Will releasing millions of barrels of oil stockpiles really bring down fuel costs?

When the global economy was still in the grip of the devastating 1970s oil crises, exposing the chokehold exerted by a few important oil states, the International Energy Agency (IEA) was created, in the hope of limiting future shocks.Almost half a century on, the IEA’s 32 members have drawn up plans to hit the emergency button, for only the fifth time in its history.On Wednesday, the IEA said 400m barrels of emergency crude, a third of the group’s total government stockpiles, would be released to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran. It is the biggest release of oil reserves in its history.The cost of a barrel of crude oil quadrupled between October 1973 and January 1974, after members of the Opec cartel cut production; then fell back, before nearly trebling again in 1979, after the Iranian revolution

Lloyd’s of London stresses it is still insuring shipping in strait of Hormuz

There is a price for everything: even the cost of insuring a ship travelling through the strait of Hormuz.Donald Trump’s proposals for the US to provide political risk insurance for seaborne trade in the Gulf may have given the impression a lack of cover was the reason why traffic through the key waterway has almost halted.However, Lloyd’s of London, the heart of maritime insurance globally, emphasises it has not stopped providing contracts to those who ask – although at the right tariff.Fending off criticism over cancelled policies and sharp price rises, Lloyd’s said it still provided insurance cover for hull and cargo for vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, including in the strait of Hormuz. However, last week it extended the restricted areas where clients needed to notify insurers to agree an appropriate premium in terms of the risk

Meta disables more than 150,000 accounts in crackdown on south-east Asian scam networks

Meta disabled more than 150,000 accounts and Thai police arrested 21 people in a sweeping international crackdown on south-east Asian criminal scam centers that targeted people around the world, the social media company said on Wednesday.The operation was led by Thailand’s Royal Thai police anti-cyber scam center, alongside the FBI and the US justice department’s scam center strike force, with Meta investigators acting on intelligence shared in real time by law enforcement.Alongside the enforcement action, Meta announced a series of new protective tools, including alerts on Facebook for suspicious friend requests and a WhatsApp warning system to flag potentially fraudulent device-linking attempts.One of Meta’s tools aims to detect when a potential Facebook friend shows signs of falsifying details about their profile – like, for example, an account operating out of a different country than the one stated in the profile. The tool provides users details on the account, highlighting potential issues, such as a lack of mutual friends or that the account was recently created, and gives options to either block or report it for inauthentic activity

‘Happy (and safe) shooting!’: chatbots helped researchers plot deadly attacks

Popular AI chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks including bombing synagogues and assassinating politicians, with one telling a user posing as a would-be school shooter: “Happy (and safe) shooting!”Tests of 10 chatbots carried out in the US and Ireland found that, on average, they enabled violence three-quarters of the time, and discouraged it in just 12% of cases. Some chatbots, however, including Anthropic’s Claude and Snapchat’s My AI, persistently refused to help would-be attackers.OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and the Chinese AI model DeepSeek provided at times detailed help in the testing carried out in December, during which researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys. The research concluded that chatbots had become an “accelerant for harm”.ChatGPT offered assistance to people saying they wanted to carry out violent attacks in 61% of cases, the research found, and in one case, asked about attacks on synagogues, it gave specific advice about which shrapnel type would be most lethal

Trust at 100km/h: how Bluetooth bond helps skier Neil Simpson see his way to glory

Neil Simpson and his guide Robert Poth won silver at the Winter Paralympics on Tuesday, the first medal for Great Britain at these Games. But to watch the athletes in visually impaired alpine skiing descend the slopes of the Dolomites at speeds of up to 100km/h is to be strongly reminded that everyone needs at least another medal, just for being brave enough to do it in the first place.Talk to the 23-year-old Simpson, however, and the concept of taking one’s life into one’s hands doesn’t come into the equation. Born with the condition nystagmus, which causes involuntary eye movements, he has been skiing since he was four, first on the dry slopes in Aberdeen, then at the Glenshee resort, before competing in national competition aged 16. “I think it’s something that’s never really fazed me”, he says

Kit clash farce looms as France set to wear special pale blue shirt against England

England’s Six Nations finale in Paris on Saturday could descend into farce with France poised to wear a special edition pale blue kit that threatens to clash with the white strip worn by Steve Borthwick’s side.Fabian Galthié’s team have confirmed they will don the anniversary kit, which is significantly lighter than their traditional blue strip, for a match that marks 120 years of rivalry between France and England. It is understood, however, that England will still wear their white kit despite the potential for a clash. Match officials are also understood to have given both kits the green light.Six Nations organisers have been wary of issues with kits in the past and no longer permit Wales and Ireland to wear predominantly red and green strips respectively because of the difficulty colour-blind spectators have in differentiating between the two sets of players