Hard Numbers: Khmer Rouge convictions, soaring Sri Lankan inflation, Japan’s Yen-tervention, “Fat Leonard” nabbed

Hard Numbers: Khmer Rouge convictions, soaring Sri Lankan inflation, Japan’s Yen-tervention, “Fat Leonard” nabbed
Former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan is seen inside the courtroom of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia as he awaits a verdict in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Reuters

3: After a trial that lasted more than 15 years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, a court in Cambodia managed to convict just 3 people in connection with the large-scale massacres that the Khmer Rouge regime carried out in the 1970s.

70.2: The inflation rate in crisis-wracked Sri Lanka has now reached a whopping 70.2%. The island nation is suffering an acute dollar shortage, which makes it hard to pay for imports of food, fuel, and medicine. In July, protesters ousted the government.

25: The Japanese central bank, which has kept its interest rates ultra low even as other major banks keep hiking theirs, intervened on Wednesday to prop up the yen for the first time in 25 years. Higher interest rates generally draw in investment, which boosts the value of a currency. The yen has lost a fifth of its value against the dollar this year.

35 million: “Fat Leonard,” a fugitive US military contractor at the center of a $35 million scandal, has been nabbed by local authorities in Venezuela. Apparently he was on his way to Russia. Washington and Caracas will now negotiate the terms of his extradition to the US.

This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.

More from GZERO Media

Police arrest Emory economics professor Caroline Fohlin during a rally in which Pro-Palestinian protestors set up an encampment at the Emory Campus in Atlanta, on Thursday, April 25, 2024.
Arvin Temkar/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS/ABACAPRESS.COM

Pro-Palestinian student demonstrations and encampments have popped up at dozens of US universities in recent weeks. Columbia University – where protests began – and other elite schools in the Northeast have grabbed plenty of headlines, but where they are facing the harshest pushback – and could ultimately help Republicans win back the White House – is in the South.

A cannabis rights activist waves a flag outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 24, 2022.
Alejandro Alvarez/Reuters

The Biden admin. says it’s high time to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, and it wants to knock it from Schedule I to Schedule III — meaning it would no longer be grouped with heroin and LSD.

Supporters and armed members of the Fatah movement protest against the Palestinian Hamas government during a rally in Jabalya camp September 22, 2006.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Beijing, already a global economic power, wants to cut a larger figure in diplomacy, cultivating an image as a more honest broker than the US, with closer ties to the so-called “Global South.”

TikTok logo on a phone surrounded by the American, Israeli, and Chinese flags.
Jess Frampton

Last Wednesday, as part of the sweeping foreign-aid package that included much-neededfunding for Ukraine’s defense, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill requiring that TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, sell the popular video-sharing app to an American buyer within a year or face a ban in the United States.

Russia And China benefit from US infighting, says David Sanger | GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

On GZERO World, Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times correspondent David Sanger argues that China's rise and Russia's aggressive stance signal a new era of major power competition, with both countries fueling instability in the US to distract from their strategic ambitions.

NYPD officers arrive at Columbia University on April 30, 2024, to clear demonstrators from an occupied hall on campus.

John Lamparski/NurPhoto via Reuters

Last night, hundreds of NYPD officers entered Columbia University in riot gear, one night after students occupied a building on campus and 13 days after students pitched an encampment that threw kerosene on a student movement against the war in Gaza.

Israel seems intent on Rafah invasion despite global backlash | Ian Bremmer | World In :60

How will the international community respond to an Israeli invasion of Rafah? How would a Trump presidency be different from his first term? Are growing US campus protests a sign of a chaotic election in November? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.