Strongmen rush to remake the world order as Trump faces potential election defeat
Updated 1029 GMT (1829 HKT) July 5, 2020
It's far from clear that the next US President will be able to roll back the consequences of this week, which leave both Presidents Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Xi Jinping in Beijing more decisively in control of their own countries and more able to act assertively.
In other words, Trump has made an indelible mark on the world -- and it may not be for the good.
Hong Kong: books by pro-democracy activists disappear from library shelves
Move follows new security laws and include titles by Joshua Wong and lawmaker Tanya Chan
Books written by prominent Hong Kong democracy activists have started to disappear from the city’s libraries, online records show, days after Beijing imposed a new national security law on the finance hub.
Among the authors whose titles are no longer available are Joshua Wong, one of the city’s most prominent young activists, and Tanya Chan, a well known pro-democracy lawmaker.
Beijing’s new national security law came into force on Tuesday and is the most radical shift in how the semi-autonomous city is run since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.
“I Have No Explanation for all these Lies”Evidence Casts New Doubts on Russian Doping Whistleblower
For five years, the sporting world has been gripped by Russian manipulation of the anti-doping system. Now new evidence suggests the whistleblower who went into a witness protection program during the scandal may not have been entirely truthful.
Even today, more than five years after the end of her career, Olga Zaitseva says she doesn’t drink from water bottles if they have already been opened. Even when she visits friends, she says she always has a new one brought to her. "It’s an old habit,” she admits, before laughing softly.
Area C, the chunk of the West Bank the Israeli right has long coveted
Encouraged by US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been in a position to start his controversial West Bank annexation plan since July 1. The prime, fertile Jordan Valley, located in the West Bank’s Area C are in the Israeli leader’s sights and have long been coveted by his hard-right supporters.
Netanyahu has been able, in principle, to start the annexation of one-third of the West Bank any time since July 1, delivering on an election campaign promise that is in line with Trump’s Middle East “peace plan”.
The plan envisions the Israeli annexation of a vast strip of agricultural land that spans the breadth of the fertile Jordan Valley, which runs roughly from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and includes areas abutting the Israeli settlements near Jerusalem. If realised, the annexation of a chunk of the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, would be the final nail in the coffin of a two-state solution, killing any scope for a contiguous, viable Palestinian state.
Were Iran blasts triggered by ‘Son of Stuxnet’?
Potential cyberattack may have led to the death of 18 people in facility outside Tehran
Five recent explosions in Iran may have been caused by computer viruses similar to the Stuxnet virus that disabled Iranian centrifuges in 2010.
Two of the blasts took place at power plants, one at a missile research, development and production site, one at a new uranium enrichment centrifuge center, and the last (if it can be considered part of the attacks) in downtown Tehran at a medical facility that could have been a cover for nuclear operations, such as a hidden command center.
Federal Regulators Are Mortgaging The Country To Wall Street
What could possibly go wrong?
Federal regulators quietly shredded the most significant banking reform enacted after the 2008 financial crisis last month. When they were done, they patted banks on the back for continuing to shovel cash to their shareholders.
Not a single Democratic regulatory appointee voted for the measure to strip what was left of the Volcker Rule of its meaning. Congress approved the Volcker Rule in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform package, which was meant to curb excessive risk-taking at the nation’s largest banks by barring them from making speculative bets in securities markets for their own benefit. The rule also forbade banks from holding a financial interest in hedge funds or private equity funds that were involved in such markets.
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