Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: Russian troop surge at Ukraine border, Cuban asylum seekers, Chinese hackers target Japan, US updates ‘don’t travel’ list

Hard Numbers: Russian troop surge at Ukraine border, Cuban asylum seekers, Chinese hackers target Japan, US updates ‘don’t travel’ list

Armed servicemen wait in Russian army vehicles outside a Ukranian border guard post in the Crimean town of Balaclava.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Make us preferred on Google

120,000: Ukraine warns that Russia will soon have as many as 120,000 troops on its eastern border, a larger presence than when Moscow seized Crimea in 2014. Kyiv wants to join NATO to deter the Russian forces from invading the Donbas region, where about half the population are ethnic Russians.


16: Of the roughly 71,000 asylum seekers currently waiting in Mexico for US immigration authorities to process their applications, 16 percent are from Cuba. The majority are economic migrants escaping a pandemic-fueled economic crisis on the island reminiscent of the 1990s, when tens of thousands of Cubans fled to America following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

200: Japan is investigating cyberattacks against some 200 Japanese companies and organizations, which were allegedly carried out by hackers linked to the Chinese military. One of the targets was the Japanese space agency, JAXA.

80: The US plans to update its travel advisory list for Americans, now urging them to stay away from 80 percent of the world's 200 or so countries due to COVID. Non-resident US citizens are already not allowed to go to most European countries, while Washington has also banned most non-citizen travelers from Europe, Brazil, China, Iran, and South Africa.

More For You

​Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, next to Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, next to Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, after signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 7, 2026.

Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS
Major new Middle East defense pact signed Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan on a Friday signed a joint defense agreement that characterizes an attack on one as an attack on all. Although it doesn’t spell out specific obligations, the pact brings together Turkey’s formidable army (NATO’s second largest), Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and Saudi [...]
School shooting in Thailand puts gun ownership in focus
Will Fitzpatrick
A 14-year-old boy opened fire at a school outside Bangkok on Friday after killing his grandparents at their home, killing seven people and injuring 30 others before taking his own life. The attack has renewed scrutiny of Thailand’s high levels of gun ownership. Despite having strict gun laws, Thailand has a booming black market for firearms. There [...]
A man holds up a Venezuelan flag in front of the sun.

A man holds up a Venezuelan flag while taking part in a march calling for amnesty for political prisoners and to mark Youth Day, in Caracas, Venezuela, February 12, 2026.

REUTERS/Maxwell Briceno
Since last weekend, Washington’s tutelage over Venezuela’s regime after the capture of autocrat Nicolás Maduro in January produced its clearest step yet toward an actual democratic transition: a US-brokered negotiation between the government and a slice of the opposition, opening what could be the first credible path to competitive elections in [...]
A laborer works at the Congolese state mining company Gecamines' copper concentrator at its Kambove operation in the southern province of Katanga

A laborer works at the Congolese state mining company Gecamines' copper concentrator at its Kambove operation in the southern province of Katanga on January 31, 2013.

REUTERS/Jonny Hogg
The DRC wants to keep more of its mineral wealth at homeThe Democratic Republic of Congo has reportedly banned exports of copper and cobalt concentrates, materials which are refined and later used by countries like China to manufacture widely used technology. The goal is to force more processing at home and capture a larger share of profits [...]