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Hong Kong's role for the next 20 years? Silk Road 'super-connector'

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 12:46 UTC
Hong Kong Link Road
© AFP / Anthony WallaceA photo taken on February 9, 2017 shows construction work on the Hong Kong Link Road (HKLR) of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) in Tung Chung, Hong Kong.
It doesn't have to be part of Xi's Chinese Dream if it doesn't want to, but Hong Kong remains ideally positioned to provide much of the glue in a China-led globalization 2.0.

It was 20 years ago today. Oh, those were heady, exciting days, informally regulated by a clock in Beijing's Tiananmen counting even the seconds left for Hong Kong's return to the motherland.

They were ominous days, too. At the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong, temporarily propelled to the center of the universe, booze-driven Western journalists sketched Apocalypse Now scenarios for the ultimate crossroads of East and West.

The endgame turned out to be the proverbial anti-climax. No border invasion. No mass arrests - not even one arrest. No currency crash (that in fact would happen to the Thai baht, a day later). No newspaper shutdown. PLA soldiers quietly occupied barracks left by the Brits. No goose-stepping troops patrolled bustling Kowloon.
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Map

Syrian Kurds vow to defend Afrin from Turkish troops' advance


Sputnik
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 12:37 UTC
Afrin, Syria
© REUTERS/ Mahmoud Hebbo
Nuri Mehmud, an official representative of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), said in an interview with Sputnik Turkey that the group will defend its territories if there is an attack on Afrin from Turkey.

According to Mehmud, there is active military activity of the Turkish armed forces on the Syrian border in the area of Afrin.

The Turkish troops and military equipment are being drawn at present and it seems that the Turkish troops are preparing to carry out an operation in Afrin, the representative said.
"Turkey has deployed its military and equipment on the Syrian border near the Aazaz and Mare region. This activity is taking place because Turkey is preparing to attack Tel Rifat and Afrin," Mehmud said.
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Attention

Fourth state with budget problems: Chris Christie announces New Jersey government shutdown, orders state of emergency

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 02 Jul 2017 12:17 UTC
Trenton, NJ
© History
Illinois, Maine, Connecticut: the end of the old fiscal year and the failure of numerous states to enter the new one with a budget, means that some of America's most populous states have seen their local governments grind to a halt overnight until some spending agreement is reached. Now we can also add New Jersey to this list.

On Saturday morning, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie declared a state of emergency in the state, and announced a partial state government shutdown as New Jersey become the latest state to enter the new fiscal year without an approved budget after the Republican governor and the Democrat-led Legislature failed to reach an agreement by the deadline at midnight Friday, CBS New York reports.
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Eagle

Venezuelan opposition coup attempt against Maduro is a DEA, CIA operation

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News
Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:00 UTC
Venezuelen coup
More than 80 people miraculously avoided injury or death in a helicopter attack that targeted Venezuelan government buildings this week. The attack may have been part of an attempted coup supported by the U.S. as it seeks to topple Venezuela's government to gain access to its massive oil reserves.

Opposition efforts to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government are rapidly heating up, as months upon months of opposition protests have failed to make the inroads desired by the more extremist elements of the opposition and their foreign backers, particularly the United States.

With the current government still hanging on to power despite years of economic sabotage and the funneling of millions from the U.S. to right-wing Venezuelan opposition parties, those determined to see Maduro removed from power have now turned to more drastic, violent measures in order to spark a coup.


Comment: See also: Venezuela: "Terrorists" set fire to 50 tons of food while ex-National Guard Chief indicted

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Snakes in Suits

Layers of deception: The alleged sarin gas attack

Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Fri, 30 Jun 2017 22:36 UTC
guys in hole sarin
© ConsortiumnewsMen in Khan Sheikdoun in Syria, allegedly inside a crater where a sarin-gas bomb landed.
Seymour Hersh, America's most famous investigative reporter, has become persona non grata in the American Propaganda Ministry that poses as a news media but only serves to protect the US government's war lies. Among his many triumphs Hersh exposed the American My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib torture prison run by the Americans in Iraq. Today his investigative reports have to be published in the London Review of Books or in the German Media.

From Hersh's latest investigative report, we learn that President Trump makes war decisions by watching staged propaganda on TV. The White Helmets, a propaganda organization for jihadists and the "Syrian opposition," found a gullible reception from the Western media for photographs and videos of alleged victims of a Syrian Army sarin gas attack on civilians in Khan Sheikhoun. Trump saw the photos on TV and despite being assured by US intelligence that there was no Syrian sarin gas attack, ordered the US military to strike a Syrian base with Tomahawk missiles. Under international law this strike was a war crime, and it was the first direct aggression against Syria by the US which previously committed aggression via proxies called "the Syrian opposition."
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Qatar rejects Arab states' ultimatum, says it is ready for proper negotiations


RT
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 22:20 UTC
Qatar flag
© Andreas Gebert / Global Look Press
Qatar has said that the demands put forward by four Arab states were "made to be rejected" and once again denounced them as an infringement on its sovereignty. It also said it does not fear any retaliatory measure that could follow its refusal to comply with the demands.

"This list of demands is made to be rejected. It's not meant to be accepted or ... to be negotiated," the Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said during his visit to Rome, as cited by Reuters.

The minister particularly said that Qatar would not close down a Turkish military base or shut the Doha-based satellite channel Al Jazeera as demanded by the Arab countries.
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Jet2

One of Syria's largest oilfields in Deir Ezzur destroyed in US-led coalition air raid


FARS News Agency
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 22:17 UTC
US fighter jet
The US-led coalition warplanes launched heavy strikes on one of the largest oilfields in the Eastern province of Deir Ezzur, the Arabic-language media sources reported Saturday.

The al-Hadath news reported that the coalition fighter jets led by the US targeted one of the largest oilfields in Deir Ezzur known as al-Ward.

In the meantime, eight civilians, including a child, have been killed in the warplanes' air raid in the town of al-Sowar in the Eastern province.

Local sources in Deir Ezzur reported on Wednesday that the US-led coalition fighter jets launched heavy airstrikes on the residential areas in the village of al-Dablan in al-Mayadeen region, killing over 40 civilians, mostly women and children.

Also, tens of civilians were wounded in the airstrikes and their houses were destroyed.
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Jet5

IDF targets Syrian army position over 'errant projectile' for the fifth time this week


RT
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 22:07 UTC
An Israeli F-15 at Hatzerim base in the Negev desert, near Beer Sheva
© AFPAn Israeli F-15 at Hatzerim base in the Negev desert, near Beer Sheva, on 29 June, 2017.
Israel has fired at Syrian army positions after projectiles launched from Syrian territory landed on the Israeli side of the border, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said on Twitter. The attack follows a series of similar incidents over the week.


IDF said it targeted the "Syrian military artillery position" on Saturday as retaliation for two stray shells hitting the Israeli-controlled part of the disputed Golan Heights.

"A projectile launched from Syria hit an open area in the northern Golan Heights," the Israeli military said in a statement. The "errant projectile" that triggered the return fire was "a result of internal fighting in Syria," it added.

Comment: Al Nusra must be getting beat up badly by Syria there.

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Telephone

US authorities tapped 3 million phone calls in single wiretap order in 2016


RT
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 20:18 UTC
US cyber ops
© Bob Strong / Reuters
It took US authorities a single wiretap order to intercept and record over 3 million phone calls and messages last year, the Wiretap Report 2016, published by the United States Courts, revealed.

The intercepts were carried out over the course of two months by an undisclosed government agency, which applied for the wiretap order in late 2015, according to the report, brought to media attention by the ZDNet website.
"The federal wiretap with the most intercepts occurred during a narcotics investigation in the Middle District of Pennsylvania and resulted in the interception of 3,292,385 cell phone conversations or messages," the Wiretap Report 2016 reads.
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Info

Here's why Sean Spicer's 'warning' to Assad was really just news management

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Sat, 01 Jul 2017 20:03 UTC
Sean Spicer
Theories which have abounded since Sean Spicer the White House spokesman 'warned' Syria against launching a chemical attack are over complicated. All the facts point to the 'warning' being part of a successful campaign to bury reporting of Seymour Hersh's story about the alleged Khan Sheikhoun attack.

On Monday Sean Spicer, President Trump's press officer, published a statement on the White House website purportedly 'warning' President Assad and the Syrian government against a chemical attempt which the US had supposedly detected the Syrian military preparing to carry out.

In the hours that followed it became clear that the statement had not been coordinated within the US government. The State Department and CENTCOM were taken by surprise, and apart from the inconsequential Nikki Haley all the senior officials of the US government - Tillerson, Mattis, Coats, Pompeo, McMaster and President Trump himself - maintained a stony silence about it.
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