Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.
Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (https://books2read.com/htt39), is available for pre-sale :)
Historic Copenhagen stock exchange in Denmark goes up in flames
Summary: One of Copenhagen’s oldest buildings, a stock exchange that was built in 1625, caught fire earlier this week, the cause of the fire currently unknown, about half of the building burning to the ground.
Context: The director of the Danish chamber of commerce, which is housed in the old stock exchange, has said it would be rebuilt, as the building has similar symbolic meaning to the country as Notre-Dame (which burned down about five years ago) does to Paris; members of the public joined emergency services in hauling giant works of art out of the building as it burned, and the fire department chief said that it will take time to assess the full extent of the damage, as the fire was extensive and the building is covered by scaffoldings due to an extensive renovation it was undergoing.
—BBC News
Nigeria inflation climbs to 28-year high in March
Summary: New data from the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics show that the country experienced its 15th straight month of increasing consumer inflation, that figure reaching 31.7% in February and 33.2% in March, marking a 28-year high.
Context: The Bureau said that food and non-alcoholic beverage prices were the most prominent contributors to these inflationary effects, though the President’s decision to end the country’s petrol subsidy, which was costing the government a fortune but saving citizens a lot of money on energy costs, and two devaluations of the naira currency are also playing a major role.
—Reuters
US to help Armenia modernize its military
Summary: In the wake of a major defeat at the hands of its chief rival and neighbor, Azerbaijan, which swept into the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region last September, taking control of the area and causing a wave of Armenians to flee from it into Armenia proper, the EU and US have offered Armenia more than $350 million in military assistance, alongside military cooperation with US forces.
Context: This is being seen as a huge pivot for Armenia, which has traditionally been in Russia’s military orbit, but which saw Russia’s failure to act on their behalf when Azerbaijan invaded as a signal that it was being left in the lurch, and could no longer rely upon its long-time protector and patron; the US has not indicated that Armenia needs to sever its remaining ties with Russia as part of this deal, and many components of this cooperation have yet to be finalized, so the nature and strength of this newfound friendliness with the West aren’t yet written in stone.
—Eurasianet
While most of the world is weaning itself off of coal, for the fourth year in a row China has increased its construction of new coal energy infrastructure, apparently deviating from plans to retire a significant portion of its coal power plants in favor of cleaner versions of the same.
—CarbonBrief
2%
Portion of total available electricity consumed by data centers powering AI chatbots, according to the chief marketing officer of British semiconductor company, Arm.
Some analysts have said that use could double by 2026, and that same executive said that a quarter of all electricity in the US could be consumed by these AI-focused data centers by 2030 if the way we use energy doesn’t change, soon.
—Quartz
One Sentence News / April 19, 2024