Hard Numbers

120 million: Between now and March, officials expect around 120 million Hindu pilgrims to gather at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati rivers near the city of Prayagraj in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The celebration, known as the Kumbh Mela festival, will be so big that it is expected to be visible from space.

993: Governments around the world executed 993 prisoners in 2017, according to Amnesty International. The tally doesn't include China, thought to be the world's top executioner, which keeps the frequency of its use of capital punishment a closely guarded secret. This week a Chinese court hastily sentenced a Canadian citizen to death in a drug smuggling case, in a decision many saw as a thinly-veiled response to Canada's detention of a top Chinese tech executive.

90: Approximately 90 percent of all economic espionage cases handled by the US Justice Department over the past seven years have involved China. Alleged theft of American intellectual property is one of the major sticking points in trade talks and the growing strategic confrontation between Washington and Beijing.

31: Around 31 percent of Britons say they trust the European Union, the second lowest in the common bloc above only Greece.