This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023.
 
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Now to the news… First in world news…
 
https://www.foxnews.com/world/vladimir-putin-xi-jinping-sign-economic-deal-latest-demonstration-friendship-limits
 
Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping sign economic deal in latest demonstration of 'friendship without limits'
 
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement to expand their economic ties during a bilateral meeting in Moscow on Tuesday.
 
Xi is in Moscow for a multiday series of meetings with his Russian counterpart, aimed at demonstrating the two countries' new "friendship without limits." Xi and Putin emphasized the importance of jointly safeguarding their countries' energy security.
 
Putin touted plans for a gas pipeline from Siberia to China ahead of the meeting, saying the agreement was all-but finalized.
 
"We were just discussing a good project, the new Power of Siberia 2 pipeline via Mongolia. Practically all the parameters of that agreement have been finalized," Putin told Xi at the beginning of the meeting, according to the Financial Times.
 
Beijing has grown increasingly friendly with Moscow over the past year as Putin's invasion of Ukraine left the country largely ostracized on the world stage.
 
Xi's visit comes just days after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin's arrest for war crimes committed in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the pair called each other "dear friend" when they first shook hands on Monday.
 
Putin alleged during Monday's meeting that the Western world is conspiring to stifle Russia and China by "persistently working to split the common Eurasian space into a network of ‘exclusive clubs’ and military blocs that would serve to contain our countries’ development."
 
The exact details of Russia and China's Tuesday economic agreement have yet to be released.
 
Over to Paris…
 
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/crime-pmn/macrons-government-faces-moment-of-truth-over-pension-reform
 
Protesters set rubbish on fire as French govt barely survives no-confidence vote
 
Protesters set piles of rubbish on fire in central Paris on Monday after President Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly survived a no-confidence motion in parliament on Monday over a deeply unpopular pension reform.
 
The failure of the no-confidence vote will be a relief to Macron. Had it succeeded, it would have sunk his government and killed the legislation, which is set to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.
 
But the relief proved short-lived.
 
In some of Paris’ most prestigious avenues, firefighters scrambled to put out burning rubbish piles left uncollected for days due to strikes as protesters played cat-and-mouse with police.
 
Earlier on Thursday, a Reuters reporter saw police fire tear gas and briefly charge at protesters after the no-confidence vote barely fell short of enough votes to pass.
 
Unions and opposition parties said they would step up protests to try and force a u-turn.
 
The vote on the tripartisan, no-confidence motion was closer than expected. Some 278 MPs backed it, just nine short of the 287 needed for it to succeed.
 
As soon as the failure of the no-confidence vote was announced, lawmakers from the hard left  (LFI, France Unbowed) shouted “Resign!” at Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and brandished placards that read: “We’ll meet in the streets.”
 
In the southwestern city of Bordeaux, about 200-300 people, mostly youngsters, gather