Serbia Keeps Interest Rates Steady as Inflation Quickens Again
The National Bank of Serbia held the one-week repurchase rate at 5.75% on Thursday, as predicted by most analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The decision followed a surge in the annual inflation rate to 4.6% in June, from 3.8% in May, breaching the upper end of the central bank's target range for the second time this year.
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17 minutes ago
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China's ‘super-embassy' plans in the heart of London anger locals who fear for their safety
It's a quiet, unassuming road that lies a stone's throw away from some of London's most celebrated landmarks. But residents of Cartwright Street could soon be looking out of their windows to the balconies of Chinese embassy staff, if plans to build a new 'super-embassy' in the area go ahead. China is pushing forward with designs for its new diplomatic outpost at Royal Mint Court, a large plot in the heart of London, near Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. The imposing building, which currently lies empty, was once home to the facility that manufactured Britain's coinage. If the proposal goes ahead, China will invest several hundreds of million dollars into the building's transformation, remaking it as the largest embassy in Europe. China bought the historic parcel of land in 2018, for around $312 million. The plans have raised espionage fears, rattled locals in the area nervous for their personal security, and come at a time when bounties have been issued by Beijing for Hong Kongers in the UK. The UK has been a popular destination for many migrating from the former British colony, now a semi-autonomous Chinese city, where Beijing has cracked down hard on dissent over the past five years. Barry, an insurance broker who did not provide CNN with a surname and works in the Royal Mint Court area, compared the Chinese takeover of the site to the UK government selling off the crown jewels. 'The building is such a UK monument… it was the Royal Mint. So to give that to a foreign government, especially the Chinese with everything that's happening with the Chinese at the moment, is a bit of a joke,' he told CNN. 'Our office is just facing it, and we are one unit in a block of maybe 2,000 employees who work there, and I've not heard anybody say one good thing about it.' 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The empty Royal Mint Court had been due for redevelopment into a complex with shops, offices and a leisure center before it was bought by China. Since then, some 100 homes in the area have been classified as being on Chinese-owned land. If the embassy plans go ahead, these properties will remain on Chinese land, although they will not fall under the embassy's territory. Locals in an apartment block on western Cartwright Street could also find themselves residing adjacent to the embassy staff's living quarters. Balconies to be purposely built for diplomatic staff would be visible from the block's rear windows, CNN understands. The Royal Mint Court Residents' Association, which represents around 300 people living in nearby buildings and has engaged in a years-long battle against the plan, say they are fearful of how China could exercise its powers as landlord once the embassy is built next door. The association's treasurer, Mark Nygate, 64, lives on the estate just meters from the site. 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But others with key stakes in the Royal Mint area have dismissed the espionage and bounty fears as 'scaremongering.' Mark Lahiff, a local property developer who serves as managing director of the UK's subsidiary of Malaysian-based IJM, spoke in favor of the embassy's establishment at a government hearing in London in February. 'This borough, Tower Hamlets, is one of the most impoverished boroughs in the UK,' Lahiff, whose projects with IJM include the Royal Mint Gardens aparthotel, told CNN. 'For the People's Republic of China to invest into this borough is a huge investment. That site in particular has been empty since 2008.' He continued, 'It's a listed site in a strategic part of London, next to the Tower of London. We've been looking at it rotting away for decades, so to bring some life and vitality into this area, and the socio-economic benefits, are huge for the borough.' But Nygate rejects the notion that Chinese investment would be advantageous for the area, saying that redevelopment would come at the expense of the residents living there currently. 'I've been against the embassy from the start,' he said. 'It's all about prestige in the end because they (the Chinese) want to outdo the American embassy.'
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