1,000: More than 1,000 airline flights with a stop in the US were canceled on Sunday due to crews testing positive for COVID. Globally, thousands of holiday season flights have been scrapped due to the omicron wave.
310 million: Israel will invest some $310 million to double the number of Jewish settlers living in the Golan Heights, a swath of strategic territory captured from Syria in 1967. Although Golan is considered occupied land under international law, the US has recognized Israeli sovereignty there since 2019.
15: Fifteen Western governments have condemned the deployment of mercenaries employed by Russia's shadowy Wagner Group in conflict-ridden Mali. The Kremlin has officially denied any links to the private military company, which is owned by Vladimir Putin's former caterer.
3: El Salvador freed three women who’d been jailed for aggravated homicide after suffering miscarriages. Under the country’s draconian abortion laws, losing a pregnancy can count as murder. The women were serving sentences of up to 13 years.
The war in Iran is entering a more dangerous phase.
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In this Quick Take, Ian Bremmer breaks down the escalating US-Israel war with Iran and its ripple effects on global markets and supply chains.
As missiles fly and oil prices soar, the Iran war is exposing another major resource vulnerability in the Middle East: water. Fresh water has been a scarce commodity in a region defined by a dry climate and low rainfall, but attacks on the region’s desalination plants, which convert seawater into drinking water, threaten to open a new front.