Hard Numbers

120 million: Between now and March, officials expect around 120 million Hindu pilgrims to gather at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati rivers near the city of Prayagraj in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The celebration, known as the Kumbh Mela festival, will be so big that it is expected to be visible from space.

993: Governments around the world executed 993 prisoners in 2017, according to Amnesty International. The tally doesn't include China, thought to be the world's top executioner, which keeps the frequency of its use of capital punishment a closely guarded secret. This week a Chinese court hastily sentenced a Canadian citizen to death in a drug smuggling case, in a decision many saw as a thinly-veiled response to Canada's detention of a top Chinese tech executive.

90: Approximately 90 percent of all economic espionage cases handled by the US Justice Department over the past seven years have involved China. Alleged theft of American intellectual property is one of the major sticking points in trade talks and the growing strategic confrontation between Washington and Beijing.

31: Around 31 percent of Britons say they trust the European Union, the second lowest in the common bloc above only Greece.

More from GZERO Media

- YouTube

On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down how the US and China are both betting their futures on massive infrastructure booms, with China building cities and railways while America builds data centers and grid updates for AI. But are they building too much, too fast?

Elon Musk attends the opening ceremony of the new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022.
Patrick Pleul/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

$1 trillion: Tesla shareholders approved a $1-trillion pay package for owner Elon Musk, a move that is set to make him the world’s first trillionaire – if the company meets certain targets. The pay will come in the form of stocks.

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz walk after a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), in Belem, Brazil, on November 7, 2025.
REUTERS/Adriano Machado

When it comes to global warming, the hottest ticket in the world right now is for the COP30 conference, which runs for the next week in Brazil. But with world leaders putting climate lower on the agenda, what can the conference achieve?