Hard Numbers: Lithuania cuts off Russian gas, Shanghai mass-testing, food aid reaches Tigray, Costa Rican runoff

Hard Numbers: Lithuania cuts off Russian gas, Shanghai mass-testing, food aid reaches Tigray, Costa Rican runoff
Model of a natural gas pipeline in front of EU and Russia flag colors.
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

1: Lithuania has become the first EU country to stop importing Russian natural gas in response to the war in Ukraine. What a turnaround for the Baltic nation, which in 2015 relied almost exclusively on Russian gas for its domestic needs and is now asking other EU states to follow its lead.

26 million: On Sunday, Shanghai’s 26 million residents were ordered to self-test for COVID. China’s most populous city has been under lockdown for almost a week as authorities struggle to contain the country’s largest virus outbreak in two years — the biggest test to date of Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy.

500: A convoy of trucks carrying over 500 metric tons of food entered Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region on Friday, the first since mid-December. This time, the rebel Tigray People's Liberation Front observed the government's cease-fire to allow in badly needed shipments of food aid.

53: Costa Rica’s Finance Minister Rodrigo Chaves won the presidential runoff election on Sunday with 53% of the vote. The combative populist upstart beat the centrist former President Jose María Figueres by promising to root out corruption and use referendums to cut through the red tape.

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