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Hard Numbers: Curveball drama, Development & the deep blue sea, Turkey hikes rates, Somali pirates plot comeback
Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers and his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara watch Major League Baseball's season-opening game against the San Diego Padres at Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome on March 20, 2024
4.5 million: At least $4.5 million in wire transfers sent from the bank account of American baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani has reportedly ended up with a California bookmaker now under federal investigation. Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s longtime friend and interpreter, says the ballplayer was generously paying off Mizuhara’s gambling debt. A day later, Ohtani’s lawyer claimed Mizuhara had robbed his client. Stay tuned.
2: In competition with China, Russia, and others to reach large deposits of cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese buried beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean, India has applied to the UN-affiliated International Seabed Authority for two new deep-sea exploration licenses. (India already has two others. China has five total, and Russia has four.) These minerals are essential for the development of solar and wind power, electric vehicles, and battery technology.
5: Turkey’s Central Bank surprised just about everyone on Thursday by raising its main interest rate by 5 percentage points to 50%. The move comes ahead of important local elections on March 31, signaling that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is allowing central banker Mehmet Simsek to set rates without political interference.
20: As Yemen’s Houthis make headlines by firing on shipping hundreds of miles to the north to protest Israel’s operations in Gaza, Somali pirates are using the distraction to stage a comeback. They’ve launched at least 20 attempted ship hijackings since November, once again driving up shipping costs.