Caroline Hepke

And I'm Caroline Hepke.

Now, in terms of earnings news today, profits at Shell surged in the first quarter as the Iran war drove energy prices higher.

Adjusted net income rose to $6.92 billion, beating estimates with refining margins also climbing due to soaring fuel costs.

Events in the Middle East also boosted the oil majors trading business as desks took advantage of increased volatility.

However, the firm cut interest.

Its quarterly share buyback to $3 billion, down from $3.5 billion, not well received by investors.

Shares trading in London are down 2.3% for Shell.

China's new five-year plan is looking to build on industries where European companies have built their fortunes.

The world's second largest economy wants to modernise across the automotive sector, chemicals and machinery, as well as frontier technologies like robotics, biomedicine and nuclear fusion.

Bloomberg's Freddie Fulston has more.

Those are a few of our top stories.

In terms of the markets, European stocks are currently flat.

Looking at the earnings-related stories, Rheinmetall down by 3.4%, Centrical also dropping 4.6% this morning, as we see Siemens Healthineers down more than 4% too.

Siemens Healthineers pointing to an issue with

China, regulation in China sort of curtailing their business there.

In terms of stock futures for the U.S.

market open, let's look to those.

As we've seen, of course, oil prices are really pulling back.

S&P 500 E-mini futures are up by a quarter of 1%.

Brent crude is now below $100, about $99.30.