Know your fit­ness lingo

To nav­ig­ate the fit­ness world, it helps to have know­ledge of cer­tain terms and acronyms.

When it comes to strength train­ing, using your body­weight to per­form the exer­cise is adequate for begin­ners. — Pho­tos: 123rf.com 

On your act­ive recov­ery day, gentle stretch­ing is a good way to relax the body. 

 

 

 Little jumps that can raise your heart rate count as car­dio activ­ity.

GYM-GOERS and some per­sonal train­ers like to throw jar­gon and acronyms around, even if they may not fully under­stand what the terms mean.

A few months ago, I met a col­lege-going chap who had just star­ted lift­ing weights and I quer­ied him on his workout regime.

Most of his know­ledge was taken off the inter­net – he was work­ing out his arms and legs on altern­ate days six days a week, and look­ing tired, but good.

“I’m set­ting a PR every day,” he proudly told me.

PR? I was puzzled (I’m old school) and asked what that was because I only knew of PB (per­sonal best).

The PR that I’m famil­iar with is the abbre­vi­ation for pub­lic rela­tions – after all, as media prac­ti­tion­ers, we fre­quently deal with PR pro­fes­sion­als.

“Per­sonal record, aunty!” he said, smil­ing while won­der­ing which era I came from.

“Oh, that’s pos­sible to do on a daily basis, huh?” I com­men­ted, intrigued.

Try­ing to keep up with the young­ster, I then ques­tioned: “Are you doing super­sets or tris­ets?

“And don’t you suf­fer from DOMS, espe­cially if you’re lift­ing so fre­quently?”

He gave me a blank stare because the terms threw him off.

Never assume middle-aged souls with mini muscles don’t know much!

So, I patiently explained them to him.

This encounter is not quite reflect­ive of the gen­er­a­tional gap, but is bound to hap­pen to any­one as the fit­ness world has its own lingo and it’s tough to keep up with all the abbre­vi­ations and acronyms, espe­cially the newly-cre­ated ones.

And it can be daunt­ing for the begin­ner who enters the gym or has a con­ver­sa­tion about fit­ness.

Upon check­ing with my per­sonal trainer friends, I dis­covered that PR (the fit­ness acronym) is gym lingo that can be used for any kind of fit­ness activ­ity.

It is, however, nor­mally asso­ci­ated with the heav­iest weight you’ve lif­ted for a par­tic­u­lar exer­cise, or the max­imum num­ber of repe­ti­tions you per­formed using a cer­tain weight.

People usu­ally toss around this acronym when speak­ing about big lifts.

There are no hard and fast rules over using PR, but some people sub­sti­tute it for PB.

They also use it to refer to other isol­a­tion exer­cises such as biceps curls, jump height, sprints, or even the length of time it takes to run a cer­tain dis­tance.

Here are a few com­mon fit­ness terms you might want to know – and use – when neces­sary.

Car­dio

Car­dio, or car­di­ovas­cu­lar or aer­obic exer­cise, is any rhythmic activ­ity that makes your heart beat faster and increases your breath­ing.

This is as you would require more oxy­gen to keep up with the pace of move­ment.

Examples of car­dio activ­it­ies are run­ning, brisk walk­ing, cyc­ling, march­ing in place, etc.

Get­ting your heart pump­ing at a faster rate on a reg­u­lar basis keeps it in shape and healthy, thus redu­cing the risk of heart dis­ease.

The role of car­dio exer­cises is to help burn cal­or­ies so that you can shed weight.

Strength/res­ist­ance train­ing

This form of exer­cise is inten­ded to increase mus­cu­lar strength and endur­ance.

It involves exer­cising muscles using some form of res­ist­ance, i.e. weights, bands, or even your own body­weight work­ing against grav­ity.

To lose weight faster, com­bine your car­dio with strength train­ing, and watch how your body trans­forms.

Your bones can bene­fit from res­ist­ance train­ing too.

Stud­ies have shown that doing res­ist­ance train­ing con­sist­ently can main­tain or increase bone mass and dens­ity.

This is something most doc­tors are ask­ing their older patients to do as it also helps improve bal­ance and sta­bil­ity.

Hyper­trophy

This refers to an increase or growth in muscle size achieved through strength-train­ing exer­cises.

This style of train­ing is pop­u­lar within the body­build­ing com­munity, where there is often a focus on the growth of cer­tain muscles, e.g. thighs, calves, biceps or arms, to achieve an ideal physique.

Achiev­ing this hap­pens via mod­er­ate weight-lift­ing and mod­er­ate repe­ti­tions.

On the oppos­ite end, muscle atrophy is the decrease in size and wast­ing of muscle tis­sue.

Rep/set

Rep is the short form for repe­ti­tion, i.e. how many times you do the exer­cise.

One rep means one time, two reps mean two times, and so on.

The term “set” tells you how many times you are to repeat a par­tic­u­lar num­ber of repe­ti­tions of a given exer­cise.

For example, if you are doing squats, say­ing three sets of 15 reps means you’ll be doing 15 squats three times in total, with a rest (for an allot­ted time, per­haps 30 seconds or a minute) in between sets.

Super­sets/tris­ets/giant sets

Super­sets are doing two exer­cises back to back with no break.

Giant sets are doing four or more exer­cises back to back with no break.

Dur­ing these sets, you can either pair exer­cises that are non-com­pet­ing, i.e. oppos­ing muscle groups, or you can tar­get the same muscle.

For example, you may do one set of 12 reps of chest presses, fol­lowed by another set of 12 reps of push-ups.

This is a super­set exer­cising the same muscle group.

Or you may do one set of 12 reps of push-ups, fol­lowed by another set of 12 reps of squats, then another set of 12 reps of calf raises.

This is a triset exer­cising dif­fer­ent muscle groups.

DOMS

All of us exper­i­ence DOMS, or delayed onset muscle sore­ness, at some point from doing any activ­ity that is either new, done for a longer dur­a­tion, and/or at a harder intens­ity.

It’s caused by inflamed muscle and con­nect­ive tis­sues.

Symp­toms range from muscle ten­der­ness or sore­ness, to severe debil­it­at­ing pain.

The tem­por­ary dis­com­fort starts a day or two after a workout, and eases off by day three or four.

The sore­ness is a sign that your muscles have been worked and your fit­ness is pro­gress­ing, but you shouldn’t be get­ting DOMS after every workout unless you’re exer­cising only once a month!

HIIT

High intens­ity inter­val train­ing (HIIT) is a form of car­dio exer­cise char­ac­ter­ised by short peri­ods of all-out exer­cise, inter­spersed with rest or act­ive recov­ery ses­sions.

It com­bines both car­dio and strength train­ing, with the inten­tion to max­im­ise ath­letic per­form­ance.

It incor­por­ates sev­eral rounds that altern­ate between sev­eral minutes of high intens­ity move­ments to sig­ni­fic­antly increase the heart rate to at least 80% of one’s max­imum heart rate, fol­lowed by short peri­ods of lower intens­ity move­ments.

There is a ratio that is fol­lowed, i.e. the amount of time spent work­ing versus the amount of time spent recov­er­ing – also known as the work-to-recov­ery ratio.

For example, when you per­form 60 seconds of work, fol­lowed by 60 seconds of recov­ery, your HIIT ratio is one-to-one.

Tabata

This is another form of HIIT con­sist­ing of short workout blocks.

Tabata train­ing breaks a workout down into clearly defined inter­vals – typ­ic­ally, 20 seconds of a push-it-to-the-limit exer­cise, fol­lowed by 10 seconds of rest.

One cycle is repeated eight times for a total of four minutes.

You can mix two exer­cises in a cycle, e.g. 20 seconds jump­ing jacks, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds crunches, 10 seconds rest, then repeat.

The recom­mend­a­tion is to do four to five cycles for a 16-20 minutes’ workout – you’ll be sweat­ing buck­ets by then!

Tabata, foun­ded by Japan­ese sci­ent­ist Izumi Tabata, is a highly effect­ive train­ing style for build­ing power and car­di­ovas­cu­lar fit­ness.

However, bear in mind that Tabata is gruelling and you’ll need to be fit enough to meet its phys­ical demands without get­ting injured.

Also note that Tabatha is HIIT, but not all HIIT is Tabata.

Act­ive rest or recov­ery

This is usu­ally one day in a set time period when you give your body a “break” and do some sort of move­ment that is less intense than your reg­u­lar workout days.

But this does not mean you can lounge on the couch or scroll through social media throughout the day.

Instead, act­ive rest means schedul­ing a low-intens­ity activ­ity like a leis­urely stroll, foam-rolling or gentle yoga to help with cir­cu­la­tion. 

You can even opt for a mas­sage. Your body needs time to recover (just like the mind needs to recharge) so that the muscles can rebuild stronger.      

By Revathi Mur­ugap­pan, a cer­ti­fied fit­ness trainer who tries to battle grav­ity and con­tin­ues to dance to express her­self artist­ic­ally and nour­ish her soul. For more inform­a­tion, email star­health@the­star.com. my. The inform­a­tion con­tained in this column is for gen­eral edu­ca­tional pur­poses only. Neither The Star nor the author gives any war­ranty on accur­acy, com­plete­ness, func­tion­al­ity, use­ful­ness or other assur­ances as to such inform­a­tion. The Star and the author dis­claim all respons­ib­il­ity for any losses, dam­age to prop­erty or per­sonal injury suffered dir­ectly or indir­ectly from reli­ance on such inform­a­tion.

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Learn­ing is key to resi­li­ence in busi­ness

 

NINE out of 10 learn­ing and devel­op­ment (L&D) pro­fes­sion­als in this region believe that pro­act­ively build­ing employee skills for today and tomor­row will help nav­ig­ate the evolving future of work.

L&D helps organ­isa­tions thrive amid uncer­tain eco­nomic times and a people-cent­ric cul­ture recog­nises that organ­isa­tional suc­cess depends on people’s suc­cess.

  

Man­age­ment, com­mu­nic­a­tion and sales are some of the top in-demand skills that are highly sought after by com­pan­ies in Malay­sia, accord­ing to Linkedin’s latest “Work­place Learn­ing Report”. 

Since upskilling and reskilling are essen­tial, over half of those L&D lead­ers across Malay­sia, Singa­pore and the Phil­ip­pines sur­veyed expect to have more spend­ing power in 2023.

The report said reten­tion is a big issue as 93% of organ­isa­tions are con­cerned over it.

This is so since many organ­isa­tions grappled with unpre­ced­en­ted employee turnover in the pan­demic’s wake.

And even while some lay­offs have made head­lines in recent months, tal­ent devel­op­ment pro­fes­sion­als con­tinue to grapple with skills short­ages and turnover risk for crit­ical tal­ent.

It is not sur­pris­ing that attri­tion anxi­et­ies per­sist.

People who are not learn­ing nor­mally leave organ­isa­tions as they do not fit or grapple to under­stand the new ways of doing things. 

Com­piled by B.k. SIDHU bksidhu@the­star.com.my 

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Drug Abuse: a Social Malaise in US; Big Pharma greed, lobbying, failed governance, and economic woes lead to US' drug crisis

  Drug Abuse: a Social Malaise in US

Editor's Note:

The challenge arisen from the use of drugs is an international one; it is most acute in the US. Twelve percent of global drug users come from the country, three times the proportion of the US population to that of the world, according to a recent report released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

Facts and statistics revealed that the US government has been delegating its primary responsibility to protect its citizens to the people themselves. The drug abuse is just one case in point. 

Politicians have been ignoring the sedation or even outright poison administered by interest groups to the public, always for selfish political gains. 

Check out this photographic to get deeper understanding of the gravity, causes and costs of this social malaise in the US. 

Drug Abuse: A Social Malaise in US. Graphics: Tang Tengfei, Chen He, Liu Xidan, Xia Qing/GT >>

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A man smokes marijuana while celebrating the passage of Amendment 3 which legalizes recreational marijuana in Missouri during an Election night watch party in downtown St. Louis, US on November 8, 2022. Photo: VCG

 

Big Pharma greed, lobbying, failed governance, and economic woes lead to US' drug crisis

  Editor's Note:

While the US continues to buy into the dual fallacy of being the "city upon a hill" and a "beacon of democracy," the reality on the ground tells a different story - an increasingly large swathe of the American population struggling with drug abuse, growing worries around gun violence, an ever-widening economic gap between the haves and the have nots, intensifying political polarization, more arbitrary detention of and hatred toward minorities... These sustained forms of unrest not only exacerbate social inequality and worsens domestic human rights conditions, but also expose the US' hypocrisy as it is unable to resolve its own issues, yet never stops criticizing other nations' human rights records.

The Global Times is publishing a series of articles that examine these and other sociopolitical and economic forms of chaos in the US. This is the first installment in the series.

America's drug abuse problem - a long-existing thorn in the side of US society - has grown more serious in recent years in the country along with an increasing number of young people turning to drugs due to dwindling economic opportunities and the apparent death of the so-called "American Dream," analysts said.

Statistics showed that 12 percent of global drug users come from the US, three times the proportion of the US population to that of the world, according to a report released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Experts told the Global Times that the deep-rooted drug problem in the US reflects the US' failure in social governance. Despite the US government's pledge to solve the problem, not much progress has been made so far, which exposes its failed regulation across multiple systems and its inability to make an effective and comprehensive response.

The drug problem in the US is caused by an interplay among economic interests, lobby groups, as well as social and cultural factors, an expert in international relations at Fudan University, told the Global Times.

The drug problem is the US' big systematic problem. It is hard to solve. The US should make more efforts as a nation and at the same time, take action together with other countries. Instead of shifting blame and making groundless accusations against other countries, which undermines China-US counter-narcotics cooperation, it should face its own problem squarely, observers said.

Prevalent phenomenon

A man walks past a large consignment of drugs seized by police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on February 17, 2022. Photo: Xinhua

The US National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics (NCDAS) lists eight categories of drugs most commonly used in the country: alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, fentanyl, opioids (mainly referring to psychotropic substances under control), prescription stimulants, methamphetamines, and heroin.

Forty-six percent of US drug users report having experience in using cannabis and prescription stimulants, 36 percent have used opioids and methamphetamines, 31 percent have used prescription stimulants, 15 percent have used heroin, and 10 percent have used cocaine.

Darnell Turner, a young US teacher, told the Global Times that a good percentage of young people around him are drug users, perhaps 30 percent or so.

"Most normally just use marijuana, however some, especially my college friends, take even harder drugs, like cocaine and acid. Adderall, a drug used to improve attention and focus, is extremely common in educational environments," he said, adding that recreational drug uses isn't only confined to the younger generation. Many older people also suffer from drug addiction.

"Most of them take drugs because they're bored, or because of depression brought about by economic insecurity. Taking drugs allows them to dull the pain from modern American society," he said, stressing that this is dangerous and useless.

While the US federal and state governments keep making pledges to tackle the drug problem, they have failed to take substantive measures due to the lobbying activities of various interest groups, observers said.

Reports showed that large pharmaceutical companies in the US devote large sums of money to peddle narratives such as "opioids are harmless" and push forward drug legalization as well as promotion of drug sales and prescription of drugs. The lawmakers who receive money from them actively promote bills that benefit Big Pharma.

The process of legalizing marijuana serves as one striking example. According to a report on the OpenSecrets website in April 2022, the marijuana and cannabis industry spent over $4.2 million lobbying on a variety of issues and legislation in 2021, including the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2021 which aimed to remove marijuana from the list of federally controlled substances.

Amazon also spent $14.5 million funding lobbying activities between April and December in 2021 on a variety of bills, including the MORE Act, read the report.

"Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the sole Republican co-sponsor of the bill, has received more money from the marijuana industry than any other member of Congress with $52,100 in contributions received since his election in 2017," it said.

The US government has chosen economic interests over people's lives and health, thereby exerting a sustained push for drug legalization in the country. Despite this gloomy reality, the US government, which should play an important role in the fight against one of the biggest public health challenges, chooses to sit idly by and watch things getting worse, observers said.

In the last decade, drug-related deaths in the country have risen significantly; the numbers more than tripled in Delaware and New Hampshire. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the year following the outbreak of the pandemic (from April 2020 to April 2021), more than 100,000 people in the US died from drug overdoses, eight times the number from shooting incidents, and nearly triple the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents.

Deep-rooted social causes

Throughout history, the US war on drugs has repeatedly failed due to not only governmental incompetence but also the country's deep-rooted social problems, observers told the Global Times.

It is the US society's various complex social factors that, together, have led to the country gradually becoming the world's largest consumer of drugs, they noted. "From the Vietnam War, to financial crises and the COVID-19 pandemic, drug abuse in the US has surged whenever there are economic turndowns or prominent social contradictions."

The US' official drug war can be traced back to 1952, when then-president Richard Nixon signed the famous Boggs Act to set mandatory sentences for drug convictions.

The act and subsequent laws soon proved defective and impractical. In the 1960s and 70s, the US' time-consuming war in Vietnam triggered a "counterculture movement" as American society at the time was flooded by anti-war sentiments. Many youngsters, later known as "hippies," poured onto the streets with brandishing signs promoting love, psychedelic rock, sex, and drugs.

Nearly 40 percent of American high school seniors in the late 1970s reported illicit drug use, according to data from a survey funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The COVID pandemic saw another spike in drug use in the US, as NIDA statistics showed that 91,799 and 106,999 people in the US died from drug-related overdoses in 2020 and 2021 respectively, a sharp increase from 70,630 in 2019.

Apart from social recession or crises that stimulate drug use at times, the severe inaccessibility to quality education targeting young people is also another contributing factor behind the US' drug abuse problem, experts noted.

For US teens, "it's easier to get alcohol than marijuana" used to be a common sentiment in some states, and scenes involving teens smoking marijuana are not rare in American TV series or Hollywood movies. In 2021, 30.5 percent of 12th graders and 17.3 percent of 10th graders in the US reported having used marijuana, according to NIDA.

"Chinese children are warned by parents and teachers to stay away from drugs since early age. But some American parents and teachers, rather than discouraging such behavior among their students, may even encourage some [drug use]," said the Fudan University expert. "These adults have very weak anti-drug awareness, and a few even use drugs themselves."

Against such a complex social backdrop, Nixon and his several successors in recent decades, including Ronald Reagan in the 1990s and more recently former president Donald Trump, have tried to curtail the drug abuse problem in various ways. However, very few of their efforts really worked.

Worse still, crackdowns on drugs have caused "unintended, negative consequences," such as putting a big strain on America's criminal justice system, the proliferation of drug-related violence, and an increase in racial issues locally, said a 2016 article published on American news and opinion website Vox.

Therefore, as the war on drugs looks unwinnable, some US policy experts and historians have to focus more on rehabilitation. Ironically, they seem to have given up, turning to advocate for "the decriminalization of currently illicit substances, and even the legalization of all drugs," the article said.

Buck-passing games

A lab evaluates edible marijuana gummy samples in California on August 22, 2018. Photo: VCG

The failure in giving effective "prescriptions" to prevent drug abuse leaves the US frantically attempting to pass the buck to other countries. Over the years, American politicians and media outlets have consistently accused China of selling fentanyl or precursor chemicals that end up on US shores.

"This sort of blame game does not benefit anyone except for the opportunistic politicians who wish to deflect blame onto a scapegoat. This scapegoat changes regularly, from China, to Mexico, and even Columbia. But in the case of the fentanyl crisis, the US government and healthcare system can only blame themselves," said Turner.

He told the Global Times that fentanyl has been spread in the US, not by the Chinese or the Mexicans, but by the US healthcare industry, which has a monetary incentive to overprescribe drugs. "If the US is serious about fighting the drug crisis, it must fundamentally reshape this sector."

In December 2021, the US government imposed sanctions on 25 entities and individuals allegedly involved in drug trafficking, among which four Chinese chemical companies and one Chinese citizen appeared on the sanctions list for supplying chemicals used to make fentanyl.

US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price on January 18 said that China is no longer a major source of fentanyl flowing into the US, but they continue to target China-origin precursor chemicals being used in fentanyl production.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Wang Wenbin on January 20 said that China has played an active role in international counternarcotics law enforcement cooperation under the framework of the UN conventions on drug control and always put precursor chemicals under strict control. China is the first in the world to have officially scheduled fentanyl as a class.

US sanctions have severely impacted and limited China's counternarcotics capabilities, said Wang, calling on the US to lift sanctions and stop discrediting China's drug control efforts.

Over the years, China has actively cooperated with the US, while the US has passed on the blame. The US' attitude is not conducive to solving the problem, which truly needs international cooperation, analysts said.

According to data from the China National Narcotics Control Commission in 2019, since 2012, China has informed the US drug enforcement authorities of 383 pieces of information related to Fentanyl parcels, while the US has informed China of only six smuggling cases of fentanyl.

"International cooperation is entirely necessary, but what is most important in the struggle against drugs is introspection and investigating the profiteers in the business sector, the public and, yes, even in the government sectors. Only then can the US government take legitimate steps to combat the spread of drugs," Turner suggested. 

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Washington owes world an explanation of Nord Stream explosion after Pulitzer winner's probe

 

A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP

More than four months after the explosion of Nord Stream pipelines, a shocking report by US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released on Wednesday has once again ignited international public opinion. The report provides details of how the US intelligence agencies planned the sabotage under the order of US President Joe Biden and how the US Navy carried out the bombing with the cooperation of the Norwegian forces. After the report was published, Washington quickly denied it. But simply using the phrase "fake news" is obviously not convincing. The international community needs to keep asking Washington until it gives a convincing explanation.

The 85-year-old Hersh is a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. More than 50 years ago, his report that exposed the US military's massacre of Vietnamese civilians significantly pushed the anti-war movement in the US. He was also behind the investigation of the notorious incident of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in 2003 and contributed to revealing the Watergate scandal, one of the most disgraceful political scandals in Washington's history. Hersh's latest report is not comparable to conspiracy theories in public opinion, nor are they something Washington can just gloss over.

To be honest, the suspicions about the US are not baseless, but the details that got exposed still send chills down one's spine. For example, the report claims that Washington had been secretly planning the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines since the end of 2021, long before the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And in more than nine months of debate, Washington focused not on whether to blow up the pipelines, but on how to leave no evidence behind. Therefore, the execution forces, time, place, and the way the explosion was carried out were all carefully planned. Even the most imaginative screenwriter in Hollywood would not dare to write such a plot. If what is reported in Hersh's article is true, then the world will probably have to reassess the US' capability to disrupt peace.

The explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, one of the world's most important transnational energy supply infrastructures, was an extreme event in international politics. Under the fragile political mutual trust, the Nord Stream pipelines were once a main artery of energy connecting Western Europe and Russia, stabilizing the security situation by expanding common interests. Because of this, it has always been a "thorn in the eye" of Washington.

With the blast of the Nord Stream pipelines, the only remaining bridge to build common security in Europe was destroyed, which means that Western European countries have to choose to be deeply bound with the US at the crossroads of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Hersh also mentioned in his latest report that "Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia - while diminishing European reliance on America." This is one of the main reasons Washington decided to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines.

Attacking and destroying major civil infrastructure is a highly egregious act of terrorist nature and must not be tolerated. The international community has no dispute over this. After the explosion, many countries publicly condemned it, and the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also declared that sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines would be "in no-one's interest."

The Global Times then published an editorial, calling for relevant international agencies to set up a joint investigation team to restore the truth as soon as possible, find out the perpetrators, and let them be punished. But as expected, some countries are blocking such an international investigation, and more than four months have passed, with little progress made. Hersh's report now at least provides an important clue to the international investigation.

It is worth noting that the US mainstream media, which has always claimed to be "professional" and "independent," was selectively blind to Hersh's revelations or simply reported denials by the US government. Compared with their unanimously pointing their fingers at Russia after the explosion, this abnormal silence shows that American media agencies are very clear about when to be high-profile or low-key.

A large number of facts show that the US is the well-deserved leader in the "double standard arena." It is obsessed with and good at fabricating rumors or making groundless accusations against others. But it will never admit its own mistakes or even crimes, even if the evidence is solid. It will instead try to blame others. Public opinion predicts that the US government will most likely respond to Hersh's revelations in this way, which will leave another stain on its international credibility.

It is likely to become an event with the Rashomon effect in the 21st century for how the Nord Stream pipeline incident happened. But it does not mean that we should give up the pursuit of the truth, because it is not only about morality, responsibility, and conscience, but also about what kind of footnotes human beings will write for war and peace when looking back at this period of history in the future. This is very important. 

 

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US urged to explain Nord Stream blasts after Pulitzer winner's probe

 

A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP

About five months after the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines which shocked the world, an article by veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has accused the US of being the culprit of the blasts.

Washington has denied the accusations without further explanation, but the article immediately prompted a fierce verbal confrontation between the US and Russia and making waves in geopolitics.

Given previous US behaviors, Chinese experts believe that the Hersh report is highly credible and Washington's denial cannot hinder Russia's determination to dig out more evidence from the report's value as a clue.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday urged the US to give an explanation over its role in 2022 explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. "The White House must now comment on all these facts," Zakharova said in a post on her Telegram page.

In response, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said on Wednesday that the investigative article was "utterly false and complete fiction," and the CIA and Pentagon also dismissed the allegation with similar rhetoric, according to media reports.

Hersh, an 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, published the article on his personal website on Wednesday, stating the US military involvement of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines after senior White House officials' nine-month long plot inside the national security community.

Citing sources with direct knowledge of the plot, the article revealed many details of the operation: Explosives were planted by US Navy divers under the cover of the NATO maritime exercise; and a surveillance plane of NATO member Norway triggered the explosives on September 26, 2022 after US President Joe Biden greenlighted the operation.

Although there's no final verdict on who was responsible, the US, NATO, as well as investigators from Sweden and Denmark agreed it was "a result of sabotage."

Finding smoking gun

Some US media had blamed Russia as the likely culprit soon after the Nord Stream explosion in September 2022, but Hersh wrote that political elites from his country has more incentives to destroy the pipeline regarding their words prior to the incident.

On February 7, 2022, US President Joe Biden threatened that "if Russian tanks or troops cross the border of Ukraine, there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2."

At a press conference in September 2022 about the consequences of the worsening energy crisis in Western Europe, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested halting Nord Stream is a "tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy" and stop Russia from "weaponizing energy" for political purposes.

If Biden were an ordinary citizen, and a tube explosion had happened somewhere in the US after Biden made those threats, his words would have been interpreted by the US procurator as a strong motive, and Biden would bear legal liability,Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Hersh proved his credibility in his investigations on the 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US forces and US troops brutalizing Iraqi prisoners after the US invasion in 2003, which prompted Lü to believe in his latest investigation of the North Stream pipeline explosion.

"Even if it's not 100 percent accurate - exposure of such shady activity can hardly be 100 percent accurate - it's definitely not made up out of nowhere," Lü noted.

As of press time, US mainstream media including The New York Times and The Washington Post maintained silence on the matter, which is qualified to be top on a US newspaper's front page.

Lü suspected the consistent silence was a sound coordination between the US media and the US government, and the strategy is to deny it and wipe it from news portals even if their smoking gun was caught.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday that as the US had used washing powder to accuse Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction, it's a genius of playing dirty.

Hersh's courage should be praised, yet analysts expressed concerns about his safety.

It is obvious that the US benefited most from the destroyed pipelines. "If the US was behind the sabotage, definitely the Americans would have carefully planned how to destroy or hide the evidence and mislead the public," Li said.

Lü said that without an entity in legal sense to be in charge of such international disputes, it is almost impossible to establish a legal fact even if more evidence further support the point that the US was the culprit. But this investigative report will strengthen Russia's determination to dig out more evidence, he said.

Reactions to the blasts by some Western leaders also added to suspicion of US, including then British Prime Minister Liz Truss' texting "it's done" to Blinken and former Polish foreign minister's tweet "Thank you, USA."

In January 2023, Russia blamed that Sweden and Denmark, who were investigating holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, "have something to hide" and blocked Russia from engaging in the joint investigation.

"Whether or not the US is the culprit, Europe has acted too obedient. It is also tragic that as the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensifies, Europe has less and less room to bargain with US on security issues," Li said.

European politicians should reflect on whether blindly following the US would ultimately benefit Europe, or just the opposite, the expert said. He urged Europe to effectively strengthen autonomy. "Otherwise incidents like the Nord Steam pipeline blasts could happen again, and the price will again be paid by Europe, not the US." 

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What are the US demands for Chinese government to accomplish in order for the US to list China as a friendly nation?

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Vladimir Prostran

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has MA degree in Chinese studies Updated 2y

What are the US demands for Chinese government to accomplish in order for the US to list China as a friendly nation?

There are things American politicians will say and wrap them as highly noble, but are actually destructive and dangerous. Here are some examples you can hear from any “well intentioned” American politician.

Statement no.1: “We want China to become a fully democratic society with a vibrant political life.”

Reality: “We want China to become a toxic, polarized and unstable society where even simple state decisions will be next to impossible to make because of corrupted political parties representing only their own interests, not the national ones. We’ll also be able to influence those parties through our “democracy development funds” and ensure that there’s always enough polarization to prevent any serious economic and infrastructure development.”

Statement no.2: “We want China to give Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and all provinces freedom of self determination and let them grow civil rights organizations and political parties that will promote new, democratic values.”

Reality: “We want China to fall apart to many smaller regions and provinces that will be easy for us to control through advocating and financing organizations that promote separatism and anti-China policies - look, some people in HK and Taiwan already claim they’re not Chinese! If Islamic terrorism starts happening again in Xinjiang, we’ll call those terrorists fighters for freedom. If some rioters in Hong Kong burn cars, loot shops and attack anyone who speaks Mandarin, we’ll call them young fighters for democracy.”

Statement no.3: “We want China to allow full media freedom”

Reality: “We want China to allow our media companies to enter the market and promote destructive values through publishing lies or skewed facts that show that the government is the enemy of the people. We will promote the destruction of the current political and social system and then claim that we’re fighting for freedom and democracy. We will accuse everyone saying anything good about the current government even when it’s true to be an anti-democratic piece of scum. If the society in China implodes as a result this anti-national propaganda - pity, you cannot have democracy and freedom without victims”

Statement no.4: “We want China to open its economy to equal treatment of American businesses and investments”

Reality: “We want China to sell all their valuable companies to us and let us enter the strategic national industries we would never allow Chinese companies enter in the US. The fact that many American companies do business in and with China is not good enough for us - we want to be able to own the strategic industries in China. At the same time, we’ll ensure that no Chinese companies buy anything truly valuable in the US under the guise of protecting the American national interests, which is a great trump (!) card no one will ever dispute.”

Statement no.5: “We want China to stop government subsidies and allow a fair market competition.” 

Reality: “We want China to stop investing in development of industries that can compete with ours and just buy our products. Even then, if a Chinese company has any potential to succeed in the US, we will make sure that through corporate lobbying and merciless anti-China campaigns any chance of success is nipped at the bud. We’re all for free markets, but only when it works for our companies.”

Answer: Nothing can be done. The US at this moment wants to see China weak, poor and destroyed. A strong, developed China with a competitive economy and global Chinese brands is something the US will never accept. 

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