@BBCNI

[@BBCNI @BBCNI]

@michael_bl96995 @timmckane @aloadofbollicks @BBCNolan @BBC For the record, @BBCNI is NOT affiliated with @BBCNINEWS or @Nolan. We don’t do manufactured outrage. We don’t do Nolan. We have standards. Very high standards. Some say the highest. Believe me. The difference is HUGE. BIGLY HUGE! 😉

[@BBCNI @BBCNI]

Stock

[lewis martell @lewismartell1]

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[@BBCNI @BBCNI]

I gave Radio Ulster a go today after successfully vowing to ignore it for the past number of years as the depressing narrative seldom changes. Perhaps the politicians and those with influence could adapt something from one of the USA -China press releases 👇

[Zhai Xiang @ZhaiXiang5]

China has now released its official press release of today's Xi-Trump meeting at the White House. At the moment, the US side's press release is not out yet.

I read the Chinese version as soon as it came out. It is not particularly long, but it is surprisingly dense. And one thing stood out to me:

Beijing is not simply talking about "cooperation." It is laying out a framework for how China and the United States can compete and win together.

And the structure of Xi's remarks is revealing:

Trade: cooperate.
AI: compete, but cooperate.
Taiwan: red lines.

Read together with the written statement Xi issued upon arriving in Washington yesterday, today's readout may offer the clearest explanation yet of what Beijing means by a "constructive relationship of strategic stability."

Here is how I read it.

As in my previous posts, the italicized text comes from the Chinese official release, the bolded text highlights key points, and everything else is my analysis.

-- Xi pointed out that the exchange of visits between the heads of state of China and the United States in less than half a year is unprecedented in the history of China-US relations. President Trump and I have maintained communication through various channels and have jointly been steering the great ship of China-US relationship. In May this year, President Trump and I jointly agreed to work toward building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability. The new vision reflects the realities of China-US ties, embodies our aspirations for the future, and represents an important step toward finding the right way for the two countries to get along with each other.
We need to work toward a relationship featuring cooperation as the mainstay, competition with bounds, manageable differences, and promises of peace, so as to find the right way for two major countries to coexist.
China and the United States should, and fully can, achieve mutual benefit and win-win results through practical cooperation, help each other succeed through healthy competition, properly manage differences by seeking common ground while respecting differences, and build peace by fostering mutual trust, so that a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability can better benefit the two peoples and people around the world.

There is a lot packed into these three paragraphs.

First, the reference to the "unprecedented" frequency of leader-level exchanges is notable. Xi's framing moves from his personal communication with Trump, to sustained communication between the two presidents, and then to something much larger: a mechanism for stabilizing the bilateral relationship itself.

Then comes the metaphor of the "great ship."

This is not new. Xi has used the ship metaphor in previous meetings or phone calls with Trump.

A ship this large does not turn quickly. And if it veers badly off course, the consequences can be enormous.
I think the stage on which this "ship" is sailing is the broader Pacific. The ship may encounter storms and rough seas, but the two countries' top leaders are presenting themselves as jointly responsible for keeping it on course.

And then there is a phrase that appears twice:
"finding the right way."

I don't think that repetition is accidental. Beijing is trying to define what coexistence between two competing major powers should actually look like.

And the next sentence gives us the formula:

"cooperation as the mainstay, competition with bounds, manageable differences, and promises of peace" was already included in Xi's statement after arriving in the United States the day before. It provides a concrete framework for managing the competition and building this new type of relationship.

In many ways, this is an attempt to answer a question that has long complicated China-US relations: Do China and the United States have to choose between cooperation and confrontation?

Beijing's answer is no. And more importantly, it is beginning to spell out what that alternative might look like.

-- Xi stressed that the economic and trade teams of the two countries held a new round of consultations and reached a new joint arrangement, which is good news for industries and people of both countries, as well as the global economy. Cooperation is a two-way street. The stability of US-China economic and trade relations requires both sides to expand the list of cooperation, while shortening the list of problems. As long as the two sides uphold the spirit of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit, a way out of problems can be found.
Xi expressed his hope that the two sides will work in the same direction, stay committed to the principle of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, and promote the sustained, stable and sound development of China-US economic and trade relations.

And this is where the broader idea of "strategic stability" starts becoming concrete.

How do you prevent competition from turning into confrontation?

Beijing's answer begins with two lists:
The cooperation list.
The problem list.

In my view, expanding the cooperation means continually broadening the areas in which both sides can achieve tangible results. Reducing the problem list, meanwhile, means preventing new disputes from continuously piling onto the bilateral relationship.

This is very pragmatic to manage the relationship. The goal is not to build a relationship completely free of friction-that is clearly unrealistic.

The real goal is this:
To keep increasing the number of areas where the two sides can cooperate, while preventing disputes from expanding to the point where they overwhelm the entire bilateral relationship.

And that helps explain why Xi repeatedly emphasizes equality, mutual respect, and mutual benefit.

In addition, the phrase "cooperation is a two-way street" carries a significant message: Beijing is signaling that it is willing to cooperate, but it does not believe strategic stability can be built by China alone.

One side cannot keep extending the cooperation list if the other side keeps extending the problem list.

Meaningful progress requires both sides to engage, compromise, and reciprocate.

-- Xi said that while China and the United States, as both major powers in AI, compete in AI, they have even more reasons to cooperate. The two sides should leverage respective strengths in AI rather than guarding against each other. We can continue to engage in dialogue on AI, exchange views on its risks and benefits, and work together to prevent the misuse and abuse of AI. The two sides should maintain human control over AI technologies, uphold a people-centered approach and the principle of using AI for good, and ensure that AI serves human progress.

What happens when an issue belongs on both lists at the same time? That is where AI becomes particularly interesting.

The AI competition between the two countries are obvious. But the risks of AI do not respect national borders.

Misuse, loss of human control, safety risks, and broader questions of governance cannot necessarily be contained within China or the United States alone. Two countries can compete fiercely over who develops the most advanced AI systems while still sharing an interest in preventing those systems from creating risks neither side can control.

This is why Xi said the two countries have even more reasons to cooperate. And the remark also echoes President Trump's statement on social media that he would discuss "super intelligence" today.

Trade is about expanding the cooperation list. AI sits on both lists. But Taiwan is different. Let's move on.

-- Xi stressed that the Chinese side's position on safeguarding national reunification and territorial integrity is clear-cut.
It is hoped that the US side will adhere to the correct position of opposing "Taiwan independence," and handle the Taiwan question with caution, so as to lay a solid foundation for China-US strategic cooperation and the development of bilateral relations.

The Taiwan question finally came into focus. It's different from the previous topics.

There had previously been speculation in the United States that Xi's asking Trump to stop arms sales to Taiwan based on the 1982 US-China Communique. I do not know whether that report was accurate. But the language of the communique is quite explicit:

"Having in mind the foregoing statements of both sides, the United States Government states that it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, and that it intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution. "

Clearly, 44 years is long enough to qualify as a long term. Yet US policy has failed to follow through on the promise made in that document.

Looking at the structure of Xi's remarks, Taiwan has surely been placed within the boundaries of strategic stability.

After outlining substantial areas for cooperation, the Chinese side is also sending Washington a clear message:
Strategic stability does not mean stability without red lines.

-- Trump said that the state visit of Xi to the United States is a great visit. China and the United States are both major countries, and he and Xi are good friends who maintain in-depth and close communication. The US-China relations will surely be handled well under the leadership of the two heads of state.
The latest round of economic and trade consultations between teams of both countries achieved new outcomes, and both sides should continue dialogue to reach a better agreement. Artificial intelligence concerns the future of humanity, and China and the United States should maintain dialogue and strengthen cooperation on this issue.

Trump's response, as presented in the Chinese readout, is notable for what it reinforces.

He described the visit as "great." This effectively signaled to the outside world that the meeting did not need to be portrayed as a tense, difficult, or deeply divided encounter.

Judging from the narrative presented in the Chinese readout, the two sides have established fairly clear areas of common ground on several fronts:
- High-level communication should continue.
- Economic and trade negotiations should continue.
- Dialogue on AI should continue.
- The overall stability of bilateral relations needs to be maintained.

At the same time, it is equally important to note that Trump's remarks were relatively broad and general, while Xi's remarks played a more substantial role in defining the broader framework of the relationship.

-- Both heads of state also exchanged views on major international and regional issues including the Middle East situation, Ukraine crisis and Korean Peninsula.
The two leaders also confirmed that the two countries will support each other in hosting the 2026 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting and the G20 Leaders' Summit.

I would not pass over this final section too quickly.

The Middle East. Ukraine. The Korean Peninsula.

None of these issues is simply about China-US bilateral relations.

Their inclusion reminds us that the relationship between Washington and Beijing does not exist in isolation. China and the United States are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, two of the world's largest economies, and leading technological powers. Whether they can maintain channels of communication therefore has implications far beyond trade, technology, or Taiwan. Both are deeply embedded in a broader multilateral system.

The immediate references to the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in China's Shenzhen and the G20 Leaders' Summit in America's Miami reinforce that point. They place the bilateral relationship in a wider context: even as China and the United States compete with each other, they must also continue engaging within institutions and forums where their decisions affect countries far beyond their own.

How will Beijing and Washington manage the competition in a healthy way? When the cooperation list and the problem list are both on the table, which one will Washington choose to make longer?

There is no answer to that question tonight.

What comes next will.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: CNN and MS NOW journalists were denied access to the White House after President Trump announced a ban on three news outlets because of reporting he disliked. https://t.co/ke6AhPDaKg

[CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk]

CNN reporter Betsy Klein was denied access at the White House on Saturday morning and her press pass was seized, one day after President Donald Trump announced that he was "banning" CNN, MS NOW and Politico. https://t.co/8xP8JIu8CQ

[Brian Stelter @brianstelter]

Here is @betsy_klein's account of how she found out the government had deactivated her White House press pass.

[Stephen McCarthy @smccarthynire]

The problem is that a significant proportion of the Irish population, particularly in the north, live by Brendan Behan's famous quote: "Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis."

Irish people thrive in Britain and have done for decades. Mostly because they allow the intergenerational trauma that infects our national identity to melt away. There's a lot to be proud of in being from Ireland/Northern Ireland or to be descended from there. But by Christ we have an unhealthy relationship with our mental health when it comes to trauma and the past. Every single day we should be the firebreak that refuses to traumatise the next generation rather than hand it over to them in refined form with some sort of twisted pride.

If you asked any parent whether they'd burden their child with negative feelings about things that happened before they were born most would look at you like you've two heads for considering such an abusive and irresponsible idea, and then we crack open the big book of Irish grievances and how to blame the Brits.

It's exhausting. As this poster has said - it's 2026. Focus your life on the pursuit of happiness and the happiness of those around you instead of perpetuating misery.

[volta @OxVolta]

In 1990, Donald Trump owed $3.4 billion and went on NBC acting like nothing was happening.

In 1990, Donald Trump owed $3.4 billion and went on NBC acting like nothing was happening.

He's 44. Sitting in Trump Tower. The Taj Mahal just opened for $1 billion, funded almost entirely by junk bonds at 14% interest. Revenue projections are already falling short. Contractors aren't getting paid. He owes money to over 70 banks. $832 million of it he'd personally guaranteed.

He doesn't flinch.

A year earlier he was on the cover of every magazine in New York. He owned a yacht, an airline, three casinos, the Plaza Hotel. Forbes pegged his net worth at $1.7 billion.

By summer 1990, regulators warned of "the possibility of a complete financial collapse of the Trump Organization."

The Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy in 1991. Trump Castle and Trump Plaza followed in 1992. The Plaza Hotel filed the same year. His yacht was sold. The airline shut down. The banks put him on a personal budget. The New York Post ran the headline "UH-OWE!"

His father sent a lawyer to one of his casinos to buy $3.3 million in chips. Not to gamble. To inject emergency cash. The Casino Control Commission fined them $65,000 for the illegal loan.

The banks could have buried him. They didn't. They calculated that the name on the building was worth more than the debt behind it. So they restructured. He gave up equity, sold assets, and clawed back deal by deal.

In 1995 he declared a $916 million loss on a single tax return.

By 2004 he was hosting the most watched show on television. By 2016 he was President of the United States.

The man on this tape is $3.4 billion underwater and talking like he owns the room. That's either delusion or the reason he survived.

[Sarrah Bellus @sarrah_bellus]

This is SOOOOO amazing!!! So well done. Plus, LOVE the message. So well done.

[Brian Armstrong @brian_armstrong]

"If you're in crypto, pivot to AI."

I used to hear versions of this, and it's the wrong way to think about the world. It's zero sum, scarcity thinking.

Crypto is a general purpose technology. It's infrastructure, the same way electricity or the internet is infrastructure. It doesn't compete with the next big thing, because it underpins it. It's an *and*, not an *or*.

AI being a megatrend takes nothing away from crypto. If anything, it makes crypto more important.

AI agents will need their own financial infrastructure and will eventually transact far more per day than all humans combined. They can't open a bank account, they can't wait three days for a wire, they reside in one country. They need real time programmable money (and that's crypto).

Agents will need to hold funds and pay for things on their own. We pioneered this with the x402 protocol, Base, and USDC, which now power the vast majority of all agentic payments. Agents will also engage in trading and act as a financial advisor. They will raise or borrow money for new projects they are undertaking. They will eliminate tasks for us around tax planning, portfolio rebalancing, and bill pay.

Welcome to the world of Agentic Finance (AiFi). This is what Coinbase is building.

[@BBCNI @BBCNI]

Look n

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇺🇸 🇮🇷 Trump was just briefed on all-out war with Iran, and chose to keep talking instead...

-Trump held multiple recent talks with Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine about abandoning negotiations and resuming full-scale strikes, what some officials call "finishing the job"

-He held back, telling aides another round could derail diplomacy and cost the U.S. its shot at dismantling Iran's nuclear program

-He's fine letting talks blow past the August 18 deadline to give them more time

-For now he's sticking with one-off strikes when Iran violates the MOU, the pattern that lit up the weekend

-The sticking points haven't moved: Iran wants billions in Hormuz transit fees and won't accept hard nuclear limits, while the U.S. insists the strait stays free

The detail that frames everything: U.S. forces have hit over 13,000 targets across Iran since February, and the regime still survived to negotiate.

Trump has the option to finish it and keeps choosing not to.

The strait he fought so hard to open is the exact thing he won't risk closing.

Source: Wall Street Journal / Writer: Daniel

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

This is awesome. I’ve worked with Sue for more than a decade now. She started Brilliant - a learning site for advanced learning - which has now taken all of that decade-long training data and created a helper to make your kids smarter.

It doesn’t matter their level, this adapts to them and brings them along.

Please consider trying it.

[Milk Road AI @MilkRoadAI]

Larry Ellison, the man who built Oracle into a $500 billion enterprise software empire and he said something that every investor needs to hear (Save this).

"By 2029, I can guarantee you, AI is not going to be the problem."

The problem is going to be compute specifically, who has enough of it and who does not.

Ellison described the current AI race in terms that strip away all the abstract commentary about models and capabilities and reduce it to the one thing that actually determines who wins: "Me and Elon begging Jensen for GPUs. Please take our money. We need you to take more of our money, please."

Citigroup raised its forecast for AI infrastructure spending to $2.8 trillion through 2029, with hyperscalers already spending at a $490 billion annual rate by end of 2026 and the firm estimates global AI compute demand will require 55 gigawatts of new power capacity by 2030 at a cost of approximately $50 billion per gigawatt.

Sam Altman publicly thanked Jensen Huang this past March for significantly increasing NVIDIA's capacity at AWS, the CEO of the most important AI lab in the world writing a thank you note to the chip supplier because compute is still the binding constraint on everything OpenAI wants to build.

Ellison's point about getting there first is the part of this clip that deserves a second read.

He named three specific races, self-driving, reading cancer biopsy slides, and synthesizing video and said that being first in each one is a big deal.

The logic is that in winner take most AI markets, the first mover trains the best model, the best model attracts the most usage, the most usage generates the most data, and the most data trains the next best model, a compounding loop that the second-place finisher never catches up to.

"The guys in this race are very smart and they understand they need to be best at something," Ellison said.

What makes this clip so important right now is the timing.

The AI GPU chip market is projected to grow at a 32.4% CAGR through 2029, reaching $145 billion in incremental spend, and NVIDIA's data center revenue is already running at a pace that would have seemed impossible three years ago.

Every major hyperscaler, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Meta is no longer funding AI capex from operating cash flows alone, they are borrowing to keep up, because falling behind in compute now means ceding the winner-take-most race Ellison just described.

At Milk Road, we have been positioned in NVIDIA, AVGO, AAOI, MU, and Bloom Energy and more.

Come join Milk Road Pro and get the full picture on how we are playing every layer of the GPU demand supercycle that Larry Ellison just guaranteed will not slow down before the end of the decade, link below/bio.

[@BBCNI @BBCNI]

@GeniusGTX Models

[Tymofiy Mylovanov @Mylovanov]

Pompeo: For 40 years, our policy was to sell more stuff into China and hope China would become more like us. That was wrong.

Of all the hostile leaders I dealt with, the Chinese Communist Party is the one that can actually change the way we live. 1/

[CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk]

Ted Turner, the billionaire media entrepreneur and philanthropist who launched the 24-hour cable TV news revolution when he founded CNN in 1980, has died. He was 87. https://t.co/61G2Kuh8Vz

[Nakul Sarda @nakul_sarda]

I've stopped reading Gulf war headlines. Here's what I track instead.

We run an India-focused equity fund. 85% of India's crude comes from imports. Half of that normally passes through Hormuz. So yes — this crisis is personal.

But the information environment right now is garbage. Trump says the war ends tomorrow. Iran says Hormuz is shut forever. One analyst says $150 oil, another says $60. You can't build a portfolio view on this.

So I've narrowed it down to 4 signals. These are priced by people with real money on the line. They don't lie.

1. Ship insurance premiums through Hormuz

This is the single best signal. Lloyd's underwriters have billions at stake on every pricing call. Before the war, insuring a tanker through Hormuz cost 0.25% of the ship's value. Today it's 3.5–10% — and almost nobody is buying. A $100M tanker that cost $250K to insure now costs up to $10M. When this drops below 2%, the people with the most to lose are telling you it's getting safer. No press conference can replicate that.

2. How many ships are actually crossing

Every ship carries a GPS tracker (AIS). You can count exactly how many cross Hormuz each day. Before: 100+. Now: 8. That's a 92% collapse. You can't spin a ship being somewhere it isn't. Iran is letting some Chinese and Indian ships through, but it's a trickle. When this number crosses 30–40, trade is resuming. You can track this free on the WTO Hormuz Trade Tracker.

3. Paper oil vs real oil

This one most people miss entirely. Brent crude (the headline price) is at $112. But Dubai physical — what Asian buyers actually pay for delivered oil — is at $126. That's a $14 gap. It exists because Trump's comments keep pushing paper prices down. Traders call it jawboning. But the refiners buying cargo aren't getting any discount. If you're looking at Brent to assess India's oil bill, you're looking at the wrong number.

4. The mid-April cliff

Multiple emergency measures expire around the same time. The 400 million barrel SPR release runs dry ~April 15. The US waiver letting India buy Russian crude expires. Formosa Plastics has declared force majeure from April 1. Right now these stopgaps are keeping the supply gap at ~5 mb/d. Without them, BCA Research estimates it doubles to 10 mb/d — the largest crude disruption ever. If Hormuz doesn't reopen by mid-April, we're in uncharted territory.

Bottom line: track the insurance premium, the ship count, the paper-physical spread, and the April timeline. Everything else is noise.

[The Rolling Stones @RollingStones]

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to those who are celebrating! 💚🍀

Stones Around The World: Ireland

“The fans in Ireland are always just amazing, full of energy” - Mick Jagger

“Dublin, particularly has always been a Stones town, great welcome, great feeling” - Keith Richards

“A lot of heart from a lot of people all over the country, from Galway to Dublin!” - Ronnie Wood

[@BBCNI @BBCNI]

@erichustls Ready