Mandarin-language videos on May 1, 2025, targeting disillusioned Chinese officials to recruit them as informants against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The cinematic videos portray fictional senior and junior officials frustrated by corruption and Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaigns. Building on a 2024 initiative, the campaign provides secure contact instructions in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English to bypass China’s “Great Firewall.” CIA Director John Ratcliffe underscored China as a key intelligence focus, seeking insights into military, cyber technology, and foreign policy.
China’s Foreign Ministry has not responded, though its intelligence agency continues to counter such recruitment efforts.
Mandarin-language videos on May 1, 2025, targeting disillusioned Chinese officials to recruit them as informants against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The cinematic videos portray fictional senior and junior officials frustrated by corruption and Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaigns. Building on a 2024 initiative, the campaign provides secure contact instructions in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English to bypass China’s “Great Firewall.” CIA Director John Ratcliffe underscored China as a key intelligence focus, seeking insights into military, cyber technology, and foreign policy.
China’s Foreign Ministry has not responded, though its intelligence agency continues to counter such recruitment efforts.
Bitcoin is built on a distributed digital record called a blockchain. As the name implies, blockchain is a linked body of data, made up of units called blocks that contain information about each and every transaction, including date and time, total value, buyer and seller, and a unique identifying code for each exchange. Entries are strung together in chronological order, creating a digital chain of blocks. “Once a block is added to the blockchain, it becomes accessible to anyone who wishes to view it, acting as a public ledger of cryptocurrency transactions,” says Stacey Harris, consultant for Pelicoin, a network of cryptocurrency ATMs. Blockchain is decentralized, which means it’s not controlled by any one organization. “It’s like a Google Doc that anyone can work on,” says Buchi Okoro, CEO and co-founder of African cryptocurrency exchange Quidax. “Nobody owns it, but anyone who has a link can contribute to it. And as different people update it, your copy also gets updated.”
Importantly, that investor viewpoint is not new. It cycles in when conditions are right (and vice versa). It also brings the ineffective warnings of an overpriced market with it.Looking toward a good 2022 stock market, there is no apparent reason to expect these issues to change.
