Republicans Push Legislation to Protect US Universities From Foreign Spying

Republicans are introducing new legislation that would seek to protect U.S. universities from the theft of sensitive information by foreign nations such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. A bill dubbed the “Protect Our Universities Act of 2019,” introduced by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on March 12, would establish a Department of Education-led interagency task force to address the vulnerabilities currently present on college campuses across the nation. The task force would manage a list of “sensitive research projects” that have links to the Commerce Control List, and the U.S. Munitions List. It would also manage other “foundational principles developed for advanced military technologies.” Banks specifically singled out spying tactics used by the Chinese Community Party (CCP).

“Countries like China may use subversive tactics to gain footholds in major STEM programs in U.S. universities to create a pipeline of data and information back to the mainland,” he said in a statement. “China is also using telecommunications giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE as entry points into the United States’ data networks, both on and off university campuses.”

In June last year, Banks wrote to Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos about the threat that China and other adversarial nations pose to universities in America. At the time, a working group was requested to find a solution, but Banks said the department’s response failed to adequately address the issue. “The Department of Education’s lack of an adequate response to this request prompted me to craft legislation on the issue,” he wrote. “We must get tough against these covert threats on college campuses and limit the effectiveness of their information-gathering missions.”

Banks noted that the CCP has a “long record” of methods used to get information back to Beijing. Chinese nationals who study abroad in America are manipulated and pressured to be “information collectors for the communist government and military in Beijing.” Under the new bill, students from the four nations deemed to be a threat—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—would have to apply for a waiver to be allowed to participate in sensitive research projects funded by the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and Department of Energy. The waiver would need to be granted by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

The legislation would also prevent technology developed by companies that have been recognized as bad actors such as “Huawei, ZTE, Kaspersky, and others” from being used in sensitive research projects funded by the government. In June last year, a senior official in the Defense Department said they are investigating research partnerships between Chinese companies and American universities, especially on U.S. campuses. A Senate report released in February by Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and ranking member Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) stated that the Beijing-backed Confucius Institutes on American campuses should be closed if no major changes in their operations occur. The 93-page bipartisan report pointed to the language and culture at the institutes as a threat to academic freedom and said that many U.S. colleges have failed to disclose money received from the CCP, despite guidance from the Education Department that foreign gifts be reported. The CCP has spent over $156 million on U.S. schools since 2006.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/republicans-push-legislation-to-protect-universities-from-foreign-threats_2836726.html

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CHINA’S IMPACT ON THE U.S. EDUCATION SYSTEM

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/PSI%20Report%20China's%20Impact%20on%20the%20US%20Education%20System.pdf

Pompeo Calls Out Iran, Nicaragua, China, South Sudan in Annual Human Rights Report

The United States on March 13 released its annual “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” documenting violations in nearly 200 countries and territories, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo singling out by name Iran, South Sudan, Nicaragua, and China in his preface. The 2018 global human rights report compiled by the State Department paints a dark picture of “appalling violations of human life, liberty, and dignity” that happen every day in many parts of the world. The department has exposed such occurrences every year since 1977. In his opening remarks, Pompeo said he wished the countries evaluated in this year’s report had spotless or even improved records, but he noted that it was “simply not the case.”

“Even some of our friends, allies, and partners around the world have human rights violations. We document those reports with equal force,” Pompeo told reporters. “Our aim is always to identify human rights challenges and use American influence and power to move every nation toward better, more consistent human rights practices.” Pompeo called out Iran’s Islamic regime for killing more than 20 people last year and arresting thousands of protesters, adding that it “continues the pattern of cruelty that the regime has inflicted upon the Iranian people for the last four decades.” He then mentioned South Sudan, whose military forces have used sexual violence against civilians based on their political allegiances and ethnicity, and Nicaragua, where civilians were met with sniper fire for peacefully protesting over social security benefits, and critics of the government “faced a policy of exile, jail, or death.”

But Pompeo said China was in “a league of its own” when it came to human rights violations. “Today, more than 1 million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslims are interned in reeducation camps designed to erase their religious and ethnic identities,” he said. “The government also is increasing its persecution against Christians, Tibetans, and anyone who espouses different views from those or advocates those of government—or advocates change in government.”

Michael Kozak, head of the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, told the same briefing that abuses like those currently being committed against China’s Muslim minority had not been seen “since the 1930s.” The report also detailed how practitioners of the meditation practice Falun Dafa have been victims of “systematic torture in custody” by the Chinese Communist Party. Additionally, “some activists and organizations continue to accuse the government of involuntarily harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience, especially members of Falun Gong,” the report stated. Venezuela’s illegitimate dictator, Nicolás Maduro, was reelected through a “deeply flawed political process,” the report noted, detailing human rights issues in the country, including extrajudicial killings and torture by security forces and deplorable prison conditions.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/pompeo-calls-out-iran-nicaragua-china-and-south-sudan-in-annual-human-rights-report_2836246.html

J&J Labeled `Kingpin’ of Opioid Drug Epidemic by Oklahoma

Johnson & Johnson was at the center of the burgeoning opioid-addiction crisis in America, operating like a drug kingpin by selling its version of the powerful painkiller as well as the active ingredient, according to newly unsealed court filings. J&J, through subsidiaries based in Tasmania, grew opium poppies used in its Nucynta medication and sold to other drugmakers for use in their opioid-based products, court filings in Oklahoma show. The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company also wrongfully targeted children and the elderly in its marketing, the state contends. Those actions made J&J a “kingpin behind the public-health emergency, profiting at every stage,’’ lawyers for Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said in a February state court document.

Oklahoma is slated to be the first state to bring claims against opioid makers such as J&J’s Janssen unit and Purdue Pharma LP to trial in May. The state is seeking more than $25 billion in damages and penalties over what it says was the illegal marketing of the painkillers. There are 36 states and more than 1,600 U.S. cities and counties suing drugmakers and distributors seeking to collect billions of dollars spent to address the fallout from the public-health crisis tied to opioid addiction. The Axios news service first reported on the Oklahoma filing. J&J officials said March 11 that U.S. health regulators oversaw its operation of the opium units, which were later sold. “Importantly, as a supplier, we did not have any role in the manufacturing, development, sales, and marketing of other manufacturers’ finished products,” Andrew Wheatley, a J&J spokesman , said in an emailed statement.

J&J, Purdue and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. failed last week to persuade a judge to delay the Oklahoma trial so the companies could complete pretrial information exchanges with the state. Now, Hunter is asking a judge to unseal material J&J turned over for trial that details the company’s role in producing opium used in drugs and scientific tests. In 2016, J&J agreed to sell its opium-poppy processing business in the Australian state of Tasmania to U.S. private equity firm SK Capital Partners LP. The former J&J unit, Tasmanian Alkaloids Pty Ltd., is one of a limited number of companies granted permission to process poppies to make opiates for medical and scientific needs.

The documents in the Oklahoma case also focus on whether J&J officials improperly marketed its opioid-and-fentanyl-based painkillers to vulnerable populations, such as children, the elderly and veterans. Those groups have a right to the information to protect themselves “from becoming the next victims of addiction/death courtesy of J&J,’’ Hunter’s lawyers said in the filing. In these filings, J&J countered Hunter, was seeking to use “sensationalistic headlines and to poison potential jurors against Jansen in advance of trial.” J&J’s Janssen unit sold the U.S. rights to Nucynta in 2015 to DepoMed Inc., renamed Assertio Therapeutics Inc., for $1.05 billion. J&J still sells Duragesic, a fentanyl-based pain patch.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/jj-labeled-kingpin-of-opioid-drug-epidemic-by-oklahoma_2836603.html