Numbers

BBC:

The UN has launched an appeal for $613m to help people affected by Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

"These needs are massive and multi-faceted," the body's top official Ban Ki-Moon said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He added that funds would be used to "help overcome at least some measures of this hardship".

New York Times:

By almost any measure, 2008 was a complete disaster for Wall Street — except, that is, when the bonuses arrived.

Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.

That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller

. . .

The comptroller’s estimate, a closely watched guidepost of the annual December-January bonus season, is based largely on personal income tax collections. It excludes stock option awards that could push the figures even higher.

The state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said it was unclear if banks had used taxpayer money for the bonuses, a possibility that strikes corporate governance experts, and indeed many ordinary Americans, as outrageous. He urged the Obama administration to examine the issue closely.

In a year when Wall Street firms had to beg the US government for hundreds of billions to cover their losses, their execs got bonuses which could alleviate the suffering of hundreds of thousands thirty times over.