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Hard Numbers: Macron’s pension fireworks, US and Europe’s inflation woes, Russia’s LGBTQ crackdown, Big Tech’s bad week

October 27, 2022
Gabrielle Debinski
French President Emmanuel Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron
Paige Fusco

65: French President Emmanuel Macron plans to implement pension reform and deliver on his vow of raising the retirement age by three years to 65 by 2031. Expect uproar! If there’s one thing the French hate more than politicians, it’s government interference with the national pension scheme.

7: The weekly rate on 30-year fixed mortgages in the US topped 7% on Thursday – a two-decade high – as a result of the US Federal Reserve's continued effort to rein in inflation. Meanwhile, facing similar inflationary pressure, the European Central Bank on Thursday raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points. Some analysts believe the bank will soon pump the brakes on steep hikes, fearing Europe’s sluggish growth prospects.

400,000: The Russian Duma looks set to pass a law banning so-called “LGBTQ propaganda,” with offenders facing fines of up to 400,000 rubles ($6,500) and non-Russians facing the risk of expulsion. This builds on a 2013 bill that made sharing information about LGBTQ lifestyles with children a criminal offense.

550 billion: It has been a horrible, no good, very bad week for Big Tech, which has seen more than $550 billion wiped away in shared market value after companies including Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft recorded weak seasonal earnings. One of the biggest losers was Meta, which saw its stock market value plummet this year as Wall Street lost faith in Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse.

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Hard Numbers: Armenia reaffirms ties with Iran, Congo and M23 rebels miss peace deadline, Lesotho looks for new markets, and Trump takes aim at mail-in ballots

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Three months since the Kashmir conflict: Is it Pakistan’s moment?

An Indian paramilitary soldier guards a road during India's 79th Independence Day celebrations in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on August 15, 2025. Prime Minister Narendra Modi issues a stern warning to Pakistan, stating that India will not tolerate nuclear blackmail anymore and will give a befitting reply to the enemy. He asserts that India has now set a ''new normal'' of not differentiating between terrorists and those who nurture terrorism.
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Hard Numbers: Bolivia’s left-wing streak ends, small boats continue sailing to the UK, Canadians strike, Africa wants to put its real size on the map

People celebrate after early official results show Bolivian presidential candidate Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga of the conservative Alianza Libre coalition in second place, and as the ruling party Movement for Socialism (MAS) was on track to suffer its worst electoral defeat in a generation, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, August 17, 2025.
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20: The centrist Rodrigo Paz and the conservative Jorge Quiroga advanced to Bolivia’s presidential runoff election after winning the most votes in Sunday’s first round, ensuring that a left-wing politician won’t occupy the country’s presidency for the first time in 20 years.

In Sudan, the skies have turned deadly

Enaam Abdallah Mohammed, 19, a displaced Sudanese woman and mother of four, who fled with her family, looks on inside a camp shelter amid the ongoing conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan July 30, 2025.
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