Five things we learned last month

Photos: Zhong Guilin/ColorChinaPhoto/AP/Press Association Images, AP/Press Association Images, Matthias Oesterle/Zuma Press/PA Images, Joyce Marshall/AP/Press Association Images, Provisional Government of Diego Garcia and Chagos Islands

It’s crunch time at DG headquarters, with issue set to #21 go to press shortly. As we get our heads down to put the finishing touches on what promises to be our best issue yet, here are some of the favourite facts we learned while researching its features and infographics.

1) By 2020, China is expected to have 30-40 million more men than women.

2) More than 90 political parties competed in Myanmar’s general election in which Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory last November. A quarter of seats in the upper and lower houses were not up for election, but instead reserved for representatives of the country’s armed forces.

3) In the original Star Wars movie, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, Darth Vader only has 12 minutes of screen time. In that time, he utters a total of 41 lines of dialogue.

4) In 2011, as the shale boom kicked in, a job was created in the US oil and gas industries – either directly or indirectly – every three minutes and 34 seconds.

5) Diego Garcia – a remote British Overseas Territory in the Indian Ocean – has an elected president living in exile in Crawley, West Sussex. President Allen Vincatassin was born on the island, the largest in the Chagos archipelago, and represents UK-based Chagossians, who were forcibly deported from the archipelago in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for an American military base.

Posted on Tuesday, March 1st, 2016 - Categories: Extras, Things we've learned.