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Hard Numbers: Mexicanas on strike, freedom falters, and coronavirus clears the air

Hard Numbers: Mexicanas on strike, freedom falters, and coronavirus clears the air

10 – On Monday March 9, the first working day after International Women's Day, women's rights activists in Mexico will lead a nationwide women's strike to protest misogynist violence that claims the lives of 10 women in Mexico daily. El nueve ninguna se mueve! (On the 9th, no woman will move!)


14 – The world has become "less free" for 14 straight years, as democracies wobble and strongmen get stronger. That's according to watchdog Freedom House's latest Freedom in the World report, which ranks countries according to political rights and civil liberties. More than sixty countries are less free than they were last year. Read the whole (depressing) report here, or see how your country stacks up here.

5 billion – The United States is set to invest $5 billion in Ethiopia to deepen the already fast-growing country's embrace of free markets, as well as to counter growing Chinese influence in East Africa. The money will be allocated over the next several years by Washington's new International Development Finance Corporation.

200 million – For the month of February, the Coronavirus-related economic slowdown in China reduced the country's carbon dioxide emissions by 200 million tons, an amount equal to all of the pollution belched out by the United Kingdom every six months.

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