GERMANY/CHINA - It is one of the world’s longest railways — an approximately 11,000-kilometre “modern-day silk road” that traverses Russia and Kazakhstan to link a megacity in the heart of China with a key commercial hub in western Germany. On Saturday, as part of his landmark visit to Germany, Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to visit the last stop on the “Yuxinou” rail line, an industrial feat that promises to revolutionise transport between Europe and Asia. Duisburg is a steel-making town of around half a million on the confluence of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers that boasts the world’s biggest inland port and is one of Germany’s most important transport and commercial hubs. Despite the vast distances between them, it takes just 16 days for trains crammed with laptops and electronics to travel to Duisburg from Chongqing, a sprawling metropolitan symbol of rising China with a population of more than 30 million.

GERMANY - The new German intelligence headquarters in the country’s capital occupy space equivalent to the area of 35 football fields. The concrete and steel 9-storey offices, which cost almost 1 billion euros to build, have sparked controversy. The first tranche of 174 personnel, out of 4,000 secret service employees, moved to the new building on Monday. The building has its own power generating facility, capable of supplying electricity for 100,000 homes. BND will be able to function on its own electricity for two weeks in case of a power failure. The agency also boasts an air conditioning system capable of cooling the 8,000 computers housed in the new headquarters. BND promises the highest level of secrecy will be maintained in its new offices. Access cards will have neither names, nor photos on them - just a number, and won’t be allowed to be taken outside the facility.

UK - The size of Britain's total foreign exchange reserves - used to defend the pound during a financial crisis - ranks outside the world's top 20 nations behind Poland and the Philippines. Research from Deutsche Bank, titled "Mapping the World's Financial Markets", showed that the UK is ranked 24th in a list of the world's largest holders of foreign currency reserves. The Bank of England and the Treasury hold $70 billion (£42 billion) in foreign exchange reserves, just $2.7 billion more than the United Arab Emirates and only slightly more than Peru, according to the report. The low ranking shows Britain's vulnerability to another external financial crisis and a run on the pound with limited cash available to meet shortfalls or intervene in markets.

VATICAN - The Vatican is turning to social media to reach out to the millions of pilgrims expected to attend the canonisation of John Paul II, the Polish pope who attained rock star status by the time he died in 2005. Rome police expect up to five million people at the mass officially making saints of John Paul II, who was pope from 1978-2005, as well as John XXIII (1958-63) - in the first double papal sainting ceremony in the church's history.

USA - Employees and volunteers at Mozilla - the organisation which promotes open source software such as its Firefox browser - have called for new chief executive Brendan Eich to stand down because of his donations to political campaigns to ban gay marriage. This week Mozilla named Brendan Eich as its new chief executive, following the resignation of Gary Kovacs which was announced in April last year.

UK - Critics of the Government’s decision to legalise same sex marriage should get used to it and “move on”, according to a Cabinet minister who fought the reforms. Philip Hammond said that his concerns about allowing homosexuals to marry were now history and the party had to get used to the new status quo. Mr Hammond had said he and other Tories were left “shocked” by the “tumultuous” pace of change and would have preferred if it had “gradually taken root”. David Cameron hailed the introduction of same sex marriages in England and Wales as “historic”. The Prime Minister said: “Congratulations to the gay couples who have already been married - and my best wishes to those about to be on this historic day.” To mark the occasion, a rainbow flag was flown over the Cabinet Office and Scotland Office this weekend on the instigation of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.

UK - Anyone suffering from sore eyes or throat is advised to cut back on physical exertion while those with heart and lung problems are warned to take extra care. Saharan dust is contributing to unusually high levels of air pollution, threatening the health of elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Parts of eastern England, the Midlands and Wales over the next few days will experience the highest levels of air pollution on the government’s official scale, and those with heart and lung problems have been warned by environmental experts to avoid "strenuous activity". The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said certain areas would reach 10 out of 10 - or “very high” - on its air cleanliness chart on Tuesday and Wednesday.

GERMANY - Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Germany for the next two days, meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German officials. It's the third leg of Xi's European Union trip, and an important one – as Deutsche Welle notes, Germany is China's most important trade partner in Europe.

UKRAINE - Crimea is permanently lost to Russia. That is implicit in President Barack Obama’s remarks about where the Ukraine crisis heads next; the terms of the Paris talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the West’s rejection of military action to hurl back the occupying Russian forces. That Crimea is gone forever is also the view of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who declared, “I do not believe that Crimea will slip out of Russia’s hand.” It is now generally accepted in Washington that short of sparking a shooting war, Crimea is lost and will now always be Russian. President Vladimir Putin, presiding over an economy of $2 trillion, barely equal to California, has roundly defeated the United States and the European Union, with a combined worth of more than $34 trillion.

GREECE - According to a March 24th, 2014 article of L’Osservatore Romano “a meeting between Pope Francis and the delegation of Apostolikí took place on Monday, 24 March. The delegation, led by the director general Bishop Agathanghelos, is an ecumenical organization which promotes pastoral work, cultural and editorial activities for the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece.” The ecumenical delegation from the New Calendar State Church of Greece conducted meetings with the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. Such activities have been condemned by traditional Orthodox Christians and represent the attitude of the fallen Patriarchates which seek various increasing levels of unity with the Roman Catholic Church

UKRAINE - The Russian invasion and rapid absorption of the Crimean peninsula might seem like the spark ready to ignite a new Cold War. In fact, given the feeble Western response so far, the more likely outcome is not the division of Europe once more between NATO's Western alliance and a neo-Soviet Russia, but rather the fracturing and ultimate demise of NATO and the Western alliance itself.

GERMANY/CHINA - The word dollar didn’t even come up. “The volume of transactions that can be carried out in the Chinese currency in international and German financial centers is not commensurate with China’s importance in the global economy,” the Bundesbank explained in its dry manner on Friday in Berlin, after signing a memorandum of understanding with the People’s Bank of China. President Xi Jinping and Chancellor Angela Merkel were looking on. It was serious business. Everyone knew what this was about. No one had to say it. The agreement spelled out how the two central banks would cooperate on the clearing and settlement of payments denominated in renminbi – to get away from the dollar’s hegemony as payment and reserve currency.

UK - Britain faces food price rises and water shortages as well as floods and deadly heatwaves as a result of climate change, a major report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds on Monday. Other parts of the world will be even harder hit and less able to adapt to the impacts, the IPCC warns. Food shortages and poverty will be exacerbated and could lead to the outbreak of wars, the report says. It also suggests that people will be forced to flee areas that become too warm, while some species of wildlife face risk of extinction. The IPCC's report into the impacts of climate change threatens to be overshadowed by a row between its authors over its findings. Richard Tol, a scientist who was a lead author on a section of the report dealing with the economic effects of global warming, last week claimed the report's conclusions were "too alarmist".

USA - Some of the best known companies in the US are taking water supplies into account when deciding where to locate their facilities amid growing concern about a resource long taken for granted. AT&T, the telecommunications giant, and Hershey, one of the world’s largest confectionery makers, are among those taking such steps as California confronts a prolonged drought and other markets confront stressed water supplies. “I think water is becoming the next big issue,” said John Schulz, assistant vice-president of sustainability operations at AT&T. “There is a rising awareness from a business risk perspective that if we don’t start getting control of this, it could become a real business-impacting issue.”

USA - Knowing how Empires die is fundamental to forecasting the world economy. All governments had better open their eyes for we are on the brink of a major convergence between both the Cycle of Civil Unrest, Civil War & Revolution and International War. Both of these models converge and as I pointed out at the Cycles of War Conference, this is the first time we have seen this convergence since the 1700s.