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Hard Numbers: North Korea tests Biden, Asian American discrimination, Suez blockage, big banks finance fossil fuels

March 24, 2021
Gabrielle Debinski

2 & 1: North Korea has fired at least two missiles into the sea, which leaves us with one pressing question: Trump's unconventional approach towards Kim Jong-un was easy to criticize, but what is the Biden administration's policy towards Pyongyang actually going to be? The Pentagon called Kim's latest test "business as usual," but offered little more insights.

70: Seventy percent of Americans say that Asians are discriminated against in the United States, according to a new poll taken after the Atlanta area shooting last week in which most of the victims were Asian women.

100: More than 100 ships were stuck at either end of the Suez Canal after a massive container ship went aground in the busy waterway. The canal, which connects the Red Sea (lying between Africa and Asia) to the Mediterranean, is responsible for 10 percent of global shipping traffic.

60: The world's 60 biggest banks have provided $3.8 trillion worth of financing for fossil-fuel industries since 2015, when the Paris Climate Accord was signed. US-based JPMorgan Chase flushed the most cash into the industry, followed by CitiBank. In Europe, meanwhile, British bank Barclays financed fossil fuels more than any other bank.

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