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Hard Numbers: Australia ups its defense game, Biden’s emission limits, deadly blasts in Pakistan, Champagne destroys beer (literally)
Map of China and Australia.
GZERO Media
19 billion: Following a major defense review, Australia is forking out A$19 billion ($12 billion) to conduct its biggest military overhaul since World War II. With an eye on China’s expansionism in the South China Sea and its increasingly dicey bilateral relations with Beijing, Canberra will procure missiles with longer striking capabilities, with munitions built domestically.
3,400: The Biden administration will soon announce limits on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions coming from existing power plants, compelling the country's 3,400 plants to use carbon-capture technology. Currently, the plants — only 20 of which use the technology — generate a quarter of the country’s planet-warming pollution.
17: At least 17 people were killed in northwest Pakistan on Monday when two explosives went off at a police counterterrorism office in Kabal. It’s unclear who was behind the attack, but there has been an uptick in terrorism in recent months, particularly in border regions.
2,352: Belgian customs authorities crushed 2,352 cans of perfectly good Miller High Life beer after the Comité Champagne – which represents growers and traders of the French bubbly – complained that the American beer behemoth’s use of the “champagne of beers” slogan infringed upon the region’s protected right to the term “champagne.” Belgian customs said the Comité Champagne even covered the bill.Global conflict was at a record high in 2025, will 2026 be more peaceful? Ian Bremmer talks with CNN’s Clarissa Ward and Comfort Ero of the International Crisis Group on the GZERO World Podcast.
Think you know what's going on around the world? Here's your chance to prove it.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi isn’t necessarily known as the greatest friend of Muslim people, yet his own government is now seeking to build bridges with Afghanistan’s Islamist leaders, the Taliban.
The European Union just pulled off something that, a year ago, seemed politically impossible: it froze $247 billion in Russian central bank assets indefinitely, stripping the Kremlin of one of its most reliable pressure points.