Hard Numbers:, Friday January 19

186,000: The number of asylum seekers in Germany fell to186,000 in 2017, down from a high of 890,000 in 2015.

550: North Korea will send a delegation of at least 550 people to next month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, including 230 cheerleaders and a 30-member taekwondo demonstration team. #TaekwonDiplomacy

12: President Trump has had 12 federal appellate judges confirmed in his first year, more than any president before him. He has also added a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch. Given that two of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices and its one wildcard member (Anthony Kennedy) are all aged 79 or older, Trump’s lasting impact on the judiciary looks likely to grow.

12: In 2017, the quality of democracy around the world fell for the twelfth year in a row, with 71 countries seeing a decline in political rights and civil liberties.

6: Moscow got 6 minutes of sunlight in December. Seriously. #StillBeatsYakutsk

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Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says AI can be both a force for good and a tool for harm. “AI has either the possibility of…providing interventions and disruption, or it has the ability to also further harms, increase radicalization, and exacerbate issues of terrorism and extremism online.”

Demonstrators carry the dead body of a man killed during a protest a day after a general election marred by violent demonstrations over the exclusion of two leading opposition candidates at the Namanga One-Post Border crossing point between Kenya and Tanzania, as seen from Namanga, Kenya October 30, 2025.
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Tanzania has been rocked by violence for three days now, following a national election earlier this week. Protestors are angry over the banning of candidates and detention of opposition leaders by President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Illegal immigrants from Ethiopia walk on a road near the town of Taojourah February 23, 2015. The area, described by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as one of the most inhospitable areas in the world, is on a transit route for thousands of immigrants every year from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia travelling via Yemen to Saudi Arabia in hope of work. Picture taken February 23.
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7,500: The Trump administration will cap the number of refugees that the US will admit over the next year to 7,500. The previous limit, set by former President Joe Biden, was 125,000. The new cap is a record low. White South Africans will have priority access.