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Hard Numbers: Minding mines in Ukraine, Bangladeshi manhunt, World Cup of gas, GOP crickets for Trump
Ukrainian soldiers clear mines in a part of the southern Kherson region liberated from Russia.
Nina Liashonok via Reuters Connect
61,000: Ukrainians have liberated huge swathes of their country from Russian occupation over the past few months, but that in itself heralds huge challenges. Experts say as much as 61,000 square miles of land could be littered with Russian land mines and other ordnance.
2: Two Bangladeshi Islamic militants sentenced to death for hacking a blogger to death with machetes have escaped from a courtroom in the country’s capital, Dhaka. The men, who were sprung from custody in a brazen escape involving chemical sprays and motorbikes, fatally attacked Avijit Roy, a US citizen of Bangladeshi origin, in 2015. A manhunt is now underway.
100 million: You know who’s not so ruffled by allegations of corruption, human rights abuses, and LGBTQ crackdowns in Qatar? China, which has just struck a deal to buy more than 100 million tons of liquefied natural gas from the Gulf monarchy over the next quarter century. It’s one of the biggest gas deals of all time.
1: In the week since Donald Trump announced he’s running for president again, the response from GOP senators has been crickets. So far just one of them, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, has endorsed him. The GOP is in a bind: They can’t win with Trump, but they can only lose without him.
The Pentagon is going all-in on AI warfare. Ian Bremmer breaks down what that means, how it happened, and what's at stake when machines start making targeting decisions.
Think you know what's going on around the world? Here's your chance to prove it.
Israel’s right-wing government has overseen a record expansion of settlements in the West Bank in recent years. The settlements, which are illegal under international law, are driving the displacement of Palestinians. One proposal the government is now advancing is the controversial E1 settlement plan, which would effectively slice the West Bank in two and severely undermine Palestinian aspirations for a contiguous state.
More than 70% of the earth’s surface is covered in good old H2O, so it would seem there’s plenty to go around. But the vast majority, at least 97%, is contained in the oceans as saltwater. The growing scarcity of freshwater for drinking, cooking, industrial, and agricultural uses is quickly moving water up as a global risk. In fact, our parent company, Eurasia Group, added it to its Top Risks list for 2026 as “The water weapon.”