- Britain spends about £38 per head a year on legal aid, compared to £4 in Germany and £3 in France. (The Guardian, 10th January 2008)
- The first year in which there was no recorded lynching of a black American was 1952. (Boston Globe, 2nd December 2007)
- In the US, in 1950 the ratio of workers to retirees was 18 to 1. In 2050, it is projected to be 2 to 1. But in 2050 the worker to dependent ratio will be 10 to 8—better than in the 1960s, when it was 10 to 9. (Prospect, February)
- Only 13 per cent of Japanese homes have ever been resold, compared to 89 per cent in Britain and 78 per cent in the US. (The Economist, 3rd January 2008)
- In 1995 the US won 51 per cent of the votes in the UN general assembly; by 2006, the figure had fallen to just 24 per cent. (What Does China Think? by Mark Leonard [forthcoming])
- The proportion of people in developing countries living in absolute poverty has decreased from 29 per cent in 1990 to 18 per cent in 2004. (World Bank)
- Analysis of 49 metropolitan areas in the US shows that the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate. The effect is independent of divorce, southernness, poverty and gun availability. (scienceblogs.com)
- Every week, ten times as many Chinese people watch Premier League football as do British people. (The Guardian, 19th January 2008)
- The Police had the highest-earning music tour in North America in 2007. The band's 54 gigs generated $132m (£66m), almost double the total of the second-placed act, country star Kenny Chesney. (BBC news website, 23rd December 2007)
- There are 823 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea, more than any other country in the world. (Limits of Language, by Mikael Parkvall)
- One third of all houses in Ireland were built in the last decade. (finfacts)
- 2006 is the first year in which more French children were born out of wedlock than to married parents. (Reuters, 15th January 2007)
- By 2009, each person working in the private sector will be paying more each month into the pension of a civil servant than into their own pension. (centreright.com, 15th January 2008)
- In 2006, of the €1bn spent by the EU on farm subsidies, almost a third (€317m) went to Greece. The biggest net loser was Italy, on €300m. France gained €76m and Britain almost as much—€72m. (Prospect research)
- Sales of physical music (mainly CDs) fell 19 per cent in the US last year. (The Economist, 10th January 2008)
- 61 per cent of the 2005 intake of Conservative MPs have voted against the party line in the Commons. (Philip Cowley)
- For several years, the annual expansion in China's trade has been larger than India's total annual trade. (voxeu.org)
- The average British commute is one hour and five minutes. In 2003 it was 35 minutes. (The Guardian, 21st January 2008)
- Since October 2006, the Serious Organised Crime Agency's public hotline—manned five days a week—has received just 16 calls. (The Times, 29th November 2007)
- For every insurgent killed in Iraq, 250,000 bullets have been fired. (Washington Post, 18th November 2007)
