Hard Numbers: US low on chips, Egypt buys US arms, snow in Athens, Mexican remittances

Hard Numbers: US low on chips, Egypt buys US arms, snow in Athens, Mexican remittances
Gabriella Turrisi

5: US manufacturers now have on average less than five days' worth of semiconductor supplies, down from 40 days before the pandemic. There's growing pressure for America to produce more chips as a global shortage drags on.

2.5 billion: The Biden administration has approved the sale of $2.5 billion worth of US-made arms to Egypt, despite some opposition in Congress. A few Democratic senators wanted the Egyptians to meet certain conditions on human rights in order to get American weapons.

3.1: Parts of Greece and Turkey have been blanketed by a rare snowstorm, leaving thousands of people stuck in traffic for hours and forced to evacuate. Usually balmy Athens received 3.1 inches of snow on Monday, almost three times its annual average, while flights at Istanbul's airport have been suspended for two days. The storm is now heading to Israel.

50 billion: Remittances sent home by Mexican migrants in 2021 are expected to exceed $50 billion for the first time, in part due to pandemic stimulus money from the US. Mexico receives about 6 percent of global remittance payments, behind only India and China.

More from GZERO Media

US President Donald Trump meets with China's President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke Thursday for the first time since the former returned to office, as a recent pause in their trade war looked set to fall apart.

A migrant carries his child after crossing the Darien Gap and arriving at the migrant reception center, in the village of Lajas Blancas, Darien Province, Panama, on September 26, 2024.

REUTERS/Enea Lebrun

More and more people will seek a new homeland over the next few decades, which will pose a major challenge to political leaders. However, politicians have shown little interest in dealing with this challenge in a sensible fashion.

Zelensky and Putin in front of flags and war.
Jess Frampton

On Sunday, Ukraine executed one of the most extraordinary asymmetric operations in modern military history. Using domestically built first-person-view (FPV) drones deployed from deep inside Russian territory, Kyiv launched a coordinated assault against several military airbases as far as eastern Siberia, the border with Mongolia, and the Arctic.