Episode 68 - China Espionage, US diplomats leave Venezuela and I go back in!

US Intelligence agencies expressing concerns about Chinese tech companies dominating 5G, US Embassy staff leaving Venezuela on day 5 of a nationwide blackout and Guess where I’m headed?  All that coming up on today’s hot zone.

 

Hello everyone.  I’m traveling again a little sooner than I expected to be, because I’ve been asked to return to the Venezuelan border to continue my reporting on the unfolding crisis there, and to help arrange for some shipments of aid from CBN’s philanthropic arm, Operation Blessing.  OB is a fantastic aid organization that helps millions of people each year - and is one of the largest aid organizations of it’s kind in the United States.  

 

I’ve actually worked with or alongside OB for more than a decade, as they tend to respond to the same disasters I get sent to cover.  One of the things I really like about them is the way they use the aid money they are entrusted with - they have a unique ability to magnify the funds people send by applying it in strategic ways.  For example, I was reporting on the aftermath of a hurricane in Mexico one time and OB sent like a million dollars to help, but did so by renting big trucks, which it then drove around to big box stores outside the affected area and said “hey, we’ve got trucks here to deliver any aid you want to donate to the disaster recovery.”  Many companies like Sams Club in Playa del Carmen donated tons of supplies - and in that way I was told later that OB was able to turn that one million into five million dollars in help for those who had lost their homes.

 

Anyway, I’m back in Cucuta this week and so if you want to send some funds to help people directly, I’ll do what we did last time and find people in need, tell their stories and then let you see right where your funds are being applied to solve their issues.  I’ll also be reporting on OB’s efforts here, and I’d encourage you to give generously to them as well.  

 

The news today is reporting that US Intel agencies are warning Germany against signing a contract with the Chinese company Huawei for implementation of a nationwide 5G network in that country next year.  The US has been sounding the alarm since 2016 about Huawei and another State-owned Chinese company, ZTE because there is tangible proof that both companies build their products - we’re talking everything from cell phones to routers and electric scooters, household appliances and more - with secret data collection features that send massive amounts of data to the Chinese government.  Now you might wonder why the Chinese would care about your cellular conversations or want to know when you are watching cat videos on youtube, but here’s why:  they are perfecting artificial intelligence algorithms which will let them sift through unbelievable amounts of data and pull out everything from trade secrets of US companies to actual actionable intelligence against US government assets.  I’ve been reading books about this for the past few months and let me assure you, the things they can do with that data is absolutely terrifying.  In the case of Germany, if Huawei installs their 5G networks, we will have to assume that every single megabyte of information we share with our German allies will be sent straight to Beijing.  Because Germany is part of NATO, we have intelligence sharing agreements with them, and that intel will have to be curtailed.  

 

On another note, if you haven’t read about the amazing changes that are coming when 5G networks are installed around the US, you should go read a few articles about it.  The exponential increase in bandwidth 5G brings will be as revolutionary for our lives as the internet was in 1994.  That’s one reason the Chinese are seeking to dominate that space.

 

Okay, on to Venezuela again, which is now on day five of an almost total nationwide blackout.  I reported yesterday that Maduro is blaming the problem on US Cyberattacks, though there is no indication that’s actually what’s happening.  See, over 80% of Venezuela’s electrical power comes from just one hydroelectric plant in the center of the country.  And that plant has been falling into a state of disrepair for some time.  Mike Pompeo made a sarcastic and slightly awesome speech yesterday in which he laughed off the claim that the US had anything to do with the outage - he called it a testament to Cuban engineering.”  Haha. And he’s right.  Even Venezuelan employees who work at that plant have been saying for a long time that the thing was practically being held together with duct tape and bailing wire.  Apparently those employees are now being told to stay home because they have been unable to restart the turbines at that plant, having tried four times and each time apparently more stuff breaks or blows up, and the problem is only getting worse.  So it looks like the power outage is going to last for some time, and in the meantime people are literally dying because of it.  Looting is reportedly on the rise in Caracas and elsewhere…so it’s looking like the refugee situation in Cucuta, which was at crisis levels when I was there two weeks ago, is only going to get worse.  So that’s one reason Operation Blessing is heading in.