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Eastern Cape EMS Rescue team searches for missing Jumba Senior secondary school students at Efata bridge next to Mthatha Dam in Mthatha, South Africa on June 10, 2025
HARD NUMBERS: Flooding in South Africa, one lucky Canadian & More
49: Flooding in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, the result of snow and heavy rain, has left at least 49 people dead, including several people on a school bus that was swept away by the waters.
15: South Korea has switched off the loudspeakers that blast propaganda across the border into North Korea – the noise can be heard 15 miles away at night. The move comes a week after Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, who favors de-escalation with the North,won the presidential election.
3%: The United Kingdom’s National Health Service was the big winner of the Government’s spending review on Wednesday, as Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reevesincreased the annual healthcare budget by 3% – amounting to another £29 billion ($39.2 billion) per year. Other departments, like the Foreign Office and the Environment Department, suffered cuts.
4: All of us dream of winning the lottery just once, but one man in Alberta, Canada, has now done it four times! David Serkin pocketed $730,000 from his latest jackpot – his third in the last year. He also happens to be a cancer survivor. He Serkin-ly has the luck of the draw!Leading Republican senators during their weekly briefing in the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., USA, on May 20, 2025.
What We’re Watching: “Big Beautiful” bill heads for the Senate, UK gives up Chagos Islands, Taiwan pivots to drones
House passes Trump’s tax agenda, but senators will now have their say
By a margin of just one vote, the US House early on Thursday passed a budget bill containing President Donald Trump’s tax agenda, which centers on making his 2017 tax cuts permanent. Some last-minute changes to the bill helped to get it over the line: House Republicans increased the SALT-cap to $40,000 and accelerated the introduction of work requirements for Medicaid. But can the GOP get the bill through the US Senate? Lawmakers in the upper chamber are already plotting changes to the legislation...
You can Chagos your own way: UK hands islands back to Mauritius, leases back base
More than two centuries after taking the Chagos Islands from France, the United Kingdom relinquished the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius, but will continue to lease a US-UK military base there, on the island of Diego Garcia, for another 99 years. The UK says the deal, which creates a 24-mile buffer zone around the base, is meant to ensure its long-term security amid growing Chinese aggression in the area. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the deal.
Taiwan adds new drone units as part of shifting military strategy
Ever wary of a potential Chinese invasion, Taiwan announced that it will introduce its first-ever drone units this year. The move is part of Taipei’s evolving strategy of effectively deterring Beijing rather than preparing for a direct fight. “Overall, the cross-strait military balance still tilts toward China’s favor, since China spends a lot more on defense,” says Eurasia Group regional expert Ava Shen. “So it’s more pragmatic for Taiwan to be a ‘porcupine,’ so to speak.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini brief the media at the European Council in Brussels, Belgium, on December 11, 2017.
What We’re Watching: Pressure on Israel, Jitters in Bolivia, Podcasts for Democrats
Israel under fresh pressure
The UK and EU threatened Tuesday to revise trade ties with Israel unless PM Benjamin Netanyahu stops the new offensive in the Gaza Strip and allows sufficient humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave. This comes after the UK, Canada, and France threatened Israel on Monday with “concrete measures,” like sanctions. Netanyahu and his far right coalition allies say they are intent on destroying Hamas, though critics warn Israel is becoming a “pariah.”
The Morales of the story: Bolivian heavyweight to defy election exclusion
Bolivia’s socialist powerbroker Evo Morales, who governed from 2006 until he was ousted in protests in 2019, is officially ineligible to run in this August’s presidential election because of term limits. Yet he has pledged to mobilize his supporters to defy this rule, setting up a potentially destabilizing contest as his once-formidable leftwing MAS movement splinters into rival factions.
Democratic donors try a pivot to podcast
Faced with the vast array of conservative or MAGA-friendly online influencers who helped Donald Trump to win the 2024 election, Democrats and their donors are now trying to cultivate a creator economy of their own ahead of the 2026 midterms. There’s lots of money and pitches, but can you really create a viable ecosystem of influencers overnight? Authenticity, the heartbeat of any political campaign, is hard to create in a lab. You’re either a born killer or you’re not.
Trump’s call with Putin fails to deliver Ukraine ceasefire
Ian's takeaways:
On Trump’s Ukraine policy: “Absent a ceasefire, there is no breakthrough deal between Trump and Putin. None of that’s going to happen.”
On Western backlash over Gaza: “At the end of the day, unless Trump is going to squeeze Israel hard and say, 'Suspend intelligence and aid,' the way he did with the Ukrainians, I have a hard time seeing the Israelis in any way backing down from what is at this point an completely unconscionable military intervention and ethnic cleansing across the board in Gaza."
On tech power vs. government: “In the US digital space, it’s the tech CEOs who hold the power and the government isn’t ready for what’s coming.”
President Joe Biden at an event with Kamala Harris on lowering drug costs for America.
HARD NUMBERS: Biden diagnosed with cancer, Russian drones hammer Ukraine, Israeli forces enter Gaza, Pope Leo gets political, UK and EU are friends again, Austria wins Eurovision
9: Former US President Joe Biden, 82, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone. Biden’s cancer has a “Gleason score” of 9 out of 10, which means it is highly aggressive, but since it requires hormones to grow, may respond to treatment that deprives the tumors of hormones. Both US President Donald Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris expressed their sorrow on social media and wished the former president a successful recovery as he and his family review treatment options.
273: Russia launched 273 drones in the Kyiv region of Ukraine Sunday, killing one woman and causing widespread damage in its biggest drone attack of the war. Ukraine accused Russia of also intending to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, but Moscow did not comment. The escalation comes ahead of US President Donald Trump’s calls with the presidents of Russia and Ukraine on Monday, to broker a ceasefire deal.
140: Palestinian health officials say Israeli air strikes killed over 140 people in Gaza Sunday, raising accusations of ethnic cleansing by the UN. Israel subsequently began a ground offensive in the territory after peace talks stalled in Qatar, with officials saying that the strikes were part of its plans to “achieve all of the war goals in Gaza” and establish “operational control” of parts of the territory.
200,000: An estimated 200,000 well-wishers, including a slew of world leaders, packed St. Peter’s Square in Rome for the first sermon of Pope Leo XIV - and the pontiff didn’t leave out the politics. Leo stated that his role is to serve without “yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat,” remarked on Ukraine being “martyred,” and deplored the people of Gaza being “reduced to starvation.”
12: The United Kingdom and the European Union have decided that there are plenty of fish in the sea for them to share: London granted EU boats access to UK waters for the next 12 years in return for fewer checks on British food exports to the 27-country bloc. The deal also includes a significant security pact. It’s a significant moment for UK-EU relations, just nine years after their infamous divorce.
160 million: Austria took top prize in the 69th Eurovision song contest Saturday, with classically trained countertenor JJ wowing an estimated 160 million viewers with his soaring pop-opera ballad, Wasted Love. Second place went to Yuval Raphael of Israel with a moving trilingual performance of New Day Will Rise, while Tommy Cash of Estonia came in third with his frothy fast-dancing confection, Espresso Macchiato.People shout slogans in front of the portrait of Sirri Sureyya Onder, a prominent pro-Kurdish party lawmaker and key figure in Turkey’s tentative process to end the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) insurgency who died on Saturday at age 62, during his funeral in Istanbul, Turkey, on May 4, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Kurds in Turkey formally disband, Burkina Faso’s military murders civilians, White Afrikaners land in US, UK tries to curtail immigration, Top Argentina Court discovers Nazi docs
41: The revolution will not be finalized, as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant rebel group in Turkey, formally disbanded after a 41-year insurgency against the Turkish government. The original goal was to create an independent Kurdish state, but the group’s weakened position in Iraq and Syria forced it to declare a ceasefire in March, before ultimately dissolving. Turkey hasn’t fully secured peace, yet: it must now establish how to disarm the rebel group.
130: In March, the Burkina Faso military and its allied groups killed at least 130 ethnic Fulani civilians, per a Human Rights Watch report, as the government’s response to the Islamist insurgency turns vicious. Leaders of the Fulani, who are a Muslim community, deny any links with the Islamist militants. The massacre triggered reprisal killings, with insurgent groups – who control around 40% of the country – murdering at least 100 civilians in villages they believe are helping the government.
59: A group of 59 white Afrikaners landed in the United States from Johannesburg on Monday, after the Trump administration granted them refugee status in response to what they see as “racial discrimination” from South Africa’s government – the Rainbow Nation denies these claims. The move further escalates the rising tensions between Pretoria and Washington.
100,000: In the latest sign of rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced measures to reduce annual net immigration by 100,000 by 2029. The plan includes banning recruitment of care workers from abroad, cutting access to visas for skilled workers, and increasing English language requirements for all work visas. Net immigration reached a record 906,000 in the 12 months to June 2023.
4: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Ramasecured a fourth term in office after his party dominated Sunday’s parliamentary elections. With 94% of ballots counted, Rama’s Socialist Party won 52%, while opposition leader Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party sits on just 34%. It marks a setback for the MAGA message: Berisha had relied on the help of major Trump allies, to no avail.
83: As if replicating the plot of an Indiana Jones film, Argentina’s Supreme Court discovered Nazi documents among its archives that included propaganda material aimed at spreading the fascist ideology across the country. The material is believed to be part of the 83 packages that the German embassy in Tokyo sent to Buenos Aires on the “Nan-a-Maru” steamship in 1941. Argentina was a safe haven for the Nazis after World War II, though some – Adolf Eichmann, most infamously – were tracked down and brought to justice.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks on the phone to US President Donald Trump at a car factory in the West Midlands, United Kingdom, on May 8, 2025.
US-UK trade deal a victory for Starmer, with some caveats
When President Donald Trump announced a trade deal that will reduce US tariffs on UK cars and plane engines in return for greater access to the British market for American beef and chemicals, he singled out Prime Minister Keir Starmer for praise.
“The US and UK have been working for years to try and make a deal, and it never quite got there,” said Trump. “It did with this prime minister.”
The president’s comment twisted the knife into the UK Conservative Party, which tried — and failed — to achieve a trade deal with the Americans during its 14 years in power. It took Starmer, the Labour leader, to finally clinch the deal less than a year after entering office.
Starmer isn’t the only winner. Brexiteers cited the prospect of a US trade deal to further justify exiting the European Union. The deal caps a stellar week for Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, after his party made extraordinary strides in the local UK elections last Thursday.
There’s a caveat. The scope of the deal was somewhat limited, with many goods still subject to the 10% tariff — Trump said this rate was “pretty well set.” The UK tariff rate appears to have dropped, while the US one has risen, although the White House numbers can sometimes be off.
What’s Trump’s strategy? With this deal — the first the US has made since “Liberation Day” — it’s not clear whether the president’s main goal is protectionism or winning concessions from America’s allies.
The US did nab some wins from the pact, including access to UK meat markets, but they inked it with a country with which they already have a trade surplus. Trump thus achieved both of these goals, making it unclear where his priority lies.UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds meets Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal for trade talks, in London, United Kingdom, on April 28, 2025.
UK, India finally cinch trade deal
The United Kingdom on Tuesday sealed its largest trade deal since leaving the European Union, inking a pact with India in a big political win for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The highlights: drink and drive. India’s tariffs on UK whisky and gin will halve from 150% to 75%, before falling to 40% over the next decade. Levies on UK auto products will also plummet from 100% to 10%, albeit with some quotas in place. The UK, in turn, will slash tariffs on Indian clothing, foodstuffs, and jewels.
UK-India trade surpassed $50 billion last year, and the deal is projected to add $35 billion a year by 2040.
Starmer succeeds where Sunak failed. Former PM Rishi Sunak had tried desperately to clinch a deal with India during his 20-month premiership.
The migration angle. The pact exempts Indians on short-term UK visas from paying social security taxes for three years – the UK right is already mad about that.
Mujtaba Rahman, Eurasia Group’s managing director of Europe, said the deal is “welcome news” for the UK government.
“However, the real test for Keir Starmer will be how far he can dismantle the trade friction with the UK’s biggest trading partner – the EU,” Rahman added. “That will require a bolder approach than we have seen so far.”