News

Hard Numbers: US Guns are Fueling Violence Abroad

33 billion: Indonesia has finally unveiled the site of its proposed new capital city: Borneo. The cost of relocating the nation's capital there from overcrowded, polluted, sinking Jakarta, is projected to be $33 billion.

86: A weekend of intensifying violence in Hong Kong, which saw the police use water cannons and live ammunition against protesters for the first time, resulted in the arrest of 86 people on a range of charges, including a 12-year old child.

200,000: According to a New York Times investigation, more than 200,000 guns are trafficked into Mexico from the US each year. That's part of a broader outflow of small arms from the US that is fueling violence across Latin America, the most murder-prone region in the world.

9,272: Mounting insecurity and violence across Central and West Africa have caused 9,272 schools to close across the region over the past two years, according to a new UNICEF report. That's three times the number that had closed at the end of 2017.

More For You

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping talk as they leave after a bilateral meeting.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping talk as they leave after a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025.
REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

China has defied Western sanctions for years and buys as much as 90% of Iran’s oil exports.

Ukraine's Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov speaks at a joint press conference with his Swedish counterpart Pal Jonson (not pictured), amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, July 1, 2026.
REUTERS/Alina Smutko

Critics have said that Zelensky – now in his seventh year in office – has been in power for too long.