politico's website has an article on the senate hearings over ex—national security adviser michael flynn's russian connections. former acting attorney general sally yates said that she had informed the trump administration that flynn was susceptible to blackmail from russia 18 days before he was fired. in the gulf times they lead with an article putin's message to the newly—elected french president emmanuel macron. it says that the russian president wants to work together with france on world security and to end mistrust. in the financial times a story about chemchina and sinochem's potential merger next year to create the world's biggest chemicals group. over to bloomberg's website now and some news on opec, russia and the oil industry.

opec ministers have discussed the possibility of both deepening and extending output cuts into 2018. and some news from the uk. buzzfeed'sjim waterson has written on how labour leaderjeremy corbyn says he will refuse to quit even if he loses the general election — that election of course now less than a month away. and finally, back to the financial times, and a rather unusual artistic collaboration. apparently former us president bill clinton is to team up with thriller writer james patterson on a novel called the president is missing. with us is cornelia meyer, ceo of mrl corporation, a business consultancy. good morning. good morning. cueto few people after your consultancy, looking at the papers today. —— quite a few. i don't know if you can help the trump administration. politico reporting on this latest cyber which refuses to leave the

administration alone. -- latest saga. i watched the testimonial yesterday, live, with sally yates. did you find it gripping? i found it very gripping, because i thought she carried herself incredibly well and she basically said, look, i did my job the best way i knew how. i told then they had a problem. i also urged against the muslim immigration ban, iwent urged against the muslim immigration ban, i went against it because the higher good as the constitution, and the constitution says you cannot discriminate against religion or country of origin. so she did her best. i found country of origin. so she did her best. ifound it country of origin. so she did her best. i found it a country of origin. so she did her best. ifound it a bit disconcerting, the reaction from the trump administration. they said, you know, he had just been cleared by the obama administration, and they we nt the obama administration, and they went without. it is never their fault. it is always somebody else's

fault. it is always somebody else's fault. it is always somebody else's fault. i find that a bit disconcerting. that was in reaction to president obama revealing that he actually warned president trump, just two days after he was elected as president of the united states. exactly. and during this testimonial, the republican senators ke pt testimonial, the republican senators kept on hammering on about this, and you know, if you are a leader, sometimes you just have to say, i got this wrong. you have to own up to your mistakes. yes, there is a blame game. a good leader does not play the blame game. he confesses to his, you know... erring is human. does president putin and confessed to his mistakes? —— ever confess. let's look at this angle with emmanuel macron. putin says two wrong, let and the mistrust. he doesn't need to face up. —— fess up.

he does not face the same democratic scrutiny as in the us. it is a bit rich for him to say we should end the mistrust, after that hacking story with the macron leaks. people in the know say that it might have come from russia. i think he is right, the french people have spoken, that has to be respected, and they do have shared security concerns, and they do have shared security concerns, because these terrorism concerns, because these terrorism concerns are not just concerns, because these terrorism concerns are notjust in france. they are also in russia. so there is 90 they can work together with. they don't have to work on that. marine le pen visited resident putin, —— president putin, and apparently there were other visits before that, and he was forced to admit that they do not interfere in any elections, america or france. we do not really

know what putin is thinking. america or france. we do not really know what putin is thinkinglj america or france. we do not really know what putin is thinking. i think is thinking is generally saying, look, there are things we have to work together on. that is pragmatic and if you only do you have to be pragmatic. now, i knew you would love this story. a front page of the financial times. china and sinochem planning to become a $100 billion market leader. it is a rumour, widely reported, not confirmed yet. yes, not confirmed yet. chemchina has got the approval of the shareholders of a big agri chem business, to buy them, and that is a big deal because it gives chemchina access to that agri technology and it gives china as a country access. chemchina has done lots of

acquisitions and is a very big company. their work to equity ratio is 260%. sinochem is much more debt. explain why this is important to all of us, in the sense that it could become the world's biggest chemicals company? become the world's biggest chemicals 7 in become the world's biggest chemicals company? in terms of the assets it has, the power and the control of agriculture, that kind of thing. has, the power and the control of agriculture, that kind of thingm has assets, it has control, but i think it is especially important because they now account access to sigenta, a top—flight company in agriculture. so this is china taking over control of an awful at a big companies that provide food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals. —— awful lot of. well, the sinochem and chemchina merger, that is a merger between two chinese companies. it is a mainland story. what makes it internationalist is that chemchina

just bought sigenta. the interesting thing is, i had to comment on swiss radio recently, chemchina gave sigenta huge powers in terms of nominating board members and i am not sure that when the ownership structure of chemchina changes that those assurances will hold true. really quickly, we have what i suppose you would call smoke signals from opec yesterday, and also russia as well. pleasurably they are going to keep cuts in place untiljune. absolutely. they are probably going to keep them going. the saudi energy minister said as much. now, the thing there is that when you look at the oil markets, with or without cuts, they will come back into balance in the second half of this

year. what does that mean for the price? it will probably stabilise where it is, around 50 or 55. but in the 20 205 where it is, around 50 or 55. but in the 20 20s it where it is, around 50 or 55. but in the 20 205 it will probably go up, because once it is in balance, once it has gone through that historically high stockpile, a lot of companies, because of the low prices, had less investment upstream in and production. so they will be able to produce less and that will bea able to produce less and that will be a light switch. it is not a light switch. in the 205, watch out. the price will probably go up. in the meantime, it will stay where it is. we will hold you to those predictions. please do. not sure how this made the front page of the ft. bill clinton and james patterson teaming up to write what is described as a unique white house thriller. it is all in the title. the president is missing. it is

wonderful, i wish them luck. the story is really about the enormous sums that form of residents make. —— former presidents. president obama got that $400,000 for the speaking fee. this is a thriller, i am sure it will sell well. james patterson is always on the new york times bestseller list. bill clinton always gives back, he has a foundation, he does give that. he has written fiction before, and it is brilliant, actually. not a novel, but he has written some fiction. well, there you go. i actually read one of them without realising it was bill clinton. the things you know. thank you, cornelia. thank you for watching. have a really good day. if you are with abc1, breakfast will be with you in five minutes. if you are on bbc well, you are stuck with us.

hello. we are watching a weather change later this week which will bring some rain to some areas that have been mainly dry, now, for several weeks. until then, though, it's as you were. this is how it looked on the the satellite picture during monday. cool in the cloud, warm in the sunshine. variable cloud in the next few days. but the main theme is until the end of the week, most places are going to stay dry. and that's with high pressure stretched across the uk. but we are waiting for low pressure to make a move, as it will do. i'll show you that later this week. it will not be bone dry on tuesday, though. there will be enough cloud to the far north—east of scotland, especially in the northern isles, to give some occasional light rain or drizzle. sunshine pretty limited, though, to begin the day. this is the picture at 8am in the morning. sunny spells in scotland. especially in northern ireland. plenty of blue skies to begin the day. but a lot of cloud over much of england and wales, leaving western fringes of england into west wales with some sunshine

to begin with, but elsewhere you can see the cloud cover across much of the midlands into yorkshire and east anglia. and it's another single—figure temperature start to the day. on the cool side like recent mornings. some sunshine here, though, to the south coast. now, as the day goes on, we'll nibble at this cloud. some that start cloudy will eventually see sunshine coming through. that's more of wales and the west midlands. but the east midlands, east anglia, into parts of yorkshire, rather cloudy. maybe the odd spot of drizzle, but essentially it's dry. some rain in the northern isles. warm in the sunshine, cool with the cloud. warmer in south—east england. the breeze is less noticeable on the north sea coast. a bit more cloud into scotland as we go on through tuesday night into wednesday morning. but then for wednesday, we will start elsewhere clear and quite chilly. temperatures lower than this away from large cities and town centres. some areas will be close to freezing, as wednesday begins, so gardeners take note of the potential impact on delicate plants of this cold temperature. a sunny start on wednesday especially in england and wales. southern scotland and northern

ireland seeing sunny spells. more cloud across the north of scotland, the further north you are in scotland, some outbreaks of rain around. but again, there's some warmth in the sunshine. warmer around the north sea coast compared with recent days. and then on thursday, whilst most places staying dry, variable cloud and sunny spells. cloud building in the south of the uk. we begin to get showers and outbreaks of rain. that will lift northwards into friday and saturday. it's not going to be a washout. but as we move from high pressure to low pressure, there will be rain in areas that have nothing very much for quite some time. hello, this is breakfast, with louise minchin and dan walker. a cap on energy bills for millions of households is confirmed as conservative policy. it will be part of the party's manifesto later this month — labour says the plans won't stop prices rising, while some energy firms are warning customers could lose out. good morning, it's tuesday the 9th of may.

also this morning: major tests begin to find out if statins — which are taken by millions to cut the risk of heart attacks — could also help people suffering from multiple sclerosis. this is the scene