17.5 million: The southern Chinese city of Shenzhen will go into lockdown and test its entire population of 17.5 million three times after logging 60 COVID infections on Sunday. Xi Jinping clearly has no plans to relax his Draconian zero-COVID policy anytime soon.
150: A Norwegian computer scientist has developed a website allowing anyone to spam 150 Russian emails at a time with messages about the war in Ukraine. Activists and hackers are getting increasingly creative with ways to circumvent Russian censorship.
1 billion: El Salvador, the only country that accepts Bitcoin as legal tender, now wants to raise $1 billion with a 10-year Bitcoin bond set to launch this week. Crypto-loving President Nayib Bukele wants to use the money to pay off debt and build a Bitcoin City.
81: Saudi Arabia executed 81 men on Saturday, its largest mass execution ever. Murder, terrorism, and holding “deviant beliefs” were among the offenses. One was Syrian and seven were from Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been fighting a long proxy war with Iran.
