which caused 50 million deaths worldwide. The latest figures show H7N9 as having a mortality rate of 21- 24%. Out of 131 reported cases, thirty-one have died and most remain on the critical list. The bug has already jumped from Mainland China to Taiwan and a number of articles on H7N9 have nervously published the flight paths out of China to the rest of the world, which show how quickly an infected person or persons could create a global pandemic.

According to Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director-general for health, security and the environment, “This is definitely one of the most lethal influenza viruses that we have seen so far.”

Already, there are questions as to whether H7N9 has mutated and is now transmissible from human to human. Of those who have been documented as infected with this flu, several are family members of others who have been infected. As quoted in Quartz on April 18, “The Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Thursday it could not rule out human-to-human transmission in the case of a Shanghai family—two brothers, at least one of whom has the virus, and their 87-year-old father, who was the first confirmed H7N9 fatality. A husband and wife in Shanghai also both contracted H7N9.” (Source)

In a carefully worded statement, WHO has declared: “So far, there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission.” So the fact is that while H7N9 may have already mutated to afford the leap to human-to-human transmission, this has not yet been noted as a regular event.

H7N9 is made up of four strains, which have been delineated as coming from a migratory bird in East Asia, a duck from the Yangtze River Delta and then subsequently mixed with poultry. Its novel gene sequence is already considered to have enabled it to adapt to human hosts.

H7N9 is considered to be resistant to the popular flu countermeasure, Tamiflu.

After Chinese PLA Colonel Dai Xu posted a scathing attack on the United States, accusing the primary global power of releasing H7N9 as a bioweapon on the mainland of China, the U.S. was quick to respond, denying the allegations. However, Dai Xu’s accusation, posted on the Chinese microblog Sina Weibu, brings up an inconvenient fact. The United States has already been documented as violating the international biological weapons treaty, known as the BWC and has launched a covert program of offensive biological warfare research.

Should the U.S. intend to launch a global pandemic for the purposes of population reduction and/or genocide, what better mechanism than to plant a bug in a faraway country, to obscure the genesis of the initiating event and to make this appear as if this were out of the U.S.’s control and jurisdiction?

The fact that several selective delivery systems for biological/chemical warfare have already been documented within the borders of the United States adds credence to the perception that a flu planted in another country could be used as a cover for a selective devastation of certain demographic groups within the First World. The declaration of a global pandemic gives the WHO the power to mandate vaccinations, overriding sovereign national law concerning the right of refusal.

Vaccines, imposter pharmaceuticals, the double line water system  — any and all of these mechanisms could be used to launch a bio/chem attack under the cover of a global pandemic.

Secret $1.8 Million Cryptocurrency Script

Speaking under conditions of anonymity in a recent interview, a well-connected U.S. microbiologist stated that he believed that the United States was launching a covert program of biological warfare which would selectively impact designated target groups. He also stated concerns as to H7N9 being one of the tools which could be used to accomplish a genocidal agenda.

China, he also pointed out, has possibly the largest depository of rare earth minerals in the world. “You can’t get at them with all these billions of people living right on top of them,” he said.

A number of insiders, including Dr. Daniel Gerstein of the Department of Homeland Security, former Senators Bill Talent and Bob Graham of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Center in Washington, D.C. and vaccine manufacturer, Dr. J. Joseph Kim of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, have stated that a major global pandemic is likely to take place before the end of 2013. (Source)

Janet Phelan is an investigative journalist whose articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The San Bernardino County Sentinel, The Santa Monica Daily Press, The Long Beach Press Telegram, Oui Magazine and other regional and national publications. Janet specializes in issues pertaining to legal corruption and addresses the heated subject of adult conservatorship, revealing shocking information about the relationships between courts and shady financial consultants. She also covers issues relating to international bioweapons treaties. Her poetry has been published in Gambit, Libera, Applezaba Review, Nausea One and other magazines. Her first book, The Hitler Poems, was published in 2005. She currently resides abroad.  You may browse through her articles (and poetry) at janetphelan.com

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Sayer Ji

Activist Post

Could the global tide in support of GMOs be turning? A new report reveals that the formerly pro-GMO Chinese government, one of the largest consumers of GMO food crops in the world, is beginning to crack down on GM corn shipments from the US that have not followed appropriate biosafety regulations.

According to a news brief released today by GMWatch.org, China destroyed three shipments of GM corn imported from the US. GMWatch.org reported:

The law says that the [Chinese] Ministry of Agriculture must require environmental and food safety tests to be carried out by Chinese institutions, in order to verify data provided by the seed developer. All these documents must be reviewed by the National Biosafety Committee before the MOA can issue a safety certificate. Yet these shipments of US corn did not have the relevant safety certificates and approval documents, according to the news reports below.

The first two shipments are referenced on the website of the Zhuhai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, confirming that two illegal GM corn shipments entered Wanzai Port in Zhuhai City on May 7th, and were subsequently destroyed:

Recently, during inspection and quarantine of imported food from USA by a certain company, the Wanzai Office of Zhuhai Inspection and Quarantine Bureau (in Guangdong Province in the south of China) detected two shipments containing GM corn products, which are not in compliance with China’s “Entry and Exit of Genetically Modified Products Inspection and Quarantine Management Approach“. The Office destroyed the two shipments of corn according to the provisions.*

The existence of a third shipment was confirmed in a May 19th article appearing on news.china.com.cn titled, “Harbin intercepted a total of 115 kgs of GM corn seeds, which will be destroyed“:

Recently, the Harbin Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau intercepted inbound mail of 21 cartons of corn seeds from USA, totaling 115 kgs, which were detected as GM seeds. This is the first time that the Heilongjiang Provincial Inspection and Quarantine System has intercepted inbound corn seeds containing GM ingredients. These corn seeds will be destroyed. *

Surprisingly, despite these seemingly drastic steps by Chinese authorities to destroy GM seeds, an article in China Daily from last year explains that the consumption of GM soybeans is already universal in China, even despite widespread public concerns that they have not been adequately safety tested:

Summary: Imported RR soybeans (Roundup herbicide resistant GM soybeans) has already accounted to over 80% of total consumption of soybeans in China, but the assessment and approval procedures for the initial imported GM soybeans, has been oppugned that it’s examination procedures exists with defects. According to news reports, on Feb. 20, 2012, Gu Xiu-lin and other three citizens upon application were approved to check the “certification documents for the GM soybeans obtaining safety certificates”

The China Daily article goes on to quote Shi Yan-quan, Deputy Director, Agricultural Finance and Education Dept., who stated on April 20, 2012, that over 50 million tons of GMO soybeans were imported to China in 2011 alone. The article also refers to the fact that for eight years, 1.3 billion Chinese consumers have been consuming Monsanto’s GM food crops, relying entirely on biotech-funded safety evaluations, without any independent safety testing carried out by the Chinese government. Additionally, a revealing study published in 2012 found that the Chinese print media is completely co-opted by biotech industry influence. They revealed that “48.1% of articles were largely supportive of the GM technology research and development programs and the adoption of GM cottons, while 51.9% of articles were neutral on the subject of GMOs. Risks associated with GMOs were mentioned in the newspaper articles, but none of the articles expressed negative tones in regards to GMOs.” The authors concluded: “Chinese print media is largely supportive of GMOs. It also indicates that the print media describes the Chinese government as actively pursuing national GMO research and development programs and the promotion of GM cotton usage.”

Are these latest incidents a sign that the Chinese government is beginning to take more seriously the health threats associated with the consumption of genetically modified food? According to the GMWatch.org report’s primary informant, who for purposes of anonymity goes by the pseudonym “Mr. Li”:

“[T]he new government’s decisive move to destroy the illegal GMOs “progressive, encouraging, and satisfying”. He regards it as a sign that it is keeping its promise to work for the people and the nation. 

Mr Li said: “The deeply pro-GMO old government would not have made such a thing public. It would have secretly returned the shipments, or in most cases it would not even have inspected shipments that could contain GM ingredients.”

References:

*Translated by a Chinese citizen whose identity remains anonymous, but GMWatch refers to under the pseudonym as “Mr. Li.”


This article first appeared at GreenMedInfo.  Please visit to access their vast database of articles and the latest information in natural health.

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