Speaking to London’s Daily Telegraph, a French official said: “Mr Macron said publicly during his trip that he wanted to get China to commit to playing a constructive role. Naturally, diplomatic discussions took place and there is a follow-up.”

The reports come as Macron cause outrage in Berlin, London, and Washington over his comments following his China trip, in which he said that Europe shouldn’t “follow” America into a conflict with Beijing if the communist nation invades Taiwan and that Europe should develop its own “strategic autonomy” to stop being the “vassal” of the United States.

The existing regulations would only allow the nation to get through the next winter “if temperatures are warm,” the INES report said, adding that “if temperatures are medium to cold, the gas storage facilities will be heavily or completely emptied.”

In the worst-case scenario, the storage facilities will be “already completely emptied in January 2024 during cold temperatures,” the forecast said, adding that it is unlikely Berlin would be able to compensate for the missing volumes and would face a severe shortage through the rest of the winter.

Inflation is now at the same level as it started the year, having been in double-digits since September and reaching an eye-watering 41-year high of 11.1 per cent in October. After figures yesterday showed wages still rising rapidly, traders chalked up a 97 per cent chance of an interest rate rise from 4.25 per cent to 4.5 per cent at the next meeting on May 11.

Markets are also anticipating a probability that the level will peak around 5 per cent. Until recently there was considered to be a significant chance that the base rate had reached the top.

This decision was taken while, during his visits in China and the United Arab Emirates, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was exploring ways to bring about a peaceful settlement between Moscow and Kiev. The USA needs to stop encouraging the war and start to talk about peace,” Lula demanded, and called also on the EU to engage in peace talks. The dispute between the West and the Global South over how to handle the Ukraine war is taking on a principled character, with governments such as the Brazilian pushing for an end to Western hegemony.

The Brazilian government is not only refusing to join the sanctions against Russia or to deliver weapons to Ukraine. Recently it also allowed – under hefty protest from the United States – two warships from Iran to anchor in Rio de Janeiro.

During his visit to China, Lula announced that he constantly asks himself “why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar.” Brasília will raise the level of the strategic partnership with the People’s Republic and, together with China, “balance world geopolitics” – an implicit commitment to strive for the transition from the era of Western global hegemony to a multipolar world. Lula is pursuing, as Foreign Minister Vieira recently explained, “a universalistic foreign policy.”

Behind closed doors, 15 bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed, including investment deals, research and development plans, food standards, state news agencies, technology transfers, and cooperation on building the seventh China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS). The meeting built upon years of strategic partnership. China displaced the US as Brazil’s largest trade partner in 2009, and the event was about deepening that process.

However, the most interesting facet of the visit was the tone of the public statements by both leaders, as it went beyond diplomatic niceties and showed a clear commitment from both countries in taking on a leadership role that will challenge the years of Washington’s unipolar dominance. The success of Lula’s China trip will clearly put an extra spring in the step of the Latin American governments that will be receiving Russia’s official delegation this week. The win-win cooperation possible with China and Russia stands in clear contrast to the arrogant finger-wagging and interventionism on offer from the US.

Taiwan is “part of China’s sacred territory,” Wang responded, stating that “to truly keep the Taiwan Strait peaceful, it is essential to unequivocally oppose and stop” any steps by Taipei toward independence. Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet are “China’s internal affairs that no foreign forces should intervene in under any pretext or in any way,” he declared.

“We urge the G7 to concentrate on their own problems and discard the Cold War mentality,” Wang concluded. “The G7 foreign ministers’ meeting has grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, and maliciously smeared and discredited China,” Wang said. “The communique is full of arrogance and prejudice.”

Yellen was asked during an interview on Sunday by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria about the efficiency of the anti-Russia sanctions and about Washington’s track record of what he described as the “weaponization of the dollar.” Zakaria cited recent statements by Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and other politicians about the risk of dependency on the US currency. He asked whether the present time would be remembered as the moment when “the dollar’s hegemony and its status as a reserve currency began to falter.”

Yellen acknowledged that use of financial sanctions “could undermine the hegemony of the dollar” in the long run, but promised that Washington was using this “important tool” judiciously and with the backing of its allies.

“The USA is a mess. Our economy is crashing, inflation is out of control,” the former president stated. The US dollar is “crashing” as well, he claimed, adding that the American currency “will soon no longer be the world’s standard.” This would amount to Washington’s “greatest defeat in 200 years” and was “unthinkable just a few years ago,” Trump said as he addressed the NRA convention in Indianapolis last Friday.

The Biden administration’s failures in the foreign policy field have seen Russia join forces with China, the former president said, adding that, together with Iran and North Korea, Moscow and Beijing have now formed a “menacing and destructive coalition.” “We have never been in such danger in our lives. I believe it is the most dangerous time in the history of our country,” he said.

Nenner says his cycles see, “The dollar going down to 70 on the dollar index.” It’s a bit over 100 now, but it gets worse. Nenner points out, “I don’t want people to get depressed, but I am really worried. If the US does not rule the world any more... They think they can still tell the world what to do. Physically, the Americans are in danger, and they don’t seem to understand that... The economy is really going to suffer. Nenner says the signs are clear in the cycle that “America is at the end of empire... The United States is going backwards, and it is not number one anymore.”

On the war cycle, Nenner has been forecasting a huge loss of life coming. Nenner is predicting “30% of the people on Earth will die in the next war cycle. We are like at the end of civilization of the United States. It’s not that we are all going to drop dead, but it’s the end of civilization. The same issues that finished other countries like bad education, too many outstanding loans and people will become too lazy to really do hard work. That usually means the end of an empire.”

For many years, Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Hamas has been cold and tense, and the kingdom even arrested many people with ties to the jihadist group, which rules the Gaza Strip and openly seeks Israel’s destruction. But following its landmark rapprochement with Iran, Riyadh appeared set to host a high-level delegation that will try to mend Hamas’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, which has been frosty since 2007, when the terror group overthrew the Palestinian Authority and took over Gaza in a bloody coup. Saudi leaders had blamed Hamas for the failure of attempts at reconciliation between it and the PA’s Fatah party.

Since the Oslo Accords were signed, at least 1,661 Israelis have been murdered in terror attacks. Many more have been wounded. Sixty-four Americans have been killed by Palestinian terrorists as well. Not a whisper from the State Department.

The recent murders of Lucy Dee, Maia Dee, Rina Dee, Or Eshkar, Elan Ganeles, Hallel Yaniv, Yagel Yaniv, Shlomo Liderman, Yaakov Yisrael Paley and Asher Menachem Paley all have their roots in the Oslo Accords. Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas still honors the murderers and continues to pay large sums of money to terrorists and their families. Until Israel and the international community stop the 30-year charade of the Oslo Accords, terrorism will remain a major problem in Israel. Enough is enough.

The papers, which were allegedly uploaded to a gaming web forum by a 21-year-old US National Guardsman, suggest that Beijing would very likely gain early air supremacy over Taiwan should a conflict break out in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait.

The leaked Pentagon assessments also indicate that Taipei’s military leadership has doubts surrounding its own ability to “accurately detect missile launches,” and that only around 50% of its aircraft are capable of effectively engaging Beijing’s more advanced air force.

As an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi could play a pivotal role in helping to end the war in Ukraine. The conflict has dragged on for over a year, driven up energy prices and inflicted more damage on economies struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. The Europeans want Xi's help. They want him to talk to Ukraine's president as well as Russia's, but they don't see him as the key mediator. China's proposed peace plan for Ukraine is mostly a list of its previously known positions and is unacceptable, EU officials say.

The EU also fears that Xi might supply weapons to Russia. They've been particularly disturbed by Putin's plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. That announcement came just days after Xi and Putin met to cement their "no-limits friendship." Baerbock said the war is "top of my agenda."

Beyond the geopolitics lies business. The EU and China did more than 2.3 billion euros ($2.5 billion) worth of trade every day last year, and the Europeans don't want to endanger that. However, the EU's trade deficit has more than tripled over the past decade, and it wants to level the business playing field. It's also desperate to limit its imports of critical resources from China, like rare earth minerals or hi-tech components, after painfully weaning itself off its biggest, and most unreliable, gas supplier, Russia. It's a fine line to walk, and China is adept at divide-and-conquer politics.

The planned arms industry trip to Taiwan comes as the US is looking to ramp up arms sales and general military cooperation with Taiwan, which will further exacerbate tensions with Beijing. The delegation plans to meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who recently provoked major Chinese military drills by meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

When asked about the prospect of US companies jointly producing arms with Taiwan, a Biden administration official expressed support for the idea. "From a very high-level perspective, we think that co-production arrangements make sense, but we need to take a look at them on a case-by-case basis, and it has to be at the request of US industry," the official told Nikkei.

Research shows that most children need systematic, sound-it-out instruction — known as phonics — as well as other direct support, like building vocabulary and expanding students’ knowledge of the world. The movement has drawn support across economic, racial and political lines. Its champions include parents of children with dyslexia; civil rights activists with the NAACP; lawmakers from both sides of the aisle; and everyday teachers and principals.

About one in three children in the United States cannot read at a basic level of comprehension, according to a key national exam. The outcomes are particularly troubling for Black and Native American children, nearly half of whom score “below basic” by eighth grade.

“The kids can’t read — nobody wants to just say that,” said Kareem Weaver, an activist with the NAACP in Oakland, California, who has framed literacy as a civil rights issue and stars in a new documentary, “The Right to Read.” Science of reading advocates say the reason is simple: Many children are not being correctly taught.