Hard Numbers: UK royal jubilee, North Korea ups weapons game, Moroccan tragedy, Costa Rican runoff

Hard Numbers: UK royal jubilee, North Korea ups weapons game, Moroccan tragedy, Costa Rican runoff
Images of Queen Elizabeth II are displayed on the lights in London's Piccadilly Circus to mark her Platinum Jubilee in London, 6 February 2022.
Maciek Musialek/NurPhoto

70: On Sunday, Queen Elizabeth II marked her 70th year as the British monarch, making a surprise announcement about wanting Prince Charles' wife Camilla to be named "Queen Consort" when the time comes. The UK is planning a series of Platinum Jubilee festivities this year, culminating over a long weekend in early June.

9: The US and its allies say North Korea conducted a record nine missile tests in January. A new UN report says Pyongyang has ramped up its weapons program throughout the pandemic, financing it partly with stolen crypto wealth. Officials from the US, Japan, and South Korea will meet on Thursday in Honolulu to discuss these and other issues, including the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

4: A 5-year-old Moroccan boy who was trapped for four days after falling deep in a well has died. Rescuers recovered Rayan’s body on Saturday. His plight grabbed global headlines, and the country’s king expressed his condolences to the boy’s family.

27.3: Former President José María Figueres won the first round of Costa Rica's presidential election on Sunday. Figueres got 27.3% of the vote with three-quarters of the ballots in. His rival in the April 3 runoff will be Rodrigo Chaves, a former finance minister and fellow centrist.

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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses lawmakers as he presents the so-called 'Victory Plan' during a parliament session, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine October 16, 2024.
REUTERS/Andrii Nesterenko

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FILE PHOTO: At a secret jungle camp in Myanmar's eastern Karen state, a fitness coach and other civilians are training with armed ethnic guerrillas to fight back against the country's military takeover.
REUTERS/Independent photographer

After a year of rebel victories that have left Myanmar’s ruling junta on the defensive, its chairman, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, invited ethnic minority armies to peace talks in a state television broadcast on Tuesday.

In this episode of “Energized: The Future of Energy,” a podcast series from GZERO Media's Blue Circle Studios and Enbridge, host JJ Ramberg and Enbridge CEO Greg Ebel talk to Justin Bourque, President of Athabasca Indigenous Investments, and Mark Podlasly, Chief Sustainability Officer of First Nations Major Project Coalition. They discuss how a partnership deal between Enbridge and 23 Indigenous communities in northern Alberta is improving life for those communities and how Indigenous peoples are investing in the energy transition—and their futures. Listen to this episode at gzeromedia.com/energized, or on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods, or wherever you get your podcasts.