Hard Numbers

1.6 million: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the country's civil militia, which supplements its armed forces, has ballooned to 1.6 million members, more than three times its size at the beginning of the year.

Facing a dire economic situation, many Venezuelans have turned to the armed forces as the only reliable source of income.

$100,000: Sunday's election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which heralds its first transition of power in 17 years, will likely serve to further entrench the power of a ruling elite backing current President Joseph Kabila. Simply to participate in the election, prospective candidates had to pony up $100,000, a prohibitive threshold for almost all except those tied to the deeply corrupt state apparatus.

63: While the high-profile murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi captured a lot of attention, in all, 63 professional journalists were killed in 2018, according to Reporters Without Borders. That's up 15 percent from the previous year.

0: There is currently not a single country in the world in which women have the same economic opportunities as men, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum. The opportunity gap applies at the global level as well: where today there are just 17 female heads of state or prime ministers across the 149 countries tracked by WEF.

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The Assad family no longer rules Syria. So how did a brutally repressive regime rule with an iron fist for five decades, only to collapse in two weeks? To help make sense of these shocking past few weeks and the potential power vacuum to come is Middle East expert and Beirut-based journalist Kim Ghattas on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer.

Economic Outlook 2025 reveals the trends and shifts that will shape the global economy in the coming year, according to the Mastercard Economics Institute. The report explores a few key economic themes, leveraging Mastercard’s aggregated and anonymized data to provide a unique perspective. This includes cyclical changes – such as shifts in consumption as central banks lower rates or prices change – and structural changes like the impact of migration on capital flows or workplace flexibility driving greater female workforce engagement.

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The last time Syrians sought to oust the Bashar Assad regime, the ensuing crackdown sparked a 14-year-long civil war, killing over 500,000 Syrians and creating nearly six million refugees. So why did things change this time? Ian Bremmer explains.

A 24-hour Yonhapnews TV broadcast at Yongsan Railway Station shows South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivering a speech at the Presidential Office in Seoul. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, defended his botched martial law declaration, as an act of governance and denied insurrection charges facing him, while vowing to fight until the last moment against whether it is impeachment or a martial law probe.
Kim Jae-Hwan / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol looks highly likely to be impeached on Saturday after the leader of his own party on Thursday told members to vote according to their “conviction and conscience.”

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan poses with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed following a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, December 11, 2024.
Murat Kula/Presidential Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced a critical agreement to end a yearlong dispute over Ethiopia’s access to the Arabian Sea.

Press conference about Romania and Bulgaria, former Soviet Bloc countries becoming EU members.
REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

For Romania and Bulgaria, former Soviet Bloc countries that are now EU members, the light finally changed from red to green on Thursday as EU interior ministers agreed to let the two countries fully join the border-free Schengen zone on Jan. 1.