Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivers remarks during a reenlistment ceremony for Medal of Honor recipient in the Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon last week.
Hard Numbers: Hegseth’s other Signal chat, Americans protest Trump, Foreign students sue over F-1 visas, Deadly farming clashes plague Nigeria, Japan charges tourists more
2: Defense Secretary Pete Hegsethreportedly shared classified details about looming US airstrikes in Yemen in a second unclassified Signal group -- this time including his wife, brother, and personal attorney. On March 15, he disclosed flight plans for F/A-18 Hornets targeting Houthi positions. That was the same day Hegseth sent similar information to another Signal chat that included The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, raising serious concerns about mishandling of sensitive military intelligence.
50: Protests were held in cities across the US on Saturday to protest the “anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies,” according to the group 50501, which organized many of the events. From Portland, Maine, to Los Angeles, thousands took to the streets to protest what they see as Donald Trump’s civil rights and constitutional violations.
329,196: Five foreign students are suing the US Dept. of Homeland Security over the loss of their F-1 visas, which they held as international students. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit, says the Trump administration has terminated F-1 visas for “hundreds, if not thousands, of international students.” One of the five involved in the suit, Chinese national Hangrui Zhang, invested a whopping $329,196 into his US studies, and he now faces the prospect of not being able to finish his degree.
56: Suspected violence between Muslim cattle herders and Christian farmers over land use and grazing rights turned deadly again in central Nigeria. At least 56 people were killed on Thursday and Friday in Benue state in the latest clash to plague Africa’s most populous country — fighting in north central Plateau state also claimed more than 100 lives in recent weeks. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar condemned the killings and publicly blamed President Bola Tinubu for not doing enough to stop the violence.
4,000: Whether it’s because they’re shunning the US amid Donald Trump’s tariff war, reading how wonderful Japan is to visit, or simply enjoying how far their dollars go against the weaker yen, Canadians are increasingly vacationing in Japan. More than 550,000 Canadian tourists visited last year, a 37% jump from 2023. But the Japanese, concerned with overtourism and housing affordability, are starting to push back by raising tourism prices. From July, foreigners looking to climb Mount Fuji, for example, will pay 4,000 yen, roughly CA$40, double last year’s cost. But the price may not be steep enough to keep adventure-seeking hordes at bay.
Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu looks on after his swearing-in ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria, on May 29, 2023.
Nigeria’s Rivers State in crisis after Lagos declares emergency rule
What prompted the move? Tinubu acted after an explosion rocked the Trans-Niger Pipeline this week, disrupting $14 million worth of daily crude oil production. The incident is still under investigation, but Tinubu accused Fubara of failing to act against gangs responsible for similar attacks in the past months that have been used to “bunker” or steal oil for sale on the black market.
However, critics argue that Tinubu’s real motive is to seize control of the oil-rich state, especially as Fubara belongs to the People’s Democratic Party, the main national opposition party to Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress. Fubara was already engaged in a power struggle with his predecessor, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, and political opponents were threatening the governor withimpeachment.
The Nigerian Bar Association called Tinubu’s move “unconstitutional,” and the PDP is refusing to recognize the state of emergency. It maintains that Fubara is still governor and that Tinubu has no constitutional authority to remove him, and it has called on the country’s National Assembly to overturn Tinubu’s decision.
A bird flu warning sign and quarantine zone in Switzerland.
Hard Numbers: Bird flu spreads, Modi joins Truth Social, Trans-Niger Pipeline explodes, JFK files released, Majority of Americans oppose tariffs, Who thinks Trump is a dictator?
166 million: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is concerned over the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus to mammal species, including zoo animals, pets, and cattle, which is causing havoc in agriculture and increasing the likelihood it could jump to humans. The spread among birds has already caused the culling of at least 166 million chickens in the United States, sending egg prices soaring.
31,600: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modijoined Truth Social, the social media platform owned by US President Donald Trump. In his inaugural post on Monday, Modi shared a photo with Trump taken in 2019 in Houston, Texas, and as of Wednesday morning, he had 31,600 followers.
450,000: An explosion occurred Monday night on the Trans-Niger Pipeline in Rivers State's Bodo community, threatening over 450,000 barrels of daily crude oil production and causing a fire to rage through a local mangrove. Two individuals have been arrested in connection with the incident, and an investigation is underway. The pipeline has been the subject of terror attacks before, but no such link has yet been established.
80,000: Conspiracy theorists, start your engines. President Donald Trump on Tuesday released approximately 80,000 pages of unredacted documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination. While White House Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields claimed that Americans “are truly going to be shocked,” historians do not expect significant new revelations.
38: The latest exclusive GZERO-Echelon poll shows that 54% of American voters oppose US President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, while 38% support them. Republicans favor them by a 47-point margin, but Independents and Democrats oppose them by margins of 30 and 76, respectively.
36: The same poll asked respondents which of a list of world leaders they would consider to be a dictator. North Korean President Kim Jong Un topped the list at 77%, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin at 75%, and then by US President Donald Trump, at 36%.A man walks past a Jio-bp fuel tanker, an Indian fuel and mobility joint venture between Reliance Industries (RIL) and British Petroleum (bp), in Navi Mumbai, India, October 26, 2021
Hard Numbers: BP cuts thousands of jobs, UK drug seizures soar, Astronauts take a hike, Nigeria kills dozens of jihadists
5: Energy giant BP announced Thursday it would cut 4,700 employees and 3,000 contractors, a total of more than 5% of its global workforce. The move is part of a broader strategy that aims to bring down costs by $2 billion over the next two years.
3.66 billion:Drugs is big business, innit. In the year ending March 2024, UK authorities seized a record 119 tons of illegal narcotics, with a street value of $3.66 billion. About two-thirds of the haul was cannabis, and a fifth was cocaine. Elsewhere in Europe, drug interdictions have also surged – a massive Interpol operation last spring led to the seizure of more than 600 tons of narcotics or precursor chemicals. The UN says cocaine consumption in European cities has risen 80% since 2011.
7: If you’ve got cabin fever, go for a walk – if you’ve got space station fever, go for a spacewalk! That’s what US astronaut Suni Williams did Thursday, stepping out of the International Space Station for the first time since arriving more than seven months ago. Williams and her colleague Butch Wilmore were supposed to be at the station for only a week, but spacecraft trouble has kept them stranded in space, where they’ll likely remain until April or May.
76: In recent weeks, Nigerian forces have killed 76 jihadists in the country’s northeastern state of Borno. The militants belonged either to Boko Haram or to Islamic State West Africa, whose jihadist insurgency against the Nigerian government has displaced more than 2 million people and killed as many as 30,000 since it began in 2009. Growing violence and extremism in the Sahel region (which includes Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Chad) remains one of Africa’s biggest security challenges.Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pays tribute to the 309 victims of the earthquake that struck, in L'Aquila, Italy, on 5 April 2009.
Hard Numbers: Harris goes into Fox’s den, Italy’s international surrogacy ban, Nigeria’s fuel tanker explosion, Hong Kong tries to get the party started, Jimmy Carter casts his 21st presidential ballot
200 million: Kamala Harris went into conservative territory to appear on Fox News on Wednesday night. In a pre-taped, 30-minute interview with network host Bret Baier, the vice president was grilled on immigration and her history of supporting taxes used to fund gender-affirming care for federal prisoners and detained immigrants. The interview was contentious, with the two repeatedly talking over one another. Fox News, which reaches nearly 200 million people each month, was just the latest stop on Harris’ media blitz – and was likely an attempt to reach independents and moderate Republicans.
1.25: Surrogacy has been banned in Italy for 20 years, but Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’sconservative government has just gone a step further and criminalized seeking surrogacy abroad. Conservative lawmakers argued that they passed the law because they believe surrogacy is exploitative of women. Critics argued it would deprive gay or infertile couples of a way to have children and noted that the legislation targets a relatively small number of families in a country that already has a low birth rate.
100: A massive fuel tanker explosion in northern Nigeria killed 100 people and left 50 injured on Wednesday. The tanker exploded after veering to avoid colliding with a truck in the town of Maja. Fuel tanker explosions are common in Africa’s most populous nation, where roads can be poorly maintained. Complicating matters, residents often rush toward the tanker to siphon off fuel following accidents amid the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation.
10: Hong Kong has slashed its booze tax, one of the highest in the world, as the Chinese territory seeks to boost nightlife and revive its struggling economy. Until now, spirits with an alcoholic content of more than 30%, including brandy, whisky, and gin, had been subject to a 100% duty in Hong Kong. But the financial hub has been hit hard by China’s slowing economy and the fall in tourist numbers, leading the Beijing-backed government to slash the duty rate to 10%.
21: Former US President Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 this month, voted by mail on the first day of Georgia’s early voting on Tuesday. Although he did not reveal who he voted for, he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August that, even more than making it to his 100th birthday, he was “only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris.” At 19, Carter likely cast his first vote in the 1944 presidential election, as a part of the first cohort of voters made eligible to vote by Georgia lowering its voting age to 18, making this his 21st presidential election.
Indian Army soldiers participate in a mock drill exercise during the Army Day parade in New Delhi, India, January 15, 2016. India celebrated the 68th anniversary of the formation of its national army with soldiers from various regiments, and artillery on display on Friday.
Hard Numbers: Indian weapons find their way to Ukraine, Colombia halts peace talks with ELN, Trump and Harris tie in national poll, canoe operators soak folks in flood-hit region of Nigeria
11: For more than a year now, European countries have been buying Indian weapons and sending them to Ukraine for use against Russian invaders, according to 11 Indian and European defense officials interviewed in a Reuters exclusive. The juiciest bit? New Delhi – which has otherwise maintained good ties with Moscow – has refused Russia’s repeated requests to stop this from happening.
2: The Colombian government suspended peace talks with the Marxist rebels of the National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish acronym ELN, after an attack by the group killed two soldiers. Calling off talks with the ELN – which sat out the historic 2016 peace deal between the government and the larger FARC group – is another blow to leftist President Gustavo Petro’s promise of reaching “total peace” in the country. In July he was forced to scrap negotiations with another large faction of holdout militants.
47: With less than two months until Election Day, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are in a dead heat, tied at 47% apiece in a new national poll. In Pennsylvania, a key swing state, polls gave Harris an advantage of between one and four points. The margin of error in the state polls was just under 4 points.
80,000: People in the flood-battered northeastern Nigerian state of Borno are reeling at the price of canoe rides, with operators charging as much as 80,000 naira (about $50) for a short journey. To put that in perspective, that single ride would cost more than the local monthly minimum wage. Borno has suffered severe floods, and a related prison break, since a dam burst amid unusually heavy rains in Central and Eastern Africa.Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin Wall on the Defender of the Fatherland Day in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 23, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Putin eyes more troops, Liberals lose in Montreal riding, Beijing frees American, Deadly clashes in New Guinea, Gazan children vaccinated, Nigerian prison escape
180,000: Uncle Vladimir wants … more troops. The Russian president on Monday ordered that his country’s army be enlarged to 1.5 million active troops, an increase of 180,000 soldiers. If successful, the growth would make Russia’s military the second largest worldwide, with China in the No. 1 spot.
28: Canada’s Liberal Party lost another big byelection on Monday in Montreal’s LaSalle-Émard-Verdun riding. Between this loss to Bloc-Québécois and a June loss to Conservatives in Toronto-St. Paul’s, PM Justin Trudeau’s party has seen a summer bookended by major losses in so-called Liberal strongholds. Preliminary results from Monday’s vote show it was so close that the BQ beat the Liberals by less than a percentage point, 28% to 27.2%. But don’t expect Trudeau to step down: He said before the polls opened that he would stay on as party leader whatever the result.
18: On Sunday, Beijing releasedDavid Lin, an American pastor who had been wrongfully detained in China for 18 years, partially fulfilling the White House’s repeated requests to hand over detainees. Washington is also seeking the release of Kai Li and Mark Swidan, who have been detained in China since 2016 and 2012, respectively. Their detentions are scheduled for a congressional hearing on Wednesday.
50: Up to 50 people have died in ongoing fighting among illegal mine operators in Papua New Guinea’s Porgera Valley, the UN announced Monday. Security forces have reportedly started deploying in the valley, which was also the site of a landslide that killed up to 2,000 people in May, but violence, especially inter-tribal violence, is a growing problem that New Guinea has few resources to address.
90: UN health authorities in Gaza announced on Monday that they have vaccinated 90% of the 640,000 children with their first dose against polio, a major humanitarian accomplishment amid the ongoing fighting. UNRWA says it’s now focused on getting the vaccine to the remaining children and setting up for the second dose in about two months.
274: At least 274 inmates in a Nigerian prison in Borno state have escaped after major floods caused walls in the facility to collapse. Around 4 million Nigerians have been affected by the floods, and at least 1,000 people across West and Central Africa have died.Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra attends a press conference at the Pheu Thai party headquarters after the royal endorsement ceremony. Paetongtarn Shinawatra become the 31th Prime Minister and the second female Prime Minister of Thailand after her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra.
Hard Numbers: New PM in Bangkok, New elections in Kashmir, New copper in Afghanistan, New kidnappings in Nigeria, New fines for X in Brazil
37: Thailand now has its youngest-ever prime minister, with 37-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter and niece of former PMs Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, respectively, at the helm. Paetongtarn – who received the royal endorsement on Sunday – faces a tough road ahead, with Thai voters struggling amid a sluggish economy and chaffing after nearly a decade of military meddling in politics, including for her appointment.
10: Voters in Indian-controlled Kashmir will vote for a state assembly for the first time in 10 years starting next month, Indian authorities announced Friday. But the news isn’t going over well in Srinagar, with one local politician saying “This isn’t democracy, it’s a mockery.” The new local assembly will only have nominal control over education and cultural policy, while all other legislation will continue to come from New Delhi. Kashmiri militants, with backing from Pakistan and international terrorist networks, have resisted Indian occupation since 1989, and Kashmir lost its state status in 2019 during a massive crackdown.
16: A joint copper mining venture in Afghanistan between China and the Taliban reportedly broke ground last month after 16 years of delay. Kabul is hanging major economic hopes on the project, which aims to exploit the second-largest untouched copper reserve in the world. But it has also accused Beijing of reneging on key elements of the deal.
20: Nigerian authorities are urgently working to secure the release of 20 medical students who were abducted in Benue State late Thursday. The national police have deployed drones and helicopters in their search, and the Nigerian Medical Association indicated it had received ransom demands. But paying them would be illegal under an anti-kidnapping law passed in 2022.
100,000: Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X, formerly known as Twitter, to pay 100,000 reais (~$19,774) per day for each account of far-right figures it re-opened in violation of court orders while those figures are under investigation. Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes also placed X CEO Elon Musk under investigation for charges including obstruction of justice. The order has prompted X to close its offices in Brazil, but Brazilians can still access the platform.