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Hard Numbers: Gaza begins school year without any schools, Inmates escape prison in Liberia, Massive cocaine seizure made in Guinea-Bissau, Typhoon Yagi kills dozens in Vietnam

Palestinian students sit on the rubble after attending a class in a tent set up on the ruins of the house of teacher Israa Abu Mustafa, as war disrupts a new school year, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 4, 2024.

Palestinian students sit on the rubble after attending a class in a tent set up on the ruins of the house of teacher Israa Abu Mustafa, as war disrupts a new school year, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, September 4, 2024.

REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

0: Not a single school in Gaza was open for the official start of the school year on Monday as the Israel-Hamas war nears its first anniversary. Israel’s offensive has left 90% of schools in the enclave damaged or destroyed, according to the Palestinian Education Ministry.


47: Are you looking for a job as a prison warden? There might soon be an opening at a certain penal facility in Liberia. A whopping 47 inmates escaped from a maximum security prison in Liberia’s Margibi County over the weekend, the country’s justice ministry announced Monday. This was apparently because of a breach in the prison’s security system. The justice ministry says it’s working to recapture the escaped inmates.

3 tons: Snow in West Africa?! Nearly three tons of cocaine were seized in Guinea-Bissau over the weekend, police announced Monday. This is part of a broader trend. International drug traffickers have increasingly looked to West Africa as a transit point for cocaine traveling from South America to Europe, the UN warned earlier this year.

64: At least 64 people have died in Vietnam as of Monday amid heavy rain, flooding, and landslides brought on by Typhoon Yagi – the strongest typhoon to hit the country in decades. In recent days, factories have been damaged, buses have been swept away by flooding, and bridges have collapsed.

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​U.S. President Donald Trump, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Felix Tshisekedi and President of Rwanda Paul Kagame take part in a signing ceremony at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 4, 2025.

U.S. President Donald Trump, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Felix Tshisekedi and President of Rwanda Paul Kagame take part in a signing ceremony at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 4, 2025.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
6,500: The number of M23 rebels fighting in Congo. On Monday, the US imposed sanctions on the Rwandan government for allegedly supporting the rebels, who’ve been accused of human rights abuses, despite a peace deal that Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi signed in Washington, D.C., last year. Rwanda disputes the [...]
​Military personnel operate during the BAMEX'25 Defense Expo, in Bamako, Mali, November 11, 2025.

Military personnel operate during the BAMEX'25 Defense Expo, in Bamako, Mali, November 11, 2025.

REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko
30: The number of foreign nationals who were kidnapped in Mali and Niger in the first 11 months of 2025, according to data from the independent conflict monitor ACLED, up from seven in the preceding three years combined. The Islamist insurgencies in these West African states have been threatening the broader region, but it could now turn into a [...]
Hard Numbers: Kenya restarts railroad project without China, South Africans return from Ukraine war, the rapper who wants to run Nepal, Russians say things are going well
$4 billion: The amount Kenya wants to raise in order to complete a partially built railway line that was abandoned in 2019. The project, which will link Nairobi with South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya, came to a halt after initial funding from China dried up. This time around, Kenya wants to finance the project itself, through new import tariffs, [...]
​People approach the entrance of the Provincial Clinical-Surgical Hospital "Arnaldo Milian Castro" in Santa Clara, Cuba, on February 25, 2026.

People approach the entrance of the Provincial Clinical-Surgical Hospital "Arnaldo Milian Castro," where, according to local information, injured people were being treated after an armed incident involving a Florida-registered speedboat and a Cuban patrol, at a time of heightened tensions with the United States, in Santa Clara, Cuba, on February 25, 2026.

REUTERS/Norlys Perez
10: The number of Cubans who took a Florida-registered speedboat to Cuba’s coast on Wednesday before engaging in a gunfight with border troops from the communist-run island. Four of them died in the shootout. All 10 reportedly resided in the United States. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the incident was not part of a US government operation. [...]