Day: September 30, 2023

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OSINT

How to use 咯 at end of the sentence? : r/ChineseLanguage – Reddit


Even after looking at the dictionary I don’t really understand how it is used and why? How does adding 咯 change the meaning of the sentence?

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Operation "Doppelganger"

How to use 咯 at end of the sentence? : r/ChineseLanguage – Reddit


Even after looking at the dictionary I don’t really understand how it is used and why? How does adding 咯 change the meaning of the sentence?

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Selected Articles

EGYPT : Abbas Kamel, the ubiquitous spy chief consolidating Sisi’s power


Further reading

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Government Intelligence 27.03.2023

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Government Intelligence 14.02.2018

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Government Intelligence 31.01.2018

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Operation "Doppelganger"

How To Invest In Real Estate – Forbes Advisor


Whether you have $100 or $100,000, investing in real estate can be a powerful wealth-building tool. I got my start with real estate investing in 2016 with the purchase of a run-down 1970s split …

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The Ongoing National Security Threats Posed by Senator Bob Menendez


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Menendez indictment looks bad, but there are defenses he can make


Reactions came quickly to the federal indictment on Sept. 22, 2023, of New Jersey’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Bob Menendez. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy joined other state Democrats in urging Menendez to resign, saying, “The alleged facts are so serious that they compromise the ability of Senator Menendez to effectively represent the people of our state.”

The indictment charged Menendez, “his wife NADINE MENENDEZ, a/k/a ‘Nadine Arslanian,’ and three New Jersey businessmen, WAEL HANA, a/k/a ‘Will Hana,’ JOSE URIBE, and FRED DAIBES, with participating in a years-long bribery scheme … in exchange for MENENDEZ’s agreement to use his official position to protect and enrich them and to benefit the Government of Egypt.” Menendez said he believed the case would be “successfully resolved once all of the facts are presented,” but he stepped down temporarily as chairman of the Senate’s influential Committee on Foreign Relations.

The Conversation’s senior politics and democracy editor, Naomi Schalit, interviewed longtime Washington lawyer and Penn State Dickinson Law professor Stanley M. Brand, who has served as general counsel for the House of Representatives and is a prominent white-collar defense attorney, and asked him to explain the indictment – and the outlook for Menendez both legally and politically.

What did you think when you first read this indictment?

As an old pal once told me, “even a thin pancake has two sides.”

Reading the criminal indictment in a case for the first time often produces a startled reaction to the government’s case. But as my over 40 years of experience defending public corruption cases and teaching criminal law have taught me, there are usually issues presented by an indictment that can be challenged by the defense.

In addition, as judges routinely instruct juries in these cases, the indictment is not evidence and the jury may not rely on it to draw any conclusions.

Prosecutors say these are some of the gold bars a New Jersey businessman used to bribe Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife. (Courtesy of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York)

The average reader will look at the indictment and say, “These guys are toast.” But are there ways Menendez can defend himself?

There are a number of complex issues presented by these charges that could be argued by the defense in court.

First, while the indictment charges a conspiracy to commit bribery, it does not charge the substantive crime of bribery itself. This may suggest that the government lacks what it believes is direct evidence of a quid pro quo – “this for that” – between Menendez and the alleged bribers.

There is evidence of conversations and texts that coyly and perhaps purposely avoid explicit acknowledgment of a corrupt agreement – for instance, “On or about January 24, 2022, DAIBES’s Driver exchanged two brief calls with NADINE MENENDEZ. NADINE MENENDEZ then texted DAIBES, writing, ‘Thank you. Christmas in January.’”

The government will argue that this reflects acknowledgment of a connection between official action and delivery of cash to Sen. Menendez, even though it is a less-than-express statement of the connection.

Speaking in this kind of code may not fully absolve the defendants, but the government must prove the defendants’ intent to carry out a corrupt agreement beyond a reasonable doubt – and juries sometimes want to see more than innuendo before convicting.

The government has also charged a crime called “honest services fraud” – essentially, a crime involving a public official putting their own financial interest above the public interest in their otherwise honest and faithful performance of their duties.

The alleged failure of Menendez to list the gifts, as required, on his Senate financial disclosure forms will be cited by prosecutors as evidence of “consciousness of guilt” – an attempt to conceal the transactions.

However, under a recent Supreme Court case involving former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia for similar crimes, the definition of “official acts” under the bribery statute has been narrowly defined to mean only formal decisions or proceedings. That definition does not include less-formal actions like those performed by Menendez, such as meetings with Egyptian military officials.

The Supreme Court rejected an interpretation of official acts that included arranging meetings with state officials and hosting events at the governor’s mansion, or promoting a private businessman’s products at such events.

When it comes time for the judge to instruct the jury at the end of the trial, Menendez may well be able to argue that much of what he did in fact did not constitute “official acts” and therefore are not illegal under the bribery statute.

Cash federal investigators say they found in Sen. Bob Menendez’s home. (Courtesy of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York)

This case involves alleged favors done for a foreign country in exchange for money. Does that change this case from simple bribery to something more serious?

The issue of foreign military sales to Egypt may also present a constitutional obstacle to the government.

The indictment specifically cites Menendez’s role as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and actions he took in that role in releasing holds on certain military sales to Egypt and letters to his colleagues on that issue. The Constitution’s speech or debate clause protects members from liability or questioning when undertaking actions within the “legitimate legislative sphere” – which undoubtedly includes these functions.

While this will not likely be a defense to all the allegations, it could require paring the allegations related to this conduct. That would whittle away at a pillar of the government’s attempt to show Menendez had committed abuse of office.

In fact, when the government has charged members of Congress with various forms of corruption, courts have rejected any reference to their membership on congressional committees as evidence against them.

How likely is Menendez’s ouster from the Senate?

Generally, neither the House nor Senate will move to expel an indicted member before conviction.

There have been rare exceptions, such as when Sen. Harrison “Pete” Williams was indicted in the FBI Abscam sting operation from the late 1970s and early 1980s against members of Congress. Williams resigned in 1982 shortly before an expected expulsion vote. With current Democratic control of the Senate by a margin of just one seat, Menendez’s ouster seems unlikely even though the Democratic governor of New Jersey would assuredly appoint a Democrat to fill the vacancy.

‘In the history of the United States Congress, it is doubtful there has ever been a corruption allegation of this depth and seriousness,’ former New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli said. True?

That seems hyperbolic. The Menendez case is just the latest in a long line of corruption cases involving members of Congress.

In the Abscam case, seven members of the House and one Senator were all convicted in a bribery scheme. That scheme involved undercover FBI agents dressed up as wealthy Arabs offering cash to Congress members in return for a variety of political favors.

In the Korean Influence Investigation in 1978 – when I served as House counsel – the House and Department of Justice conducted an extensive investigation of influence peddling by Tongsun Park, a South Korean national, in which questionnaires were sent to every member of the House relating to acceptance of gifts from Park.

Going all the way back to 1872, there was the Credit Mobilier scandal that involved prominent members of the House and Vice President Schuyler Colfax in a scheme to reward these government officials with shares in the transcontinental railroad company in exchange for their support of funding for the project.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


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A democratic nation has been allowed to die – the UN has failed once more


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It happened quickly, the final invasion, and with hundreds of Orthodox Christians killed by the aggressors. Armenia, led by a one-time human rights lawyer, had no alternative but to save thousands of its people from death by surrendering their enclave at Nagorno-Karabakh to the brutal forces of Ilham Aliyev, dictator of Azerbaijan. 

It was Russia, once again, that was principally to blame: it was given by a foolish UN Security Council the duty to keep the peace, but when Armenia condemned the invasion of Ukraine, Putin in revenge withdrew all protection of Nagorno-Karabakh and let the Azerbaijan army off its leash. 

120,000 citizens are now at its mercy, being forced either to abandon their ancestral homes or else live under a tyranny that has fomented hatred against them for many years.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a small, mountainous country in the clouds, settled by Armenians for many centuries. It was the first in 301 AD to adopt Christianity. 

Hundreds of Orthodox churches, and their ancient mysterious tombstones (many now defaced or demolished by the aggressors), attract visitors from Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, who take the 6 hour road trek via Mount Ararat to Stepanakert, centre of the Karabakh’s democracy that was this week snuffed out. The trip is only 20 minutes by air from a modern airport. But planes have not flown for years because the Azeri government threatens to shoot them down.

The country fell to Russia in the early nineteenth century, and the demographic evidence from the first census of that time proves that it was all-Armenian and the area should have been allocated to this state when Stalin divided the territory in 1920. Instead, he gave it to Azerbaijan, and the mistake was not rectified until a civil war after the collapse of the USSR.

The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh – still the great majority of the population – voted first to join with Armenia (the wiser course) but then (courageously as they thought) opted for independence. The war had commenced with pogroms by Azeris in Sumgait and Baku. But in time a local Karabakh defence force took the upper hand. Fighting was brutal. With ethnic hate on both sides. The siege of Stepanakert during which Azeri forces killed several thousand in bombings of schools and hospitals, was Guernica writ small. The people only survived because of supplies brought on a narrow road – a humanitarian corridor – from Armenia, which Azerbaijan closed earlier this year. 

Nagorno-Karabakh won the war by 1994 and declared, like Kosovo, its right to self-determination. For the next quarter-century it governed itself with help from Armenia. It did so, reasonably enough, with fair elections and democratic institutions like an independent judiciary – as I found when investigating the situation in the country for a court case in 2014. It was not, as many news reporters said last week, a country of “Armenian separatists” but of an Armenian people whose ancestors had lived in these highlands for centuries and who had fought for, and won, for a quarter of a century, the right to resist a brutal dictator. But there were many Azeri provocations at the border – the “line of control”.

The Security Council, quite absurdly, entrusted the enclave security to Russia which did not take its duties seriously and in 2020 the war broke out again. Armenia voted at the UN to condemn Russia for attacking Ukraine and in consequence Putin determined to end all support for it and to take revenge. The last straw came this month, when Armenia joined the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is prosecuting Putin for kidnapping Ukrainian children. Last week the Kremlin carpeted the Armenian ambassador and made what it described as a “harsh protest”: it threatened to withdraw its security mandated protection for Nagorno-Karabakh. When it did so, Azerbaijan invaded.

How should the UK react? Aliyev, like Putin, is guilty of the international crime of aggression, and this country should denounce this violation. Russia, too, should be condemned for betraying the duty imposed on it by the Security Council. We should certainly offer to take some of the many thousands of refugees: they are innocent victims of an international double-cross. They have every reason to fear persecution if they stay where they belong. Their political leaders are already being arrested.

As for the United Nations, Nagorno-Karabakh will be remembered as yet another reason why it is no longer fit for purpose. That purpose, its Charter reminds us, is to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” yet it cannot expel Russia (even were Putin to use nuclear weapons) which would veto its own expulsion, and it cannot even expel Azerbaijan for aggression (because Russia would veto the necessary Security Council recommendation). 

The only way forward is to replace the United Nations, because its Security Council is not fit for purpose. It is incapable of reform, because Russia and China will veto reform. ‘Security” will only come from an international representative body with the moral, military, economic power to deter authoritarian aggression.

Geoffrey Robertson AO KC is a former UN war crimes judge and author of An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?


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Espionage And Transnational Repression in the US

gas production collocation | meaning and examples of use


Some authors hold that gas production is a consequence of the germination process, while others contend that ethylene production is a requirement for germination.

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Armenian political analyst on Baku’s intentions JAMnews – JAMnews


Armenian political analyst on Baku’s intentions JAMnews  JAMnews

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Artsakh is lost after being abandoned by Armenia, Russia and the … – Armenian Weekly


Artsakh is lost after being abandoned by Armenia, Russia and the …  Armenian Weekly