1,000: The maximum amount of gold, in kilograms, that Venezuela’s state-owned mining firm Minerven will send to US markets, in a deal reportedly reached between Washington and Caracas on Monday. It is the latest sign of growing commercial ties between the Trump administration and interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez, only two months on from the seizure of Nicolás Maduro.
200: The number of people who have died in a rebel-controlled part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after heavy rains prompted a landslide at a major mine. Seventy children are among the dead.
⅔: The proportion of Cuba that was plunged into darkness on Wednesday, the latest blackout to hit the fuel-bereft country. Almost all of Havana was without power. The authorities blamed it on a fuel leak at the country’s largest thermoelectric power plant. With the US implementing a de facto oil blockage against Cuba, fuel supplies are running low there – and it’s taking a toll.
7%: The amount that China’s military budget is set to grow in 2026, marking another year in which funding for armed forces will increase at a faster rate than the economy. The buildup comes as Beijing enters a spat with Japan about the future of Taiwan.
US President Donald Trump listens to a question from a reporter prior to signing an executive order on AI next to Sriram Krishnan, Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and David Sacks, chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on December 11, 2025.
Artificial intelligence and Donald Trump's foreign policy are creating huge tail risks for markets.
Last week, Microsoft released a new report offering an in-depth look at AI adoption across the United States, with state- and county-level insights for the first time. While more than 30 percent of working-age Americans now use AI tools, adoption remains uneven across regions, with significantly higher usage in urban areas and communities tied to universities. The findings point to a broader challenge: without stronger access to infrastructure, skills, and education, AI’s benefits risk remaining concentrated rather than broadly shared. Read the full blog here.
The maker of the large-language model Claude became the latest AI giant to file to go public.
Hundreds took to the streets in Kenya after the US announced plans to build an Ebola quarantine center on a Kenyan air base, with protesters warning the facility risks introducing a disease the country has never recorded. President Ruto is defending the project.