Guiding Principles.
The price of initiative.
“News Items gives you in minutes the most important news of the day, with the bonus of clear reports on the latest research and breakthroughs in science and technology that go broader and deeper than anything you see in news summaries from other leading publications.” — Robert Delamater, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell.
1. Researchers from Johns Hopkins, Oxford, Stanford, Columbia and NYU are calling for guardrails on certain infectious disease datasets that could enable AI to design deadly viruses. Once high-risk biological data hits the open web, it can’t be recalled — and regulation won’t matter if the knowledge itself is already widely distributed. An international group of more than 100 researchers has endorsed a framework to govern certain biological data the same way we handle sensitive health records. The research paper is here (and worth reading). (Sources: axios.com, arxiv.org)
2. Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia were due to begin a second day of talks in Geneva today, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the United States was putting undue pressure on him to bring an end to the four-year-old war. The U.S.-mediated peace talks in Switzerland have been taking place as President Trump has twice in recent days suggested it was up to Ukraine and Zelenskiy to take steps to ensure the talks were successful. In an interview with U.S. website Axios published on Tuesday, Zelenskiy was quoted as saying that it was “not fair” that Trump kept publicly calling on Ukraine, not Russia, to make concessions in negotiating terms for a peace plan. Zelenskiy also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected by Ukrainians if put to a referendum. “I hope it is just his tactics and not the decision,” Axios quoted Zelenskiy as saying in the interview. (Sources: reuters.com, axios.com)
3. The Institute for the Study of War:
Russian forces conducted another large, combined strike package against Ukrainian energy infrastructure overnight on February 16 to 17 — the eve of trilateral US-Ukrainian-Russian negotiations in Geneva. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched 425 drones and missiles against Ukraine overnight. (Source: understandingwar.com)
4. The Institute for the Study of War:
Kremlin officials and Kremlin-affiliated media sources reaffirmed Russia’s unwillingness to compromise as trilateral talks started in Geneva on February 17. US, Ukrainian, and Russian delegations began trilateral talks in Geneva on February 17 and will continue on February 18. A source told Kremlin newswire TASS that the talks will cover at least five tracks — territorial, military, political, economic, and security issues.
Russian State Duma deputies and Federation Council senators, whose target audience is the Russian population and who often act as bullhorns for the Kremlin’s true diplomatic and military aims, continue to advance the Kremlin’s boilerplate rhetorical lines about Russia’s original war demands that go beyond territory in eastern Ukraine. Duma Defense Committee Chairperson Andrei Kartapolov claimed that Ukraine will only be able to “win” when it joins the Russian Federation — reiterating Russia’s long-term goal of destroying an independent Ukraine. (Source: understandingwar.com)
