Hard Numbers

56,200: The migrant wave reaching Europe is crashing onto new shores in Spain. The UNHCR estimates that Spain has taken in 56,200 migrants arriving by sea so far this year, more than any other country in the EU. That could boost a newly-created far-right party, Vox, which faces its first electoral test in local elections in the Southern region of Andalusia this Sunday.

38: The global suicide rate has fallen by 38 percent since peaking in 1994, according to The Economist. That means some 4 million lives were saved (for comparison: a million people have died in armed conflict during the same period). But that positive news masks a more worrisome picture in the US, where the suicide rate has jumped 18 percent since 2000.

11.2: Today, Saudi Arabia is extracting a historic high of 11.2 million barrels of crude per day. The Saudi crude surge – cheered byUS President Donald Trump – has contributed to a recent drop in global oil prices.

3.2: As a result of US-China trade tensions, the average tariff on US imports has risen to around 3.2 percent today. While that's an increase of about 1.8 percentage points from last year, it's roughly on par with levels seen in the early 1990s, before President Bill Clinton lowered them. It's still a far cry from the 1930s, when the average US tariff was a whopping 20 percent.

More from GZERO Media

a silhouette of an armed soldier and GZERO World with ian bremmer - the podcast
GZERO

Listen: On this episode of the GZERO World Podcast, while the Gaza war rages on with no end in sight, Ian Bremmer and three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman discuss how it could end, who is standing in the way, and what comes next. It may seem premature to talk about a resolution to this conflict, but Friedman argues that it is more important now than ever to map out a viable endgame. "Either we're going to go into 2024 with some really new ideas,” Friedman tells Ian, “or we're going back to 1947 with some really new weapons."

2024 04 04 E0819 Quick Take CLEAN FINAL

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: On the back of the Israeli Defense Forces strike killing seven members of aid workers for the World Central Kitchen, their founder, Chef Jose Andres, is obviously very angry. The Israelis immediately apologized and took responsibility for the act. He says that this was intentionally targeting his workers. I have a hard time believing that the IDF would have wanted to kill his workers intentionally. Anyone that's saying the Israelis are only to blame for this—as well as the enormous civilian death toll in this war–I strongly disagree.

President Joe Biden pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.
Miriam Alster/REUTERS

Biden told Netanyahu that the humanitarian situation in Gaza and strikes on aid workers were “unacceptable,” the White House readout of the call said.

Commander Shingo Nashinoki, 50, and soldiers of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB), Japan's first marine unit since World War Two, take part in a military drill as U.S. Marines observe, on the uninhabited Irisuna island close to Okinawa, Japan, November 15, 2023.
REUTERS

Given the ugly World War II history between the two countries, that would be a startling development.

Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko listens to the presidential candidate he is backing in the March 24 election, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, as they hold a joint press conference a day after they were released from prison, in Dakar, Senegal March 15, 2024.
REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Newly inaugurated Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, in his first act in office, appointed his mentor Ousmane Sonko as prime minister on Wednesday.