Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a state of emergency was being declared for Ukraine's energy sector, after repeated Russian attacks destroyed electricity and heat infrastructure. Zelenskyy said he asked the government to review curfew restrictions during "this extremely cold weather".

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Overnight into Friday, Russia launched a large attack on Ukraine with missiles and drones, killing at least three and injuring 16 people in the capital Kyiv, according to The Associated Press news agency. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko reported multiple districts in Kyiv were struck, including Desnyanskyi, where a drone crashed into a building and the first two floors of a residential building were damaged.

Conservative creators are increasingly focusing on foreign policy. Wearing combat helmets and protective vests, some of the US's most popular right-wing creators toured what they called an aid distribution hub in Gaza late last month--a trip carefully funded by Israel's foreign ministry. By way of the nonprofit Israel365, the Israeli government funneled at least $70,000 to 15 MAGA creators to bring them to Gaza's humanitarian sites, the Western Wall, and the Golan Heights, among other areas. "It sits here to spoil and be stolen," Xaviaer DuRousseau captioned a photo of himself standing in front of what he claimed was food aid on X last month . "How is that Israel's fault?"

An Israeli diplomat delivering greetings in eight languages to audiences around the world in their native tongues is just the beginning of how artificial intelligence can be used as a tool to augment the venerable practice of diplomacy. Earlier this year, Ambassador David Saranga, head of the digital diplomacy division at the Foreign Ministry, posted videos on Twitter in which his likeness delivered a message in Arabic, Chinese Mandarin, Persian, Greek, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish. Saranga does not speak these languages but wanted to encourage dialogue. "I always wanted to communicate with you in the Turkish language, a language I heard in my childhood at my father's house," Saranga's likeness said in the video addressing Turkey. "Now this is possible thanks to Israeli artificial intelligence technology, which allows me to speak in any language."

Iran has strongly condemned a call by France, Germany and the United Kingdom for the United Nations to investigate the accusations that Russia has used Iranian-origin drones to attack Ukraine, according to its foreign ministry. Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, said on Saturday that the call by the so-called E-3 group of countries was "false and baseless" and that it was "strongly rejected and condemned". Ukraine says Russia has used Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones that cruise towards their target and explode on impact. "The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its pursuit to protect its national interest and to secure the rights of the noble Iranian people, reserves the right to respond to any irresponsible action," the Iranian foreign ministry website quoted Kanaani as saying. "It will not hesitate to defend the interests of the Iranian people," he said, without elaborating.

European Union countries have adopted sanctions on Iran over Iranian-made drones supplied to Russia and used in attacks on Ukraine, the EU Council's Czech presidency has said. "After 3 days of talks, EU ambassadors agreed on measures against entities supplying Iranian drones that hit Ukraine," the presidency said on Twitter on Thursday. Ukraine has accused Russia of using Iranian-made "kamikaze" drones in attacks on cities and energy infrastructure in recent weeks. It says its military has shot down more than 220 Iranian drones since mid-September. The mayor of the capital, Kyiv, said Russia killed four people in a drone attack on Monday.

Beijing is calling on the world's nuclear powers to expand discussions on global security to include emerging threats, following a rare multilateral pledge to temper the risks of nuclear war. Fu Cong, director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Arms Control Department, told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that the so-called P5 nations -- China, France, Russia, the U.S. and U.K. -- should talk "more directly" about global security. "Strategic stability goes beyond nuclear," he said. "Our idea is to expand the subject of the P5 process so we could discuss not only the nuclear issues, but also other issues related to strategic stability, including outer space, missile defense, even AI and other emerging technologies." The briefing took place after the five nations -- all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- issued a joint statement Monday pledging to dial back the risk of a nuclear conflict.

Sergey Kiryushin, special representative for the digital transformation, told Moscow daily RBK that the ministry would be partnering with the Ivannikov Institute for System Programming to develop the concept next year. "Based on the results of the conceptual design, we will determine the financing of the program, but for now, this issue is under discussion," Kiryushin said. The official declined to disclose what kind of data the machine would be used to analyze, simply noting that there are many various tasks in foreign policy that such artificial intelligence could help with. This latest development is part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' wide-ranging digital transformation program. From 2021-2023, the department plans to spend 2.3 billion rubles ($31 million) to improve its information systems and become independent of foreign software.

Inspired by the ability of artificial intelligence to excel at complex board games, China is working towards harnessing the technology to plot foreign policy. The country's foreign ministry is understood to be trialling several prototype AI systems to assess risks to overseas investment projects, such as coups or terrorism. One system, created by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is said to search for patterns in a vast amount of data, ranging from diplomatic cocktail-party chatter to satellite images, to offer insight into potential strategies. The system was first reported by the South China Morning Post. "Cutting-edge technology, including big data and artificial intelligence, is causing profound changes to the way people work and live," the foreign ministry told the newspaper.

The plot-lines of the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are debated and contested. But it is safe to predict that it will become one of the central technologies of the 21st century. It is fashionable these days to speak about data as the new oil. But if we want to "refine" the vast quantities of data we are collecting today and make sense of it, we will need potent AI. The consequences of the AI revolution could not be more far reaching.