Reuters
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The British government on Friday extended the deadline until October and decided whether to approve China’s plan to build the largest embassy in London after refusing to fully explain why Beijing included areas trapped in the plan.

Due to opposition from British locals, lawmakers and Hong Kong democratic activists, China’s plans to build a new embassy on the grounds of a second-century building near the London Tower have been stagnating for the past three years.

British and American politicians have warned that China is trying to allow embassies to be built on the ground regarding concerns that China could be used as a spy base.

DP9, a planning consultant company working for the Chinese government, said it felt inappropriate for the client to provide a complete internal layout plan and that the additional drawings provided an acceptable level of detail.

“The applicant believes the level of detail shown in the unedited plan is sufficient to identify the main uses,” DP9 said in a letter to the government.

“In these circumstances, we believe it is neither necessary nor appropriate to provide a more detailed internal layout plan or detail.”

The UK Government Housing Authority stated under the response whether the project could proceed by September 9th by October 21st, as it needed more time to consider the response.

Luke de Palford, executive director of China’s Inter-Parliamentary Alliance, is a group with ties to the international network of Chinese-criminal politicians who revealed the letter, saying “these explanations are far from satisfactory.”

“The assurance exists, ‘Trust me,'” said De Pulford, a longtime critic of the embassy’s plan.

The Chinese Embassy in London has expressed “serious concern” about the government’s response.

The embassy said the host state has a “international obligation” to support the construction of diplomatic construction.

“The Chinese side is urging the UK to fulfill its obligations and approve planning applications without delay,” the embassy said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the embassy said the building claims that it is a “demeaning slander” that is used to harm the UK’s national security.

The Chinese government purchased the Royal Mint Court in 2018, but in 2022 a request to plan planning permission for a new embassy was denied.

The Stame Central Government last year controlled planning decisions.

Beijing
AP
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The collapse of a raid bridge over China’s major rivers has killed at least 12 workers and four others have gone missing, state media reports said.

Aerial photographs from the official Xinhua Conference show the large section missing from the curved aquamarine arch of the bridge.

The bent section of the bridge deck hangs below in the yellow river below.

When 16 workers were on a bridge in Qinghai Province in northwestern China, steel cables snapped during a tension operation around 3am on Friday, Xinhua said. Boats, helicopters and robots were used to search for missing people.

For Ukraine, history is a battlefield. A few months before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion, he published a gloomy 5,000-word article with which he claimed to dismantle the country. In his speech marking the beginning of the Russian attack, he unveiled a string of historical dissatisfaction with the West. And in the months following the war he cast himself on as the successor to Russian modern emperor Peter the Great.

History lessons are now plaguing Ukraine once again. As President Donald Trump seeks to end the negotiations for the war, politicians and critics are looking for the right analogy to explain the unstable moments in which Ukraine finds itself and measures the risks they face in the diplomatic process.

Although the similarities are inaccurate, the present moment resonates with three important chapters of 20th century diplomatic history. It was in Munich in 1938, Yalta in 1945, and Budapest in 1994.

Munich Pact – The deal that handed over the Sdetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler’s Germany to avoid war in Europe is the grandfather of historic analogy.

For many years it has become a handy shorthand to soften it. Trump critics liken the willingness to meet Putin one-on-one in Alaska, and his suggestion that Ukraine might have to accept the loss of territory is falsely in the wrong of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain taking Hitler in his words.

“Trump’s magical thinking threatens Munich in slow motion – repeating the mitigation mistakes,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal wrote about X. By softening it, Trump will not approach the Nobel Peace Prize more than Chamberlain. ”

However, there are also specific military angles to Munich’s comparisons. This deal allowed the Nazis to bypass the extensive network of fortress, essentially rendering Czechoslovakia vulnerable. Similarly, military analysts have noted that if Russia is allowed to occupy the rest of Ukraine’s Donetsk region with a peace agreement, it could control Putin over fortress cities such as Slobiansk and Kramatalk, which form an important part of Kiev’s defensive belt.

Another historical similarity was the 1945 Yalta Conference. This is a meeting that US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin set the terms of the post-World War II order in Europe.

Yalta’s legacy, which was then considered a victory in wartime diplomacy, is today seen in a more pessimistic lens, particularly in Eastern European countries. In Eastern European countries in particular, they ultimately placed them behind iron curtains and commissioned millions of people to live under communist rule.

For some observers, Trump’s push for a potential grand bargain with Putin also poses the risk of selling out Kiev, especially if it could be negotiated on the heads of Ukrainians when possible.

In a post from X before the Trump Putin conference in Alaska, the former US ambassador for Russia wrote:

Not surprising, Putin is a fan of great deals. In a speech at the 2015 UN General Assembly — the eve of his country’s military intervention in Syria — Putin approved Yalta, saying that the security architecture that Hanmankoh was attacked at the Soviet resort “helped passing through the turbulence.”

Historian Sergey Radchenko, responding to McFaul’s post on X, offered a nuanced view of the Yalta analogy, noting in a lengthy thread that “Yalta had no realistic alternatives because by February 1945 the Soviets were already rolling over Eastern Europe. FDR was not in a position to expel them from there. The only thing he could do was to extract hollow promises of elections from Stalin.”

But Yalta’s options aren’t just the diplomatic instruments available today, as the US doesn’t need Russia for anything and can help constrain Moscow’s ambitions. “Russia, far from conquering Eastern Europe, cannot even conquer Donbas,” he wrote. “In short, just as Yalta had no viable alternatives, Yalta 2.0 has a very viable alternative, which should have given the Trump administration a considerable advantage in negotiating with Russia.”

Budapest Memorandum

As European allies seek to find security guarantees for Ukraine, memories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum also peer in the memory of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the country agreed to abandon nuclear weapons parked in its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The scrap of paper, signed by Russia, contained a pledge to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. These promises did not spare Ukraine from the annexation of Russia’s Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Speaking about CNN, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko suggested that the security guarantees outlined in the memorandum are too teeth-free.

“As the president of Ukraine, I had security guarantees in the form of a memorandum of understanding in Budapest,” he said. “This is not working. Other security guarantees except for the binding (one) – this is not acceptable.”

Ukraine is currently facing another historic point of inflection as diplomats scramble to find the right venue and the right formula for the peace conference. It remains to be seen whether this moment will be remembered as a dark chapter in European history.

New Delhi
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One by one, they come out of sleep. Dholu is an energetic young man with a prominent footstep. Oldy, a belly-loving grey elder. Snoopy, a golden-eyed boy patiently waiting for his turn.

They are not summoned by whi, but the familiar smell of Kichidi, a traditional dish of rice and lentils. Himanshi Varma carries two large bags to this New Delhi neighborhood where her evening ritual begins amid the chaos of the Indian capital.

For seven years, Varma has fed the city’s roaming strays. She is a quiet agreement she made with these homeless dogs after adopting a puppy born under the stairs at her home.

Using her own savings, she paid for sterilization of over 500 animals and found hundreds more homes. “There’s no count, there’s no end,” she said as a “indie” pack to play with grass nearby, as Indian strays are lovingly known.

For a period of time, quiet despair over Balma’s daily acts of compassion.

The Supreme Court order of August 12th declared that their homes – the city of New Delhi is no longer theirs. The court took the issue in itself, following a surprising report of dog attacks, including where the children were killed, and ordered that all stray dogs on the capital’s territory be rounded up and be locked in shelters forever within eight weeks.

The announcement sparked panic among animal lovers and welfare groups. Welfare groups claim that the city does not house its vast wandering population near its infrastructure, and is estimated at around 1 million.

But on Friday a wave of relief wiped out their ranks. After a review by a special three judge bench, the court issued a stay and altered the previous order. The new ruling revealed that stray dogs picked up by authorities will be sterilized, vaccinated and released into the same area. Only animals found to be rabies or excessively aggressive are kept from the streets.

The court said the ruling applies to all Indias, and at the same time it prohibits public distribution of food to dogs and requires feeding in designated areas.

“I think that’s a very thoughtful verdict,” said veterinarian Dr Sarunbam Yaipabi Devi.

“As so many people came out through India for their neighboring dogs, the court definitely appears to have public pulses in mind.”

The original intervention from the Indian Supreme Court was swift and decisive, and controversial in a country with ingrained cultural respect for animals.

Euthanizing healthy wanderings in India is illegal and before being released, the wanderings of the 2001 law must be addressed to rabies, castrated and vaccinated.

Although humanitarian in principle, this approach has been difficult to implement effectively on a national scale. The vast number of dogs overwhelm the limited funding and veterinary infrastructure in the world’s most populous countries. This means that sterilization rates cannot be in line with the rapid breeding cycle of dogs.

As a result, an estimated 62 million stray dogs (reported by Indian press) have roamed the country’s streets, neighbours, slums and villages.

Many of these animals live in harmony with humans. However, bites and fatal attacks made people more cautious with the risk of infection.

Rabies is a vaccine-preventable disease that can spread to humans if bitten or injured by an infected animal, and is almost always fatal unless someone can administer a series of jabs immediately after it is bitten.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dogs are the source of rabies deaths in most humans, contributing up to 99% of all rabies transmission to humans. India is endemic to rabies, and WHO said it accounts for 36% of rabies deaths worldwide.

“When I walk home late at night, there are horde of dogs that I usually have to pass by,” said Sriya Ramani, a medical student based in Delhi. “If there’s food left in the tiffin (food container), they smell it, then they jump to you, and it’s very scary.”

She believes that the population of dogs in Delhi must be controlled, but “it should be done in a humane way.”

Arjun Sen, the father of a 12-year-old boy who was bitten, feels that stray dogs should remove the street “as soon as possible.”

“This time my son was bitten. Tomorrow it can be someone else’s child,” he told Reuters. “This is a big problem.”

After the fatal attacks of a 4-year-old from Hyderabad in 2023, fear of dog attacks has skyrocketed. This led to a CCTV attack that terrified the country, sending shockwaves through the media and political circles, causing a desperate search for solutions.

Some have sought to challenge existing laws to better manage numbers. In 2016, the campaign to ur stray dogs from southern Kerala gained traction after a series of bites, but encountered fierce opposition from animal rights activists.

The controversial plan never came to fruition. It shows a deadlock between public safety concerns and animal welfare advocacy.

Devi, a veterinarian who cared about the city’s troubles, struggled to see how the Supreme Court’s first order was enacted.

“The order was very unexpected,” she said. “It’s also unfair and unrealistic.”

Devi operates a sterilization unit for small animals in Delhi, allowing temporary accommodation of up to 100 lost children. It’s already crowded and needs repairs due to lack of funds. She was worried that other centers like her could not handle the hundreds of thousands of dogs the court ordered to pick up.

Even bigger shelters have the capacity.

The Jammu Foundation’s animal shelter in Gurugram’s satellite city just outside Delhi shows a frontline crisis.

Meenakshi Bareja is caring for 78 dogs here, and the shelter is chronically understaffed and underfunded. Financial tension creates a near constant state of panic.

“We need 500,000 rupees ($5,700) a month and it’s always shortfall,” Bareja says.

All kennels have a stake visible. All dogs are rescued from the streets, but many cannot simply be castrated and released. They require long-term care for injuries such as large tumors in the hind limbs, partial paralysis from suspected hits and run, or deep painful cuts in the legs.

Lifelong dog horror made Bareja unlikely to be a candidate for work in an animal shelter, but the pandemic left her with little choice. What began as a passive salary slowly transformed into a deep sense of purpose. Her passion was so contagious that her husband, Naresh, joined her. When he squeals hist, the dogs they care about build boundaries before, their tails swaying in the madness of affection.

“Gurgram has developed a lot,” he said of the city with over 800,000 people. “But dogs can’t leave old creatures.”

More than 100 people in Mumbai last week endured heavy rains in protest of the original Supreme Court order.

On Friday, after weeks of stress, Varma, a community feeder, said he was “at the pinnacle of the world.”

She asks questions about the revised ruling, including those qualifying as an offensive dog, which is a reprieve for the street dog she affectionately calls “child.”

“The key is that our child’s stomachs are filled,” she said. “They should be treated, vaccinated and sterilized.”

Atlantic City, New Jersey
–

Almost every passenger carries lithium-ion batteries on the plane, including mobile phones, laptops, rechargeable power packs and even steam. And if one of them does have any issues, Federal Aviation Administration testing shows that the results can be devastating.

Delta Line Flight 1334 was flying from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale last month when smoke and flames began pouring from your backpack. The pilot declared a state of emergency and repurposed it to Fort Myers, where 191 people were safely evacuated.

The perpetrator was a passenger’s personal lithium-ion battery pack and was placed in carry-on baggage.

Fire safety engineers have studied and demonstrated how bad it is at William J. Hughes Technical Center of Advanced Aerospace’s FAA in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

“Lithium batteries can enter what is called thermal runaway,” explained Robert Ox, manager of the fire branch. “All of a sudden, it starts a short circuit… it’s warm and warm until the battery itself breaks down. At that point, it can eject molten electrolytes, flames, smoke and toxic gases.”

The FAA conducted a CNN demonstration within the research hangar to show what would happen.

A rechargeable consumer battery pack that could be used to charge laptops and phones was pushed into the seatback pocket and heated to over 300 degrees to simulate thermal runaways. Suddenly, sparks and hunger erupted violently, burning nearby seats and swirling smoke.

“The tests we’re doing here are helping the flight attendants,” Ochs said. “Whenever a plane fires, it’s a serious concern and you have to take action immediately as you won’t be able to escape.”

These heated runaways are difficult to fight. The FAA recommends that flight attendants first use the standard equipment Halon Fire extinguisher for planes, but that may not be enough.

In a test run against CNN, the flames jumped up just in time.

“Get a fire extinguisher in that hand and use it to put out the flames. But from our testing, it doesn’t stop and we know that the fire will reignite with a lithium battery,” says Ochs. “I’m going to add water and add water from the galley cart, non-alcoholic liquids, everything you get by simply starting to pour into that device.”

The problem isn’t new, but more batteries are being carried to the plane than ever before. Safety Group UL standards and engagement say today the average passenger has a fly with four devices equipped with lithium-ion batteries.

“While fire cases are rare, they’re on the rise. We see two a week on planes or airports,” Jeff Marutian, the organization’s president and CEO, told CNN.

The FAA allows most consumers’ personal electronics with checked lithium-ion battery and carry-on baggage.

However, latest federal data shows that external battery packs are the biggest cause of incidents, resulting in the FAA banning checked bags that are difficult to extinguish.

But despite all the warnings, UL standards and engagement say two in five passengers still check.

“We know that lithium battery fires are a serious danger in the cargo chamber,” Ochs says. “The passengers should take them on board with them and should be accessible immediately. If you happen to get on the fire and it’s stuffed deep inside your bag, if it’s stuffed all the way in with a bottle overhead, that would be very difficult for the flight attendant to fight.”

In January, the Air Busan Airbus A321 on the ground at Gimhae International Airport in South Korea was hit by flames. The investigation is underway, but it is believed that the cause is a personal power pack battery stored in the overhead bin. 27 people were injured and three were seriously injured.

As a result, South Korea has created rules to prevent power banks from being stored in overhead bins and banned onboard devices.

In the US, Southwest Airlines require all battery packs to “keep visible” when in use, and passengers cannot charge overhead bin devices.

“I know this is a solutionable problem, and first and foremost concern passenger awareness and education,” says Marootian. “A lithium battery fire on the ground is dangerous enough and can be a catastrophe at 30,000 feet.”

Passengers should get help before attempting to adjust the seat for flight attendants whether the device is too hot and if the battery-powered device is dropped into the seat.

“If you lose your device and the seat… don’t operate the seat, because you can pinch it and it can cause thermal runaways,” Ox said. “The best thing to do is that you’re experiencing problems with your device. Call the flight attendant.”

Consumers can also avoid devices that are made cheaply.

“If it’s much cheaper than other devices on the market, it’s likely that there’s no strictest manufacturing. The device itself may have a potential defect and it could break down,” he said.