4 billion: Venezuelan emigrants are expected to send $4 billion in remittances back to their crisis-wracked country this year, up from just under $2 billion in 2018. That's almost as much as the $4.7 billion the country is expected to reap from oil sales. Yes, you read that right: remittances to Venezuela are almost equal in value to all the money the government makes by selling oil.
2 billion: Speaking of Venezuelan oil, Cuba could face a higher crude import bill if opposition leader Juan Guaidó succeeds in ousting embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power. Subsidized oil shipped from Venezuela to Cuba currently saves the island nation $2 billion a year in imports. But Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly has already voted (so far without effect) to suspend those shipments.
50: Next year, Asia's economies will reach a milestone, accounting for more than 50 percent of global GDP, adjusted for purchasing power. That marks the first time since the 19th century that Asia will dominate global economic output.
5: The Taliban negotiating team that's meeting with US officials at Afghanistan peace talks in Qatar includes 5 former Guantanamo inmates. Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa and four colleagues were held by the US for 13 years at the prison camp on the island of Cuba before being released in a prisoner exchange in 2014.
