Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers

Make us preferred on Google

10,000: Around 10,000 students boycotted the first day of school in Hong Kong on Monday, the latest twist in the Chinese territory's pro-democracy protests. The walk-out follows a tense weekend in which protesters threw fire-bombs and police beat and pepper-sprayed people in the Hong Kong Metro.

21.2: The average tariff applied to Chinese products crossing the US border hit 21.2 percent on Sunday after the latest round of US trade levies took effect. That's up from an average of 3.1 percent at the beginning of the Trump administration. The figure is due to rise further in December if the two countries can't find a way to resolve their escalating trade dispute.


882,000: Colombian president Ivan Duque is offering an $882,000 bounty for the capture of former FARC leaders who appeared in a video recording last week calling for followers to resume their armed struggle against the government. It's the latest sign that the 2016 peace deal that ended the guerilla group's 50-year Marxist insurgency is in danger of falling apart.

18: The US war in Afghanistan turns 18 years old next month. On Sunday, the US lead negotiator said the country was "at the threshold" of an agreement with the Taliban, which is expected to involve the withdrawal of roughly 14,000 US troops and other foreign forces from the country. Over the weekend, the Taliban stepped up a military offensive in northern Afghanistan.

More For You

​Students and their supporters take part in a protest in Serbia

Students and their supporters take part in a protest demanding snap parliamentary elections, continuing an anti-corruption movement sparked by a deadly railway station collapse in Novi Sad in November 2024, in Belgrade, Serbia, May 10, 2026.

REUTERS/Djordje Kojadinovic
Students keep the pressure on ruling party in SerbiaStudent protesters will take to the streets in Serbia this weekend in the first major demonstrations this year against President Aleksandar Vučić. Students have become a significant political force in Serbia over the last two years: in 2025, then-Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned after [...]
African continent turns to Chinese solar
Will Fitzpatrick
As the Iran war disrupts global energy supplies, countries in Africa and Southeast Asia are accelerating their shift toward renewable energy to counter rising fuel prices. New Chinese consumer data released this week shows a sharp surge in solar panel exports, with shipments to Southeast Asia climbing 75% year-on-year in April. China, the world’s [...]
​Israeli soldiers walk near a damaged car in Halhul, near Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on May 20, 2026.

Israeli soldiers walk near a damaged car, which Palestinians say was burned by Israeli settlers, in Halhul, near Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on May 20, 2026.

REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
This week, far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich used an alleged arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court against him to insert fresh impetus into the effort to build settlements in the West Bank, saying on Tuesday that he wanted to make the settlements “irreversible.” He also ordered the eviction this week of Palestinian [...]
Fidel Castro and his brother, Armed Forces Minister Raul Castro (L), preside over the 100th anniversary of the death of independence hero Antonio Maceo, in this photo from December 7, 1996.

Fidel Castro and his brother, Armed Forces Minister Raul Castro (L), preside over a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the death of independence hero Antonio Maceo, in this photo from December 7, 1996.

REUTERS
US amps up pressure on Cuba by indicting ex-presidentThe Justice Department yesterday charged Raúl Castro, the younger brother of Fidel, with murder and a conspiracy to kill American citizens over a 1996 incident in which the Cuban military shot down two civilian planes belonging to Cuban exiles off the coast of the communist-run island. The [...]