UK poised to approve massive Chinese embassy in London
China angrily warned of “consequences” if the embassy was not granted planning permission.
A flag flies atop a pole on the roof of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United Kingdom, on Portland Place in London on November 18, 2025. | Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images
LONDON — Keir Starmer is set to approve a new Chinese “super-embassy” in central London despite a string of security concerns which were raised through the planning process.
The Times reported Friday that intelligence services MI5 and MI6 are now satisfied that the project — long a source of controversy in the U.K. — should go ahead, with some “mitigations” to protect national security.
In a plot twist straight out of a techno-thriller — if techno-thrillers starred incompetent billionaires and corrupt presidents — Elon Musk just got busted sneaking 2,000 TONS of Chinese electrical transformers straight into the heart of America’s top-secret AI supercomputer—the Pentagon’s own xAI “Colossus”.
And here from the Daily Beast:
Musk’s AI Fortress Hides a Secret That Trump Will Hate
Trump Planning New Superclub With India? All About Buzz On New Core-5 Grouping
The idea is to create a new body of major powers, one that isn’t hemmed in by the G7’s requirements that the countries be both wealthy and democratically governed.
US President Donald Trump is reportedly exploring a new elite ‘C5’, or ‘Core Five’, forum of world powers that would bring together America, Russia, China, India and Japan, sidelining the existing Europe-dominated G7 and other traditional democracy and wealth based groupings.
While so far there has been no official word on the matter, American publication Politico reported that the idea for the new hard-power group came up in a longer, unpublished version of the National Security Strategy that the White House published last week.
The publication said it could not confirm the existence of the longer plan, but it was reported by Defense One.
The idea is reportedly to create a new body of major powers, one that isn’t hemmed in by the G7’s requirements that the countries be both wealthy and democratically governed.
“The strategy proposes a ‘Core Five,’ or C5, consisting of the United States, China, Russia, India, and Japan – several countries with populations over 100 million. It would meet regularly, like the G7, at summits on specific topics. The first on the proposed C5 agenda: security in the Middle East, specifically the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” the report said.
A “Trumpian Idea”?
According to Politico, the White House has denied the existence of this document, with press secretary Hannah Kelly insisting that “no alternative, private, or secret version” of the 33-page official plan exists.
However, national security experts believe the idea has a “Trumpian” ring to it, and the creation of the C5 could be appropriate for the current White House.
“This is consistent with how we believe President Trump views the world, which is non-ideological, through a sympathy for strong players, and through a tendency to cooperate with other great powers that maintain spheres of influence in their region,” Torrey Taussig, who served as director for European affairs on the US National Security Council during the Biden administration, told the publication.
She noted that Europe does not feature in the theoretical C5, “which, I guess, would make Europeans believe that this administration views Russia as a leading power capable of exercising its sphere of influence in Europe.”
Michael Sobolik, an aide to US Republican Senator Ted Cruz during the first Trump administration, noted that the creation of C5 would be a departure from Trump’s China policy in his first term as president.
“The first Trump administration adhered to the concept of great power competition, and that’s how we framed and discussed relations with China… This is just a huge departure from that,” he said.
Allies’ Concerns
The report comes at a time when Washington is already debating how much the second Trump administration intends to upend the world order. The idea casts existing forums like the G7 and G20 as inadequate for a multipolar world, prioritising deal‑making among major population and military‑economic powers.
US allies view the move as legitimisation of “strongmen” by elevating Russia over Europe and potentially weakening Western unity and NATO cohesion.
And poor Memphis population:
Aug 13, 2025 1:00 PM GMT
‘We Are the Last of the Forgotten:’ Inside the Memphis Community Battling Elon Musk’s xAI
Five days after Elon Musk’s Grok 4 became one of the most powerful large language models in the world, Alexis Humphreys had her first severe asthma attack in 15 years. She laid down in her house in Boxtown, Memphis in the humid, sticky summer, struggling to breathe, inhaling a smell of gas that had started wafting into her neighborhood about a year before. “It felt like my chest was caving in,” Humphreys, 28, says on her front porch a couple of days later.
The countries involved in the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes alliances and their partners
Five Eyes countries: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
Nine Eyes countries: The Five Eyes plus Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and France
Fourteen Eyes countries: The Nine Eyes plus Italy, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, and Spain
Partners of the Fourteen Eyes: Israel, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, British Overseas Territories
It’s worth noting that although all countries in the Fourteen Eyes share information within their group, the Nine Eyes and Five Eyes are both more secretive.
While the Five Eyes are privy to the information collected by the Nine Eyes, Fourteen Eyes, and the partners, not all the information collected by the Five Eyes is available to the others. The same is true of the Nine Eyes. The partners, while they do share information they collect with the other alliances, do not have any access to the information collected by the alliances on alliance countries.
As the want for increased surveillance grows, more countries apparently align themselves with this global surveillance system. This system of alliances seems to have a hierarchy of secrets.
Trump’s intel chief freezes out Five Eyes allies on Ukraine
The intelligence alliance of the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as the U.S. is one of the closest in the world.
The move by Gabbard is the second major curb on intelligence-sharing by President Donald Trump’s administration this year. | POOL photo by Eric Lee/EPA
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is blocking America’s closest intelligence allies from receiving updates on Russia-Ukraine peace talks in a shock move that upends decades of tight cooperation.
That effectively cuts America’s Five Eyes partners — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — out of the loop, stunning the intelligence community that has relied on the network since the end of World War II.
December 6, 20255:58 PM GMTUpdated December 6, 2025
Summary
US could withdraw from some NATO planning mechanisms if unsatisfied with progress
Unclear how US would measure progress
Trump rhetoric towards alliance runs hot and cold
WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) – The United States wants Europe to take over the majority of NATO’s conventional defense capabilities, from intelligence to missiles, by 2027, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week, a tight deadline that struck some European officials as unrealistic.
The message, recounted by five sources familiar with the discussion, including a U.S. official, was conveyed at a meeting in Washington this week of Pentagon staff overseeing NATO policy and several European delegations.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
borderslynn 