Huawei, Koreas, and revisiting “Obama’s home country of Kenya”: Links 1, June 16, 2020

1. Fifty-four scientists have lost their jobs as a result of NIH probe into foreign ties

Some 54 scientists have resigned or been fired as a result of an ongoing investigation by the National Institutes of Health into the failure of NIH grantees to disclose financial ties to foreign governments. In 93% of those cases, the hidden funding came from a Chinese institution.

 

The new numbers come from Michael Lauer, NIH’s head of extramural research. Lauer had previously provided some information on the scope of NIH’s investigation, which had targeted 189 scientists at 87 institutions. But his presentation today to a senior advisory panel offered by far the most detailed breakout of an effort NIH launched in August 2018 that has roiled the U.S. biomedical community, and resulted in criminal charges against some prominent researchers, including Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard University’s department of chemistry and chemical biology.

“It’s not what we had hoped, and it’s not a fun task,” NIH Director Francis Collins said in characterizing the ongoing investigation. He called the data “sobering.”

 

In the vast majority of cases, Lauer reported, the person being investigated has been an Asian man in his 50s. Some three-quarters of those under investigation had active NIH grants, and nearly half had at least two grants. The 285 active grants totaled $164 million.

2. Expert says Huawei’s cyber risks can’t be mitigated in a 5G network

There’s no way to mitigate the possibility that network equipment from Huawei Technologies could be used by Chinese intelligence agencies for spying in Canada’s fledgling 5G networks, says a U.S. cyber expert.

 

“In my opinion, the risks cannot be mitigated,” Melissa Hathaway, president of a Virginia-based consultancy, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation based in Waterloo, Ont., and an advisor to two U.S. presidents said in an interview.

 

“I agree with what our British colleagues have said: Their [software] code is buggy; it has a lot of vulnerabilities in it … Their personnel really don’t know how to do secure coding. And 5G is really about secure coding because it’s about a software-defined network. You have to be able to code with security and resilience in mind to be sure the equipment you’re deploying or selling isn’t easily manipulated. So I start with that.”

 

The second problem, she added, is that China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires any person or organization to support the state and whatever it wants, so “with 5G you can direct the company to just siphon off the data.”

(Brad Johnson has given some harsh and important examples of this about how Chinese Students are expected to answer the call and spy on the US and have been arrested for doing so)

3. Washington backs down, allowing US companies to work with Huawei on 5G standards

The US Commerce Department has issued a change to its sweeping Huawei ban, saying that it will allow American companies to cooperate with the Chinese tech firm on setting standards for next-generation 5G networks.

6. BLM an extension of The Weather Underground and other anti-American terrorist groups

Thank you Coram Deo, Richard, Wrath of Khan, Tico in Finland and all who sent in materials this week.

Well that didn't go as @DonLemon expected. pic.twitter.com/EBSZ4t1E8I

— PragerU (@prageru) June 16, 2020

This seems like a dead issue, but it isn’t nor should it be.

BREAKING: Malik Obama, brother of former President Obama, has tweeted a birth certificate indicating Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

If true, this would address the long-standing speculation that the former President was actually an illegitimate President. https://t.co/tkTdt6FB7h

— Michael James Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) June 15, 2020

And when you add this…