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Tokyo, Japan; Tonga flag bearers Malia Paseka and Pita Taufatofua during the opening ceremony for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Olympic Stadium.
Hard Numbers: Tongan emergency fundraising, EU docks Poland pay, new Colombian presidential hopeful, Turkey gets UAE lifeline
345,000: As of Wednesday afternoon ET, Tonga's Olympic flag-bearer has raised more than $345,000 online to help the victims of Saturday's volcanic eruption and tsunami. Pita Taufatofua, a taekwondo fighter and cross-country skier, has not yet heard from his father, governor of the main Tongan island of Haapai.
500,000: The EU will dock Poland 500,000 euros ($567,000) per day from its regular payments from Brussels until it complies with an EU court order to close an open-pit coal mine near the Czech border. The Czechs say the mine is polluting the groundwater on their side of the border, but the Poles insist Brussels has no authority to shut it down.
20: Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt will run again for the top job in the May election. The centrist Betancourt — kidnapped 20 years ago by FARC rebels who held her for more than six years — will face frontrunner Gustavo Petro, the leftist former mayor of Bogotá and ex-member of M-19, another left-wing rebel group.
5 billion: Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to a $5 billion currency swap in order to prop up the ailing Turkish lira. It's the latest sign of détente between the Turks and Emiratis, who have long been on opposite sides of conflicts such as the Libyan civil war and the Qatar blockade.
Boris Johnson's days are numbered as UK PM; Blinken, Biden, Putin & Ukraine
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week, discussing Boris Johnson's tenuous status as UK PM, US Secretary of State Blinken's visit to Ukraine, and the volcano eruption in Tonga:
Will Boris Johnson resign?
It certainly looks that way. He's hanging on by his fingernails. He's losing members of Parliament. He's giving shambolic media interviews. In fact, I think the only people that don't want him to resign at this point is the Labour Party leadership, because they think the longer he holds on, the better it is for the UK opposition. But no, he certainly looks like he's going. The only question is how quickly. Is it within a matter of weeks or is it after local elections in May? But feel pretty confident that the days of Boris Johnson are numbered.
It's interesting you ask about Ukraine because, of course, you need to make progress not just with the Russians, but also the Ukrainians, because publicly they've been pushing the Americans and others very hard to offer them NATO membership, a membership action plan, none of which is forthcoming and furthermore, they don't look like much of a democracy when they're engaged in charges that look very made up, calling the former president a traitor for cutting a deal on coal to try to keep Ukraine economically functioning with members of the occupied territories of former Ukraine. But in any case, I think that the big question here is whether or not there's any room for negotiation with the Russians. There, I don't think Blinken is a breakthrough. Blinken could get the maneuver for an additional Putin-Biden conversation and there, I think it's not over. I think there still is an opportunity. So I'm not someone who believes that war is in any means inevitable here and also keep in mind that the Americans are not going to defend the Ukrainians directly in terms of defense. So the likelihood that this explodes in a maximal way is still pretty limited.
What do we know about Tonga's volcano eruption?
Well, we knew when we saw Tonga in the news that it probably wasn't going to be anything good. It's a volcano. It's a major tsunami, warnings of more. The good news is it's not in any way climate change related. Most natural disasters these days are. And also, Tonga only has a total population of 100,000. The bad news is they're at risk and three of them apparently dead and they need help and they need water and they need humanitarian support and it's hard to get there. And any of you that had vacations planned for Tonga in the coming months, I think those have been dashed.