Hobson's Choice

Amount offered to Holocaust survivors by the Hungarian government as compensation for each parent killed in the Holocaust:

$140

Amount offered by the Hungarian government for each sibling killed in the Holocaust:

$70

Amount allocated in President Clinton's proposed military budget to the completion of a national missile-defence shield, similar to "Star Wars":

$6.6bn

Acres of genetically modified crops sown in the world in 1997, five times the acreage sown in 1996:

30 million

Global average number of boys born, for every 100 girls:

105

Average number of boys born in China for every 100 girls:

113.5

Ranking of "Ashley" in the list of most popular girls' names in New York City since 1992:

1

Number of reported cases of forged bank notes in Poland last year:

13,808

Chances that a musical recording, on CD or cassette, will be a pirated copy:

1 in 3

Number of parking tickets issued in London each year:

3.5 million

Average speed of traffic in Central London:

10mph

Number of dust particles in the 16 kg of air breathed daily by the average British office worker:

5 million

Square yards of skin on the average human - home to as many bacteria as there are people in the US:

2

Amount charged an hour by Mary Ward in Boston, a professional "nitpicker" who teaches parents to remove lice from their children's hair:

$50

Number of leeches the Welsh company Biopharm supplies to hospitals around the world each year:

20,000

Chances that a Spaniard still has time to take a siesta - ideally of 20 minutes - after lunch:

1 in 5

Percentage of time a mallard duck sleeps with one eye open and one half of its brain awake, a type of rest known as unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, when predators are nearby:

85

SOURCES: Associated Press, Time, Panos, Le Monde, New York Times, Warsaw Voice, Granta, Daily Telegraph, Mainichi Shimbun, Frontier, National Geographic, Economist