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Malawi's Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima arrives at a polling station in Lilongwe, Malawi May 21, 2019 in this still image obtained from REUTERS TV video.
Hard Numbers: Malawi VP’s dead in plane crash, Swiss-hosted Ukraine peace summit, Gaza pier aid paused, Nvidia stock split, Snow in Alabama
10: Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Chilima was one of 10 people killed in a military plane crash after taking off from the capital Lilongwe early Monday. The official search investigation launched after Chilima’s plane “went off the radar” was concluded on Tuesday after the rescue team found the wreck in a mountainous area with no survivors.
90: Next weekend, representatives from 90 countries will travel to Switzerland to participate in a peace summit to develop a path for sustainable peace in Ukraine. Russia said it would not be in attendance (not that it was invited), but thousands of military personnel will be on hand to provide security.
2: The UN’s World Food Program halted aid distribution from the US-built pier off Gaza on Sunday, the day after two of its warehouses were reportedly hit in an Israeli military attack to rescue four Israeli hostages – a mission that also claimed more than 200 Palestinian lives. The pier had just reopened after severe water and winds rendered it nonoperational, and the latest pause will only heighten concerns about the worsening famine in the region.
120: Before markets closed on Friday, AI leading chipmaker Nvidia’s stock was selling at about $1,150, but as of Monday, the stock was split tenfold. This essentially divided each share into 10 $120 shares to make it more affordable for investors without diluting the value of existing shares.
450,000: Over 50 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $450,000 recently washed ashore on Dauphin Island, south of Mobile, Ala. The discovery was made just a day after divers found a similar amount of drugs off the coast of Florida, and a month after $1.2 million worth of cocaine washed up on the same Alabama beach.
A general view as North Korea fired two missiles from a submarine at an underwater target at an undisclosed location in North Korea March 12, 2023.
Hard Numbers: North Korea goes ballistic about “puppets”, Iran pardons protesters, Lula sacks soldiers, Freddy ravages Southern Africa
2: In response to new military drills by “the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces,” North Korea on Monday announced it had tested two new cruise missiles, which it says it plans to fit with nuclear warheads.
22,000: Iran on Monday pardoned 22,000 people arrested for participating in the wave of protests that erupted last fall over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman arrested for not wearing a headscarf. Is this a sign that pressure from the streets is forcing the regime to moderate or, conversely, that the Supreme Leader now feels comfortable enough to show some mercy without risking a fresh wave of protests?
100: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has ousted more than 100 military men who were serving in key government posts, replacing them with civilians. The move is part of Lula’s efforts — in the wake of the Jan. 8 riots — to establish firmer control over the armed forces, where there is a lot of sympathy for his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
99: Cyclone Freddy, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, continues to cut a path of destruction through Southern Africa, where it has so far killed more than 99 people in Malawi and Mozambique.Three-year-old Ukrainian refugee Karolina from Nikopol looks through a fence on the platform at a train station in Poland.
Hard Numbers: US to take in 100K refugees, cost of living surges in Russia, North Korea tests ICBM, polio scare hits Malawi, militants surrender in Nigeria
100,000: The Biden administration announced Thursday that the US will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and others fleeing Russian aggression. This will happen over the “long term” and therefore will not require raising the annual refugee cap.
14: Amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the cost of living has risen 14% in Russia over the past week. Diapers and staples such as tea, coffee, and onions have risen at the quickest rate. Inflation is expected to continue rising as the ruble takes a massive hit from Western sanctions.
5: North Korea has tested a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in five years. Japan said that the ICBM landed within its exclusive economic zone and reached an extremely high altitude level. Kim Jong Un could be trying to get attention as G7 leaders, distracted by Ukraine, meet in Europe.
23 million: After an outbreak of wild polio was found in Malawi for the first time in 30 years, around 23 million children under age five in southern Africa will be offered vaccinations against the disease. This comes two years after Africa was declared free of wild polio, which ravaged the continent for decades.
7,000: Nigerian media say that 7,000 Islamic State and Boko Haram fighters have surrendered in the country’s northeast over the past week amid an ongoing effort by authorities to quash the militant groups. More than 350,000 Nigerians have been killed in attacks by terror groups over the past decade.Children hold an indigenous flag at a Black Deaths in Custody Rally at Town Hall in Sydney, Saturday, April 10, 2021.
Hard Numbers: Oz buys Aboriginal flag, Malawi vs corruption, ISIS human shields, Boris the party animal
14: The Australian government paid $14 million for the copyright of the Aboriginal flag so that anyone can display it without fear of being sued. Indigenous artist Harold Thomas created the flag 50 years ago as a protest image; since then, it has become the dominant Aboriginal symbol and an official national flag.
3: Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera sacked the entire government after corruption charges were brought against three ministers. Critics say Chakwera has not delivered on his promise to fight graft since he was elected in 2020.
700: Islamic State fighters are using some 700 boys as human shields to stop US-backed Kurdish forces from storming a prison the jihadists attacked to free ISIS prisoners in northern Syria. American airstrikes are supporting the Kurdish combatants in a rare US military intervention.
30: British police are investigating whether a surprise birthday party for PM Boris Johnson, which was attended by some 30 people in June 2020, violated COVID lockdown rules. Johnson is fighting for his political life amid growing calls from within his Conservative party for him to step down.
The global trend towards legalizing marijuana
The world was recently shocked when US sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson was disqualified from Tokyo 2020 after testing positive for marihuana, a banned yet non performance-enhancing substance. That's because global public opinion on pot is shifting: cannabis is now legal in more than 40 countries and almost three-quarters of US states — red ones too. And although everyone is cashing in on the green gold these days, high profits are not the only factor driving legalization. Mexico may soon become the world's largest cannabis market in part to blunt the power of drug cartels, while the famously square World Bank is now best buds with Malawi for growing the world's finest sativa. Delve into the weeds of legalization on GZERO World.
Watch the episode: The (political) power of alcohol
What We're Watching: Malawian do-over, Serbian power, Tunisian protests
Malawi's election do-over: Five months after Malawi's constitutional court ruled that widespread irregularities compromised the incumbent President Peter Mutharika's re-election, Malawians participated in a historic rerun on Tuesday. Some 6.6 million people were registered to vote in the much-anticipated contest that will determine whether the 80-year old Mutharika, who has been involved in a string of corruption cases since he took up the post in 2014, can head off his main rival, opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera. Disputes over the first election gave rise to months of unrest as well as clashes between Chakwera's supporters and police.
What's Serbia's president gonna use that power for? In elections largely boycotted by the opposition, president Aleksandar Vučić's party swept up more than 60 percent of seats in Serbia's parliament, giving him further control over a fragile democracy that, rights groups say, has eroded since he came to power in 2017. His opponents said the result was illegitimate, pointing to what they said was biased coverage in state media. Now that Vučić has nearly complete control over the Serbian state, we're watching to see what he does about two important international issues: First, how will he balance his intention of bringing Serbia into the EU while also cultivating ever-closer ties with Russia and China? Second, can he reach a peace deal with Kosovo, the majority-Albanian region of Serbia that suffered a campaign of Serb-directed ethnic cleansing in the late 1990s and then declared independence with US and EU backing in 2008? The EU and US have proposed rival peace plans and Vučić is currently dancing between them. He heads to Washington for talks on the issue this weekend.
Tunisians protest unemployment: Protesters and police have clashed in the southern Tunisian province of Tataouine in recent days, as hundreds flocked to the streets to protest surging unemployment and economic stagnation ten years after the popular revolution in that country gave rise to the broader "Arab Spring." Police fired tear gas and hurled stones at the crowd, but the harsh measures seemed only to embolden protesters who have continued to hit the streets. They say that six years since the first free presidential elections were held, the government has failed to boost economic opportunity for millions of Tunisians, and that a 2017 government pledge to employ thousands of Tunisians to work on oil and development projects was never acted upon. The country's youth unemployment rate of 36 percent is one of the highest in the world.
Coronavirus Politics Daily: Polio eyes a comeback in Africa, Malawi's corona mess, America's economic bounce back
What will the US economy's bounce back look like? The US economy contracted at least 4.8 percent in the first quarter of this year because of coronavirus lockdowns, the US Commerce Department said Wednesday, the swiftest economic decline since the Great Recession over a decade ago. With consumer spending plunging and shuttered businesses causing mass layoffs, the US economy has likely entered a recession, analysts say. When the economy began to nosedive back in March many predicted that the economic comeback would be much faster than 2010 with businesses clamoring to reopen and quarantined consumers keen to socialize and spend again. It's now clear, however, that in the absence of a vaccine we're not going back to anything resembling "normal life" any time soon. The economic revival of the country in the near-term, therefore, is contingent on two things: how quickly a vaccine is developed – which could take 12 –18 months – as well as when the US rolls out a widespread testing program so that people who have developed immunity can reenter the workforce. While the federal government has stepped in with $2 trillion in financial aid to assist unemployed Americans and struggling businesses, this won't be enough to help mom-and-pop stores, gyms, restaurants, and cafes around the country weather the COVID storm. In sectors like retail, meanwhile, where jobs were already disappearing as shopping moved online, it's hard to imagine that giants like Macy's will rehire many of the nearly 125,000 employees furloughed when the chain closed some 750 stores in March. So, what does Q2 have in store, you ask? An economic decline of at least 30 percent – or more – economists say.
A corona mess in Malawi: The landlocked country of Malawi in southeastern Africa, where about half the population of 19 million live below the poverty line, made headlines in recent days over the constitutional clash between the courts and the government, which has been blocked from implementing a national lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. A human rights group said that people would not be able to provide for their families during a lockdown, and home quarantine orders have been banned while the case is reviewed by the country's Constitutional Court. Much of the criticism directed at the government centered on the fact that it had not directed financial aid to offset the loss of income for millions who work in Malawi's agriculture and informal sectors. With help from the World Bank, the government has since set up a $37 million funding package for 1 million people (which would come to a monthly allowance of about $40), but analysts say it's unclear that the cash-strapped Malawi government can even pay for its share. In a country with limited capacity to test for COVID, weak government infrastructure and distrust between the courts and government after a contested election last year, Malawi represents a ticking time bomb scenario.