Hard Numbers: Indonesia’s bulging youth population

430,000: Japan's population is shrinking by the equivalent of a medium-sized city each year due to a rapidly declining birth rate. The native-born Japanese population fell by 430,000 in 2018, while 161,000 migrants entered the country, partially offsetting that loss.

67: Prices of staple foods in Iran have soared this year – with the price of beef up 67 percent, fruit up 58 percent, and rice up 24 percent – as US sanctions have sunk the Iranian economy. Police in Tehran arrested 43 people accused of manipulating Iran's meat market over the Persian New Year holidays in early April.

51: Just over half of Russians in a recent poll – 51 percent – expressed admiration, sympathy, or respect for Josef Stalin, the highest reading since pollsters began tracking public attitudes towards the former Soviet dictator in 2001. Seventy percent of respondents said Stalin's three-decade reign had been "positive" for the country.

42: Of the 270 million people living in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim majority country, around 42 percent, or 113 million, are under the age of 25. Educating, training, and finding jobs for the country's growing youth population will be a key challenge for the next president.

4: Measles cases reported around the world have quadrupled over the past year to more than 112,000, according to the World Health Organization. Africa has been worst-hit, with cases of the dangerous respiratory illness up eight-fold across the continent. Cases are also rising in the US, Thailand, and other countries with traditionally high levels of vaccination – a trend that a WHO official attributed to online anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

More from GZERO Media

Three people holding crates

More than 60% of Walmart suppliers are small businesses.* Through a $350 billion investment in products made, grown, or assembled in the US, Walmart is helping these businesses expand, create jobs, and thrive. This effort is expected to support the creation of over 750,000 new American jobs by 2030, empowering companies like Athletic Brewing, Bon Appésweet, and Milo’s Tea to grow their teams, scale their production, and strengthen the communities they call home. Learn more about Walmart's commitment to US manufacturing. *See website for additional details.

Last month, Microsoft released its 2025 Responsible AI Transparency Report, demonstrating the company’s sustained commitment to earning trust at a pace that matches AI innovation. The report outlines new developments in how we build and deploy AI systems responsibly, how we support our customers, and how we learn, evolve, and grow. It highlights our strengthened incident response processes, enhanced risk assessments and mitigations, and proactive regulatory alignment. It also covers new tools and practices we offer our customers to support their AI risk governance efforts, as well as how we work with stakeholders around the world to work towards governance approaches that build trust. You can read the report here.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Democratic Republic of the Congo's Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwanda's Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe on June 27, 2025.
REUTERS

On June 27, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda signed a US-mediated peace accord in Washington, D.C., to end decades of violence in the DRC’s resource-rich Great Lakes region. The agreement commits both nations to cease hostilities, withdraw troops, and to end support for armed groups operating in eastern Congowithin 90 days.