158: Canada has been a self-governing nation for 158 years, and has been fully independent of the UK Parliament since 1982. But Prime Minister Mark Carney has been sprinkling British English spellings – think words like “globalisation” or “colour” – into some of his communiqués, rather than Canadian English. Some linguists are upset at his behaviour. Perhaps Carney’s time as the Bank of England governor is still rubbing off on him.
4.6%: US unemployment hit 4.6% in November, its highest level in four years, after another subpar monthly jobs performance. The stagnant labor market puts more pressure on the Federal Reserve to further reduce interest rates.
600: Iran says it fired over 600 missiles during its 12-day war with Israel in June – and it wants to show its own people that it’s capable of doing so again, if need be. How is the Islamic Republic achieving this? Through a new weapons exhibition at the National Aerospace Park in western Tehran, one that features armored vehicles, drones, and hypersonic missiles.
2: Is it the end of panda diplomacy? Two giant pandas are leaving a Japanese zoo for China in February, returning the last pandas in the country. The four-year-old twins, Ri Ri and Shin Shin, were born in Tokyo, but are technically property of China – a form of diplomacy launched in 1972 to mark normalized ties between the two Asian countries. For the first time in 50 years, Japan will be panda-free – a symbolic shift that comes as tensions between Japan and China escalate over Taiwan.
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What is President Trump trying to achieve in Iran, and how does his strategy compare to past US interventions in the Middle East?
The US has paused Russian oil sanctions in a bid to stabilize energy markets rocked by the war with Iran. Administration officials stress that it’s a “tailored” measure, applying only to oil already loaded onto tankers, but it’s still a gift to Russia, which has already been clocking an extra $150 million daily in oil revenues since the war began.
4: The number of crew members aboard a US refuelling plane – out of six total – who died after the aircraft crashed in neighboring Iraq on Thursday, US Central Command said this morning.