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World leaders with rhythm: South Korea's President Yoon chimes in
It was not, in fact, the day the music died.
The internet enjoyed a surprise moment when South Korea's President Yoon busted into song - specifically, American Pie - at a White House state dinner.
He's not the only world leader with rhythm. Watch our quick video compilation to remember some memorable tunes produced by heads of state.
For more entertainment from world leaders, revisit examples of world leaders dancing on camera.
A graph comparing Venezuela's GDP per capita with the average price of crude oil.
The Graphic Truth: Economic turmoil in Venezuela
Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves but a combination of corruption, mismanagement, and tough US sanctions since the Maduro regime came to power in 2013 has meant that the petrostate has failed to benefit from its vast reserves of liquid gold.
While high oil prices under the Chavez regime in the early 2000s gave a boost to Venezuela’s middle class, US sanctions first imposed in 2006 – and significantly ramped up under the Obama and Trump administrations – have cut Caracas off from US financial systems.
Economic hardship is rife, with a staggering 50% of people living in extreme poverty. Pervasive hopelessness has also led to one of the worst migrant crises in the world.
In a bid to offset a global energy crisis in 2022 as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Biden administration began lifting some sanctions on the Venezuelan oil sector. So how are things faring? We look at GDP per capita and corresponding oil prices since 1999.
Mitt Romney on the threat Russia poses to the world
It was nearly 11 years ago that then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney sat on stage with then-president Barack Obama and was ridiculed for identifying Russia as America’s chief geopolitical foe. Looking back today, the Utah Senator stands by what he said then. And he looks a heck of a lot smarter on the subject today than he may have in 2012. “They were a geopolitical adversary. No question about it. Every initiative that we had at the UN, they would block.”
In the latest episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with Senator Romney in his DC office to discuss a range of geopolitical issues, including the current threat that Russia poses, not just to Ukraine but to the world at large. But when Bremmer presses the Senator on how far US military support for Ukraine should go, Romney punts the question back onto the Biden administration. “Someone's got to lay out how we get where we want to get as opposed to just hoping that the extraordinary resolve of the Ukrainian military and of their people, that that'll be enough.”
Watch the GZERO World episode: Sen. Mitt Romney on DC dysfunction, Russian attacks, and banning TikTok
Does alcohol help bring the world together?
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer takes a look at the yin and the yang of alcohol's role in high-level diplomacy and society at large. Alcohol can bring people together just as easily as it can tear them apart. From a 1995 Clinton/Yeltsin Summit where a drunk Yeltsin almost derailed Bosnian peace talks, to Obama's Beer Summit and the recent G7 Summit, booze plays a part in how world leaders interact. Globally, alcohol consumption has been steadily increasing, by over 70 percent between 1990 and 2017, according to one report. . Low and middle-income nations like Vietnam, India, and China are a driving force behind that trend, with drinking in Southeast Asia rising by over 34 percent between 2010 and 2017. And yet, amidst this global booze boom, the world has only grown more and more divided.
Watch the episode: The (political) power of alcohol
The (political) power of alcohol
Alcohol. It's a dangerous drug that has ruined countless lives and derailed many a global summit. But it's also humanity's oldest social lubricant, a magical elixir that can fuel diplomatic breakthroughs, well into the wee hours of the night. As Winston Churchill once quipped, "I've taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me." On GZERO World, we take a deep dive down the bottle and examine the role alcohol has played in society, politics, and global summitry—from the earliest hunter-gatherer days to that memorable Obama Beer Summit in 2009. Joining Ian Bremmer is philosopher Edward Slingerland, whose new book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way Into Civilization makes a compelling, if nuanced, case for alcohol's place in the world.
Also: since alcohol isn't the only social drug, a look at the state of marijuana legalization across the US and around the world.
- How booze helps get diplomacy done - GZERO Media ›
- Is modern society broken? - GZERO Media ›
- Guterres on virtual UNGA: “Huge loss in efficiency” for diplomacy ... ›
- UNGA at 75: A unique UNGA for a post-pandemic UN - GZERO Media ›
- UNGA at 75: A unique UNGA for a post-pandemic UN - GZERO Media ›
- Guterres on virtual UNGA: “Huge loss in efficiency” for diplomacy - GZERO Media ›
Podcast: Alcohol, diplomacy & society, from Edward Slingerland's perspective
Listen: A deep dive down the bottle to examine the role alcohol has played in society, politics, and global summitry—from the earliest hunter-gatherer days to that memorable Obama Beer Summit in 2009. Joining Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast is philosopher Edward Slingerland, whose new book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way Into Civilization makes a compelling, if nuanced, case for alcohol's place in the world.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
National security before and after the Trump era
What is the number one national security priority that will land on President Biden's desk on January 20th? That was a question Ian Bremmer posed to former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Jonson. Another: What did President Trump do to strengthen the United States' homeland security? Their conversation was part of the latest episode of GZERO World.
Twitter hack mystery; does two-factor authentication make you safe?
Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, helps us make sense of today's stories in technology:
Whoa Twitter! What happened this week?
Well, on Wednesday, a whole bunch of prominent Twitter accounts, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple, started tweeting out a Bitcoin scam. The same one. It said, "send money to this address and we'll send you back twice as much." Clearly a fraud. But what was interesting about it is that it wasn't like one account that had been compromised. A whole bunch of accounts have been compromised. Meaning most likely someone got access to a control panel at Twitter. The big mystery is how they got access to it? And why, if they had so much power, all they did was run a stupid Bitcoin scam?
How can we keep ourselves safe? Is two-factor authentication the only option?
Two-factor authentication, you need two things to get into your account, your cell phone and your password, is absolutely essential. With this hack, though, that wouldn't have helped you. The only thing you could possibly have done is have deleted your Twitter account. Which is a reminder, remove all the accounts you don't use, all the accounts you don't want, move all the applications with access to the accounts that you want. Basically, constantly, constantly clean out your barn.