World News Thread & Breaking News!!

[Jeff Head]

Hey they did it back during the Wen Ho Lee scandal who was arrested for espionage passing a law that anyone of Chinese descent were not allowed in government labs.

This is simply not true.

A person who is not a US citizen and a national of the PRC cannot work there, or attend these conferences. That a far, far different thing than what you just stated.

Some of the military and government best scientists in the US are American citizens who also are of Chinese descent.

 

[AssassinsMace]

This is simply not true.

A person who is not a US citizen and a national of the PRC cannot work there, or attend these conferences. That a far, far different thing than what you just stated.

Some of the military and government best scientists in the US are American citizens who also are of Chinese descent.

Not back during the Wen Ho Lee scandal which is also probably one of the reasons why it got rescinded.

 

[Jeff Head]

Not back during the Wen Ho Lee scandal which is also probably one of the reasons why it got rescinded.

To my knowledge, there was never such a law to rescind.

Wen Ho Lee was born in Taiwan, but he became a US citizen in 1965. . He worked \at Livermore Labs then, despite his descent. When the indictment occurred he was charged with 59 crimes, but ultimately the government could only prove one item...that he mishandled secure documents. NBo espionage was ever proven.

He was paid $1.6 million in the settlement of a ciovil suite he filed because the government "leaked" his name to the press before any formal charges had been filed.

But there was no law that disallowed Chinese descent individuals from working in US laboratories, then or now.

 

[AssassinsMace]

Back then the US was hysterical over the Cox Report which lead to the Wen Ho Lee indictment. The Cox Report basically charged that every Chinese in the US is a potential spy for the PRC. That caused outrage in the Chinese-American community because it painted a broad brush. I was paying close attention since those days were more of my activist days. I believe it was the House that passed legislation calling for a broad ban at all government labs and it was killed within a week. Did it actually become law? No. But it was heading that direction and it wasn't anything like the process where the majority of legislatures voted against it. It was killed during the process because someone else sounded the alarm bells of its ramifications to national security if passed.

Yeah, this present ban passed because it targets only Chinese nationals. The one back during the Wen Ho Lee scandal targeted simply on ethnicity alone.

 

[delft]

Re: Costa Concordia

The CEO of a large Dutch towing company just told a Dutch radio station that his company will tow the Costa Concordia to the breakers. Which breakers is as yet unknown, but he will need some three month to prepare the wreck for towing and that will cost much more money than the actual tow to Genoa or Palermo or wherever, in Italy anyway, and in the mean time the breakers can be selected

 

[Jeff Head]

The Cox Report basically charged that every Chinese in the US is a potential spy for the PRC. That caused outrage in the Chinese-American community because it painted a broad brush. I believe it was the House that passed legislation calling for a broad ban at all government labs and it was killed within a week. Did it actually become law? No.

Yeah, this present ban passed because it targets only Chinese nationals. The one back during the Wen Ho Lee scandal targeted simply on ethnicity alone.

I lived through those days as well and have been very active since the 1980s and still am. You are simply mistaken.

There was no such ban...and in fact the Cox Report does not make the statements or claims that you indicate.

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.

You will have to provide a very credible link pointing to the legislation and the bill number, the dates it was voted on, etc. to support such a claim, because quite frankly, I followed this very closely and never heard of, saw, or had mentioned any such legislation, or any attempt to even bring forward such a bill.

If a bill of the type you indicate passed and then was either tabled or voted down, it will have a date, a bill number, and a vote count. Please link to such information for such a bill (in the House or the Senate) that would ban any person of Chinese descent working in a US Lab.

I have worked in the past with Lawrence Livermore and Sandia labs and I can safely say to you from my own experience of seeing and working with people in those labs that here isn't any, either then or now.

 

[delft]

Re: Costa Concordia

From

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Huge salvage vessel may help lift Costa Concordia wreck

The wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship could be loaded aboard a colossal salvage vessel after a deal was struck with a Dutch company.

The Dockwise Vanguard, capable of picking up oil rigs, has been recruited as an option to move the ship.

The vessel can sink under the Concordia then rise up to lift it clear of the water before sailing it to be scrapped.

Some 32 people died after the Concordia ran aground with more than 4,000 passengers and crew in January 2012.

Salvage teams moved the ship to an upright position last month, enabling divers to find the remains of one of two people who were still unaccounted for.

'Safe and swift'

Costa Crociere, Concordia's owner, said the Vanguard had been retained as one possible option for removing the wreck from its current location off Giglio island in 2014.

It said the $30m (£19m) contract to use the salvage vessel would offer a "safe and swift" method to transport the cruise ship to its as yet undetermined final destination.

The company said the operation is the biggest salvage ever attempted on a ship of the Concordia's size.

The 275m-long (902ft) Vanguard has no bow and a flat stern, allowing it contain the longer cruise ship.

The Vanguard, described by its Dutch owner Royal Boskalis as the world's largest semi-submersible ship, uses vast ballast tanks to lower and raise itself around its cargo.

The company said modifications would need to be made before it is capable of carrying Concordia.

See the reference for a computer graphic showing how the salvage operation would look.

 

[AssassinsMace]

I lived through those days as well and have been very active since the 1980s and still am. You are simply mistaken.

There was no such ban...and in fact the Cox Report does not make the statements or claims that you indicate.

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.

You will have to provide a very credible link pointing to the legislation and the bill number, the dates it was voted on, etc. to support such a claim, because quite frankly, I followed this very closely and never heard of, saw, or had mentioned any such legislation, or any attempt to even bring forward such a bill.

If a bill of the type you indicate passed and then was either tabled or voted down, it will have a date, a bill number, and a vote count. Please link to such information for such a bill (in the House or the Senate) that would ban any person of Chinese descent working in a US Lab.

I have worked in the past with Lawrence Livermore and Sandia labs and I can safely say to you from my own experience of seeing and working with people in those labs that here isn't any, either then or now.

Well I remember seeing it on the news and there was some meeting by lab workers at Los Alamos about it. And I remember how they were talking about how banning Chinese from the labs was going to affect work there thus was in itself a threat to national security. That was the number one reason they retreated not because Congress voted it down.

The Cox Report used Tsien Hsue-Shen, one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Labarotory as an example of Chinese spies in the US. If he was guilty he should've been sent to prison yet all they did was ship him to China. Everyone knows he was railroaded yet the Cox Report stuck to the narrative he was guilty. The Cox Report showed no proof but made assumptions. Since the Wen Ho Lee spying charges were a result of the Cox Report and they had no proof, what was the purpose except to make changes in the national labs? Since it was about Chinese spies showing no proof that was the case at the labs, what was the purpose then? It's the same as what happened to Tsien Hsue-Shen. They didn't want any Chinese involved. Wen Ho Lee as you have stated was American and of Taiwanese descent and all the charges on him except one was dropped to save the government face. There's was no proof he was a spy. They used him for a political agenda. That alone tells you they will target Americans without any proof.

There's a history of targeting the Chinese in general. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law that barred someone from entering the US on the basis of race alone. I remember watching the documentary on Vincent Chin who was murdered back in the early 1980s by two Detroit autoworkers because they thought he was Japanese. The ACLU was asked to help in this civil rights case and the answer from them was they didn't believe Chinese had rights. Do you know of Republican Matt Fong who ran against Barbara Boxer for California's senate seat. He lost that election and George Bush afterwards nominated him for some position in the Pentagon since Fong was an Air Force veteran. Some Republican in Congress brought up how he was Chinese and that alone killed his nomination. Matt Fong is an American-born Chinese. That was around the same time. You remember Congressman David Wu who was prevented from entering the Energy Department for a meeting he was invited to but the guard stopped him because he was Chinese? He had all the ID necessary yet the guard wouldn't let him in. That was also a result of the Cox Report. There's an atmosphere and history that allows to paint a broad brush against the Chinese.

It's not really hard to believe that someone in Congress would try to pass a law that targets someone on race alone. I did some surfing but haven't found anything yet to back my case. But then looking for more specific information on the incident with David Wu was hard to find too but I found something for that. You can find a CNN link mentioning it here

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but it ends on the CNN homepage. That tells you how buried the info can be.

 

[Franklin]

This years winner somewhat goes back to the original intent of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Syria monitors win Nobel Peace Prize

The OPCW, the body overseeing destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Committee said it was in honour of the OPCW's "extensive work to eliminate chemical weapons".

The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was established to enforce the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

It recently sent inspectors to carry out the dismantling of Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons.

The watchdog picks up a gold medal and 8m Swedish kronor ($1.25m; £780,000) as winner of the most coveted of the Nobel honours.
Successful treaty

Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai and gynaecologist Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of Congo had been tipped as favourites to take the award.

Others who had been listed as contenders were Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), the US soldier convicted of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks and Maggie Gobran, an Egyptian computer scientist who abandoned her academic career to become a Coptic Christian nun and founded the charity Stephen's Children.

But an hour before Friday's announcement, Norway's public broadcaster reported the award would go to the OPCW.

The BBC's Lars Bevanger, reporting from Oslo where the announcement was made, said the award recognises the organisation that oversees arguably the most successful disarmament treaty in the world today.

The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention has contributed to the destruction of nearly 80% of the world's chemical weapons stockpile.

Syria - which is believed to have one of the world's largest chemical weapons stockpiles - is expected to be the 131st country to sign the treaty, our correspondent adds.

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[Jeff Head]

Well I remember seeing it...

And I remember how they were talking about...

The Cox Report used Tsien Hsue-Shen, one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Labarotory as an example. Everyone knows he was railroaded...

Come on, Assasin, all of this is conjecture. What is "remembered" and what "everyone knows," yet there is not a single link to a verifiable, credible source for any of it. I did give you a link to the Cox Report and the things you state are simply not in there in terms of any shred of attempt to disallow people anything because of their race or culture. It does speak to ideology, which is an entirely different matter.

Wen Ho Lee as you have stated was American and of Taiwanese descent and all the charges on him except one was dropped. There's was no proof he was a spy. That alone tells you they will target Americans without any proof.

The charges were dropped because there was no proof, as I said...except for the one, of mishandling secret documents, where there was ample proof, and he was convicted of that. So, where there was no proof, it was dropped, where there was proof, he was convuicted. That's how the system is supposed to work. And in his case...it did!

Then he was paid millions because the government under Clinton did intentionally leak his name before charges were filed. He filed suite and won! Again, it worked exaclty as it should for him, despite his race. If there was this racial exclusion and attack against Chinese he would never have been awarded that money...and yet he was.

The ACLU was asked to help in this civil rights case and the answer from them was they didn't believe Chinese had rights.

That's a very serious charge, Assassin, and the ACLU is not an organization I generally admire very much...but this charge is so obtuse, you simply have to give us a credible link to a source where the ACLU said this. I simply do not believe they did.

Do you know of Republican Matt Fong who ran against Barbara Boxer for California's senate seat. He lost that election and George Bush afterwards nominated him for some position in the Pentagon since Fong was an Air Force veteran. Some Republican in Congress brought up how he was Chinese and that alone killed his nomination.

Oh, Hoigwash, Assasin. Can you sorce or link to where a US Congressman, and a republican at that, said anything negative about Fong on the House or Senate floor because he was Chinese? You never will. Nothjing like that killed Matt Fong's nomination Assassin. He was a Republican and a veteran. The Democrats killed it along political lines, plain and simple...not because he was Chinese.

It's not really hard to believe that someone in Congress would try to pass a law that targets someone on race alone. I did some surfing but haven't found anything yet to back my case.

And until, and unless you do...I rest mine. These cannot be wild-eyed, far left, or other sources, Assassin, I am talking about credible, verifiable news sources. "He said she said," does not cut it with such broad accusations as these.

But then looking for more specific information on the incident with David Wu was hard to find too but I found something for that. You can find a CNN link mentioning it here

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.

The 80-20 is an Asian PAC to try and address discrimination.

I have no doubt that there are isolated cases of discrimination...even by some government employees. I support the 80-20 in rooting that out. But there has not been, as a Result of the Cox Report, or in the last 50 years, any passed, or even introduced legislation in the US House or Senate that I am aware of in the least, that would bar an individuals involvement in US research simply because of his or her race or descent being Chinese. If they had neen a membetr of affialiated with the Communist Party? Yes. If they were not a US citizen? Yes. If they were a member of any crime organization or other organization criminally plotting against the US? Yes. If they had committed felonious crimes or been convicted of various trust/character related crimes? Yes. But not on the basis of them simply being of Chinese descent.