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More shale oil from the Permian basin in western Texas is making it way to markets in Europe in 2023. Shipments from the Gulf Coast of the US are estimated to be 1.53 million barrels a day in Jan 2023. Shipments to Spain are up 88%, with similar shipments to Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Natural gas shipments to Europe from the US have doubled in 2022.

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China's president expresses the need for greater cooperation between China and Germany during Scholz's Beijing visit and says "we jointly oppose the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons." Scholz for his part said "it is right and good that I am in Beijing today," that in times of change bilateral meetings were all the more important. China's president Xi said that "in times of change and turmoil" nations of influence should work together for world peace. This is the first time after the covid lockdowns that Chinese leaders are meeting a leader from a large western nation, and this is generally welcomed in China.

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In a message of hope at Easter Prince Charles talks about how it was "profoundly moving how so many people are ready to open their homes to those in need, and how they have offered their time and their resources to help those facing such soul-destroying sorrow and hardship."

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DW.com looks at the challenges India faces in meeting its target of generating 500 gigawatts from renewable energy by 2030. Meeting Glasgow COP26 conference targets requires India to increase installation of solar energy at three times the rate in the past, as well as make massive investments in storage and grid infrastructure, says one expert. Right now India is on track to meet target of 175 gigawatts for 2022-2023.

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Russian and Ukrainian mothers want to know the fate of their sons, it is the role of the Red Cross to facilitate this, says its director-general, Robert Mardini in this interview with the BBC.

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This report from Germany in DW.com says Germany tried to build a softer relationship with Russia during the leadership of Adenauer of CDU and  Brandt of SPD. This continued under Schmidt and Schroeder. Under Merkel of CDU the emotional aspect of the relationship as Russia retreated from Bolshevism and Soviet Union collapsed was lost. Little attention was paid to East Germany and to how the fall of the Soviet Union had affected Russia negatively,and became purely focused on German industry and trade with cheap Russian gas supplies. Even as Germany did not invest in shared burden for defense with the US, and Germany under Merkel increased dependence on Russian gas supplies to 55% with the Nordstream gas pipeline from Russia, and shut down nuclear energy.  As a result the emotional or mental health aspect of the relationship with Russia of Germany was lost under Merkel. The focus on purely financial aspect of things has been proved wrong both for the economy as physical infrastructure was neglected under Merkel and social infrastructure such as child care and other social aspects of society were sorely neglected. A new broader framework that needs to be built will have to keep this in mind.  All the hard work and good intentions of the Adenauer and Brandt years has been lost with the short sighted basis of relations based purely on finance and trade under Merkel's leadership. This happened also in the US relationship with China with the relations based purely on finance and trade under Clinton, Bush, Obama proving to be too fragile as they did not protect other social aspects within the two countries as inequality widened and whole segments of society were neglected.  ...