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Correct to 3 June 2014 - Post 897

Through 2021: The UIC attempts to ferment unrest among Shia in the Gulf Arab States. Saudi Arabia establishes a permanent garrison in Bahrain. Iran also destabilizes Pakistan where Baluchi's, Shia and other minorities fight for greater autonomy from a government struggling to contain the Taliban.

Tehran also negotiates with Moscow to coordinate energy policy and discuss the future of Central Asia, a vast land locked energy rich region between the two powers. Tehran pumps Iraqi and Iranian oil and natural gas through the Russian pipeline system to bypass lingering sanctions and get to Europe. The UIR also ships oil and gas to energy hungry China through Central Asia competing with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

March 15, 2021: Large scale rioting erupts in western Iraq's Sunni dominated Anbar province.

March 19, 2021: Seperatists secure Fallujah and Ramadi. Baghdad and Tehran accuse the Syrian Free Army, now in control of Damascus, of arming the rebels and announces a counteroffensive using American supplied and trained troops, a legacy of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” to retake Anbar.

March 22, 2021: Iranian martyr brigades and the Sadr brigades reinforce the Iraqi Army along with Kurdish militia.

March 27-April 7, 2021: Emulating Russian tactics in Chechnya, the Iraqi Army indiscriminately shells and bombs Ramadi, Fallujah and other cities and towns under the control al-Qaeda and Sunni rebels killing scores of militants and thousands of civilians in the worst violence since the Saddam era.

April 10-May7, 2021: Hoping to avoid costly house to house battles in western Iraqi rebel held cities, the Iraqi Army sends in Shia and Kurdish militia to finish off the Sunni insurgents. The militia retake Ramadi and Fallujah indiscriminately slaughtering tens of thousands of Sunni fighters and civilians alike in revenge for the killings if Shia in Syria and Lebanon. The Kurds are eagar to avenge persecution by Sunni Arabs under Saddam.

April 21, 2021: Coinciding with the wedding of Prince Harry and Jennifer Lawrence, the United Kingdom and Commonwealth nations celebrate the Queens 95th Birthday, with the same enthusiasm and celebratory moods of the Diamond Jubilee. It is sadly announced however that the Queen can no longer move on her own and requires a wheelchair, this leads pundits and newspapers to believe that she is close to death and to start expecting the next in line to the thrown. Between Prince George, Prince Christopher, Prince Alfred (the 3 sons of Princess Catherine) and Prince Harry.

April 26, 2021: The wedding of Prince Harry and Jennifer Lawrence occurs in a similar fashion as to how the wedding of Prince William and Princess Catherine occurred but quickly becoming one of the largest TV events in UK and Commonwealth history after the wedding of Prince William and Princess Catherine and the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the II. It is also the first major appearance of Princess Catherine and her sons since the plane crash in 2018 that killed Prince William. It is also the first public appearance of Queen Elizabeth the II in her wheelchair after being announced as immobile due to old age.

May 8, 2021: Scotland is finally accepted as a member of the European Broadcasting Union, despite their connection to the UK still. They do not participate in the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest held in the Netherlands. The winner is Ireland, commentators mentioning a possible new golden-era for Ireland.

May 25, 2021: A UN report puts the final death toll in Anbar at over 100,000, marking one of the worse periods of violence in the early 21st century. Some call the massacre a genocide. However, none debate the ability of the UIR to field an effective fighting force consisting of troops from all the member nations.

June 1, 2021: The Great American Depression, by Ashley Walker, PhD, is released. The book chronicles an almost decade long upswing in clinical depression, paranoia, schizophrenia, and phobias among the US population at large. Walker is quick to blame “…the glorification of fear in our society; from radical Islam who carry out acts of immense violence to state their religious and political beliefs, to a cable news media who would say the sky is falling if it meant people paid attention. This drives us to high school students having heart attacks, thousands of schizophrenia developments, and a disturbing lack of empathy and trust for Americans of all races and economic backgrounds. The only response we have to this is to sit and wait to be literally scared to death.“ The book, initially released solely on e-reader formats, sells very well, topping e-reader sales charts and quickly warranting a print run.

July 22, 2021: India announces it’s intentions to host the World Expo 2025 near to the Shivajo Nagar project. The ambitious plan includes housing all the residents still living in the slums into new affordable housing and giving them opportunity to gain jobs at the expo if it is won.

August 12, 2021: The first models of the jointly developed P-51 stealth fighter arrive from Russia and begin active duty in the Indian Air Force màking India the latest nation with 5th generation jets. The fighters are modified to fit the needs of the Indian Air Force in maintaining air supremacy over South Asia and portions of the Indian Ocean.

September 2, 2021: Former US senator from Kansas, running mate of Republican nomination in 1976, and Republican nomination from POTUS in 1996 Bob Dole dies at 98.

October 15, 2021: Hospital staff confirm that President Vladimir Putin is going to make a full recovery, several years after an assassination attempt had placed him in a coma. In response, Interim President Dmitri Medvedev has stated that he hopes “President Putin will return to the Presidency very soon.”

March 20, 2022: The 2022 Climate Change Action Conference finishes, with substantial promises from all governments in attendance. President Jones congratulated world leaders on the agreement, which she hopes will “slow or reverse the alarming rate of natural disasters the United States and the world now face”. The agreement, which requires a vast investment in clean energy and sweeping fuel-efficiency standards, was ratified by every government in attendance, even after the Japanese envoys threatened to leave the table following the talk of substantial nuclear energy expansion in seismically active areas such as Japan itself. President Dean, who has remained fairly quiet on his successor's Presidency, congratulated her “valiant efforts to combat the most dangerous foe the United States faces today”.

March 23, 2022: Former Russian president Vladimar Putin receives a briefing from top Russian generals and President Medvedev over world events during the former KGB officers nearly eight year coma. Putin is pleased that Russia had recovered Crimea, Novorossiya and Belarus but furious that Medvedev had agreed to withdraw from Kiev in response to western pressure. He begins immediately calling for plans to take Kiev and the Baltic States. His generals assure him after nearly eight hours such a move would be too risky in the present political environment. However, they inform him that the time was right to regain control of Kazakhstan and the western Kazakh oil and gas fields which would become a huge source of revenue for the Russian Federation.

March 31, 2022: JAXA releases their supersonic commercial airplane, the NEXST 3, for commercial deployment. Qantas and Japan Airways are the first to buy the JAXA NEXST 3 to run their America-Asia/Oceania routes. This is the first commercially available commercial jet to go into service since the grounding of the Concorde.

April 16, 2022: Numbers cross-referenced from the IMF and the World Bank confirm that China overtook the United States as the world's largest economy by nominal GDP in 2021 with a total GDP of $23 trillion USD compared to roughly $22 trillion for the United States. Although China's growth rate slowed to 4.8% for 2021 experts attribute this largely to the country entering a more advanced stage of economic development similar to South Korea or Taiwan in 2000 where double digit growth is very hard to achieve. The surge of shale gas production, infrastructure improvements, exports and the accelerated appreciation of the Yuan contributed to its economy overtaking that of America.

The UN now classifies China as a high income nation with a GDP per capita of $16,500 USD and an HDI of 0.802. The income gap between the coasts and the interior regions are huge except for the shale gas producing regions where living standards are approaches those of the advanced economies.

May 7, 2022: Although news of China overtaking the US in nominal GDP is seen by some as a blow to American prestige, others see it as an opportunity. US secretary of state Jon Huntsman, himself a fluent Mandarin speaker, visits Beijing negotiating a reduction in tariffs to help American companies sell more products to China's growing middle class. He also negotiates an increase in oil and LNG shipments to China through the Chinese operated Nicaragua Canal in Central America. Huntsman claims exports to China will boost American GDP growth by nearly 2 percentage points a year by 2030.

May 12, 2022: An automated Skylon C2 delivers nearly 10 tonnes of supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.

June 4, 2022: In the Eurovision Song Contest, Scotland has it's first entry under Scotland as an independent EBU member and gets 12th, the winner being Ireland again, fanning rumours of a new golden-era for Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest.

June 11, 2022: The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer is launched to hunt for liquid water on the Jovian moons of Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. The probe is scheduled to reach Jupiter by 2032.

June 17, 2022: With the expansion of desalination projects in Southern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, states in the American southwest, most notably California and Texas, consider the use of desalination powered by gas, nuclear and solar power to provide their growing populations with clean drinking water.

GE negotiates with energy giant Exxon-Mobile to jointly fund projects in Texas while the heavily indebted city of Los Angeles looks to loans from the federal government and abroad to finance a plant in Long Beach.

June 26, 2022: Meeting in the Chinese gas boom town of Kashgar, envoys from Beijing, Moscow and Tehran meet to discuss plans for partitioning the nominally allied states of Central Asia. Russia makes it clear that they intend to annex Kazakhstan, home to a very large ethnic Russian and Russian speaking population. China is initially furious having established de facto hegemony over the SREZ and recently become the world's largest economy. Noticing Russian intransigence, the Chinese eventually acquiesce on the condition that they get to annex Outer Mongolia, portions of eastern Kazakhstan including Almaty and Kyrgizstan as “lebensraum” for their huge population. Chinese mining interests and corporations had already made many of the above regions de facto Chinese colonies. China also demands that Russia continue the flow of Kazakh oil and gas eastwards at current prices in increased volumes. Putin is furious that China demands regions with over 1 million ethnic Russians but sees no choice but to agree to the terms of the most powerful country in Asia to gain their support for Russian gains in the west. Iran demands control over the Turkmen oil and gas fields which Putin accepts more easily. Eventually, the three powers agree to divide the entire massive region with most Tajik and Uzbek areas going to Iran. Given continuing tensions in Chechnya, Putin is somewhat relieved to give predominantly Muslim former Soviet republics to ally Iran not wanting to exacerbate the threat of terrorism too much.

September 25, 2022: With the opening of its first thorium fission plants, China signs a deal to import greater quantities of Indian thorium. In exchange, China promises to invest in the Indian nuclear industry. The two nations also agree to HSR links through Nepal and Myanmar as part of the Pan-Asia HSR system with the work beginning on the “roof of the world” HSR link by the end of the decade through the Tibetan plateau.

December 11, 2022: Hu Chunhua, governor of Guangdong, succeeds Ji Xinping as president of the People's Republic of China during the annual meeting of the People's Congress in Beijing. This signifies the ascension of the 6th generation of communist leaders during once in ten years transition of power.

Hu identifies many successes of the past ten years including a surge in energy production, modernization and expansion of the military, China becoming the world's largest economy, infrastructure improvements, the growth of the middle class and the adoption of a two child policy.

However, he acknowledges many of the problems China faces including crippling air pollution in its largest cities exceeding 2014 levels, rural poverty, traffic jams and tens of millions of urban residents who don't have access to basic welfare due to failure to reform the Hukou system. Hu avoids the issue of human rights and freedom of speech.

December 23, 2022: Large scale rioting and violence breaks out in the Kyrgyz city of Osh between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. The army moves in the quell violence only to exacerbate the situation after several police and army units defect to various sides.

January-March, 2023: The violence soon spreads to other parts of Kyrgyzstan as well as neighbouring Uzbekistan and Tajikstan. By the time the dust settles, nearly a quarter of a million people have become refugees and thousands are dead. Unbeknownst to the world, Russian, Chinese and Iranian agents are behind the violence near the planned future Sino-Iranian border.

January 6, 2023: In an emergency congress session, the new Chinese president outlines plans to address air pollution and traffic, now China's worst problems.

Hu promises to double nuclear power production yet again by 2032 while halving consumption of coal to alleviate air pollution and the resulting health problems.

He also promises to transition Chinese automakers towards higher fuel efficiency and the production of electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars. He also mandates the accelerated development of self driving cars in collaboration with search giant Baidu to alleviate traffic jams in China's crowded megacities. He promises data triangulated from the world's four navigation systems, the American GDP System, Europe's Galileo System, Russia's Glonoss System and China's Beidou System will increase the accuracy of navigation.

By 2022, residents in the largest Chinese cities are only allowed to drive their cars one in three days due to air pollution and traffic despite the expansion of highways and HSR. Hu also plans to expand both the Pan-Asian HSR System and China's own HSR network with the construction of the first maglevs using Chinese technology by the end of the decade.

He promises full reform of the hukou system by 2032 as well to reduce urban unrest.

Although transition towards multiparty elections is not on the table, Hu allows an increasing number of local and municipal elections and establishes grievance boards along the lines of the Uighur and Tibetan grievance boards to address the interests of communities threatened by infrastructure and industrial projects.

March 3, 2023: After “riots break out in Urumqi,” China sends the PLA to quell the violence increasing its military presence near parts of former Soviet Central Asia, their real target.

March 21, 2023: Central Asian War Despite normally peaceful relations between Russians and Kazakhs, mass rallies break out in northern and western Kazakh towns and cities calling for the unification of Kazakhstan with Russia. The protesters are armed and trained by the FSB and assisted by Spetsnaz agents who had slipped across the border.

March 23, 2023: After over a decade integrating the transportation, sanitation, water, telecommunication and energy infrastructure of the Pearl River Delta, China formally merges nine cities into a single megacity of 75 million people. The cities include Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhaoqing, Jiangmen, Zhongshan, Zhuhai and Huizhou.

Although originally slated for completion by 2017, the share scale of construction necessary to merge the nine cities took six years longer than expected. Shale gas revenues and a resulting resurgence in manufacturing finally paid for all the necessary infrastructure and service improvements to “make the delta one.”

The resulting conurbation is twice the size of Wales in area, more than twice the population of greater Tokyo and the largest metropolitan economy at $2.5 trillion.

Greater Delhi and Greater Mumbai had also overtaken Tokyo with populations of over 45 million and 40 million respectively, the previous largest two cities in the world.

HSR makes it possible to travel between any of the nine centres in under an hour while a single metrocard allows residents to use all the region's trains, subways and buses. Energy, cell phone, hospital, education and phone bills fall by as much as 85% in the most extreme cases. An extension of the intra-city HSR system links the South China Megacity to neighbouring Hong Kong.

The amalgamation of the Delta also settles the status of over 25 million migrant workers giving them access to health care, education and other basic services. Further reform of the Hukou system could increase the population of the South China Mega City to 100 million by 2030.

This move helps the Pearl River Delta wrest back some competitive advantage from Beijing and Shanghai which had transitioned better into a post manufacturing economy. However, air pollution and traffic remain a huge problem for the south China Megacity despite trillions of yuan invested in mass transit.

China reaches a the point of being 60% urban in 2023 with over 830 million people living in cities.

March 24, 2023: Central Asian War Astana is shocked by the violence and calls on nominal ally Putin to use his influence to help end the stand off in Kazakh cities.

March 26, 2023: Central Asian War Putin accuses Kazakh president Nursultan of dictatorial practices and calls for more autonomy for Russian speaking regions in a country where Russian was already an official language.

March 29, 2023: Central Asian War Several Kazakh police and army units defect to the protesters in the largely Russo-phone city of Petropavlovsk north of Astana. The FSB “persuades” Kazakh security forces to switch sides in order to keep their jobs.

April 1, 2023: Central Asian War US Secretary of State Jon Huntsman compares Russian actions in Kazakhstan to Hitler's takeover of the Sudetenland and promises to increase shipments of American oil and LNG to Europe “to decrease their dependence on Russian and Kazakh gas to zero.”

April 3, 2023: Central Asian War Pavlodar falls completely to Russian forces after more army and police forces defect while fighting breaks out in Aktobe, Karagandy and even Astana itself between Kazakh security forces and pro-Russians. Kazakhstan west of the Ural River falls completely to the Russians.

April 4, 2023: Central Asian War During an emergency meeting in Brussels, Huntsman fails to get European commitment to biting sectoral sanctions against Russia due to lingering mistrust between Europe and America over the latter’s handling of Syria as well increased trade with Russia despite targeted sanctions in place since 2014.

April 6, 2023: Central Asian War With violence in Kazakhstan continuing to escalate, the USA seizes the assets of all Russian banks in the United States closing Russia out of the American financial system. Putin had anticipated this move and advised Russian banks to move their capital into Yuan, Rouble and Euro denominated assets.

April 8, 2023: Central Asian War At 6:00 AM Beijing time, Chinese mining corporations in Mongolia order private NGOs in fact answerable to Beijing to seize mines and accompanying infrastructure they operate in Outer Mongolia.

April 9, 2023: Central Asian War A 15,000 strong PLA force marching from Inner Mongolia reaches and occupies Ulan Bator. The Mongol Army does not even attempt to fight knowing just how hopeless the situation is for them.

April 10, 2023: Central Asian War Chinese president declares the annexation of Mongolia claiming to be “reclaiming” territory stolen from the Qing Dynasty. Putin immediately recognizes the Chinese annexation of Mongolia while western leaders remain silent.

April 13, 2023: Central Asian War Leaders from America, The EU and Japan condemn China's move calling it a “landgrab.” However, no mention is made of sanctions considering China's size and economic importance drawing accusations hypocrisy from many critics.

April 16, 2023: Central Asian War In the largest airborne operation in history, over 20,000 Russian paratroopers transported mainly by helicopter seize the west Kazakh oil and gas fields to prevent them from being “damaged in the fighting.” Russian forces isolate Kazakh Army units in West Kazakhstan some of which defect in order to “keep their jobs.”

The same day, the PLA crosses the eastern border of Kazakhstan moving towards Almaty and Lake Balkhash. Iran moves into Turkmenistan capturing the capital Ashgabat right near the Iranian border. Amphibious landings in the Caspian Sea and airdrops secure the Turkmen oil fields in a manner similar to those employed by the Russians. Legions of Iraqi, Iranian and Kurdish militia, many veterans of the conflict in Anbar Province, follow the Iranian Army, now under UIR command, into Central Asia.

April 17, 2023: Central Asian War The US withdraws it ambassadors from Moscow and Tehran in response to the respective seizures of the Kazakh and Turkmen oil and gas fields. Washington remains noticeably silent in China causing many to note Washington's helplessness as three Eurasian powers gobble Central Asia.

April 19, 2023: Central Asian War Karagandy falls after a Kazakh Army unit defects and other forces are redirected to defend Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, from the Chinese.

The same day, Russia seizes Artrau in an amphibious assault and the PLA reaches the outskirts of Almaty beginning a brief but fierce fight for the city where many ethnic Russians join the Kazakh defenders felling betrayed by Moscow. Russia's Central Asia rapid reaction force moves into Kazakhstan to assist in the battle for Astana.

April 21, 2023: Central Asian War Russian airmobile infantry seize the Baikonur cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan, a major objective away from the main fighting.

April 23, 2023: Central Asian War Almaty falls after fierce fighting claiming the lives of several thousand Kazakh and Chinese soldiers. Precision strikes by Chinese J-20s jets and drones help break the back of the Kazakh Army in that sector. Russia repeats these tactics in the battle for Astana where it meets its first serious resistance by the Kazakh Army.

April 25, 2023: Central Asian War Despite orders to continue fighting from Jazakh president for life Nursultan, the Kazakh Army agrees to a “ceasefire” on the Astana front effectively surrendering on the condition that Kazakh soldiers who resisted receive decent treatment from the Russians and Chinese noting how the Kazakhs fought bravely fought against impossible odds. Russia and China agree. China moves into the rest of Almaty and East Kazakhstan provinces while Russia occupies the rest of the country.

More surrendering Kazakh Army units join the Russian Army, predominantly but not exclusively ethnic Russians. Many Kazakhs are bitter over the a Chinese capture and anticipated annexation of the east preferring Russia.

April 27, 2023: Central Asian War Chinese and Russian soldiers meet and shake hands on the western shore of Lake Balkhash, part of the new de facto border between Russia and China in Central Asia. The bulk of the PLA in Central Asia, now numbering over 120,000 after receiving reinforcements continues into Kyrgyzstan to “quell the ethnic violence plaguing the failed state.”

April 28, 2023: Central Asian War With much of the Kyrgiz Army still dealing with violence in Osh and other cities near the Uzbek border, the PLA captures Bishkek unopposed.

April 29, 2023: Central Asian War Realizing the hopelessness of their situation, Kyrgyzstan surrenders to the PLA on the same conditions as Kazakhstan.

May, 2023: Central Asian War The Iranian Army backed by UIR militia moves into Uzbekistan and Tajikistan from Turkmenistan and northern Afghanistan respectively. The Iranians repeat the tactics of the Russians and Chinese with some Tajik and Uzbek units joining them while others are isolated and destroyed by militia who carry out “mopping up operations” with extreme violence.

By the end of the month, all of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are under Iranian control except for a portion of eastern Tajikistan in the Pamirs seized by Chinese special forces. Iran “reclaims the great Persian cities of Bukhara, Khiva, Samarqand, Dushanbe and Tashkent” promising to bring “stability and development” to the mostly impoverished regions.

June 1, 2023: In Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Eurovision Song Contest occurs with Egypt winning for the first time since it joined in 2017. The competition is marred by a successful terrorist attack on the official Eurovision hotel. Preliminary investigations and interviews say the explosion came from the room between where the Moroccan and British entries were staying. The explosion took out the entire floor, but happened during the contest so the floor was empty. 4 people died and 3 injured when the floor collapsed on the rooms above onto the 3 rooms below none the less.

June 3, 2023: A new cell of Islamic extremists, much like Yawm ad-Dī who committed the attacks on Christmas shoppers in 2019, but with a combination of members from Morocco and Yawm ad-Dī, claims responsibility for the attack on the Eurovision Song Contest as a protest of Morocco participating in a “western competition”. The claim does not stand as being from a cell of Yawm ad-Dī and is decided that it comes from a group of lone-wolves.

June 4, 2023: Central Asian War Russia, Iran and China announce the annexation of all the conquered Central Asian territories. Russia and Iran hold rigged plebiscites in the regions they control while China simply claims to be reclaiming territories held by the Qing Dynasty, even if very briefly. Beijing adds the “Ferghana and Balkhash” districts as well as a sliver of eastern Tajikstan to Xingjing and combines Outer Mongolia with the Inner Mongolia Semi Autonomous region to form the Mongolian Semi-Autonomous Region.

July 6, 2023: China and India formalize their borders in the Himalayas with China recognizing Sikkim and Aranchal Pradesh as Indian territory in exchange for Indian revognition of Chinese sovereignty over a tiny sliver of Kashmir.

August 18, 2023: China, India and ASEAN agree to regulate damming and water usage along the rivers originating in the Tibetan plateau flowing into Southern Asia including the Bràhmaputra and the Mekong.

February 15, 2024: Surveillance places wanted terrorist Samantha Lewthwaite, nicknamed the “White Widow” in Western Europe. The widow of 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay and terrorist Habib Saleh Ghani, killing in a raid in 2007, was identified by the Spanish CentroNacional de Inteligencia and is supposedly running a cell of Yawm ad-Di, connecting two cells of Yawm ad-Di with different terrorist groups. Surveillance also identifies a French cell with plans to attack the French rail systems in multiple attacks, advised by Lewthwaite to be similar to the 7/7 attacks.

February 19, 2024: The ISS Commission announces it will reform as the International Space Agency to better co-ordinate international missions in Space and promote commercials and private endeavours. The ISA will handle the new ISS, now under the name of the Babylon Station.

February 23, 2024: The French cell of Yawm ad-Di who were plotting the attacks on the French rail systems is arrested outside of Nice, but no advances on Samantha Lewthwaite or her cell had been made.

March 2, 2024: Yawm ad-Di is put onto the list of terrorist groups in Spain, France, UK, Ireland, Germany and the European Union. Samantha Lewthwaite is then called the most wanted person in the European Union, even if there is no evidence that she is even in the union any more.

March 11, 2024: On the 20th anniversary of the Madrid train bombings in 2004, a hurried attack occurs on 3 trains travelling into Madrid in striking similarities to the 2004 attack, but on a lower scale. The attack is instantly attributed to Yawm ad-Di and Samantha Lewthwaite’s cell and is suspected that this was the plot to occur in France. A total of 5 bombs detonated with a death toll across the 3 trains of 73.

May 25, 2024: Cairo, Egypt holds the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest with increased security across the nation in the Sinai province and in Cairo itself, two major targets during the contest. No attacks or threats happen, though many extremist groups comment on the sinful nature of the contest, being a western influence in the Muslim world. The contest is won by Turkey (who haven’t hosted a contest for 10 years) narrowly behind Spain and Azerbaijan who were 12 points separated. A shock result for Ireland the UK, who have been on fine-form of 14th for UK and Ireland not proceeding from the Semi-Finals.

August 5, 2024: Presumptive Democratic nominee Martin Heinrich releases his final vice-presidential short-list. The three names on the list are Hawaii Governor and primary runner-up Tulsi Gabbard, former Virginia governor Tom Perriello, and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Although Heinrich is expected to pick a Vice-Presidential candidate from this short-list there is a slight possibility he picks someone else. The last time a major party presidential candidate has strayed from their short-list was in 2008 when then Senator John McCain chose then Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

October 6, 2024: Construction begins on the new Manila Olympic Stadium that will serve as the venue for athletic sporting events during the 2028 Olympics. Constructed on reclaimed land to the south of the city center (along with the rest of Olympic Park), it is one of the many projects by the Philippine government to prepare the city for the 2028 Games.

December 27, 2024: Thousands of dollars in damages occur alongside 14 deaths are recorded as a block of sub-urban houses are flattened outside of Toronto as a result of a sonic boom coming from a Qantas NEXST 3. News reports equal the damage to a F3 tornado in strength.

January 3, 2025: Results from investigations into the sonic boom created from the NEXST 3 in Toronto reveals a deadly issue with cold conditions and de-icing, destabilising the drag reduction and having an impact on the now famous “no power sonic boom”. All NEXST 3 planes are grounded in airports experiencing cold and icy conditions and their routes are replaced by older planes.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada releases a report suggesting that airports create a new de-icing formula particularly for Supersonic and Hypersonic aircraft for better effect.

June 23, 2025: 22 years after its first manned space mission, China becomes the second nation after the United States to successfully land men on the moon through its Chang-e program. This achievement is a huge source of national pride to the Chinese. The USA promises to return to the moon by 2030 while Russia also plans to land its first cosmonaut on the lunar surface by that date. China, the USA and Russia are all launching reusable rockets for space missions. Hu Chunhua promises a Chinese lunar base by 2030.

July 8-July24, 2025:Mumbai World Expo he world expo shows how far Mumbai has coming in terms of infrastructure and living standards. Several new infrastructure projects including extensions of the Mumbai subway and a expansion of the port of Mumbai highlight the attempt to turn Mumbai into a world class city. Nuclear, solar, wind and tidal energy power the expo. Mumbai is now the third largest financial centre in Asia by market capitalization after Shanghai and Pearl Delta-Hong Kong, eclipsing Tokyo.

Critics point out that India still has untouchables and urban poor occupying shanty towns outside wealthy and middle class neighbourhoods. Many social commentators blame the residual influence of India's caste system despite caste based discrimination being illegal. However, wages, education, health care and living standards have increased many times nation wide over the first quarter of the 21st century.