Study Finds High Incidences of Abuse of Mothers During Childbirth

More than one-third of new mothers in four poor countries are abused during childbirth, a study published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet.

The study, carried out in Ghana, Guinea, Myanmar and Nigeria by the World Health Organization, found that 42% of the women experienced physical or verbal abuse or some form of stigma or discrimination at maternity health facilities.

The study also found a high number of caesarean sections, vaginal exams and other procedures being performed without the patient’s consent.

Of the 2,016 women observed for the study, 14% said they were either hit, slapped or punched during childbirth. Some 38% of the women said they were subjected to verbal abuse, most often by being shouted at, mocked or scolded.

An alarming 75% had episiotomies performed without consent. The procedure involves surgically enlarging the opening of the vagina.

The authors of the study urged officials to hold those who mistreat women during childbirth accountable. They also urged the governments to put into place clear policies and sufficient resources to ensure that women have a safe place to give birth.

Among the specific steps proposed by the study are: making sure all medical procedures are performed only after getting an informed consent; allowing the patient to have a companion of their choice in the delivery room; redesigning maternity wards to offer the maximum privacy; and making sure no health facility tolerates instances of physical or verbal abuse.

From: MeNeedIt

Trump Honors Longtime Reagan Associate Edwin Meese

President Donald Trump on Tuesday awarded one of the nation’s highest civilian honors to Edwin Meese, best known for serving as President Ronald Reagan’s attorney general.

Meese, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, had a longstanding connection to Reagan that included serving as his chief of staff when Reagan was California’s governor. After Reagan became president, Meese served as his chief policy adviser before going on to serve as the nation’s 75th attorney general.

“He was a star,” Trump said. “Ed was among President Reagan’s closest advisers as the administration implemented tax cuts, a dramatic defense buildup and a relentless campaign to defeat communism.”

FILE – President-elect Ronald Reagan and his transition team leader Edwin Meese leave the Blair House in Washington, Dec. 10, 1980.

Meese was an early Trump critic who ended up supporting him and helping lead his transition team. Surrounded by family and friends in the Oval Office, the 87-year-old recalled some 30 years of working with Reagan at the state and national level and in his retirement.

“Ronald Reagan was a pivotal part of my life and I am always grateful to him,” Meese said.

Meese stayed active in conservative circles following his time in the Reagan administration as an author, speaker and fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.  
 
Meese resigned as attorney general in August 1988 after becoming ensnared in a probe of Wedtech Corp., a New York defense contractor. An independent prosecutor began looking at Meese’s record of assistance to Wedtech. A 14-month corruption investigation ended in a decision not to prosecute Meese, but a report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility said Meese had violated ethical standards.

Trump said Meese delivered “monumental change for the American people” as attorney general and cited the Reagan administration’s efforts against drug use, which Trump said proved successful with lower drug use by young adults.

“Would you like to make a comeback?” Trump joked before presenting Meese with the award.
 

From: MeNeedIt

Thousands Missing in Nigeria After a Decade of Conflict

About five years ago, Abdulhamid Bala narrowly escaped a brutal attack after the armed Islamist group known as Boko Haram invaded the remote community of Gwoza where he lived with his family in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State.

“Many Boko Haram members infiltrated the community but there were about 10 of them chasing us on motorcycles. They were shooting at us sporadically,” Bala told VOA.

Boko Haram had struck Gwoza several times and in August 2014, the insurgents completely overran the town, declaring it their headquarters.

In the midst of the chaos, Hamid ran into the mountains surrounding Gwoza losing sight of his father and younger brother. They’ve been missing ever since. Hamid reported his missing relatives to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

An epidemic

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says their highest caseload of missing persons in the world is currently in Nigeria.

Nearly 22,000 Nigerians have been reported as missing and 90% of the cases are linked to the Boko Haram insurgency, the Red Cross reports.

The armed sect declared war on the Nigerian government in 2009, with the goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate.

It’s estimated that 2 million people have been displaced by the conflict and many ran to the Borno state capital of Maiduguri to seek safe haven.

Bala also fled to Maiduguri, about 140 kilometers northwest of Gwoza. He lives with his wife in the city’s largest refugee camp Bakassi, with more than 43,000 others. At the sprawling camp, many people have stories about being separated from a relative.

Children are especially vulnerable, with nearly 60% of those in the registry minors at the time they disappeared.

FILE – Desks and blackboards are seen inside a UNICEF-funded school at Bakassi camp, Borno, Nigeria, July 18, 2017.

“Every parent’s worst nightmare is not knowing where their child is. This is the tragic reality for thousands of Nigerian parents, leaving them with the anguish of a constant search. People have the right to know the fate of their loved ones, and more needs to be done to prevent families from being separated in the first place,” said ICRC President Peter Maurer during his visit to Nigeria last month.

But the registry of 22,000 people does not capture the complete picture on the ground, as Edward Muthoka, the head of the ICRC’s Restoring Family Links team in Maiduguri explained.

“The security situation determines where we can work and where we cannot work. So the 22,000 is the tip of the iceberg because what about the areas that we never had a chance of going to? What about the villages where something happened and everybody was wiped out?” Muthoka told VOA.

The ICRC works closely with state agencies and community leaders to carry out its work.

But the government of Borno State, the heart of the insurgency, admitted that it’s struggling to reunite families.

“When you don’t have the capacity, either in terms of human resources or in terms of institutional strength, it becomes a challenge to carry out the responsibility because we are learning from our international partners who have the expertise, especially the ICRC, the UNHCR and UNICEF,” said Ya Bawa Kolo, the executive chairperson of Borno State’s Emergency Management Agency.

FILE – People walk near makeshift accommodation at Bakassi Camp for internally displace people in Maiduguri, Nigeria, March 8, 2016.

The nature of the insurgency means that people have been displaced many times making it harder to find them.

The ICRC has solved 367 cases of missing persons, helping to bring closure to relatives who don’t know if a family member is dead or alive.

Aperafubu Shettima was disconnected from his family after a 2015 Boko Haram attack on his community. After being reunited, the 14-year-old is now living happily with his parents and siblings at an IDP camp in Maiduguri.

Aishatu Bulama says the ICRC helped trace three of her young children. She, too, reunited with the rest of her family earlier this year.

On the other side of the camp, Hamid is trying to cope.

Earlier this year, he was showing signs of emotional distress, withdrawing from socializing with others at the camp, said Mohammed Buba Dada, an official from the International Organization for Migration.

FILE – Women walk at the Bakassi camp for internally displaced people in Maiduguri, Nigeria, Nov. 29, 2016.

Dada said that some refugees with missing relatives are exhibiting symptoms of depression. He encourages them to visit the camp’s resource center, set up by IOM, where refugees can play games, do artwork and mingle with one another as a way of managing the burden of not knowing where some of their loved ones are.

There, Bala enjoys playing board games. But the games only give him temporary relief. He wants news about his father and brother. He says at this point, any news would make him feel much better.

From: MeNeedIt

House Democrats Subpoena Pentagon, Prepare to Depose Sondland in Impeachment Inquiry

Three U.S. House of Representatives committees are set to question Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, on Tuesday to find out more about the interactions between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian officials.

The closed-door deposition is part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry in the House, which Trump on Monday again rejected as a “scam” perpetrated by Democrats who do not want him to win a second term in office next year.

Sondland has become a prominent figure in the probe because of his efforts to get Ukraine to commit to investigate Trump’s potential presidential rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, Hunter.

A whistleblower complaint that launched the impeachment inquiry says the day after Trump spoke by telephone with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Sondland and U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker met with the Ukrainian leader and other political figures.

The whistleblower said that according to readouts of those meetings recounted by U.S. officials, “Ambassadors Volker and Sondland reportedly provided advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskiy.”

Gordon Sondland headshot, as US Ambassador to the European Union.

Speaking to reporters Monday at the White House, Trump returned to his repeated defense of the conversation with Zelenskiy as a “perfect call.”  When asked if he is worried about what might emerge now that a second whistleblower has come forward, Trump replied, “Not at all.”

He described the call as “congenial” and said there was “no pressure.”

The House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees have been leading the inquiry with depositions and subpoenas seeking documents from members of the Trump administration and the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

They issued fresh subpoenas Monday, demanding Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Office and Budget and Management Acting Director Russell Vought turn over documents by Oct. 15 relating to Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine.

Part of the investigation includes examining whether or not Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine was tied to his request for a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens.

No evidence of corruption by the Bidens in Ukraine has been found.

From: MeNeedIt

Iraqi President Condemns Attacks on Protesters

Iraqi President Barham Salih has condemned attacks on anti-government protesters and media after a week of demonstrations and related clashes left more than 100 people dead and 6,000 wounded.

He called those committing the violence criminals and enemies, and used a televised address Monday to call for a halt to the escalation.

Salih said Iraq had experienced enough destruction, bloodshed, wars and terrorism.

The military admitted earlier Monday to using “excessive force” in confronting protesters in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad.

The government took the step of removing security forces from the area and handing over patrols to police.  Officials also pledged to hold accountable any member of the security forces who “acted wrongly.”

The protests in Baghdad and in several southern Iraqi cities have grown from initial demands for jobs and improved city services, such as water and power, to calls now to end corruption in the oil-rich country of nearly 40 million people.

Iraqi municipal workers clean up Tayaran Square in central Baghdad on Oct. 5, 2019 after a curfew was lifted following a day of violent protests.

Iraq’s cabinet issued a new reform plan early Sunday in an effort to respond to the protests that have taken authorities by surprise.

After meeting through the night Saturday, cabinet officials released a series of planned reforms, which addressed land distributions and military enlistments as well as increasing welfare stipends for poor families and training programs for unemployed youth.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi told his cabinet late Saturday in televised remarks that he is willing to meet with protesters and hear their demands. He called on the protesters to end their demonstrations.

Former Shi’ite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads the largest opposition bloc in parliament, called Friday for the government to resign and said “early elections should be held under U.N. supervision.”

From: MeNeedIt

Reports: Chinese Energy Giant Was Under US Pressure to Exit Iran Gas Project

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service.

Published reports say a Chinese state energy company that appears to have pulled out of a natural gas project in Iran had been under pressure to do so because of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh announced the departure of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) from the joint venture to develop Iran’s South Pars offshore gas field in comments Sunday reported by his ministry’s website.

Zanganeh said Iranian company Petropars, which originally had partnered with CNPC and France’s Total on the project, will develop the gas field on its own.

Total initially held a 50.1% stake in the joint venture announced in 2017, while CNPC had 30% and Petropars had 19.9%. Total withdrew from the project in August 2018 as the U.S. began reimposing sanctions on Iran to pressure it to negotiate a new deal to end its nuclear and other perceived malign activities.

Neither CNPC nor the Chinese government made any comment about the South Pars project on Monday, a public holiday in China.

But a Wall Street Journal report said CNPC executives previously had acknowledged that the company was struggling to find banks to transfer funds to Iran due to U.S. pressure. The article said CNPC’s own bank, Bank of Kunlun, had told customers that it was no longer processing trades with Iran while publicly asserting that it intended to keep its business with Tehran going.

The South China Morning Post reported that CNPC also “could have cause for concern when it comes to (U.S.) sanctions” because the company’s website says it has a four-year-old U.S.-based subsidiary that has made a “significant financial investment” in the United States.

The Trump administration has been unilaterally toughening sanctions on Iran since last year, calling on other nations not to do business with its energy and financial sectors and imposing secondary sanctions on foreign companies and individuals who defy those warnings.

U.S. officials sanctioned several Chinese shipping companies and executives last month for importing Iranian oil in defiance of a total ban on Iranian oil exports imposed by the U.S. in May. 

A Bloomberg report said CNPC’s role in the South Pars project had been uncertain for several months. It said Zanganeh had complained in February that CNPC had not carried out any of its share of the work. The report said CNPC was in negotiations to remain a partner in the project as recently as August, according to the head of Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas Co.

From: MeNeedIt

Conservative Leader Calls Trudeau a Fraud in Canadian Debate

The leading candidate to replace Justin Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister attacked him Wednesday during the second debate of the campaign, calling him a phony and fraud who can’t even recall how often he’s worn blackface.
 
Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer said Trudeau doesn’t deserve to govern Canada. Trudeau is seeking a second term in the Oct. 21 elections.  
 
“Justin Trudeau only pretends to stand up for Canada,” Scheer said. “You know, he’s very good at pretending things. He can’t even remember how many times he put blackface on, because the fact of the matter is he’s always wearing a mask.”

Green Party leader Elizabeth May, left, responds to a question as Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer, Maxime Bernier, Yves-Francois Blanchet and Jagmeet Singh look on during the Federal leaders debate in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, Oct. 7, 2019.

The blackface controversy surfaced last month when Time magazine published a photo showing the then-29-year-old Trudeau at an Arabian Nights party in 2001 wearing a turban and robe with dark makeup on his hands, face and neck. Trudeau was dressed as a character from “Aladdin.”

Trudeau said he also once darkened his face for a performance in high school. A brief video surfaced of Trudeau in blackface as well when he was in his early 20s. Trudeau has said he can’t give a number for how many times he wore blackface because he didn’t remember the third incident.
 
The controversy made global headlines but hasn’t led to a drop in the polls for Trudeau, who has been admired by liberals around the world for his progressive policies in the Trump era.

Trudeau has long championed multiculturalism and immigration. Half of Trudeau’s Cabinet is made up of women, four are Sikhs, and his immigration minister is a Somali-born refugee.

Trudeau accused Scheer of hiding his campaign platform, which he hasn’t released yet. And he accused the Conservative leader of wanting to impose cuts like the unpopular Conservative premier of Ontario has done.
 
Scheer took every opportunity to attack Trudeau after a rough week for the Conservative leader that led to a dip in the polls. The Globe and Mail reported last week that Sheer holds dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship. Scheer said he only renounced his American citizenship in August. The process could take up to 10 months so Scheer could be the first American to become Canada’s prime minister.
 

From: MeNeedIt

Judge Tosses Out Trump Challenge to Tax Return Turnover

A federal judge has rejected President Donald Trump’s challenge to the release of his tax returns for a New York state criminal probe.
 
Judge Victor Marrero ruled Monday. He said he cannot endorse such a “categorical and limitless assertion of presidential immunity from judicial process.”
 

The returns had been sought by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. His office is investigating the Trump Organization’s involvement in buying the silence of two women who claimed to have had affairs with the president.
 
Trump’s lawyers have said the investigation is politically motivated and that the quest for his tax records should be stopped because he is immune from any criminal probe as long as he is president.

 

From: MeNeedIt

North Korea Walks Away from Nuclear Talks, but Maybe Not For Good

U.S.-North Korea nuclear talks have collapsed yet again, after Pyongyang angrily walked away, blaming Washington. But it does not necessarily mean the demise of the talks. Both North Korea and the U.S. have repeatedly walked away during the past year and a half of negotiations, only to later return. As VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul, both sides have incentives to continue talking, despite a lack of progress.

 

From: MeNeedIt

US: Nord Stream 2 to Boost Russian Influence on EU

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry warned Monday that the controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline would increase Russia’s political influence on European Union foreign policy.

On a visit to Lithuania to promote US energy ties with Eastern European nations, Perry said the pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany “would deliver a stunning blow to Europe’s energy diversity and security.”

“It would increase Russia’s leverage over Europe’s foreign policy and Europe’s vulnerability to a supply disruption,” Perry told an energy forum in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

Perry said the Baltic sea pipeline, together with the TurkStream pipeline — which will supply Russian gas to Turkey via the Black Sea — “would enable Moscow to end gas transit through Ukraine by the close of the decade.”

“Nord Stream 2 is designed to drive a single source gas artery deep into Europe and [to drive] a stake through the heart of European stability and security,” Perry said.

He said the United States “were ready, were willing and were able” to increase European energy security by providing alternative sources, notably liquified natural gas and civil nuclear capabilities.

“We support multiple routes to deliver energy across Europe. Along with energy choice we support free and open markets… we oppose using energy to coerce any country,” he said.

Vilnius university professor Ramunas Vilpisauskas said that while the US criticism of Nord Stream was part of Washington’s drive to increase its own exports to Europe, it was also in line with the interests of a region dependent on Russian supplies.

“A commercial aim to increase US exports to Europe seems to be the main reason for the criticism of Nord Stream and Turkstream,” Vilpisauskas told AFP.

“But from the point of view of Lithuania and other central European EU members, it is a win-win situation because they have been actively looking for possibilities to diversify sources of their imports.”

The controversial 11-billion-euro ($12-billion) Nord Stream 2 energy link between Russia and Germany is set to double Russian gas shipments to Germany, the EU’s biggest economy.

Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states fear it will increase Europe’s reliance on Russian energy which Moscow could then use to exert political pressure.

 

 

From: MeNeedIt

Pope Seeks ‘Courageous’ Debate Over Amazon Priest Shortage

Pope Francis urged South American bishops on Monday to speak “courageously” at a high-profile meeting on the Amazon, where the shortage of priests is so acute that the Vatican is considering ordaining married men and giving women official church ministries.

Francis opened the work of the three-week synod, or meeting of bishops, after indigenous leaders, missionary groups and a handful of bishops chanted and performed native dances in front of the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Led in procession by the pope, the bishops then headed to the synod hall to chart new ways for the Catholic Church to better minister to remote indigenous communities and care for the rainforest they call home.

Among the most contentious proposals on the agenda is whether married elders could be ordained priests, a potentially revolutionary change in church tradition given Roman rite Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy.

The proposal is on the table because indigenous Catholics in remote parts of the Amazon can go months without seeing a priest or receiving the sacraments, threatening the very future of the church and its centuries-old mission to spread the faith in the region.

Another proposal calls for bishops to identify new “official ministries” for women, though priestly ordination for them is off the table.

Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the retired archbishop of Sao Paulo and the lead organizer of the synod, said the priest shortage had led to an “almost total absence of the Eucharist and other sacraments essential for daily Christian life.”

“It will be necessary to define new paths for the future,” he said, calling the proposal for married priests and ministries for women one of the six “core issues” that the synod bishops must address.

“The church lives on the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is the foundation of the church,” he said, citing St. John Paul II.

Francis opened the meeting by extolling native cultures and urging bishops to respect their histories and traditions as they discern ways to better spread the faith.

History’s first Latin American pope has long held enormous respect for indigenous peoples, and denounced how they are exploited, marginalized and treated as second-class citizens and “barbarians” by governments and corporations that extract timber, gold and other natural resources from their homes.

Speaking in his native Spanish, Francis told the bishops how upset he became when he heard a snide comment about the feathered headdress worn by an indigenous man at Mass on Sunday opening the synod.

“Tell me, what is the difference between having feathers on your head and the three-cornered hat worn by some in our dicasteries?” he said to applause, referring to the three-pointed red birettas worn by cardinals.

Francis urged the bishops to use the three weeks to pray, listen, discern and speak without fear.

“Speak with courage,” he said. “Even if you are ashamed, say what you feel.”

The synod is opening with global attention newly focused on the forest fires that are devouring the Amazon, which scientists say is a crucial bulwark against global warming. It also comes at a fraught time in Francis’ six-year papacy, with conservative opposition to his ecological agenda on the rise.

Francis’ traditionalist critics, including a handful of cardinals, have called the proposals in the synod working document “heretical” and an invitation to a “pagan” religion that idolizes nature rather than God.

To that criticism, Hummes denounced Catholic “traditionalism” that is stuck in the past versus the church’s true tradition, which always looks forward.

“The church cannot remain inactive within her own closed circle, focused on herself, surrounded by protective walls and even less can she look nostalgically to the past,” he said. “The Church needs to throw open her doors, knock down the walls surrounding her and build bridges.”

In keeping with the meeting’s environmental message, the synod organizers themselves are taking measures to reduce their own carbon footprint.

Organizer Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri told the bishops there would be no plastic cups or utensils at the meeting, that synod swag such as bags and pens were biodegradable, and that the emissions spent to get more than 200 bishops and indigenous from South America to Rome — estimated at 572,809 kilograms of carbon dioxide — would be offset with the purchase of 50 hectares of new growth forest in the Amazon.

From: MeNeedIt

US Researchers on Front Line of Battle Against Chinese Theft

As the U.S. warned allies around the world that Chinese tech giant Huawei was a security threat, the FBI was making the same point quietly to a Midwestern university.

In an email to the associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, an agent wanted to know if administrators believed Huawei had stolen any intellectual property from the school.

Told no, the agent responded: “I assumed those would be your answers, but I had to ask.”

It was no random query.

The FBI has been reaching out to colleges and universities across the country as it tries to stem what American authorities portray as the wholesale theft of technology and trade secrets by researchers tapped by China. The breadth and intensity of the campaign emerges in emails The Associated Press obtained through records requests to public universities in 50 states. The emails underscore the extent of U.S. concerns that universities, as recruiters of foreign talent and incubators of cutting-edge research, are particularly vulnerable targets.

Agents have lectured at seminars, briefed administrators in campus meetings and distributed pamphlets with cautionary tales of trade secret theft. In the past 18 months, they’ve requested the emails of two University of Washington researchers, asked Oklahoma State University if it has scientists in specific areas and sought updates about “possible misuse” of research funds by a University of Colorado Boulder professor, the messages show.

The emails show administrators mostly embracing FBI warnings, requesting briefings for themselves and others. But they also reveal some struggling to balance legitimate national security concerns against their own eagerness to avoid stifling research or tarnishing legitimate scientists. The Justice Department says it appreciates that push-pull and wants only to help universities separate the relatively few researchers engaged in theft from the majority who are not.

Senior FBI officials told AP they’re not encouraging schools to monitor researchers by nationality but instead to take steps to protect research and to watch for suspicious behavior. They consider the briefings vital because they say universities, accustomed to fostering international and collaborative environments, haven’t historically been as attentive to security as they should be.

“When we go to the universities, what we’re trying to do is highlight the risk to them without discouraging them from welcoming the researchers and students from a country like China,” John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said in an interview.

The effort comes amid a deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and China and as a trade war launched by President Donald Trump contributes to stock market turbulence and fears of a global economic slowdown. American officials have long accused China of stealing trade secrets from U.S. corporations to develop their economy, allegations Beijing denies.

“Existentially, we look at China as our greatest threat from an intelligence perspective, and they succeeded significantly in the last decade from stealing our best and brightest technology,” said William Evanina, the U.S. government’s chief counterintelligence official.

The FBI’s effort coincides with restrictions put in place by other federal agencies, including the Pentagon and Energy Department, that fund university research grants. The National Institutes of Health has sent dozens of letters in the past year warning schools of researchers it believes may have concealed grants received from China, or improperly shared confidential research information.

The threat, officials say, is more than theoretical.

In the past two months alone, a University of Kansas researcher was charged with collecting federal grant money while working full time for a Chinese university; a Chinese government employee was arrested in a visa fraud scheme that the Justice Department says was aimed at recruiting U.S. research talent; and a university professor in Texas was accused in a trade secret case involving circuit board technology.

The most consequential case this year centered not on a university but on Huawei, charged in January with stealing corporate trade secrets and evading sanctions. The company denies wrongdoing. Several universities including the University of Illinois, which received the FBI email last February, have since begun severing ties with Huawei.

The University of Minnesota did the same, with an administrator reassuring the FBI in an email last May that issues raised by a best practices letter an agent forwarded “have certainly been topics of conversation (and occasionally even action) in our halls for a while now.”

But the Justice Department’s track record hasn’t been perfect, leading to pushback from some that the concerns are overstated.

Federal prosecutors in 2017 dropped charges against a Temple University professor who’d been accused of sharing designs for a pocket heater with China. The professor, Xiaoxing Xi, is suing the FBI. “It was totally wrong,” he said, “so I can only speak from my experience that whatever they put out there is not necessarily true.”

Richard Wood, the then-interim provost at the University of New Mexico, conveyed ambivalence in an email to colleagues last year. He wrote that he took seriously the national security concerns the FBI identified in briefings, but also remained “deeply committed to traditional academic norms regarding the free exchange of scientific knowledge wherever appropriate — a tradition that has been the basis of international scientific progress for several centuries.

“There are real tensions between these two realities, and no simple solutions,” he wrote. “I do not think we would be wise to create new ‘policy’ on terrain this complex and fraught with internal trade-offs between legitimate concerns and values without some real dialogue on the matter.”

A University of Colorado associate vice chancellor equivocated in January on how to handle an agent’s request for a meeting, emailing colleagues that the request to discuss university research felt “probing” and like “more of a fishing expedition” than past occasions. Another administrator replied that the FBI presumably wanted to discuss intellectual property theft, calling it “bright on their radar.”

FBI officials say they’ve received consistently positive feedback from universities, and the emails do show many administrators requesting briefings, campus visits, or expressing eagerness for cooperation. A Washington State University administrator connected an FBI agent with his counterpart at the University of Idaho. The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill requested a briefing last February with an administrator, saying “we would like to understand more about the role of the FBI and how we can partner together.” A University of Nebraska official invited an agent to make a presentation as part of broader campus training.

Kevin Gamache, chief research security officer for the Texas A&M University system, told AP he values his FBI interactions and that the communication goes both ways. The FBI shares threat information and administrators educate law enforcement about the realities of university research.

“There’s no magic pill,” Gamache said. “It’s a dialogue that has to be ongoing.”

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas vice president for research and economic development welcomed the assistance in a city she called the “birthplace of atomic testing. “We have a world-class radiochemistry faculty, our College of Engineering has significant numbers of faculty and students from China, and we have several other issues of concern to me as VPR. In all of these cases, the FBI is always available to help,” the administrator, Mary Croughan, emailed agents.

The AP submitted public records requests for correspondence between the FBI and research officials at more than 50 schools.

More than two dozen produced records, including seminar itineraries and an FBI pamphlet warning that China does “not play by the same rules of academic integrity” as American institutions observe. The document, titled “China: The Risk to Academia,” says Beijing is using “non-traditional collectors” like post-doctoral researchers to collect intelligence and that programs intended to promote international collaboration are being exploited.

Some outreach is more general, like an agent’s offer to brief New Mexico State University on “how the FBI can best serve and protect.”

But other emails show agents seeking tips or following leads.

“If you have concerns about any faculty or graduate researchers, students, outside vendors … pretty much anything we previously discussed — just reminding you that I am here to help,” one wrote to Iowa State.

In May, an agent sent the University of Washington a public records request for emails of two researchers, seeking references to Chinese-government talent recruitment programs the U.S. views with suspicion. A university spokesman said the school hasn’t investigated either professor.

Last year, an agent warning of a “trend of international hostile collection efforts at US universities” asked Oklahoma State University if it had researchers in encryption research or quantum computing.

The University of Colorado received an FBI request about an “internal investigation” into a professor’s “possible misuse” of NIH funding. The school said it found no misconduct involving the professor, who has resigned.

Other emails show schools responding internally to government concerns.

At Mississippi State, an administrator concerned about Iranian cyberattacks on colleges and government reports on foreign influence suggested to colleagues the school scrutinize graduate school applicants’ demographics. “Have to be careful so U.S. law is not violated re discrimination but where does one draw the line when protecting against known foreign states that are cyber criminals?” he wrote.

Though espionage concerns aren’t new — federal prosecutors charged five Chinese military hackers in 2014 — FBI officials report an uptick in targeting of universities and more U.S. attention as a result. The FBI says it’s seen some progress from universities, with one official saying schools are more reliably pressing researchers about outside funding sources.

Demers, the Justice Department official, said the focus reflects how espionage efforts are “as pervasive, as well-resourced, as ever today.

“It’s a serious problem today on college campuses.”

From: MeNeedIt