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Hard Numbers: Less wheat for poor Indians, Ukraine gets US Javelins, zero-COVID costs China, pages for pardons

May 04, 2022
Carlos Santamaria
Hard Numbers: Less wheat for poor Indians, Ukraine gets US Javelins, zero-COVID costs China, pages for pardons
Indian farmers thresh a harvested wheat crop in a field in Rajasthan.
ABACA via Reuters Connect

60: India’s government plans to slash the amount of wheat it provides to the poor by about 60%, replacing it mostly with rice. The world’s second-largest wheat producer, India has been hit hard by a heatwave, upending its plans to help feed the world amid the war between major wheat exporters Russia and Ukraine.

7,000: The US has sent at least 7,000 Javelin missiles to Ukraine in recent years, including during the Trump administration. During a visit to a Lockheed Martin plant Tuesday, President Joe Biden said some Ukrainians are now naming their newborns "Javelin" or "Javelina."

1.5: Zero-COVID is not only slowing down the Chinese economy — enforcing the policy and tracking infections is also coming at a heavy price. Mass-testing across all of China’s cities with populations above 3 million this year could cost China up to 1.5% of its GDP in 2021.

47: Wanna do less time in Bolivia? Grab a book. The government has launched a program to decongest 47 of its notoriously overcrowded prisons by letting inmates shave days or even weeks off their sentences in exchange for reading books.

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Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025.
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Can France’s Marine Le Pen run again?

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen poses prior to an interview on the evening news broadcast of French TV channel TF1, in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.
THOMAS SAMSON/Pool via REUTERS

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty by a French court on Monday for embezzling European Parliament funds, and faces a five-year ban from running for public office. While it may seem like Le Pen’s political career is dead, “This isn’t the end of the story,” says Mujtaba Rahman, Eurasia Group’s managing director of Europe.

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Donald Trump argues that any short-term pain from his global tariffs will translate into long-term gain as businesses move their operations to the US. He plans to announce a sweeping new round of tariffs on April 2. We asked Eurasia Group expert Nancy Wei what to expect from what Trump is billing as a “Liberation Day” from an unfair global trading system.

Le Pen barred from running from office after embezzlement conviction

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament of the Rassemblement National party, leaves the courthouse on the day of the verdict of her trial alongside 24 other defendants over accusations of misappropriation of European Union funds, in Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.

REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

Oh là là! A French court on Monday found National Rally leader Marine Le Pen guilty of misappropriating European funds to her far-right party, and barred the three-time presidential candidate barred from running for office for the next five years. Le Pen has denied wrongdoing and said last November, “It’s my political death that’s being demanded.”

The rise of Elon Musk's DOGE under Trump

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In a few short weeks, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has rapidly reshaped the federal government, firing thousands of workers, slashing spending, and shutting entire agencies. DOGE’s actions have faced some pushback from the courts, but Musk says he’s just getting started. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with WIRED Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond for a look at President Trump’s increasingly symbiotic relationship with the tech billionaire, Musk’s impact on politics and policy, and what happens when Silicon Valley’s ‘disrupt-or-die’ ethos collides with the machinery of the US government.

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