Russia has blamed Ukraine for setting ablaze one of its oil refineries, while Kyiv has accused Moscow of launching dozens of overnight strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles for the second day running. The targeting of the fuel facility on Thursday occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region, Russia's TASS news agency reported citing local emergency services. A fuel reservoir was on fire, it said, but gave no further details. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught fire near a bridge linking Russia's mainland with the occupied Crimean Peninsula. "A second turbulent night for our emergency services," Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram, confirming tanks with oil products were set ablaze.

A massive Crimea oil reservoir fire broke out after the site was hit by a drone, according to video posted Saturday. A Ukrainian drone strike caused a massive fire to erupt at an oil depot in Crimea, a Russia-appointed official reported Saturday. Mikhail Razvozhayev, Russia's selected governor of Sevastopol, said that authorities had spotted two "enemy drones" that attacked the depot, with four tanks burned down as a result. Local forces were able to shoot down a third drone and disable a fourth through radio-electronic means. Razvozhayev assigned the fire the highest level of difficulty to extinguish, but he claimed the fire had at least been contained.

Today, the United States and the European Union signed an administrative arrangement to bring together experts from across the U.S. and Europe to further research on artificial intelligence (AI), computing, and related privacy protecting technologies, as underscored in the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) commitment. This collaborative effort will drive responsible advancements in AI to address major global challenges with a joint development model and integrated research to deliver benefits to our societies through five key areas of focus: Extreme Weather and Climate Forecasting, Emergency Response Management, Health and Medicine Improvements, Electric Grid Optimization, and Agriculture Optimization. Together, we are confident the results of our research will extend beyond our partnership to benefit additional international partners and the global science community. Today's announcement also builds on the vision set forth in the Declaration for the Future of the Internet (DFI) for an open, free, reliable, and secure Internet and digital technologies around the world. We look forward to deepening our cooperation with the EU through this initiative.

Japan has tightened its sanctions against Russia following its latest wave of missile attacks in Ukraine, adding goods to an export ban list and freezing the assets of Russian officials and entities. The decision on Friday comes after Russia launched missile attacks across Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least 11 people, following a pledge by Germany and the United States to supply tanks that could help Kyiv counter a new Russian offensive. "In light of the situation surrounding Ukraine and to contribute to international efforts to secure peace, Japan will implement export bans in line with other major nations," Japan's Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry said in a press release. Among the new sanctions, Japan will prohibit shipments of items to 49 organisations in Russia from February 3 that could be used to enhance Moscow's military capability. Those will include products ranging from water cannons, gas exploration equipment and semiconductor equipment to vaccines, X-ray inspection equipment, explosives and robots, the ministry said.

Ukraine is on a list of nations unable to access OpenAI's ChatGPT. The war-torn country would like this to change, with the country's vice prime minister appealing to the chatbot's owners to provide access.

Podcast giant Joe Rogan slammed academia for defending unhealthy lifestyles in a Saturday episode of his "The Joe Rogan Experience" show. Comedians Matt McCusker and Shane Gillis jointed "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast on Saturday to talk about how media and academia turn people into mindless servants of the establishment. Rogan spoke with the comedians, one of whom had been infamously canceled by Saturday Night Live for past offensive humor. Rogan brought up a viral video showing political performance artist Alex Stein trolling an activist, "This right-wing comedian, he goes to one of these Ukraine protests and he brings a homeless guy, and he says'my wife's boyfriend is homeless, why don't you help him and the homeless people here?'" Rogan followed up by recounting how the activist tried to persuade Stein and the ostensibly homeless man, "The guy, like, tries to engage about the problems with Ukraine," later adding, "this guy is, like, that liberal. That liberal robot zombie repeating sh** that he saw on CNBC, just saying it."

This past year, global attention has been focused on geo-strategic issues, such as the devastating war in Ukraine, which has dislocated many and caused immense suffering. Attention has also been focused on the recovery from the COVID pandemic, which was the overriding concern over the past three years. And finally, the economic destruction wrought by rapidly ramped interest rates which have targeted all sectors of the economy, particularly technology. But despite all this negativity, the business of building the future continues. There has been progress across major axes of computing, from visualization to AI and new types of processors (quantum).

The United States has announced that it is sanctioning Iranian industries that produce ballistic missiles and drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which the US says have been used to facilitate Russia's war in Ukraine. In a news release on Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the sanctions would target seven people in leadership positions at Qods Aviation Industries -- an Iranian UAV manufacturer -- and Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO), which manages the country's ballistic missile programme. "Iran has now become Russia's top military backer," Blinken said in the statement. "Iran must cease its support for Russia's unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to disrupt and delay these transfers and impose costs on actors engaged in this activity." Iran is fueling Russia's war in Ukraine with its provision of UAV technology. Today, the United States sanctioned seven people involved in Iran's UAV and ballistic missile programs – programs Moscow is using to target Ukraine's critical infrastructure.

After all the dreaming, our technologies can still take unexpected turns, amazing and alarming us. As we agonize through another year about whether, as the Christmas carol says, "the wrong shall fail, the right prevail," I've traditionally started each new year with what I've called "a massive MapReduce on the year gone by" -- a lively lightning round of overlooked moments, in a final closing ceremony for the year gone by. But in asking what was truly significant about 2022, are we also highlighting events that foreshadow things to come? Besides technology playing a role in the world's geopolitical conflicts, there was also one unmistakable trend in 2022 that was both haunting and hilarious. It was the advances in both the performance and the accessibility of AI technology.

A Ukrainian intelligence assessment has found that a single Iranian-made attack drone launched by Russia contained parts made by more than a dozen US companies. The Iranian Shahed-136 drone, downed during an attack last fall, contained 40 components manufactured by 13 different American companies, according to a CNN report citing the assessment. For months, Russia has been hammering Ukraine's civilian infrastructure with waves of drone attacks, which are designed to overwhelm air defenses and demoralize the population. Though the company that built the drones, Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Corporation (HESA), has been under US sanctions since 2008, Iran appears to be obtaining the sophisticated electronics using intermediaries. To investigate the issue, the White House last month launched an'all hands on deck' task force involving agencies from across Washington - including the departments of Defense, State, Justice, Commerce and Treasury. Part of a downed Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone launched by Russia is seen near Kupiansk, Ukraine.