Truth : Viral Video Does NOT Show Pension Riot Damage In France!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS shared on WhatsApp, Telegram and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : This Is An Old Video
First, let me just point out that the viral video clip was recorded in Paris, but is not new.
The original video was recorded on Saturday, 24 December 2022, and is therefore unrelated to the 2023 protests over pension reforms in France.
It appears to have been recorded and posted by Rémy Buisine, a French journalist.
Fact #2 : The Riot Occurred After Attack On Kurdish Cultural Center
The riot captured in the video video occurred one day after a man opened fired at the Ahmet-Kaya centre – a Kurdish cultural centre on Rue d’Enghien in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. The gunman also fired at a hairdresser’s and a restaurant on that street. One woman and two men were killed, and at least three other people were seriously injured.
The gunman was a 69 year-old retired train driver who has been described as a “white supremacist” who had recently been released from detention while awaiting trial for a sabre attack on two Sudanese refugees at a refugee camp in Paris a year ago.
In response, the Kurdish Democratic Council in France (CDK-F) called for people to gather at the Republic Square for a protest. Protesters later clashed with riot police near the scene of the shootings.
Fact #3 : This Riot Was Much Smaller Than 2023 Pension Reform Protests
This December 2022 riot appears to be very violent, with several cars overturned and at least one car on fire. However, it was a short-lived riot, and involved only hundreds of Kurds near the location of the shooting in Paris.
The 2023 pension reform protests are much larger, involving over a million strikers and demonstrators all over France, and has been ongoing since January 19. While they set fire to garbage and damaged some storefronts, there appears to be less violence and damage.
Fact #4 : This Is Just Another Example Of Pro-Russia Propaganda
This appears to be yet another example of fake news created to mock France for its support of Ukraine, and mislead people about the carnage Russia is wreaking in its invasion of Ukraine.
Here is just the latest dozen the other Russian and Chinese propaganda articles and videos that I looked at so far:
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did Russian President Vladimir Putin kneel before Chinese President Xi Jinping, to kiss his hand?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Vladimir Putin Was Forced To Kneel Before Xi Jinping!
People are claiming on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, that Russian President Vladimir Putin was forced to kneel before Chinese President Xi Jinping, and kiss his hand!
…Slava Ukraini…braveness of Ukraine soldiers has led the cruest current dictator Putin to kneel before China Xi jinping…Putin can’t believe the strongness of Ukrainians… Slava Ukraini
#putin gives #xi a kiss and kneels
We all wonder does Putin need to go on his knees in order to get Weapons from China?
Back in the old day Leaders often Visited Leaders and needed to kneel down while requesting support. #leaders #china #russia #Criminals
#Russian propaganda loved to spread the slogan “Russians won’t kneel.”
Truth : Vladimir Putin Did Not Kneel Before Xi Jinping!
This is yet an example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by pro-Ukrainian groups to mock Russia and China, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : No Legitimate Media Outlet Reported This
No legitimate Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese or international media outlet reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin was forced to, or voluntarily chose to, kneel before Xi Jinping during the Chinese President’s state visit to Russia.
The very act of a Russian head of state kneeling before his Chinese counterpart would have caused massive outrage in Russia, and shock in Ukraine, the West and even in China.
Yet no legitimate media outlet reported on it? That’s because it never happened.
Fact #2 : Photo Appears To Be AI-Generated
A closer examination of the photo shows several artifacts that suggest that it was AI-generated.
The man on the left appears to lack thumbs, and his two hands appear to melt together.
The nose and left ear on Xi Jinping’s head appears to be misplaced.
Vladimir Putin’s head is overly large in proportion to his body, and his ear is strangely misplaced.
Vladimir Putin’s legs appear to be distorted with the right leg appearing much larger than the left leg.
Vladimir Putin’s right knee mysteriously appears behind the heel of his left leg.
Based on those anomalies, this photo is very likely generated by a text-to-image generator.
Fact #3 : Photo Originated In A Ukrainian Telegram Group
This viral photo of Vladimir Putin kneeling before Xi Jinping to kiss his hand appears to have originated in a Ukrainian Telegram group called УНИАН – новости Украины (UNIAN – news of Ukraine).
Fact #4 : OP Indicated The Photo Was Edited / Generated
The person who originally posted the photo in the Ukrainian Telegram group, indicated that it was Photoshopped.
Хейтеры скажут, что фотошоп, но мы-то знаем, что х*йло давно хотел облобызать нефритовый стержень товарища Си 😅
Haters will say it’s photoshopped, but we know that x*ylo wanted to kiss Comrade Xi’s jade rod for a long time 😅
Fact #5 : Background Do Not Match Actual Meeting Room
The furniture and walls in the viral photo also do not appear to match the official photos of the room where Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met.
Instead of a dark green and white columns, the actual meeting room has a light green wall with gold trims and white columns.
The chairs in the viral photo are dark brown with beige cushions, while the real chairs are white, with off-white cushions. The actual table is also white, while the table in the viral photo is dark brown.
Fact #6 : This Is Just Ukraine War Fake News
This is yet another example of fake news created around the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and here are other examples:
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Was the US military caught stealing Indomie instant noodles that Indonesia donated to earthquake victims?!
Take a look at the viral photo, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : US Stole Instant Noodles From Earthquake Victims!
People are sharing a photo of US soldiers carrying Indomie boxes, claiming that it is evidence the US military stole instant noodles that Indonesia donated to earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria!
ElysiusThor : Hot on the heels of the US military stealing tents donated by China to the Syrian earthquake victims, it’s now been revealed that they’re also stealing Indonesian-donated instant noodles as well. What the hell is the Pentagon feeding them then?
Bevin Chu 朱炳文 : The Unite [sic] States. An equal opportunity looter.
It loots the Syrian people’s oil, the Chinese people’s humanitarian relief tents, and the Indonesian people’s humanitarian relief foodstuffs with equal alacrity.
After the U.S. military stole the tents donated by China to the victims of the earthquake in Syria, it was revealed that it stole instant noodles donated by Indonesia.What the hell is the Pentagon feeding them?
Truth : US Did Not Steal Instant Noodles From Earthquake Victims!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) or pro-CCP netizens and groups, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Viral Photo Was Taken In Turkey
I traced the origin of viral photo to the DVIDS (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service) website.
I confirmed that the original photo was taken by Captain William Stroud, of the 1st Armoured Division Combat Aviation Brigade, in Dulkadiroğlu, Türkiye on 22 February 2023.
Fact #2 : US Soldiers Were Delivering Aid In Turkey
The claim that the US military stole the Indomie instant noodles from Indonesia is nonsense.
The soldiers were carrying relief supplies to people affected by the earthquake in Turkey. This was clearly explained in the caption of the photo:
U.S. Army soldier assigned to 1st Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment, 12th Combat Aviation Brigade (12th CAB), V Corps, delivers relief supplies to Turkish authorities in Dulkadiroğlu, Türkiye, Feb. 22, 2023. The 12th CAB supports the dynamic lift capability of the 1AD CAB in direct support of USAID and Turkish relief efforts, to those affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye. 12th CAB is one of several U.S. military units supporting Task Force 61/2 (TF 61/2), operating under U.S. Sixth Fleet, U.S. Naval Forces Europe (NAVEUR), and U.S. European Command as part of the International Turkish disaster relief efforts.
Here is another photo of the same Indomie instant noodles, this time being delivered by US Marines on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter.
Earthquake relief. @USMC Marines assist the Turkish military loading humanitarian aid onto a CH-47 Chinook helicopter at Incirlik Air Base, Türkiye, as part of an international effort supporting earthquake relief operations. pic.twitter.com/Is8hn13WwP
Fact #3 : Indomie Instant Noodles Were Produced In Turkey
It is unknown if the Indomie instant noodles were donated by Indonesia, or merely provided by the Turkish relief agency, AFAD.
However, the Indomie instant noodles in the viral photo appear to be produced in Turkey. If you look closely at the boxes, you can see that these Turkish words.
Hazir Noodle : Instant Noodles
Yerli Üretim : Domestic Production
Bardak : Cup [Noodles]
Sebzeli Hazir Noodle : Vegetarian Instant Noodles
In 2014, Indofood set up a factory to produce Indomie instant noodles in the Tekirdağ industrial district, in Turkey.
While many countries sent tons of food and other supplies to Turkey, most did not have any base or ability to transport the humanitarian aid to the affected areas. That was left to AFAD – the Turkish relief agency.
That was where the United States military came in – they used their helicopters at the Incirlik Air Base to deliver donated aid to the affected areas that are hard to reach by trucks.
That’s why you see US soldiers taking things on or off helicopters, which may have been donated by other countries. They were not stealing anything, just helping to deliver them.
Fact #5 : This Is Just Chinese Propaganda
This appears to be yet another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), or pro-CCP netizens.
Here is just the latest dozen the other wumao articles and videos that I looked at so far:
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Here is what you need to know about the viral claim, and the truth behind the FDA import alert 99-33 on Japanese food!
Claim : FDA Issued Import Alert 99-33, Banning Japanese Food!
This message has gone viral on and off over the years, being shared again and again on WhatsApp, and social media. It’s long, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts…
The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a notice
A week ago, the US law came into force: 🎯 FDAIssued Alert No. 99-33, prohibiting the following 🅾️ Japanese food entering the US: 📎 Fresh milk, 📎 Butter, 📎Milk powder, 📎Baby milk powder, and others 📎Dairy products; 📎Vegetables, sweet potatoes, salt, and other products 📎Rice, 📎 Whole wheat; 📎Fish; 📎Meat and poultry; 📎Clams; 📎 sea urchin; 📎Citrus pomelo fruits; 📎 Apples, kiwis and other fruits.
❌The reason is radionuclide contamination. Japan finally admits that its inability to control Fukushima’s daily discharge of millions of tons of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean has caused many people to suffer from cancer or Disease has seriously affected human beings and the ecological environment around the world. I can’t imagine it! ❌Don’t eat Japanese food. 💢In the coastal waters of the United States, it was found that the radioactivity value is getting higher and higher. Try not to go to Japan, preferably not. 💢The Australian government has stopped visa issuance for Japanese, 💢 The US also stopped Japanese immigration to the US. At present, the situation in Japan is more serious than we imagined. More than 70% of the entire Japanese territory is polluted. Japan’s radioactive material has flowed into the ocean, and the affected area of the ocean is getting wider and wider. It is more serious than imagined. The Japanese government is afraid of causing panic, and they will give up or lie to inform the surrounding people. Japanese seafood, mushrooms do not eat. After the last earthquake, radioactive material from the damaged Japanese nuclear power plant began to flow into the ocean or surrounding areas, and began to find ❌Deformed seafood and plants ❌ Mutated mushrooms ❌ mutated fish, ❌Varied seafood, Foods exposed to radioactive substances will be induced within 1-2 years after eating 🅾️Esophageal cancer 🅾️Lymphoma 🅾️ Leukemia, etc., especially for young children, pregnant women will have a greater impact. Neighboring countries have stopped seafood trade with Japan: It is prohibited to import 📎herring, 📎shells, 📎shiitake mushrooms from Japan. The fish caught in the waters near Japan had 380 times the radioactivity. From now on, never eat Japanese seafood or sashimi. Since the nuclear explosion of the tsunami in Japan, a survey of Chinese tourists to Japan who have traveled to Japan and eaten Japanese food many times shows that there are strange diseases of varying degrees, and they are on the rise! And Japan’s radioactive nuclear-contaminated local products are all supplied to foreign tourists! Japan eats food imported from other countries! Dear friends and compatriots For the health of your loved ones and the next generation, please share it in your WeChat space, and immediately boycott all nuclear-contaminated food in Japan. Do not buy! Remember!
The Truth About FDA Import Alert 99-33 On Japanese Food!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) to scare people into boycotting Japan and Japanese food, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : FDA Issued Import Alert #99-33 In March 2011
On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by a massive tsunami triggered by a 9-magnitude earthquake off its Pacific coast. The force of the tsunami greatly damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, contaminating the surrounding area with radioactive material.
The Government of Japan determined that certain food products in affected prefectures were therefore not fit for human consumption, due to the risk of contamination by the radioactive material. They banned those food products from sale within Japan, and for export.
The US FDA responded by issuing Import Alert #99-33 – “Detention Without Physical Examination of Products from Japan due to Radionuclide Contamination.”
This part of the viral post is true, but everything else is false.
Fact #2 : FDA Import Alert #99-33 Was Limited To Certain Prefectures
The FDA Import Alert #99-33 did not ban the import of all Japanese food products, as the viral post claimed.
It only targeted Japan’s own restrictions at the prefecture level, using Section 801(a)(2) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act:
FDA-regulated products are subject to refusal and will be refused admission into the United States if the products appear to be forbidden or restricted for sale in the country in which they were produced or from which they were exported.
Fact #3 : FDA Cancelled Import Alert #99-33 In September 2021
On September 21, 2022, the US FDA deactivated (cancelled) Import Alert #99-33. Since then, there has been no ban on any food product from the five affected prefectures of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima and Ibaraki.
Now, after an extensive analysis of Japan’s robust control measures that include decontamination, monitoring and enforcement; after reviewing the results of 10 years of sampling food products from Japan; and after determining a very low risk to American consumers from radioactive contaminated foods imported from Japan, FDA has decided that the IA is no longer necessary to protect public health and therefore should be deactivated.
Despite this cancellation of the import ban more than a year ago, the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) continues to spread this fake story on WhatsApp, as well as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Fact #4 : Australia Did Not Stop Issuing Visa To Japanese Travellers
Australia never suspended visa issuance for Japanese travels over the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.
Fact #5 : US Did Not Suspend Japanese Immigration
The United States never suspended immigration of Japanese citizens over the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.
Fact #6 : Japan Did Not Supply Contaminated Food To Tourists
This claim has been repeatedly promoted by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and is categorically false.
Japan did not reserve their contaminated food supply for consumption by tourists, while importing food for their own citizens. Neither did Chinese tourists to Japan suffer “strange diseases of varying degrees”.
Those are just lies created by the wumao to scare Chinese citizens into boycotting Japan and Japanese food products.
Fact #7 : Fukushima Radiation Only Affected A Small Area Of Japan
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident did not affect 70% of Japanese territory.
The Government of Japan established a 30 kilometre no-fly zone, and a 20 kilometre exclusion zone, around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Aerial survey of the radioactive caesium levels in May 2012 show that only a small part of Japan was affected.
Fact #8 : Harmful Radionuclides Were Removed From Wastewater
Both fresh water and seawater were used to cool down the melting nuclear fuel rods and spent fuel rods stored at the facility.
Measures were quickly taken to block the seepage of the contaminated wastewater into the sea and water table. For example, TEPCO poured a 60 cm-thick concrete wall covering 70,000 square meters of ocean seabed.
There were occasional accidental discharges of radioactive wastewater, but generally the radioactive wastewater was stored in massive storage tanks and treated using the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS).
ALPS removed harmful radionuclides like caesium and strontium from the wastewater, leaving only tritium – a mildly radioactive and far less harmful hydrogen isotope.
Fact #9 : Decontaminated Wastewater Used To Keep Reactors Cooled
The water treatment system became fully-functional, together with water recycling systems on 3 July 2011.
The decontaminated wastewater thereafter is being 100% reused to keep the reactors cooler, so no additional volume of contaminated water would be generated.
Fact #10 : Excess Decontaminated Wastewater To Be Released
A large amount of treated wastewater remain at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and on April 13, 2021, the Government of Japan announced that the treated wastewater would be released in 2023.
The US FDA says that the treated wastewater presents an “extremely low” health risk even if consumed, which is rather minimised because it’s being discharged into the vast ocean.
According to scientific experts from interagency advisory teams and FDA representatives to the US Advisory Team for Environment, Food and Health, the release of the treated wastewater will have “no effect on the safety of foods imported from Japan“.
In other words, the FDA considers food from Japan to be perfectly safe to import and consume, even after the treated wastewater is released into the ocean.
This is just another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛).
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did the US government steal $50 trillion worth of gold and oil from Iraq?!
Take a look at the viral claims, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : US Stole Gold + Oil From Iraq Worth $50 Trillion!
People are sharing photos of US soldiers posing with gold bars, as evidence that the United States sold gold and oil from Iraq worth tens of trillions of dollars!
These photos have been revived on the 20th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as part of the information warfare surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, being shared and promoted on pro-CCP and pro-Russia groups on social media, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.
Here the US thieves in Iraq. Bringing democracy aka stealing a country’s gold. Same thing they want to do in Russia. But Russia is no Iraq or Libya.
The #US ransacked and plundered the whole of #Iraq. Banks, museums, all of their gold reserves. The US is the biggest gang of thiefs in the whole history. They have raped most of the planet in the last 50 years. #Ukraine #UkraineRussianWar #UkraineRussiaWar #Russia #Putin #NATO
🇺🇸 “liberates” gold & oil while 🇷🇺 liberates humans.
#Denaƶification & #Demilitarization of #UkroNaƶiLand
Truth : US Did Not Steal Gold + Oil From Iraq At All!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and/or propagated to deflect criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : US Did Not Steal $30 Trillion Of Iraqi Oil
Claims that the US stole $30 trillion worth of oil from Iraq are false. The United States did lose track of 8.7 billion dollars worth of Iraqi funds though.
After the invasion of Iraq concluded, Iraqi oil was sold to help fund the Development Fund of Iraq (DFI). Other sources of funds include surplus funds (about USD 10 billion) from the UN Oil-For-Food Program, and the sale of seized Iraqi assets.
The United States did not truck away Iraqi oil, as claimed. In July 2010, the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) discovered that the US Department of Defense could not account properly for USD 8.7 billion of DFI funds.
This led the Iraqi Parliament to request the United Nation’s help in demanding that the US return $17 billion of “oil money” that it said was stolen from the Iraqi people :
All the indications are that the institutions of the United States of America committed financial corruption by stealing the money of the Iraqi people, which was allocated to develop Iraq, (and) that it was about $17 billion.
… Our committee decided to send this issue to you … to look into it and restore the stolen money.
There is no evidence that the unaccounted money was repatriated to the United States, or officially taken by the United States.
Even assuming that it was not poor accounting and all of the $8.7 billion was truly stolen, that is a far cry (0.029%) from the $30 trillion that was “allegedly” stolen.
It is also rendered ludicrous by the fact that the United States spent US$60 billion in the reconstruction of Iraq.
Also consider the fact that Iraqi oil production only reached 4.4 million barrels per day in 2016. Assuming an average sale price of USD 60 per barrel, it would take them 311 years to sell enough oil to make $30 trillion.
Stealing $30 trillion worth of oil would require 1.7 billion oil trucks, or 46,000 of these trucks every day for 100 years!
Fact #2 : US Did Not Steal $20 Trillion Of Iraqi Gold
The United States also did not steal gold from Iraq, certainly not $20 trillion worth of gold!
All those photos of US soldiers with Iraqi gold bars are genuine, but they only show them taking photos with the gold they seized in Iraq.
The Iraqi gold bars (as well as currency and other valuables) that US soldiers seized were transported to the US Army’s headquarters in Kuwait.
There, they were examined by the Secret Service and/or the US Department of Treasury to determine their authenticity and value, before being returned to the Central Iraqi Treasury or the Development Fund of Iraq (DFI).
This is a picture of Lt. Col. Scott Schmidt, who was in charge of the 230th Finance Battalion. The battalion’s job was to seize Iraqi assets like currency, gold bars and other valuables.
In 2003, Iraq had under 6 tonnes of gold reserves, worth less than $70 million. So how can the United States possibly steal 20 trillion dollars worth of gold from Iraq? $20 trillion worth of gold would weigh at least 1,714,285 tonnes in 2003.
Guess how much gold mankind has ever mined in history? Only 205,238 tonnes as of January 2023 – which is less than 12% of what people are claiming that the United States stole from Iraq.
As of January 2023, the value of all the gold in the world is only USD 9.6 trillion – less than half of what the conspiracy theory claims the United States stole from Iraq… and that’s only because gold prices have gone up considerably.
Even with the much higher gold price, it would take an additional 90 years of mining gold before the entire world has $20 trillion worth of gold for the US government to steal.
Now that you know the truth, please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check out!
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The viral photo of the Luxembourg Prime Minister and his wife is FAKE!
Here is what you need to know about that viral photo!
Updated @ 2023-03-20 : Updated with some additional details First published @ 2022-05-20
Claim : This Is Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel + His Wife!
People have been sharing this viral photo since 2019, but it is going viral again in pro-Russia and pro-CCP groups.
Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel arriving for a function with his wife, Gauthier Destenay.
卢森堡总理和他妖艳的妻子，留着胡子穿 着鱼尾裙，很fashion，你觉得呢？
The Prime Minister of Luxembourg and his coquettish wife, with beards and fishtail skirts, are very fashionable, what do you think?
卢森堡首相贝泰尔携”夫人”昨天抵京，开始对华访问。这是全球首个首相同性恋, 可拭目以待！！
Luxembourg Prime Minister Bettel arrived in Beijing yesterday with his “Madame” and started his visit to China.This is the world’s first gay prime ministerCan wait and see!!
Truth : Viral Photo Of Luxembourg PM + His Wife Is FAKE!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS designed to disparage the LGBT community and/or European / NATO leaders.
The very fact that this claim was resurrected from 2019, after Europe heavily sanctioned Russia for invading Ukraine, tells us that this is hardly coincidental.
It then went viral again in March 2023, right after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In any case, here are the reasons why this is NOT a photo of the Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, or his wife.
Fact #1 : Xavier Bettel Is Married To Gauthier Destenay
Xavier Bettel is Luxembourg’s first openly gay Prime Minister, and he married his partner, Gauthier Destenay, a Belgian architect.
Bettel and Destenay had been civil partners since 2010, but was able to marry each other on 15 May 2015 – a year after the Luxembourg Parliament approved same-sex marriage.
Here are real photos of Luxembourg Prime Minister Bettel (right) with his partner, at their town hall wedding.
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, right, puts his hand around the shoulder of his partner Gauthier Destenay after their marriage at the town hall in Luxembourg, on Friday, May 15, 2015. The marriage comes one year after the parliament approved legislation to turn Luxembourg into an increasing number of countries allowing for same-sex marriages. Bettel and Destenay have been civil partners since 2010. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Fact #2 : That Was Photo Of Conchita Wurst + Andre Karsai
The viral photo is actually of famous Austrian singer and drag queen, Conchita Wurst, and her business manager and the executive director of her company, Andre Karsai.
Conchita is actually the drag queen persona of Thomas Neuwirth, with a fictional backstory – Conchita was born in the mountains of Colombia, and married to French burlesque dancer Jacques Patriaque (Neuwirth’s actual friend)
He says this Conchita Wurst persona is similar to Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce alter-ego, and uses it as a way to protect his private life.
Neuwirth is gay but not a trans woman. He uses the he/him pronouns when referring to himself, but uses she/her to describe his Conchita Wurst character.
Conchita Wurst is best known for winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. She also had a cameo in the 2020 movie, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.
Here is an interesting fact about the character’s name. Conchita is a Spanish slang word for vagina, while Wurst is a German slang word for penis. So Conchita Wurst literally means vagina penis!
In 2019, Neuwirth introduced a new mononymous persona called WURST, which would allow for a “more masculine expression”.
Fact #3 : That Photo Was Taken At 2019 Vienna Opera Ball
The viral photo was taken at the Vienna Opera Ball that took place 28 February, 2019, by Jeff Mangione of Kurier magazine. Here is Conchita Wurst with the Austrian Minister of Justice, Dr. Josef Moser.
And this was her Instagram post at Wiener Opernball 2019 :
Fact #4 : Luxembourg PM Bettel Visited China Twice
As Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Bettel paid two official visits to China :
11-14 June 2017 : Bettel visited China together with two ministers.
27-28 March 2019 : Bettel visited China to witness the signing of several bilateral agreements, and to speak at the Boao Forum for Asia.
There is no evidence that his partner, Destenay, ever accompanied him on his trips to China.
Just in case Chinese netizens are “confused”, let me be clear – that viral photo was not taken in China during Bettel’s official visit.
Here is an actual picture from Bettel’s official visit to China in 2017.
This photo is being circulated in pro-Russia and pro-CCP groups, as a way to both disparage LGBTQ people and EU / NATO leaders during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Please help us fight such fake news – SHARE this fact check out, and SUPPORT our work!
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Does a viral CGTN video show how the US government blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines?!
Take a look at the viral video, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : CGTN Video Shows How US Blew Up Nord Stream Pipelines!
People are sharing a CGTN video that claims to show how the US government blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Here is a transcript of the video which I will share in two parts below, but feel free to skip to the next section for the facts.
How they blew up Nord Stream
On February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian crisis erupted. Before and after that, the U.S. politicians have repeatedly threatened an attack on the Nord Stream pipeline.
US President Joe Biden : If Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream will cease to exist.
US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland : If Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.
119 days prior to the Nord Stream explosions, several members of the task force, allegedly led by U.S. President National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, flew to Norway to find a suitable place to plant explosives under the pipeline.
116 days prior to the Nord Stream explosions, a U.S. aircraft carrier has arrived in the Baltic Sea to participate in NATO’s annual naval exercise Baltops-22.
113 days prior to the Nord Stream explosions, the Baltops-22 military exercise has begun. The manoeuvres continued in the Baltic Sea for 13 days.
During the exercise, the U.S. planes regularly circled over the sites of future gas pipeline explosions. The minimum flight altitude was less than 600 meters.
Underwater explosive placement training was performed during the military drills in the water area near the gas pipelines.
103 days prior to the Nord Stream explosions, presumably, a group of Americans in plain clothes arrived at the exercise site by helicopter, and met with the Vice Admiral of the Sixth Fleet of the U.S. Navy, as well as a group of men in plain clothes.
The Americans then went on a deep dive. They placed the C4 explosive on pipes with a protective concrete coating. The operation lasted six hours.
24 days prior to the Nord Stream explosions, U.S. Navy helicopters circled the sites of future pipeline explosions.
On the day of the explosions, a P8 reconnaissance plane allegedly flew over the Baltic Sea and dropped a hydroacoustic buoy that detonated C4 explosives on the gas pipelines.
The explosive destroyed three out of the four gas pipelines. Methane from the pipelines began to spread across the surface of the water. The operator of Nord Streams [sic] estimates that the repair work will cost more than $500 million and take at least a year.
However, due to the U.S. and Western sanctions, the repair of the Nord Streams [sic] is not yet possible. The longer the repairs are delayed, the more difficult they will be.
4 days after the explosions at Nord Streams, Anthony [sic] Blinken said, “This is also a great opportunity to end Europe’s energy dependence on Russia once and for all.
148 days after the explosions at Nord Streams, on February 21, 2023, at Russia’s request, the UN Security Council held a meeting on the North [sic] Streams explosions where a heated debate about the incident and its investigations erupted.
No Evidence CGTN Video Shows How US Blew Up Nord Stream Pipelines!
This is yet another example of Chinese propaganda, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : CGTN Is An Official Chinese State Media Outlet
China Global Television Network (CGTN) is a state-run and -funded news channel owned by Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television, and controlled by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
While it portrays itself as offering an alternative view of world affairs, it is known as a vital Chinese government propaganda outlet, with its accuracy often questioned.
Even here at Tech ARP, I have personally fact checked CGTN on several occasions.
Fact #2 : CGTN Video Is Based On Seymour Hersh’s Claims
The CGTN video appears to be based entirely on claims by American journalist, Seymour Myron Hersh, and does not offer anything new to add to the story.
Fact #3 : CGTN Video + Seymour Hersh Offered No Actual Evidence
Like Seymour Hersh’s Substack article, the CGTN video is loud and dramatic. Quite unlike the Nord Stream explosions that took place underwater.
However, if you actually analyse both the CGTN video and/or Seymour Hersh’s article, you have to ask – where actually is the evidence?
Seymour Hersh himself based his article on a single anonymous source. Even more concerning, no one else has been able to corroborate his claims more than 5 weeks later.
The viral CGTN video just repeats whatever Seymour Hersh claimed, without offering any evidence. It is important to note that this video was created by what is ostensibly a news organisation that is supposed to verify the facts before publishing.
The US government has naturally disputed Seymour Hersh’s claims, calling his article “utterly false and complete fiction”.
What’s concerning to me, as a common person, though is that some of Hersh’s claims are suspect and easily fact checked. Take for example, his claims that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was a committed anti-communist who had been cooperating with US intelligence since the Vietnam War.
It would be quite a feat for Stoltenberg to work with US intelligence during the Vietnam War since he was born in 1959, and would have been only 4-16 years old at that time! Stoltenberg was also pro-Communist as a young teen, and opposed US involvement in the Vietnam War by participating in protest rallies against the US embassy in Oslo.
Seymour Hersh’s claim that an Alta-class minesweeper was used in BALTOPS 2022 is also in dispute. Joe Galvin, OSINT editor of The Outlaw Ocean Project, showed that no Alta-class minesweepers were in the area at that time!
Hersh’s claim that the explosions were triggered by a sonobuoy dropped by a Norwegian P-8 Poseidon aircraft is also in dispute. Norway has five P-8 Poseidon aircraft, but none of them were seen in the area on the day of the explosion – September 26, 2022.
A US Navy P-8 aircraft was spotted in the area, but that aircraft only arrived 90 minutes after the first blast occurred! So it could not have been the P-8 aircraft that triggered the explosions as Hersh claimed.
Fact #5 : Both Nord Stream 1 + 2 Were Not Operational
It is true that both US Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden were against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and President Biden threatened to “end Nord Stream” if Russian invaded Ukraine.
However, Nord Stream 2 never became operational, after Germany suspended its certification on 22 February 2022 – two days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
More importantly, Russia cut or interrupted gas supplies on Nord Stream 1, before shutting it down completely in the months following its invasion of Ukraine:
June 2022 : Russia cut Nord Stream 1 gas supply by 75%.
July 2022 : Russia shut down Nord Stream 1 for 10 days. It reopened at 12.5% of normal capacity.
August 2022 : Russia shut down Nord Stream 1 completely.
Both Nord Stream pipelines had long ceased to supply Europe with gas, long before explosions tore holes in them. There is simply no advantage for the Americans to destroy two pipelines that were no longer supplying Europe with gas.
Fact #6 : Europe Refused To Resume Gas Supply
Only three of the four gas pipelines were destroyed by the explosions, with Pipe B of Nord Stream 2 surviving. Russia offered to resume gas supply to Europe, which was promptly declined.
The refusal shows that Europe itself is eager to wean itself off Russian gas, and not because of earlier US threats to “end Nord Stream”.
The Americans did not have to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, because Russia’s own actions in disrupting gas supplies and invading Ukraine already did that for them.
Fact #7 : Many Countries Had Plausible Reasons To Destroy Nord Stream
As far as plausible reasons go, many countries had plausible reasons to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines:
US : To prevent allies in Europe from being held hostage by their reliance on cheap Russian gas.
UK : To encourage allies in Europe to support Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.
Russia : To stop supplying Europe without breaking its gas supply contracts, and/or to divide Europe.
Ukraine : To unite Europe against Russia.
While motive is important, it is not evidence that a country has committed the crime. There has to be actual evidence that the US / UK / Russia / Ukraine did it.
Regardless of what CGTN or Seymour Hersh may claim, there is simply no conclusive evidence YET that any of those countries are responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did Russia just destroy NATO jet fighters and helicopters that were sent to help Ukraine?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Updated @ 2023-02-27 : Added more details Originally posted @ 2022-05-22
Claim : Russia Just Destroyed NATO Jets + Helicopters In Ukraine!
People are sharing a video created by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), which claim to be evidence of NATO jet fighters and helicopters being shot down by Russia while trying to help Ukraine.
The video has an overlay that says, “Only China has the privilege to watch the live video, not even the western countries and the world.“, and it is accompanied by this message :
☝️Nato sent their jet fighter & Helicopter to help Ukraine, as soon as they entered the border, they were attacked by the Russian missile. not a single one escaped. only the Chinese media reported that news, non in the West.
☝️Nato 战机jet fighter & Helicopter 去幇助鸟克兰一进入边畍就被俄羅斯飞彈打的一个都跑不掉, 只有中國媒體才能報導西方沒有。
Truth : Russia Did Not Destroy NATO Jets + Helicopters In Ukraine!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and spread by pro-CCP and pro-Russian netizens and groups.
Fact #1 : That Video Was From A Video Game
The viral video does not show actual combat in Ukraine. It is really nothing more than a compilation of two gameplay videos from the game, ArmA 3.
ArmA 3, which is also known as ArmA III or Armed Assault 3, is an open-world, military tactical shooter game by Bohemia Interactive.
The first half of the video was cropped from an ArmA 3 video called “Combat Helicopter shot down by Missile – 4 Tanks Blown Up – Milsim – ArmA 3” – from 0:11 to 2:08, cutting off just before the videos says “Subscribe for more!“.
Ironically, the original ArmA 3 gameplay videos that the viral fake video used are hosted on YouTube, which is blocked in China.
So the overlay claiming that “only China has the privilege to watch the live video” is not only false, it is a sad reminder of the censorship in China.
The truth is – only people in China have the “privilege” of being lied to using a fake video that is easily available to the rest of the world.
Fact #3 : That Was A Russian Helicopter
We can’t tell what anti-aircraft missiles were fired at the beginning of the video, but we can easily see that they were fired at a Russian helicopter.
Anyone who watched a Rambo movie or two would easily recognise the distinctive shape of the Soviet Union’s “flying tank” – the Mil Mi-24 helicopter, which is also known as Mi-25 or Mi-35. Whatever may be the case, that was not a Western helicopter!
At around the 1:44 mark in the fake video, you can see that the soldier and the missile launcher that destroyed one of the tanks.
That is the M220 launcher for the American TOW BGM-71E anti-tank missile, not a Russian missile launcher.
In other words – the video does not show Russian forces destroying NATO tanks and helicopters. It actually shows US forces in the ArmA 3 game shooting down Russian tanks and helicopters.
Here is a comparison of the screenshot (left) and the frontal aspect of the same TOW missile launcher in the ArmA 3 game.
NATO Allied Land Command confirmed that “there are no NATO forces or leaders in Ukraine in any capacity“.
While NATO nations are sending financial and military aid to Ukraine, no NATO soldiers or leaders are deployed to the country.
So the claim that NATO sent jets and helicopters to help Ukraine fight off the Russian invasion is false.
Fact #7 : NATO Refused To Send Aircraft Into Ukraine
NATO also repeatedly refused to create a No-Fly Zone over Ukraine, despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleading for one.
That’s partly because the anti-aircraft missiles NATO countries supplied have successfully prevented Russia from achieving any kind of air superiority in Ukraine.
NATO has also publicly stated that they want to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia, which could lead to a continent-wide conflict.
That is also why they refused to send Ukraine jet fighters to replace those destroyed by Russian attacks.
The claim that NATO is sending jet fighters and helicopters to help Ukraine is bullshit.
Please watch out for similar fake news created by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛)!
Help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out, and support our work!
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did the Mossad just reveal massive NATO losses in the Ukraine War, evidence that it is losing to Russia?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Mossad Just Admitted NATO Is Losing Ukraine War!
The Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) and pro-CCP netizens are sharing this article which claims that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, just revealed massive NATO losses in the Ukraine War, evidence that it is losing to Russia!
It’s rather long, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts!
The military loss data of Russia and Ukraine disclosed by Mossad, Israel’s world-renowned intelligence agency:
Russian military losses: 23 aircraft, 56 helicopters, 200 drones, 889 tanks and armored vehicles, 427 artillery pieces, 12 air defense systems, 18,480 killed, 44,500 injured, and 323 captured. The number of soldiers involved in the war was 418,000.
Ukraine lost 302 aircraft, 212 helicopters, 2,750 drones, 6,320 tanks and armored vehicles, 7,360 cannons, 497 air defense systems, 157,000 killed, 234,000 injured, 17,230 prisoners, and 734,000 soldiers, is in the ninth domestic mobilization of 100,000 soldiers to fill the gap.
234 NATO officers, trainers, and agents died (US, UK)
2458 NATO soldiers died (Poland, Germany, Lithuania…) A total of 5360 mercenaries died.
The war between Russia and Ukraine made us have to care about international affairs after retirement. In this war between Russia and Ukraine, the victory or defeat of Russia will definitely affect the way of life and living conditions of us and future generations! Judging from the current battle situation, our current prediction results are all wild guesses.
But there are a few signs that have been exposed. It can be seen that this battle: the United States was defeated, the EU was fooled, NATO was stunned, Ukraine was smashed, public officials were silenced, and the third world was awakened. It has made private property unholy, free speech, science and art have borders, cats and dogs have original sins, Switzerland is no longer neutral, and the hegemony of the US dollar is no longer stable. The Americans found that the third brother was disobedient. The Germans discovered that no matter how high the GDP is, it cannot keep warm. The Chinese discovered that no matter how loud the speech is, it is not as good as having more nuclear weapons.
I don’t know how this battle will end, but the above results are a large class of realism education, which makes us realize more deeply how far-sighted our great leader Chairman Mao was. Under such difficult and difficult conditions, he developed two A wise decision to bomb one star! This battle will cause the brainwashing and rhetoric techniques that the West has painstakingly worked on for a hundred years to collapse and be destroyed in one battle. This battle has awakened the Chinese people. The country is rich, the people are strong and the army is stronger. If you have ammunition in your hands, you must have food. The real economy and the public ownership system play a leading role. This battle further shows that peace depends on nuclear weapons and military strength! Peace is really made!
We should also soberly remember that Chairman Mao once said, “We must support whatever the enemy opposes, and we must oppose whatever the enemy supports.” In recent decades, some wealthy and government officials have not only deposited money in American banks, Swiss banks, and European Union banks, but also sent their wives and children to live in these countries. Now these people are restless and regretful! This is like putting meat next to a wolf’s mouth, and sooner or later, the wolf will eat the meat into its stomach!
The above article is reposted, it is really well written!
Truth : Mossad Did Not Admit NATO Is Losing Ukraine War!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Mossad Does Not Comment On Ukraine War
Mossad is the national intelligence agency of Israel, and has a policy of not commenting publicly on its operations. Neither does it comment on geopolitics and current events.
Therefore, it is not surprising that there is no such Mossad report on NATO losses in the Ukraine War, or any Mossad statement that NATO was losing the war in Ukraine against Russia.
Fact #2 : There Are No NATO Forces In Ukraine
Even if Mossad does actually comment on current events, it would be ludicrous for it to announce NATO losses, because there are NO NATO forces in Ukraine!
NATO Allied Land Command had long confirmed that “there are no NATO forces or leaders in Ukraine in any capacity“.
While NATO nations are sending financial and military aid to Ukraine, no NATO soldiers or leaders are deployed to the country.
So the claim that 2,458 NATO soldiers died is utter nonsense. Like Russia, Ukraine has foreign volunteers, but these are not NATO forces.
Fact #3 : Russian Losses Far More Than Ukrainian Losses
While Russia has not revealed its losses, Ukraine has publicly posted Russian losses on a daily basis. Of course, Ukrainian figures have not been verified, and are likely inflated.
But the open source intelligence website, Oryx, has been keeping track of material losses on both sides. It collects visual evidence, to verify those losses.
I created this table of the latest Russian and Ukrainian material losses, based on the latest Oryx intelligence results published on Thursday, February 24, 2023.
What is readily obvious is that, with few exceptions, Russia has suffered 3-4X more material losses than Ukraine.
Fact #4 : Chairman Mao Zedong Killed Millions Of Chinese Citizens
The article spoke highly of Chairman Mao, so it is incumbent upon me to remind everyone that Mao Zedong is responsible for the deaths of millions of Chinese citizens.
When Chairman Mao initiated land reforms and his Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries, millions of Chinese citizens were killed. Mao himself claimed that 700,000 people died as “counter-revolutionaries” from 1950-1952.
But nothing beat his Great Leap Forward, which killed approximately 15 to 55 million Chinese citizens from famine, and several million more would die from torture by CCP militia, or suicide.
If that’s not enough, Mao would go on to trigger the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which saw a million or so additional Chinese citizens killed. With glorious leaders like Mao Zedong, China does not need enemies.
Fact #5 : This Is Just Chinese Propaganda
This appears to be yet another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), or pro-CCP netizens.
Here is just the latest dozen the other wumao articles and videos that I looked at so far:
Please help us fight fake news – SHARE this article, and SUPPORT our work!
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Are Nazis from Japan fighting for Ukraine against Russia?!
Take a look at the viral photos, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Nazis From Japan Are Fighting For Ukraine Against Russia!
The Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) and pro-CCP netizens are sharing photos of what they suggest are Nazis from Japan in Ukraine, helping to fight against Russia!
Japanese Nazis are fighting in Ukraine
Team Japanese in Ukraine
Anarchy is alive and in Ukraine
Note : I placed the misleading overlay to prevent the photos from being further abused.
Truth : Nazis From Japan Are Not Fighting For Ukraine Against Russia!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Photos Are Unrelated
After investigating the viral screenshot, I was able to confirm that they consist of two sets of photos that are unrelated.
The first set of photos, which show four soldiers in Ukraine, was posted by @rattionyade on February 10, 2023.
The second photo is completely unrelated to the first set of photos, and was posted by @xenovampiro (as well as other people) on February 12, 2023.
Fact #2 : Rising Sun Flag Is Not Japanese Nazi Flag
The Rising Sun flag is not the Japanese version of Germany’s Nazi flag. This is actually the Imperial Japanese Navy ensign called Jyūrokujō-Kyokujitsu-ki (十六条旭日旗) that was adopted on May 15, 1870 – over 150 years ago!
The Imperial Japanese Navy used it until the end of World War 2 in 1945. However, it was readopted and has been used by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force on all its ships since June 30, 1954.
Fact #3 : Japanese Nazi Flag Photo Was From 2014
The photo showing men carrying Japanese Rising Sun and Nazi Germany flags was not taken recently, or even in Ukraine.
It is unknown who took this photo, but it was possibly a photographer from the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, as the photo was posted by Asahi Shimbun editorial board member Itaru Tominaga (@tanutinn) on Twitter on August 2, 2015, with the description:
東京での日本の国家主義者のデモンストレーション。
彼らは安倍首相と彼の保守的な政治を支持している。
Japanese nationalist demonstration in Tokyo. They are supporting PM Abe and his conservative administration.
On further investigation, I found out that Tominaga deleted the tweet because it was misleading when he posted it – it was taken almost a year ago, on April 20, 2014 – the 125th anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler.
On that day, about 40 Japanese protestors marched through the busy entertainment area of the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo, bellowing racist chants about South Korea and China. While the Asahi Shimbun article is no longer available online, you can download a copy here.
In short – this viral photo was taken in Tokyo, Japan, on 20 April 2014, and had nothing to do with Ukraine or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Fact #4 : Ukraine Has Foreign Volunteer Battalions Since 2014
Informal volunteer military groups were formed in spring 2014, from local militias and paramilitary groups, in response to the Russian military intervention in Ukraine.
The Ukraine Ministry of Defence later formed 32 volunteer battalions called “Territorial Defence Battalions”, and the Ukrainian parliament voted on 6 October 2014 to allow foreign fighters to join the military. In December 2014, President Petro Poroshenko promising Ukrainian citizenship to foreign fighters who signed up to fight.
Ironically, volunteers from Russia formed the largest group of foreign fighters in Ukraine! Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, about 3,000 Russian citizens signed up to fight for Ukraine.
Fact #5 : Volunteers From 60 Countries Now Fighting For Ukraine
In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Ukrainian government established the International Legion of Territorial Defence of Ukraine.
By 6 March 2022, more than 20,000 volunteers from 52 countries signed up to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invasion. So it would not be surprising to find volunteers from Japan fighting for Ukraine.
@rattionyade, who posted the viral photo on the left, appears to be one of the Japanese volunteers fighting for Ukraine, as he often posts about his life in Ukraine.
Back in November 2022, it was revealed that volunteers from 60 countries are now fighting for Ukraine. Here are some of the units that were formed from those volunteers:
Canadian Brigade : Ukrainian-Canadian volunteers, including former servicemen from Canada
Norman Brigade : veterans from Canada, the United Kingdom, United States, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, France, South Africa, and Poland.
Freedom of Russia Legion : former servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as other Russian and Belarusian volunteers.
Russian Volunteer Corps : formed from Russian volunteers who have been fighting for Ukraine since 2014.
Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion : Mostly Chechen volunteers who fought in the First Chechen War and Second Chechen War against Russia.
Pahonia Regiment : Belarusian volunteers
Fact #6 : Russia Also Has Foreign Volunteer Forces
Foreigners have also signed up to fight on the Russian side, either as members of the Russian diaspora, for ideological reasons, or as mercenaries hired by the Russian government.
Serbian foreign fighters : International Brigade, Seventh Brigade, Serbian-Hussar Regiment, Ural Unit, First Slavic Unit, Batman Unit, Rezanj Unit, Jovan Šević Detachment
Spanish foreign fighters : Carlos Palomino International Brigade, DKO (Volunteer Communist Unit), Interunit
White nationalists, neo-Nazis, fascists and Christian extremists from Europe and North America : Continental Unity, Orthodox Dawn Battalion, Legion of Saint Istvan.
Syrian Arab Army : 25th Special Mission Forces Division
Fact #7 : This Is Just Chinese Propaganda
This appears to be yet another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), or pro-CCP netizens.
Here is just the latest dozen the other wumao articles and videos that I looked at so far:
Please help us fight fake news – SHARE this article, and SUPPORT our work!
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did Chinese President Xi Jinping divorce his wife, Zheng Xiaoling who wanted to migrate to the US, so he can serve China instead?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Xi Jinping Divorced His Wife, Zheng Xiaoling, To Serve China!
The Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) and pro-CCP netizens are promoting a photo of a beautiful woman called Zheng Xiaoling (鄭曉玲), claiming that she wanted to migrate to the United States.
Instead of following her to the United States, the future Chinese President Xi Jinping chose to divorce her so he can serve China. Here is the viral message in Chinese, as well as our rough translation (thanks Yuh Hui and Chai!):
她叫鄭曉玲。當年因為一心要
出國，執意與選擇留在國內，身為鄉鎮幹部的丈夫離了婚。
現在美國的她，唉！說多了都
是淚….她的前夫叫習近平。
Her name is Zheng Xiaoling.
Years ago, due to her preference to live in the West, she divorced her husband who chose to stay back in China to serve the country.
She is currently now in US and her ex-husband is Xi Jin Ping.
Here is the English version that is also circulating.
Her name is Cheng Siow Ling.
Years ago, due to her preference to live in the West, she divorced her husband who chose to stay back in China to serve the country. His name is Xi Jin Ping.
Xi Jinping Did Not Divorce His Wife, Zheng Xiaoling, To Serve China!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : That Is South Korean Actress Choi Jin-sil
The photo that has gone viral in Chinese and pro-CCP groups is not a photo of a woman called Zheng Xiaoling (鄭曉玲), or as some call her, Cheng Siow Ling.
That is a photo of a famous South Korean actress called Choi Jin-sil, who sadly committed suicide on October 2, 2008.
Nicknamed “The Nation’s Actress”, Choi Jin-sil has never migrated to the United States. Instead, she became a TV actress in South Korea in 1998, and moved on to play leading roles in movies like My Love, My Bride (1990) and Jealousy (1982).
Fact #2 : Choi Jin-sil Is Much Younger Than Xi Jinping
Choi Jin-sil was born on December 24, 1968, while Xi Jinping was born on June 15, 1953 – a 15 year gap.
I mention this because Choi Jin-sil was still in primary / elementary school when Xi Jinping married his first wife in 1979!
In fact, Choi Jin-sil would have been only 11 years old when Xi Jinping married her in 1979! Can you see how ludicrous this viral claim is?
Fact #3 : Choi Jin-sil Married Cho Sung-min
Not only was it impossible for Xi Jinping to have married a preteen Choi Jin-sil, there is no evidence he ever met the Korean actress!
In the year 2000, Choi Jin-sil married Cho Sung-min – a professional baseball player with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan. She gave birth to their two children – a son, Hwan-Hee in 2001, and a daughter, Joon-Hee in 2003.
She would divorce Cho in September 2004, and she eventually won sole custody of their two children.
Fact #4 : Xi Jinping’s Ex-Wife Is Ke Lingling
Xi Jinping’s ex-wife is not Zheng Xiaoling, but Ke Lingling (柯玲玲) – the younger daughter of former diplomat Ke Hua. Born in 1951, she is also known as Ke Xiaoming (柯小明).
Their 1979 marriage ended in a divorce in 1982. Xi Jinping would later marry his second wife, Peng Liyuan – a famous singer, five years later in Xiamen, Fujian in 1987.
Fact #5 : Xi Jinping’s Ex-Wife Migrated To The UK
The claim that Xi Jinping refused to migrate to the United States with his former wife is also false.
After marrying Xi Jinping in 1979, Ke Lingling found that their life philosophies differed. She favoured Western values, and wanted to move to the United Kingdom, where her father was serving as the Chinese ambassador.
However, Xi Jinping refused to accompany his wife, as he wanted to pursue a career as a senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official.
They divorced in 1982, after just three years of marriage, and Ke Lingling finally migrated to the UK. She would later claim that the divorce was partly caused by her former husband’s ambition.
Fact #5 : This Is Just Chinese Propaganda
This appears to be yet another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), or pro-CCP netizens.
Here are the other wumao articles and videos that I looked at so far:
Please help us fight fake news – SHARE this article, and SUPPORT our work!
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Can you buy the infamous spy balloon from China on Alibaba for just RMB 118 / $18?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : You Can Buy China Spy Balloon On Alibaba For $18!
Pro-CCP netizens are trying to push the narrative that the infamous spy balloon from China is really a cheap weather balloon that anyone can buy from Alibaba!
They are sharing a screenshot of an Alibaba store on WhatsApp and social media platforms, claiming that you can buy the same “spy balloon” for just RMB 118 / $18!
You can buy this balloon to scare the US for 118 RMB.. warning fighter jets might be sent to shoot it down..
Truth : You Cannot Buy China Spy Balloon On Alibaba For $18!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) or pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Chinese Balloon Was Not A Weather Balloon
First, let us start with a basic fact – the US Air Force shot down a spy balloon from China, not a weather balloon.
Weather balloons are common – thousands are launched daily across the world to collect information on the temperature, wind and moisture in the upper atmosphere.
Weather balloons are not very large – expanding from 6 feet (1.8 metres) to 20 feet (6 metres) in diameter as they rise in altitude. Their payloads are also small, consisting of a small box with a few sensors.
The Chinese spy balloon that the US Air Force shot down was not only much larger at around 90 feet (27.5 metres) wide, it also had a very large payload that included large solar panels, and even propellers to control its movement.
Real weather balloons also do not travel far – they generally go up to a high altitude and stay there. Spy balloons, on the other hand, need to travel long distances. This Chinese balloon travelled thousands of kilometres from China to Alaska to Canada, before reaching the continental United States.
I traced the viral photo to this Alibaba store selling latex weather balloons. As expected, the RMB 118 / $18 balloon that pro-CCP netizens were promoting is small…
The store offered four sizes, with slightly elevated prices in US dollars (it’s cheaper in Chinese Yuan):
48 inches (4 feet) : $4.80
72 inches (6 feet) : $6.40
96 inches (8 feet) : $17.80
120 inches (10 feet) : $23.60
As I pointed above, the spy balloon that flew from China all the way to the United States was about 90 feet (27.5 metres) wide. It’s roughly 729X larger than the weather balloon sold on Alibaba!
Fact #3 : Viral Photo Was Edited
The viral photo appears to have been edited, by taking a screenshot of the Alibaba store using a mobile phone, and combining it with a photo of the actual spy balloon from China.
The intent appears to make it look like they are both the same balloon, and are being sold on Alibaba for just RMB 118 / $18.
The truth is – the actual Alibaba store does not show any photos of the spy balloon from China, which has a large payload platform and solar panels.
Instead, the Alibaba store only shows this photo of a latex weather balloon being held by a man – a good indication of just how small it is, compared to the real spy balloon. The other photos in the Alibaba store shows the available balloon sizes, and how much they weigh.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Find out why the US Air Force shot down the Chinese spy balloon using an expensive $400,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile!
Claim : US Shot Down Spy Balloon Using Expensive Missile!
Pro-CCP netizens are mocking the US government for shooting down a cheap Chinese weather balloon using an expensive $400,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile!
US so panic of a balloon
they sent FOUR (4) fighter jets (2 x F-22s, 2 x F-15s) to “survey the situation”, before firing that $400k AIM-9x Sidewinder A2A missile to shoot the balloon down.
America used a $400,000 missile fired from a $216,000,000 fighter jet to shoot down…
Why US Shot Down Chinese Spy Balloon With Missile!
This is yet another example of PROPAGANDA created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : There Were Two Chinese Balloons
On Friday, February 3, 2023, China admitted that the massive balloon hovering over the US state of Montana belonged to them, but claimed that it was a weather balloon and not a spy balloon.
Later that same Friday, a second balloon was spotted over Latin America. It took China another 3 days to admit that it was theirs, and another “weather balloon” that was “blown off course”.
Fact #2 : Chinese Balloon Was Not A Weather Balloon
Weather balloons are common – thousands are launched daily across the world to collect information on the temperature, wind and moisture in the upper atmosphere.
Weather balloons are not very large – expanding from 6 feet (1.8 metres) to 20 feet (6 metres) in diameter as they rise in altitude. Their payloads are also small, consisting of a small box with a few sensors.
The Chinese weather balloon that the US Air Force just shot down is not only much larger at around 90 feet (27.5 metres) wide, it also has a very large payload that includes large solar panels, and even propellers to control its movement.
The kinds of weather balloons that are launched twice a day from Weather Service offices are typically just a little box that has a temperature sensor, relative humidity sensor, pressure sensor and then a little tiny transmitter. Based on the photos that have been going around, there’s obviously a lot more equipment on this one. – Alexandra Anderson-Frey, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington
Real weather balloons also do not travel far – they generally go up to a high altitude and stay there. Spy balloons, on the other hand, need to travel long distances. This Chinese balloon has travelled all the way from China to Alaska to Canada, before reaching the continental United States.
The reported characteristics of this balloon don’t really match anything that we’re familiar with. This has been traveling at a much longer distance than what would be these standard weather balloons.
[Standard weather balloons] go up over one particular place and up to about 50,000 feet in the atmosphere, and then that’s it, they’re done. They don’t travel large distances, so I think that there’s pretty significant differences between typical weather balloons and this reported balloon. – Jonathan Porter, Chief Meteorologist at Accuweather
Fact #3 : Chinese Balloon Was At Very High Altitude
The US Air Force sent two F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to take down the spy balloon, with two F-15 fighters to probably take videos and photos of the event.
While Chinese netizens may snigger at how the USAF has to use such an expensive fighter jet to shoot down a cheap Chinese balloon, they ignore the fact that the Chinese spy balloon was operating at a very high altitude of about 65,000 feet – that’s 20 km above ground level!
The F-22 Raptor was likely chosen for the task as it was most capable of flying to such a high altitude while loaded with missiles. Many jet fighters have “similar” maximum service ceilings, but their true service ceilings are often much lower, limited by the amount of armament and/or fuel they carry.
Fact #4 : Missile Was Necessary To Shoot Down Balloon
In the end, the F-22 Raptor with the callsign FRANK01 attained an altitude of 58,000 feet (17.7 km) before firing an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon. It was the first air-to-air combat kill for the F-22.
While Chinese netizens mocked the use of such an expensive missile, the AIM-9X Sidewinder is the smallest and cheapest air-to-air missile in the USAF arsenal.
It would be impossible for the F-22 Raptor pilot to use its 20 mm M61A2 Vulcan rotary cannon to shoot down the balloon, which is still 7,000 feet (2.1 km) above it!
In case you are wondering – the M61A2 Vulcan has an effective range of only 2,000 feet (600 metres). So a missile was necessary to bring down the Chinese spy balloon, and the AIM-9X was the right tool for the job.
Interestingly, the FRANK callsign may be a reference to World War I Medal of Honor recipient First Lieutenant Frank Luke Jr., who is known as the “Arizona Balloon Buster” for shooting down 14 German balloons, as well as four planes.
Fact #5 : China Breaks International Law With Spy Balloon Overflights
It is ludicrous for anyone to claim that China can keep sending “cheap” spy balloons to trigger the Americans, as every country has “complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory” under international law.
Such acts are therefore violations of international law, and infringements of the sovereignty of the countries that these spy balloons overfly.
That’s why Chinese government keeps claiming that these spy balloons are civilian craft. That is also why the US government has the right to shoot down the spy balloon without asking China for permission.
Fact #6 : Every Fallen Balloon Is An Intelligence Bonanza
In the United States, Republicans are complaining that President Joe Biden was weak in allowing the Chinese spy balloon to fly off the coast of South Carolina before shooting it down on Saturday afternoon, February 4, 2023.
What they don’t tell the people is that President Joe Biden asked the US Air Force to shoot down the spy balloon as soon as it was safe to do so.
On top of that, the US military wanted to retrieve the spy balloon to examine its payload, and the best way to keep the payload intact would be to bring down the balloon over shallow water, instead of land.
In accordance with the President’s direction, the military brought down the balloon within sovereign U.S. airspace and over U.S. territorial waters to protect civilians while maximizing our ability to recover the payload.
On Monday, February 6, 2023, the first parts of the Chinese spy balloon arrived at the FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, for further analysis.
Depending on what they recover, it may be possible to determine what these spy balloons are capable of, what it recorded, and who manufactured its components. The Americans may possibly gain insights into hitherto unknown Chinese technologies.
Instead of mocking the Americans for shooting down a “cheap” spy balloon, perhaps the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) and pro-CCP netizens should worry about what the Americans might find….
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did Russia just destroy four Bradley Fighting Vehicles in Ukraine?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Russia Just Destroyed 4 Bradley Fighting Vehicles In Ukraine!
People are sharing a video of Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov claiming that Russian forces destroyed four Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFV) in Ukraine!
Here is the accompanying message, which I machine-translated into English.
💥 За сутки боевых действий на данном направлении противник потерял 11 танков, 17 боевых машин пехоты, в том числе четыре БМП «Брэдли» производства США, 10 других боевых бронированных машин, 5 пикапов с крупнокалиберными пулеметами и более 150 военнослужащих.
💥 During the day of hostilities in this direction, the enemy lost 11 tanks, 17 infantry fighting vehicles, including four US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, 10 other armored combat vehicles, 5 pickup trucks with heavy machine guns and more than 150 military personnel.
Truth : Russia Did Not Destroy 4 Bradley Fighting Vehicles In Ukraine!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS spread by pro-Russian netizens and groups.
Fact #1 : Video Was Recorded On 4 September 2022
The video is genuine, but it isn’t new. It was actually posted on the official Russian Ministry of Defence’s Telegram group on 4 September 2022.
In that longer video, Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov was giving a report on the state of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
⚡️ Сводка Министерства обороны Российской Федерации о ходе проведения специальной военной операции на территории Украины (04.09.2022 г.)
⚡️ Report of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine (04.09.2022)
Fact #2 : Bradley Fighting Vehicle Donation Only Announced In January 2023
President Joe Biden only announced that the US government would be sending Ukraine about 50 Bradley M2A2 ODS Fighting Vehicles on Wednesday, January 4, 2023.
That’s exactly four months after Russia claimed to have destroyed four of them!
Fact #3 : There Are Still No Bradley Fighting Vehicles In Ukraine
Even today, it is impossible for Russian military forces to have destroyed four Bradley Fighting Vehicles in Ukraine, because the Ukrainian army still does not not have any!
Yes, President Biden announced a new $2.8 billion weapons package on January 4, 2023 that would include about 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, but those vehicles will take months to deliver.
As Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder announced on January 5, 2023 – the Bradley Fighting Vehicles have not been delivered to Ukraine.
You will see when Bradleys arrive on the battlefield. Let Ukraine announce it.
Fact #4 : Ukrainians Need To Train On Bradley Fighting Vehicles First!
Logistically, the US Army has about 4,000 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and can easily deliver the 50 vehicles to Ukraine in weeks, if not days.
However, Bradley Fighting Vehicles are complex vehicles, and it will take several weeks for each vehicle and maintenance crew to learn how to use and maintain them. And that is expedited training.
In fact, the Ukrainians will only start training on the Bradley M2 vehicles this week in Germany, as announced by Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder in a briefing last week.
Training will mostly start next week in Germany. We expect this training to last weeks, not months.
Regardless of when the US government sends the Bradley M2 vehicles to Ukraine, they will only appear on the battlefield after there are trained Ukrainian crews.
This is nothing more than old but official Russian propaganda that is being used by pro-CCP and pro-Russia netizens and groups to promote the perception that the United States is wasting resources in Ukraine.
Be wary of such claims, because there are plenty spreading on WhatsApp, Telegram and social media platforms. Here is a selection of similar Russian propaganda that I fact checked in the past:
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did China just catch 250 lab workers who were paid by the West to spread COVID-19?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : China Caught Lab Workers Paid To Spread COVID-19!
The Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) and pro-CCP netizens are now promoting a video as evidence that 250 lab workers were just caught spreading COVID-19 in China for Western countries!
China wonders why there is no end to covid, it turns out that there are 250 laboratory people who are accomplices of the West to spread the virus, have been arrested by the police, it can be confirmed that the punishment is death by firing squad.
Western countries have a cheap & effective way to stop China’s progress. . .
Truth : China Did Not Catch Lab Workers Paid To Spread COVID-19!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Video Was Taken From Kuaishou
The original video was posted on Kuaishou – a Chinese short-video platform like Douyin / TikTok, by a user called 水果花花 (Fruit Blossoms) on November 30, 2022.
Fact #2 : Video Was About Fake / Wrong PCR Test Results
My Mandarin isn’t good, but with a ton of help from Chai, I was able to determine that the video was not about lab workers spreading COVID-19 in China.
Instead, the narrator of the video was talking about a person called Zhang Shanshan who is backed by Zhang Hezi (who may or may not be her father) who owns a company which conducts PCR tests.
Unfortunately, the company was found to be falsifying test results, because they can make more money from more testing. Allegedly, that is why whenever they open up a new testing centre, there is a surge of COVID-positive cases.
The video did not mention anything about these lab workers spreading COVID-19, only that they were falsifying or making mistakes in PCR test results.
Here is a rough transcript of what the narrator in the video was saying:
On the 27th (November), Zhang Shanshan was said to be connected to 35 Nucleus Gene Technology, which was related to the incident of PCR test forgeries.
This company is Lanzhou Huaxi, which Zhang Shanshan was the supervisor. Based on the research of netizens, Zhang Shanshan was backed by Zhang He Zi, who owns 62 companies, of which 33 was managed by Zhang Shanshan.
According to info, Zhang He Zi enrolled into China Medical Univerity, specialising in DNA. After his Masters, he setup one of the first DNA test labs in China.
In the recent years, they opened 37 PCR test centers all over China. The strange thing is – wherever they open (a test centre), there will be outbreak in that area. And within a few days of the company registration, mass nucleic acid tests were ordered. Their business was skyrocketed. If there is no dark secret behind this,they must be really good at prediction.
Questions raised:
1. In 2022, sixteen He Zi Huaxi companies were setup. Registration time was within these 3 months.
2. What’s the greatest is – being a new setup company with unconfirmed capital, they managed to dominate the local nucleic test business, which should be an open tender by the government. Within just 3 months, they managed to expand their business empire and predicted the trend of COVID spread. After their business registration, the local city started to have outbreak and mass testing– which was the reason of the Lanzhou test results inconsistency. This is not an isolated case.
If this has become a business, the pandemic will never end. We must break this profit chain in order to have the air of freedom again.
Incidentally, here are some translations of the labels in the video:
后梅当初 : Back then
被告人: 希望审判长 少判我一点 : Defendant: I hope the presiding judge will give me a milder sentence
被告人: 少判我一点 : Defendant: Please give me a shorter sentence
一副手铐 锁住一个人 : A pair of handcuffs for each person
Fact #3 : Arrested Lab Workers Not Accused Of Spreading COVID-19
The lab workers, including Zhang Shanshan, were arrested because they were accused of giving false PCR test results, either intentionally or due to negligence.
They are all from the Chinese testing company called Shenzhen Nucleus Gene Technology Go. which is being accused of falsifying or improperly conducting PCR tests.
To be clear – the lab workers were not accused of helping Western countries spread COVID-19.
Fact #4 : There Were Only 8-9 People In The Video
If you look carefully at the video, there were only 8-9 lab workers who were standing trial in that courtroom.
There is no evidence of 250 lab workers being arrested in China for falsifying or mishandling PCR testing, never mind working for Western countries to spread COVID-19.
Fact #4 : Shenzhen Nucleus Gene Technology Co Is Under Investigation
Shenzhen Nucleus Gene Technology Go. (核子基因科技) is currently in hot water after on-site inspection by local authorities in Lanzhou (in the northwest province of Gansu) found inconsistencies in their PCR test results.
On November 25, 2022, the Lanzhou Municipal Health Commission reported that when they transferred people who tested positive in tests conducted by Nucleus Gene, some of them had green health codes which meant that their PCR test was negative.
Their investigation found that the staff of the Lanzhou Huaxi laboratory (华曦医学检验灾验室, owned by Nucleus Gene) mistakenly entered the wrong information into the health code database.
Chinese media outlets have accused Nucleus Gene of crimes like manipulating test results to create demand for more tests.
Since April 2020, Nucleus Gene has been fined at least 10 times for mishandling test samples to lying and manipulating test results, as well as forging medical certifications.
Nucleus Gene was also fined for hiring unqualified personnel to handle test samples, and wrongly labelling people as COVID-19 positive.
After recent Nucleus Gene testing controversy came to light, Chinese netizens began looking into its supervisor, Zhang Shanshan.
They found that Zhang Shanshan allegedly supervises 35-38 medical testing companies across China, most of them only registered in recent months.
In fact, the Lanzhou Huaxi laboratory was only registered in August 2022, with a capital of 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million), and immediately secured a large contract to provide PCR testing in Lanzhou.
Netizens joked that, “Where her company is found, that’s where a pandemic breaks out!”, and “Give an umbrella seller the ability to make rain, will the rain stop?”.
While it is not confirmed, Zhang Shanshan is allegedly the daughter of Zhang Hezi, who owns Nucleus Gene – the parent company which was established in Shenzhen in 2012.
He [Zhang Hezi] told us himself that he had a daughter who was studying abroad. He didn’t say what his daughter’s name was. My friends said his daughter’s name is Zhang Shanshan.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Is the US stealing advanced TSMC chip technologies from Taiwan, in the biggest international heist ever?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : US Is Stealing TSMC Chip Technologies From Taiwan!
This message has gone viral on WhatsApp and social media, claiming that two US professors have declared that the US is stealing Taiwan’s most advanced TSMC chip technologies!
It’s very long, so please feel free to skip to the next section for the facts!
Professor Ling-Chi Wang of UC Berkeley: I think the only way to describe what is happening to TSMC 台積电 in Hsinchu, Taiwan is to call it the biggest international heist, in broad daylight, of Taiwan’s biggest and most valuable manufacturing facility and intellectual property theft, estimated to be worth 4% of Taiwan’s GNP, considered by the people of Taiwan to be their 护国神山, ever undertaken in human history by the U.S. government.
The people of Taiwan are stunned by the magnitude and speed of the heist and the massive airlifting of the manufacturing facility, its most advance know-hows, and top scientists and engineers and their families to Phoenix, Arizona, commencing in December. The U.S. is paying billions to relocate and transport the company to the U.S.
The scale of intellectual robbery is unmatched by other large-scale international robberies I know of. The U.S. justified the robbery by declaring it a matter of “national security” of the U.S., based on the assumption that China will sooner or later seize Taiwan, thus depriving the U.S. and the world of its indispensable products.
What is even more stunning and insulting to the people of Taiwan is the conspicuous absence of any meaningful protest by the Taiwan government of Tsai Ing-wen. In fact, the government is aid and abetting the robbery.
Professor John V Walsh, MD, in San Francisco: First the US frightens them with threats of war and turning Taiwan into a porcupine bristling with American weapons. No one wants to live in Ukraine 2.0.
Then the US offers an “escape hatch” to Arizona where these Taiwanese may find the US anti-China rhetoric a bit much to stomach – and no distinctions made between Taiwanese and Chinese by street toughs.
Truth : US Is NOT Stealing TSMC Chip Technologies From Taiwan!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and shared by pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : No Evidence Professor Ling-Chin Wang Wrote It
First, let’s establish some basic facts about Professor Ling-Chi Wang. He is an ethnologist (not technologist), which means he studies and teaches about cultures and societies, not chips or technology.
He is also a Professor Emeritus of Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley, which means he is retired.
There is no evidence that Professor Ling Chin-Wang wrote any part of the viral message. He is not on Facebook, and he has not posted anything on his official LinkedIn page either.
The earliest and most complete example of this viral message appears to be written by a Chinese writer called Yu Ligong, who posted it on Facebook on 24 November 2022.
Fact #2 : No Evidence Professor John V. Walsh Wrote It
John V. Walsh was a professor of physiology and neuroscience at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. He has since retired.
He writes on issues of peace and healthcare, but there is no evidence he actually wrote that small section about turning Taiwan into a porcupine of American weapons, or Ukraine 2.0.
Again, the earliest example appears to be the Facebook post by the Chinese writer, Yu Ligong.
Fact #3 : TSMC Is Not Shifting Their Existing Fabs To US
The viral post falsely claims that the US government paid billions to relocate TSMC to the United States, airlifting its manufacturing facility to Arizona.
That’s not true – TSMC will still remain in Taiwan, where most of its fabs are located. The new Arizona fab will merely be another one of its many fabs. That’s why it’s known as Fab 21.
It is also impossible to “airlift” a semiconductor fabrication plant. Have you seen how massive it is?
Fact #4 : TSMC Owns Arizona Fab 21
The viral post falsely claims that the US government is robbing Taiwan of its prized intellectual property – TSMC’s most advanced chip technologies.
That’s patently false, because TSMC isn’t building a semiconductor plant for the US government. TSMC is building a new fab in Arizona, which it will fully own.
The TSMC Arizona plant, when fully completed, will be one of the most advanced semiconductor fabs in the world, producing both 3-nanometer and 5-nanometer chips.
Regardless of where it builds its wafer fabs, TSMC continues to own its intellectual property, except possibly in China.
This was pointed out by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger in his June 2022 op-ed arguing for more subsidies for American chipmakers.
… foreign chipmakers vying for U.S. subsidies will keep their valuable intellectual property on their own shores, ensuring that the most lucrative and cutting-edge manufacturing stays there and requiring the U.S. to make the difficult choice between forgoing the advanced chips necessary for critical national security applications or relying on insecure, foreign supply chains for them.
Unlike China, the United States does not demand technology transfers to gain access to its massive market. So no, the US does not gain TSMC’s intellectual properties just because it subsidises Fab 21 in Arizona.
It may be different in China, where the CCP government is notorious for insisting on technology transfers.
Fact #6 : TSMC Arizona Is Second US Fab
TSMC Arizona isn’t even the first semiconductor plant the Taiwanese company built in the United States.
Back in 1995, TSMC started work on a $1.2 billion semiconductor plant called Fab 11 at Camas, Washington, which produces 8-inch wafers.
Fact #7 : TSMC Has Two Fabs In China!
If the writer believes that building a fab overseas means that the foreign country owns TSMC’s intellectual property, then it would mean that China “stole” TSMC’s intellectual property as well.
That’s because TSMC has not one, but TWO wafer fabs in China!
Fab 10 in Shanghai, which produces 200 mm wafers
Fab 16 in Nanjing, which produces 300 mm wafers
In April 2021, TSMC announced that it would expand capacity at their Nanjing fab, which it would also upgrade to produce smaller 16 nm chips.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The Russian government was just caught red-handed fabricating evidence that Ukraine was preparing a dirty bomb!
Take a look at their claims, and find out what the facts really are!
Russian Gov : Ukraine Is Creating A Dirty Bomb!
The Russian government has recently been promoting the claim that Ukraine is creating a dirty bomb.
On Sunday, October 23, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told his counterparts in the US, Britain, France and Turkey that Ukraine was preparing to use a dirty bomb.
He then repeated his claim in a phone call with the Indian defence minister on Wednesday, October 26.
To convince the world of that dastardly plot, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA Russia) shared “evidence” on October 24 that Ukraine has “directly ordered” two organisations to create a dirty bomb!
💬 Russian Defence Ministry: According to the information at hand, two organisations of Ukraine have been ❗ directly ordered to create the so-called #dirtybomb.
☢️ The works are at their concluding stage.
Note : We added a Misleading overlay to avoid these photos from being further misused.
The Russian government has done nothing but lie and lie, from before it invaded Ukraine until today, and this is no different.
Here are the reasons why this is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by the Russian government.
Fact #1 : Radioactive Waste Photo Was From Slovenia In 2010
The Slovenian government came out to publicly call out the Russian government in fabricating their evidence of a Ukrainian dirty bomb.
It identified this photo as a Slovenian Radioactive Waste Management Agency (ARAO) photo from 2010, that had been “misused and used without the knowledge of ARAO”.
The objects are simply smoke detectors placed inside plastic bags labelled Radioaktivno, which is radioactive in Slovenian. For context, radioactive in Ukrainian is Радіоактивний (Radioaktyvnyy).
The photo was created by ARAO and used as a “stock image” for their presentations and does not actually contain any radioactive materials.
Since its 2010 release, this ARAO stock image has been used in a 2014 presentation by the Center for Eco-Toxicological Research in Montenegro, and a 2016 story about Mexican authorities finding a stolen truck with radioactive materials.
Fact #2 : Dirty Bomb Design Was From 2016
The schematic of what Russian military intelligence claimed was a Ukrainian dirty bomb was actually expropriated from a Radiology Key article that posted it on 1 June 2016.
This is simply a stock diagram to explain how a dirty bomb – also known as a radioactive dispersal device (RDD), works.
It also skews more towards the terrorism aspect, hence the use of fertiliser, a metal drum and a time fuse. Military forces would not resort to such ad hoc designs.
Honestly, it looks less like actual “military intelligence” and more like whoever came up with this just did an image search for “radioactive dispersal device” and voila!
Fact #3 : Scientific Research Reactors Are In Russia
The scientific research reactors that the Russian government identified as sources for the Ukrainian dirty bomb are both located in Russia.
As Benjamin Strick, Director of Investigations for the Centre for Information Resilience pointed out:
the photo on the left is from the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station in the Sverdlovsk Oblast in Russia
the photo on the right is a flipped screenshot of the Novosibirsk Scientific and Industrial Complex, also in Russia.
If Russia wants to create a dirty bomb, it would possibly need help from both facilities, but certainly not the Ukrainians.
Fact #4 : Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Is Under Russian Control
The top left photo shows the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, which was captured by Russia on 4 March 2022.
On 12 March 2022, it was placed under control of the Russian state nuclear power company, Rosatom. While the Zaporizhzhia NPP continues to be operated by Ukrainian staff, it has been under Russian control since March 2022.
Therefore, it would be absurd to claim that the Ukrainians would use nuclear material from this power plant to create a dirty bomb.
Fact #5 : Detonating A Dirty Bomb Would Contaminate Ukraine For Years
Russian claims that the Ukrainians would detonate a dirty bomb on their own land are ludicrous, because:
a) The Ukrainians are winning
Ukrainian counteroffensives in the south and east are working – they are winning back land previously occupied by Russian forces.
It would not make sense to detonate a dirty bomb, which would contaminate the land and stymie their counteroffensives.
b) The lands would be contaminated for years, if not longer
Dirty bombs are nothing more than conventional bombs paired with radioactive materials. When they explode, they disperse and contaminate the surrounding area with the radioactive material.
Detonating one in Ukraine would contaminate their own lands for many years, even decades. Why on Earth would they do that?
Ukraine is keenly aware of the dangers of radioactivity, having bore the brunt of Soviet incompetence during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident that resulted in 2,600 km2 of Ukrainian land uninhabitable for the next 300 years or more.
Fact #6 : This Is Just Russian Propaganda
This is just another example of Russian propaganda, which is shoddy as usual.
Here is a selection of Russian and Ukraine War propaganda that have been proven false:
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did four ROCAF F-16 fighter jets from Taiwan just defect to China?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Four F-16 Fighter Jets From Taiwan Just Defected To China!
Many people are sharing a post on WhatsApp and social media, which claims that four F-16 fighter jets from Taiwan just defected to China.
It’s really long, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts…
👍IMPORTANT NEWS🇸🇬 :- is reported that at 4:35 in the morning, four F16 fighter jets of a certain air force in Taiwan suddenly flew towards the center line of the strait during routine training and lost contact with the ground.
The Taiwan Air Force sent two fighter jets to intercept it, and the two sides exchanged fire in the air. The four F16 fighter jets that defected have now landed at a military base in Fujian.
There was an air battle over the Taiwan Strait. Four Taiwan F16 fighter jets jointly defected and engaged in an air battle with two interceptor fighters. The interceptors were shot down, and the life and death of the pilots were unknown.
The four F16 fighter jets and their crews that have landed safely at a military base in Fujian have been secretly protected by the military.
At present, both the mainland and Taiwan have remained silent on the incident. The United States called Taiwan’s leaders to express concern about the incident.
The four planes were stationed at Taoyuan Airport – the 16th Air Wing. The captain of the pilot is Major Han Rongming, and the plane number is TY160531.
According to eyewitnesses, one plane was slightly injured when it landed; the four planes landed successfully under the cover of eight SU-27 fighter jets from the mainland!
According to reliable information (from a well-informed source within the Air Force), the four F-16s that defected from the Taiwan Air Force the day before yesterday were transferred from Fuzhou Airport to Wuhu Air Force Base in Anhui under the “protection” of eight Su-27s.
The four F-16 pilots were warmly welcomed by the leadership led by the base commander. The four F-16s and their pilots have all been transferred to reliable locations.
According to rumors, the four pilots may go to Beijing next week to meet with senior Chinese military leaders. In response to this, the Chinese spokesperson said in response to questions from Chinese and foreign reporters that there has been no notification from relevant departments.
The Taiwan authorities have also remained tight-lipped about this. The U.S. Pentagon was extremely angry about this, because one of the RF-16s involved a lot of important electronic intelligence and important equipment, and Japan was also very surprised and said that it would upgrade the related equipment of the Self-Defense Force’s f-16 (transfer). 👍🇸🇬
Truth : No F-16 Fighter Jets From Taiwan Ever Defected To China!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and shared by pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : This Fake Story First Circulated In 2003
This fake story isn’t new. It first went viral in June 2003, when a mainland Chinese military publication called The Extensive Military Report, published a report claiming that four Taiwanese F-16 fighter jets defected to China.
The article said that four Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) F-16 Block 20 fighter jets from the 401st Fighter Wing based at the Taoyuan Air Base defected to an airbase in the Fujian province, under a heavy escort of eight Chinese Su-27 fighter jets.
Allegedly, the four F-16 fighter jets “escaped” during a routine exercise flight at 4 PM on May 27, 2003. Two “loyal” F-16 fighter jets gave chase, and one was shot down by the defecting planes while the second managed to return to base.
Fact #2 : Both Taiwan + China Labelled The Story As False
When the story broke in June 2003, both the Taiwanese and Chinese governments labelled the story as false.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) called the article “a ridiculous rumour”, while the China’s foreign ministry denied the rumour at a press conference.
Taiwanese spokesperson Huang Suey-sheng pointed out that even the Chinese authorities rebutted the claims.
Fact #3 : ROCAF F-16 Tail Numbers Do Not Exist
The original fake story specifically mentioned that one of the defecting F-16 fighter jets had a tail number of 160531.
The modified fake story that is currently circulating on WhatsApp and social media in 2022 said that the aircraft had a tail number of TY160531.
They are both false. No ROCAF aircraft has either tail number.
ROCAF F-16 fighter jets have a four-digit tail number, without any TY prefix.
Fact #4 : ROCAF F-16 Fighters Are Not Based In Taoyuan
Both the original and the updated fake stories falsely claim that the defecting F-16 fighter jets were stationed at the Taoyuan Air Base.
Taiwan’s F-16 fighter jets are based at the Chiayi Air Base in Chiayi, and the Chiashan Air Force Base in Hualien.
Fact #5 : Taoyuan Air Base No Longer Exists!
Taoyuan Air Base no longer exists! In 2007, it was turned over to the Republic of China Navy, and renamed to Taoyuan Naval Base.
Fact #6 : Taiwan Only Has Five Fighter Wings
The original fake story claimed that the defecting F-16 fighters came from the 401st Fighter Wing, while the updated fake story claimed they came from the 16th Air Wing.
Neither the 401st Fighter Wing nor the 16th Air Wing exist in the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF).
There was a 401st Tactical Combined Wing operating out of Taoyuan Air Base, and it had a 16th Tactical Fighter Squadron. But it only operated F-104 fighter jets from the 1960s until the early 1990s.
Currently, Taiwan has five fighter wings, of which only the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing and the 5th Tactical Fighter Wing are equipped with F-16 fighter jets.
Fact #7 : This Is Just Chinese Propaganda
This is just another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛).
All of the wumao articles and videos that I looked at so far have proven to be false… at every instance. So please watch out for such false claims.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Are the US and Western countries sending infected birds to spread monkeypox to China and other Asian countries?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : US Is Sending Infected Birds To Spread Monkeypox!
The Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) and pro-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) netizens are now claiming that the US and Western countries are sending infected birds to spread monkeypox to China and other Asian countries.
Hey, guys. No matter where you are, if you see a bird that can’t fly, can’t walk or struggle on the ground, you should never catch it, for fear of monkeypox infection. The relevant community has informed you, please pay attention to it. Remember!
The United States and Western countries used the birds to carry take the Monkeypox virus to spread to the Asian region!
My sister sent it from Germany and asked me to inform family and friends immediately. Have relatives and friends on the notice, do not because of compassion, get infected unknowingly.
Truth : No One Is Sending Infected Birds To Spread Monkeypox!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and shared by pro-CCP netizens, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : The West Is Not Sending Infected Birds To Spread Monkeypox
Just like their insects attack claim, the wumao are falsely blaming the West for sending birds to spread monkeypox.
This is utter nonsense, and nothing more than Chinese propaganda. It is also not very believable propaganda at that, and I will show you why.
Fact #2 : Monkeypox Not Known To Infect Birds
Birds have, so far, not been found to be infected with the monkeypox virus, or any other orthopoxviruses. So it would be absurd for anyone to suggest birds being used as a vector for spreading monkeypox.
The monkeypox virus mostly infects mammals like apes, monkeys, squirrels, shrews, chinchillas, anteaters, hedgehogs, prairie dogs… and yes, human beings. But not birds.
Fact #3 : Most Monkeypox Cases Are In The West!
It is absurd to claim that the West is intentionally spreading monkeypox to China and other Asian countries.
If they were, well, they are doing a piss-poor job of it, because nine of the top 10 countries with monkeypox cases are Western countries!
Fact #4 : Current Outbreak Spreading Human-to-Human
In the 2022 monkeypox outbreak, the disease is being spread from human-to-human, not from birds to humans.
The global spread occurs through air travel – infected people travelling overseas, and infecting other people at those destinations.
Many of the cases have also been traced to men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners.
This does not mean that monkeypox is a sexually-transmitted disease (STD). It is not spread through sexual activities, but through skin-to-skin contact between an infected person and other people.
Fact #5 : It Is Difficult To Train Birds
While pigeons can be trained to carry messages between two points, it is not easy to train them.
For one thing – you need to repeatedly transport the pigeons and feed them at both the origin location, and the destination, until they can fly between the two locations independently.
Only pigeons have been trained reliably this way. Other birds lack the pigeon’s ability to navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field (magnetoreception), or its ease of training.
Even if the US and other Western countries want to use pigeons to infect China and other Asian countries with monkeypox, they would need to repeatedly bring the pigeons over to the target countries and back. Do you think such activity would not catch the attention of the authorities at those countries?
Without such training, the birds will simply fly wherever they want to, and not where the Americans / Westerners want them to.
It would be much easier to just fly someone infected with monkeypox to China, and give everyone there a big hug…. which is why this fake story is so stupid!
The bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica) holds the world’s record for flying over 12,000 kilometres for 11 days straight without stopping. However, most birds just don’t fly very far.
Even homing pigeons can only fly for about 1,200 km a day, which is pretty darn far… until you realise that the distance between the US and China is some 11,640 kilometres!
Only the bar-tailed godwit is capable of making that flight. The homing pigeon can only travel 10% of the way across the mighty Pacific Ocean.
Fact #7 : This Is Just Chinese Propaganda
This is really nothing more than yet another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛).
All of the wumao articles that I looked at so far have proven to be false… at every instance. So please watch out for such false claims.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did the US try to send 7,000 insects into China to destroy their crops?!
Take a look at viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : US Sent 7,000 Insects To Destroy Crops In China!
People are sharing a video of a Chinese news report about Chinese custom official discovering 66 containers of some 7,000 insects in a parcel shipped from the US.
They allege that this is evidence of American sabotage – that the US sent those insects to destroy crops in China. The video is often shared with this message :
China customs found 7000 insects sent from the USA. Out to destroy crops in China.
An evil country on the way down trying to pull others down too with sickening and rather despicable tactics !
🤬🤬🤬
In addition to claiming that these insects are dangerous to crops, some pro-CCP or Chinese-sponsored websites are promoting the claim that these insects had their genes edited to become “more infectious”, like a “super mosquito”.
They also point out that each of these insects can reproduce every 10 days, laying 400 eggs in their lifetime to quickly produce a swarm that will destroy fruits in China, by corrupting them with bacteria and fungi.
Truth : US Did Not Send 7,000 Insects To Destroy Crops In China!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and shared by pro-CCP netizens and websites, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : The Incident Happened In July 2022
First, let us establish what we know about this case.
Sometime in early July 2022, Qingdao customs officers examined a package sent from the United States. Its declaration form claimed that the parcel contained clothes.
When they opened it up, they found two pieces of clothes inside, with 66 sealed tubes containing eggs, larvae, pupae and adult insects.
After analysing them, Qingdao custom officers estimated that the 66 tubes contained roughly 7,000 fruit flies, specifically of the species Drosophila melanogaster.
Fact #2 : Drosophila megalogaster Is Present Worldwide
Drosophila melanogaster is known as the common fruit fly, which is commonly present across the world. Yes, this fruit fly is already present in China.
Despite originating in Africa – it is now present on all continents across the world, including islands.
Fact #3 : Drosophila megalogaster Can Lay Up To 2,000 Eggs
The Chinese media promoting this story can’t even get their facts right, claiming that these fruit flies lay up to 400 eggs in their lifetime.
Drosophila melanogaster females are far more productive than that – they can lay up to 100 eggs a day, and up to 2,000 eggs in a lifetime.
Fact #4 : Drosophila megalogaster Do Not Cause Fruits To Rot
Drosophila melanogaster is not an economic pest, even though no one welcomes them in their home.
It is often confused with Tephritidae – a different family of insects that are also called fruit flies, some of which are economic pests that destroy fruits.
Unlike Tephritidae fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster do not destroy fruits. They are attracted to fruit that is already rotting, but do not cause fruits to rot.
The claims that the US sent Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies to destroy crops in China is nonsense.
Fact #5 : Drosophila megalogaster Is Commonly Used For Research
Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies are very popular in scientific research, for many reasons :
they are easy and cheap to care for, requiring little equipment and space
they have a rapid life cycle of 10 days, allowing several generations to be studied in a few weeks
each female can produce many offspring, laying up to 2,000 eggs in its lifetime
they have simple genetics, with only four pairs of chromosomes
their genome was completely sequenced and published in the year 2000
Scientists do not mention this as a reason for using Drosophila melanogaster, but I think it is important to note that it is not a pest, so accidental release of these fruit flies would not pose any danger of any form or kind.
Fact #6 : Drosophila megalogaster Is Commonly Shipped Worldwide
Because it is a model organism for research, Drosophila melanogaster is bred and shipped internationally to researchers worldwide.
The College of Agriculture and Life Science at Cornell University, for example, breeds and sellsDrosophila melanogaster fruit flies, which they ship internationally including China.
Fact #7 : 2021 Seized Shipment Was Meant For Chinese Research Institute
This wasn’t the first time China seized live Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies in such tubes.
In June 2021, Chinese custom officials found 58 tubes containing more than 1,000 of these fruit flies in an imported parcel addressed to a Chinese research institute.
They seized the parcel because its contents were not declared, and it lacked an import permit.
Fact #8 : China Requires Quarantine For Live Insects
China forbids live insects from being mailed or carried into the country, without special quarantine or approval.
However, quarantine is a problem for Drosophila melanogaster because it has such a short lifespan of just 50 days.
Hence, it is possible that Chinese researchers are trying to circumvent the quarantine by importing live Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies, without an import permit which would require quarantine.
It is also possible that these fruit flies are being imported as a live food source for their pet fish, frogs and other animals.
Fact #9 : Cornell University Warned About Chinese Import Permit
Cornell University specifically warned Chinese researchers trying to purchase these fruit flies that :
As of November 1, 2014, we can only offer free replacements for shipments of live flies to China that were accompanied by an import permit.
That suggests that they lost shipments to China in the past, because they lacked import permits.
Fact #10 : This Is Chinese Propaganda
This is really nothing more than yet another example of Chinese propaganda created by the infamous Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛).
All of the wumao articles that I looked at so far have proven to be false… at every instance. So please watch out for such false claims.
Please help us fight fake news – SHARE this article, and SUPPORT our work!
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Find out why the US, Canada and Ukraine repeatedly voted against an anti-Nazi resolution in the United Nations!
Claim : US, Canada, Ukraine Voted Against Anti-Nazi Resolution!
Pro-Russia and pro-CCP netizens, as well as the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), are claiming that the US, Canada and Ukraine are the only three of four countries to vote against the anti-Nazi resolution in the United Nations.
Here is a recent example, which refers to a 2014 UN Resolution called “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance“.
Why are the US, Canada, and Ukraine the only three of four countries in the world to vote NO to the UN resolution to combat Nazism and Neo-Nazism? In fact most European countries abstained, while the vast majority of the global south including China, India, Russia voted yes
Note : This photo has often been used as “evidence” that Ukraine and the US are pro-Nazi. The truth is – this is a digitally manipulated photo.
Here’s Why US, Canada, Ukraine Voted Against Anti-Nazi Resolution!
At first glance, it is easy enough to see why pro-Russia and pro-CCP netizens actually believe that the US, Canada and Ukraine are Nazi supporters.
Let’s go through the facts of this UN resolution, and find out why US, Canada and Ukraine voted against an anti-Nazi resolution.
Fact #1 : US, Canada, Ukraine Voted Against Anti-Nazi Resolution
First, let me confirm that the US, Canada and Ukraine did indeed vote No to a 2014 UN resolution called 2014 UN Resolution called “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance“.
Here was how the voting went :
Total voting membership : 193
Members voting Yes : 132
Members voting No : 4 (US, Canada, Ukraine, Palau)
Members abstaining : 51 (including all EU member states)
Members who did not vote : 6
Fact #2 : This Is Old News From 2014
This is old news from 2014 that is being resurrected due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia calls their invasion of Ukraine a “special operation” to “denazify Ukraine”, and they justified it by claiming that Ukraine is full of Nazis.
Hence, pro-Russia and pro-CCP groups, including the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), have been promoting this story as “evidence” that the US, Canada and Ukraine are pro-Nazi.
Fact #3 : Resolution Was Presented By Russia To Justify Annexation Of Crimea
The 2014 UN resolution was presented by Russia as a way to justify its annexation of Crimea in March 2014.
That was why Ukraine joined the US and Canada in voting against the resolution. All European Union member states abstained en masse from the resolution for the same reason.
Speaking to European Voice before the vote, Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevičius, said that “no one should doubt that we are condemning fascism”, but, he continued, “under cover of this condemnation, Russia is pursuing its own agenda”.
It was not that those countries support Nazism or facism. It’s because they do not agree that Russia should use it as a pretext to attack other countries.
Fact #4 : Ukraine First Voted No In 2014
This resolution has actually been presented on a yearly basis since 1980, but Ukraine only started to vote no in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea.
Their official reason for Ukraine voting No though was because the document did not reflect the crimes of the Stalin regime :
Andrey Tsimbalyuk, Ukraine’s Representative in the UN, said in 2014: “Until Stalinism and neo-Stalinism are judged with the same degree, as Nazism, neo-Nazism and other forms of intolerance, Ukraine will not be able to support this document.”
This is why pro-Russia and pro-CCP netizens only mention the 2014 resolution, but not the earlier versions. That was the first time Ukraine voted against the resolution.
Did Russian annexation of Crimea turn Ukrainians into Nazis? Or did they simply dislike Russia’s use of Nazism to justify their illegal invasion of Ukraine?
Thanks to a CCP supporter, Wan Chun Hong, I confirm that United States has voted against each instance of this resolution as far back as 1985.
The United States also abstained from voting for this resolution in the 1980 resolution, together with 17 other countries.
The US reason for voting against the resolution was to defend the freedom of speech. As Nicholas Hill, the Deputy US Representative for ECOSOC explained on November 12, 2021 :
The United States Supreme Court has consistently affirmed the constitutional right to freedom of speech and the rights of peaceful assembly and association, including by avowed Nazis, whose hatred and xenophobia are vile and widely scorned by the American people. We nevertheless firmly defend the constitutional rights of those who exercise their fundamental freedoms to combat intolerance and express strong opposition to the odious Nazi creed and others that espouse similar hatreds.
For these reasons, the United States has voted against each new version of this resolution since 2005 and is, again, compelled to vote “No” on this resolution, and calls on other States to do the same.
Nazism is also far less of a problem today than white nationalism, or Russian and Chinese aggression against their neighbours.
CCP supporter, Wan Chun Hong, intended to use the 1985 UN Resolution as evidence that Western countries were really supporters of Nazism.
There is one problem though – two countries voted No against the measure called “Measures to be taken against Nazi, Fascist and neo-Fascist activities and all other forms of totalitarian ideologies and practices based on racial intolerance, hatred and terror“.
One was the United States. The other was Israel. Does Israel voting against that anti-Nazi resolution mean that the Israelis are also pro-Nazis, like the United States?
CCP supporters would like us to believe that, because they think we are idiots.
Fact #7 : Russia Is Using Resolution To Justify Attacks On Neighbours
Russia has been using this resolution to justify its attacks on its neighbours, as Nicholas Hill also pointed out in the same November 12, 2021 explanation :
[T]he United States must once again express opposition to this resolution, a document most notable for its thinly veiled attempts to legitimize Russian disinformation campaigns denigrating neighboring nations and promoting the distorted Soviet narrative of much of contemporary European history, using the cynical guise of halting Nazi glorification.
Here is a list of territories that Russia has occupied so far :
Transnistria : seized from Moldova in 1992
Abkhazia and South Ossetia : seized from Georgia in 2008
Crimea, and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk : seized from Ukraine in 2014
Parts of Donetsk and all of Luhansk : seized from Ukraine in 2022 (ongoing)
This is really nothing more than Russian propaganda to justify their invasions of other countries, reminiscent of what Nazi Germany did in the 1930s.
Russian and Chinese propaganda have also tried to introduce fake claims like NATO had been planning to invade Russia from Ukraine, or that they created COVID-19 in Ukrainian biological labs.
Fact #8 : Russia Colluded With Nazi Germany In World War 2
Russian and Chinese propaganda avoid mentioning how the Soviet Union colluded with Nazi Germany, and was responsible (in part) for starting World War 2 in Europe.
The fascist ideology of Nazi Germany did not gel well with the communist ideology of the Soviet Union, which was why relations between the two countries deteriorated once Hitler came into power.
But the Soviet Union warmed up to the Nazis, and actively colluded with Nazi Germany before and during World War 2… up until Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
Multiple commercial agreements provided Nazi Germany with desperately needed raw materials, including oil.
The Soviet Union invaded Poland in partnership with Nazi Germany.
The Soviet Union invaded Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, just after Germany invaded France, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The Soviet Union tried to join the Axis Pact, which consisted of Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy.
The Soviet Union provided Nazi Germany with the means to avoid the economic blockade, and continue their invasion of Europe.
If Hitler did not make the mistake of invading the Soviet Union, it was likely that Europe would have been divided between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as per the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
In these pictures from 23 August 1939, you can see Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; and Stalin shaking hands with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, after signing the pact.
Vyacheslav Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (left), Stalin shaking hands with Ribbentrop after signing the pact (right)
Fact #9 : United States Was Anti-Nazi Long Before Russia
Russian and Chinese propaganda always skim over the inconvenient fact that the United States was anti-Nazi long before Russia.
While Russia was actively colluding with Nazis, and partnering with Nazi Germany in dividing up Central Europe; the United States not only prepared for war against Germany, it shared critical technology with Britain and provided them with tremendous amounts of armaments through the Lend-Lease Act.
Russia would also end up benefiting from the US Lend-Lease Act, which saw the US producing and shipping US$50.1 billion worth of military equipment and supplies (equivalent to US$690 billion in 2020) to Allies.
Fact #10 : United States Prevented Soviet Union’s Collapse
Russian and Chinese propaganda also (intentionally?) forget to point out that it was the United States that helped to prevent the Soviet Union’s collapse during the German invasion in 1941.
It took the German armed forces less than 6 months to advance within 20 miles of the Kremlin. The complete capitulation of Russia was stopped, in part, by a prodigious amount of arms and equipment sent by the United States :
400,000 jeeps & trucks
14,000 airplanes
8,000 tractors
13,000 tanks
1.5 million blankets
15 million pairs of army boots
107,000 tons of cotton
2.7 million tons of petrol products
4.5 million tons of food
Reminiscent of the military aid that Ukraine is now receiving from the United States and other members of NATO, the US Lend-Lease Act supplied the Soviet Union with $11.3 billion ($180 billion in 2020 currency) worth of aid from 1941 to 1945.
Without such large amounts of aid from the United States, it was likely that Russia would today be part of a Greater Nazi Germany, or at least a vassal state of Nazi Germany.
Stalin himself acknowledged the value of American support to his aide and future USSR leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who said :
I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were “discussing freely” among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany’s pressure, and we would have lost the war.
We should note that the US helped Russia, even though the US was at that time a neutral country, and Russia was responsible for kicking off World War 2 by colluding with Nazi Germany to invade Central European countries.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Are the Western media covering up massive riots with looting and vandalism on the US West Coast?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Western Media Are Covering Up Riots In US West Coast!
People are sharing a video of a recent riot in America, claiming that Western media is actively concealing the news.
Allegedly, only the Chinese media and netizens are exposing the riots on the US West Coast by releasing such videos to show the world how decadent and lawless the United States really is.
The viral video is often shared with comments like these :
Protests, vandalism and looting rage across the west coast of US on 31/5 and 1/6/22 but not reported by CNN & BBC . Also not by Singapore’s CNA
Lawlessness in the country supposed to be icon of justice
Truth : Western Media Are Not Covering Up Riots In US West Coast!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and pro-CCP netizens.
After investigating the viral video, here are the facts that I was able to ascertain…
Fact #1 : Video Was Recorded In Cleveland, Ohio
The viral video does not show riots in the US West Coast. I geolocated the precise location of this riot to East 4th Street (E 4th St.) in Cleveland, Ohio.
If you look closely at the video, you can spot these landmarks and their signboards :
Butcher and the Brewer (Old-World Cuts and Hand-Built Brews)
Windsor Apartments
Mabel’s BBQ
Society Lounge
Zocalo Tequileria
Flannery’s Pub
Buckeye Apartments
Those landmarks allowed me to precisely geolocate the entire video to that one street – East 4th Street in Cleveland, Ohio.
Fact #2 : Ohio Is A Midwestern State, Near The East Coast
Ohio is an American Midwestern state. But despite that classification, it is actually located next to the Eastern seaboard.
It is most definitely not on the US West Coast, which comprises of the states of California, Oregon and Washington.
I have no idea why the wumao would lie about the riot happening on the US West Coast. Perhaps, it is the American region most familiar to Chinese netizens, since it is located next to the Pacific Ocean.
Fact #3 : Cleveland Riot Happened In 2020
The video does not depict a riot that happened on May 31 and June 1, 2022. It actually showed people rioting over the death of George Floyd on June 2, 2020 – two years ago.
Chinese netizens may not be aware, but people in the United States are allowed to participate in peaceful protests, like the 2020 protests against police brutality and racism, epitomised by George Floyd’s death.
But violent riots are against the law, and so 99 people were arrested in the 2020 Cleveland riots.
Fact #4 : There Are No Riots Happening On The US West Coast
Just in case Chinese netizens are “confused”, there are no riots happening on the US West Coast, at the end of May or early June 2022.
There are no acts of vandalism or looting raging across the US West Coast, which is precisely why there is ZERO COVERAGE of these riots.
No one is covering these riots because they did not happen. This is just Chinese disinformation using a legitimate video from two years ago.
Fact #5 : Western Media Covered The Cleveland Riots
Unlike in China, where the media is muzzled and “inappropriate news” are censored, Western media are under no such restrictions.
If there are riots in the United States right now, you can be sure they would be covering it. Bad news sells best, after all!
The truth is – the Western media covered the Cleveland riots extensively… when it happened in 2020! In fact, you can see a man who looks like a press photographer taking photos in the viral video.
Fact #6 : Video Is Part Of Wumao Disinformation
This isn’t the first real video being used in a wumao disinformation campaign, to drive the narrative that the United States is in a perpetual state of anarchy.
I have personally fact checked many videos and stories that were deliberately spread by the wumao as part of their disinformation campaign :
So why are the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and pro-CCP netizens promoting such videos and stories?
More importantly – why is the Chinese government spending money on such disinformation campaigns?
While you ponder on those questions, watch out and be wary of similar videos and stories being spread in Chinese and pro-CCP groups.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did Russia just prove that US biolabs in Ukraine created the COVID-19 virus?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : US Biolabs In Ukraine Created COVID-19 Virus!
People are sharing this message on WhatsApp, claiming that Russia has proven that US biolabs in Ukraine created the COVID-19 virus!
It’s rather long, and we removed the links, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts!
America and Ukraine must pay for damages & life lost for the creation of Covid19 pandemic
Russia is presenting its case to the world on the U.S. Biolabs in Ukraine— along with China, Brazil, Mexico & India, calling for an immediate investigation. U.S. DS is in a panic state, denying it & does not want an investigation.
The DS U.S. doesn’t want an investigation. 3.2 BILLION people in China, India, Brazil, Mexico & Russia — nearly half of the world’s population are calling for an investigation into the U.S. for bioweapon facilities. UN, US, Nato will be found guilty of these crimes. BIG CHANGES are happening. These entities will be dissolved.
WHO is demanding DS Ukraine to destroy the bio lab evidence because they are also complicit. It’s ALL CONNECTED.
Russians Call for UN Security Council Meeting Over Pentagon-funded Ukraine Biolabs That Involved ‘Coronavirus’ Research
WHO warns Ukraine to destroy dangerous pathogens to prevent spills from bombed labs.
Documents Expose Barack Obama Ordered Construction Of Biolabs In Ukraine To Create Dangerous Pathogens.
US RAN GRUESOME BIOWEAPON RESEARCH IN OVER 25 COUNTRIES.
US BIOLABS IN UKRAINE CONFIRMED.
Hunter Biden Firm Rosemont Seneca Invested in Firm Tied to Ukrainian Biolabs.
CCS’s comments: The world will definitely have to hold the American bastards totally n unreservedly responsible for their sinister n evil inhumane acts which they do to mankind.
The United Nation is formed and controlled by US for their sole n only purpose and not for the well being of the world. UN does not serve any purposes for the human race at all.
Truth : US Biolabs In Ukraine Did NOT Create COVID-19 Virus!
This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS created and promoted by pro-Russian and pro-CCP netizens, including the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛).
It is really a hodgepodge of different false claims that try to shift the blame for the COVID-19 pandemic from China to the United States, while offering Russia a “legitimate reason” to invade Ukraine.
Fact #1 : UN Members Did Not Call For Investigation
On 11 March 2022, Russia accused the US and Ukraine of plotting to use migratory birds, bats and insects to spread pathogens across Europe.
The Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, however, provided no actual evidence to back up those claims.
The fake news falsely claimed that China, Brazil, Mexico and India called for an immediate investigation. Only China called for “clarification” by the US and Ukraine, in an attempt to support Russia’s claims.
The UN High Representative for Disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu, said that the United Nations was “not aware of any biological weapons programme” in Ukraine.
The UN Security Council certainly did not call for any investigation. In fact, many UN members publicly said that they are worried that it was a pretext for Russia to use its own biological / chemical weapons.
Fact #2 :US Does Not Have Biological Labs In Ukraine
Igor Kirillov, the Chief of the Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Force, claimed that the US has 30 biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine.
The truth is – they are Ukrainian biological laboratories, some of which receive financial and other support from the US, the European Union and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
This is not unique to Ukraine – biological labs in many countries receive similar support from the US, EU and the WHO.
Fact #3 : Biological Labs Are Essential To All Countries
Biological labs do not conduct biological warfare research, because that is banned in 183 countries under the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).
Instead, they are on the forefront of a country’s biosecurity defences, and are absolutely essential in developing tests and cures (including vaccines) for new and emerging diseases, like the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
In fact, both Russia and China have a number of biological labs, including the famous Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is located right at the epicentre of the first COVID-19 outbreak.
It would be hypocritical (and intentionally?) misleading for both Russia and China to demonise biological labs. After all, they are ESSENTIAL to every country’s national security, including their own.
Fact #4 :Biological Threat Reduction Program Is Designed To Reduce Threats
Igor Kirillov’s “evidence” of US biological warfare program in Ukraine centred around the “Biological Threat Reduction” program.
Just in case the name isn’t descriptive enough, the Biological Threat Reduction Program is a US Department of Defense initiative to counter the threat of infectious diseases, whether they are deliberate, accidental or natural.
The program aims to counter biological threats in a partner country, at the source, before the threat can reach the homeland of impact U.S. Armed Forces or allies.
The program also prevents proliferation by cooperating with partner countries to eliminate their biological weapons, associated materials, and production facilities.
In other words, the bioweapon programme that Kirillov was ranting about is designed to identify and prevent or mitigate threats from biological weapons, as well as natural diseases.
I should also point out that whatever Kirillov mentioned was already publicly stated on the US Embassy in Ukraine’s website.
Fact #5 :US Biological Threat Reduction Program Started In Russia
The US Biological Threat Reduction Program actually started in Russia in 1998.
Russia was the program’s original partner country, and the Program spent the first ten years working with former Soviet Union partner countries.
The Russians are fully aware of what the US Biological Threat Reduction Program is all about, so their claims are outright, shameless lies.
This is even more egregious when they personally benefited from the Program for so many years, at the US government’s expense.
Fact #6 :WHO Warned Ukraine About Risk From Russian Bombing
All biological labs have to work with pathogens, which are by nature, dangerous. That is their purpose. A biological lab without pathogens would be like an airport without airplanes.
It is only logical for the WHO to remind Ukraine that they should destroy their samples of pathogens at their biological labs, after Russia invaded them.
Russian bombing could inadvertently or intentionally “free” those pathogens from their laboratory storage facilities, and disperse them into the nearby area.
Not only would that be dangerous for the nearby population, it could serve as a pretext for Russia to use its own biological or chemical weapons to “retaliate”.
Fact #7 :COVID-19 Pandemic Originated In China
China has repeatedly tried to “tai-chi” (shift) the blame for the COVID-19 pandemic to other countries, like the United States, and more recently – Ukraine.
But the truth is – the COVID-19 virus originated in Wuhan, China. The first cases were reported there, not in the United States or in Ukraine.
If the SARS-CoV-2 virus was created in Fort Detrick or the Azovstal laboratory, the cities of Maryland or Mariupol would have been the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, not Wuhan.
Genomic analyses of COVID-19 variants also proved that SARS-CoV-2 did indeed originate in China.
This does not mean China should be blamed for COVID-19. It only means that it is wrong for the Chinese to repeatedly blame other countries for the virus.
This FAKE NEWS is being shared by pro-Russia and pro-CCP netizens.
Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out!
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Was captured Canadian general Trevor Cadieu helping NATO run their Biolab No. 1 in Azovstal, Ukraine?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Captured Canadian General Cadieu Was In Charge In NATO Biolab!
The Expose and pro-Russian websites are claiming that captured Canadian general Trevor Cadieu was in charge of a NATO biological warfare lab under the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine.
The article is very long, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts!
Russian armed forces arrested disgraced Canadian General Trevor Cadieu in Mariupol. Russian sources often refer to Trevor Cadieu as Trevor Kadier or Trevor Cadier. At the beginning of this month, Russians said they captured Cadieu at the Azovstal iron and steel factory during the Siege of Mariupol. He is currently in Moscow awaiting trial.
Cadieu was apparently not on a mission for his government but was in charge of a bio laboratory, Biolab No.1, with 18 staff working under his command.
Biolab No.1 is reportedly managed by US company Metabiota. The company Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, and Christopher Heinz, John Kerry’s son-in-law, had organised subcontracting arrangements for Ukrainian research laboratories through their firm Rosemont Capital, on behalf of the Pentagon’s Defence Threat Reduction Agency (“DTRA”).
Who Is Trevor Cadieu?
Trevor John Cadieu is a Canadian military officer who reached the rank of lieutenant general but retired after allegations of sexual misconduct. He then travelled to Ukraine, to join the fight against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Cadieu left the Canadian military on 5 April and travelled to Ukraine shortly after with the intention to volunteer for that country’s military against Russian forces, multiple defence sources confirmed to Global News.
On 21 April, the Canadian Department of National Defence confirmed that lieutenant-general Trevor Cadieu retired on April 5 after more than 30 years in uniform, even as military police continued their investigation into his conduct.
Cadieu, in a statement to CBC, portrayed his decision to retire from the Canadian military as being for the best. “I have opted to release [from the Canadian military] and am exploring other opportunities to contribute to the greater good,” he noted.
Senior Canadian military leaders were briefed about Cadieu’s decision to travel to Ukraine, according to Ottawa Citizen’s sources.
Defence Department spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier said Cadieu’s release from the military followed proper procedures, “as he is now a private citizen, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further on his personal plans.”
“There has been no CAF [Canadian Armed Forces] support, material or otherwise, given to Cadieu since his departure as it pertains to his personal endeavours,” Le Bouthillier said.
The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service released a statement noting that the “member’s release has no bearing on investigative work, nor does their personal travel. As the investigation is ongoing, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further.”
Cadieu’s LinkedIn page is still showing he is employed by CAF.
The Arrest of Trevor Cadieu
Russian online newspaper Vzglyad reported that Russian troops arrested Cadieu on 1 May while he was trying to escape from Azovstal. It was first reported on Russian TV channel 360° however we were unable to find the original report and John Goss confirms the same on his blog: “[this] report appears now to have disappeared.”
It is alleged that the West and Kiev authorities came up with the idea of civilian humanitarian corridors from Azovstal to enable the “evacuation” of Cadieu, New Eastern Outlook (“NEO”) wrote. Confirmation of this can be found in a report by the Azerbaijan Press Agency which stated: “[Cadieu] tried to break out of the encirclement at Azovstal several times. It was for this that the West insisted on humanitarian corridors for the exit of civilians: among them, foreign specialists had to leave the catacombs.”
NEO continued:
“[This plan] involved French President Macron and his Turkish counterpart Erdogan, as well as the UN Secretary-General. The idea was that under the guise of ‘refugees’, Cadieu, [along] with a number of other senior NATO officials, could leave the Russian-controlled war zone in Donbass and avoid not only shameful captivity but also a show trial by Moscow. It is noticeable that, according to reports circulating, Cadieu was in charge of Azovstal’s underground bunkers, including Biolab No.1, where 18 people worked with deadly viruses.”
Reports of Cadieu’s arrest seem to be based on the initial 360° channel report and internet leaks, John Goss wrote, Svetlana Nikolaevna gave the most thorough account but was unable to reveal her source, only saying that it was from somebody on the front line and that no official statement had been made.
No Evidence Canadian General Cadieu Was In Charge Of Any Biolab!
This is yet more FAKE NEWS from the notorious fake news website, The Expose, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : A Person’s Name Does Not Change With Travel
A noteworthy element of most fake news is that they are based on “secret” sources that are often fake, or made-up (non-existent).
One of the hallmark of such fake sources is they often get the name of the persons wrong. The Expose tries to pass it off as a translation thing, but that’s just plain stupid.
Trevor Cadieu’s name remains Trevor Cadieu no matter where he is in the world. Just like how Vladimir Putin is called Vladimir Putin all around the world.
Claiming that the Russians call the general “Trevor Kadier” or “Trevor Cadier” is as asinine as claiming that Americans call the Russian President “Vlad Pootin“.
Fact #2 : Trevor Cadieu Did Not Update His LinkedIn Profile
The Expose presented Cadieu’s LinkedIn profile as evidence that he is still employed by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), even though Cadieu and CAF has publicly and separately announced his retirement.
What The Expose (intentionally?) left out is that Trevor Cadieu last used his LinkedIn account more than 3 years ago, when he Liked someone’s comment.
For the benefit of the writer, Rhoda Wilson, the LinkedIn user must manually update his/her employment record before the change is reflected.
It does NOT magically get updated by itself. And before you ask, Rhoda, no – the CAF cannot do it for him.
Fact #3 : No Evidence Cadieu Was Arrested In Azovstal
Cadieu left for Ukraine sometime after retiring from the CAF, to volunteer against the Russian invasion.
To date, there has been no evidence he was arrested by Russian forces while trying to escape from Azovstal on 1 May 2022.
The source for The Expose’s sensational claim does not exist. The writer, Rhoda Wilson, claimed that the 360° report had “disappeared”, even though there was no evidence it even existed in the first place!
The Expose based their sensational claim on two sentences in a Russian propaganda website called Vzglyad. Now, I don’t call Vzglyad a propaganda website out of bias.
Its own former editor-in-chief, Alexander Shmelev admitted it, “it was through us that the toughest propaganda materials passed, as a result of which the word “Vzglyad” itself became negative in blogs and social networks“.
He also shared that articles posted on the Vzglyad website were supervised by Alexei Chesnakov, the deputy head of the internal policy department of the Russian President.
Finally, Vzglyad was placed under the control of the Russian presidency, first through the Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (ISEPI) and then the Expert Institute for Social Research.
Fact #5 : Cadieu Was Promoted To Head Canadian Army
Trevor Cadieu is a Lieutenant-General who was originally slated to take command of the Canadian army in September 2021.
His appointment was suspended amidst “historical allegations” of sexual misconduct, but Cadieu was the top-ranking officer in the Canadian army until his retirement.
It is absurd to claim that he actually heads a small NATO biological lab under the Azovstal steel plant. Think about how stupid it sounds.
Why on Earth would Cadieu go from running the Canadian army of over 100,000 soldiers to managing just 18 scientists in an underground bunker??
Fact #6 : Russia Surrounded Mariupol Since 2 March 2022
While no one really knows where Cadieu is right now, it would be quite impossible for him to enter Mariupol after his retirement on 5 April 2022.
That’s because Mariupol was amongst the first Ukrainian cities to be attacked by Russian forces that completely surrounded it three weeks into the war.
There was no way for Ukrainian civilians and soldiers to leave Mariupol, and no way for anyone to get into the city after it was completely surrounded on 2 March 2022.
By the time Cadieu resigned, the Russians had already captured most of Mariupol, except the massive Azovstal steel plant. It would literally take a miracle for Cadieu to get into the Azovstal plant.
How Russian forces besieged Mariupol. Credit : BBC
Fact #7 : Cadieu Would Be Useless In Azovstal
Even if it was possible to smuggle him into the Azovstal steel plant in early April, it would be illogical to do so.
What can he do? Pick up a gun and shoot at Russian soldiers like Rambo in the movies?
Take over a biological lab under a steel plant that was being bombarded on a daily basis?
Oh wait – maybe his job was to run into Azovstal, so he can try to escape and get caught by the Russians??
Fact #8 : Civilian Were Evacuated During Several Ceasefires
There were several ceasefires during which small numbers of civilians managed to escape. Cadieu was not amongst them.
It would have been easy for the Russians to pick Cadieu out from the Ukrainian civilians they allowed to leave.
After all, every one of those civilians who were evacuated from the Azovstal bunkers were thoroughly vetted by Russian forces.
Fact #9 : Russians Would Have Paraded Captured Cadieu
If Russian forces did indeed capture Cadieu, they would have paraded him on Russian TV, just like they did with two British volunteers they captured – Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin.
Yet the Russians did no such thing. In fact, the only “sources” of these claims are no-name blogs in Russia, China and Azerbaijan, as well as WhatsApp and Telegram groups.
There is simply no evidence of Cadieu being captured by Russian forces, not even a picture.
Heck, Putin didn’t even mention any captured NATO officer during his May 9 speech, even though it would have greatly helped him prove his narrative that Russia was really fighting against NATO.
Fact #10 : DPR Rep Confirmed Cadieu Not Arrested
Official Russian news agency, TASS, reported on 28 April 2022 that Cadieu “may be holed up” in the Azovstal steel plant.
Their source was Eduard Basurin, the spokesman for the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), who gave no evidence for his claim.
In fact, Basurin appeared to be making up that claim based on the Canadian Defense Ministry announcing that Cadieu had resigned.
Information appeared now and then that one of former Canadian army generals may be holed up there [in the Azovstal steel complex].
He first seemed to get out of sight and then the Canadian Defense Ministry issued a statement that this general gave a notice that he was resigning from the army and moving to Ukraine. Perhaps, it [the UN] is trying to rescue him.
As I pointed out earlier, it would be impossible for Cadieu to be present in Azovstal, unless he went AWOL from the Canadian Armed Forces and entered Mariupol before 17 March 2022.
More importantly, Basurin confirmed that Russian forces did not capture Cadieu.
Fact #11 : No Evidence Of NATO Facility Under Azovstal
There is no evidence that any NATO facility called PIT-404, pit_40 or Biolab 1 exists, or ever existed.
These claims were created out of thin air by Russian conspiracy theorists… and a board game called Blackout: Journey into Darkness.
Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out!
And please STOP sharing anything from The Expose! It’s all fake news!
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Is the US conducting biological warfare experiments at their secret labs in South Korea?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : US Has Biological Warfare Labs In South Korea!
Official Chinese state media outlets like Xinhua, People’s Daily, China Daily, and their 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) are claiming that the US is conducting biological warfare experiments at their secret labs in South Korea.
Note : It’s a long post, so please feel free to skip to the next section for the facts…
China Daily Fri, Apr 15, 2022
US biolabs create fear in South Korea XINHUA
SEOUL — South Koreans are gripped with fear over the prospect that US biological weapons laboratories operated by the US Forces Korea, or USFK, will transform the country into Washington’s “overseas hub” for biological warfare experiments.
The United States has flouted international conventions by steadily advancing its germ warfare program in the country. It sees South Korea as a country “friendly” enough to let the US military test lethal toxins without institutional hurdles.
Enraged at the opaqueness of the US biological labs, civic groups and residents have taken to the streets to demand that the US military takes away its hazardous weapons.
The US military has secretly run its biological weapons program in South Korea since at least 2009. It became public in 2015 when live anthrax samples were sent from a US military lab through postal service FedEx to the Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, about 70 kilometers south of the capital Seoul.
The USFK initially said it was the first time it experimented with deadly biological agents. But a joint panel investigation showed that the USFK brought in and tested dead anthrax samples 15 times at the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul between 2009 and 2014.
Article 9 of the South Korea-US Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, stipulates that a customs examination “shall not be made” in case of “military cargo consigned to the US armed forces”, according to a document posted by the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
Lee Jang-hie, an emeritus professor at the law school of the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said the delivery of anthrax samples violated the Biological Weapons Convention, signed by over 180 nations, including South Korea and the US, to ban the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or retention of biological agents or toxins.
Any violation of the 1975 convention requires an official investigation by the United Nations Security Council at the request of the country concerned.
“Lax regulations and the (South) Korean government’s reluctance to protest against it created an easy, favorable environment (for the US military) to carry out experiments with germs here,” Lee noted.
The US biological weapons program in South Korea has evolved over the past decade under the projects of the Joint USFK Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition, or Jupitr, and the Capabilities to Enable NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) Threat Awareness, Understanding and Response, or Centaur.
“Figuratively speaking, Jupitr installed in the central headquarters serves as the brain. The Centaur, which operates in each regional military unit, constitutes the hands and feet of Jupitr to detect and send biochemical samples to it,” said Woo Hee-jong, a professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Seoul National University. Woo said the UN Security Council should launch an investigation into the biolabs.
Jeon Wi-bong, director of the Association to Push for Shutdown of US Biochemical Experiments in Busan Port Pier 8, told Xinhua News Agency that, despite the attention surrounding the 2015 live anthrax samples delivery, the USFK expanded biological labs into Busan Port’s Pier 8 in 2016.
A group of civic activists and citizens toured the country for a week through Sunday to spread awareness on the US biological weapons labs.
“A person in charge of US military biological labs said Korea is friendly to operate such labs. I got infuriated when I heard that because it belittles my country severely,” said Choi Won-seok, who joined the tour near Busan Port’s Pier 8.
Truth : US Does NOT Have Biological Warfare Labs In South Korea!
Now, I must first point out that it is impossible to prove a negative – that something that doesn’t exists, doesn’t actually exist.
But based on a complete lack of evidence, this is yet another example of Chinese propaganda warfare, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : This Story Has Been Repeated Since 2020
A quick check shows that the Chinese state media have been promoting the story of the US biological warfare labs in South Korea since April 2020, if not earlier.
So this story isn’t new. It was repeated in July 2020, and then in August 2021, before the current slew of coverage in March and April 2022.
Fact #2 : No Evidence Of US Biological Warfare Lab In South Korea
Despite waxing lyrical about the US military conducting biological warfare experiments in their South Korea labs, the Chinese state media offered ZERO evidence.
There is no evidence of biological warfare experiments being conducted in South Korea, and there is no evidence of US setting up laboratories for the research and development of such weapons.
Fact #3 : Anthrax Was Sent To 9 US States, Australia + Canada Too
Chinese state media claimed that US biological warfare experimentation was “exposed” when live anthrax samples were sent to the Osan Air Base in South Korea.
The truth is – the same anthrax samples were sent to 51 laboratories in nine US states, as well as Australia, Canada and South Korea.
So the claim that US sent anthrax to South Korea because they let the US military “test lethal toxins without institutional hurdles” is nonsense.
This incident was covered widely by the global press, so it is peculiar that Chinese state media would (intentionally?) misinform their readers.
Fact #4 : Anthrax Samples Were Used For Tests
These anthrax samples were mailed to those laboratories as part of ongoing efforts to develop field tests for anthrax.
These tests are usually conducted using dead samples of anthrax, because live anthrax would obviously be a biosecurity risk.
Fact #5 : Anthrax Samples Were Supposed To Be Dead
What the Chinese state media won’t tell you is that those anthrax samples were supposed to be dead.
In March 2014, the Dugway Proving Grounds – a US Department of Defense laboratory which conducts biosecurity research – irradiated a batch of anthrax samples with gamma rays to kill them.
In April 2015, they mailed the “dead” anthrax samples to 51 labs in the US, Canada, Australia and South Korea, by commercial postal services because the samples were supposed to be completely “dead”.
This incident was covered widely by the global press, so it is peculiar that Chinese state media would (intentionally?) misinform their readers.
Fact #6 : US Military Was Unaware Anthrax Samples Were Active
What the Chinese state media will also “forget” to tell you is that the US military was unaware that the anthrax samples were still active.
It was a commercial laboratory in Maryland that alerted the Pentagon on 22 May 2015, after they discovered that their sample had some active spores.
As CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald explained, the samples were quickly transferred to the CDC :
The samples are being carefully transferred to the CDC in Atlanta. They are starting to arrive, but cautioned that the samples need five more days to grow before officials can determine if they contain live anthrax.
While this was a deeply concerning accident that could have been disastrous, it was most definitely not an attempt to conduct biological warfare experiments in South Korea.
This incident was covered widely by the global press, so it is peculiar that Chinese state media would (intentionally?) misinform their readers.
Officials from the South Korea-U.S. joint working group conduct an on-site inspection of a laboratory at Osan Air Base, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday, about 70 days after the Pentagon admitted that live anthrax samples were accidently delivered there. / Joint Press Corps
Fact #7 : Anthrax Sample In South Korea Was Destroyed
The anthrax sample in South Korea was quickly destroyed, even though there was no evidence it was still active – the batch was simply assumed to have not been sufficiently irradiated.
The military destroyed the anthrax on Wednesday after the sample, which was thought to be inactive, was suspected of being live. None of the personnel in contact showed signs of exposure. But they were given exams, antibiotics, and in some cases, vaccinations.
The military stresses there was no risk to the public. The exposure happened in a contained lab environment on the Osan Air Base, which is 65 miles south of Seoul. It’s one of a number of bases that houses the estimated 28,000 American military personnel based in South Korea.
Fact #8 : No One Got Sick
Four lab employees in the states of Texas, Delaware and Wisconsin, as well as 22 military and civilian personnel at the Osan Air Base, were given antibiotics as a precaution.
However, no one got sick from the potential exposure to the anthrax spore samples. I have to stress – there was no actual evidence that anyone got infected by those anthrax samples.
Fact #9 : Anthrax Is Naturally Found In Soil
Despite its fearsome reputation, anthrax is a disease caused by bacteria known as Bacillus anthracis, that is naturally found in soil, and commonly affects domestic and wild animals.
While people can get infected by breathing in its spores, it usually does not spread from human to human.
As long as the anthrax samples were not being weaponised, the US did not contravene the Biological Weapons Convention.
The use of dead anthrax samples to develop or improve or certify tests for anthrax most certainly do not contravene the Biological Weapons Convention.
Fact #10 : USFK Must Report To Korea CDC When Importing Biological Agents
The South Korea-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) was revised in 2015 to mandate that the USFK must file a report with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) when importing any biological agents, including inactivated biological agents.
So the claim that the US military can bring in biological materials without informing the South Korean government is no longer true since 2015.
It is interesting that Chinese state media are still (intentionally?) not aware of that development…
Fact #10 : JUPITR Was Designed To Detect Biological Threats
Chinese state media claim that US biological warfare experiments are being conducted under the JUPITR program.
That’s nonsense, because JUPITR (Joint United States Forces Korea Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition) is a bio-surveillance program.
JUPITR was set up to monitor for biological threats posed by North Korea, using new bio-surveillance analysis equipment like :
BioFire Film Array, which can process Dry Filter Unit samples in 5-6 hours, instead of several days
IQuum Liat, which is a sample-to-result molecular diagnostic system
3M Focus
To be clear – JUPITR does not involve biological warfare experiments.
JUPITR Biosurveillance Station
Fact #11 : JUPITR Ended Development In 2018
Interestingly, Chinese state media (intentionally?) forgot to mention that the development of the JUPITR program ended in 2018.
While its passive early warning capability remains in place, there has been no further work done on the JUPITR program since 2018.
So I have to wonder why they are still harping on JUPITR in 2022… Do they really have nothing new to report on?
Fact #11 : CENTAUR Was Designed To Detect Biological Threats
The Chinese state media also claim that US biological warfare experiments are being conducted under the CENTAUR program, which is also nonsense.
CENTAUR, which is short for “Capabilities to Enhance NBC Threat Awareness, Understanding & Response“, is an early warning system that looks for biological threats in South Korea.
To ensure that such a system works, the USFK (US Forces Korea) uses samples of dead pathogens (like the anthrax samples mentioned earlier) to test its detection capabilities.
The USFK has publicly announced that they do not use live samples for testing, after a few dozen people protested against the CENTAUR program.
We hold the health and safety of our service members, civilian employees, family members and Korean neighbors in the highest regard. The CENTAUR system is safe. USFK does not and has never used live agents for testing.
Photo credit : Yonhap
Fact #12 : Biological Warfare Banned In 183 Countries
Biological warfare has long been banned by the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) that was signed on 10 April 1972, and came into effect on 26 March 1975.
As of January 2022 – 183 countries have become party to this treaty, which means they agreed to stop development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological weapons.
Fact #13 : Biological Labs Are Essential To All Countries
What the Chinese state media (intentionally?) don’t mention is that biological labs are a necessity in ALL countries.
Biological labs do not conduct biological warfare research, because that is banned in 183 countries under the BWC (see Fact #12).
Instead, they are on the forefront of a country’s biosecurity defences, and are absolutely essential in developing tests and cures (including vaccines) for new and emerging diseases, like the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
In fact, China itself has a number of biological labs, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is located right at the epicentre of the first COVID-19 outbreak.
It would be hypocritical and (intentionally?) misleading for Chinese state media to demonise biological labs. After all, they are ESSENTIAL to every country’s national security, including China’s.
This fake news appears to be part of the disinformation campaign conducted by the Chinese state media and their 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛).
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Was a CNN reporter caught lying on live TV about what a Chinese man really said?
Take a look at the viral video, and find out what the FACTS really are!
Claim : CNN Reporter Caught Faking Chinese Translation On TV!
A video clip showing a CNN reporter lying about what a Chinese man said on live TV is going viral again, together with this message :
All he said was, “I just finished dinner with friends and want to catch up on my texts.”
If you know Mandarin, you can see how CNN can make up their news.
I can’t believe CNN will go this low. 😤🤮
It originally went viral in February 2021, but is going viral again in May 2022 during the COVID-19 lockdown of Shanghai.
In the video, the CNN reporter is seen asking a Chinese man why he’s drinking by himself.
The man replied (in Chinese) that he just had dinner with friends and was now just taking a look at his phone.
However, the CNN reporter told the CNN anchor a completely different story,
“Jesus, you can see by the look on his face. This man told me that his family had been taken away, that his brother’s sick, and he can’t get out.”
“And the only thing that’s left to do is drink. And really, I can’t blame him. Poor guy.”
CNN Reporter Was Not Faking Chinese Translation Because…
… the truth is this video was edited, and is being used as Chinese propaganda.
In this video, we will show you why this video is NOT real, and is just another piece of Chinese propaganda.
The viral video clip is really a 29 second segment of a much longer video that runs 4 minutes and 19 seconds.
The original video was created by a UK student living in China, who calls himself Comerad James.
He stated clearly in his original video that he wanted to show how easy it was to make fake news.
Anyone watching his video can see that it was intentionally satirical, with the title CNN Global Bullcast, and his nickname there – Comerad James.
You can even see that both the CNN anchor and the CNN reporter are the same person – Comerad James himself.
And note that he even put in all sorts of Easter eggs – GME (GameStop) share price rising 9999%, and chyrons about public alcoholism spiralling out of control because Chinese citizens are giving up hope.
Comerad James created this video to satirise the “lack of integrity” of CNN and BBC in covering news on China.
Ironically, his video ended up being edited and used by Chinese propagandists to malign CNN’s integrity. So much for “integrity”.
The truth is major news organisations like CNN have fact-checkers and native speakers. Such a broadcast would have been caught very quickly, and they would have apologised for it.
If they didn’t, news of this would spread like wildfire and CNN would have been justifiably castigated online. Not just by Chinese citizens and Sinophiles, but also by other media outlets and the public in general.
On the other hand, Chinese propaganda outlets masquerading as news agencies like CGTN have never apologised or corrected themselves, even after they were caught lying.
When you see such videos, THINK TWICE before forwarding them. You could be helping to propagate Chinese fake news / propaganda.
Always be wary about fake videos and fake news created and propagated by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛).
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did China lock down Shanghai, not to fight COVID-19, but to spite US companies over the Ukraine war?
Take a look at the viral article, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : China Locked Down Shanghai To Spite US Over Ukraine War!
People are sharing an article by Kanthan Pillay, which claimed that China locked down Shanghai not to fight COVID-19 but to spite US companies over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
It’s a rather long post, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts…
Shanghai Lockdown Not Because Of Covid -19!!
Two weeks after Russia’s forces moved into Ukraine, China locked down Shanghai.
Let me hit you with some bullet points:
More than 800 multinational corporations have regional headquarters in Shanghai . Among them, 121 are Fortune Global 500 companies, including Apple, Qualcomm, General Motors, Pepsico.
More than 70 000 foreign companies have offices in Shanghai. More than 24 000 of these are Japanese.
The shutdown of Tesla’s operation in Shanghai because of the lockdown has set the company back with lost production of 40 000 units of electric vehicles. That’s just one car company. Volkswagen and General Motors both have factories in Shanghai.
Ford has a global design center in Shanghai.
Let’s talk about Apple: iPhone supplier Pegatron has its major factory in Shanghai and another in nearby Kunshan. Both have been shut by the lockdown.
TSMC , the world’s most valuable manufacturer of semiconductors, has a major production facility in Shanghai. (TSMC makes 7-nanometre and 5-nanometre chips used by the Apple A14 and M1 SoC .)
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has a global R&D centre in Shanghai.
To top this off, Shanghai is the world’s biggest container port moving more than 47 million shipping containers per year. Shutting down the city for more than a month means 4 million of those have potentially been impacted.
As can be seen, the simple act of shutting down Shanghai has delivered a body blow to global giants in the US sphere of influence at a time when they are already scrambling to reset their economies after their disastrous sanctions against Russia.
Now I know that correlation does not imply causation.
But it is a fact that Russia and China laid out the parameters for a new world order in February…
And it is a fact that their respective actions over the next weeks have brought the economies of the western powers to a grinding halt…
“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.”
Truth : China Did NOT Lock Down Shanghai To Spite US Over Ukraine War!
I have read many conspiracy theories about China and the Ukraine War, but this has to be one of the stupidest I have read to date.
I cannot believe I have to actually explain why China did not lock down Shanghai just to spite US companies over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But here we go…
Fact #1 : China Has Been Locking Down Cities Since 2020
First, I should point out that China has been locking down cities since the COVID-19 pandemic started in Wuhan.
This isn’t a new tactic. China locks down entire cities as part of their COVID Zero policy.
In fact, China locked down 4 additional cities in the first two months of 2022, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine :
4 January : Yuzhou, Henan province
11 January : Anyang and Zhengzhou, Henan province
7 February : Baise, Jilin province
It is therefore ridiculous for Kanthan Pillay to claim that China locked down Shanghai to spite US companies.
Fact #2 : Shanghai’s COVID-19 Outbreak Began On 28 February
Ironically, Shanghai’s COVID-19 outbreak began on the same day Russia chose to invade Ukraine – 28 February 2022.
I’m surprised Kanthan Pillay did not suggest that the Chinese introduced the Shanghai outbreak as part of a false flag operation to spite US companies. LOL!
Fact #3 : Shanghai Lockdown Only Started A Month Later
Kanthan Pillay falsely claimed that China locked down Shanghai two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. Why two weeks? Why not immediately?
In any case, Shanghai only adopted “area-separated and batch-separated control” on 28 March 2022 – a month after their COVID-19 outbreak started, and a month after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Only a week later – on 5 April 2022, did Shanghai put the entire city under lockdown.
Fact #4 : Hong Kong Has More Regional HQs Than Shanghai
In his first “bullet point”, Kanthan Pillay said that more than 800 multinational corporations have their regional headquarters in Shanghai.
What he does not point out to you is that Hong Kong has almost twice as many regional headquarters as Shanghai – 1,457 as of 2021.
If the Chinese wanted to “attack” US companies by targeting their regional headquarters, they would do better to lock down Hong Kong.
But wait – Hong Kong is still NOT under lockdown, even with a massive surge of Omicron cases.
Fact #5 : Regional HQ Not As Important As Factories
Kanthan Pillay does not seem to understand that regional headquarters are not as critical to US companies as the factories that produce goods for them.
Many employees of these regional headquarters can conduct their work from home, even hold meetings virtually from anywhere in the world. So using regional headquarters and design centres as examples of Chinese sabotage is stupid.
Factories, on the other hand, cannot produce goods virtually. Hence, factories that produce goods for US companies are far more important than regional HQs and design centres.
Fact #6 : Shanghai Lockdown Affects All Companies
Kanthan Pillay is apparently unaware thatChina’s lockdown of Shanghai is not limited to US citizens or companies.
The Shanghai lockdown affects all residents, whether they are Chinese citizens or foreigners. Similarly, Chinese companies are affected just as badly as their Western counterparts.
Even more importantly – there are far more Chinese companies in Shanghai than Western companies. More Chinese citizens are being employed by Chinese companies in Shanghai, than Western companies.
If China intentionally locked down Shanghai to spite US companies, they would be sacrificing their own economy to do that.
The Chinese are not quite so stupid as to cut off their noses, just to spite their own faces.
Kanthan Pillay also seems to be unaware that the TSMC plant in China is not state of the art, and does not manufacture 7 nm or 5 nm chips as he alleged.
The TSMC Fab 10 foundry in Shanghai was completed around the end of 2004, and produces 8-inch wafers using old 0.25 micron and 0.35 micron processes from the 1990s.
Fact #8 : Shanghai Semiconductor Companies Not Affected By Lockdown
Despite the entire city of Shanghai being under strict lockdown, its semiconductor companies continued to maintain full production.
They managed to achieve this through closed-loop systems, where most employees work on-site while others work remotely from home.
Both TSMC and SMIC say that they are maintaining full production in Shanghai using such closed-loop systems.
Fact #9 : Companies Can Shift To Other Countries
Kanthan Pillay ludicrously believe that China shut down Shanghai to deliver “a body blow to global giants in the US sphere of influence“.
Multinational companies, especially those from the West, can and have shifted to other countries or states, if conditions become unfavourable.
Some have already started shifted production from China to Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
If China did really do this just to spite US companies, it would be one more reason to shift their operations to other countries. It’s not like they can only build factories in China.
Fact #10 : Chinese Sacrifice Will Not Help Russia
What Kanthan Pillay does not explain is WHY on Earth would China sacrifice its own people and economy to help Russia?
And how does crippling Shanghai’s economy help Russia? Sure, Tesla will miss its production target… again, but so what?
These are public-listed companies, not the US government. Whatever happens to these companies won’t have a material effect on the US government, only its shareholders.
Needless to say – it won’t sway Western sanctions on Russia, and it certainly won’t help Russia in any way.
Kanthan Pillay ended his article by claiming that such actions by Russia and China have “brought the economies of the Western powers to a grinding halt“.
I have no idea what he has been smoking, but it must be some fantastic shit, because none of the Western economies are remotely close to collapsing!
In fact, the US Fed just made the biggest interest rate increase in 22 years, announcing a 0.5% interest rate hike to tackle inflation.
Other Western economies are poised to similarly raise their interest rates. They would not be raising interest rates if their economies were collapsing as Pillay alleged.
The Kanthan Pillay article is nothing more than a meaningless self-masturbatory fantasy.
Unfortunately, it’s being widely shared by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) and pro-CCP netizens.
Please help us FIGHT FAKE NEWS by sharing this fact check article out!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Did Russian forces capture Canadian Lieutenant General Trevor Cadieu in the cellars of Azovstal, in Mariupol, Ukraine?!
Take a look at the viral claim, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : Russia Captured Canadian General Cadieu In Azovstal!
Pro-Russian websites, Chinese netizens and the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛) are claiming that Russia just captured a high-ranking Canadian general.
According to “rumours”, Lieutenant General Trevor John Cadieu was captured while he was trying to escape from the besieged Azovstal metalworks in Mariupol, Ukraine.
General Trevor Cadieu (Trevor John Cadieu), captured by Russian troops while trying to escape from the cellars of Azovstal, was the commander of the Canadian Ground Forces, APA reports citing Mailbd.
Seated in the catacombs under the Mariupol steel plant “Azovstal” nationalists staged a provocation, trying to hide the Canadian general’s attempt to escape. After the capture of a high-ranking foreign soldier by units of the RF Armed Forces, it became clear why so many efforts were made to save him.
A high-ranking mercenary tried to break out of the encirclement at Azovstal several times. It was for this that the West insisted on humanitarian corridors for the exit of civilians: among them, foreign specialists had to leave the catacombs.
This Chinese example even claimed that NATO lost 5-6 helicopters and a ship trying to get General Cadieu out of Azovstal.
A lot of rumors that Russia has captured a Canadian general trying to escape thru sewer tunnels. Could be a few more NATO military advisers still in the plant
They have spent losing 5 or 6 helicopters and 1 ship trying to get the VVIP out.
No Evidence Russia Captured Canadian General Cadieu In Azovstal!
Bearing in mind that it is impossible to prove that something does not exist (Russell’s teapot), I can safely say that there is NO EVIDENCE that Russian forces actually captured Canadian general Trevor Cadieu in Azovstal.
In fact, here are the reasons why it is virtually impossible for Russia to have captured him in the Azovstal metalworks in the besieged city of Mariupol.
Fact #1 : Trevor Cadieu Retired From Canadian Armed Forces
Trevor Cadieu was originally slated to take command of the Canadian army in September 2021, but his appointment was suspended amidst “historical allegations” of sexual misconduct at the Royal Military College in 1994.
He then resigned and left the Canadian armed forces on 5 April 2022, stating :
I have opted to release (from the Canadian military) and am exploring other opportunities to contribute to the greater good.
Fact #2 : He Volunteered In Ukraine As A Private Citizen
After his retirement from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), several defence sources say that Cadieu travelled to Ukraine to volunteer against the Russian invasion.
This was in his personal capacity, as he had already retired from the CAF, and was now a private citizen.
Defence Department spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier said, in a statement :
There has been no CAF support, material or otherwise, given to Cadieu since his departure as it pertains to his personal endeavours.
As he is now a private citizen, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further on his personal plans.
Warrant Officer Terry Vandenberghe discusses observation and reporting positions with Brigadier-General Trevor Cadieu (right) in Williams Lake, B.C., during Operation LENTUS 17-04 on August 3, 2017. (Photo: Master Corporal Malcolm Byers, Wainwright Garrison Imaging)
Fact #3 : Russia Surrounded Mariupol Since 2 March 2022
While no one really knows where Cadieu is right now, it would be quite impossible for him to enter Mariupol, after his retirement on 5 April 2022.
That’s because Mariupol was amongst the first Ukrainian cities to be attacked by Russian forces that completely surrounded it three weeks into the war.
There was no way for Ukrainian civilians and soldiers to leave Mariupol, and no way for anyone to get into the city after it was completely surrounded on 2 March 2022.
By the time Cadieu resigned, the Russians had already captured most of Mariupol, except the massive Azovstal steel plant. It would literally take a miracle for Cadieu to get into the Azovstal plant.
How Russian forces besieged Mariupol. Credit : BBC
Fact #4 : Cadieu Would Be Useless In Mariupol
Even if it was possible to smuggle him into Mariupol in early April, it would also be illogical to insert Cadieu into a besieged city where he can do little good.
Cadieu is a retired general whose days of firing guns from the trenches are long past. In fact, he would be more of an impediment in the defence of the Azovstal steel plant.
He would be far more useful strategising Ukraine’s defence, or acting as a military liaison with the Canadian government.
Fact #5 : Russians Would Have Paraded Captured Cadieu
If Russian forces did indeed capture Cadieu, they would have paraded him on Russian TV, just like they did with two British volunteers they captured – Shaun Pinner and Aiden Aslin.
Yet the Russians did no such thing. In fact, the only “sources” of these claims are no-name blogs in Russia, China and Azerbaijan, as well as WhatsApp and Telegram groups.
There is simply no evidence of Cadieu being captured by Russian forces, not even a picture.
Fact #6 : DPR Rep Confirmed Cadieu Not Arrested
Official Russian news agency, TASS, reported on 28 April 2022 that Cadieu “may be holed up” in the Azovstal steel plant.
Their source was Eduard Basurin, the spokesman for the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), who gave no evidence for his claim.
In fact, Basurin appeared to be making up that claim based on the Canadian Defense Ministry announcing that Cadieu had resigned.
Information appeared now and then that one of former Canadian army generals may be holed up there [in the Azovstal steel complex].
He first seemed to get out of sight and then the Canadian Defense Ministry issued a statement that this general gave a notice that he was resigning from the army and moving to Ukraine. Perhaps, it [the UN] is trying to rescue him.
As I pointed out earlier, it would be impossible for Cadieu to be present in Azovstal, unless he went AWOL from the Canadian Armed Forces and entered Mariupol before 17 March 2022.
Also, there were several ceasefires during which civilians managed to escape. Cadieu was not amongst them.
More importantly, Basurin confirmed that Russian forces did not capture Cadieu.
Variants of this FAKE NEWS are now being shared in pro-Russia and pro-CCP websites and groups.
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Was a “dead” Ukrainian man caught waking up on TV, during a live telecast of civilian casualties?!
Take a look at the viral video, and find out what the facts really are!
Claim : “Dead” Ukrainian Man Was Caught Waking Up On Live TV!
People are sharing a video which they claimed is evidence of Ukrainian fake news.
It shows a reporter speaking, with rows of civilian casualties of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when one of the “victims” woke up on live TV!
This is a transcript of what the reporter appears to narrate in English in the video :
At least 59 people killed, at least 149 people wounded. Those numbers are going to go up. There’s just no question about that. You have fierce fight in a number of…
Truth : “Dead” Ukrainian Man Was NOT Caught Waking Up On Live TV!
This is yet another example of anti-Ukrainian fake news, created and distributed by the pro-Russia activists, and here are the reasons why…
Fact #1 : Chyron Was Faked
The video was edited, with a fake chyron covering up the real chyron :
Fake Chyron : Ukrainian Health Ministry: 57 Dead, 169 Hurt Across Ukraine As Russia Launches Attack
Real Chryon : WIEN: DEMO GEGEN KLIMAPOLITIK
Fact #2 : Voiceover Was Faked
The reporter in the video was Marvin Bergauer of oe24TV, an Austrian TV channel. However, he was speaking in German, not English.
The English voiceover in the fake video was taken from this 24 February 2022 NBC News video. You can hear NBC news correspondent Cal Perry say those same exact words starting at 3:37 of the video.
Fact #3 : Fake Video Shared By Pro-Russia Groups
This fake video was “improved” in these aspects over the original version that was released in Chinese groups.
This version appears to be made by Russian operatives, and was given a boost by Lee Stranahan, a Radio Sputnik host who shared it out on Twitter with the comments “How to lose your job as a crisis actor…”
Twitter only took it down later, after accumulating over 700,000 views, but versions of it continue to be shared on Twitter, TikTok, etc. as well as pro-Russia and pro-China groups on WhatsApp and Telegram.
Fact #4 : Video Was About A Climate Change Protest
The video was actually about a climate change protest in Vienna, as these English translations will tell you :
WIEN: DEMO GEGEN KLIMAPOLITIK = Vienna: Demo against climate policy
Aktuell Klimapolitik Nicht = No to the current climate policy
The “dead bodies” were not crisis actors, but 49 protesters in body bags outside the Federal Chancellery in Vienna. This was what oe24 reporter, Marvin Bergauer, was saying in German :
No greenhouse gas and reduction targets in Austria for 400 days. That is the official title of this event here, this demonstration.
It was organised by Fridays For Future… Here you can also see this protest action, which is somewhat macabre. Forty-nine people are lying here on the ground to represent the climate deaths.
Fact #5 : Video Was Taken Before Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
This video was recorded on 4 February 2022 – 20 days before Russia invaded Ukraine.
You can confirm this in the official oe24TV broadcast page for this protest, as well as this tweet by the Fridays for Future group in Vienna.
Seit 400 Tagen hat Österreich kein wirksames Klimaschutzgesetz.
Und das mit einer Bundesregierung, die sich „Klimaschutz“ groß auf die Fahnen schreibt.
Durch jeden Tag (!), an dem Österreich seine Treibhausgasemissionen nicht senkt, werden 49 Menschen zu Tode kommen.
Fact #6 : Video Was Also Misused By COVID-19 Deniers
This video was also misused earlier by COVID-19 deniers who claimed that these are crisis actors in Germany who pretended to be dead COVID-19 patients.
They were sharing it as evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic was staged or planned, and that people did not actually die from it.
This video was already circulating in the West since 9 February 2022, so it would be really peculiar for Russian disinformation teams to reuse it.
This would suggest that the video is being used by Chinese disinformation efforts unfamiliar to its earlier circulation in the West.
This fake news appears to be part of the disinformation campaign conducted by pro-Russia activists.
It is also being shared by the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao, 五毛), and their supporters.
Please help us fight such malicious fake news – SHARE this fact check far and wide!
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Was the US Navy forced to withdraw from the South China Sea after Chinese jamming attacks on their planes?
Find out what’s going on, and what the FACTS really are…
Claim : US Navy Withdraws After Chinese Jamming Attacks!
This was the Chinese article that went viral after the Chinese 50 Cent Army (wumao) and netizens promoted it excitedly in July 2020, and again in 2022.
It was allegedly translated into English by Hong Kong-based analyst, Thomas Wing Polin, whose translation was widely circulated on social media
It was this English translation that went viral again social media, after tensions rose between the US and China over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The post is very long, so feel free to skip to the next section for the facts…
Just now, the U.S. fighter plane flew over the South China Sea again. Unexpectedly, it lost control halfway, and the U.S. finally admitted one thing.
Just now, the US CNBC website reported that several US Growler electronic warplanes were mysteriously attacked when they flew to the South China Sea again.
These warplanes were all out of control midway, but these warplanes were out of control for only a few seconds. Then the US military ordered the request. All fighters over the South China Sea withdrew.
In this regard, the United States was at a loss as to why this happened. Finally, they mobilized reconnaissance satellites to discover that many electronic jamming devices appeared on the islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
It was these devices that caused the short-term loss of control of the U.S. fighter planes. According to the pilots, when they were attacked electronically, all the instruments in the cabin were chaotic.
The fighter planes were completely out of control and could not communicate with the outside world, but they did not know what happened.
After the accident, the United States negotiated with my country, demanding that my country dismantle the electronic equipment immediately, but it was rejected.
These electronic devices are an important part of my country’s maritime defense and are not offensive weapons. Therefore, the US military’s request for dismantling is unreasonable.
So why does this electronic device make the United States so afraid? First of all, it is an electronic jamming device that can cut off the enemy’s radio system. The attacked fighter will be out of control. Since it cannot be controlled, these fighters will soon crash.
The second is that its attack method is unpredictable. Compared with conventional air defense missiles, electronic jamming systems are more concealed. Because its attack method interferes with the radio, enemy fighter planes are often hit inadvertently.
At the same time, this type of attack is almost impossible to intercept. That’s why the US military asks my country to dismantle these weapons.
On the same day, Swift, the former commander of the US Pacific, finally admitted that the US military had lost the best time to control the South China Sea. He believes that China has deployed a large number of Hongqi 9 air defense missiles, H6K fighter jets, and electronic jamming systems on islands and reefs. The defense can be said to be solid. If US fighter jets rush into the South China Sea, they are likely to encounter “Waterloo.”
In fact, since the construction of China’s island and reef defense began, the living space of US military fighters and warships has been shrinking. If China continues to develop like this, the United States will not have any chance of winning.
Whether it is islands or reefs or electronic jamming systems, these are part of our national defense system. According to the US military, my country’s electronic jamming system has covered more than half of the South China Sea. It can be seen from this that American fighters must be careful when entering the South China Sea.
