"It's amazing how China continues these lockdowns for so long - they are incredibly wrenching," says Professor Dali Yang at Chicago University who has been studying the zero-Covid policy Xi has personally endorsed. Many of them mention Andrew Tate, the controversial influencer who has been banned from several platforms for his misogynist views. In 2017, at the beginning of his second term, Xi declared: "China has stood up, grown rich, become strong and is moving towards the centre stage." irannews.ru/ - irannews.ru He tweets: "It is time for us to end the leadership contest and get a prime minister in place ASAP. Over the next six months I pedalled across the mountains of Yunnan, wandered the imperial palace in Beijing, and rode a train hauled by two soot-blackened steam engines far west into the deserts of Xinjiang. The landscapes were sublime but the poverty grinding. Everywhere I went people told me how "backward" China was compared to the West. But there were hints of change. "An uncontested election of Rishi Sunak today would reinforce the return of market credibility and show the Tories have rediscovered a will to win," he says. As land prices shot up because of the reforms, party officials across China were confiscating property from peasant farmers, selling it to developers, and pocketing a hefty cut. Asked on the BBC's Politics Live programme why Mordaunt - who has far less public support from Tory MPs than Sunak at present - isn't bowing out now, Wheeler says: "She's not the sort of person to throw in the towel. Its creator Emmeline Hartley says she believes TikTok's algorithms are driving more hate towards the film. The announcement, however, infuriated officials in Washington, who believe the OPEC+ decision will help Russia withstand US and European sanctions and undermine Western efforts to isolate Putin’s government.