Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, November 17th.

And this is your FT News Briefing.

President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping agreed to hold talks to East Tensions over security issues.

The Kremlin-based Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline into Europe has stumbled over German bureaucracy

and an unusual court trial in the Vatican resumes today. One of the defendants is a Cardinal.

He's the Cardinal. He's the first Cardinal to go on trial for a crime like this.

You know, over 300 years.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

The presidents of the US and China have agreed to hold talks aimed at reducing nuclear tensions.

China had been refusing to hold nuclear talks partly because the US has a much larger

weapons arsenal. The breakthrough came during Monday night's virtual summit between Joe Biden and

China's Xi Jinping. And it comes amid a broader backdrop of rising anxiety in the US over China's

expanding nuclear arsenal, Beijing recently tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon.

US-China relations are at their lowest point since the two countries' normalized diplomatic ties

in 1979.

Germany, yesterday, suspended certification for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. That's the Kremlin-backed

project that would deliver gas from Russia to Germany and elsewhere in Europe and avoid

pipelines through Ukraine. The move came as Europe struggles with an energy crisis

and the move also caused gas prices to rise even further on Tuesday. Here's the FT's Berlin

correspondent, Erica Solomon, on why the German energy regulator made the move.

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