Monthly Archives: September 2022
China runs illegal police operations on foreign soil via ‘overseas service centers’ — Radio Free Asia
Hometown associations are community based groups of people from the same town in China, and are connected to the hierarchy of the CCP’s United Front Work Department, which runs outreach and influence operations both in China and overseas.
One of the key operations the service centers are involved in is the “persuasion to return” process, in which pressure is brought to bear on activists overseas using threats and retaliation against their loved ones back in China.
“In the mere fifteen months between April 2021 and July 2022 alone … a staggering number of 230,000 Chinese nationals were returned to face potential criminal charges in China through these methods, which often include threats and harassment to family members back home or directly to the target abroad either through online or physical means,” Safeguard Defenders said.
The “persuasion to return” campaign was rolled out as a pilot project across 10 provinces in 2018, and official guidelines include denying targets’ children the right to an education in China, or targeting their family members for harassment.
“The combination of an absolute absence of minimal judicial safeguards for the target and the association by guilt methods employed on their families, as well as the illegal methods adopted to circumvent official international cooperation mechanisms and the use of United Front Work-related organizations abroad to aid in such efforts, pose a most grave risk to the international rule of law and territorial sovereignty,” the report found.
New York Man Enters Guilty Plea to Laundering Monies Connected to Proceeds from Facilitating Fraudulent Robocalls | OPA | Department of Justice
Jon J. Kahen, 48, of Great Neck, New York, was the owner and chief executive officer of Global Voicecom Inc. (GVI), a U.S.-based VoIP provider, from 1999 to 2020. GVI provided telecommunications services, such as calling platforms and domestic direct inward dial (DID), toll-free, and call termination services, that introduced foreign phone traffic into the U.S. telephone system (thereby serving as a so-called “gateway carrier”).
Beginning at least as early as 2016, GVI began serving as a gateway carrier for an India-based VoIP provider that used GVI’s gateway carrier services to route fraudulent robocalls – including, but not limited to, U.S. government agency imposter calls placed by individuals located in India who were fraudulently impersonating agents of the IRS, Social Security Administration, and Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General (SSA-OIG) – into the U.S. telephone system. This provider also used the DID and toll-free numbers re-leased and/or re-sold to it by GVI to facilitate various fraudulent robocall scams. U.S. consumers, including the elderly, were defrauded as a result of these scams.
By 2018, Kahen became aware that this India-based VoIP provider was using GVI’s telecommunications services to engage in unlawful activities (e.g., wire fraud involving fraudulent robocalls), and by May 2019, Kahen was aware that the funds paid to GVI by this client for continued gateway carrier services constituted the proceeds of unlawful activities. Despite this knowledge, Kahen conducted unlawful monetary transactions involving these criminally derived funds.
a statistic
A poem in Vietnamese by Thái Hạo Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

When a man was shot dead by a mortar shell he was yearning for his girlfriend's lips he became a statistic in an office full of paper Sunday morning over coffee we talked about how Russia has lost 15,000 soldiers 15 thousand - quite a number You paid your the coffee 15 thousands dong rushed home to change your clothes in time for a birthday party the closet was full of clothes we're upset because we can't find a single bow we're angry because this morning's cup of coffee was too sweet a Sunday totally ruined… ----- March 2022
Khi một người đàn ông bị bắn chết bởi một quả pháo cối giữa lúc anh ta đang nhớ đôi môi người bạn gái một con số được thêm vào cuốn sổ thống…
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a poem in the wind
A poem in Vietnamese by Thái Hạo Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

a poem in the wind like a white linen scarf flew the length of the East coast a raised flag in the cemetery I voted for myself with a white test kit in my tired aching hand appeared nothing we’re all still negative laughing like lunatics surveying a home destroyed last night while you are still dear as negative as the field of sunflowers we safeguard for each other a long sigh clouds in the deep valleys have hidden the abyss Buddha sat crying alone by the river austere sutras as a bunch of people danced at the side of the mountain erected boulders the souls slipped away the fallen brick and mortar flew I voted for my hometown salt and white rice on the severed roads the ballots of spring fields seedless husks bleached white a nestling…
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Shusaku Takaoka — VOYAGE ONIRIQUE

Talentueux Artiste Japonais : SHUSAKU TAKAOKA est un graphiste, designer, auteur de ces illustrations spirituelles et surprenantes. L’artiste s’inspire de notre société moderne pour juxtaposer des visuels qui forment un décor amusant et dénoncent parfois les aspects d’un monde ultra-consommateur et sur-connecté. 15 more words
Shusaku Takaoka — VOYAGE ONIRIQUE
Marii Freire
Dentro dessa controvérsia milenar que se preocupa com a sabedoria, com o conhecimento de modo geral, e que tem essa preocupação através do que acontece em relação a nossa cultura, inclusive guarda muito de nossos valores de memória, nada mais significativo ao homem do que o conhecimento. Seja, o conhecimento oral, o conhecimento que fica registrado através da escrita e agrega de diferentes formas, porque acaba sendo transmitido a geração seguinte.Isso é um exemplo de que, os pensamentos de hoje, serão modificados amanhã, porque a realidade humana se desloca de um período ao outro na história. Então, considerando esse detalhe, a gente busca fundamentar sempre que, a base de uma boa educação eleva muito o conhecimento de um povo. Vamos tomar como exemplo, um dos caras que mais conseguiu se destacar na Grécia Antiga, que foi Sócrates.
Os muitos ensinamentos da época de Sócrates não era cobrados, pelo menos (…
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My Dictionary-Making History
Foundation Operation X for Languages, Cultures and Perspectives
Written by Dyami Millarson
It must have been in 2009 when I made a glossary of Dutch in Excel – I was between 14 and 15 years old back then. I included countless words in this glossary and I indicated to which part of speech each word belongs. This trained me in the recognition of parts of speech; after analysing thousands of words, recognising parts of speech became second nature to me. In other words, my practice with Dutch made the skill of recognising parts of speech intuitive for me, and that is always the level of mastery I wish to reach whenever I learn a new skill. 2009 was really the time when I was familiarising myself with grammar; parts of speech were not my only interest, as I was also interested in morphology, such as all the grammatical cases that exist in human languages. Prior to 2009, I…
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Prayers
Very nice and meditative
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