Hard Numbers

56,200: The migrant wave reaching Europe is crashing onto new shores in Spain. The UNHCR estimates that Spain has taken in 56,200 migrants arriving by sea so far this year, more than any other country in the EU. That could boost a newly-created far-right party, Vox, which faces its first electoral test in local elections in the Southern region of Andalusia this Sunday.

38: The global suicide rate has fallen by 38 percent since peaking in 1994, according to The Economist. That means some 4 million lives were saved (for comparison: a million people have died in armed conflict during the same period). But that positive news masks a more worrisome picture in the US, where the suicide rate has jumped 18 percent since 2000.

11.2: Today, Saudi Arabia is extracting a historic high of 11.2 million barrels of crude per day. The Saudi crude surge – cheered byUS President Donald Trump – has contributed to a recent drop in global oil prices.

3.2: As a result of US-China trade tensions, the average tariff on US imports has risen to around 3.2 percent today. While that's an increase of about 1.8 percentage points from last year, it's roughly on par with levels seen in the early 1990s, before President Bill Clinton lowered them. It's still a far cry from the 1930s, when the average US tariff was a whopping 20 percent.

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Image of a tree half submerged under water

The clock is ticking on efforts to help halt and reverse biodiversity loss, but there’s still time to help support the animals, plants, and ecosystems that are all necessary for a healthy planet. In order to protect biodiversity — every living organism and ecosystem from microbes to mangroves — citizens, companies, and countries all need to do their part. That’s why the Mastercard-led Priceless Planet Coalition is on a mission to restore 100 million trees and regenerate biodiversity-rich forests. Read more about the Coalition's approach and progress.

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Delegates at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings have been giving rosy outlooks to the press while the cameras are rolling, but GZERO Senior Writer Matthew Kendrick heard a different story in private settings. He told Tony Maciulis that the global outlook depends heavily on US policy continuity — which is highly unlikely under a second Trump administration — and successful efforts in China to revive its own floundering economy.

- YouTube

This week World Bank announced a bold initiative to bridge the gender divide by creating more economic opportunity, broadening female leadership, and reducing gender-based violence in the next 5 years as 2030 approaches.

Matthew Kendrick

When a country hits rock bottom financially, the International Monetary Fund is meant to step in with funds to stabilize the economy without damaging its society — or the gender gap. But studies show that these programs often push women out of work at a disproportionate rate to men as the economy contracts. Matthew Kendrick reports from the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings on a push to build more equitable programs.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un attend a farewell ceremony before Putin's departure at an airport in Pyongyang, North Korea June 19, 2024.
Gavriil Grigorov/Reuters

Kyiv says that roughly 12,000 North Korean troops are in Russia, a far greater number than reported by the US, though it remains unclear precisely how many have entered what Ukraine referred to as the “combat zone.”

Supporters of the Georgian Dream party attend a final campaign rally ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Tbilisi, Georgia October 23, 2024.
REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze

Georgian Dream insists the country is still on track to join the EU, as critics accuse the party of pushing Georgia in an increasingly anti-Western, authoritarian direction.

Luisa Vieira

In 2001, a Goldman Sachs economist coined an acronym for the four largest and most promising “emerging market” economies: Brazil, Russia, India, and China became known as the “BRIC” countries.