It's regime change o'clock. The destabilization team from the US is recycling the plan it used for the Hong Kong protests last year for the current civil unrest in Thailand.

1) Claim to be "leaderless"? Check.

2) Put students and "friendly" lawyers in front? Check.

3) Steal a hand signal and/or slogan from The Hunger Games? Check.

4) Make "freedom and democracy" the main theme? Check.

And of course, cash. The National Endowment for Democracy - the CIA's main "freedom struggle" unit - gave US$642,933 (that's about HK$5 million) to anti-government activists in Hong Kong last year.

"The same unit is funding 18 anti-government organizations in Thailand," said reader Tom Guendert.

We should add that the members of the public joining mass protests in Hong Kong or Thailand or anywhere else are often real enough, and completely sincere too, but we all eventually become aware of the international geopolitics behind the scenes.

The CIA's next step: find a Thai version of Joshua Wong whose name Americans can pronounce. A guy called Parit Chiwarak may be the one - he's a student leader, has met Joshua Wong, and has an easy nickname: Penguin.

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Hong Kong customs officers busted a major smuggling operation and confiscated HK$25 million worth of meat, the government reported yesterday. So that's like, what, a couple of packs of sausages, a steak and three pork chops?

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Shocked to find that pet shops in Hong Kong are now selling wine for cats and dogs. It's called Pawsecco (meant to sound like Prosecco).

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A man in the US city of Seattle was arrested for shining a laser pointer in the eyes of police officers, the UK's Guardian reported. More than 100 people have been injured by the devices, other media said.

It's all very serious now. But it was different last year.

The Guardian did a report about the things being used in Hong Kong, and gave it a dismissive, sarcastic headline referring to "an offensive weapon, also known as a laser pointer."

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This week's videos of happy people partying in a recovered Wuhan sent this columnist to the archives to see who had first dubbed the coronavirus outbreak "China's Chernobyl" - a term that now looks ludicrously wrong.

On January 29, a Washington Post correspondent referred to a quote from a TV show about the Russian meltdown on the Chinese internet.

Hong Kong's Joshua Wong tweeted the Chernobyl reference on February 7.

The UK's The Times had a "China's Chernobyl" essay on February 9, and the Financial Times' Hong Kong reporter Jamil Anderlini followed suit the next day.

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The Choi Hung streaker made her latest video at a Chinese University's Pavilion of Harmony this week.

The mysterious mainland woman, first spotted at the Choi Hung housing estate, puts video clips of herself naked on the internet.

Not sure why the police can't track her down. Are officers having trouble focusing on her face?

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Thai protests a repeat of Hong Kong's