Hard Numbers: Race to replace Boris, Mexico "pays" for wall, IMF-Pakistan bailout deal, pricey African crude

Hard Numbers: Race to replace Boris, Mexico "pays" for wall, IMF-Pakistan bailout deal, pricey African crudeHard Numbers: Race to replace Boris, Mexico "pays" for wall, IMF-Pakistan bailout deal, pricey African crude
Rishi Sunak launches his campaign to be the next Tory leader and British PM in London.
REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

5: After two rounds of voting, five candidates are still in the race to succeed outgoing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The early frontrunners are former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. The list will get whittled down to two before Conservative Party members have their say in early September.

1.5 billion: Now that Donald Trump is out of office, Mexico will finally (sort of) pay for America’s border wall. After meeting US President Joe Biden in person for the first time this week, Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador agreed to cough up $1.5 billion for a joint initiative to improve border security.

6 billion: The IMF has reached a preliminary agreement to revive a $6 billion bailout with Pakistan signed in 2019. The Pakistanis have seen the writing on the wall in nearby Sri Lanka and are determined to avoid default.

3: Crude oil from three African countries — Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Angola — are the world's most expensive varieties of black gold so far this year. Algeria's Sahara Blend is no. 1 because it's low in sulfur, light, sweet, and easy to refine.

More from GZERO Media

​US President Joe Biden looks on after he delivered his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Jan. 15, 2025.​US President Joe Biden looks on after he delivered his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Jan. 15, 2025.

US President Joe Biden looks on after he delivered his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Jan. 15, 2025.

MANDEL NGAN/Pool via REUTERS

In an ominous farewell address from the Oval Office late Wednesday, President Joe Biden concluded half a century of public service by warning about the emergence of an “oligarchy” in America.

Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam gestures at the presidential palace on the day he meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Baabda, Lebanon January 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Technocrat and international jurist Nawaf Salam won the job just days after Lebanon named a president for the first time in two years.

Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her first of two days of confirmation hearings on Wednesday.

(Photo by Lenin Nolly/NurPhoto)

Pam Bondi, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her first of two days of confirmation hearings on Wednesday.

- YouTube

Why has NATO launched a new operation in the Baltic Sea? Are the sanctions against Russia by the EU and US really working? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.

Rescued miners are seen as they are processed by police after being rescued at the mine shaft where rescue operations are ongoing as attempts are made to rescue illegal miners who have been underground for months, in Stilfontein, South Africa, January 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Ihsaan Haffejee

South African police said Wednesday that rescuers had recovered 78 bodies and 246 living miners this week from an abandoned gold mine near Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, that has been the site of a tense siege since August.

Polish Minister for European Affairs Adam Szlapka speaks during the presentation of the program for the 2025 Poland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union in Warsaw, Poland, on Dec. 10, 2024.
Aleksander Kalka/NurPhoto via Reuters

With Donald Trump set to take office as US president on Monday, Poland is beginning its six-month presidency of the European Union with a warning: This is “the right time to say loudly that it’s time [for Europe] to take responsibility for our future and our security,” Poland’s Europe minister, Adam Szłapka, told the Guardian on Wednesday. Poland holds the rotating presidency from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2025.