This time the G20 was different. Intentionally so. The Chinese had prepared it and planned it to be so. Yet, as always, with the G20 meetings, there was little that is tangible to show for it all. No big solutions. No "in the margins" progress on Syria, Ukraine, Yemen or on a supposed ploy to manage the oil market. Just the usual, pre-cooked, bland communiqué about the need for growth.

Mostly, participants rehearsed their familiar stances (this was so for the Syria and Ukraine discussions: Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande had a case of cold feet about talking to Russia's Vladimir Putin without Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko being present - as had originally been scheduled).

So, how was this G20 different? Well, if one listens carefully, one might just detect the footsteps of change - of a new "order" readying itself to step onto the stage (at the apposite moment). The sound of these footsteps was intentionally "softened" - designed to allow for a peaceful rise of a new global leadership. The watchword here was "change without upheaval."

What was different was that it was distinctly China's G20. China did not simply host the G20 for America to sweep in, give its "leadership" and stamp to proceedings, and then to fly off. China, at this G20, made it very plain that it was leading, and to make it clearer still, it made sure that the world should see that the guest of honor was the Russian President, and not the American President (who regrettably experienced some technical difficulties that marred his ceremonial arrival). There was a deeper purpose here: to underline strategic co-ordination with Russia in the context of the display of Chinese leadership.

Lest this careful G20 choreography pass unnoticed in the West, President Xi had telegraphed the essence of his G20 message when he addressed the Chinese Communist Party on the anniversary of its founding, a month or so earlier.

On that anniversary, President Xi told the party that: "The world is on the brink of radical changes. We see how the E.U. is gradually crumbling, and the U.S. economy is collapsing. This will end in a new world order."

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said on Thursday the success of the Syrian ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia depends on whether Moscow decides it is in its interest to follow through with the agreement.

"Whether or not this works is really up to the Russians," Clinton told reporters after addressing a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. "It is up to whether or not Vladimir Putin decides that it's time to do what the Russians can do to bring this conflict into a period where there can be the beginning of political discussions, a hoped-for protective zone for people who are under relentless assault form the air, and a commitment to going after the terrorist groups that pose a threat to everyone."

Japan will step up its activity in the contested South China Sea through joint training patrols with the United States and bilateral and multilateral exercises with regional navies, Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said on Thursday. Inada said in a speech at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank that Japan's increased engagement in the area, where Japan shares U.S. concerns about China's pursuit of extensive territorial claims, would include capacity building for coastal nations.

Inada, whose country has its own dispute with China over territory in the East China Sea, said that if the world condoned attempts to change the rule of law and allowed "rule bending" to succeed, the "consequences could become global. In this context, I strongly support the U.S. Navy's freedom-of-navigation operations, which go a long way to upholding the rules-based international maritime order," she said.

The Philippines is firmly committed to its alliance with the United States but will not be lectured on human rights and treated like a "little brown brother," the country's Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay said on Thursday.

Speaking in Washington after recent remarks by the Philippines' outspoken new President Rodrigo Duterte that have strained relations with the United States, Manila's main ally, Yasay said some of Duterte's remarks had been misunderstood. He said Duterte had explained that his call for the withdrawal of U.S. special forces from the southern Philippines was only a temporary measure to keep them out of harm's way while Philippine forces undertook an offensive against Abu Sayyaf militants.

Yasay also said Duterte's opposition to joint maritime patrols with the United States concerned the Philippines' "exclusive economic zone," not joint patrols within 12 nautical miles of its coast. The latter patrols, aimed at preserving the territorial integrity of the Philippines, "must continue, because this is our commitment to the United States," Yasay said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, I don't think I do, sir, no.

General Jack D. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; 1968

While it may no longer be our precious bodily fluids under attack by the big bad Rooskies and their ever-scheming leadership, it is clearly our political system that is in the Kremlin's crosshairs.

However detached from reality such an interpretation might seem to a clear-headed American, that is precisely the notion that Hillary Clinton and her gaggle of political guinea worms have endlessly droned on about. Listening to the Clinton campaign, and its public relations employees masquerading as corporate media journalists, one would think that World War Three had already begun on the battlefield of US electoral politics.

"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Why the Arabs don't want us in Syria, Politico

The conflict in Syria is not a war in the conventional sense of the word. It is a regime change operation, just like Libya and Iraq were regime change operations.

The main driver of the conflict is the country that's toppled more than 50 sovereign governments since the end of World War 2. (See: Bill Blum here.) We're talking about the United States of course.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for comparing those who oppose Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank to advocates of "ethnic cleansing."

"I am disturbed by a recent statement by Israel's Prime Minister portraying those who oppose settlement expansion as supporters of ethnic cleansing," Ban Ki-moon said in a statement, published on the official UN website, referring to a video message posted on Netanyahu's Facebook account last Friday.

Calling Netanyahu's remarks "unacceptable and outrageous," he also stressed that the international community "universally views the expansion of settlements as an obstacle to peace."

Frantic European diplomatic activity has as The Duran predicted prevented a slide into war following the attempted Ukrainian attack on Crimea. However a political settlement of the Ukrainian conflict remains as distant as ever.

In the immediate aftermath of the Crimean incident I speculated that it was unlikely to trigger renewed fighting despite the deterioration of the situation in the Donbass. I said that the Western powers would work hard to prevent the situation sliding into a war which Ukraine would lose and which would expose their sanctions policy as a bluff

So it has proved. Not only have the Western powers failed to make any strong statements of support for Kiev over the Crimean incident, but Putin's decision to call off the scheduled Normandy Four meeting he was due to hold with Merkel, Hollande and Poroshenko at the G20 summit in Hangzhou alarmed the Europeans - just as I said it would - and has stirred them into diplomatic action.

On his official Facebook page yesterday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu posted a speech in English. The concept here is so novel, that the text merits full presentation:

"I'm sure many of you have heard the claim that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, are an obstacle to peace. I've always been perplexed by this notion. Because no one would seriously claim that the nearly two million Arabs living inside Israel, that they are an obstacle to peace. That's because they aren't. On the contrary. Israel's diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace.

Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with ONE precondition: No Jews.

There's a phrase for that: it's called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is OUTRAGEOUS. It's even more outrageous, that the world doesn't find this outrageous. Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage. Ask yourself this: would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks?

Since when is bigotry a foundation for peace? At This moment, Jewish school children in Judea and Samaria are playing in sandboxes with their friends. Does their presence make peace impossible? I don't think so. I think what makes peace impossible is intolerance of others. Societies that respect all the people are the ones that pursue peace. Societies that demand ethnic cleansing don't pursue peace.

I envision a middle east where young Arabs and young Jews learn together, work together, live together, side by side, in peace. Our region needs more tolerance, not less. So the next time you hear someone say that Jews can't live somewhere, let alone in their ancestral homeland, take a moment to think of the implications. Ethnic cleansing for peace is absurd. It's about time somebody said it. I just did."

So, someone hacked WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency). As expected, the Russians are blamed. But that's not the issue. Just like the DNC hacks, the issue isn't who did the hack; the issue is the content of the leaks. In a nutshell, America's greatest and bestest athletes have been doping for years. Big surprise. But they've been doping legally. Yep, you heard that right. They got a doctor's note that says they can dope. That's probably all our regular readers need to know in order to grok the heart of the matter, but for new and casual readers, we'll expand a bit.

Self-described "international hack team" 'Fancy Bear' says they stand for fair play and clean sport. On their website, they state:

We announce the start of #OpOlympics. We are going to tell you how Olympic medals are won. We hacked World Anti-Doping Agency databases and we were shocked with what we saw.

We will start with the U.S. team which has disgraced its name by tainted victories. We will also disclose exclusive information about other national Olympic teams later. Wait for sensational proof of famous athletes taking doping substances any time soon.

Their first hack revealed that American athletes like Simone Biles, Serena and Venus Williams all took banned substances for years. But The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency says it's all cool, "the athletes have done nothing wrong", because they had "therapeutic use" exemptions for these banned substances because of undisclosed medical conditions (those fields are marked "confidential" in the documents).