hearing, has held what the us calls candid and constructive talks with china s foreign minister in beijing. this at the start of two days of meetings with chinese officials. mr blinken emphasised the need for diplomacy and keeping open channels of communication us officials added. the trip to china is the first by a top us diplomat in almost five years and comes months after an earlier visit by the secretary of state was postponed when a suspected chinese spy balloon flew in us airspace. can this trip reboot relations? to discuss this and what s at stake for the world s two biggest economies, i m joined by alicia garcia herrero chief economist at natixis. good to have you on the programme. from your perspective, when we are looking at trade, the two biggest economies in the world, how important is this trip? extremely important. and the main reason for this trip is not even trade, it s about assurance to really avoid a military conflict in taiwan and i think that s th
case and what the and he was there was a and they also settled a russian tanker that in karachi on sunday and that is packet study perspective they can get hold of any oil and if they don t have to pay in us dollars that is welcome. of course it is controversial because western countries have imposed sanctions on russia for its invasion of ukraine, so it all oil exports have been restricted. they have announced a price cap of $60 a barrel. pakistan has been negotiating with russia for months to get discounted oil. a short while ago the petroleum minister said that they are going to pay in the chinese currency. that is again a benefit to pakistan because foreign exchange reserves have dropped below $4 billion and now they are looking for ways to pay. this all against a pretty weak economic picture for pakistan. it is facing a lot of economic trouble and therefore it needs this cheap energy. at the same time i wonder what needs to be done to try and set the economy back on an e
big ben strikes midnight. it s europe s biggest fireworks display and as the countdown began, more than 100,000 people watched along the river thames as the london skyline lit up and the sounds of big ben chimed. you can actually smell the gunpowder the air, you can smell it. it is fireworks night here. big ben, the chimes have rung and we are now officially in 202a. the best show on earth. amazing, indescribable, no words. so worth it, i am loving it so much. this is my first time for london, coming here and seeing this. i i love it, it is so good. this year s theme is unity, a message played from the king. 0ur society is woven from diverse threads. and the london mayor, who thanked those working in the nhs, the police and the fire service. he said the event took months to organise. we have planned this sincejuly. there is a team of 75 who have been working over the last four days. one of our strengths as a city and country is our diversity. we will be celebrating our dive