Hard Numbers: Race to replace Boris, Mexico "pays" for wall, IMF-Pakistan bailout deal, pricey African crude

Hard Numbers: Race to replace Boris, Mexico "pays" for wall, IMF-Pakistan bailout deal, pricey African crude
Rishi Sunak launches his campaign to be the next Tory leader and British PM in London.
REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

5: After two rounds of voting, five candidates are still in the race to succeed outgoing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The early frontrunners are former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. The list will get whittled down to two before Conservative Party members have their say in early September.

1.5 billion: Now that Donald Trump is out of office, Mexico will finally (sort of) pay for America’s border wall. After meeting US President Joe Biden in person for the first time this week, Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to cough up $1.5 billion for a joint initiative to improve border security.

6 billion: The IMF has reached a preliminary agreement to revive a $6 billion bailout with Pakistan signed in 2019. The Pakistanis have seen the writing on the wall in nearby Sri Lanka and are determined to avoid default.

3: Crude oil from three African countries — Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Angola — are the world's most expensive varieties of black gold so far this year. Algeria's Sahara Blend is no. 1 because it's low in sulfur, light, sweet, and easy to refine.

More from GZERO Media

A drone view shows the scene where U.S. right-wing activist, commentator, Charlie Kirk, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, was fatally shot during an event at Utah Valley University, in Orem, Utah, U.S. September 11, 2025.
REUTERS/Cheney Orr

The assassination of 31-year old conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a college event in Utah yesterday threatened to plunge a deeply divided America further into a cycle of rising political violence.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro stands next to members of the armed forces, on the day he says that his country would deploy military, police and civilian defenses at 284 "battlefront" locations across the country, amid heightened tensions with the U.S., in La Guaira, Venezuela, September 11, 2025.
Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

284: Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has deployed military assets to 284 “battlefront” locations across the country, amid rising tensions with the US.

A member of Nepal army stands guard as people gather to observe rituals during the final day of Indra Jatra festival to worship Indra, Kumari and other deities and to mark the end of monsoon season.
REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Nepal’s “Gen-Z” protest movement has looked to a different generation entirely with their pick for an interim leader. Protest leaders say they want the country’s retired chief justice, Sushila Karki, 73, to head a transitional government.

Trump's silhouette as a wrecking ball banging into the Federal Reserve.
Gemini

President Trump has made no secret of his longstanding desire for lower interest rates to juice the economy and reduce the cost of servicing the $30 trillion federal debt.

The Nepalese government’s decision last week to ban several social platforms has touched off an ongoing wave of deadly unrest in the South Asian country of 30 million.

The Nepalese government’s decision last week to ban several social platforms has touched off an ongoing wave of deadly unrest in the South Asian country of 30 million.

General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, takes part in an extraordinary government cabinet meeting at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, following violations of Polish airspace during a Russian attack on Ukraine in Warsaw, Poland, on September 10, 2025.
(Photo by Aleksander Kalka/NurPhoto

NATO jets last night shot down Russian drones that had entered Polish airspace. Poland said the unmanned aircraft had crossed the border en route to a strike on Ukraine.