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Hard Numbers:, Friday January 19

Willis Sparks
By Willis SparksJanuary 19, 2018
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
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186,000: The number of asylum seekers in Germany fell to186,000 in 2017, down from a high of 890,000 in 2015.

550: North Korea will send a delegation of at least 550 people to next month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, including 230 cheerleaders and a 30-member taekwondo demonstration team. #TaekwonDiplomacy

12: President Trump has had 12 federal appellate judges confirmed in his first year, more than any president before him. He has also added a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch. Given that two of the Supreme Court’s liberal justices and its one wildcard member (Anthony Kennedy) are all aged 79 or older, Trump’s lasting impact on the judiciary looks likely to grow.

12: In 2017, the quality of democracy around the world fell for the twelfth year in a row, with 71 countries seeing a decline in political rights and civil liberties.

6: Moscow got 6 minutes of sunlight in December. Seriously. #StillBeatsYakutsk

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