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Hard Numbers: Italian far-right soars, Chinese developers get help, Argentine minister sacked, Ukranians want war souvenirs

July 28, 2022
Carlos Santamaria
and
Beatrice Catena
Hard Numbers: Italian far-right soars, Chinese developers get help, Argentine minister sacked, Ukranians want war souvenirs
From left to right, the leaders of Forza Italia (Silvio Berlusconi), Brothers of Italy (Giorgia Meloni), and Lega (Matteo Salvini) attend an anti-government rally in Rome.
Vandeville Eric/ABACA via Reuters Connect

40: A week after Italian PM Mario Draghi's official resignation, a far-right coalition is on track to win the Sept. 25 parliamentary election. A Politico Europe poll says the Brothers of Italy, Lega, and Forza Italia parties will together scoop up 40% of the vote.

148 billion: China's central bank wants to mobilize $148 billion to help banks issue low-interest loans to heavily indebted real-estate developers so they can finish countless unfinished projects nationwide. Some Chinese homebuyers recently stopped paying their mortgages on these unfinished projects.

26: Argentina’s Economy Minister Silvina Batakis is reportedly getting fired after only 26 days in office. The president and the VP are too busy fighting each other to come up with a solution to the country’s deepening economic crisis, including an ongoing run on the peso and sky-high inflation.

500: A Ukrainian computer programmer bought an empty missile tube used against a Russian armed personnel carrier for $500. The charity auction in Lviv put a spotlight on the perhaps macabre but very real rising demand for war souvenirs.

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