Hard Numbers: "Orwell" deployed in Russian schools, Facebook to register voters, expats flee Saudi Arabia, inflation soars in Zimbabwe

43,000: Under a new government plan, all 43,000 schools in Russia will be equipped with facial recognition cameras and systems. And in an almost surreal twist, the name of the monitoring platform is "Orwell." The company that won the contract is owned by...a close friend of President Vladimir Putin.

4 million: Facebook will help register up to 4 million Americans to vote in the 2020 election. With this move, the tech giant hopes to take attention away from fears it will again be used to spread political misinformation like during the 2016 campaign. Facebook also said its US users will now be able to opt out of political ads – but the company will still not fact-check them.

1.2 million: As the Saudi economy suffers the double-whammy of pandemic and low oil prices, some 1.2 million foreign workers — a tenth of the total labor force — could leave the kingdom this year. The upside? Riyadh has long been trying to get more Saudis into white collar and services jobs anyway.

785: Zimbabwe is currently struggling with an inflation rate of 785 percent, and while that's a lot better than the bad old days when annual price growth reached 231 million percent (yes, you read that right), it's still a headache for the government. In response to a recent nurse's strike, authorities have bumped government employee salaries by 50%.

More from GZERO Media

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland on February 20, 2025
Jack Gruber-USA TODAY

A new measure would cut back the popular program in order to fund continuation of Trump's first term tax cuts.

President Donald Trump looks on while meeting with President of France Emmanuel Macron in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, February 24, 2025.

Bonnie Cash/Pool/Sipa USA

The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution is crystal clear: No person can be elected to the presidency more than twice. Ratified in 1951, it was a response to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four-term tenure.

- YouTube

What is the European reaction to what President Trump is trying to achieve in terms of peace? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Kyiv, Ukraine, on the three-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale aggression against the country.

China's President Xi Jinping attends a meeting in Brazil in November 2024.

REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo

Just days after a Chinese naval helicopter nearly collided with a Philippine patrol plane over a contested reef, China’s military started live-fire drills in waterways near Vietnam on Monday and between Australia and New Zealand over the weekend in an “unprecedented” display of firepower.