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Hard Numbers: Prove That We Don't Exist. Prove It!

3: The US has recruited Australia to join its nascent mission of protecting ships in the critical Strait of Hormuz. Along with Britain and Bahrain, Australia is now the third country to join the US-led maritime mission, as high seas brinksmanship with the Iranians continues.

19 million: UN aid programs in Yemen, including emergency healthcare services and clean water programs, will be cut off because the funding pledged by UN member states has "failed to materialize." As a result, 19 million people in Yemen may lose access to healthcare in what is already the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

1 million: The German city of Bielefeld -- the decades-long subject of a good-humored conspiracy theory that it doesn't actually exist – is now offering 1 million euros to anyone who can prove it. City officials said there are "no limits to creativity."

3,450: Two years since Myanmar's Rohingya minority fled a state-backed genocide, more than 700,000 refugees remain in neighboring Bangladesh. The government of Myanmar has recently authorized 3,450 of them to return, over the objections of many of the refugees themselves as well as human rights observers.

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QatarEnergy's liquefied natural gas production facilities, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar, on March 2, 2026.
REUTERS/Stringer

The US-Israeli war with Iran has badly damaged oil & gas producers in the Gulf and consumers in the Indo-Pacific. But not all countries within those regions will feel the pain equally.

A Russian LNG tanker, Arctic Metagaz, damaged earlier this month and currently adrift without crew, floats in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea between Malta and the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Linosa, in this handout picture released on March 13, 2026.
Marina Militare/Handout via REUTERS

700: The tons of fuel and liquefied natural gas aboard a Russian tanker that is currently floating around the Mediterranean Sea unmanned, after a drone attack earlier this month prompted the crew to abandon ship.