News

Hard Numbers: FARC fighters killed, Trump's final pardons, migrant ship capsizes, Chinese vaccines join COVAX

Former FARC guerrillas protest in Bogota, Colombia. Reuters

253: According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies, 253 former FARC fighters have been killed in Colombia since 2017, when the rebels signed a peace deal with the government. The agreement put an end to five decades of bloody conflict in the country's rural areas, while FARC members agreed to demobilize and reintegrate into Colombian society.

143: In the last few hours of his presidential term, Donald Trump issued 143 executive pardons and commutations, including a full pardon for former Trump 2016 campaign manager and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black. In the end Trump did not pardon himself nor any member of his immediate family.

43: At least 43 African migrants died after the boat carrying them capsized off the Libyan coast on Wednesday. It was 2021's first major maritime disaster in the central Mediterranean, a major route for migrants attempting to reach Europe.

3: Three Chinese drug manufacturers — SinoVac, Sinopharm and CanSino — have applied to join the global COVAX vaccine distribution facility. This is Beijing's first move to supply its own coronavirus jabs under the global scheme to ensure equitable COVID vaccine distribution worldwide, instead of getting them directly from Chinese firms (under China's vaccine diplomacy strategy to win hearts and minds through inoculations in the developing world).

More For You

Magyar, leader of the opposition Tisza Party, speaks during a press conference a day after the parliamentary election, in which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban conceded defeat, Budapest, Hungary, April 13, 2026.
REUTERS/Marton Monus/File Photo

At first glance, Hungary’s Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar may appear to be the antithesis of the man he defeated in the April 12 election, Viktor Orbán. Yet the pair might be closer than you think – both on policy and politics.