>He was instrumental in helping a Chinese company, called Tencent … buy a stake in a company that he helped to start. That should be very very troubling to the people of Arizona.”
Tencent
5:5
>Tencent
>Tencent
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/13/mark_kelly_silent_on_firms_windfall_from_chinese_tech_giant.html#!
Mark Kelly Silent on Firm's Windfall From Chinese Tech Giant
.By Susan Crabtree - RCP StaffMay 13, 2020
Mark Kelly Silent on Firm's Windfall From Chinese Tech Giant
.By Susan Crabtree - RCP StaffMay 13, 2020
Mark Kelly Silent on Firm's Windfall From Chinese Tech Giant(Mike Christy/Arizona Daily Star via AP, File)
Mark Kelly, the former NASA astronaut who commanded the second-to-last space shuttle mission and spent 25 years in the Navy, readily acknowledges the myriad threats China poses to the U.S. Earlier this month, he told an Arizona TV station that U.S. intelligence has repeatedly shown China suppressed information about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak before COVID-19 spread to become a global pandemic.
The interview was part of Kelly’s new mission: trying to oust GOP Sen. Martha McSally, herself an aerospace pioneer as the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat. The clash of the two American flight titans has become one of the most closely watched campaigns in the country.
Recommended
XRecommendedTrump: Media Doing Anything They Can To Get Biden Elected, He's "Weak"
McSally narrowly lost her 2018 Senate campaign to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, appointed her to fill the seat of the late Sen. John McCain, another legendary fighter pilot who spent five years as a POW in North Vietnam, then went on to win two terms in the House, six in the Senate and his party’s nomination for president in 2008.
McSally in recent weeks has blamed China’s coronavirus cover-up for the death of thousands of Americans as both Republicans and Democrats have tried to distance themselves from the Xi government for its failure to contain the virus.
Last August, in another press interview, Kelly mentioned his national security experience with some of “the space stuff, and satellites” as making him particularly sensitive to the threats from China, along with Iran, North Korea and Russia, with the biggest danger coming from “stuff you can’t see,” an apparent reference to cyberwarfare and less obvious malign activities.
Kelly, however, has been far more reticent about the investment by a Chinese company in a commercial space exploration venture he co-founded. The company, tech giant Tencent, is one of the world’s largest internet enterprises and owns the Chinese social media platform WeChat. The text platform has more than a billion users and is suspected of monitoring the activity of many of them inside and outside of China.
PROMOTED CONTENTMgid
In the fall of 2014, the CEO of World View Enterprises, the company Kelly co-founded, announced during a visit to Beijing that Tencent had invested an undisclosed sum of money in the Tucson-based space travel venture. In April 2016, as part of a subsequent, $15 million investment round, World View announced that it had received more funds from Tencent, along with three other venture capital firms.
Tencent was already under intense U.S. scrutiny before the COVID-19 world crisis. In addition to the surveillance suspicions, Tencent also sparked a U.S. backlash for suspending its streaming of National Basketball Association games after the Houston Rockets’ general manager praised Hong Kong democracy protests last fall.
Now it’s radioactive. A recent University of Toronto study found that WeChat has been censoring keywords relating to the COVID-19 outbreak since at least Jan. 1. Several prominent lawmakers in recent weeks have deemed Tencent an arm of the Chinese Communist Party and a threat to U.S. national security. Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley in late April introduced a bill aimed at preventing Chinese espionage by prohibiting U.S. federal employees from conducting official business over platforms run by Tencent, Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies and barring U.S. tax dollars from being used for any international contracts with those firms.
It’s not just a GOP concern. The United Nations in mid-April backed out of a deal with Tencent to provide videoconferencing and text services at the organization’s 75th anniversary after U.S. officials, lawmakers and human rights groups complained. Louis Charbonneau, the U.N. director for Human Rights Watch, called Tencent “an enabler of Chinese government oppression.”
>In the fall of 2014, the CEO of World View Enterprises, the company Kelly co-founded, announced during a visit to Beijing that Tencent had invested an undisclosed sum of money in the Tucson-based space travel venture. In April 2016, as part of a subsequent, $15 million investment round, World View announced that it had received more funds from Tencent, along with three other venture capital firms.
>Tencent
PUBG Mobile owner cuts India tie with Tencent after app ban
by Wei Sheng
Sep 9, 2020
https://technode.com/2020/09/09/pubg-mobile-owner-cuts-india-tie-with-tencent-after-app-ban/
2011–2014: Early investments
On 18 February 2011, Tencent acquired a majority of equity interest (92.78%)[37] in Riot Games, developer of League of Legends, for about US$230 million. Tencent had already held 22.34% of the equity interest out of a previous investment in 2008. On 16 December 2015, Riot Games sold its remaining equity to Tencent Holdings.[38][39]
Tencent acquired a minority stake in Epic Games, developer of franchises like Fortnite, Unreal, Gears of War and Infinity Blade, in June 2012.[
40] Tencent in 2013 increased its stake in Kingsoft Network Technology, a subsidiary of Kingsoft Corporation, to 18%. Tencent previously had a 15.68% stake in the company and raised the stake through a US$46.98 million investment.[41] Tencent took part in Activision Blizzard splitting from Vivendi as a passive investor in 2013[42][43] and now owns less than 4.9% of the shares as of 2017.[44] On 17 September 2013, it was announced that Tencent had invested $448 million for a minority share in Chinese search engine Sogou.com, the subsidiary of Sohu, Inc.[45]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent
game comms?….Kelly and tencent
so why the hit job on Mark Kelly's wife, GAbby Giffords?
> GAbby Giffords?
Early life, education, and business career
Gabrielle Dee Giffords was born in and grew up in Tucson, Arizona; her parents were Gloria Kay (née Fraser) and Spencer J. Giffords. She was raised in a mixed religious environment, as her mother was a Christian Scientist and her father was Jewish. Her paternal grandfather, Akiba Hornstein, was a Jewish emigrant from Lithuania who changed his name to Giffords to avoid anti-Semitism in the United States.[2] Through her father, Giffords is a second cousin of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.[3]
Giffords graduated from Tucson's University High School. She is a former Girl Scout. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Latin American History from Scripps College in California in 1993;[4] and spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Chihuahua, Mexico.[5] She returned to graduate school, earning a Master's degree in Regional Planning from Cornell University in 1996. She focused her studies on Mexican-American relations.[4]
Giffords worked as an associate for regional economic development at Price Waterhouse in New York City. In 1996, she became president and CEO of El Campo Tire Warehouses, a local chain of auto service centers founded by her grandfather. The business was sold to Goodyear Tire in 2000. At the time of the sale, she commented on the difficulties local businesses face when competing against large national firms.[6]
Since 2001, she has practiced Judaism exclusively and belongs to Congregation Chaverim, a Reform synagogue, in Tucson.[7][8]
>GAbby Giffords
Arizona legislature
Elections
Giffords switched parties from Republican to Democrat in 2000 and was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives from 2001 to 2003.[1] She was elected to the Arizona Senate in the fall of 2002, and at the time was the youngest woman elected to that body. She took office in January 2003 and was re-elected in 2004. She resigned from the Arizona Senate on December 1, 2005, in preparation for her congressional campaign.
Tenure
In early 2005, Giffords observed that "the 2004 election took its toll on our bipartisan coalition" and that as a result "a number of significant problems will receive far less attention than they deserve." She highlighted among these, the lack of high-paying jobs or necessary infrastructure, rapid growth, and inward migration that threatened the environment and "strain[ed] […] education, health care, and transportation," and unresolved problems such as Students First; Arnold v. Sarn; repayments due under Ladewig v. Arizona; the No Child Left Behind mandate; low educational achievement; health care costs; and the demands of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. She noted that Arizona was not alone in facing such challenges.[9]
Expanding health care access was an issue of interest for Giffords when she served in the legislature. She also pushed for bills related to mental health and was named by the Mental Health Association of Arizona as the 2004 Legislator of the Year. Giffords earned the Sierra Club's Most Valuable Player award.[10]
In the legislature, Giffords worked on the bipartisan Children's Caucus,which sought to improve education and health care for Arizona's children. Critics of this plan argued that it amounted to taxpayer-funded daycare. She worked with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to promote all-day kindergarten. Giffords supported raising more money for schools "through sponsorship of supplemental state aid through bonds and tax credits that could be used for school supplies." She was awarded Arizona Family Literacy's Outstanding Legislator for 2003.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabby_Giffords
>, Giffords is a second cousin of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow.
>spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Chihuahua, Mexico
Giffords worked as an associate for regional economic development at Price Waterhouse in New York City.
In 1996, she became president and CEO of El Campo Tire Warehouses, a local chain of auto service centers founded by her grandfather. The business was sold to Goodyear Tire in 2000.
Gabby Giffords and Good year tires
kek