Hard Numbers: American shoppers set new records

126: Marking the Year of Return – the 400th anniversary of the beginning of the US slave trade– Ghana granted citizenship to 126 African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans last week as part of an effort to encourage slaves' descendants to return. Three quarters of the West African slave "dungeons" that held slaves before their forced journey to the Americas were based in what is now Ghana.

18: The death toll from a capsized boat carrying Libyan migrants last week has risen to 18 after five more bodies were discovered Sunday in the waters off the Italian coast. More than 1,100 migrants have died or gone missing this year while trying to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean by boat.

9.4 billion: American consumers are projected to have spent $9.4 billion on "Cyber Monday" purchases, the highest on record and an 18.9 percent jump from a year ago, according to a retail tracking report. That's on top of the record $7.4 billion spent on "Black Friday" in the US. What were Friday's biggest selling items? Frozen 2 toys, FIFA 20 video games, and L.O.L Surprise Dolls.

400,000: Boats carry 90 percent of global trade, and a quarter of the world's 1.6m commercial seamen hail from just one country: the Philippines. The 400,000 Filipinos who ply the high seas send home about $6 billion in remittances every year. (This NYT profile of the seamen has some amazing photographs, plus you'll learn what bolitas are.)

More from GZERO Media

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.