Hard Numbers: Viva Zapata

30,000: According to the UN, just over 30,000 refugees have reached Europe by boat across the Mediterranean so far this year. That compares with 114,000 for all of 2018, 171,000 in 2017, 363,000 in 2016, and more than 1 million at the height of the crisis in 2015.

4.25: Turkey's central bank slashed interest rates by a whopping 4.25 points this week, the biggest cut in 17 years. This is an important story because it shows just how desperate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to boost the local economy out of a recession that threatens his political popularity.

37,900: About 37,900 people held jobs in American newsrooms in 2018, according to Pew. In 2008, the figure was 71,000. Only a fraction of those journalists have been re-hired by digital media outlets.

10: Remember Franky Zapata, the former jet ski champion and inventor riding a hoverboard while carrying an assault rifle above the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris? Franky attempted this week to cross the English Channel on that board in 20 minutes at an average speech of about 87 mph at an average height of about 50 feet above the water. But 10 minutes into the flight, Franky got very wet. He says he'll try again. #TheRealRonObvious

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.