Hard Numbers: Deforestation hits highs, Turkey arrests soldiers, Mauritania busts smugglers, OECD sees hope

Amazonas, Brazil. The photo shows the forest fires that affect the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and that have increased to their highest level since 2008.

12: Annual deforestation in Brazil's part of the Amazon rainforest has reached a 12 year high, with more than 4,200 square miles burned this year. That's an increase of 9.5 percent over the previous year. Destruction of the Amazon has increased under Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who favors economic development of the rainforest.

82: The Turkish government has arrested 82 members of the military over suspected links to Fethullah Gulen, an exiled Muslim cleric whom Ankara blames for a failed coup in 2016. Gulen, who lives in the US, is the head of a global movement that focuses on Islamic values and education. Turkish authorities have sought his arrest for years.

30: Authorities in the West African nation of Mauritania say they have recently busted more than 30 illegal migration networks responsible for trafficking people to Europe. The news comes just a few weeks after more than 140 migrants aiming to reach Spain's Canary Islands died in a shipwreck off the Senegalese coast.

4.2: There's some light at the end of the COVID tunnel — the OECD says that the global economy will grow 4.2 percent next year, after shrinking by the same amount this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

More from GZERO Media

A cargo ship is loading and unloading foreign trade containers at Qingdao Port in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China on May 7, 2025.
Photo by CFOTO/Sipa USA

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will meet with their Chinese counterparts in Geneva on Saturday in a bid to ease escalating trade tensions that have led to punishing tariffs of up to 145%. Ahead of the meetings, Trump said that he expects tariffs to come down.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks on the phone to US President Donald Trump at a car factory in the West Midlands, United Kingdom, on May 8, 2025.
Alberto Pezzali/Pool via REUTERS

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer achieved what his Conservative predecessors couldn’t.

The newly elected Pope Leo XIV (r), US-American Robert Prevost, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican after the conclave.

On Thursday, Robert Francis Prevost was elected the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Leo XIV and becoming the first American pontiff — defying widespread assumptions that a US candidate was a long shot.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson talks with reporters in the US Capitol on May 8, 2025.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA

US House Speaker Mike Johnson is walking a tightrope on Medicaid — and wobbling.

US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on May 6, 2025.
REUTERS/Leah Millis

The first official meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump was friendlier than you might expect given the recent tensions in the relationship.