President Vladimir Putin is due to begin a visit to Beijing on Friday - with the Kremlin saying that he'll sign more than a dozen trade deals with his counterpart Xi Jinping. Later in the day, Mr Putin will attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics - which is being boycotted by the United States, Canada, Australia and the UK. We hear from Chris Weafer, the CEO of the investment consultancy Macro-Advisory in Moscow.

Also in the programme, the Governor of the Bank of England has told the BBC that employees negotiating their salary this year should not ask for too big a pay rise - so they can help bring inflation under control. Mr Bailey said he was concerned that rising inflation would become ingrained in the economy.

Plus - the inflation rate in Turkey has hit an eye-watering 48% year-on-year. The BBC's Victoria Craig reports on whether tourism might help offset some of the country's bigger economic problems.

Rotterdam has confirmed it will dismantle a historic bridge to allow a superyacht built for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to fit through. The record-breaking luxury yacht is being built by Dutch firm Oceanco and was linked to Mr Bezos last year.

And, a billion-year-old black diamond is going up for auction. Nikita Benani is jewellery specialist at Sotheby's and tells us about the diamond, named The Enigma, which is believed to be the largest cut diamond on earth, and may have been formed from a meteor impact.

Fergus Nicoll is joined by Rachel Cartland in Hong Kong and Paddy Hirsch in Los Angeles.

(Picture: Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping/AFP)