Hard Numbers: El Salvador's Bitcoin city, British Columbia's deadly mudslide, America's faithful, Iranians on trial over jet-downing

El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele participates in the closing party of the “Bitcoin Week” where he announced the plan to build the first “Bitcoin City” in the world, in Teotepeque, El Salvador November 20, 2021.

300,000: El Salvador's crypto-loving populist President Nayib Bukele announced plans to build a "Bitcoin city," at the base of the Conchagua volcano in the country's southeast. Bukele estimates that it will cost 300,000 Bitcoins (currently trading at $60,000 a piece) to fund the project, and says the town will use the area's geothermal energy to power Bitcoin mining.

4: At least four people have died after a mudslide hit British Columbia, Canada, in recent days. Torrential rains swept cars off the road, causing highway closures and rationing of gas sales in the province to keep people off the roads.

10: Ten Iranian military personnel went on trial Sunday over the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in January 2020, which killed 176 people. After initially denying involvement, the Iranian military admitted it accidentally shot down the commercial jet amid an escalating confrontation between Tehran and Washington.

15: Americans are much more likely to derive meaning from religion than people in other wealthy economies. According to a Pew poll, 15 percent of Americans said faith "makes life meaningful," compared to 5 percent of New Zealanders, 4 percent of Aussies, and 3 percent of Dutch and Canadians.

More from GZERO Media

A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.

Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

The Russian leader has conditions of his own for any ceasefire with Ukraine, and he also wants a meeting with Donald Trump.

Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of the media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University on June 1, 2024.

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The court battle over whether the US can deport Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Palestinian-Algerian activist detained in New York last Saturday, began this week in Manhattan. Khalil, an outspoken activist for Palestinian rights at Columbia University, was arrested Saturday at his apartment in a university-owned building at Columbia University by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and he is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.

The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus.
(Photo by Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto)

An Israeli airstrike destroyed a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus on Thursday in the latest Israeli incursion into post-Assad Syria.

Lars Klingbeil (l), Chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, and Friedrich Merz, CDU Chairman and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, talk at the end of the 213th plenary session of the 20th legislative period in the German Bundestag.

Germany’s government is in a state of uncertainty as the outgoing government races to push through a huge, and highly controversial, new spending package before its term ends early this spring.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, a Republican, speaks as the U.S. vice president visits East Palestine, Ohio, U.S., February 3, 2025.
Rebecca Droke/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Zeldin redefined the agency’s mission, stating that its focus is to “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.”

Paige Fusco

Canada has begun thinking the unthinkable: how to defend against a US attack. It suddenly realizes — far too late – that the 2% GDP goal on defense spending is no longer aspirational but urgent. But what kind of military does it need? To find out, GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon spoke with retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman, the former vice chief of defense staff in Canada and currently a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

The energy transition is one of society’s biggest challenges – especially for Europe’s largest economy – according to a survey commissioned by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt and undertaken by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research. Sixty percent of those polled believe the energy transition is necessary but have doubts about how it is being implemented. A whopping 63% would like to be more involved in energy-transition decisions affecting their region. The findings strongly suggest that it’s essential to get the public more involved in energy policymaking – to help build a future energy policy that leads to both economic prosperity and social cohesion. Read the full study “Attitudes Toward the Energy Transition” here.