Hard Numbers: An Uprising Loses Steam

7,000: When France's Yellow Vest movement erupted last November, protests drew more than 280,000 participants and paralyzed Paris. But seven months and a particularly unsuccessful European parliamentary election campaign later (the group's candidates received less than 1% of the vote), the leaderless movement produced just 7,000 protestors over the weekend and now teeters on the brink of irrelevance.

30 billion: Chinese technology giant Huawei said it expected a $30 billion financial hit from the Trump administration's ban on the firm acquiring US technology, with sales of Huawei smartphones outside mainland China forecast to plunge 60 percent over the next couple of years. Founder Ren Zhengfei said the company "didn't expect the US would so resolutely attack Huawei."

7: Internet outages continued to hit broad stretches of Ethiopia for a seventh day on Monday. Authorities have remained tight-lipped about the reason for the shutdown, but the timing has led to speculation the country may have cut access to prevent students from cheating on nationwide exams. #overkill

500: US Border Patrol recently apprehended 500 African migrants crossing the US-Mexico border in a single week. For context: 211 African migrants were apprehended along the US-Mexico border for the entire 2018 fiscal year. Asylum seekers hail from various African countries, including Eritrea, Angola, Cameroon, and Sudan.

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Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says AI can be both a force for good and a tool for harm. “AI has either the possibility of…providing interventions and disruption, or it has the ability to also further harms, increase radicalization, and exacerbate issues of terrorism and extremism online.”

Demonstrators carry the dead body of a man killed during a protest a day after a general election marred by violent demonstrations over the exclusion of two leading opposition candidates at the Namanga One-Post Border crossing point between Kenya and Tanzania, as seen from Namanga, Kenya October 30, 2025.
REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

Tanzania has been rocked by violence for three days now, following a national election earlier this week. Protestors are angry over the banning of candidates and detention of opposition leaders by President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Illegal immigrants from Ethiopia walk on a road near the town of Taojourah February 23, 2015. The area, described by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as one of the most inhospitable areas in the world, is on a transit route for thousands of immigrants every year from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia travelling via Yemen to Saudi Arabia in hope of work. Picture taken February 23.
REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

7,500: The Trump administration will cap the number of refugees that the US will admit over the next year to 7,500. The previous limit, set by former President Joe Biden, was 125,000. The new cap is a record low. White South Africans will have priority access.