Hard Numbers: Tel Aviv’s socially distanced protests,Turkey’s covid-19 surge, crude drops below zero

April 20, 2020

86,300: Turkey has now overtaken China and Iran as the country with the most confirmed COVID-19 cases outside of Europe and the United States, recording some 86,300 infections and more than 2,000 deaths. Due to an increase in testing, Turkey recorded 4,000 new infections in just 24-hours.

1.4 million: According to the World Health Organization, 1.4 million people were tested for COVID-19 globally between January 29 and April 15.

2,000: Some 2,000 protesters flocked to Tel Aviv's city center Sunday to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is still serving as prime minister despite facing corruption charges. To maintain appropriate social distancing, an X was drawn on the ground every two meters to indicate where demonstrators could stand.

Less than zero: Prices for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) a US crude oil benchmark went below zero on Monday for the first time in history. Coronavirus-lockdowns have destroyed so much demand for oil that sellers are left with more oil than they can store, forcing them to pay buyers to take the stuff off their hands. The international oil benchmark, Brent, has stayed in positive territory for the time being, in part because it is shipped primarily by tankers which can respond more flexibly to ups and downs in demand around the world.

Hard Numbers: Tel Aviv’s socially distanced protests,Turkey’s covid-19 surge, crude drops below zero

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Protests against a controversial “foreign agent” bill in Georgia this week have led to violent police crackdowns in the capital, Tbilisi.

As police ramp up efforts to dismantle pro-Palestine encampments and demonstrations on US campuses, the student protests are going global.

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The US State Department accused Russia on Thursday of using a chemical weapon called chloropicrin against Ukrainian soldiers.

This weekend, Panamanians will elect a president after a roller-coaster campaign period that has featured a dog with an X (formerly Twitter) account and a popular former president hiding in the storage room of a foreign embassy.

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Subscribe to GZERO Media's newsletter: Signal

In response to roiling campus protests, the House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act on Wednesday.

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What started as a reaction to the Hamas-orchestrated massacre of Oct. 7 and the extent of the deadly counteroffensive by the Israeli military has now grown to encompass wider, more amorphous issues, writes GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon.

Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, wants to be Canada’s prime minister, so he is letting it be known that he might do a better job than Trudeau while warning against the alternative.