Why It’s Still Not Clear Who’s Behind The Nord Stream Blasts

By RFE/RL staff - Mar 14, 2023, 3:00 PM CDT

• On September 27, Swedish scientists said they had detected seismic waves from explosions a day earlier.
• 
  
• Both a Greek-flagged tanker and a chartered yacht have been under investigation for possible involvement.
• 
  
• The New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported on March 6 that intelligence suggested that a "pro-Ukrainian group" was responsible.

In the first half of September 2022, a Greek-flagged tanker sailed eastward from the Dutch port of Rotterdam, into the Baltic Sea and a busy channel plied by dozens of ships weekly en route to major German, Russian, and other Baltic ports.

Marine traffic tracking data showed the tanker stopped east of a Danish island, drifted for nearly week in the same location, then continued its journey east.

About two weeks later, a series of undersea explosions erupted at nearly the same location, destroying parts of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, major conduits for Russian natural gas deliveries to Germany and points beyond in Europe.

The revelations about the tanker and its route were made initially by a Finnish newspaper and then last week in an investigative report by Denmark's public broadcaster.

Along with revelations that German police had searched a yacht chartered in a German port by people who reportedly showed Ukrainian passports, the details provide new pieces to the mysterious puzzle of what caused the undersea blasts and who might be responsible – but fall short of a solution.

Here's what you need to know.

What Exactly Happened With The Pipelines?

For years, the Russian-backed pipelines had been a point of contention between Europe and the United States, which warned that they deepened Europe's dependence on Russian energy. Ukraine also was a loud and persistent critic of the project; Kyiv stood to lose valuable revenues from Europe-bound Russian pumped through Ukraine's sprawling pipeline network.

Gas supplies had been curtailed since the beginning of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which led to a drastic shift by nearly all European countries away from Russian energy. The pipelines were not operational at the time of the explosions, but they did contain gas.

On September 27, Swedish scientists said they had detected seismic waves from explosions a day earlier that were pinpointed to a site on the Baltic seabed more than 100 meters beneath the surface.

Denmark's military later released video of a bubbling swirl of gases on the sea surface over the site.

Western authorities eventually concluded that the pipelines had been partially destroyed by explosives. U.S. officials called the blasts sabotage and European authorities later said that the sophistication of the incident -- in particular the depths at which the explosives would have been placed -- pointed to a state actor with access to complex diving equipment and detonators.

And There's A Greek Tanker Involved?

Last month, the Finnish newspaper Verkkouutiset published a report based on marine tracking data; like airplanes, most commercial ships around the world carry transponders that allow parent companies or maritime insurers or law enforcement agencies to track their whereabouts.

The data homed in on the Minerva Julie, a 183-meter Greek-flagged oil and chemical tanker that departed the North Sea port of Rotterdam on September 2. It sailed into the Baltic, north of the Danish island of Bornholm, and three days later it stopped moving eastward.

For the following week, the tracking data shows, the ship drifted back and forth, with engines on and off, in close proximity to the site where the blasts erupted two weeks after that.

According to the Danish broadcaster TV 2, the ship drifted within 500 meters of the site several times and passed over the pipelines more broadly 29 times.

The ship then continued east, stopping in Tallinn, the Estonian capital on September 14, and then later sailing to St. Petersburg, Russia.

Maritime experts said it was not necessarily unusual that a ship would stop mid-journey and drift in one location for some time -- for example, awaiting new sailing orders from corporate owners.

The Athens-based owner of the Greek tanker, Minerva Marine, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from RFE/RL.

But the company released a statement in response to earlier press inquiries, confirming the ship had drifted in the location detailed by marine data and saying it had been awaiting voyage orders.

TV 2 also highlighted previous reporting from Russian journalist Aleksandr Nevzorov that said one of the co-owners of Minerva Marine had met in the past with top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin. And Ukrainian officials have asserted the company has shipped Russian coal and oil in violation of European Union sanctions.

Russia has denied it was behind the blasts.

What Were German Authorities Doing With the Chartered Yacht?

This past January, German federal authorities searched a cruising yacht that had been chartered in the German post of Rostock. The ship was later identified as the Andromeda, a 15-meter cruising yacht.

The search of the yacht, German investigators said in a March 8 e-mail to RFE/RL, was conducted based on suspicions that "the vessel in question may have been used to transport explosive devices" involved in the explosions.

"The evaluation of the seized traces and objects is ongoing," they said. "Reliable statements, in particular on the question of state involvement, cannot be made at the present time."

A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the water following incidents in the Baltic Sea, in this handout picture released on September 29, 2022, by Russia's Roscosmos agency.

German media, including Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, reported that the Andromeda had been chartered by a group of six people, some of whom showed Ukrainian passports for identification, and set sail from the German port of Rostock on September 6. The entity that chartered the ship was a Polish company owned by two Ukrainians, Die Zeit said.

Investigators also found traces of explosives on a table in the yacht's cabin.

Die Zeit, which collaborated with German broadcaster ARD and other media, did not specify sourcing for its report, but said its sources were based in several countries.

The newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on March 12 that some in the group may have shown Bulgarian passports.

The Andromeda, which is small enough to not carry marine tracking beacons, is believed to have departed Rostock on September 6 and made two stops over the following days: in another German port, Wiek, and on another Danish island, Christianso, Die Zeit and The Wall Street Journal reported. Christianso is located about 30 kilometers northeast of Bornholm.

There is no known indication of a connection between the Minerva Julia and Andromeda.

So, Who Did It Then?

That's still very much unclear.

German media have reported that not long after the explosions, an unnamed Western intelligence agency communicated to European security agencies that a Ukrainian commando group was responsible.

But according to Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the intelligence, which it said came from the CIA, was based on "intercepted Russian communications" and was discounted.

The New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported on March 6 that intelligence suggested that a "pro-Ukrainian group" was responsible and that the explosives had likely been placed with the help of "experienced divers who did not appear to be working for military or intelligence services."

"The review of newly collected intelligence suggests [the possible perpetrators] were opponents of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation," the report said.

The Ukrainian government had previously denied any involvement in the explosions. The new reporting from the Times in particular prompted a retort from a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Mykhaylo Podolyak, who repeated that Ukraine had nothing to do with the incident.

The Times of London, meanwhile, on the same day that German investigators confirmed the search of the Andromeda, pointed the finger at an "influential figure" who bankrolled the sabotage operation "involving a yacht, elite divers, forged passports and the procurement of shaped explosive charges only available to the gas and oil industry with a specific license and at great cost."

"If you looked at these details, like them going out there, with a small yacht, during September conditions, in this area, it all sounds a little bit, well, adventurous," said Julian Pawlak, a research associate at the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in Hamburg.

Pawlak also cited earlier reports from European officials as saying that it would take several hundred kilograms of explosives to cause the damage observed on the pipelines.

"How this would have been done would have been interesting, well, interesting," he told RFE/RL.

"It sounds like they would be a professional group with professional IDs and all, and yet they seem to be not so professional," he said. "They leave such blind evidence on the table?"

What About Seymour Hersh?

In early February, Hersh, a prize-winning American investigative journalist, published a report in his blog on Substack that claimed the Nord Stream pipelines were bombed by the United States.

The February 8 article drew wide attention and was embraced quickly by Russian officials -- but it also drew widespread criticism for, among other things, its reliance on a single anonymous source.

Open-source researchers from Bellingcat and other investigative outfits also pointed to marine traffic data and other details to argue that Hersh's article had major holes.

In an interview published on March 13, Nikolai Patrushev, who is the head of Putin's Security Council and known for espousing conspiracy theories about the West, again denied Russia's involvement and suggested, without providing evidence, that either the United States or Britain was behind the blasts.Others who have voiced suspicion that the United States was responsible have pointed to a statement by U.S. President Joe Biden, who just days before Russia's February 24, 2022, invasion, said: "If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

On February 8, White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson dismissed the allegation in Hersh's article as "utterly false and complete fiction."Former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, meanwhile, posted a photo of the blast site on Twitter on the same day as reports first emerged saying: "Thank You, USA." He later deleted the tweet.

By RFE/RL

Ban On IOCs In Iraqi Kurdistan May Be Lifted

By Simon Watkins - Mar 14, 2023

•  International Oil Companies (IOCs)
• 
  
• IOCs had effectively been banned from operating in both the north and the south of Iraq.
• 
  
• The deal between Baghdad and the KRG about oil sales and its proceeds has not worked out as it should.
• 
  
• The FGI’s reinvigorated toughness last year on the KRG’s independent sale of oil from the north indicates that Russian companies lost influence.

The recent signing by Iraq’s federal government in Baghdad of three long-term oil and gas sector contracts with the UAE’s Crescent Petroleum – a company also heavily involved in the same sectors of Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan – may indicate that the ban on international oil companies (IOCs) trying to operate in both regions has now been relaxed by Baghdad.  Crescent Petroleum has been highly active in Kurdistan since it and its affiliate, Dana Gas, signed agreements in April 2007 with the government of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region for the development of its gas resources. The company is still integral to the development, processing, and transportation of natural gas from the Khor Mor and Chemchemal Gas Fields to provide natural gas supplies for power generation plants near Erbil and Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region. 

Meanwhile, the recent three 20-year contracts signed between Iraq’s Oil Ministry in Baghdad and Crescent Petroleum are focused on the evaluation, development and production of oil and gas from two blocks in the Diyala Governorate, adjacent to Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah in the north, and one in the Basra Governorate in the south. According to comments from the Iraq’s Oil Ministry, the Diyala Governorate’s Gilabat-Qumar and Khashim Ahmer-Injana fields will be developed with a target to produce 250 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd) of non-associated gas at first. The Khider Al-Mai block in the Basra Governorate will be focal point for Crescent Petroleum’s development efforts in the south. 

This news will be highly welcome to several IOCs that from the middle of last year had effectively been banned from operating in both the north and the south of Iraq, as demarcated by the regions governed by either the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) in Baghdad or the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil. For several years, there had been intermittent legal battles between the two governments on the right, or not, of the KRG to develop its oil own and gas resources and then to sell them independently of the FGI. 

Legally, the issue is highly debatable as to whether the KRG can sell the oil and gas produced from fields in its own region. According to the KRG, it has authority under Articles 112 and 115 of the Iraq Constitution to manage oil and gas in the Kurdistan Region extracted from fields that were not in production in 2005 – the year that the Constitution was adopted by referendum. The KRG also maintains that Article 115 states: “All powers not stipulated in the exclusive powers of the federal government belong to the authorities of the regions and governorates that are not organised in a region.” As such, the KRG posits that as relevant powers are not otherwise stipulated in the Constitution, it has the authority to sell and receive revenue from its oil and gas exports. The KRG also highlights that the Constitution provides that should a dispute arise then priority shall be given to the law of the regions and governorates. 

However, the FGI in Baghdad and Iraq’s State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO) argue that under Article 111 of the Constitution oil and gas are under the ownership of all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governorates. Consequently, they believe that all oil and gas developed across all of Iraq should be sold through official channels of the central Federal Government of Iraq in Baghdad. As long ago as 2014, the FGI showed its no-nonsense approach to enforcing this view, with Iraq’s Oil Ministry, represented by SOMO, threatening to sue any buyer lifting Kurdish crude oil. The previous five months in 2014 had seen more than 11 million barrels of Kurdish crude exported through the Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) and delivered to destinations such as Israel, China and Croatia, according to international legal sources close to the parties, exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com at the time. Shortly after this, SOMO initiated proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas against the ‘United Kalavyvata’, which had allegedly been carrying one such cargo of oil from Kurdistan. 

It was thought that a practical solution to this enduring legal problem had been agreed by both sides in November 2014 in a budget disbursement-for-oil deal agreed between the FGI and KRG. The deal was that the KRG would export up to 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from the northern region of Kurdistan’s oilfields and Kirkuk via the FGI’s Baghdad-based SOMO in the south. In return, Baghdad would send 17 percent of the federal budget (after sovereign expenses) - around US$500 million at that time - per month in budget payments to the Kurds. 

Although apparently fair to both sides, the agreement rarely functioned as it should. The KRG frequently, and accurately, was cited by the FGI in Baghdad for selling oil independently of SOMO, and the FGI in Baghdad was frequently, and accurately, cited by the KRG for not disbursing the requisite funds from the budget on time or in the correct amounts. This already difficult situation was complicated further by the involvement initially of Iran and then of Russia after it effectively took control of the northern Iraq oil sector in 2017, as analysed in-depth in my latest book on the global oil markets. 

Any hopes held by IOCs that the FGI’s view might have softened towards them doing business in both the north and the south of Iraq appeared to have been squashed by a letter sent on 2 June 2022 by Hassan Muhammad Hassan, the deputy director general of the state-run Basra Oil Company (BOC). In the letter, he called on “all lead contractors and sub-contractors” of IOCs working in Iraqi Kurdistan to pledge that they would no longer work in Kurdistan and that any current contracts should be terminated within three months. This was followed by an order from the BOC director general, Khalid Abbas, to “all lead contractors” that ordered them to “suspend dealing with the following subcontractors and never invite them to any future works or projects in BOC oil fields as per the licensing contracts signed with your companies”. According to local reports, multiple oil companies working in the northern Iraq Kurdistan region at the time (including DNO, Western Zagros, Gulf Keystone, Genel Energy, and ShaMaran Petroleum) also received personalised letters on 19 May 2022 that summoned them to appear at the Commercial Court in Baghdad on 5 June that year. 

These moves had been presaged by two landmark legal rulings made in February 2022 by the Supreme Court of the FGI in Baghdad, analysed in depth at the time by OilPrice.com. The first of these rulings was that sales of oil and gas by the KRG, done independently of the central government in Baghdad, were unconstitutional and that the KRG had to hand over all oil production to the FGI, represented by the Oil Ministry. The second ruling, and an even greater direct threat to all oil and gas operations of IOCs operating in the northern region, was that the Oil Ministry had the right to: “Follow up on the invalidity of oil contracts concluded by the Kurdistan Regional Government with foreign parties, countries and companies regarding oil exploration, extraction, export and sale.” 

The FGI’s reinvigorated toughness last year on the KRG’s independent sale of oil from the north may have been a function of how badly Russia was doing in its invasion of Ukraine. There had been a distinct lull in such a tough approach after Russia had effectively taken over the KRG’s oil industry in 2017 to when it became clear by the middle of last year that the Russian military machine was not what it once had been, and probably nor was the political shrewdness of President Vladimir Putin either. The potential reappearance of a softer line from the FGI now, though, is unlikely to have resulted from a change in this FGI view of Russia or Putin. Instead, it is likely to have resulted from a renewed desire to bring northern Iraq closer to the central government in Baghdad to present a more united front to a replacement superpower sponsor to Russia. 

In this context, alongside the recent deals signed by Crescent Petroleum were other deals signed by Chinese firms, including the erstwhile little-known Geo-Jade Petroleum Company (which won two - Huwaiza, in Missan, and Naft Khana, in Diyala), and its United Energy Group (which won Sindbad in Basra). However, it is also apposite to note that Baghdad has a long and successful history, from its perspective, in inveigling the U.S. into extending waivers for it to keep importing gas and electricity from Iran and into bailing out its budget by dangling such rivalries under Washington’s nose.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

Canadian Government Orders Oil Sands Firm To Contain Tailings Leak

By Charles Kennedy - Mar 14, 2023

The federal government of Canada has ordered Imperial Oil, the operator of the Kearl oil sands project, to contain a leak of tailings water that occurred last year but was only reported months later.

The tailings leak is harmful to wildlife as it contains dangerous levels of arsenic, metals, and hydrocarbons, the Globe and Mail reported, citing Environment and Climate Change Canada—the government agency in charge of environmental protection.

"Based on information enforcement officers have to date, the seep is believed to be deleterious, or harmful, to fish," a spokeswoman for Environment and Climate Change Canada said, as quoted by the National Observer.

“On March 10, 2023, enforcement officers issued a Fisheries Act direction to Imperial Oil. The direction requires immediate action to contain the seep and prevent it from entering a fish-bearing water body," she also said.

The testing of samples from the leak comes months after it actually began because the Alberta energy regulator, whom Imperial Oil informed about the leak as soon as it detected it, failed to pass on the message to the federal government until nine months later.

Unsurprisingly, the federal environment minister and head of Environment and Climate Change Canada said it was “very worrisome” that Alberta’s energy regulator had failed to inform the government about events at the Kearl mine.

Imperial Oil, meanwhile, said that it had installed water pumps at the site to prevent the leaked tailings from entering the nearby lake and plans to collect the fish from that lake and install a barrier to prevent more fish from migrating into the area, the Globe and Mail also wrote.

"We need to see a clear remediation plan from the company and to better understand the apparent failures of communication for the notification of this spill," Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said earlier this month, as quoted by Reuters.

The Kearl oil sands project has reserves of some 4.6 billion barrels of recoverable bitumen, according to Imperial Oil. Production at the facility began in 2013 and ramped up to 220,000 barrels daily in 2015.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

White phosphorus munitions fired in eastern Ukraine: AFP

Tue, March 14, 2023 at 4:41 PM MDT·1 min read

White phosphorus munitions were fired on Tuesday from Russian positions on an uninhabited area by the town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, AFP journalists saw.

Two projectiles were fired five minutes apart at around 4:45 pm (1445 GMT) on a road at the southern edge of Chasiv Yar leading to nearby Bakhmut, the centre of the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia's year-long invasion.

The whistling sound from the projectiles was followed by explosions caused by munitions that released small, burning balls of white phosphorus that slowly fell to the ground.

The balls set fire to the vegetation on both sides of the road on a surface equivalent to the size of a football pitch.

AFP was not able to confirm if the targeted site was a position held by Ukrainian forces, but a green truck with a white cross, a sign of Ukraine's army, was parked by a path in the burned area.

The nearest homes were around 200 metres (656 feet) away from the outer edge of the affected land.

Weapons containing phosphorus are incendiary arms whose use against civilians is banned, but they can be deployed against military targets under a 1980 convention signed in Geneva.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of using them on several occasions since the start of the war, including against civilians, which the Russian army has denied categorically.

epe/rco/am/imm/pvh/dw

CLIMATE CRISIS

Argentina forests burn amid heat wave, drought

Issued on: 14/03/2023 

Smoke rising from a forest plantation in Ituzaingo in Argentina's Corrientes province 

© - / TELAM/AFP

Buenos Aires (AFP) – Fires in heat wave- and drought-stricken Argentina have devoured some 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of forests in the northern Corrientes province in just days, officials reported Tuesday.

Three fires continued to threaten while two others were burning but under control, according to the emergency command center of Corrientes.

No injuries have been reported and the fires have not spread to populated areas, with rains expected Tuesday.

Since the start of the year, with the South American country facing heat wave after heat wave, fires have destroyed more than 100,000 hectares in Corrientes, according to the INTA agricultural technology institute.

Last month, Argentina issued health warnings in several provinces under the worst heat wave in decades, with temperatures close to 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

The three months from November to the end of January were the warmest such period since 1961, according to the weather service.

While occasional heat waves are normal, climate change has made them "more persistent and more intense," even in Argentina's mountainous Patagonia region, meteorologist Enzo Campetella told AFP last month.

In 2022, forest fires in Corrientes burnt more than a million hectares, according to official figures.

The La Nina cycle of the El Nino weather phenomenon brought historically high temperatures last year, leading to crop losses estimated in the billions of dollars.

OpenAI announces GPT-4 — the next generation of its AI language model

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT has finally revealed GPT-4, capable of accepting text or image inputs.

By JAMES VINCENT
Mar 14, 2023, 

Illustration: The Verge


After months of rumors and speculation, OpenAI has announced GPT-4: the latest in its line of AI language models that power applications like ChatGPT and the new Bing.

The company claims the model is “more creative and collaborative than ever before” and “can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy.” It can parse both text and image input, though it can only respond via text. OpenAI also cautions that the systems retain many of the same problems as earlier language models, including a tendency to make up information (or “hallucinate”) and the capacity to generate violent and harmful text.

OpenAI says it’s already partnered with a number of companies to integrate GPT-4 into their products, including Duolingo, Stripe, and Khan Academy. The new model is available to the general public via ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI’s $20 monthly ChatGPT subscription, and is powering Microsoft’s Bing chatbot. It will also be accessible as an API for developers to build on. (There is a waitlist here, which OpenAI says will start admitting users today.)

In a research blog post, OpenAI said the distinction between GPT-4 and its predecessor GPT-3.5 is “subtle” in casual conversation (GPT-3.5 is the model that powers ChatGPT). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted that GPT-4 “is still flawed, still limited” but that it also “still seems more impressive on first use than it does after you spend more time with it.”

The company says GPT-4’s improvements are evident in the system’s performance on a number of tests and benchmarks, including the Uniform Bar Exam, LSAT, SAT Math, and SAT Evidence-Based Reading & Writing exams. In the exams mentioned, GPT-4 scored in the 88th percentile and above, and a full list of exams and the system’s scores can be seen here.

Speculation about GPT-4 and its capabilities have been rife over the past year, with many suggesting it would be a huge leap over previous systems. However, judging from OpenAI’s announcement, the improvement is more iterative, as the company previously warned.

“People are begging to be disappointed and they will be,” said Altman in an interview about GPT-4 in January. “The hype is just like... We don’t have an actual AGI and that’s sort of what’s expected of us.”

The rumor mill was further energized last week after a Microsoft executive let slip that the system would launch this week in an interview with the German press. The executive also suggested the system would be multi-modal — that is, able to generate not only text but other mediums. Many AI researchers believe that multi-modal systems that integrate text, audio, and video offer the best path toward building more capable AI systems.

GPT-4 is indeed multimodal, but in fewer mediums than some predicted. OpenAI says the system can accept both text and image inputs and emit text outputs. The company says the model’s ability to parse text and image simultaneously allows it to interpret more complex input. In the samples below, you can see the system explaining memes and unusual images:




It’s been a long journey to get to GPT-4, with OpenAI — and AI language models in general — building momentum slowly over several years before rocketing into the mainstream in recent months.

The original research paper describing GPT was published in 2018, with GPT-2 announced in 2019 and GPT-3 in 2020. These models are trained on huge datasets of text, much of it scraped from the internet, which is mined for statistical patterns. These patterns are then used to predict what word follows another. It’s a relatively simple mechanism to describe, but the end result is flexible systems that can generate, summarize, and rephrase writing, as well as perform other text-based tasks like translation or generating code.

OpenAI originally delayed the release of its GPT models for fear they would be used for malicious purposes like generating spam and misinformation. But in late 2022, the company launched ChatGPT — a conversational chatbot based on GPT-3.5 that anyone could access. ChatGPT’s launch triggered a frenzy in the tech world, with Microsoft soon following it with its own AI chatbot Bing (part of the Bing search engine) and Google scrambling to catch up.

As predicted, the wider availability of these AI language models has created problems and challenges. The education system is still adapting to the existence of software that writes respectable college essays; online sites like Stack Overflow and sci-fi magazine Clarkesworld have had to close submissions due to an influx of AI-generated content; and early uses of AI writing tools in journalism have been rocky at best. But, some experts have argued that the harmful effects have still been less than anticipated.

In its announcement of GPT-4, OpenAI stressed that the system had gone through six months of safety training, and that in internal tests, it was “82 percent less likely to respond to requests for disallowed content and 40 percent more likely to produce factual responses than GPT-3.5.”

However, that doesn’t mean the system doesn’t make mistakes or output harmful content. For example, Microsoft revealed that its Bing chatbot has been powered by GPT-4 all along, and many users were able to break Bing’s guardrails in all sorts of creative ways, getting the bot to offer dangerous advice, threaten users, and make up information. GPT-4 also still lacks knowledge about events “that have occurred after the vast majority of its data cuts off” in September 2021

URBAN RENEWAL

Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest region in France at the heart of Paris Olympics

Issued on: 14/03/2023 -

In 500 days on Tuesday, the 2024 Summer Olympics will burst into life in Paris as the teams float down the River Seine on barges in a unique opening ceremony. The spending on the Games is being scrutinised as never before -- venues are focused on Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest area in France.