Your Friday Briefing: Russia’s Crumbling Gas Exports

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Russian news reports estimate that Russia’s natural gas exports by pipeline could drop by as much as 50 percent in volume this year from last year. The decline has hit Russia’s vital gas export industry since the country invaded Ukraine.

Once Europe’s main supplier of natural gas, Russia has been hit by heavy sanctions from the West since its invasion in February 2022. Europe’s main strategy to reduce dependence on Russian energy – increasing imports of liquefied natural gas from countries like the US, coupled with cuts. expected – has worked surprisingly well.

While Russia is able to hold its own in the oil market despite the embargo, it is more difficult to find new customers for gas as it is still transported through fixed pipelines. Russia is likely to see some gains in gas sales to China and Turkey, but evidence is piling up that the natural gas export industry may be steadily disintegrating.

More war news:

  • Pope Francis discussed peace efforts with Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, during a private audience at the Vatican.

  • Casualties are high on the front lines of the war as Ukrainian forces await heavy artillery from the West ahead of an expected counter-attack.

  • Editors and publishers of three major American newspapers issued a joint call for Russia to immediately release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

  • Brittney Griner, the American basketball star who was detained in Russia for almost 10 months last year, spoke to reporters for the first time since her release.

On the fourth day of his state visit to the US, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivered a speech to Congress that touched on the need to confront the nuclear threat from North Korea.

“There is one regime that is determined to pursue the wrong path: it is North Korea,” he said. “North Korea’s nuclear program and missile provocations pose a serious threat to peace on the Korean peninsula and beyond.”

Yoon also called for increased cooperation between Japan, the US and South Korea to counter North Korea’s nuclear program and pledged to actively support reconstruction efforts in Ukraine in a wide-ranging speech, Reuters reported.

The address came a day after President Biden agreed to strengthen America’s nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea and vowed that any nuclear attack by North Korea would “result in the end” of the government in Pyongyang.

“American Pie”: One of the lighter moments of Yoon’s visit was during a state dinner at the White House. With some coaxing from Biden, Yoon sang “American Pie,” one of his favorites. In case you missed it, here’s the video.

Australia and New Zealand often portray each other as close partners, but in recent decades Australia’s treatment of migrants from New Zealand has caused a rift. Now, Australia’s new centre-left government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has taken steps to address the dispute.

After years of prodding, Australia announced a streamlined process for New Zealanders living in Australia to gain citizenship after four years. This is a reversal of the 2001 policy which gave New Zealanders unlimited work rights in Australia, but prevented them from receiving the same protections as citizens and nationals.

In New Zealand, which has seen a skills shortage and a slowing economy, news of Australia’s immigration changes has raised concerns about more Kiwis being drawn to Australia and the larger economy. Opposition Leader David Seymour said the Australian government was “just carrying out an attack on New Zealand talent.”

Farmers in Malawi, an agrarian country on the front lines of climate change, have no choice but to be creative. As droughts ravage the land and storms strike with a vengeance, subsistence farmers turn to various useless innovations.

Living life: Jerry Springer, the US talk show host who championed troubled relationships and family feuds, has died at his home in Chicago. He is 79 years old.

If you’ve used AI chatbots like ChatGPT, you’re probably familiar with the crisp, clear paragraphs that these bots can easily spit out. And if you’ve been following extensive AI coverage, you probably know that large language models work by training on mountains of internet text, repeatedly guessing the next word (or word fragment) and then ranking it against the real thing. But what does the actual process look like?

To demonstrate how this highly complex AI works, we trained six small language models, called BabyGPT, on six iconic texts, including Shakespeare and “Star Trek.”

Pick a model (I went with Jane Austen), and watch it start learning the language from scratch in five steps.

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