又拉下水一个共和党大佬啊。
据知情人士透露，美国司法部要求博彩业大亨Steve Wynn注册为游说者，这与他在2017年争取中国当局长期寻求的外交帮助有关，司法部还准备诉诸法庭迫使他遵守规定。
知情人士说，检方已收集了有关Wynn近几个月工作的证据，以便为如果他不提交任何此类登记，可能提起的诉讼做准备。如果提起诉讼，此案将成为一场罕见的根据《外国代理人登记法》(Foreign Agents Registration Act)进行登记的民事法庭之争。该法律没有规定民事处罚，但它赋予了司法部寻求法院命令强制某人遵守的权力。
去年7月，时任美国司法部长的巴尔(William Barr)警告说，按照中国有关部门的要求推行政策的公司高管可能会被要求依法登记，但司法部尚未提起任何此类诉讼。
川普因为他的犹太女婿对以色列特别优待，导致中东穆斯林国家倒向中国。拜登似乎要纠正这个错误。
而且说服伊朗重回核协议也是拜登的重点。
这样的话，中国在中东的影响力会大大降低。
据看过相关情报的美国官员透露，最近几周，美国情报机构观察到两架属于中国人民解放军的飞机降落在阿拉伯联合酋长国的一个机场，并卸下了一箱箱的不明物资。
这些官员说，上述运输航班以及其他中国和阿联酋之间开展安全合作的蛛丝马迹，已让美国官员提高警觉，并给美国向阿联酋出售数百亿美元先进武器的交易带来了新的不确定性。阿联酋是美国在海湾地区的一个主要盟友。
拜登(Joe Biden)政府4月份表示，在进行评估后，将推进一项价值230亿美元的对阿联酋军售计划，涉及多达50架F-35战斗机、18架Reaper无人机和先进武器弹药，该计划在前总统特朗普(Donald Trump)即将卸任前获批。
但美国官员表示，中国与阿联酋日益扩大合作关系的迹象给这项军售计划的未来蒙上了阴影。美国官员正在寻求阿联酋对这批武器做出保证，包括不让中方或其他方获得这些美国最新的作战技术。
“F-35战斗机是美军装备库的一颗明珠，将该战机转让给阿联酋意味着两国关系非同一般，”曾作为特朗普近东事务助理国务卿处理此事的David Schenker说。他说：“转让这些装备之前还有更多工作要做。”
F-35战斗机是美国最先进的喷气式战斗机，目前预计要到2027年才会交付给阿联酋。阿联酋官员在回应美国的最新关切时提到了他们与华盛顿方面的长期安全合作。
阿联酋驻美国大使Yousef Otaiba说：“阿联酋在保护美国军事技术方面有着长期和一贯的记录，无论是在我们与美军并肩作战的联盟中，还是在多年来部署各种敏感美国军事资产的阿联酋境内。”
中国官员未回应置评请求。中国官员曾提及计划加深与阿联酋之间的信任并拓展双方的交流与合作。
之前那篇的中文版出来了。
WHO正在举行年度世界卫生大会(World Health Assembly)，这是该组织在新冠疫情期间的第二次大会，也是拜登(Biden)政府推翻前总统特朗普(Donald Trump)退出WHO决定后的第一次大会。为了重新改善关系，美国官员正在努力规划由WHO牵头的病毒起源下一阶段调查。
美国国际开发署(U.S. Agency for International Development)新冠项目执行主管Jeremy Konyndyk周二在世界卫生大会上发表视频讲话时说：“调查目的不是为了指责，而是要立足于科学，找到病毒以及疫情的起源，并帮助大家防止未来全球灾难的发生。”
白宫新冠疫情应对团队高级顾问Andy Slavitt在周二的简报会上说，对疫情起源进行更深入的调查是“我们的一个关键优先事项”。“我们需要弄清这个问题，我们需要一个在中国进行的完全透明的调查过程。我们需要WHO在这个问题上予以协助。我们现在感觉并没有。”
但中国推动WHO转而调查其他国家，中方认为疫情可能源自其他地方。
Source: 中美两国在新冠病毒溯源问题上针锋相对 – 华尔街日报
谭德赛和福奇的反水，并不是偶然。
“Nothing can happen unless China says yes,” said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “The WHO has no power under international law to require China to comply. “
He added, “Given the relationship between China and the U.S., there’s a negligible chance that the Chinese would capitulate to U.S. requests for a full and independent investigation.”
Complicating matters, leading public health officials—including WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus —have called for a thorough investigation into whether the pandemic could have begun with a lab accident.
Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical officer, was asked in a May 11 Senate hearing whether the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from a lab in Wuhan—home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which conducted extensive research on bat-borne coronaviruses. He responded, “that possibility certainly exists and I am totally in favor of a full investigation of whether that could have happened.”
China strongly contests that such a lab accident is a plausible explanation for the pandemic. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry and embassy in Geneva couldn’t be reached for comment.
China has said it fully cooperated with a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in Wuhan, visited the virology institute, and concluded that a lab accident was “extremely unlikely.” Beijing has now asked that the WHO-led team pursue evidence that the virus may have been circulating elsewhere before the first confirmed cases in Wuhan in early December 2019.
Scientists widely agree that there isn’t strong enough evidence for the lab hypothesis, or for the main alternative: that the virus spread from animals to humans outside a lab.
Source: Inquiry Into Covid-19’s Origins Splits U.S. and China – WSJ
签名人之一Ralph S. Baric是石正丽去武汉病毒所之前在美国的合作者。这篇公开信正好发表于福奇在参议院的听证会之后，不是巧合。
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abj0016
知名科学家呼吁对新冠起源进行更深入的调查，包括实验室事故泄露了导致这场大流行的新冠病毒的可能性。
在《科学》(Science)期刊周四发表的一封信中，一个由18位生物学家、免疫学家和其他科学家组成的国际小组批评了由世界卫生组织(WHO)领导的新冠疫情溯源调查小组3月份发布的一份报告的结论，并呼吁对两个主要假设进行更广泛的评估：一个是假设新冠病毒从实验室外泄后进入人群并开始传播，另外一个假设是从受感染动物传染人类并且开始传播。
由WHO领导的研究小组包括来自中国和其他几个国家的科学家，他们报告说没有确切证据能证明这两种假设的任一种。然而科学家们在信中写道，尽管如此该研究小组还是断定，疫情起源于动物是更有可能的情况，并且在这份长达313页的报告中，仅用了四页来讨论疫情源于实验室事故的可能性。
科学家们在信中写道：“在我们获得足够的数据之前，我们必须同等认真对待有关病毒来自自然和实验室外泄的假设。”
Source: 科学家呼吁对新冠起源进行更深入调查 – 华尔街日报
总加速师再加把劲，争取没有第三任。
中国官员表示，先是美国对于新冠疫情的糟糕应对，随后是夏季爆发的种族冲突，之后又发生了1月6日国会大厦遭暴力冲击事件，这一切都强化了习近平对中国制度优越性的信念。中国官员称，习近平在内部会议上把美国的民主制度比作“一盘散沙”，并宣称一党制让他能够实现治国目标。
拜登入主白宫后，中国继续采取强硬态度，暗示那些不遵守中国政府规则的企业将失去进入中国市场的机会。瑞典服装品牌Hennes & Mauritz AB最近因不采购新疆棉花的立场，在中国遭遇了社交媒体怒潮并受到消费者抵制。中国当局限制本国军方人员和某些国企员工使用美国特斯拉(Tesla Inc., TSLA)生产的电动汽车，理由是车内摄像头可能泄露隐私，诸如此类的问题会带来国家安全风险。H&M不予置评。特斯拉没有回应记者的置评请求，但该公司上周表示，特斯拉车内摄像头目前在北美以外市场并没有激活。
“没有人强迫他们留在中国，”杨洁篪在安克雷奇会谈上提到在中国做生意的美国公司时说。
Source: 中国向美国释放信号：我们目前平起平坐 – 华尔街日报
另一个不相关的新闻，GM因为芯片短缺已经让一些工厂停产了。
问题是，汽车芯片的供应链没听说受到过什么影响，而且这个短缺已经持续快一年了。
WSJ将之归咎于汽车行业去年对销量的消极预计导致的订单减少，以及笔记本电脑、手机、游戏主机的热销。
有没有其他的可能呢？
拜登(Joe Biden)政府周四禁止美国公司向几家中国实体供货，称这些实体建造的超级计算机将帮助中国政府开发新的大规模杀伤性武器，包括核装置。
这一行动将阻止向这些实体出售先进的美国半导体等产品，在美中对抗关系日益加剧的情况下，进一步加强了美国技术贸易限制。
美国商务部长雷蒙多(Gina Raimondo)在一份书面声明中表示，美国将充分运用其权限，阻止中国利用美国技术发展这些破坏稳定的军事现代化项目。
中国大使馆暂未回复置评请求。
Source: 美国将据称帮助开发武器项目的中国实体列入黑名单 – 华尔街日报
WSJ的社论把脸扇得啪啪响。
Yet enough already is known about the WIV to suggest this lacks credibility. In 2018 U.S. officials warned in diplomatic cables about safety and management issues at the WIV that could lead to a pandemic. This is especially troubling because the WIV conducted “gain of function” research on coronaviruses that theoretically can enable them to infect a new species.
The U.S. State Department warned in a January fact sheet that WIV researchers had developed “symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses” in autumn 2019. The WHO report nonetheless takes the Chinese government at its word when it says there was “no reporting of COVID-19 compatible respiratory illness during the weeks/months prior to December 2019.”
Shi Zhengli of the WIV said last week that the lab has no ties to the Chinese military. But the State Department said in January that “the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military” for years. The U.S. claims were based on extensive intelligence, and the Biden Administration hasn’t disputed the findings. Did the WHO team even examine U.S. evidence?
The WHO’s tissue-thin analysis isn’t surprising. Chinese government scientists provided most of the data and worked with the international team to craft the report. Beijing has limited independent access to information on Covid-19’s origin, much as it silenced scientists and journalists who raised doubts about the official story last year. The report’s publication was repeatedly delayed, as both sides negotiated a report that is more political than scientific.
The WHO team is also compromised by conflicts of interest. Zoologist Peter Daszak, the American on the team, has collaborated with the WIV for years and supported gain-of-function research. As early as February 2020 he helped coordinate a statement in the Lancet condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.” Another team member, virologist Marion Koopmans, oversees an outfit in the Netherlands that has conducted gain-of-function research and could face serious repercussions if the pandemic started in a lab.
The Biden Administration hasn’t taken a definitive position on the lab-leak theory, but Covid-19 spokesman Anthony Fauci played down the idea last week. Dr. Fauci’s institute financed work at the WIV and has backed gain-of-function research. He’s the wrong man to reassure the public about lab research on coronaviruses.
Dr. Fauci was trying to rebut Robert Redfield, the former chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who said last week that “I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory.” Dr. Redfield added that virus transfer to a lab worker is not unusual in such research.
Source: The Wuhan Whitewash – WSJ
