672: India's top court has ordered the country's states to compensate the families of each person who died from COVID with 50,000 rupees ($672) for their loss within 30 days. India has reported almost half a million COVID deaths after suffering a devastating wave in the spring, but that figure is almost surely an undercount.
1,200: The US left a lot of weapons in Afghanistan amid its chaotic withdrawal, and now they're on sale in the black market. A single Beretta M9 handgun, standard issue for US service members, now goes for about $1,200, double what it costs in America and $300 less than a Russian-made Kalashnikov rifle, the weapon of choice for the Taliban.
281: Romania's center-right coalition government collapsed on Tuesday after a majority of 281 lawmakers voted in favor of a no-confidence vote in parliament. PM Florin Citu, who took over only nine months ago, has come under fire for his handling of the pandemic in Romania, which is grappling with a horrendous COVID wave while other EU states are relatively stable.
5 billion: Up to five billion people could lack access to clean water by mid-century, according to a new report by the UN weather agency. Global water supplies have declined by 1 cm (0.4 inches) over the past two decades, in part due to climate change-induced droughts.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.