Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: Emojis are super geopolitical

Hard Numbers: Emojis are super geopolitical

80: More than 80 percent of the electronic voting systems currently used in the US are made by just three companies, according to a new report which warns that they are regulated less effectively than "colored pencils."


45: The number of countries suffering organized online political disinformation campaigns has shot up 45 percent since 2017, to a current total of 70, according to a recent report by Oxford researchers.

168: Last month the global tech consortium that strictly regulates the coding and use of emojis approved 168 new ones, bringing the total to more than 3,000. It turns out the geopolitics of emojis – from navigating Russian government opposition to a gay family emoji or China's pushback against the Taiwanese flag – are pretty interesting.

3.2 million: Traffic in the rickshaw-choked streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is so bad that it costs the city's people 3.2 million working hours every day, says the World Bank. A city plan to ban rickshaws has run into resistance from people who make a living off them, as well as critics who say the city lacks sufficient public transit alternatives.

More For You

​Miami Mayor-elect Eileen Higgins points as she thanks her staff and supporters on the night of the general election, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.

Miami Mayor-elect Eileen Higgins points as she thanks her staff and supporters on the night of the general election, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.

Carl Juste/Miami Herald/TNS/ABACAPRESS.COM
For the second time in a month, Republicans lost a mayoral race in a state US President Donald Trump has called home. This time it happened in Florida.Democrat Eileen Higgins defeated Republican Emilio González in Miami’s mayoral election on Tuesday to become the first female leader of Florida’s largest city, and the first Democrat to win this [...]
Women work in the plastic container assembly area inside the El Oso shoe polish factory, located in Mexico City, Mexico, in its new facilities, after officers from the Secretariat of Citizen Security and staff from the Benito Juarez mayor's office arbitrarily and violently remove their supplies, raw materials, machinery, and work tools on January 17 of this year following a coordinated operation stemming from a private dispute. On August 27, 2025.

Women work in the plastic container assembly area inside the El Oso shoe polish factory, located in Mexico City, Mexico, in its new facilities, after officers from the Secretariat of Citizen Security and staff from the Benito Juarez mayor's office arbitrarily and violently remove their supplies, raw materials, machinery, and work tools on January 17 of this year following a coordinated operation stemming from a private dispute. On August 27, 2025.

Photo by Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto
50: Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum is taking a page out of US President Donald Trump’s book, implementing up to a 50% tariff on more than 1,400 products in a bid to boost domestic production. The tariffs are expected to heavily affect China, which has increased its shipping to Mexico as a way to bypass US tariffs, and come as the US has been [...]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at 10 Downing Street, in London, Britain, December 8, 2025.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at 10 Downing Street, in London, Britain, December 8, 2025.

REUTERS/Toby Melville/Pool
Zelensky’s counteroffer shows his willingness for compromiseUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a counter to the US’s original plan for ending the Russia-Ukraine war on Wednesday, one that includes several concessions. Among them are allowing the US to recognize Russian-occupied territory, and granting the US and Russia control over the [...]
It’s official: Trump wants a weaker European Union

Trump, Putin, and Zelensky surrounded by tanks and negotiators.

The transatlantic relationship isn’t at a crossroads, it’s past one. America’s new National Security Strategy confirms what Europeans have feared since Vice President JD Vance’s speech in Munich last February: Washington now sees a strong, unified European Union as a problem to be solved, not an ally to be supported.The Trump administration’s NSS [...]