News
October 18, 2021
5,600: Myanmar's military junta will release from prison 5,600 people who were jailed for protesting against last February's coup. The gesture, the biggest act of amnesty since the junta took power, comes just days after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which rarely interferes in members' internal affairs, said it would exclude the head of Myanmar's military from an upcoming regional meeting.
10: The US Department of Defense says it will compensate 10 Afghans whose relatives – including kids – were mistakenly killed in a US drone strike in August. It's unclear how much the US military is willing to cough up, but for context, similar payments in 2019 for civilians killed and property destroyed in Afghanistan and Iraq ranged from $131 to $35,000.
20: The governments of Venezuela and Iran will sign a 20-year cooperation accord to strengthen bilateral relations and help them fend off "US intervention." Caracas and Tehran have deepened economic ties in recent years, in part through oil and fuel swaps that violate US sanctions.
45: Around 45 Syrian government officials, opposition members, and civil society representatives are meeting in Geneva this week to draft provisions of a new national constitution. The collaboration brokered by the United Nations is further proof that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is gaining more international legitimacy despite his role in a brutal civil war that has killed more than 350,000 people.
More For You
Most Popular
Think you know what's going on around the world? Here's your chance to prove it.
QatarEnergy's liquefied natural gas production facilities, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar, on March 2, 2026.
REUTERS/Stringer
The US-Israeli war with Iran has badly damaged oil & gas producers in the Gulf and consumers in the Indo-Pacific. But not all countries within those regions will feel the pain equally.
A Russian LNG tanker, Arctic Metagaz, damaged earlier this month and currently adrift without crew, floats in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Linosa, in this handout picture released on March 13, 2026.
Marina Militare/Handout via REUTERS
700: The tons of fuel and liquefied natural gas aboard a Russian tanker that is currently floating around the Mediterranean Sea unmanned, after a drone attack earlier this month prompted the crew to abandon ship.
© 2025 GZERO Media. All Rights Reserved | A Eurasia Group media company.
