The World in Numbers

One in every 200 people in Britain is homeless, according to recent analysis by UK homelessness charity Shelter. Researchers used government data and information from social services obtained by freedom of information requests, and calculated that there are almost 307,000 people with no permanent home across the country. The figures include people sleeping rough or living in hostels or temporary accommodation. The analysis shows homelessness is at its highest rate in London, where 158,097 people have no permanent home - equivalent to one in every 59. Shelter said that one in 25 people are homeless in the London borough of Newham, making it England’s “top” homeless borough.  13, 566 people live in temporary accommodation and 41 are sleeping rough in Newham. Newham is   followed by Haringey, where one in 29 people are homeless. In Westminster the figure is one in 39. The report also shows homelessness figures in Luton, Birmingham and Manchester. In Manchester, on...

--> Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has spoken out about racist and Islamophobic messages he has received through social media, calling for social media companies to address the issue of hate speech online. Speaking on 12 March at the South by Soutwest festival in Texas, Khan revealed that he was called a ‘ terrorist ’ and faced death threats on Twitter. Khan also released a video, in which he read out some of the abusive tweets he has received since becoming mayor. Social media users have been quick to react to his message and he has received thousands of tweets related to his speech. An analysis of about 18,000 tweets he received between 14-23 March revealed that the most common words used in the tweets sent to him were related to his speech, such as hate, crime, speech and Muslim. Although ‘ frequent word ’ analysis doesn ’ t say much about the content of the tweets, a word network visualization with R studio clearly shows how the words relate to one a...