Following the Orlando nightclub shooting, New York's state senate passed a bill it's touting as a "Historic First-Ever State Terrorist Registry Proposed to Protect the Number One Terrorist Target in the United States - New York."

The basic concept is a lot like a sex offender registry, only for suspected terrorists:

Registrants would be required to complete a standardized registration form and law enforcement agencies would collect a current photograph, fingerprints and a DNA sample....

The New York State Terrorist Registry would be made available to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

And like the Sex Offender Registry, the non-confidential information of each registrant, would be available to the public.

Now, the bill's cosponsors are telling the press the registry will only include those who have been convicted of an act of terrorism. "This would give local law enforcement the tools that they need so that they are aware if there is somebody in their community that has been convicted of terrorism who still may be a threat to the safety and security of Americans," said State Senator Cathy Young, one of the cosponsors.

But the text of the legislation itself seems to say otherwise.

In subdivision one, the bill spells out not one but two ways to get on the terrorist registry:

"Terrorist" means any person who is convicted of any terrorist offense set forth in subdivision two of this section, and/or who has engaged in any verifiable act of terrorism pursuant to subdivision three of this section.

So the first way is precisely what Young says it is: a conviction for terrorism.

But the second way, in subdivision three, doesn't necessarily require a conviction at all. In fact, that section includes four separate circumstances under which someone who has never been convicted of terrorism could be placed on the public registry should this bill become law.

Brexit could trigger a $500 trillion derivatives meltdown, by forcing the EU to allow insolvent member governments and banks to write down debt. Italy is in financial crisis and is already petitioning for that concession. How to avoid collapse of the massive derivatives house of cards? Alternatives are considered.

Sovereign debt - the debt of national governments - has ballooned from $80 trillion to $100 trillion just since 2008. Squeezed governments have been driven to radical austerity measures, privatizing public assets, slashing public services, and downsizing work forces in a futile attempt to balance national budgets. But the debt overhang just continues to grow.

Austerity has been pushed to the limit and hasn't worked. But default or renegotiating the debt seems to be off the table. Why? According to a June 25^th article by Graham Summers on ZeroHedge:

. . . EVERY move the Central Banks have made post-2009 has been aimed at avoiding debt restructuring or defaults in the bond markets. Why does Greece, a country that represents less than 2% of EU GDP, continue to receive bailouts instead of just defaulting?

Summers' answer - derivatives:

[G]lobal leverage has exploded to record highs, with the sovereign bond bubble now a staggering $100 trillion in size. To top it off, over $10 trillion of this is sporting negative yields in nominal terms. . . .

Globally, over $500 trillion in derivatives trade [is] based on bond yields.

But Brexit changes everything, says Summers. Until now, the EU has been able to reject debt forgiveness as an alternative, using the threat of financial Armageddon if the debtor country left the EU. But Britain has left, and Armageddon hasn't hit. Other Eurozone nations can now threaten to do the same if they don't get debt forgiveness or a restructuring.

Those were the days when Libya ("We came, we saw, he died") offered to the world a full-blooded humanitarian imperialist spectacle starring Three American Harpies: Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, actually four if Hillary's mentorette and soul mate, Madeleine Albright, was included.

Pop cynics felt tempted at the time to coin those Amazons-in-waiting Brunhilde and the Valkyries. Or at least to qualify perma-smirker Hillary as Attila The Hen.

So let's kill the suspense. There will be, predictably, a sequel. And it even comes with a somewhat highbrow preview, titled Expanding American Power, published by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank. CNAS happens to be co-founded - and led - by former Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, who served in the Obama Administration under Leon Panetta.

Also predictably, CNAS and its combative paper read as a sort of grand PNAC remixed - including some of those same old neocon/neoliberalcon faces; Elliot Abrams, Robert Zoellick, Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, and of course Flournoy herself, who a Beltway consensus already identifies as the next Pentagon head under a President Clinton.

In this context, Exceptionalistan rules in all its forms - from the juicy defense contractor donor list to the emphasis on NATO on trade via the Trans-pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). After Brexit though, implementing TTIP will be a tall order - and that's a mighty understatement.

Let's agree on the facts. One Palestinian male got into a West Bank settlement and killed a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her room with a knife. Nothing more, nothing less. Before her body was cold, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rushed the same day to make a video for the English speaking world.

What is the purpose of this Netanyahu video? What more does the world need to know about this terrible event? Why is he showing us her gruesome bloodstained room? Why are we hearing about her teddy bear?

Is Israel under siege by child killers - so this is a call for Interpol or FBI help? No that's not whats happening here.

As President Putin, post-Brexit, rushed to discuss all matters pertaining to Eurasia integration with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, I embarked on a connected, parallel southern China journey.

From my base in Hong Kong, I set out on a Pearl River Delta loop, hitting Shenzhen and Dongguan and then Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Macau.

Why? Because this unprecedented, interconnected story of breakneck urbanization, technological innovation and post-modern megacity sprawl showcases no less than the future dreamed up by the collective leadership in Beijing. And it doesn't hurt that southern China is the starting point of the Maritime Silk Road.

I was very privileged to visit Shenzhen and Guangzhou only a few days after the Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping, then 88, embarked on his legendary six-week "southern tour" in January-February 1992. His target at the time was to turbo-charge the "get rich is glorious" Chinese manufacturing miracle, still in its infancy.

In the early 1990s, agriculture, mining and fishing were responsible for 27 percent of the Chinese economy, while manufacturing and construction accounted for 40 percent, and services for 30 percent, according to Hong Kong banking sources. At the start of the 2010s, agriculture was already down to only 10 percent, with manufacturing at 46 percent and services at 44 percent. A generation of business leaders often referred to as the "Gang of 92" - when many of them started - were imprinting their mark on a new China.

Now the Pearl River Delta - China's number one hub of labor-intensive manufacturing - is in the process of replacing workers with robots on a large scale, a further sign that China is about to take off technologically, big time. And that's all part of a "Made in China 2025" strategy announced only two months ago by Beijing, centered on relentless innovation - and commercialization. The China 2.0 new industrial revolution is a go - with a bang.

Israeli warplanes have launched several airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in yet another act of aggression against the besieged Palestinian coastal territory.

No casualties have yet been reported in the Saturday morning attacks that followed reports of an alleged rocket launch from Gaza on a vacant kindergarten in the town of Sderot in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli warplanes reportedly hit the Zeitoun district of Gaza City and a site belonging to the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza came hours after Tel Aviv imposed a closure on the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron) and its surrounding areas following the killing of an Israeli man in a drive-by shooting there. Earlier on Friday, Israeli forces shot dead a 27-year-old Palestinian woman, identified as Sarah Tarayra, after she allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack near the revered Muslim religious monument of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city.

Expectations of a rise in inflation because of the base effect, and supply constraints prove to be wrong.

Away from all the noise about Brexit, Rosstat - Russia's statistical agency - and the Central Bank have published more data and forecasts that point towards steady recovery and a rapidly improving inflation picture.

Contrary to the Central Bank's earlier predictions the annualised rate of inflation remained steady in June despite claims that it would go above 8% because of the base effect. The annualised rate of inflation at the end of June instead turned out to be 7.4% compared to 7.3% in the previous months. The true rate of inflation after eliminating all statistical anomalies remains rock steady at 0.1% per week (between 5 - 6% for the whole year) where it has been for months. The Central Bank is now admitting that there will probably be deflation in August - a month when inflation in Russia traditionally falls - and that the annualised rate of inflation for the whole year could be as low as 5.5%. The Economics Ministry more pessimistically predicts 5.9%.

Either figure would represent the lowest inflation rate Russia has experienced in any one year since before the USSR collapsed. Predictions inflation would increase to 16% following the second oil price collapse at the start of the year have proved completely wrong, whilst more recent claims that the peak of the period of inflation decline has passed and that inflation is now rising are also turning out wrong.

In a video that was released by the so-called Islamic State they presented their strategic objective on a map. According to it the Islamist mercenaries want to control the main oil trade route to Europe. If successful, the safe transport of oil by sea to Europe would be at risk. As a substitute the US could jump to help: They have started with the supply of liquefied gas to Europe.

In a recent propaganda video from ISIS's anniversary "Two Years Since the Caliphate" the terrorist militia lays claim to six geographic areas: on part of central Syria and eastern Syria, the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, Sinai, Libya and Algeria. In all these areas the terrorist militia will be even more active in the future, which will inevitably lead to a destabilization of these regions. Who is exactly behind the IS is not known. A striking feature of the jubilee video is that the alleged leader of the movement, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, does not play a role. One would have actually expected a message from the supposed caliph.

Particularly interesting is that these regions are located at the junctions of the world's most important shipping lane, which in turn is essential for the global oil transfer. The oil trade from the east to the west is implemented through this waterway. According to the US Energy Information Administration, 63 percent of the world's oil is processed via waterways. Destabilization of the chosen ISIS target regions would inevitably impede severely global oil trade. The most important junction for the global oil transfer is the Strait of Hormuz. The terrorist militia wants to destabilize the area of ​​this waterway as well.

Turkish boss Tayyip Erdoğan has begun to open dialogue with Damascus, and has offered his apologies to Russia over the unjustifiable shoot-down of a Russian jet over Syria 7 months ago. Turkey's proxies were also responsible for the followup shoot-down of a rescue helicopter and the murder of a pilot. So far the perpetrator has escaped prosecution in Turkey. Was the sidelining of Davutoglu, formerly PM, also an ambiguous sign, possibly signaling that Turkey is taking a half-step backwards?

On the other side of the globe, disputed imperial claims in the South China Sea have not softened, but China is participating in a grand naval exercise with US forces in the Pacific Ocean. Both sides report the greatest professionalism in the other. The biennial RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) naval exercises will involve 27 nations and 25,000 service members, 45 ships, five submarines and more than 200 aircraft. China is among this year's contingent that will operate off the coasts of Hawai'i and Southern California.

Brexit too suggests a further crumbling of the US imperium — at least its imperiousness has been curtailed. The EU, like the ECB, IMF, other members of Greece's enslaving Troika, and the World Bank, are beholden to central banksters and international oligopolists. So are the Warriors of Terror which the US and its satellites have unleashed on the world. Though the US lefty press is in the dark, much of Europe is waking up to the effects of rule by bureaucrats who promise equality, but systematically undermine labor, pensions, and even corporate security, in interest of the banksters. If they truly care about the lower classes, leftists should pray a Frexit follows, even if led by Marine Le Pen. "Remember Greece!" should be the cry. (But see this for the uses the elites make of the Brexit referendum.)

Gunmen seized a bakery in Dhaka overnight, killing 20 hostages and two officers in a siege that ended Saturday morning, the Bangladeshi military said.

All the hostages killed were foreigners, the military said.

The attackers used guns, explosive devices and "a lot of sharp domestic weapons," said Brig. Gen. Naeem Ashfaq Chowdhury of the Bangladesh army. The hostages' bodies were found after the standoff ended in the country's capital.

Bangladeshi troops rescued 14 hostages, according to Brig. Gen. Mujibur Rahman of the Bangladesh army.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina provided a different number, but officials said the figures are preliminary.

"We were able to save 13 people, we weren't able to save a few," Hasina said at a news conference. Six terrorists were killed and one was captured alive, she said.

One Japanese national and two Sri Lankans were among the hostages rescued, officials from both nations said.