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Willis Sparks
By Willis SparksMay 11, 2018
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
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201: The US was never as economically invested as Europe in the Iran nuclear deal. EU trade with Iran totaled $25 billion in 2017. US trade with Iran totaled just $201 million.

1 million: More than one million Venezuelans have enteredColombia since Nicolas Maduro’s government descended into crisis last year, according to a senior Red Cross official. That number is far larger than previous estimates.

70: Russia’s economy would have to be at least 70 percent larger to reach Putin’s new goal of making it one of the world’s top five economies by 2024. We’ve heard this one before.

3: Before Mahathir’s victory in Malaysia this week, only three other Southeast Asian incumbent governments had lost an election since 2000. (Indonesia, 2004; Thailand, 2010; Myanmar, 2015)

200: Plans to introduce a new tax of 200 Ugandan shillings (US$0.027) per day on each mobile phone subscriber using platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook have triggered accusations that President Yoweri Museveni wants to suppress criticism of his 32-year-rule of one of sub-Saharan Africa’s poorest countries.

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