News

Hard Numbers: Britain seeks bricklayers, Pentagon loses secrets to a typo, Cameroon separatists attack, where has Qin Gang gone?

British PM Rishi Sunak holds a brick next to a bricklayer during a local election campaign in Hartlepool when Sunak was chancellor of the exchequer.
British PM Rishi Sunak holds a brick next to a bricklayer during a local election campaign in Hartlepool when Sunak was chancellor of the exchequer.
REUTERS/Lee Smith

8: The UK has added eight more jobs to its list of “shortage occupations,” which means that migrants with the appropriate skills in these areas can benefit from cheaper visas and looser employment restrictions. So if you are a bricklayer, a mason, a roofer, a roof tiler, a slater, a carpenter, a joiner, or a plasterer, now’s the time to head to the UK, which is suffering from acute labor shortages in a number of areas since leaving the EU. And if you are a German, now’s the time to remind post-Brexit Brits what “Schadenfreude” means.

117,000: Since January, a typo has caused at least 117,000 US military emails meant for addresses ending in “.MIL” to wind up in servers belonging to the government of Mali, where the country domain is “.ML.” Some of the emails contained highly sensitive information. For the past decade, the “.ML” domain has been managed by a Dutch contractor, but this week it reverts to the control of the Malian government, which is closely allied with … Russia.

3: Where in the world is Qin Gang? The outspoken Chinese foreign minister known for his hardline views on Taiwan hasn’t been seen in public for three weeks and has missed a number of high-profile meetings. The foreign ministry cited “health reasons” for a missed regional summit last week. But there’s a long tradition of Chinese officials suddenly going missing and then reemerging weeks later under arrest or investigation. #justsayin

10: Separatists dressed up in official military uniforms killed at least 10 people in an attack in northwestern Cameroon over the weekend. The violence is part of a larger, ongoing conflict between the government of Cameroon, which is predominantly French-speaking, and rebels seeking independence for the country’s two English-speaking regions, which are located along the country’s western border with Nigeria.

More For You

- YouTube

In this episode of ask ian, Ian Bremmer explains why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky enters his latest White House meeting with President Trump in a stronger position than he did just a few months ago.

Competitive pay. 401(k) contributions upon employment and 6% company match once eligible. Up to 16 weeks of combined paid maternity and parental leave. These benefits and more inspire generations – Daidrian’s 18-year Walmart journey motivated her son Jonothan to launch his own career as a Walmart associate. Learn more.

Last week, Microsoft joined more than 100 companies to publish an open letter on the importance of open-weight AI models in expanding access to AI and giving organizations greater control over the technology they use. The paper draws parallels to the open-source software movement, positioning open-weight models as an important foundation for a broad and competitive AI ecosystem while emphasizing the need for responsible safeguards. Read the letter here.