CL Eight hundred families in Tai Po were locked out of their homes Sunday, quiet displacement in a neighborhood while the South China Sea filled with F-22s and Chinese vessels pressed closer to Manila's planted flag. Money fleeing Iran war fears arrived in Hong Kong the same week the city posted an HK$11 billion surplus. Capital reads the room before the Hang Seng does.-- CL

MB The United States pulls five thousand troops from Germany on the same weekend it ships eight billion dollars in arms to the Gulf, and the two headlines run side by side without anyone drawing the line between them. Washington is repricing its security commitments. Soldiers as guarantee is giving way to arms sales as relationship management, which is a cheaper model and a less binding one.-- MB