Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers

Make us preferred on Google

20,800: The United States is on track to resettle only 20,800 refugees in fiscal year 2018, according to calculations by The Economist. That’s a 61% annual reduction, and the lowest number since 1980, when the modern system of refugee admissions was established.


318: Chinese companies have bought or invested in European assets amounting to at least $318 billion over the past 10 years, according to Bloomberg. American firms invested 45 percent less over the same period.

39.2: Africa spent $39.2 billion on defense in 2016 — but given its 1.2 billion population, that’s the lowest per capita military expenditure of any region in the world. Still, the continent faces numerous security challenges including transnational terrorism, local militancy, and clashes over resources that are becoming scarcer because of climate change.

5: At least five of the seven men who carried the coffin at Kim Jong-Il’s funeral have been executed, banned, or banished since his son Kim Jong-un came to power in 2011.

2: The blackouts in Puerto Rico caused by last year’s Hurricane Maria are the second largest power-outage ever on record, knocking out nearly 4 trillion customer hours. According to a study by Rhodium Group, only Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 was worse, knocking out more than 6 trillion customer hours in the Philippines.

More For You

Severe heatwaves trigger unrest in Libya
Farida Dowidar
Demonstrations have been sweeping cities in Libya over the past few days, with protesters blocking roads, government buildings, and even storming an energy complex over rolling blackouts. The demonstrations have snowballed, however, into demands for the removal of governments in both eastern and western Libya. Surging demand for air conditioning [...]
Founder and CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov

Founder and CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov delivers a keynote speech during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 23, 2016.

REUTERS/Albert Gea
Mixed signals from the Kremlin on TelegramRussia announced on Wednesday it charged the founder of Telegram, Russian-born Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorism for allegedly failing to remove information used to organize attacks inside the country. Earlier this year, Russia cracked down on the messaging app – slowing download speeds and blocking [...]
Labour takes the lead
Farida Dowidar
Support for the UK’s incumbent Labour party has surpassed that of the far-right Reform UK for the first time since March 2025, according to weekly pollsters More in Common. Labour is now at 28%, Reform is in second place at 24%, while the Tories trail just behind at 22%. Labour’s poll bounce has been labeled the “Burnham Bounce”, thanks to new [...]
People chant slogans as they walk during a protest and shutter-down strike called by the banned Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), an alliance of civil society groups, in Neelum Valley, Pakistani Kashmir.

People chant slogans as they walk during a protest and shutter-down strike called by the banned Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), an alliance of civil society groups, in Neelum Valley, Pakistani Kashmir, June 21, 2026.

REUTERS/Naseer ud Din
Contested elections in Pakistan-administered KashmirRegional parliamentary elections began in the Pakistan-administered portion of Kashmir on Monday, but the first round of voting has been racked with violence. It's the latest flare-up in what’s been weeks of clashes in the region between police and protesters, who are organized by the Joint Awami [...]