Hard numbers: AMLO wins small in recall, Jakarta students protest, Ukrainians dodge the draft, we learn to do nothing

AMLO wins small in recall, Jakarta students protest, Ukrainians dodge the draft, we learn to do nothing
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Ismael Rosas/ Eyepix Group

90: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) got the support of 90% of voters in Sunday’s recall referendum. The catch? Turnout was just 18% of eligible voters, less than half of the threshold for the referendum to be legally binding. AMLO’s term ends in 2024, and he cannot run again.

6: Six police officers in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta were wounded in their attempt to control a protest by hundreds of students angry over rising food prices and rumors that two-term president Joko Widodo may be hatching a plan to exceed constitutional term limits.

15,000: While the vast majority of Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 have complied with general mobilization laws that prohibit them from leaving the country, some draft dodgers have paid up to $15,000 to be smuggled across the border to safety in the EU, according to the New York Times.

0: A Harvard PhD candidate has found that, among non-industrial societies studied in the 1970s and 1980s, the most common activity during the day was doing absolutely nothing. As in, zero. Not farming, not chatting, not sleeping, not cooking, not weaving. Just, nothing. So turn off your notifications and give it a shot.

More from GZERO Media

Are you a film buff? Or a geography nerd? How about both? This puzzle will test your knowledge of the best films of this year, and major landmarks around the world. Because ... Why not?

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza for the first time since the early weeks of Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas.
REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza for the first time since the early weeks of Israel’s 15-month war with Hamas – but they are coming home to a wasteland.

Guatemalan migrants walk after arriving at La Aurora Air Force Base on a deportation flight from the U.S., in Guatemala City, Guatemala, December 27, 2024.
REUTERS/Cristina Chiquin

Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s challenge to Donald Trump over deportation flights lasted less than a day.

People gather during a service at Starting Point Community Church, which assists members of the newly arrived migrant community, amid concerns of intensified immigration enforcement.
REUTERS/Vincent Alban

50,000: Over the weekend, plans leaked that the Trump administration planned to target undocumented immigrants living in Chicago who have committed crimes – spurring the mayor to reaffirm the city’s commitment to being a sanctuary city.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson (Republican of Louisiana) speaks on the importance he sees in the Laken Riley Act.

House Republicans are snowbirding from Washington, DC, to Florida’s Miami area this week for their annual policy retreat where they have to figure out how to fund a laundry list of legislative promises before the 2026 midterms.