Hard Numbers: Blinken leads migration summit, Rohingya tragedy in Malaysia, East Timor votes, South African leftists join Eswatini protests

Blinken leads migration summit, Rohingya tragedy in Malaysia, East Timor votes, South African leftists join Eswatini protests
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Brendan Smialowski/REUTERS
20: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with representatives from 20 countries in Panama this week to try and form an agreement on mass migration in Latin America. Immigration is proving a headache for Biden ahead of midterm elections: Last month, US border officials apprehended more than 200,000 people at the Mexican border, the biggest monthly influx in over two decades.

6: Six Rohingya refugees were killed crossing a highway while trying to flee a detention center in northwest Malaysia. The country was once a safe haven for Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar, but in recent years, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment have led to many refugees being held in unsanitary and oft-dangerous detention centers.

60: With 60% of the vote counted Wednesday, Jose Ramos-Horta looks set to win the presidential runoff in East Timor, Asia’s youngest democracy. Ramos-Horta, an independence fighter during Indonesia’s long occupation of the country and a Nobel laureate, served as president from 2007-2012. He’s vowed to tackle enduring poverty, corruption, and political instability.

36: South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters – the country’s third-largest political party with Marxist affiliations – joined protests on the border with Eswatini against King Mswati III, who has led that country’s absolute monarchy with an iron fist for 36 years. Eswatini has been plagued by anti-government protests since an extrajudicial killing by the king’s police last May.

More from GZERO Media

Last week, Microsoft committed $15.2 billion to the UAE. This strategic investment expands cloud and AI infrastructure in the Middle East. It aims to boost regional innovation, economic diversification, and digital resilience. The move underscores tech’s role in shaping global competitiveness and security. A milestone for the UAE — and a signal of where the digital future is headed. Read the full blog here.

US President Donald Trump welcomes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House for bilateral discussions about trade and security on February 13, 2025.
India PM Office handout via EYEPRESS

After months of tensions between the world’s richest country and the world’s most populous one, it appears that the United States and India are on the verge of making a trade deal.

Members of the media gather outside Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London, as BBC Director General Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness resign following accusations of bias and the controversy surrounding the editing of the Trump speech before the Capitol riots on 6 January 2021 in a BBC Panorama documentary.
(Credit Image: © Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire)

+26: Two BBC leaders, Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News Head Deborah Turness, resigned on Sunday after it emerged that the British news organization edited footage of US President Donald Trump in a misleading fashion.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) heads back to his office following a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on November 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The shutdown of the Federal Government has become the longest in U.S. history after surpassing the 35 day shutdown that occurred during President Trumps first term that began in the end of 2018.
(Photo by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA)