Ukraine – Page 2 – Desdemona Despair

Global excess and reported COVID-19 deaths and death rates per 100,000 population, January 2020-January 2022. (a) Cumulative global excess death estimates and the cumulative reported COVID-19 deaths by month from January 2020 to December 2021. (b) Global excess death rates per 100,000 population and the reported COVID-19 death rates per 100,000 population, also by month, from January 2020 to December 2021. On both plots, the central lines of the excess mortality series show the mean estimates, and the shaded regions indicate the 95 percent uncertainty intervals. Graphic: Msemburi, et al., 2022 / Nature

December 30, 2022

WHO study reports global Covid death toll likely three times higher than official records – Pandemic may have claimed nearly 15 million lives, more than 2.7 times official reports of 5.4 million – India mortality alone may be 6.45 million dead

By Robert Hart 14 December 2022 (Forbes) – The Covid-19 pandemic may have claimed nearly 15 million around the world in 2020 and 2021, according to World Health Organization estimates published in Nature on Wednesday, almost three times what was reported in official records and underscoring the devastating and far-reaching impact of the disease as countries strive to return […]

Map showing the Rainfall Accumulation Anomaly in the Horn of Africa during the 2010-2011, 2016-2017, and 2020-2022 droughts. Communities in the Horn of Africa are in the midst of a likely fifth consecutive failed rainy season — with the October-December 2022 rains beginning poorly and forecasts indicating they are likely to underperform — and may face a sixth failed season in March-May 2023. The October-December 2020, March-May 2021, October-December 2021 and March-May 2022 seasons were all marred by below-average rainfall, leaving large swathes of Somalia, southern and south-eastern Ethiopia, and northern and eastern Kenya facing the most prolonged drought in recent history, while the March-May 2022 rainy season was the driest on record in the last 70 years. The 2020-2022 drought has now surpassed the horrific droughts in 2010-2011 and 2016-2017 in both duration and severity and will continue to deepen in the months ahead, with catastrophic consequences. Data: USGS FEWS NE (Africa CHIRPS Anomaly 3-Monthly, MAM and OND). Graphic: OCHA

December 23, 2022

UNICEF: More than twenty million children suffering in Horn of Africa as drought intensifies – Two million people displaced internally, 9.5 million livestock dead – “We fled hunger, but hunger followed us here”

NAIROBI, 22 December 2022 (UNICEF) –The number of children suffering dire drought conditions across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia has more than doubled in five months, according to UNICEF. Around 20.2 million children are now facing the threat of severe hunger, thirst and disease, compared to 10 million in July, as climate change, conflict, global inflation, and grain […]

Photo portrait of economist Nouriel Roubini. Photo: Charlie Bibby / Financial Times

December 20, 2022

Financial Times interview with economist Nouriel Roubini, aka “Dr. Doom” – “I think that really the world is on a slow-motion train wreck”

By Henry Mance 18 December 2022 (Financial Times) – Nouriel Roubini is gloomy, and it’s not just that he arrived in London on a red-eye flight and couldn’t get a table at Nobu. It’s not even conventional economic worries. It’s everything: a confluence of problems, old and new. “I think that really the world is […]

60-year-old Abdullahi Hassan watches over four of his grandchildren in a shelter where he and his family of eight lives and sleep in November 2022. The shelter is located in a camp for the displaced on the outskirts of Luuq, Somalia. They had been at the camp for two weeks, having left home when rain didn't come and all their livestock was wiped out. Photo: Lily Martin / CBC

December 5, 2022

From Ukraine to Yemen, UN seeks record $51.5 billion for “shockingly high” aid needs – “The humanitarian response system is being tested to its limits”

By Emma Farge 1 December 2022 GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations and partners on Thursday appealed for a record $51.5 billion in aid money for 2023, with tens of millions of additional people expected to need assistance, testing the humanitarian response system “to its limits”. The appeal represents a 25% increase on 2022 and […]

The body of a dolphin washed up on a beach in a nature reserve in the Odesa region of Ukraine, one of thousands killed in 2022 during Russia’s war on Ukraine. Photo: Ivan Rusev / RFE/RL

December 4, 2022

Tens of thousands of dead dolphins among environmental casualties of Ukraine war – “When the Black Sea was being bombed, we could feel it too”

By Stuart Greer 3 December 2022 (RFE/RL) – A Ukrainian marine biologist estimates that at least 50,000 Black Sea dolphins have been killed as a result of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Ivan Rusev says he’s shocked by the number of dolphin carcasses that have washed up on the shores of his nature reserve in […]

Quarterly profits of five major oil companies in the West, 2018-2022 in billions of U.S. dollars. Data for Shell, BP, Chevron, Exxon, and Total Energies are shown. In Q3 2022, global energy giants including Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N) posted another round of huge quarterly profits, benefiting from surging natural gas and fuel prices that have boosted inflation around the world and led to fresh calls to further tax the sector. Four of the five largest global oil companies have now reported results, combining for nearly $50 billion in net income, lifted by tight global markets and disruption following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Graphic: Reuters

October 29, 2022

Oil giants’ massive profits revive calls for windfall taxes – “The Russian war in Ukraine has changed the energy markets, reduced energy availability and increased prices”

By Sabrina Valle and Ron Bousso 28 October 2022 (Reuters) – Global energy giants including Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) and Chevron Corp (CVX.N) posted another round of huge quarterly profits, benefiting from surging natural gas and fuel prices that have boosted inflation around the world and led to fresh calls to further tax the sector. Four of the five […]

Colombian natives and activists during a protest in Bogotá, Colombia, on 23 August 2019. Photo: RAUL ARBOLEDA / AFP / Getty Images

October 21, 2022

Countries where the most people are killed defending the environment

By Angelo Young 15 October 2022 (24/7 Wall St.) – As the world comes to the realization of the profound damages human beings are causing to natural environments worldwide, groups across the globe have long been trying to protect the local land and environment. In some places, these struggles are not always peaceful, and last […]

A boy stands beside a sugarcane field, which is submerged by floodwaters due to heavy monsoon rains, in Dera Allahyar area of Jaffarabad, a district of southwestern Baluchistan province, Pakistan, Saturday, 17 September 2022. Photo: Zahid Hussain / AP Photo

September 27, 2022

Fear of widespread hunger after Pakistan floods wreck crops – Dengue surges, hospitals overwhelmed by sheer number of patients – “These rains have destroyed everything for us. We don’t even have anything to eat.”

27 September 2022 (Grain Brokers Australia) – A food crisis of epic proportions is brewing in Pakistan due to torrential rains and catastrophic flooding in late August and early September. Less than 40 per cent of Pakistan’s land area is arable, yet around one-third of the country’s land mass was submerged, demonstrating the sheer scale […]

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City on 20 September 2022. Photo: Anadolu Images

September 27, 2022

UN meeting produces sense that a “new epoch” is arriving – “We are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction. Our world is in peril – and paralyzed.”

By Edith M. Lederer 27 September 2022 UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The war in Ukraine and its global fallout transfixed the meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly this year. When it wasn’t out front, it lurked in the background of virtually every speech. There were near-unanimous calls for an end to the […]

World corn stocks in consumption days, 2008-2022 and projected to 2023. Poor weather in key agricultural regions from the United States to France and China is shrinking grain harvests and cutting inventories, heightening the risk of famine in some of the world's poorest nations. Data: International Grains Council. Graphic: Prinz Magtulis / Reuters

September 27, 2022

Droughts, Ukraine war push global grain stocks toward worrying decade low – “It’s lining up to be like 2012. No one wants to admit it, but it’s true.”

By Tom Polansek 26 September 2022 CHICAGO (Reuters) – The world is heading toward the tightest grain inventories in years despite the resumption of exports from Ukraine, as the shipments are too few and harvests from other major crop producers are smaller than initially expected, according to grain supply and crop forecast data. Poor weather […]