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Banknotes of the new national currency Zimbabwe Gold, ZiG for short, are presented at a press conference of the Central Bank of Zimbabwe. Due to high inflation, Zimbabwe's central bank has introduced a new currency that is primarily linked to gold, but also to a number of other precious metals and foreign currencies.
Hard numbers: Zimbabwe’s new bills, Ecuador in hot water, Russian dam failure, Ukraine’s air defense, Island-sized lottery.
70: Zimbabwe is rolling out the ZiG, a new currency pegged to gold and foreign cash. The government hopes to curb the freefall of its erstwhile dollar, whose value has declined by over 70% since January. People have three weeks to exchange the old notes for the new currency.
2: Two countries, Mexico and Nicaragua, have cut ties with Ecuador following a police raid Friday on Mexico’s Quito embassy that resulted in the arrest of Ecuador’s former vice president, Jorge Glas. Glas had been staying in the embassy seeking asylum since December, when a warrant was issued for his arrest. President Lopez Obrador responded angrily, calling the raid a “flagrant violation of international law,” and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega followed suit, referring to it as “reprehensible."
11,000: The failure of a dam in Orsk, Russia, has forced the evacuation of 11,000 residents and left over 4,000 buildings teetering on the brink. Several regional provinces in the area, near the Kazakhstan border, have suffered from flooding in recent days.
25: In a television interview that aired on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked allies for 25 US Patriot systems, saying they are vital to repelling Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles that can hit targets within minutes. As Russia’s relentless bombing continues, the Ukrainian president warns that his country is running out of air-defense missiles.
1.3 billion: An Oregon lottery player snagged a Powerball prize north of $1.3 billion after no other player hit the jackpot for three months. For context, that’s roughly the equivalent of Grenada’s GDP, minus the taxman's cut, of course.A medic carries a Palestinian boy killed in an Israeli strike near a hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 24, 2023.
HARD NUMBERS: Gaza hospitals in critical condition, trust in US media plummets (again), Mexican cops ambushed, autoworker strike expands, revisiting Grenada 40 years later
23: After more than two weeks of siege and airstrikes by Israel, only 23 of the Gaza Strip’s 35 hospitals are still functioning, according to the World Bank. The enclave’s five main health facilities are filled beyond capacity. Gaza authorities report at least 5,700 dead in Israel’s retaliation for the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas in southern Israel.
32: Only 32% of Americans trust the mass media, matching the historic low reached in 2016, according to a new Gallup poll. A historic high of 39% say they don’t trust mass media “at all.” Note that the survey was conducted before a number of mainstream media organizations initially misreported the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing in Gaza. From a historical perspective, the highest level of trust ever recorded was 72%, back in ... 1976.
13: Gunmen in the Mexican state of Guerrero killed at least 13 law enforcement officials, including a local police chief, in an ambush on Tuesday. Overall, Mexico’s homicide rate has been gradually falling after reaching record highs during the pandemic. But Guerrero, which lies about 100 miles south of Mexico City and is home to the famous resort of Acapulco, has seen a surge of violence as drug cartels vie for turf. It’s now the second deadliest state for Mexican police.
5,000: The United Auto Workers union expanded their ongoing strike against the big three US carmakers on Tuesday, calling on some 5,000 employees at a GM plant in Texas to stop work. The plant, in Arlington, is one of GM’s most profitable. There are now some 45,000 workers on strike at facilities belonging to GM, Ford, and Stellantis. GM said Sunday the current work stoppage would cost it some $200 million per week.
40: Exactly 40 years ago, in one of the more lopsided conflicts of the Cold War, the US led an invasion of the tiny Caribbean island nation of Grenada, where a pro-Soviet regime had been in power since 1979. In the days before the invasion, Grenada’s Marxist PM Maurice Bishop was executed by a rival faction within his government. On the pretext of protecting US students in Grenada from deepening unrest, Ronald Reagan sent in several thousand Marines and special forces. Cynics noted that the invasion immediately drew US media attention away from the scene in Beirut, where two days earlier a suicide bomber had killed hundreds of US Marines in an attack that Washington blamed on Hezbollah. The Grenadian Marxist regime was overthrown after a few weeks of fighting, and elections were held several months later. Bishop’s body was never found.