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Hard Numbers: Ukraine’s food storage dilemma, American tourists behaving badly, Vietnam’s health minister in cuffs, British journalist missing in the Amazon

June 08, 2022
Beatrice Catena
and
Gabrielle Debinski
Ukraine’s food storage dilemma, American tourists behaving badly, Vietnam’s health minister in cuffs, British journalist missing in the Amazon
Ukraine's grain exports are being held hostage.
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

23.5 million: Ukraine is being forced to find storage capacity for a whopping 23.5 million tons of grain thanks to Russia’s blockade of Black Sea ports usually used to transport Ukrainian exports like corn and wheat. Kyiv is trying to up its storage capacity ahead of a summer harvest, wary that improperly stored grains can easily spoil.

150: After being criticized for a slow initial response, Brazil has deployed 150 soldiers to the Amazon to search for a British journalist who went missing on a reporting trip along with a Brazilian indigenous expert. But critics say far more people are needed to comb the vast landscape. Meanwhile, Brazil’s brash President Jair Bolsonaro blamed the men for embarking on “an unadvisable adventure” in the first place.

45: Vietnam’s Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long has been arrested for his role in a massive price-gouging scheme of COVID-19 test kits. Long, along with the mayor of Hanoi, is accused of allowing a pharmaceutical company to inflate sale prices to hospitals and clinics by up to 45% in exchange for kickbacks.

25,000: An American tourist was slapped with a fine after throwing an electric scooter down Rome’s 18th-century Spanish Steps, causing €25,000 ($26,788) worth of damages. The Yankee was also banned from revisiting the world heritage site in the future. Damaging historical landmarks is a crime in Italy that could land an offender in prison for up to one year.


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