The South China Sea has become the most dangerous fault-line in the world. Beijing and Washington are on a collision course over these contested waters, the shipping lane for 60% of global trade.

To The Point has been predicting this for years.  The prescience of that prediction became quite clear today.

This morning (7/12), the International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled against China, that it has no “historic title” to areas of this sea stretching all the way to the ‘nine dash line’ - deep into the territorial waters of a ring of South East Asian states.

Beijing has as expected dismissed the verdict with scorn, accusing the tribunal of “shamelessly abusing its authority.” The state media said the country “must be prepared for any military confrontation” with the US, and must not flinch from war if provoked.

It is the latest in a series ominous developments in Asia and Europe that are rapidly subverting the Western international system and setting off a global rearmament race with strong echoes of the late-1930s.

I once tried the organic alternative to the herbicide Roundup for clearing weeds from garden paths: a flame-thrower.

It was brutal for the environment, incinerating innocent insects and filling the air with emissions. Next week I might have to go back to that. Roundup, the world’s safest, cheapest and most effective weedkiller, may be illegal within days in Europe.

Roundup (chemical name glyphosate) was due to have its licence extended for 15 years. Normally it would have been nodded through.

But this time the relevant French and German ministers, Segolene Royale and Barbara Hendricks, nervous about the Greenie vote, have blocked the renewal, and the best that farmers and gardeners can hope for is an 18-month extension till after French and German elections.

Yet almost everybody agrees that glyphosate is safe: the European Food Safety Authority, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization, my own British government.

Even at absurdly high concentrations, lab tests show it is only one-tenth as carcinogenic as coffee – and you don’t drink Roundup.

[Skye’s comments on the Forum re the HFR last week (07/01) are so insightful many TTPers requested they be a full article.  We are happy to comply]

A TTPer asks, “Skye, your doubts on Trump (e.g. on tariffs and trade) are justified but a little more substance would help for an observer who retains an open mind on the subject.   What is evil?   This visceral distrust (of Trump) may be justified but what is the alternative Biden, Clinton and 2 to 3 Supreme Court justices?”

I don’t think that Trump is evil (unlike Hillary).  I do believe that he is mistaken about many things, and most importantly about what it would take to get him elected.  He is a prisoner of his own egotism.  His belief that his name can replace campaign funding with a billion dollars is what will give us those ‘Crats and their Supreme Court nominees.  I am obviously very unhappy with that prospect.

4 to 8 years of Clinton II are likely to create a lot more desperation. I do not want to see voting from the rooftops with .338 Lapua ballots.  That almost always ends very badly. 

I would love to read of as many other possibilities as smart TTPers can imagine.  We need to consider as many alternatives as possible from as many minds as possible.  A productive first step would be to stop wasting effort arguing about the relative qualities of Trump and Hillary.  Of course, the latter is truly horrific, but unless the former undergoes an unexpected sea change with respect to campaign funding actions, we will be stuck with the latter.

FBI Director James Comey has decided not to recommend that Hillary Clinton be indicted for violating security laws concerning the handling of classified information, among other offenses.

By doing so he has compromised a fundamental principle of consensual government: that the laws apply equally to everybody, including those entrusted with the people’s power. Now it is up to voters come November to reaffirm that we are a nation of laws, not men.

Comey’s decision is just the latest in a long-developing trend. In recent years government officials from the president on down have demonstrated the progressives’ penchant for disregarding laws that don’t serve their private or political interests.

I am reminded by Comey’s decision of Aristotle’s definition of tyranny.  Here it is…

French leaders are openly plotting to peel off large chunks of the City’s financial industry as soon as Britain leaves the EU. This might prove much tougher than they imagine.

France is rolling out the red carpet for putative refugees from Canary Wharf, hoping to capture the lion’s share of the estimated €600bn to €1 trillion market for clearing in euro-denominated transactions. Some German officials are also eyeing the City, but more discreetly.

"There is a power play going on. It is very clear France and Germany will do everything they can to damage the City and get the business for themselves," says Professor Athanasios Orphanides, a former member of the European Central Bank's governing council.

"Whatever they try to do, they'll end up shooting themselves in the foot and driving the businesses out Europe. The EU regulations are so costly that I think the City could actually see long-term benefits from leaving," he says.

The City is ranked number one in the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Zurich.  None of the EU's other hubs come close. Luxembourg is 14, Frankfurt is 18, and Paris lags far behind at 32,  behind Calgary or Dalian in China.

Long-developing cracks in the Western political establishment’s century-old paradigm suddenly widened this year.

In the US Donald Trump, a reality television star and real estate developer, improbably became the Republican Party’s nominee for president. Bernie Sanders, a socialist and long-time Senate crank, challenged the Democrats’ pre-anointed nominee Hillary Clinton, who prevailed only by dint of money and un-democratic “super-delegates.” Meanwhile in Europe, the UK voted to leave the European Union, perhaps opening the flood-gates to more defections.

These three events share a common theme: populist and patriotic passions roused by arrogant elites have fueled a rejection of Western establishments and their un-democratic, autocratic, corrupt paradigm.