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Hard Numbers: Slovak far-right conviction, Japan's to go carbon-neutral, Turkish lira falls, al-Shabaab taxes Somalis
52: Slovak far-right lawmaker Marian Kotleba has been sentenced to 52 months in jail for handing out checks with Nazi references to mark the founding of Slokavia's client state under the Third Reich. Kotleba belongs to the neo-Nazi People's Party Our Slovakia, which has an openly racist agenda and wants to pull the country out of the EU and NATO.
2050: Japan has pledged to cut greenhouse gases to zero and become carbon-neutral by 2050, a decade before China aims to reach the same goal. The announcement by Japan's new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga represents a major shift in climate change policy for the world's fifth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide.
8.15: The Turkish lira has plummeted to a historic low of 8.15 against the US dollar. Turkey's economy is in a deep crisis due to sky-high inflation and the central bank's refusal to raise interest rates, while analysts worry that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’ recent tirade against NATO allies France and the US, and Turkey's involvement in multiple regional conflicts — are deterring investment.
15 million: The al-Shabaab militant group in Somalia currently collects about $15 million in taxes each month, almost as much as the Somali government. Most of the revenue comes from dues on shipping containers and a 2.5 percent zakat religious levy that al-Shabaab enforces in the parts of the country it controls.