Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: Malaysian inauguration, US-Venezuela oil thaw, Ukrainians in darkness, another African coup

Malaysia's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah (R) and newly appointed Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (L) take part in the swearing-in ceremony in Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah and newly appointed Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim take part in the swearing-in ceremony in Kuala Lumpur.

Mohd Rasfan/Pool via REUTERS

10: Eternal opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was (finally!) sworn in as Malaysia's 10th prime minister. Anwar — who was cheated out of the job twice by his former mentor, ex-PM Mahathir Mohammad, and spent years in prison on bogus sodomy convictions — will have a tough time keeping together a shaky multiethnic coalition.


100,000: US oil giant Chevron hopes to pump as much as 100,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude after getting a six-month license from the Biden administration to resume production via PDVSA, the national oil company. This comes as Venezuela's socialist government resumed talks with the opposition in Mexico City.

6 million: That's how many Ukrainians are now without power after the latest flurry of Russian air strikes. As Russia doubles down on targeting Ukraine's infrastructure to make up for its battlefield losses, civilians wonder how they'll make it through the cold winter.

4: At least four people were killed Thursday in a botched coup attempt in São Tomé & Príncipe, a sleepy Central African island nation considered a model for parliamentary democracy in the continent. Whodunit? An opposition leader who contested the result of the last election and a former mercenary who tried to overthrow the government have been arrested.

More For You

​Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on March 6, 2026.

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, on March 6, 2026.

REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Overnight, Israel’s military shifted part of its focus to a new front, one that isn’t Iran: it pummeled the Lebanese capital of Beirut with airstrikes, and issued more evacuation warnings across areas of the country controlled by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. “The objective is to disarm Hezbollah,” Nimrod Novik, a fellow at the Israel [...]
Cargo ships are unloading newly arrived chemical fertilizers at the port terminal in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu province, on February 27, 2024. ​

Cargo ships are unloading newly arrived chemical fertilizers at the port terminal in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu province, on February 27, 2024.

(Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto)
Iran conflict could trigger a food crisisDisruptions to a key Gulf waterway in the Iran conflict aren't just threatening the world’s oil and gas supplies; they could also cause a food security crisis. Roughly a quarter to a third of global raw materials used in fertilizer pass through the Strait of Hormuz. With tanker traffic in the strait largely [...]
​Bangladeshi women hold placards as they take part in a rally to mark International Women's Day in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 8, 2021. (Photo by Mamunur Rashid/NurPhoto)

Bangladeshi women hold placards as they take part in a rally to mark International Women's Day in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 8, 2021. (Photo by Mamunur Rashid/NurPhoto)

(Photo by Mamunur Rashid/NurPhoto)
27.5%: The share of parliamentary seats women hold worldwide, as of Jan. 1, 2026, per a report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. It’s a modest gain – 0.3 points – from a year prior, but marks an overall slowdown since 2017. The Americas topped the list of regions with the highest share of female parliamentarians, with women making up 35.6% of [...]
​An explosion in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, Iran, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in this still image from a social media video released on March 5, 2026.

An explosion in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, Iran, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in this still image from a social media video released on March 5, 2026.

Social Media/via REUTERS
Iran conflict hits new frontsTwo Iranian drones hit Azerbaijan, Iran’s northern neighbor, on Thursday, injuring four people and expanding the Iran conflict onto another front. The Azeris, who have a tense relationship with the Islamic Republic over their growing ties to NATO countries, have reportedly deployed troops to the Iranian border, which [...]