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Hard Numbers: Money for Your Cow Dung

1 billion: West African leaders have pledged $1 billion to combat the growing threat of Islamic extremism in the region. Mali-based insurgent groups with links to the Islamic State and al Qaeda have since spilled over into neighboring countries, hitting Burkina Faso particularly hard in recent months.


45: When polls closed in Tunisia on Sunday evening, just 45 percent of eligible voters had turned out to vote in the presidential election, down 19 percentage points from 2014 when that country held its first post-Arab Spring election after 22 years of dictatorship.

60: India's newly created National Cow Commission has promised to fund 60% of the startup capital for any companies that commercialize a curative product known as panchagavya which is made by mixing milk, cow urine, and cow dung. The ruling Hindu nationalist BJP government has been very cow-friendly.

100 million: As fires continue to ravage the Amazon rainforest, the US and Brazil have agreed on a $100 million biodiversity conservation fund to help save the area, led by the private sector. This plan is already facing pushback from environmentalists who say it's a roundabout way to open the rainforest to even more mining, logging and farming.

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