Hobson's choice

Number of people in Kosovo being held in pre-trial detention by the Serb authorities: 1,128

Number of Kurds in the world, spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union: 25 million

Number of Kurdish villages in Iraq razed by Saddam Hussein: 2,000

Number of Kurds killed by chemical weapons and nerve gas in the town of Halabja in Iraq in one day in 1988: 3,000 to 5,000

Number of people employed by the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy: 1 million

Average monthly wage of a Russian scientist: $150

Number of Russian scientists who have emigrated since 1991: 8,000

Number of telecommunications satellites to be launched in the next ten years: 1,100

Number of times a week the average Briton is caught on CCTV: 500

Radioplay fee paid to performers and songwriters every time their song is played on BBC national radio stations: pounds 49.67

Average number of times a day Robbie Williams's song, "Angels", was played on British radio stations - commercial and BBC - last year: 115

Number of people in the world who understand, without necessarily speaking, Yiddish: 3 million

Number of species of birds found in Central Park in New York City in 1886: 121

Number of species of birds found in Central Park in New York City in 1996: 275

Average cost of a pound of marine worms - such as ragworms - used for sea-angling bait: pounds 13.50

Average cost of a pound of farmed salmon: pounds 3

SOURCES: Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedom, Kurdistan:After such Knowledge, What forgiveness, Jonathan C. Randal, New York Review of Books , Le Monde, Guardian, Heat, Le Monde, Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park, Marie Winn, Financial Times.