China has been snapping up Russian oil at record discounts after India scaled back purchases

China sharply increased imports of Russia’s Urals crude that Indian refineries began avoiding due to sanctions, Reuters reports.

According to the agency, Russia’s seaborne oil exports to China exceeded 1.5 million barrels per day in December, about 300,000 bpd above the January–November average.

Shipments of Urals crude previously bought by India tripled to 259,000 bpd in the fourth quarter.

🇨🇳🇷🇺

Subscribe Visegrád24

🤖 🇺🇸 Despite billions pouring into AI infrastructure, the productivity gains aren't showing up in the macro data. A Forrester analyst says we're simply "not seeing" an AI-driven boost in any of the available statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers tell the story: productivity grew 2.7% annually from 1947-1973 before PCs, dropped to 2.1% from 1990-2001 after PCs went mainstream, and fell further to 1.5% from 2007-2019.
This is the Solow Paradox playing out again. Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow predicted in 1987 that "the effects of the PC revolution can be seen everywhere, except in the productivity statistics." Same pattern with AI.

My Take
Here's what matters: even when productivity gains do show up, they stopped flowing to workers decades ago. Since the late 1970s, productivity growth has diverged from worker compensation. The gains go to capital owners and high-skill labor. That gap existed before AI and AI is accelerating it.

JPMorgan says AI doubled productivity gains in certain operations from 3% to 6%. Other banks say AI lets them accomplish more with the same headcount. Notice the framing. Same headcount. Not higher wages, not more hiring. Companies are using AI to do more with fewer workers, not to share the gains. The corporate profits to wages ratio keeps climbing. Workers got their smallest share of GDP since 1947 last quarter. AI productivity might eventually transform the economy. But if history is any guide, the transformation means more output, same workers, and the difference goes to shareholders.

📎 Hedgie

🇺🇸 🇬🇧 ✡️ US reportedly considers granting asylum to Jewish people from UK

Discussions are reportedly under way within Donald Trump’s administration about the US possibly granting asylum to Jewish people from the UK, according to the Telegraph, citing the US president’s personal lawyer.

Trump lawyer Robert Garson told the newspaper that he has held conversations with the US state department about offering refuge to British Jews who are leaving the UK citing rising antisemitism.

Garson, 49, said he felt the UK was “no longer a safe place for Jews”. He added that recent events – namely an Islamist attack on a synagogue in Manchester and what he described as widespread antisemitism following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 – had led him to believe that British Jews should be given the option of sanctuary in the US.

In the new interview with the Telegraph, Garson said he could see “no future” for Jews in the UK and placed much of the responsibility on to British prime minister Keir Starmer, accusing him of allowing antisemitism to grow.

Garson, a former British barrister who practiced in London before relocating to the US in 2008, told the Telegraph: “The UK is no longer a safe place for Jews. I have spoken to the state department as to whether the president should be offering British Jews asylum in the US.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/18/trump-uk-jewish-asylum

📢 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 Nigel Farage: "To use economic threats against a country that’s been considered to be your closest ally for over a hundred years is not the kind of thing we would expect. It’s wrong. It’s bad. It would be very, very hurtful to us."

"I am all for Trump taking out enemies of the West, Maduro, the Iranian regime... But if he falls out with his own allies and leaves America isolated, that would be a very bad place to be."

📎 Dzis Maksym

Europe's Gas Market in Turmoil: Prices Surge 20% Amid Cold Snap and Geopolitical Storm

European natural gas benchmarks have rocketed over 20% this week—the largest weekly gain in over two years—as brutal Arctic cold snaps collide with low stockpiles and fresh tensions over Iran and Russian supplies. Traders scrambling to cover shorts face a "perfect storm": record LNG imports hit 480 million cubic meters daily, with even Yamal LNG diverting fully to Europe, while French nuclear outages from storms pile on demand.

This volatility exposes the fragility of the continent's energy shift: EU storage drained by 11 bcm in two weeks, no cheap Russian pipe gas in sight, and forecasts of more "Beast from the East" frosts looming. Oil holds steady around $64/bbl despite Trump rhetoric on Venezuela and Hormuz risks, but gas traders warn of prolonged spikes unless weather eases or supplies magically appear.

Globally, contrasts sharpen—China deploys massive 65 GWh BESS (25% of 2025 world total), clean energy stocks rally on AI power hunger, while Trump pushes US coal/gas/nuclear builds to fuel datacenters. Europe's pain underscores the high cost of de-risking from Moscow: higher bills, blackouts looming, and a scramble for spot LNG that Asia also craves. Stay tuned—third-week frosts could break records.

🔎 Source

@songofoil

Europe's Gas Market in Turmoil: Prices Surge 20% Amid Cold Snap and Geopolitical Storm

European natural gas benchmarks have rocketed over 20% this week—the largest weekly gain in over two years—as brutal Arctic cold snaps collide with low stockpiles and fresh tensions over Iran and Russian supplies. Traders scrambling to cover shorts face a "perfect storm": record LNG imports hit 480 million cubic meters daily, with even Yamal LNG diverting fully to Europe, while French nuclear outages from storms pile on demand.

This volatility exposes the fragility of the continent's energy shift: EU storage drained by 11 bcm in two weeks, no cheap Russian pipe gas in sight, and forecasts of more "Beast from the East" frosts looming. Oil holds steady around $64/bbl despite Trump rhetoric on Venezuela and Hormuz risks, but gas traders warn of prolonged spikes unless weather eases or supplies magically appear.

Globally, contrasts sharpen—China deploys massive 65 GWh BESS (25% of 2025 world total), clean energy stocks rally on AI power hunger, while Trump pushes US coal/gas/nuclear builds to fuel datacenters. Europe's pain underscores the high cost of de-risking from Moscow: higher bills, blackouts looming, and a scramble for spot LNG that Asia also craves. Stay tuned—third-week frosts could break records.

🔎 Source

@songofoil

🗳 🇺🇸 OpenAI is in the red and, at this rate, will run out of money by 2027, having overestimated the profitability of AI.

Recent analyses and internal projections indicate annual losses of around $14 billion in 2026, following roughly $8 billion in 2025.

This stems from overestimating near-term profitability, as high inference and data center expenses continue to dominate despite strong user adoption and billions in revenue.

Without repeated massive funding rounds, analysts warn the company could face a cash shortfall as early as mid-27

📎 Pirat_Nation

Delcy Rodríguez announces the departure of Álex Saab from the International Center for Productive Investment

🚨#BREAKING: Australia's controversial "hate speech" laws have passed the Senate, 38 votes to 22, after 10 Liberals voted with Labor.

Follow: @NoticerNews

🇬🇧 Royal Navy turns its back on Middle East as last ship sails home

Move that leaves Britain without naval fighting presence in Gulf for first time since 1980 branded ‘terrible error’

See the 2003 vs 2026 comparison

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/16/britain-lose-last-warship-middle-east/

📎 The Telegraph

🚨🇺🇸🇬🇱 - Greenland PM Tells People to Prepare for Possible Invasion

Greenland’s prime minister said the Arctic island’s population and its authorities need to start preparing for a possible military invasion, even as it remains an unlikely scenario, as President Donald Trump continues to threaten taking over the territory.

“It’s not likely there will be a military conflict, but it can’t be ruled out,” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said at a press conference in capital Nuuk on Tuesday.

🔗 Bloomberg

🇪🇺🇺🇸⚡️- The European Union has frozen the procedure to sign last year's trade agreement with the USA.

🇪🇺🇺🇸⚡️- The social-democrats (S&D) and conservative members (EPP) of the EU Parliament have reached an agreement to support the freeze of all EU-US trade negotiations alongside the indefinite freeze of the ratification of the 2025 trade agreement.

Even certain members of the far-right groups (PfE/ECR) are supporting this measure according to various statements.

📢 🇫🇷 🇺🇸 Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally:

The United States is presenting us with a choice: accept dependency disguised as partnership, or act as sovereign powers capable of defending our interests.

When a U.S. president threatens a European territory while using trade pressure, it is not dialogue—it is coercion. And our credibility is at stake.

Greenland has become a strategic pivot in a world returning to imperial logic. Yielding today would set a dangerous precedent, exposing other European—and even French overseas—territories tomorrow.

The European Union cannot remain silent. The agreement negotiated last summer must be suspended.

Our anti-coercion instruments must be activated, and targeted measures adopted. This is not escalation—it is self-defense.

The choice is simple: submission or sovereignty. Europe must choose freedom, responsibility, and control of its own destiny.

📎 Clash Report

📢 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 Carney: "American hegemony in particular helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security ... this bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition ... recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as a weapon. Tariffs as leverage ... "

📎 Aaron Rupar