Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Hard Numbers

Hard Numbers: Greece’s wildfire tragedy, Pakistan’s cable car nightmare, Japan’s radioactive water, Sudan’s hungry children

Smoke rises next to sunbeams and umbrellas as a wildfire burns, at the beach of the village of Dikella in the region of Evros, Greece.

Smoke rises next to sunbeams and umbrellas as a wildfire burns, at the beach of the village of Dikella in the region of Evros, Greece.

Reuters
Make us preferred on Google

18: The Greek fire service said Tuesday that 18 bodies, possibly of migrants, were found in an area of the Dadia forest along the Turkish border that’s been hit by wildfires. Local media have reported the findings of eight additional bodies – if confirmed, this would bring the total to 26. Large swaths of southern Europe are fighting wildfires and on alert due to extreme heat and high winds.


900: Their nightmare has ended. Eight people – two teachers and six schoolchildren – have been saved after being trapped in a cable car stuck 900 feet in the air amid the mountains of Pakistan’s Battagram region. A military helicopter and zip line were used in the rescues after a cable snapped, leaving the car dangling over a ravine. Many Pakistani children living in remote areas rely on dilapidated cable cars to get to school.

1.34 million: Japan is set to unleash radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant that has accumulated since the facility was hit by a tsunami in 2011, causing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The move will see the 1.34 million tons of water filtered, diluted, and then released into the Pacific over 30 years. Tokyo insists this is important for decommissioning the plant, where the radioactive water has been stored in tanks for more than a decade, but the plan has caused uproar in neighboring countries worried about contamination.

500: Hunger has claimed the lives of 500 Sudanese children since fighting erupted in April, according to Save the Children. Clashes between warring military factions have forced the human rights group to shutter many of its nutrition centers in the country. While a million people have fled to neighboring countries, 31,000 children in Sudan are stuck without access to aid or medical care.

More For You

Mississippi blue(s)
Will Fitzpatrick
The last time the Deep South state started a Black senator was in 1875, during “Reconstruction,” a roughly twenty-year period when the US federal government sought to support the integration and equality of Southern Black people after the Civil War. Mississippi actually sent two Black men to the Senate during that time: Hiram Revels and Blanche [...]
Court overturns Trinidad and Tobago's anti-gay laws
Natalie Johnson
That list got shorter on Tuesday after a UK court overturned laws criminalizing homosexuality in Trinidad and Tobago, ending an 11-year-long legal battle. The Caribbean is home to several Commonwealth countries – mostly former British colonies that still recognize the British monarch as their head of state – that still have laws around [...]
Americans want Trump to prioritize their wallets
Will Fitzpatrick
A new YouGov poll, conducted on behalf of the Institute for Global Affairs, a nonprofit geopolitics education organization founded by Ian Bremmer, reveals how much affordability was top of mind for voters during last week’s midterm elections. Most voters said they’d rather prioritize their wallets over military goals. It’s a timely reminder as [...]
Chile’s new president sees approval sink
Will Fitzpatrick
Kast, an ultra-conservative Catholic, won Chile’s presidential runoff in a landslide last December, taking nearly 60% of the vote with promises to be tough on crime and immigration. But almost immediately after he took office in March, his approval rating began to fall, and has now plummeted some 30 points overall. A leading reason is a recent [...]