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星期五, 7月 10, 2020

RED SOX TO HOST BLUE JAYS IN PAIR OF EXHIBITION GAMES ON JULY 21 & 22

RED SOX TO HOST BLUE JAYS IN PAIR OF
EXHIBITION GAMES ON JULY 21 & 22
Two-Game Set with Toronto Will Conclude Red Sox Summer Camp

BOSTON, MA – The Boston Red Sox today announced that they will host a pair of exhibition games against the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park on Tuesday, July 21 and Wednesday, July 22.

The first pitch for both games is slated for 7:30 p.m. The games will be televised by NESN and carried on WEEI 93.7 FM.

These will be the only two exhibition contests for the Red Sox. The club opens its regular season schedule at Fenway Park on Friday, July 24 against the Baltimore Orioles at 7:30 p.m.

MAYOR WALSH ANNOUNCES START OF IN-PERSON SUMMER YOUTH PROGRAMMING FOR BOSTON CENTERS FOR YOUTH & FAMILIES

MAYOR WALSH ANNOUNCES START OF IN-PERSON SUMMER YOUTH PROGRAMMING FOR BOSTON CENTERS FOR YOUTH & FAMILIES
All programming will be operated in accordance with public health guidelines

Mayor Walsh emphasize the importance of wearing a mask.
BOSTON - Friday, July 10, 2020 - Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF) today announced that online registration has opened for City-operated summer youth programs and classes, all of which are designed and will be operated in accordance with current public health guidelines. All BCYF community centers have been closed for in-person programming and recreation due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, with the exception of select locations that have served as meal sites only. Some summer teen programs were transitioned to be offered virtually. 

"It is very important that our youth in every neighborhood can continue to have access to programming this summer as many families rely on them," said Mayor Walsh. "BCYF has worked hard to create a menu of recreational activities at each center, both virtual and in-person, that will offer youth a variety of fun and enriching opportunities."

Programming for Boston youth ages 7 and above is available for registration now at Boston.gov/BCYF-Summer. The free programs will be held both remotely and in person at BCYF community centers across the city. A wide variety of options are available, including arts and computer activities, recreational programs, virtual field trips, workshops, and more. At this time, BCYF centers and indoor pools will be available only for youth during registered in-person summer programming, following public health guidelines. 

"While this summer will certainly be different, we are committed to providing safe, healthy, and engaging summer activities for our youth," said William Morales, Commissioner of Boston Centers for Youth & Families. "We are carefully reviewing programming guidelines as they are released and updated and all of our summer programs were designed and will be operated in accordance with current public health guidelines. We can't wait to see your children in our buildings--and virtually." 

Parents will be able to search for one-time classes or on-going programs where they can then narrow down their search by community center, age group, category, and more. As more programs and activities are finalized they will be added to the website and available for registration. 

Overnight camps will not be permitted until Summer 2021 due to State regulations during the current COVID-19 public health crisis. For current summer day programs there can be no field trips, activities are restricted, enrollment is restricted, volunteers are not allowed, visitors are not allowed, no outside groups can come to centers and very strict cleaning and sanitation guidelines need to be followed. 

These programs are in addition to a variety of expanded BCYF programming for teens which began on Monday, July 6 and includes over 600 youth jobs through the Mayor's Summer Jobs Program. Job applications are still available for youth between the ages of 15 and 24 in the City of Boston.

BCYF community centers will also continue to distribute meals to youth throughout the summer as part of the Boston Summer Eats program. The complete list of meal locations can be found here.  

星期四, 7月 09, 2020

Authright杯麻州圍棋賽7/19及7/26日網上舉行

(Boston Orange)Authright公司贊助的Authright杯麻州圍棋賽訂2020719日、26日在網路上(https://www.gokgs.com/)KGS,分6組舉行,限麻州居民參加,每位棋手只能參加一組比賽,優勝者可獲得30元至100元不等的獎金。
報名可上網https://tinyurl.com/authright,報名費$9.99
6類組別及獎金如下:
公開組(分先):冠軍$300、亞軍$200、季軍$150、殿軍$100
1-3段組(分先):冠軍$100、亞軍$50、季軍$30
1-9級組(讓子棋):前三名頒發獎杯
10級或更低(讓子棋):前三名頒發獎狀
青年組(分先,18歲以下,20017月後出生):冠軍$100、亞軍$50、季軍$30
少年組(分先,12歲以下,20077月後出生):冠軍$100、亞軍$50、季軍$30
            查詢詳情可洽Go.KeLu@gmail.com,或電話: 781-296-7519

麻省理工學院研發出類N95新口罩 易消毒 可重複用

MIT研發的可重複使用,具N95功效的新口罩。(來自MIT新聞網站)

(Boston Orange整理報導)麻省理工學院(MIT)新聞今日發表文章,報導該校和布里吉罕及婦女醫院(Brigham and Women’s Hospita)的研究人員,已設計出一種矽膠製新口罩,在防止病毒分子侵入上,和N95口罩一樣有效,而且消毒容易,可重複使用。
在美國新型冠狀病毒(COVID-19)確診個案持續增長之際,醫護等等人員仍然迫切需要N95面罩。MIT這新面罩的材料是很耐用的矽膠,可以用世界各地工廠廣泛使用的模型注射方式製造。這口罩包括一層N95的過濾層,但和傳統的N95口罩相比,需要的N95材料少得多。
MIT表示,這種矽膠是烤盤和其他一些產品都會用到的材料。
MIT機械工程系助理教授兼布里吉罕婦女醫院腸胃科醫師Giovanni Traverso表示,我們很早就確認的其中一個關鍵是,為了因應需求,我們必須嚴格限制自己找能夠大規模生產的方法。我們想要最大化系統的可重複使用姓,我們也想要有能夠以很多種不同方式消毒的系統。
研究團隊現正根據醫護人員回饋,研究製作第二版本,並計畫成立公司來支持生產,爭取FDA,以及全國職業安全及健康研究院(NIOSH)批准。
Giovanni Traverso是今日在英國醫學雜誌(British Medical Journal Open)發表的這篇文章上的資深作者,這一研究的其他主要作者包括布里吉罕婦女醫院的放射腫瘤學家James Byrne,研究工程師Adam Wentworth,急診醫學醫師Peter Chai,研究員Hen-Wei Huang。他們也都是MIT Koch研究院的研究員。

前波士頓僑教中心主任黃海龍辭世

黄海龍湖北武昌人氏。為黄山谷公之後裔,至相鳯貴公移居湖北大冶靈峰鄉棲儒堡草王嘴黄家新莊。

海龍於中華民國109年7月1日喜樂劃下人生休止符,安祥辭世。其一生愛國愛友愛家,刻苦自勵、敬業奉獻而又絢麗豐富多彩。

身後遵囑不發訃文、不公祭暨婉謝弔慰。今已安厝汐止五指山國軍公墓忠靈殿長眠。

海龍特别交待要感謝師長、同學及親朋好友們長期以来的關懷與愛䕶。

再次感谢大家!
並祝福大家平安 喜樂 健康!

全體家屬   鞠躬

中華民國109、7、9

哈佛、MIT、東北等至少5所大學要告ICE、DHS


               (Boston Orange 周菊子正理報導)哈佛,MIT之後,東北大學,康乃爾大學,加州大學陸續加入抗告行列,要求禁制執行移民局(ICE)76日發出修改令,要求所有課程只能在網上學習的國際學生離開美國。該修改令可能影響約40萬名刻在美國進修的國際學生。
               波士頓環球報指出,持用學習簽證的國際學生,麻州約有77,000人,新英格蘭其他各州另有約32,000人。在國際學生人數上,以州來計,麻州排名全美第四,加州全美第一,約185,000。以學校計,東北大學16,000,位居全美第三。
               今日美國(USA Today)指出,在法律訴訟文件上,哈佛大學表示包括研究院的該校23,000名學生中,約有5000人持用F-1簽證,MIT則表示該校11,500學生中,約有4000人持F-1簽證。
               美國移民局在76日週一時,發出通告,說明學生及交換訪問項目(The Student and Exchange Visitor Program)”的臨時修改,內容包括規定持F-1M-1簽證的學生,如果所上學校的所有課程都在網上教授,這些學生將不可留在美國,國務院也不會發簽證給今秋註冊到這些學校上課的學生。如果F-1學生所上學校採取教室和網上授課雙軌制教學,F-1學生可以上一堂課或三個學分以上的網上課,學校必須經由I-20表格證明該課程不是全部在網上教授。
               哈佛大學和麻省理工學院(MIT)78(週三)向位於波士頓的美國地區法院提出告訴,控告美國國土安全局(DHS)和移民局(ICE),申請臨時禁制令,要求美國移民局這一政策暫緩14天。東北大學當日傍晚宣佈,加入提告行列。康乃爾大學,加州大學也都分別表示,抗議ICE這一新規定。
               哈佛及MIT在交給法院的文件中表示,他們依照國土安全局(DHS)三月份發出的通告,准許外籍學生留在美國,也准許新學生今秋入學。
               但是川普政府在76日發出的新規定,卻是如果課程只在網上舉行,外籍學生就必須離開美國,或是轉學到那些面對面授課的學校,否則會面臨被遣返的危險。
               儘管ICE建議國際學生可轉學,以避免被遣返,但ICE在離秋季開學僅數週前採取這一行動,而轉學,入學申請早已截止,在美境內的數以千計國際學生根本別無選擇。然而,許多學生一旦回國,可能因為沒有網路,戰亂,根本無法繼續學業,甚至還有生命危險。
               哈佛早前已宣佈,今秋所有課程將在網上遙距教授,但准許40%的大學本科生,包括所有一年級的新鮮人進入校園。麻省理工學院則在6月份時已表示,大部分課程將在網上教授,只有未特定,數目有限的學生可以進校園。
               根據高等教育紀事報(The Chronicle of Higher Education),約60%的大專院校目前在計畫面對面授課。NAFSA國際教育者協會在四月份的一份調查估計,今秋外籍學生註冊人數會減少,美國高等教育界可能損失30億美元。
               哈佛大學校長鮑考(Lawrence Bacow)在宣佈提告的聲明中表示,ICE的命令是出人意外的殘酷又草率,顯然是設計來逼迫大學院校今秋重新開放校園,面對面授課,卻完全不考慮學生,教員及其他人的健康與安全。
               Business Insider表示,東北大學,加州大學都在78日宣佈加入哈佛和MIT的提告行列。東北大學校長Joseph Aoun表示,國體安全局的新規定在國際學生間製造了混亂,結果將弱化美國的高等教育。加州大學校長Janet Napolitano稱該規定刻薄,獨斷,對美國有害,將控告聯邦政府侵犯了大學及其學生的權利。WENY News78日傍晚報導,康乃爾大學也將加入控訴行動,該校和其他大學稱ICE在病毒大流行期間執行這一行動,將使學校不可能既保障學生的安全,同時又支持他們。
               川普總統週三在推特上表示對疾病防治中心(CDC)制定的學校重新開放指導原則不滿,稱那非常難且昂貴,還威脅如國學校下學期不重新開門,就要扣押學校經費。

星期三, 7月 08, 2020

Mayor Koch Announces Opening of New Kincaide Park


Mayor Koch Announces Opening of New Kincaide Park
July 8, 2020
QUINCY - Mayor Thomas Koch is set to open the newly-renovated Kincaide Park on Water Street in Southwest Quincy. The City invested more than $5.7 million in improving the park’s recreational elements and creating a five-acre rain garden to help deal with localized flooding issues. A new synthetic turf soccer field is the centerpiece of the project, surrounded by a walking track, fitness equipment, a spray-ground, two and half basketball courts, a sprinting track, a children’s playground, 140 new trees, and more than 1,100 new plants.
“This investment should significantly enhance the quality of life in this neighborhood and for our entire city,” said Mayor Koch. “Health and wellness are major issues in today’s society and every neighborhood deserves access to public facilities that promote health and wellness. This new park provides a wide range of recreational opportunities for people of all ages, interests, and abilities.”
The park was designed by Bishop Land Design and local landscape architect Scott Bishop after months of community meetings and input. The contractor that won the competitive bid process was also a Quincy outfit, Fleming Bros. Construction.
Added Koch, “I want to thank Councilor Brian Palmucci for his leadership on this project. I also want to thank the City Councilors that supported this project and our other ongoing investments in the quality of life in our great city. Working together, we are accomplishing great things for all the people of Quincy.”
Kincaide Park sits across Roberts Street from the brand-new Southwest Middle School. It is directly across Water Street from the Lincoln-Hancock Elementary School. The City has invested significantly in this neighborhood over the past four years.
The City received a $400,000 State PARC grant to help with the project. The PARC grant focused on the creative ways to introduce significant new plant materials to help improve the environment and deal with local flooding issues. A wide variety of interesting tree species make up the 140 new trees planted. More than 1,100 plants of varying species will also help absorb ground water with their root systems.
Mayor Koch and Councilor Palmucci will be hosting a small community celebration on Monday, July 13 at 6:30 p.m. to formally open the new park

FBI: The Threat Posed by the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party to the Economic and National Security of the United States

Christopher Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Hudson Institute, Video Event: China’s Attempt to Influence U.S. Institutions
Washington, D.C.
July 7, 2020

The Threat Posed by the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party to the Economic and National Security of the United States

Remarks as delivered.
Good morning. I realize it’s challenging, particularly under the current circumstances, to put on an event like this, so I’m grateful to the Hudson Institute for hosting us today.
The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. It’s a threat to our economic security—and by extension, to our national security.
As National Security Advisor O’Brien said in his recent remarks, we cannot close our eyes and ears to what China is doing—and today, in light of the importance of this threat, I will provide more detail on the Chinese threat than the FBI has ever presented in an open forum. This threat is so significant that the attorney general and secretary of state will also be addressing a lot of these issues in the next few weeks. But if you think these issues are just an intelligence issue, or a government problem, or a nuisance largely just for big corporations who can take care of themselves—you could not be more wrong.
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. on July 7, 2020, regarding the threat posed by China to U.S. economic and national security.
FBI Director Christopher Wray discusses the threat China poses to U.S. economic and national security during a July 7, 2020 video event at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
It’s the people of the United States who are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.
If you are an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data.
In 2017, the Chinese military conspired to hack Equifax and made off with the sensitive personal information of 150 million Americans—we’re talking nearly half of the American population and most American adults—and as I’ll discuss in a few moments, this was hardly a standalone incident.
Our data isn’t the only thing at stake here—so are our health, our livelihoods, and our security.
We’ve now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are related to China. And at this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.
But before I go on, let me be clear: This is not about the Chinese people, and it’s certainly not about Chinese Americans. Every year, the United States welcomes more than 100,000 Chinese students and researchers into this country. For generations, people have journeyed from China to the United States to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their families—and our society is better for their contributions. So, when I speak of the threat from China, I mean the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese Regime and the Scope of Its Ambitions

To understand this threat and how we must act to respond to it, the American people should remember three things.
First: We need to be clear-eyed about the scope of the Chinese government’s ambition. China—the Chinese Communist Party—believes it is in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership.
That is sobering enough. But it’s waging this fight not through legitimate innovation, not through fair and lawful competition, and not by giving their citizens the freedom of thought and speech and creativity that we treasure here in the United States. Instead, China is engaged in a whole-of-state effort to become the world’s only superpower by any means necessary.

A Diverse and Multi-Layered Approach

The second thing the American people need to understand is that China uses a diverse range of sophisticated techniques—everything from cyber intrusions to corrupting trusted insiders. They’ve even engaged in outright physical theft. And they’ve pioneered an expansive approach to stealing innovation through a wide range of actors—including not just Chinese intelligence services but state-owned enterprises, ostensibly private companies, certain kinds of graduate students and researchers, and a whole variety of other actors working on their behalf.

Economic Espionage

To achieve its goals and surpass America, China recognizes it needs to make leaps in cutting-edge technologies. But the sad fact is that instead of engaging in the hard slog of innovation, China often steals American intellectual property and then uses it to compete against the very American companies it victimized—in effect, cheating twice over. They’re targeting research on everything from military equipment to wind turbines to rice and corn seeds.
Through its talent recruitment programs, like the so-called Thousand Talents Program, the Chinese government tries to entice scientists to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to China—even if that means stealing proprietary information or violating our export controls and conflict-of-interest rules.
Take the case of scientist Hongjin Tan, for example, a Chinese national and American lawful permanent resident. He applied to China’s Thousand Talents Program and stole more than $1 billion—that’s with a “b”—worth of trade secrets from his former employer, an Oklahoma-based petroleum company, and got caught. A few months ago, he was convicted and sent to prison.
Or there’s the case of Shan Shi, a Texas-based scientist, also sentenced to prison earlier this year. Shi stole trade secrets regarding syntactic foam, an important naval technology used in submarines. Shi, too, had applied to China’s Thousand Talents Program, and specifically pledged to “digest” and “absorb” the relevant technology in the United States. He did this on behalf of Chinese state-owned enterprises, which ultimately planned to put the American company out of business and take over the market.
In one of the more galling and egregious aspects of the scheme, the conspirators actually patented in China the very manufacturing process they’d stolen, and then offered their victim American company a joint venture using its own stolen technology. We’re talking about an American company that spent years and millions of dollars developing that technology, and China couldn’t replicate it—so, instead, it paid to have it stolen.
And just two weeks ago, Hao Zhang was convicted of economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, and conspiracy for stealing proprietary information about wireless devices from two U.S. companies. One of those companies had spent over 20 years developing the technology Zhang stole.
These cases were among more than a thousand investigations the FBI has into China’s actual and attempted theft of American technology—which is to say nothing of over a thousand more ongoing counterintelligence investigations of other kinds related to China. We’re conducting these kinds of investigations in all 56 of our field offices. And over the past decade, we’ve seen economic espionage cases with a link to China increase by approximately 1,300 percent.
The stakes could not be higher, and the potential economic harm to American businesses and the economy as a whole almost defies calculation.

Clandestine Efforts

As National Security Advisor O’Brien discussed in his June remarks, the Chinese government is also making liberal use of hacking to steal our corporate and personal data—and they’re using both military and non-state hackers to do it. The Equifax intrusion I mentioned just a few moments ago, which led to the indictment of Chinese military personnel, was hardly the only time China stole the sensitive personal information of huge numbers of the American public.
For example, did any of you have health insurance through Anthem or one of its associated insurers? In 2015, China’s hackers stole the personal data of 80 million of that company’s current and former customers.
Or maybe you’re a federal employee—or you used to be one, or you applied for a government job once, or a family member or roommate did. Well, in 2014, China’s hackers stole more than 21 million records from OPM, the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management.
Why are they doing this? First, China has made becoming an artificial intelligence world leader a priority, and these kinds of thefts feed right into China’s development of artificial intelligence tools.
Compounding the threat, the data China stole is of obvious value as they attempt to identify people for secret intelligence gathering. On that front, China is using social media platforms—the same ones Americans use to stay connected or find jobs—to identify people with access to our government’s sensitive information and then target those people to try to steal it.
Just to pick one example, a Chinese intelligence officer posing as a headhunter on a popular social media platform recently offered an American citizen a sizeable sum of money in exchange for so-called “consulting” services. That sounds benign enough until you realize those “consulting” services were related to sensitive information the American target had access to as a U.S. military intelligence specialist.
Now that particular tale has a happy ending: The American citizen did the right thing and reported the suspicious contact, and the FBI, working together with our armed forces, took it from there. I wish I could say that all such incidents ended that way.

Threats to Academia

It’s a troublingly similar story in academia.
Through talent recruitment programs like the Thousand Talents Program I mentioned just a few moments ago, China pays scientists at American universities to secretly bring our knowledge and innovation back to China—including valuable, federally funded research. To put it bluntly, this means American taxpayers are effectively footing the bill for China’s own technological development. China then leverages its ill-gotten gains to undercut U.S. research institutions and companies, blunting our nation’s advancement and costing American jobs. And we are seeing more and more of these cases.
In May alone, we arrested both Qing Wang, a former researcher with the Cleveland Clinic who worked on molecular medicine and the genetics of cardiovascular disease, and Simon Saw-Teong Ang, a University of Arkansas scientist doing research for NASA. Both of these guys were allegedly committing fraud by concealing their participation in Chinese talent recruitment programs while accepting millions of dollars in American federal grant funding.
That same month, former Emory University professor Xiao-Jiang Li pled guilty to filing a false tax return for failing to report the income he’d received through China’s Thousand Talents Program. Our investigation found that while Li was researching Huntington’s disease at Emory, he was also pocketing half a million unreported dollars from China.
In a similar vein, Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, was indicted just last month for making false statements to federal authorities about his Thousand Talents participation. The United States has alleged that Lieber concealed from both Harvard and the NIH his position as a strategic scientist at a Chinese university—and the fact that the Chinese government was paying him, through the Wuhan Institute of Technology, a $50,000 monthly stipend, more than $150,000 in living expenses, and more than $1.5 million to establish a laboratory back in China.

Malign Foreign Influence

There’s more. Another tool China and the Chinese Communist Party use to manipulate Americans is what we call malign foreign influence.
Now, traditional foreign influence is a normal, legal diplomatic activity typically conducted through diplomatic channels. But malign foreign influence efforts are subversive, undeclared, criminal, or coercive attempts to sway our government’s policies, distort our country’s public discourse, and undermine confidence in our democratic processes and values.
China is engaged in a highly sophisticated malign foreign influence campaign, and its methods include bribery, blackmail, and covert deals. Chinese diplomats also use both open, naked economic pressure and seemingly independent middlemen to push China’s preferences on American officials.
Just take one all-too-common illustration: Let’s say China gets wind that some American official is planning to travel to Taiwan—think a governor, a state senator, a member of Congress. China does not want that to happen, because that travel might appear to legitimize Taiwanese independence from China—and legitimizing Taiwan would, of course, be contrary to China’s “One China” policy.
So what does China do? Well, China has leverage over the American official’s constituents—American companies, academics, and members of the media all have legitimate and understandable reasons to want access to Chinese partners and markets. And because of the authoritarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party, China has immense power over those same partners and markets. So, China will sometimes start by trying to influence the American official overtly and directly. China might openly warn that if the American official goes ahead and takes that trip to Taiwan, China will take it out on a company from that official’s home state by withholding the company’s license to manufacture in China. That could be economically ruinous for the company, would directly pressure the American official to alter his travel plans, and the official would know that China was trying to influence him.
That would be bad enough. But the Chinese Communist Party often doesn’t stop there; it can’t stop there if it wants to stay in power—so it uses its leverage even more perniciously. If China’s more direct, overt influence campaign doesn’t do the trick, they sometimes turn to indirect, covert, deceptive influence efforts.
To continue with the illustration of the American official with travel plans that the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like, China will work relentlessly to identify the people closest to that official—the people that official trusts most. China will then work to influence those people to act on China’s behalf as middlemen to influence the official. The co-opted middlemen may then whisper in the official’s ear and try to sway the official’s travel plans or public positions on Chinese policy. These intermediaries, of course, aren’t telling the American official that they’re Chinese Communist Party pawns—and worse still, some of these intermediaries may not even realize they’re being used as pawns, because they, too, have been deceived.
Ultimately, China doesn’t hesitate to use smoke, mirrors, and misdirection to influence Americans.
Similarly, China often pushes academics and journalists to self-censor if they want to travel into China. And we’ve seen the Chinese Communist Party pressure American media and sporting giants to ignore or suppress criticism of China’s ambitions regarding Hong Kong or Taiwan. This kind of thing is happening over and over, across the United States.
And I will note that the pandemic has unfortunately not stopped any of this—in fact, we have heard from federal, state, and even local officials that Chinese diplomats are aggressively urging support for China’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Yes, this is happening at both the federal and state levels. Not that long ago, we had a state senator who was recently even asked to introduce a resolution supporting China’s response to the pandemic.
The punchline is this: All of these seemingly inconsequential pressures add up to a policymaking environment in which Americans find themselves held over a barrel by the Chinese Communist Party.

Threats to the Rule of Law

All the while, China’s government and Communist Party have brazenly violated well-settled norms and the rule of law.
Since 2014, Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has spearheaded a program known as “Fox Hunt.” Now, China describes Fox Hunt as some kind of international anti-corruption campaign—it is not. Instead, Fox Hunt is a sweeping bid by General Secretary Xi to target Chinese nationals whom he sees as threats and who live outside China, across the world. We’re talking about political rivals, dissidents, and critics seeking to expose China’s extensive human rights violations.
Hundreds of the Fox Hunt victims that they target live right here in the United States, and many are American citizens or green card holders. The Chinese government wants to force them to return to China, and China’s tactics to accomplish that are shocking. For example, when it couldn’t locate one Fox Hunt target, the Chinese government sent an emissary to visit the target’s family here in the United States. The message they said to pass on? The target had two options: return to China promptly, or commit suicide. And what happens when Fox Hunt targets refuse to return to China? In the past, their family members both here in the United States and in China have been threatened and coerced, and those back in China have even been arrested for leverage.
I’ll take this opportunity to note that if you believe the Chinese government is targeting you—that you’re a potential Fox Hunt victim—please reach out to your local FBI field office.

Exploiting Our Openness

Understanding how a nation could engage in these tactics brings me to the third thing the American people need to remember: that China has a fundamentally different system than ours—and it’s doing all it can to exploit the openness of ours while taking advantage of its own closed system.
Many of the distinctions that mean a lot here in the United States are blurry or almost nonexistent in China—I'm talking about distinctions between the government and the Chinese Communist Party, between the civilian and military sectors, and between the state and the “private” sector.
For one thing, an awful lot of large Chinese businesses are state-owned enterprises—literally owned by the government, and thus the Party. And even if they aren’t, China’s laws allow its government to compel any Chinese company to provide any information it requests—including American citizens’ data.
On top of that, Chinese companies of any real size are legally required to have Communist Party “cells” inside them to keep them in line. Even more alarmingly, Communist Party cells have reportedly been established in some American companies operating in China as a cost of doing business there.
These kinds of features should give U.S. companies pause when they consider working with Chinese corporations like Huawei—and should give all Americans pause, too, when relying on such a company’s devices and networks. As the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, Huawei has broad access to much that American companies do in China. It’s also been charged in the United States with racketeering conspiracy and has, as alleged in the indictment, repeatedly stolen intellectual property from U.S. companies, obstructed justice, and lied to the U.S. government and its commercial partners, including banks.
The allegations are clear: Huawei is a serial intellectual property thief, with a pattern and practice of disregarding both the rule of law and the rights of its victims. I have to tell you, it certainly caught my attention to read a recent article describing the words of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, about the company’s mindset. At a Huawei research and development center, he reportedly told employees that to ensure the company’s survival, they need to—and I quote—“surge forward, killing as you go, to blaze us a trail of blood.” He’s also reportedly told employees that Huawei has entered, to quote, “a state of war.” I certainly hope he couldn’t have meant that literally, but it’s hardly an encouraging tone, given the company’s repeated criminal behavior.
In our modern world, there is perhaps no more ominous prospect than a hostile foreign government’s ability to compromise our country’s infrastructure and devices. If Chinese companies like Huawei are given unfettered access to our telecommunications infrastructure, they could collect any of your information that traverses their devices or networks. Worse still: They’d have no choice but to hand it over to the Chinese government if asked—the privacy and due process protections that are sacrosanct in the United States are simply non-existent in China.

Responding Effectively to the Threat

The Chinese government is engaged in a broad, diverse campaign of theft and malign influence, and it can execute that campaign with authoritarian efficiency. They’re calculating. They’re persistent. They’re patient. And they’re not subject to the righteous constraints of an open, democratic society or the rule of law.
China, as led by the Chinese Communist Party, is going to continue to try to misappropriate our ideas, influence our policymakers, manipulate our public opinion, and steal our data. They will use an all-tools and all-sectors approach—and that demands our own all-tools and all-sectors approach in response.
Our folks at the FBI are working their tails off every day to protect our nation’s companies, our universities, our computer networks, and our ideas and innovation. To do that, we’re using a broad set of techniques—from our traditional law enforcement authorities to our intelligence capabilities.
And I will briefly note that we’re having real success. With the help of our many foreign partners, we’ve arrested targets all over the globe. Our investigations and the resulting prosecutions have exposed the tradecraft and techniques the Chinese use, raising awareness of the threat and our industries’ defenses. They also show our resolve and our ability to attribute these crimes to those responsible. It’s one thing to make assertions—but in our justice system, when a person, or a corporation, is investigated and then charged with a crime, we have to prove the truth of the allegation beyond a reasonable doubt. The truth matters—and so, these criminal indictments matter. And we’ve seen how our criminal indictments have rallied other nations to our cause—which is crucial to persuading the Chinese government to change its behavior.
We’re also working more closely than ever with partner agencies here in the U.S. and our partners abroad. We can’t do it on our own; we need a whole-of-society response. That’s why we in the intelligence and law enforcement communities are working harder than ever to give companies, universities, and the American people themselves the information they need to make their own informed decisions and protect their most valuable assets.
Confronting this threat effectively does not mean we shouldn’t do business with the Chinese. It does not mean we shouldn’t host Chinese visitors. It does not mean we shouldn’t welcome Chinese students or coexist with China on the world stage. But it does mean that when China violates our criminal laws and international norms, we are not going to tolerate it, much less enable it. The FBI and our partners throughout the U.S. government will hold China accountable and protect our nation’s innovation, ideas, and way of life—with the help and vigilance of the American people.
Thank you for having me here today.

Leader of Boston Chapter of Latin Kings Pleads Guilty to Racketeering Conspiracy and Drug Conspiracy Charges

Leader of Boston Chapter of Latin Kings Pleads Guilty to Racketeering Conspiracy and Drug Conspiracy Charges

Defendant was first in command of Boston Latin Kings Chapter

BOSTON – The former leader of the Boston-based Devon Street Kings Chapter of the Massachusetts Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (“Latin Kings”) pleaded guilty today to racketeering charges.
Wilson Peguero, a/k/a “King Dubb,” 29, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity, more commonly referred to as RICO conspiracy. U.S. Senior District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel scheduled sentencing for Oct. 20, 2020. Wilson Peguero was arrested and charged in December 2019, at which time he was the leader of the Devon Street Kings, a Boston-based Chapter of the Latin Kings.
The Latin Kings are a violent criminal enterprise comprised of thousands of members across the United States. The Latin Kings adhere to a national manifesto, employ an internal judiciary and use a sophisticated system of communication to maintain the hierarchy of the organization. As alleged in court documents, the gang uses drug distribution to generate revenue, and engages in violence against witnesses and rival gangs to further its influence and to protect its turf.
In December 2019, a federal grand jury issued an indictment alleging racketeering conspiracy, drug conspiracy and firearms charges against 62 leaders, members and associates of the Latin Kings. Wilson Peguero is the second defendant to plead guilty in the case.
Named for its origin on Devon Street in Boston, the Devon Street Kings, or D5K Chapter of the Latin Kings, included approximately a dozen members who reported to Peguero, who served as “Inca” or the leader of the Chapter. The Devon Street Kings, in turn, reported to the Massachusetts State Leadership of the Latin Kings, providing information, structure, funds and other resources to further the Latin Kings goals and directives in the state. As described in the court documents, Peguero produced various music videos touting his allegiance to the Latin Kings, distribution of controlled substances, and threats against rival gang members. During the investigation, various meetings were covertly recorded in which Peguero and members of the Devon Street Kings discussed the business of the racketeering enterprise. Internally, Peguero was present during meetings where members were beaten and violence against rival gangs was discussed and decided upon.
The RICO conspiracy charge provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; Commissioner Carol Mici of the Massachusetts Department of Correction; and New Bedford Police Chief Joseph C. Cordeiro made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was also provided by the FBI North Shore Gang Task Force and the Bristol County and Suffolk County District Attorney’s Offices.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip A. Mallard and Mark Grady of Lelling’s Criminal Division are prosecuting the case.
The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The remaining defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

星期二, 7月 07, 2020

波士頓市議會為秋季開學召開公聽會 7/9

Are Boston-based colleges and universities -and neighborhoods- ready for the return of students in Fall 2020?

On Thursday July 9, at 1:00PM, Boston City Council's Public Health Committee will hold a hearing regarding plans to re-open amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Panelists include leaders of local labor organizations (SEIU), and representatives from Boston University, Harvard University, and Northeastern University.

The hearing is co-sponsored by City Councilor Liz Breadon (Allston-Brighton), Kenzie Bok (Back Bay, Fenway, Mission Hill, Kenmore), and City Council President Kim Janey (Roxbury, parts of the South End, Dorchester and Fenway).