State of play: President Biden has repeatedly claimed that while the US seeks to compete with China it does not wish for conflict.

Qin threw cold water on the US position, claiming that the US "so-called competition" amounted to "total containment and suppression." "If the US side does not hit the brakes but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing or a crash and there will be conflict and confrontation," Qin said at the press conference.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby pushed back on Qin's assessment during a press briefing later Tuesday, saying that "nothing" about the administration's approach to US-China relations "should lead anybody to think that we want conflict."

"With all due respect to the Chinese foreign minister, there's no change to the United States' posture when it comes to this bilateral relationship," Kirby added.

Beijing has not condemned Russia's invasion and China's military, economic and political ties with Russia — one year after its invasion of Ukraine — continue to deepen, Axios' Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian reports. The US has previously said that Beijing was considering sending direct lethal military aid to Russia, but there had not been evidence that any had been sent.

The Chinese government's proposal takes a clear anti-Western position, calling for the end of Western-led sanctions, which Beijing has long opposed. But it also implicitly criticizes some of the Russian army's tactics, such as blocking grain exports from Ukraine and endangering nuclear plants.

Given Beijing's close relationship with Moscow and tense relationship with the West, it's hard to imagine that China's leaders would try to push any real concessions on Putin. That means Western leaders are likely to be skeptical of Beijing's efforts to broker a peace.

Beijing's actions on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrate the growing role China's leaders wish to play on the global stage, as its government seeks to take a leading role in one of the world's most high-profile current crises — and to bolster its own geopolitical interests by doing so. Chinese officials abstained again in a United Nations General Assembly vote on Thursday that demanded Putin's forces withdraw from Ukraine.

Beijing has not condemned Russia's invasion and appears to be largely following basic international conventions regarding the war. Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and there's no evidence that China has sent direct lethal military aid to Russia — though the US says Beijing is considering it.

China "was not directly concerned in the conflict, but was not standing idly by," Wang said at the Munich Security Conference last week, adding the peace plan would be based on “the sovereignty of all countries."

Western leaders appeared skeptical at this announcement, the Financial Times reported. “Who doesn’t want guns to stop firing? Except we have to be incredibly wary of the kind of traps that can be set,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the conference.

Europe hasn't entirely soured on China either, as trade ties between Europe and China remain strong. Beijing's attempt to drive a wedge between European countries and the US by encouraging Europe to exer cise an "independent" foreign policy toward both Russia and China has also made little headway.

Putin hailed it as a "significant event" for Russia's energy industry and the whole economy. He joined a video link to workers at the site, who were shown lined up on the snow in blue protective suits and white helmets, and gave the order "Start work!" to inaugurate the project.

Russia started selling natural gas to China at the end of 2019 via the Power of Siberia pipeline, which supplied about 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas in 2021 and is due to reach its full capacity of 38 bcm in 2025. Russia is now Beijing's No 3 gas supplier.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev made a surprise visit to China on Wednesday for talks with President Xi Jinping, which Medvedev said had included discussion of the "no limits" strategic partnership that the two countries announced in February.

China, Russia's top oil buyer, has not agreed to the price cap. Traders said they were doing business as usual. China's independent refiners, dominant clients of ESPO, a grade exported from the Russian Far East port of Kozmino, secure the shipments almost all on delivered basis from traders who arrange shipping and insurance, shielding the refiners from possible secondary sanctions that may result from the price cap.

With the price cap in place, China, India and Turkey could have more bargaining power, the analysts added. In Shandong, a province with many independent refiners, known as teapots, ESPO is also facing increasing competition particularly from Iranian oil, which traded at a discount of nearly $10 against ICE Brent last week.

Beijing has faced a growing wave of accusations from Western officials and media in recent weeks of potentially being open to supplying Russia with military aid – an allegation which it denies. China will “stay committed to an independent foreign policy of peace,” Premier Li Keqiang said on Sunday, making no mention of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

China has repeatedly denied the accusations. Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Washington was peddling “false information about weapons” and sanctioning Chinese firms “for no reason,” describing this as “hypocritical” and “a blatant act of bullying.” Washington is already fueling the fire in Ukraine by “pouring weapons into one side of the conflict, thus prolonging the fight and making peace elusive,” Mao added.

If the central banks are going to compete directly for retail accounts, it’s going to shrink the fees and business for a lot of banks. You are talking about cutting their income or putting them out of business. So, CBDC is highly controversial. The CBDC is the ultimate lockdown tool, and they can lock anyone down whenever they feel like it.”

Today, Klaus Schwab rises as leader of the World Economic Forum (WEF) to promise a “Great Reset” for the human race. He envisions a future Utopia achieved through technological precision, centralized management of Earth’s resources, careful observation of citizens, the merger of human and artificial intelligence, and the monopolization of government power by a small professional class with recognized expertise.

Although the WEF has spent the last 50 years organizing conferences, publishing policy proposals, and connecting global leaders in industry, banking, information technology, intelligence gathering, military strategy, and politics, its mission objective is remarkably simple: the smartest, best people in the world should rule everyone else.

The diplomat pointed out that now is the time for “calmness, sanity and dialogue,” insisting that talks “should start as soon as possible.” “The legitimate security concerns of all parties should be respected” during the negotiations, as this is the only way to achieve long-term peace and stability in Europe, he said.

Qin also expressed regret that previous attempts to launch a peace process to end the conflict had been “repeatedly undermined.” “There is an ‘invisible hand’ pushing the conflict towards escalation and trying to use the Ukrainian crisis to serve a certain geopolitical agenda,” he said.

During his press conference, Qin also spoke about the significance of relations between Russia and China. Over the past year, Beijing resisted Western pressure to condemn and sanction Moscow, while consistently calling for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. “The more turbulent the world is, the more steadily the Chinese-Russian relations should move forward,” the Chinese FM said.

TCS is responsible for an outsourcing-offshoring business model that widens profit margins for corporations like Boeing by sending American jobs to lower-wage countries like India. Typically, the model begins with TCS importing foreign H-1B visa workers to replace American professionals. Eventually, the jobs are wholly offshored to a foreign country, mainly India.

Boeing reportedly had hundreds of its American employees train their foreign replacements employed at TCS before laying them off. Late last year, Boeing laid off about 150 Americans in finance and HR and sent their jobs to India.

If young people think that drinking out of a garden hose is bad, just wait until they learn what else we did in those days. When I was a very young child, I would walk to school completely unsupervised. And I would also walk home completely unsupervised. Once I got a little bit older, my parents would let my brother and I pretty much wander wherever we wanted. As long as we were home for dinner, it was okay.

And once we learned how to ride bikes we could go vast distances. Needless to say, there were no bike helmets in those days. If you took a tumble, you got hurt. But that toughened us up. There were also no car safety seats. We just all piled into the back and hoped for the best.

We lived in a world where nothing was “childproofed”, and somehow we survived. We would even climb very tall trees without any fear. The outdoors was our playground, and we would play for endless hours under the hot sun without any sunscreen at all. Yes, there were dangers. But we made it through and we are still here today.

I think that the fact that we pay more attention to safety today is a good thing, but on the other hand we have taken the coddling of our kids to such extremes that many of them cannot even handle the real world once they get older. We keep them so bottled up and so protected, but in the process they never develop the toughness that they need to face the harsh realities of life.

“Overturning dietary values in the West is becoming a serious element of discussion,” insisted Cieciora, who also predicted an aggressive campaign to promote newly introduced ingredients across the bloc. According to the minister, Warsaw does not agree “to these alternatives” or to being told by the EU “what and how much we should eat.”

While the Polish government is not planning to ban foodstuffs made from insects, it is determined to “protect traditional food values and the freedom of choice,” Cieciora explained. While insects form part of traditional cuisines in some Asian countries, their use as food is still relatively novel to Europe. Proponents tout insects as an affordable source of animal protein whose production entails a far lower level of greenhouse gasses emissions compared to traditional cattle farming.

They were highlighting this obvious moral obligation, they made clear, because Bezalel Smotrich, the Jewish-supremacist finance minister, who also holds authority as a minister in the Defense Ministry, had on Wednesday called for the State of Israel to “wipe out” the West Bank Palestinian town of Huwara, with a population of some 7,000, in response to the killings of two Israeli brothers in a terrorist attack there last Sunday. (Smotrich has subsequently walked back that demand.)

With members of numerous other units having penned various letters of concern, and with members of the Mossad and Shin Bet also weighing in, Israel is now reaching the hitherto unthinkable situation where increasing numbers of those who risk their lives in our defense, including some of the most essential protectors of the state, are indicating they may no longer feel morally and practically willing to obey the orders of the IDF’s political masters.

They also raised profound worries about the direct implications of the coalition’s onslaught against the High Court of Justice — the current legislative blitz to politicize the composition of the court and to radically constrain its independence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to fast-track this package of legislation, which would leave Israel with no effective brake on any and all abuse by the political majority, is threatening to tear the country apart. For the pilots, and indeed for all members of the Israeli military, the consequences could be rapid and highly personal: If Israel has no credible, independent judiciary to investigate alleged crimes by its military, international tribunals will attempt to do the job, including by arresting potential suspects at all levels of the military and its political command when they travel overseas.

Given that all his ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners have their own narrow reasons for neutering the High Court, a readiness by Netanyahu to negotiate genuine judicial reform, as opposed to destroying the independent judiciary, would almost certainly spell the end of his coalition.

Herzog has been warning for weeks that Israel is in danger of walking into the abyss, that the rift over the judicial overhaul “could consume us all.” The pilots’ protest suggests our country risks entering what might in air force parlance be termed a death spiral.