55: Perhaps feeling increasingly desperate to get reelected next year, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan swung his economic populist hammer yet again to bump up the national minimum wage by 55%. That might seem like a lot, but it’s still almost 30 percentage points below the annual inflation rate in November.
100,000: New Zealand’s PM Jacinda Ardern sure knows how to make gold out of a gaffe. A signed copy of a transcript of her insulting a right-wing libertarian MP sold for more than $100,000 Kiwi dollars ($63,200), all of which will go to the country’s Prostate Cancer Foundation.
1.1 trillion: Africa could make up to $1.1 trillion from selling and using solar-powered “green” hydrogen by 2035, according to a new report. It’s cheaper to produce than fossil fuels and could help cut the continent’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40%.
102: Japan is investigating whether China has set up secret police stations in the country, similar to those allegedly established in Europe to target Chinese nationals living there with pending charges back home. Beijing is suspected of having established at least 102 of these facilities in 53 nations.
