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Myanmar's military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing leaves after a military parade on Victory Day, marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Myanmar monastery suffers deadly airstrike, US State Department to cut staff, Nvidia sets valuation record, Mahmoud Khalil sues US government, Haiti’s gangs kill thousands
23: At least 23 people were killed on Friday in an airstrike on a Buddhist monastery in northern Myanmar. The attack is believed to have been carried out by the country’s ruling military junta. Since seizing power in a 2021 coup, the junta has been locked in brutal civil war with several powerful rebel groups.
15%: The US State Department is about to lay off 15% of its 18,000 US-based staff, as part of an efficiency drive. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the move will make Washington’s foreign policy more agile, while critics say it will downsize America’s diplomatic capabilities at a critical moment.
$4 trillion: The AI chipmaker Nvidia has become the world’s first company valued at more than $4 trillion. Its remarkable rise in value is one of the fastest in Wall Street history, leaving its main domestic rivals Apple and Microsoft feeling.. Nvious indeed.
$20 million: Former Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a $20-million claim Thursday against the US government for damages incurred during his Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. The lawsuit accuses ICE of false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Department of Homeland Security dismissed Khalil’s claims as “absurd.”
5,000: Gang violence has killed nearly 5,000 people in Haiti since last October alone, according to a new UN report. The Caribbean country has been mired in a deepening political, economic, and humanitarian crisis since the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moïse. An international police force sent to the island last year has failed to dislodge the gangs, which control large swathes of the capital, Port-au-Prince.Russian Minister of Transport Roman Starovoit attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, Russia January 30, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Fired Russian official found dead, X calls out India, Myanmar clashes drive refugee wave, Liberian president offers apology
$246 million: Ousted Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit was found dead in his car with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Monday, just hours after being fired by President Vladimir Putin. Starovoit, a former governor of the Kursk region – which was invaded by Ukraine last summer – was potentially implicated in an embezzlement probe focused on $246 million which was earmarked for border defenses. The Kremlin says that it was “shocked” to learn about his death.
2,355: X said the Indian government ordered it to take down 2,355 accounts last week, including two belonging to Reuters. The Indian government, which has come under fire from press freedom watchdogs in recent years, said it had “no intention” of blocking international news orgs. X warned that it was “deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India.”
4,000: Clashes between armed groups in Myanmar have driven around 4,000 refugees across the border into India’s Mizoram state in recent days. While both of the warring groups oppose Myanmar’s military junta, they are also competing for territorial control among themselves.
200,000: Liberian President Joseph Bokai issued a formal state apology to victims of the country’s brutal 14-year civil war, as part of the country’s ongoing reconciliation campaign. The war, which raged from 1989 until 2003, claimed the lives of around 200,000 people and saw widespread abuses including mass killings, rape, and the use of child soldiers.
Nuns walk at St. Peter's Square, ahead of the conclave, at the Vatican, on May 6, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Betting markets swirl as conclave commences, North Carolina judicial election nears end, Moscow shuts airport due to reported drone attack, US trade deficit sets new record, Trump campaign manager tries to Make Albania Great Again
26: The conclave of 133 cardinals will gather in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Wednesday to begin the process of electing a new pope via secret ballot. To win the job with a puff of white smoke, a candidate must garner the support of two thirds of the conclave, plus one. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a veteran Vatican diplomat, is the favorite, per Polymarket, which gave him a 26% chance of winning.
182: Some 182 days on from the 2024 election, and North Carolina has still yet to certify state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’ reelection victory. The Tar Heel State did move one step closer to affirming the result on Tuesday, though, after a federal judge narrowed the number of votes that were under dispute. Last November, Riggs, a Democrat, defeated Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin by 734 votes out of 5.5 million cast.
4: All four major airports in Moscow were ordered to shut after the Kremlin accused Ukraine of launching a drone attack on the Russian capital. There were no casualties in the reported attack, which came days before Russia holds a celebration to mark the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s triumph over Nazi Germany.
14%: The US trade deficit jumped 14% in March, setting a new record of $140.5 billion as American consumers and businesses rushed to buy foreign goods like pharmaceuticals and computer accessories ahead of President Donald Trump’s announcement of global tariffs in early April. Some economists believe US firms were still frontloading purchases well into April.
18,500: An estimated 18,500 Sudanese have crossed the country’s western border into Chad over the last two weeks alone, per the United Nations, with many severely malnourished. Nearly 800,000 Sudanese have fled to Chad since Sudan’s civil war began two years ago. For more on why one of the world’s deadliest conflicts continues, see here.
>$1 million: Chris LaCivita, who ran Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign last year, is reportedly earning more than $1 million to advise Albania’s former Prime Minister Sali Berisha. LaCivita is rehashing the MAGA message, only with “Albania” replacing “America.” Berisha, who faces corruption allegations, is hoping to lead the Balkan country again after the parliamentary elections on Sunday.Members of the M23 rebel group stand guard at the opening ceremony of Caisse Generale d'epargne du Congo (CADECO) which will serve as the bank for the city of Goma where all banks have closed since the city was taken by the M23 rebels, in Goma, North Kivu province in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, April 7, 2025.
Does the Congo truce portend peace? Or a potential civil war?
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and an alliance of militias led by the notorious M23 rebels announced a ceasefire on Thursday after talks in Qatar and, after three years of violence, said they would work toward a permanent truce. Meanwhile, Congo will reportedly sign a broad declaration of principles on a minerals deal with Rwanda on Friday in Washington, DC. The UN, US, EU, and other governments accuse Rwanda of using M23 to control valuable mines in Congo, but Washington is in the midst of talks with Congo to secure access to those same minerals, for which a deal with Rwanda is a necessary first step.
M23 recently seized the two principal cities in northeastern Congo, Goma, and Bukavu. At least six previous ceasefires in the long-running conflict have failed, turning hundreds of thousands of people into refugees and exposing them to violence, hunger, lack of shelter, and pervasive sexual exploitation.
Poorly trained and equipped Congolese troops have proven ineffective at fighting the rebels, and UN peacekeepers in the region are widely distrusted — even hated — by locals. A South African-led multinational force that held Goma for over a year was surrounded and pushed back in January; by March, they had completely withdrawn.
With Congo’s military situation in such disarray, a truce may be President Felix Tshisekedi’s only option, but his former ally-turned-archrival Joseph Kabila is proving a thorn in his side. Kabila, who ruled the DRC as president from 2001 to 2019 before going into exile in 2023, has reportedly been spotted in M23-controlled Goma. He has long accused Tshisekedi of mishandling the M23 situation — and we’re watching whether he uses this opportunity to launch a play for power.Burkina Faso’s junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore attends the first ordinary summit of heads of state and governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in Niamey, Niger, on July 6, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Burkina Faso foils coup effort, Trump dents democracy rating, Spain to hit defense-spending target, Musk to reduce his DOGE hours, Migrants arrested while fleeing US, Japan rids foreign debt, Tourists killed in Kashmir
40%: Burkina Faso’s ruling military recently foiled an attempted coup aimed at removing junta leader Cap. Ibrahim Traoré, the country’s security minister said on Monday. The Sahel nation has had to deal with widespread insurgency in recent years, with rebel jihadist groups reportedly controlling around 40% of the country’s land mass.
55: US President Donald Trump made a dent in American democracy almost as soon as he won the 2024 election, according to a survey of 520 political experts. The Bright Line Watch benchmark gave US democracy a rating of 55 in February, down 12 points from where it was on the day of Trump’s election victory and 14 points from where it was in October 2024. It’s the country’s fastest drop since the survey began in 2017.
2%: Our globally minded readers will immediately recognize this figure as the proportion of gross domestic product that NATO member nations are encouraged to spend on defense. Under pressure from the Trump administration and its European allies to expand its military, Spain said Tuesday that it will finally hit that figure again this year, after falling short for over 30 years.
130: Elon Musk is DOGE-ing himself. The Tesla CEO says he will cut back his role in the government after his electric vehicle company reported a massive profit drop. Musk says he will spend just one to two days each week on DOGE following accusations that he has let his focus on Tesla slip. Regardless, temporary government employees like Musk are normally limited to working 130 days a year, which would expire at the end of May.
8: So much for the Great Escape: From January through April, US authorities arrested eight undocumented Dominican migrants in Puerto Rico who were trying to return to their home country. The arrests raise questions over the Trump administration’s stated goal of encouraging undocumented migrants to leave of their own accord.
$20 billion: Trump’s tariffs have Tokyo in a selling mood. Japanese investors said sayonara to more than $20 billion of foreign debt early this month. The selloff shows how Wall Street jitters can ripple across the Pacific. It’s not clear which foreign debt Japanese investors unloaded, though they are the largest holders of US Treasuries of any country worldwide, so their investment choices are observed hawkishly.
26: Outrage is rising after gunmen killed 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam on Tuesday. Several other victims remain critically injured. The Resistance Front – believed to be an offshoot of Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba – has claimed responsibility.
A displaced Sudanese woman looks on as she sits next children at “Abdallah Nagi” shelter camp, which houses people mostly displaced from the capital Khartoum, in Port Sudan, Sudan, on April 15, 2025.
Sudan’s forgotten Civil War reaches grim milestone
While the world is flooded with bad news, nowhere is it worse than Sudan, where the civil war hit the two-year mark on Tuesday.
Due to the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, 13 million people have been displaced, over 150,000 are dead, a genocide is reportedly unfolding in Darfur, and reports of famine and rape being used as a weapon are widespread throughout the country.
While SAF regained control of the capital Khartoum last month, the RSF is brutally consolidating the Darfur region in the West. In recent days, they launched a fierce offensive in el-Fasher, aiming to capture the last remaining state capital in Darfur still under SAF’s control by setting ablaze refugee camps that are home to half a million people.
Desperation times. The war pits two leaders of the 2021 Sudanese coup — SAF Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — against each other. Each has foreign backers keeping them stocked with weapons, but neither appears ready to lay down arms. Nevertheless, the UK hosted ministers from 20 countries in London on Tuesday in an attempt to restart peace talks.
The critical question: With global attention on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, diplomatic engagement with Sudan has fallen by the wayside. What would it take for the world to respond to the Sahel state with the urgency it demands?South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, pictured here addressing the press in 2020.
South Sudan’s vice president arrested, country on brink of civil war
Alarm bells are ringing ever more loudly in South Sudan, as Vice President Riek Machar — chief rival to Prime Minister Salva Kiir — was arrested late Wednesday in an operation involving 20 armored vehicles at his compound in Juba. He was placed under house arrest, a move that is fueling fears that the country will soon descend into civil war.
“We strongly condemn the unconstitutional actions taken today by the Minister of Defense and the Chief of National Security,” Machar’s SPLM-IO party said. The ex-rebel group added that the arrest effectively annulled the 2018 power-sharing deal that brought peace to the nascent nation — it withdrew from the security aspects of the agreement last week.
The public is reportedly in a state of panic, with violent clashes this week displacing some 50,000 people from their homes. Kiir pledged on Wednesday not to return the Upper Nile state to war, while SPLM-IO deputy leader Oyet Nathaniel Pierino urged the public to remain calm.
Wishful thinking: But calls for calm may reflect more hope than expectation. Kate Johnston, an associate fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a regional expert, called the arrest “a pretty fundamental undermining of the peace agreement” and warned of the dangers of civil war for the sub-Saharan state.
“Seventy-five percent of the population is already on food aid,” said Johnston. “A civil war would be catastrophic for the population.”
Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan gestures to soldiers inside the presidential palace after the Sudanese army said it had taken control of the building in the capital Khartoum, Sudan, on March 26, 2025.
Khartoum falls to the Sudanese Army, but war rages on
The Sudanese Army says it has captured full control of Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group it has been battling in a brutal civil war for over two years. The army has seized key locations, including the presidential palace and the airport.
Regaining control of the capital marks a major triumph for the army and could provide a strategic advantage in the ongoing conflict.
Since the war began in April 2023, the RSF had held most of Khartoum but has steadily lost ground to the Sudanese Armed Forces in recent months. A military spokesperson confirmed that the army has now secured Manshiya Bridge — the last bridge previously under RSF control — as well as a military camp in Jebel Awliya, the group’s main stronghold in southern Khartoum.
Is this the nail in the coffin for the RSF? Not quite. The war is far from over. Although the RSF is retreating from Khartoum, it still maintains control over nearly all of the Darfur region in western Sudan. Meanwhile, foreign powers continue to supply both sides with weapons, fueling the conflict, while international efforts to broker peace have failed.