HARD NUMBERS: Rio police, Afghan civilian deaths, stateless people

3,804: Last year, violence in Afghanistan killed 3,804 civilians, according to a new report from the United Nations, the highest annual total on record. Rebel groups like the Taliban and Islamic State were responsible for two-thirds of the total. Fighting has escalated even as peace talks gradually move forward.

160: Police in Rio de Janeiro killed 160 people in the month of January, the highest total for that month since 1998. Like President Jair Bolsonaro, Rio's new governor Wilson Witzel won recent elections in part by promising a harsh law-and-order crackdown in one of the world's most violent cities.

10 million: There are currently at least 10 million people around the globe who are considered stateless: they are citizens of no country. This can be the result of wars and displacement, changes in laws, governments, or borders, or specific government decisions to strip certain people of citizenship.

72: A referendum in the Japanese island prefecture of Okinawa showed that 72 percent of those who voted oppose a long-stalled plan to relocate an outdated US Marine base from one part of the island to another. Many Okinawans in fact want other parts of Japan to share the burden of US troop presence. The Japanese government has ignored the results of the referendum, which was not legally binding.

More from GZERO Media

UN Italian peacekeeping soldiers secure an area outside their base in the southern Lebanese border village of Alma al-Shaab.
Marwan Naamani/Reuters

The UN says that Israeli forces have fired on their peacekeepers in southern Lebanon several times in recent days and that at least five peacekeepers have been injured in the process.

Boats navigate the Moscow River near the Kremlin.
(Photo by Vlad Karkov / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

On Monday, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency told a parliamentary committee at the German Bundestag that a package exploded in Leipzig earlier this year before it could be loaded onto an airplane.

Supporters of Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris cheer before the start of the golf cart rally in the retirement community of The Villages, Florida U.S. October, 14, 2024.
REUTERS/Octavio Jones

With exactly three weeks left before Election Day, both campaigns are battling it out on the ground for the handful of undecided voters who will decide the election.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Mike Duheme takes part in a press conference about India-linked criminal activity occurring in Canada, in Ottawa, Ontario, October 14, 2024.
REUTERS/Blair Gable

Canadian authorities declared India’s High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma a persona non grata note on Monday, expelling him and five other diplomats from their posts over allegations they were part of a criminal network harassing Canadian Sikhs.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the National Defense University in Pyongyang, North Korea, October 7, 2024, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency.
KCNA via REUTERS

South Korea’s military announced Monday it had detected North Korea preparing to destroy roads connecting the two countries, the latest in a series of steps advancing Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s renunciation of peaceful reunification.

- YouTube

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: After Iran’s latest strikes on Israel, all eyes are on how Israel will respond and what role the US will play. Ian Bremmer shares insight on these and more.

- YouTube

Is there a risk of a full-scale trade war between the European Union and China? Why is the deal between Italy and Albania on refugee centers so controversial? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Vienna, Austria

- YouTube

As Election Day approaches, freedom is on the ballot. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris offer starkly different visions for the country and what freedom means to them. The question is, which version of freedom will voters pick? On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits with author and historian Timothy Snyder to discuss these, drawing from his latest book, “On Freedom,” an exploration into how freedom is used—and often misused—in society and politics.