Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: EU vs Amazon, Falklands mine-free, Southeast Asian web users, more despair for displaced Iraqis

Amazon owner Jeff Bezos. Reuters

10 billion: Amazon could face a fine of nearly $10 billion if an EU court finds it guilty of having breached the bloc's antitrust rules. Brussels charged the US tech giant with unfair competition practices, alleging that it uses its size, power, and data of third-party sellers to undermine small businesses.


38: The Falkland Islands are now finally clear of antipersonnel mines 38 years after the UK fought a bloody war with Argentina over the sovereignty of the overseas British territory in the South Atlantic. The last remaining mine was removed by a Zimbabwean team supervised by UK soldiers, as part of London's obligations under the UN treaty against such explosive devices.

40 million: Pandemic lockdowns created 40 million new internet users across Southeast Asia so far this year, according to a new report by Google which looked at web users in Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. A whopping eight out of 10 people across these countries said that access to technology helped them get through the difficult lockdown period.

100,000: Iraq's decision to rapidly close several camps for displaced people could leave more than 100,000 of them homeless in the middle of a pandemic, the Norwegian Refugee Council warns. The Iraqi government expects the displaced people to return to their areas of origin, but most have nowhere to go because their towns were ravaged by the conflict with the Islamic State.

More For You

What We’re Watching: The kings of soccer make a trade deal, Venezuela’s Machado to meet Trump, Moscow sends message to Europe

Protesting farmers hold anti - Mercosur banners while chanting slogans during the protest. Thousands of farmers protested against the signing of the agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur.

Attila Husejnow / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Europe and South America finally agree to long-sought trade dealIt took more than 25 years, but the European Union and Mercosur, the South American common market, provisionally agreed to a free trade deal, eliminating tariffs on over 90% of each other’s exports. If it passes, it would create the largest free trade zone in the world and mark the [...]
​Sudanese brothers, refugees from el-Fasher, wash clothes at sunset outside the Tine transit camp in eastern Chad, on November 22, 2025.

Sudanese brothers, refugees from el-Fasher, wash clothes at sunset outside the Tine transit camp, amid the conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in eastern Chad, on November 22, 2025.

REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
1,000: A civil war that has produced one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises reached a grim milestone today. One thousand days into the conflict in Sudan, over 150,000 people have been killed and 9 million uprooted across the country by the fighting.. 584,000: The US economy added just 584,000 jobs in all of 2025, according to the Bureau of [...]
​Protesters gather as vehicles burn in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab from a social media video released on January 9, 2026.

Protesters gather as vehicles burn, amid evolving anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on January 9, 2026.

Social Media/via REUTERS
Twelve days ago, a protest over Iran’s deteriorating economy began at a market in Tehran, in what were then estimated to be the largest demonstrations in the country since 2022.Since then, they have spread dramatically. People in over 100 cities and towns across the country have taken to the streets to vent their anger over a plunging Iranian rial [...]
​Passengers enter a shared taxi in Dnipro, Ukraine, on January 8, 2026.

Passengers enter a shared taxi in Dnipro, Ukraine, on January 8, 2026. Following a massive Russian drone attack on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine’s southern regions, most consumers in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, including the regional capitals, were left without power.

Mykola Miakshykov/Ukrinform
1 million: Russian drone strikes crippled energy infrastructure in southeast Ukraine overnight, leaving over one million people in Dnipropetrovsk without heat or water in the dead of winter. Electricity supplies were also disrupted for thousands more people in neighboring Zaporizhzhia. [...]