LONDON — The Chinese government has resubmitted its plans to build a “super embassy” in London, a decision testing the new British government’s strategy for dealing with China after the victory of the Labour Party in the general election last month.

According to the new plan, the super embassy will be built on the former Royal Mint Court site near the Tower of London, with a total area of about 576,000 square meters (620,000 square feet) — 10 times the size of China’s existing embassy in London.

The project includes not only the embassy building but also 225 residences and a cultural exchange center. 

The proposal was rejected by the Tower Hamlets Council in 2022 and was set aside after China failed to appeal in time. 

Since China bought the land for roughly $327 million in 2018, the plan has faced ongoing opposition from members of parliament and local residents concerned about security, particularly as protests in the surrounding area could increase significantly.

A Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson told VOA the planning team is reviewing the latest application, and public consultation has begun, but a target committee date has not been scheduled.

Politicians and activists believe that China’s choice to resubmit its plan is a test of the bottom line of the new British government’s China policy. Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith believes the Labour Party may not be as tough on China as the Conservatives.

“The Labour government has become ambivalent about China and has in no way seemed to be taking any interest in the threat that China is posing,” he told VOA in a phone interview.

With the Labour government coming to power in early July, the United Kingdom’s relationship with China is undergoing a process of re-examination. Foreign Minister David Lammy said the administration would conduct a comprehensive review of its relationship with China to ensure that it could cooperate with China in areas of common interest while addressing global threats.

George Robertson, the former NATO secretary-general and head of the British government’s strategic defense assessment, warned that China was one of the countries that posed a deadly threat to the U.K.

The “Strategic Defense Review,” expected to be published in the first half of 2025, will help define the government’s defense policy for the next decade. The re-application of China’s super embassy program will undoubtedly be a test in this review process and policy shift.

The Tower Hamlets Council is dominated by the Labour Party. According to The Daily Telegraph, representatives of the Chinese Embassy in the U.K. said in a document submitted to the district council that the 2022 refusal decision was baseless and urged officials to reconsider the plan.

“I have no doubt that this will be classified as a risk and be evaluated continuously by the Labour Party,” said Rex Lee, a media spokesman for ESEA4Labour. 

East and Southeast Asians for Labour was founded in 1999 with the mission of promoting the Labour Party’s values, civic conscience and duties, according to its website.

“The Labour Party has been clear in their support of Hong Kongers and Uyghurs and all others who try to hold the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] into account in human rights breaches. There is no space for CCP to maneuver under the Labour government,” he said.

Megan Khoo, policy adviser for Hong Kong Watch, told VOA that the proposal “should feature in the new government’s audit of U.K.-China relations, including how such an establishment would hold the potential to threaten the more than 190,000 Hong Kongers which now call Britain home. 

“This site could serve as a vessel for the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] increasing transnational repression against Hong Kongers and other Chinese dissident groups, and as such, has no place on U.K. soil. The new government must not allow itself to be toyed with and make it immediately clear that it will not allow the PRC to call the shots,” she said.

VOA requested comment from the Chinese Embassy but did not receive a response by the time of publication.  

The Royal Mint site has sparked many discussions about the preservation and safety of history, due to its historical value. 

“It’s a historic building, which would not lend itself to be an embassy,” said Smith, the former Conservative Party leader. “It would be the loss of a historic building under the ownership of China. It would become Chinese territory forever, and that is not to be allowed. Certainly not the CCP.”

In 2022, pro-democracy protesters were assaulted by Chinese diplomats outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester. Opponents of the new embassy site argue that this incident demonstrates China’s intention to use the location to suppress protests, as the site offers limited space for demonstrations.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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LONDON — British authorities have arrested more than 1,000 people following days of rioting involving violence, arson and looting as well as racist attacks targeting Muslims and migrants, a national policing body said Tuesday. 

The riots, which followed the killings of three young girls in the northern English town of Southport, began after the July 29 attack was wrongly blamed on an Islamist migrant based on online misinformation. 

Violence broke out in cities across England and also in Northern Ireland, but there have been fewer instances of unrest since last week after efforts to identify those involved were ramped up.  

Many have been swiftly jailed, with some receiving long sentences. 

The National Police Chiefs’ Council said in its latest update that 1,024 had been arrested and 575 charged across the U.K. 

Those arrested include a 69-year-old accused of vandalism in Liverpool and an 11-year-old boy in Belfast. 

A 13-year-old girl pleaded guilty to violent disorder at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court, prosecutors said, having been seen on July 31 punching and kicking the entrance to a hotel for asylum-seekers. 

“This alarming incident will have caused genuine fear amongst people who were being targeted by these thugs — and it is particularly distressing to learn that such a young girl participated in this violent disorder,” prosecutor Thomas Power said. 

The last time Britain witnessed widespread rioting was in 2011, when the fatal shooting of a Black man by police triggered several days of street violence. 

Fast and tough judicial action was viewed as helping quell the unrest in 2011, when around 4,000 people were arrested over several weeks.
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Warsaw, POLAND — Poland on Tuesday signed a $10 billion deal to buy 96 Apache attack helicopters from U.S. manufacturer Boeing in an upgrade to the country’s military capabilities.

Poland has sharply accelerated the modernization of its armed forces since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022.

“This is the landmark purchase by Poland for its armed forces of … 96 state-of-the-art AH-64E Apache attack helicopters,” Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters.

“Today we are taking a milestone in the transformation and equipping of the army,” he added, speaking at the Inowroclaw air base, where the Apaches are to be stationed.

The deal is the latest in a string of contracts signed by Poland with the United States in recent days.

On Friday, Warsaw announced a deal to buy hundreds of AIM-120C AMRAAM air-to-air missiles. On Monay there was a contract to build 48 launchers for the U.S.-designed Patriot air defense systems.

Poland, a staunch ally of Ukraine, has announced it would spend more than 4% of its annual economic output on defense this year — twice NATO’s target of 2%.

The Ukraine war has also solidified the relationship between the United States and Poland, a country on NATO’s eastern flank that sees Washington as one of its main allies.

The Apache helicopter sale was approved last year by the U.S. State Department and Congress.

The deal “changes the face of the Polish army’s operations and complements” previous purchases, Kosiniak-Kamysz said, pointing notably at the Abrams tanks that Poland bought in the past years.

According to the Polish government, the Apaches are designed to work with the tanks.

“For the Abrams, the Apache is an essential element,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

In 2022, Poland bought 250 Abrams tanks in a modern M1A2 variant, which are expected to be delivered later this year. It will be the first country outside the United States with the tanks.

The attack helicopter agreement also envisages providing the Polish army with maintenance equipment, technical and training support, flight simulators and spare parts.

“Offset, purchase, leasing, pilot training, technology, armament — it was all negotiated together. It’s a historic day for helicopter aviation,” Deputy Defense Minister Pawel Bejda said.

“These $10 billion are the insurance of our country, the insurance of our freedom,” Bejda added, saying that the Apaches would serve the Polish efforts to “deter those who have evil intentions.”

The first U.S.-made helicopters are to be delivered in 2028, but some Polish pilots have already begun training on them.

The Apaches will replace outdated Russian Mi-24 helicopters.
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Ukraine took the fight to Russia in recent days, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Monday his army’s move to “push the war out into the aggressor’s territory” with attacks in Russia’s Kursk region. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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San Diego, Calif. — Belarus sentenced two more journalists to prison last week in what media groups say is a continuation of a crackdown on media since the contested 2020 election and protest movement. 

A court in the city of Mogilev sentenced freelance reporter Ales Sabaleuski to four years in prison and cameraman Yauhen Hlushkou to three years on extremism-related charges. Both were also ordered to pay fines of $2,450, according to media watchdogs. 

The charges are linked to the journalists’ work with the independent news outlet 6TV Bielarus, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ. Belarus had earlier labeled 6TV Bielarus as an extremist group. 

Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, condemned the closed-door trial that took place last Wednesday, calling the Belarusian judicial system “rigged.” 

The sentences are “yet another example of the Belarusian authorities’ relentless harassment of members of the press,” she said in a statement. 

Belarus-based human rights groups, including Viasna, issued a statement calling on authorities to release the journalists, and to stop using prosecution to limit rights and freedoms. 

Media and civil liberties groups say Belarusian authorities have used arrests and prison to target critics and opposition voices since the 2020 disputed presidential election. Mass protests spread across Belarus that year, after President Alexander Lukashenko was voted in for a sixth term. 

The election had been widely seen as fraudulent, with opposition leaders imprisoned or threatened. 

Belarus has since arrested dozens of journalists and labeled several media outlets as extremist organizations. 

Data collected by Viasna show thousands of politically motivated arrests in the past four years, with at least 1,385 still imprisoned. CPJ additionally found 28 journalists imprisoned in Belarus for their work as of late 2023. That makes Belarus the third-worst jailer of journalists in the world, after China and Myanmar, the watchdog says. 

The press office of the Belarus Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment. 

Among those detained are Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk, who worked for VOA sister network, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

On the four-year anniversary of the election on Friday, the Belarusian Association of Journalists issued a joint statement with other watchdogs, calling on authorities to release all jailed media workers. 

“Lukashenko’s regime has been crushing free speech and stripping journalists of their freedom for too long,” the statement said. 

“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of our unjustly imprisoned colleagues, and express our solidarity with those who were forced to flee their country and still have to live in fear abroad. Belarusian authorities must stop harassing and intimidating journalists.”

Belarus ranks 167 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index and is considered one of the most dangerous countries in Europe to be a journalist.
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ROME — Archaeologists in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii have discovered the remains of two more victims of the volcanic eruption almost 2,000 years ago.

The skeleton of a man and a woman were found in a small, makeshift bedroom in a villa which was being restructured when the eruption struck, the Pompeii archeological site said in a statement Monday.

The woman was lying on a bed with gold, silver and bronze coins around her, along with jewelry including gold and pearl earrings. The man lay at the foot of the bed.

The once-thriving city of Pompeii, near Naples, and the surrounding countryside was submerged by volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius exploded in 79 AD.

The eruption killed thousands of Romans who had no idea they were living beneath one of Europe’s biggest volcanoes which buried the city in a thick layer of ash, preserving many of its residents and buildings.

The latest victims discovered had chosen the small room as a refuge, waiting for the end of the rain of rock fragments which had blocked the door and prevented them from escaping.

They were eventually buried under the flow of lava and other boiling hot material from the volcano, the statement said.

“The opportunity to analyze the invaluable anthropological data on the two victims … allows us to recover a considerable amount of data on the daily life of ancient Pompeians,” site director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said.

Ancient Pompeii, rediscovered only in the 16th century, has in recent years seen a burst of archaeological activity aimed at halting decades of decay and neglect.
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dubai, united arab emirates — Iran has put its long-range Mohajer-10 drones on display at a defense exhibit in Russia, Iran’s official news agency reported Monday. 

U.S. officials have accused Iran of sending drones to Russia, including the Mohajer-10’s predecessor, the Mohajer-6, that Moscow had used in its invasion of Ukraine. Tehran denies this. 

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said the more advanced system was being shown at the Army 2024 International Military-Technical Forum, an event that runs from Monday to Wednesday in Patriot Park outside Russia’s capital. 

The report came as the Middle East braces for Iran’s threatened retaliation against Israel after the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31. 

Iran released details of the Mohajer-10 system in August last year, saying it had an enhanced flight-range duration and could carry a greater payload. 

A video accompanying that report showed the drone alongside other military hardware, with text saying “prepare your shelters” in both Hebrew and Persian. 

According to Iranian media reports, the drone has an operational range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) and can fly for up to 24 hours. Its payload can reach 300 kilograms (661 pounds), double the capacity of the Mohajer-6, the reports have added. 
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London — A man has been arrested after an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were stabbed in central London, London’s Metropolitan Police said Monday.

The attack occurred in Leicester Square, a magnet for tourists with its shops, theaters and cinemas. The square and surrounding area have an estimated 2.5 million visitors every week.

Police said the two victims were taken to a major trauma center. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.

The stabbing occurred as Britain is on edge after violence for the past week as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. The disturbances have been fueled by right-wing activists who used social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event.

It was not immediately clear whether the stabbing had any link to the unrest.

Police had been braced for further riots over the weekend, but no widespread unrest emerged. Ministers remained on high alert, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said, adding its work was not done in dealing with the fallout from the violence.
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London — The people of Southport, England, came together Sunday for the first of the funerals for three girls killed during a dance class, remembering 9-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar’s radiant smile and calling for an end to the unrest that has convulsed Britain since the attack two weeks ago. 

Hundreds of mourners packed St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and spilled into the street outside, which had been decorated with pink ribbons and balloons in Alice’s honor. Chief Constable Serena Kennedy was among them, and she delivered the parents’ message that no one should commit acts of violence in their daughter’s name. 

“I am ashamed and I’m so sorry that you had to even consider this in the planning of the funeral of your beautiful daughter, Alice,” said Kennedy, who heads the Merseyside Police force, which covers the area around Liverpool. “And I hope that anyone who has taken part in the violent disorder on our streets over the past 13 days is hanging their head in shame at the pain that they have caused you, a grieving family.” 

Far-right activists have used misinformation about the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class that killed Alice as a pretext for anti-immigrant demonstrations. They descended into riots and looting as mobs attacked mosques, shops owned by immigrants and hotels housing asylum-seekers. The disturbances have been fueled by social media users who spread misinformation about the suspect in the July 29 stabbing rampage.

Rumors, later debunked, quickly circulated online that the suspect was an asylum-seeker, or a Muslim immigrant. The suspect was born in Wales and moved to the Southport area in 2013. His parents were originally from Rwanda.

The violence calmed Wednesday when far-right demonstrations anticipated in dozens of locations across Britain failed to materialize. Instead, peaceful anti-racism protesters showed up in force. 

But on Sunday, the focus was on Alice. 

Her parents, Sergio and Alexandra, described Alice as a “perfect dream child” who loved animals and moved through the world with confidence and empathy. 

“We feel shocked, unimaginable pain, we miss you,” they said in a tribute read on their behalf. “From time to time, the pin drops. When mommy says, ‘Good night, Sergio, good night, Alice,’ and then it hits us all over again. We don’t hear you back.’’ 

Jinnie Payne, the headteacher at Churchtown Primary School, remembered that Alice once decorated a teacher’s classroom pointer as a magic wand and outlined the seven “Alice qualities” that she wished every student had. 

Those included having a big smile, a genuine interest in others and treating everyone equally. 

“This has to be my favorite, how a child at such a young age could not favor one friend over another,” she told the congregation. “Friends, she played equally with them all. That is so hard to do, and she mastered it.” 

But she also loved to dance. 

On Sunday, her parents released a photo of Alice standing next to a cardboard cutout of Swift as she waited for her last dance class to begin. 

“The time has come to say, ‘there goes Alice,’” Payne said tearfully. “We are letting you go dancing now, Alice. Teach those angels a few dance moves.” 
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VARNAVA/ATHENS — Residents fled their homes Sunday in the village of Varnava near Athens as fire crews struggled to contain a fast-moving wildfire fueled by hot, windy weather that sent smoke clouds over the Greek capital.

More than 250 firefighters backed by 12 water-bombing planes and seven helicopters battled the blaze that broke out at 3 p.m. and quickly reached the village 35 km (20 miles) north of Athens.

“The village was surrounded in no time, in no time. It’s really windy,” resident Katerina Fylaktou told Reuters. “It started from one point and suddenly the whole village was surrounded,” she said.

Authorities sent evacuation alerts for five nearby areas. By early evening, thick brown smoke hung over much of Athens and reached the island of Aegina to its south.

Hundreds of wildfires have broken out across Greece this summer, which has recorded its hottest June and July after its warmest winter. Like elsewhere in the Mediterranean, scientists have linked the fires to increasingly hot, dry weather driven by global climate change.

A European Commission report in April said the 2023 wildfire season in Europe was among the worst this century. Just this month, fires burned amid extreme heat in Spain and the Balkans as well as Greece.

Greek fire brigade spokesperson Vassilis Vathrakogiannis said the Varnava blaze spread due to gale force winds.

Flames as high as 25 meters (82 feet) swallowed up trees and shrubland.

Another blaze in a forested area near the town of Megara, west of Athens, had been contained by Sunday afternoon, the fire brigade said. 

Several other regions across Greece were on high alert for fire risk Sunday and Monday. 

“We are expecting a very difficult week,” said Kostas Lagouvardos, research director of the Athens Observatory. “If the Varnava blaze is not contained during the night, we will have a problem tomorrow,” he said. 

Fire-fighting aircraft ceased operations at dusk. 

On Saturday, Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said he had called for emergency measures involving the army, police and volunteers to deal with forest fires until Aug. 15. 

“Extremely high temperatures and dangerous weather conditions will prevail,” he said. “Half of Greece will be in the red.” 

In June and July, above-normal temperatures were registered on 57 out of 61 days, Lagouvardos said. Greece is forecast to record its hottest ever summer. 
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Paris — French police evacuated the area around the Eiffel Tower after a man was seen climbing the Paris landmark hours before the Olympics closing ceremony Sunday.

The shirtless man was seen scaling the 330-meter (1,083-foot) tall tower in the afternoon. It’s unclear where he began his ascent, but he was spotted just above the Olympic rings adorning the second section of the monument, just above the first viewing deck. 

Police escorted visitors away from the area around 3 p.m. Some visitors who were briefly locked on the second floor were allowed to exit around 30 minutes later. 

“An individual started climbing the Eiffel Tower at 2:45 p.m., police intervened and the person was detained,” a Paris police official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation into the incident. 

The Eiffel Tower was a centerpiece of the opening ceremony, with Celine Dion serenading the city from one of its viewing areas. The Tower is not expected to be part of the closing ceremony, which was set to begin at Stade de France in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis at 9 p.m. 

The incident occurred as the Olympic competition winds down and security services in Paris and beyond are shifting their focus to the closing ceremony that will bring the curtain down on the Games. 

More than 30,000 police officers have been deployed around Paris on Sunday. France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said about 3,000 police officers will be mobilized around the Stade de France, and 20,000 police troops and other security personnel in Paris and the Saint-Denis area will be mobilized late into Sunday night to ensure safety on the last day of the Olympics.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Days after Ukraine began a surprise military incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke the government’s silence on it late Saturday by indirectly acknowledging ongoing military actions to “push the war out into the aggressor’s territory” in his nightly address.

Overnight into Sunday, a Russian drone and missile barrage on Kyiv killed two people including a 4-year-old boy, while in Russia, Kursk’s regional governor said 13 people were wounded when a Ukrainian missile shot down by Russian air defenses fell on a residential building.

The bodies of a 35-year-old man and his son were found under rubble after fragments of missiles fell on a residential area in Kyiv’s suburban Brovary district, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service on Sunday. Another three people in the district were also injured in the attack.

Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration said it was the second time this month Kyiv was targeted.

Popko said ballistic missiles did not reach the capital but that suburbs took the hit, while drones aiming for the capital were shot down.

Ukraine’s incursion continued for a sixth day on Sunday and is unprecedented for its use of Ukrainian military units on Russian soil. The exact aims of the operation remain unclear and Ukrainian military officials have adopted a policy of secrecy, presumably to ensure its success.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said 35 drones were shot down overnight over the Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod, Bryansk and Oryol regions.

Ukraine has not commented on the Sunday drone attacks inside Russia. But it comes as Ukraine has increased the pace of similar drone attacks largely targeting military infrastructure and oil depots in recent weeks.

But in Saturday’s evening address, Zelenskyy referred to army chief Oleksandr Syrsky’s briefings “on the front line and our actions and pushing the war into the aggressor’s territory.”

Thanking the soldiers involved, he added: “Ukraine is proving that it can really bring justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed — pressure on the aggressor.”

Russia’s army on Saturday confirmed it was still fighting the Ukrainian incursion for a fifth day.

It said Kyiv’s forces had initially crossed the border with around 1,000 troops, 20 armored vehicles and 11 tanks, though it claimed on Saturday to have destroyed five times that much military hardware so far.

‘Unprecedented’

Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said late Friday it was starting counterterror operations in the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions to protect citizens.

The Belgorod and Bryansk regions bordering Ukraine have also been hit hard by shelling and aerial attacks since Russia launched its offensive in February 2022.

Security forces and the military have sweeping emergency powers during counterterror operations.

Movement is restricted, vehicles can be seized, phone calls can be monitored, areas are declared no-go zones, checkpoints introduced, and security is beefed up at key infrastructure sites.

On the streets of Moscow Saturday, AFP journalists found support for tough measures to quell the response, but also some anger at how the incursion had been allowed to happen.

“We have to take all the steps that are possible in such a situation,” said Alexander Ilyin, a 42-year-old architect.

The anti-terrorism committee said Ukraine had mounted an “unprecedented attempt to destabilize the situation in a number of regions of our country.”

Russia on Friday appeared to hit back, launching a missile strike on a supermarket in the east Ukrainian town of Kostyantynivka that killed at least 14 people.

Another three were killed in the northeastern Kharkiv region on Saturday, local officials said.

Ukraine also said it had to evacuate 20,000 people from the Sumy region, just across the border from Kursk.

While neither side has provided precise details on Ukraine’s incursion, Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said it had hit some Ukrainian positions as far as 10 kilometers inside Russia.

It also reported hitting Ukrainian troops in areas 30 kilometers apart, an indication as to the breadth, as well as depth of Ukraine’s advance.

Belarus, Russia’s close ally, on Saturday ordered military reinforcements — ground troops, air units, air defense and rocket systems — to be deployed closer to its border with Ukraine in response to Kyiv’s incursion, its defense ministry said.

‘Particularly effective’

Russia’s nuclear agency on Saturday warned of the threat to the nearby Kursk nuclear power station, less than 50 kilometers from the fighting.

“The actions of the Ukrainian army pose a direct threat” to the Kursk plant in western Russia, state news agencies cited its atomic energy agency Rosatom as saying.

On Friday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, expressing similar concerns, had called for “maximum restraint.”

Zelenskyy’s comments Saturday notwithstanding, Ukraine’s leaders have remained tight-lipped on the operation.

The United States, Kyiv’s closest ally, said it had not been informed of the plans in advance.

Elsewhere on the front line, Ukraine on Saturday reported the lowest number of “combat engagements” on its territory since June 10.

That could be a sign its incursion is helping to relieve pressure on other parts of the sprawling front line where Moscow’s troops had been advancing. 
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London — Thousands of anti-racism demonstrators rallied Saturday across the United Kingdom to protest recent rioting blamed on the far right in the wake of the Southport knife attack that killed three children.

Crowds massed in London, Glasgow, Belfast, Manchester and numerous other towns and cities as fears of violent confrontations with anti-immigration agitators failed to materialize.

It followed a similar situation that unfolded Wednesday night, when anticipated far-right rallies up and down the country were instead replaced by gatherings organized by the Stand Up To Racism advocacy group.

More than a dozen places across England as well as Belfast had been hit by unrest prior to that, following the July 29 stabbing spree, which was wrongly linked on social media to a Muslim immigrant.

Rioters targeted mosques and hotels linked to immigration, as well as police, vehicles and other sites.

However, recent nights have been largely peaceful in English towns and cities, prompting hope among authorities that the more than 700 arrests and numerous people already being jailed has deterred further violence.

However, in Northern Ireland, which has seen sustained disorder since last weekend, police said they were investigating a suspected racially motivated hate crime overnight.

A petrol bomb was thrown at a mosque in Newtownards, east of Belfast, in the early hours of Saturday, with graffiti sprayed on the front door and walls of the building, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, or PSNI.

It said the petrol bomb thrown at the property did not ignite.

Taken seriously

“This is being treated as a racially motivated hate crime, and I want to send a strong message to those who carried this out, that this type of activity will not be tolerated, and any reports of hate crime are taken very seriously,” PSNI Chief Inspector Keith Hutchinson said.

There were also overnight reports of damage to property and vehicles in Belfast, as nightly unrest there rumbled on.

The disturbances in Northern Ireland were sparked by events in England but have also been fueled by pro-U.K. loyalist paramilitaries with their own agenda, according to the PSNI.

Around 5,000 anti-racism demonstrators rallied in Belfast on Saturday without incident.

In London, hundreds massed outside the office of Brexit architect Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party before marching to Parliament, as a large police presence looked on.

Farage and other far-right figures have been blamed for helping to fuel the riots through anti-immigrant rhetoric and conspiracy theories.

“It’s really important for people of color in this country, for immigrants in this country, to see us out here as white British people saying, ‘No, we don’t stand for this,'” attendee Phoebe Sewell, 32, from London, told AFP.

Fellow Londoner Jeremy Snelling, 64, said he had turned out because “I don’t like the right-wing claiming the streets in my name.”

He did not hold Farage “personally responsible” for the violence but argued that the Reform party founder had “contributed” to the volatile environment.

“I think he is damaging, and I think he’s dangerous,” Snelling said.
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moscow — Moscow on Saturday launched a “counter-terror operation” in three border regions adjoining Ukraine to halt Kyiv’s biggest cross-border offensive in the two-and-a-half year conflict.

Ukrainian units stormed across the border into Russia’s western Kursk region on Tuesday morning in a shock attack and have advanced several kilometers, according to independent analysts.

Russia has deployed additional troops and equipment, including tanks, rocket launchers and aviation units to stop the advancing troops.

Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said late Friday it was starting “counter-terror operations in the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions … in order to ensure the safety of citizens and suppress the threat of terrorist acts being carried out by the enemy’s sabotage groups.”

Under Russian law, security forces and the military are given sweeping emergency powers during “counter-terror” operations.

Movement is restricted, vehicles can be seized, phone calls can be monitored, areas are declared no-go zones, checkpoints introduced, and security is beefed up at key infrastructure sites.

The anti-terrorism committee said Ukraine had mounted an “unprecedented attempt to destabilize the situation in a number of regions of our country.”

It called Ukraine’s incursion a “terrorist attack” and said Kyiv’s troops had wounded civilians and destroyed residential buildings.

Ukrainian leaders have remained tight-lipped on the operation, and the United States, Kyiv’s closest ally, said it was not informed of the plans in advance.

But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appeared to tout his troops’ early successes, saying earlier this week that Russia must “feel” the consequences of the full-scale offensive it has waged against Ukraine since February 2022.

Russia’s defense ministry published footage on Saturday of tank crews firing on Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region, as well as an overnight air strike, after it said Friday it had deployed yet more units to the border region.

It also said it had downed 26 Ukrainian drones that tried to attack the region overnight.
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washington — China said Friday that it had filed an appeal with the World Trade Organization regarding hefty European Union tariffs placed on the import of Chinese electric vehicles.

The EU in July imposed tariffs of up to 37.6% on vehicles made in China after it found that the automakers had received large government subsidies that undermined European competitors. China, however, said Friday that any support it provides to its domestic EV market is given in accordance with WTO rules.

In a statement, China’s Commerce Ministry said that it had appealed the tariffs “to safeguard the development rights and interests of the electric vehicle industry and cooperation over the global green transformation.”

“The EU’s preliminary ruling lacks a factual and legal basis, seriously violates WTO rules and undermines the overall situation of global cooperation in addressing climate change,” the statement said.

“We urge the EU to immediately correct its wrong practices and jointly maintain the stability of China-EU economic and trade cooperation as well as EV industrial and supply chains.”

The European Commission said it would respond to China’s complaint through the proper channels.

“The EU is carefully studying all the details of this request and will react to the Chinese authorities in due course according to the WTO procedures,” a European Commission spokesperson told AFP.

WTO spokesperson Ismaila Dieng said in a statement that the organization had received the Chinese request, and that “further information will be made available once the request has been circulated to WTO members.”

Duties would take effect by November for five years, pending a vote by the EU member states.

‘Made in China 2025’

China’s dominance in the EV market stems from its 2015 industrial policy dubbed “Made in China 2025” that sought to make the nation a dominant force in global high-tech manufacturing, including the manufacture of EVs.

Chinese EV sales accounted for 8.1 million of the 13.7 million total cars sold worldwide in 2023, according to a report from the International Energy Agency. According to the Atlantic Council, the EU is the largest recipient of Chinese EV exports, accounting for nearly 40% in 2023.

In the years since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU had committed to the development of its green economy, highlighting the promotion of a European EV industry as a cornerstone in that effort.

In May, French automakers entered a government agreement that aims to drive EV sales up to 800,000 a year by 2027. This announcement preceded Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Europe the same month, during which he made stops in France, Serbia and Hungary with the aim of increasing his country’s ties on the continent.

Trade was a large focus of Xi’s meetings in France with President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen. With tensions unresolved, the EU subsequently issued the tariff increase two months after Xi’s departure.

The United States has taken similar moves to combat the strength of China’s EV industry, announcing in May that it would apply a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Canada may follow suit.

China has responded to Europe’s increased tariffs by launching its own investigations into French cognac exports and European pork, stoking fears of a future trade war with the EU.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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BARCELONA — Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont was on his way back to Belgium on Friday, having appeared at a rally in central Barcelona despite an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Spain, his party’s general secretary said on Friday.

Jordi Turull told RAC1 radio that he did not know whether Puigdemont had already reached his home in Waterloo, where he has lived for seven years in self-imposed exile since leading a failed bid for Catalonia’s secession in 2017.

He is wanted in Spain on suspicion of embezzlement related to a 2017 independence referendum, ruled illegal by the Spanish courts. Puigdemont says the vote was legal and therefore the charges linked to it have no basis.

“He did not come to be arrested in Spain but to exercise his political rights.”

Turull said Puigdemont had initially planned to attend an investiture vote in the regional parliament to elect a new leader of Catalonia.

Instead of walking from the rally to parliament, Puigdemont got into a car because of security concerns, and then decided at short notice to leave because he believed he would not be allowed to enter the parliament area, Turull said.

He added that Puigdemont had not wanted to provide an opportunity for photographs of him being arrested.

Turull was imprisoned between 2018 and 2021 on charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement over the independence referendum, but was pardoned by the Spanish government.

He has served as general secretary of Puigdemont’s hardline separatist party Junts since June 2022.
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