Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: Bagram spoils, Ever Given out of Suez Canal, US military cancels Microsoft, Swedish PM is back

Hard Numbers: Bagram spoils, Ever Given out of Suez Canal, US military cancels Microsoft, Swedish PM is back

An Afghan man rests in his shop as he sell U.S. second hand materials outside Bagram U.S. air base, after American troops vacated it, in Parwan province, Afghanistan.

REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail
Make us preferred on Google

3.5 million: US troops leaving Afghanistan's Bagram airbase, nerve center of NATO's 20-year counterterrorism presence in the country, left behind 3.5 million catalogued items, ranging from doorknobs to combat vehicles. Within minutes of the US' abrupt exit, looters showed up to seize the spoils.


106: The Ever Given container ship is finally on its way out of the Suez Canal 106 days after it blocked the crucial waterway entirely for a full week, wreaking havoc on global maritime shipping. After months of haggling, the vessel's Japanese owners reached an agreement with the Egyptian canal authorities for an undisclosed amount in compensation.

10 billion: The Pentagon has cancelled a $10 billion contract with Microsoft to build a cloud storage system for the US military. Microsoft won the contract during the Trump administration, but the company's main rival, Amazon — considered the market leader in cloud services — sued to prove that its own bid was rejected because of Trump's personal animosity toward (now-former) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

3: Stefan Löfven, who last week stepped down as Sweden's prime minister after losing a no-confidence vote, got his old job back on Wednesday. MPs agreed to return Löfven to the post by a narrow 3-vote margin, ending Sweden's brief and very rare political crisis.

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 [...]