Asia – Page 22 – Desdemona Despair

Coronavirus in the U.S., January 2020-January 2022, showing case rates, hospitalizations, and mortality. Data: Johns Hopkins University / Department of Health and Human Services. Graphic: CNBC

January 21, 2022

Two years since Covid was first confirmed in U.S., the pandemic is worse than anyone imagined – “Everybody wants to get to this thing called endemic. I still don’t know what the hell that means.”

By Spencer Kimball and Nate Rattner 21 January 2022 (CNBC) – A 35-year-old man returned to the U.S. from Wuhan, China on Jan. 15, 2020 and fell ill with a cough and fever. He had read an alert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan […]

Leonard Rieser, chairman of the board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, moves the hand of the Doomsday Clock back to 17 minutes before midnight at offices near the University of Chicago on 26 November 1991. Photo: Carl Wagner / Chicago Tribune

January 19, 2022

The story of how the Doomsday Clock began ticking 75 years ago, the brainchild of a Chicago artist

By Ron Grossman 13 January 2022 (Chicago Tribune) – Martyl Langsdorf designed just one magazine cover, but it has had considerable staying power. A prolific painter of abstract and figurative canvases, she was commissioned 75 years ago by the scientists who built the atomic bomb that ended World War II. By 1947 the Cold War […]

Map showing natural catastrophe loss event worldwide in 2021. In 2021, natural disasters caused overall losses of $280 billion, of which roughly $120 billion were insured. Alongside 2005 and 2011, the year 2021 proved to be the second-costliest ever for the insurance sector (record year 2017: $146 billion, inflation-adjusted) – overall losses from natural disasters were the fourth-highest to date (record year 2011: $355 billion). Graphic: Munich Re

January 13, 2022

For the insurance industry, 2021 was the second-highest loss year on record, after 2017 – “The 2021 disaster statistics are striking because some of the extreme weather events are of the kind that are likely to become more frequent or more severe as a result of climate change”

10 January 2022 (Munich Re) – Worldwide, natural disasters caused substantially higher losses in 2021 than in the two previous years. Based on provisional data, storms, floods, wildfires, and earthquakes destroyed assets worth US$ 280bn. Losses in the previous year amounted to US$ 210bn, while in 2019 they were US$ 166bn. Roughly US$ 120bn of […]

Global greenhouse gas emissions, 1990-2020. The reduction in emissions in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and global recession was 10 times greater than the impact on emissions from the 2008 global financial crisis. Graphic: Rhodium Group

January 9, 2022

Global greenhouse gas reduction in 2020 from pandemic and global recession “was 10 times greater than the impact on emissions from the 2008 global financial crisis”

By Alfredo Rivera, Shweta Movalia, Hannah Pitt, and Kate Larsen 23 December 2021 (Rhodium Group) – Understanding annual trends in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a critical input for decision-makers in their efforts to reach net-zero emissions, whether is at the national, state, city, or corporate levels. Tracking emissions of the 190+ Parties to the […]

Truck drivers bound for Metro Manila celebrate Christmas Eve 2021 under a makeshift tent along the national highway in Surigao City as the Lipata port remained closed due to heavy damage from Super Typhoon Rai (Odette). Photo: Erwin M. Mascariñas / Philippine Daily Inquirer

January 2, 2022

Death toll from Super Typhoon Rai passes 400 – People in wrecked city of Surigao see hope in New Year amid typhoon ruins

By Divina M. Suson and Erwin M. Mascariñas 2 January 2022 SURIGAO CITY, Surigao del Norte, Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer) – When asked about their fishing boats during a disaster damage assessment just days after Typhoon Odette (international name: Rai) struck on 16 December 2021, many fishermen in the city’s coastal villages replied, “zero visibility.” […]

Gwendolyn, 2, stands in the house her family has already started rebuilding on 20 December 2021 after Super Typhoon Rai/Odette destroyed homes in Barangay Fatima, Purok 1 in Ubay, Bohol, Philippines. Almost all of the houses near the shore in this area were completely destroyed by Typhoon Rai/Odette. Photo: Hogsholt/ UNICEF / UN0570018

January 1, 2022

Filipino children affected by Typhoon Rai face uncertain New Year in 2022 – 846,000 children need help after typhoon destroyed their homes

31 December 2021 (UNICEF) – As Filipino families gather this New Year’s Eve to welcome 2022, there are 846,000 children who need help after Typhoon Rai/Odette destroyed their homes. A more infectious strain of COVID-19 and continued heavy rainfall over typhoon-affected areas pose an additional danger and can further slow down aid efforts. Working with […]

A sanitation worker sweeps a deserted road in Xi'an, in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi, after the city was locked down in December 2021 due to COVID-19. Photo: Agence France-Presse / Getty Images

December 30, 2021

China holds to its “zero Covid” strategy, locks down Xi’an, a city of 13 million

By Vivian Wang and Joy Dong 30 December 2021 (The New York Times) – China, racing to control one of its worst outbreaks in a single city since the beginning of the pandemic, has put in place a sweeping lockdown and mass testing drives, making clear that the country has no intention of abandoning its “zero […]

A dead crane, foreground, at the Hula Nature Reserve in northern Israel in December 2021. A bird flu outbreak in northern Israel killed at least 5,200 migratory cranes and forced farmers to slaughter hundreds of thousands of chickens as authorities tried to contain what they say is the deadliest wildlife disaster in the nation’s history. Photo: Ayal Margolin / JINIPIX / Associated Press

December 30, 2021

Bird flu in Israel kills 5,200 cranes and forces slaughter of half-million chickens – Environment minister calls outbreak “the most serious damage to wildlife in the history of the country”

By Isabel Kershner 29 December 2021 JERUSALEM (The New York Times) – Israel is acting to contain a severe outbreak of avian flu that has already led to mass culling of infected poultry and has caused the deaths of about 5,000 migratory cranes in a popular nature reserve in the north of the country. The minister […]

A supporter of Russia’s most prominent human rights organization, the International Memorial Society, holds a sign reading, “Hands off Memorial,” outside the Russian Supreme Court in Moscow on 28 December 2021. Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the liquidation of Memorial, in a decision that dismayed rights advocates. The ruling signaled the Kremlin’s determination to obliterate dissent, after a year in which authorities have jailed and harassed hundreds of opposition figures, activists, journalists and human rights lawyers, forcing dozens of them to flee the country. Photo: Yuri Kochetkov / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

December 29, 2021

Russia Supreme Court abolishes country’s most prominent human rights group, the International Memorial Society – “Memorial began the human rights era in our country, and it ends it today”

By Robyn Dixon 28 December 2021 MOSCOW (The Washington Post) – Russia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the liquidation of the country’s most prominent human rights organization, the International Memorial Society, in a decision that dismayed rights advocates. Russia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the liquidation of the country’s most prominent human rights organization, the […]

Aerial view of flattened homes after Typhoon Rai hit Surigao City, southern Philippines on 16 December 2021. Photo: Jilson Tiu / AP

December 24, 2021

Super Typhoon Rai leaves trail of destruction in Philippines – Desperation grows for 400,000 people – “Red Cross emergency teams are reporting complete carnage in the coastal areas. Homes, hospitals, school, and community buildings have been ripped to shreds.”

By Matt Hills 23 December 2021 (The Guardian) – Typhoon Rai has devastated the Philippines, killing at least 375 people, and causing damage in excess of $500m (£375m). The system developed on 13 December, tracked westwards across the Philippines on the 16th and 17th, before crossing the South China Sea on the 18th. Rai reached […]