https://archive.is/z3021

A decade ago officials set a target for China to become an “internationally competitive” destination for medical tourism by 2030

Now China is drawing a growing number of foreign patients. Last year its hospitals received nearly 1.3m of them, up almost 74% from 2022,

public hospitals are only allowed to use 10% of capacity for international departments

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Officials at one of China’s premier universities sought the aid of late American financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in building a branch campus in the Boston area, emails released Friday show.

The correspondence spans more than a dozen emails, part of a tranche of 3 million documents made public by the Department of Justice more than a month after the deadline set by Congress in legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump.

The correspondence involved Epstein, Harvard mathematics professor Martin Nowak and Shing-Tung Yau, a Harvard mathematics professor of more than three decades who acted as an intermediary with senior officials at Tsinghua University, the Beijing-based institution often compared to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[...]

“How is Jeff doing? Is he still interesting in the big projects he has been talking? Please tell him that Tsinghua university is talking seriously to run a branch here,” Yau wrote in an April 19, 2016, email to Epstein’s assistant, Lesley Groff.

[...]

In October 2016, Yau introduced Epstein to Harvard alumnus and real estate mogul Gerald Chan as a potential source of financing, suggesting Chan could “advise you about the building we talked about.” Chan and Epstein arranged to meet for dinner at the now-closed Parsnip Restaurant in Harvard Square on December

[...]

As Hardvard's The Crimson reports, Epstein and Chan arranged a lunch meeting in December 2016 at the now-shuttered Parsnip restaurant in Harvard Square to discuss the proposal.

Two years earlier, Chan — a venture capitalist — had donated $350 million to the Harvard School of Public Health, the second-largest gift in University history. The school was subsequently renamed in honor of his late father.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/46874450

Russia’s supreme court has reduced by only one year the 14-year sentence passed against Oksana Hladkykh, a mother of four abducted from her home in occupied Zaporizhzhia oblast in November 2023. This was presumably a cassation appeal, as the original sentence, passed on 7 June 2024 by the occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’, had been upheld on 7 November 2024 by the first court of appeal in Moscow. All of Russia’s ‘treason trials’, including the supreme court hearing which seems to have been at the end of October 2025, are behind closed doors with this one of the reasons why information is scant and often delayed. Although the supreme court ‘judges’ removed a part of the charge (the accusation of providing “other help to a foreign country”) and reduced the sentence from 14 to 13 years, they chose to see no reason to overturn a manifestly wrongful conviction on ‘treason’ charges under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code.

The reasons for dismissing the charges and releasing the 49-year-old Ukrainian could not have been clearer and were set out by the authoritative Memorial Support for Political Prisoners Project when it declared Oksana Hladkykh a political prisoner in August 2025. Hladkykh had never concealed her opposition to the Russian invaders and had openly expressed her views on social media, with this clearly the reason for her denunciation on a scurrilous Telegram channel aimed at hunting out those with a strong pro-Ukrainian position, as well as for her ‘arrest’ / abduction in late November 2023). Neighbours from Dobrivka have suggested to RIA-South that Hladkykh’s former husband, who supported the Russians, could have denounced her to curry favour with the invaders. It is also possible that Hladkykh had corresponded with somebody who claimed to be from HUR, and that this was, in fact, an FSB setup.

...

In writing about the cassation appeal ruling on 31 January 2026, RIA South said that Hladkykh’s persecution had become a symbol of how Ukrainians are punished on occupied territory for remaining true to Ukraine. Her neighbours from Dobrivka are convinced that she was seized because of her civic stand and because she was not afraid to speak the truth.

“Oksana was principled. From the outset, she opposed the invaders and was open in calling things by their proper name. She was not afraid to tell the invaders to their face what she thought of them. Her abduction was a warning to us all – so that we would be afraid to say a word against Russia.”

“Her only guilt is in being a Ukrainian and in the fact that she did not betray her country. That’s enough for them to imprison a person."

...

The Russians came for Hladkykh on 24 November 2023. The children were not allowed inside, from where they heard screams. Their mother was taken away, with the Russians initially claiming that this was for four days. This was a brutal lie and Oksana Hladkykh was sentenced, for her patriotism and unwillingness to be cowered by the invaders, to a term of imprisonment higher than the sentences Russia regularly uses against murderers and other real criminals.

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The Kremlin-linked bot network known as “Matryoshka” has launched a disinformation campaign following the release by the U.S. Justice Department of new documents in the case of Jeffrey Epstein.The campaign was identified by researchers from the Bot Blocker project (@antibot4navalny), who shared their findings with The Insider.

Social media posts presented in the guise of content from major Western media outlets included the false claims that:

• Ukrainian children allegedly became a key resource in Epstein’s operations following the country’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity. A fake video said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was aware of the situation and that he communicated with visitors to Epstein’s island.
• In a video posing as a report from France 24, actress Catherine O’Hara, who died on Jan. 30, was said to have accused French President Emmanuel Macron of protecting a “lobby of perverts.” In reality, the late actress made no such statements.
• RFI allegedly reported that information about ties between French officials and Epstein had been removed from the released documents under an agreement between Macron and Donald Trump.
• A video bearing the Al Jazeera logo claimed that in 2025, 1,005 Ukrainian refugee children went missing in France and that Bill Gates was involved in human trafficking.
• A video falsely attributed to Reuters claimed New Caledonia had become a “new Epstein island” under French protection. It cited fabricated figures of visits by Bill Gates (112) and Prince Andrew (91).
• A fake Socialblade report claimed that the release of the files “triggered a new wave of interest among conservative Europeans in relocating with their families to the CIS countries,” with the number of search queries about obtaining a residence permit supposedly rising by 8000%.
• Gallup allegedly claimed that a video by Vladimir Putin, in which he called European elites “Satanists,” had “garnered more than 4 billion views in the European segment of TikTok.”
• Libération supposedly published a report claiming Epstein financed 55% of Emmaniel Macron’s 2017 election campaign.

The Insider checked the social media accounts of the named outlets and verified that none of the videos or reports had been published by them.

Exclusive: David O’Sullivan says war-based economy may be nearing point of becoming ‘unsustainable’

Western sanctions are having a “significant impact” on the Russian economy, the EU’s sanctions envoy has said, ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

David O’Sullivan, a veteran Irish official, said sanctions were “not a silver bullet” and would always face circumvention, but insisted that after four years he was confident they were having an effect.

“I am fairly bullish. I think that the sanctions have really had a significant impact on the Russian economy,” he told the Guardian in a rare interview.

“We may be, in the course of 2026, coming to a point where the whole thing becomes unsustainable, because so much of the Russian economy has been distorted so much by the building up of the war economy at the expense of the civil economy. I think defying the laws of economic gravity can only go on for so long.”

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/50305098

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[...]

Between 2019 and 2024, we analysed over 5 million Telegram posts published by nearly 100 pro-government outlets. These ranged from official state agencies such as TASS and RIA Novosti, to television propagandists like Vladimir Solovyov, as well as various anonymously run Telegram channels aligned with the Kremlin.

The pattern is strikingly consistent. Hostility intensifies ahead of repressive legislation, peaks during moments of political uncertainty, and is channelled towards groups least able to defend themselves.

[...]

Weaponising homophobia [...] In 2019, 46% of posts referring to LGBT people or women’s rights were negative. By 2022, that figure had climbed to 65% [...] The shift coincided with legislative changes. In 2020, Russia amended its constitution to define marriage exclusively as a union between a man and a woman. According to a lawyer from the LGBT advocacy group Vykhod, who asked to remain anonymous, the escalation in hostile coverage was partly linked to preparations for these amendments. The state set the tone, and the media followed [...]

Migrants as a political target [...] the share of negative reporting on migrants rose from around 22% in 2020 and early 2021 to 34% between August 2021 and October 2021. In other words, every third mention of migrants or ethnic minorities carried a negative tone [...] This first major wave of anti-migrant sentiment coincided with discussions of a new migration law that proposed expanded digital surveillance and simplified deportation procedures. Valentina Chupik, a human rights lawyer who provides free legal assistance to migrants, believes the media campaign was designed to smooth the law’s passage [...] [Statistics tell that] migrants commit crimes at roughly half the rate of Russian citizens [...]

Normalising repression [...] Before 2020 [when Alexey Navalny was poisoned], only 30% to 35% of opposition-related posts mentioned searches, arrests or trials. Even during the mass protests of 2019, the figure rarely exceeded 45%. By mid-2021, it had reached around 50%, as Navalny’s organisations were labelled extremist and independent media outlets began to be designated “foreign agents” [...] Hate speech escalated alongside repression. From late 2020 to late 2021, the share of posts containing explicit hostility — insults, approval of repression, dehumanising language — nearly doubled, from 7.5% to 13%. Notably, this did not happen immediately after the poisoning. Instead, it began after Navalny returned to Russia [...]

Political scientist Ilya Matveyev suggests the delay was intentional. “The authorities were wary of provoking strong emotions,” he says. “Open hatred might have turned Navalny into a martyr.”

“If you cannot rely on genuine popular support, you must demonstrate repression as publicly as possible.”

Manufactured enemies

The mobilisation of hatred is a familiar feature of authoritarian systems. According to Matveyev, it has become essential to the Russian political model. “Everything rests on hate,” he says. “Support is manufactured through the image of a shared enemy."

The long-term consequences may be severe. [Political scientist Yekaterina] Schulmann warns that war has normalised violence and collective aggression. “Large numbers of people have learned how to use weapons, how to participate in organised violence. Where will that energy go once the war ends?”

One of the most likely scenarios, she warns, is a functional degradation of the political system, accompanied by pockets of social brutalisation — a fragmentation in which violence becomes localised, habitual and increasingly detached from formal political control.

There is, however, room for cautious optimism. Propaganda narratives often fail to take deep root. Tolerance continues to grow in Russia’s major cities, Matveyev argues, but it has to be constantly suppressed. “Homophobia is not a natural state,” he says. “It requires continuous reinforcement.”

The same logic applies to migrants. If state-sponsored hostility disappears, Chupik says, attitudes will shift quickly. “Without propaganda, people stop hating.”

U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that his Russian counterpart "kept his word" by not launching mass missile and drone strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure for a week has been met with bewilderment and dismay in Kyiv.

"I believe this is either a mockery of our misfortune, a lack of understanding of the situation, or wishful thinking," Volodymyr Ariev, a lawmaker from the opposition European Solidarity party, told the Kyiv Independent.

The confusing saga of a supposed truce on striking energy infrastructure began when Trump surprisingly announced on Jan. 29 that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed not to strike Ukrainian cities for a week.

"(The pause) was for Sunday to Sunday," Trump said the same day. "It opened up and (Putin) hit them hard... He kept his word on that. One week is a lot — we will take anything."

. . .

In Ukraine, a week without a mass Russian missile and drone strike is not "a lot." In fact, it has been a regular occurrence since the Kremlin started bombing energy infrastructure way back in October 2022, and simply reflects the amount of time it takes for Russia to prepare such attacks.

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The conclusion, then, is not a lurid morality tale about “bad people doing bad things,” nor the tired revelation that royals, celebrities, or billionaires behave with impunity. That much is already obvious. Child abusers exist across every class and every society. What does not exist everywhere is a system that records, archives, weaponises, and protects that abuse for strategic ends.

The Epstein case points not to isolated depravity, but to structured leverage: an architecture of blackmail in which sexual crimes become instruments of power rather than grounds for prosecution. That is why the fixation on individual scandal – princes, parties, and gossip – functions as misdirection.

The real scandal is the evidence of an intelligence-linked operation in which Mossad repeatedly appears as a point of reference, protection, and utility; an operation that embedded itself across politics, finance, media, and celebrity culture.

China has been flooding Latin American markets with low-priced exports, especially autos and e-commerce goods, as its exporters adjust to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and geopolitical moves.

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Chinese businesses face slow demand at home. They need new markets for their products as the country ramps up production in many industries. Exports to Latin America, a market of more than 600 million people, and other regions have climbed while exports to the U.S. fell by 20% last year.

[...]

The influx of made-in-China cars, clothing, electronics and home furnishings has rankled countries trying to build their own globally competitive industries. Some, such as Mexico, Chile and Brazil, have raised tariffs or taken other measures to protect their local industries.

[...]

Argentina is bearing much of the brunt of rising Chinese imports, as local factories shut down and lay off workers in a manufacturing sector that employs almost a fifth of its workforce.

The volume of e-commerce imports -- mostly from China -- soared 237% in October from the same month a year earlier, Argentine government statistics show.

“We’re operating at historically low capacity as imports break record highs,” said Luciano Galfione, president of the nonprofit Pro Tejer Foundation, which represents textile manufactures. “We’re under indiscriminate attack.”

[...]

China needs Latin America’s vast natural resources for its hungry industries, from lithium in Brazil to copper in Chile and fishmeal in Peru. But trade deficits with China are growing across the region.

For some nations, “China just sells, they don’t buy,” said Guajardo.

[...]

In most cases, China exports mostly manufactured goods and imports raw materials. But the relationship goes far beyond those basics.

[...]

China provided loans and grants to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2014-2023 worth roughly $153 billion -- the largest source of official sector financing for the region -- compared to approximately $50.7 billion that the U.S. provided, according to AidData, a research lab at William & Mary, a public university in Virginia.

[...]

Mexico has long sought to protect local industries, imposing tariffs of up to 50% on imports from China, including automotive products, appliances and clothing.

Brazil is among the countries eliminating or phasing out “de minimis” import tax exemptions for overseas parcels costing less than $50, in part to target cheap imports from China. It’s also increasing tariffs on EV imports. Other countries may follow suit, as some analysts expect more protectionist measures including tariffs and stiffer regulations coming out of Latin America.

Chile has raised tariffs and imposed a 19% value-added tax on low-value parcels.

Given China’s growing leverage, though, countries face a “balancing act when it comes to protectionist policies,” said Leland Lazarus, founder of Lazarus Consulting, which focuses on China-Latin America relations.

“They can’t go too far, or China may retaliate in kind,” he said. “So, their leverage has a limit.”

António Guterres urges two powers to quickly sign new deal as New Start expires

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has urged the US and Russia to quickly sign a new nuclear arms control deal, as the existing treaty expired in what he called a “grave moment for international peace and security”.

The last nuclear treaty between the two powers, the New Start agreement, ended on Thursday, formally releasing both Moscow and Washington from a raft of restrictions on their nuclear arsenals and triggering fears of a global arms race.

“For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of … the two states that possess the overwhelming majority of the global stockpile of nuclear weapons,” Guterres said in a statement on Wednesday.

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cross-posted from : https://slrpnk.net/post/33769091

Industry bigger than all but seven world economies, and accounts for more than third of China’s economic growth

Democracy died in plain sight with the lights on.

By Wednesday, extreme snowfall had killed 35 people and caused 393 injuries across the country since Jan. 20, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

the Gulf, Merz said he wanted deeper cooperation in the energy and armaments sectors, adding Berlin was adopting a less restrictive approach on arms exports.

Merz said he would address broader regional issues, calling for greater peace, stability and cooperation, including normalization with Israel.

"One day, Israel should also be a welcome part of this order, not a rejected foreign body," said Merz, addressing the balance Gulf states maintain on Israel and Palestinians.

Wilson must be rolling in his grave, as that real estate robber baron is slowly wrecking the free world.

This case represents the current Orwellian strategy of stripping language of its potential for dissent, thereby foreclosing a political horizon of justice and liberation.

The court's decision is expected by the end of the year. A conviction would set a dangerous precedent, effectively outlawing the public use of a word that, for many, best expresses the Palestinian struggle.