Colombia – Desdemona Despair

Dengue cases in Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras, 2023-2024 and 5-year average. In the Region of the Americas, the number of dengue cases recorded during the first half of 2024 exceeded the maximum number of cases historically reported in a year, as compared to all previously recorded years. As of epidemiological week (EW) 23 of 2024, 43 countries and territories in the Region of the Americas have reported 9,386,082 cases of dengue; this number is twice as high as the number of cases recorded throughout 2023, 4,617,108 cases. Data: Adapted from the Pan American Health Organization / PLISA Health Information Platform for the Americas, Dengue Indicators Portal, Washington, D.C. PAHO; 2024 cited 13 June 2024. Graphic: PAHO / WHO

July 7, 2024

Dengue fever: CDC issues alert amid U.S. and global spike in cases – In 2024, cases of dengue fever in the Americas have reached record-breaking levels, with more than 9.7 million reported cases, twice the number for the entire year in 2023

By Finn Cohen 27 June 2024 (Healthline) – As cases of dengue fever rise worldwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an advisory for physicians, public health authorities, and the public in the United States to be alert to the trend. So far in 2024, cases of dengue fever in countries in the Americas have reached record-breaking […]

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2021 and trend since 2000, including inventory-based Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) CO2 in GtCO2e (top) and Per capita GHG emissions in 2021 and trend since 2000, including inventory-based LULUCF CO2 in tCO2e/capita (bottom). Graphic: UNEP

December 29, 2023

Petrostates planning huge expansion of fossil fuels, says UN report – “These plans throw humanity’s future into question. Governments must stop saying one thing and doing another.”

By Damian Carrington 8 November 2023 (The Guardian) – The world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over, a UN report has found. Experts called the plans “insanity” which “throw humanity’s future into question”. The energy plans of the petrostates contradicted their climate policies and pledges, the report said. […]

Quantities of cocaine seized in selected markets, in comparison with global cocaine manufacture, 2005-2021. Graphic: UNODC

March 30, 2023

Cocaine production is at its highest level on record, UN says – Coca cultivation soared 35 per cent from 2020 to 2021, a record high and the sharpest year-to-year increase since 2016

By Natasha Turak 16 March 2023 (CNBC) – Cocaine production is at its highest level on record, with demand rebounding post-pandemic and new trafficking hubs emerging, a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found. The U.N.’s Global Report on Cocaine 2023 says new hubs for trafficking in the multibillion-dollar industry have […]

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 nations where journalists were killed or imprisoned during 2022. The IFJ released the latest figures ahead of International Human Rights Day, recording 67 killings of journalists and media staff in the line of duty in 2022 compared to 47 last year - a reversal of the decline recorded in recent years. Graphic: IFJ

December 20, 2022

67 journalists killed so far in 2022 – “The surge in the killings of journalists and other media workers is a grave cause of concern and yet another wake up call for governments across the globe to take action in the defence of journalism, one of the key pillars of democracy”

9 December 2022 (IFJ) – The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today renewed its call on the international community for concrete action to protect the safety and freedoms of journalists as it recorded a spike in the numbers of journalists killed or imprisoned during 2022. The vote on the IFJ Convention on the Safety and […]

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 […]

Maps showing poverty impact hotspots as percentages of countries’ population that could fall into poverty as a result of soaring food and energy prices. Among those countries likely facing high poverty impacts across all poverty lines are Armenia and Uzbekistan in the Caspian Basin; Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Sudan in Sub-Saharan Africa; Haiti in Latin America; and Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia. In these countries, around 3 percent of the population, on average, could fall into poverty. In Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Yemen, the impacts could be particularly hard at the lowest poverty lines, whereas in Albania, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, the hits could be hardest at $5.50 a day.7 Clear geographical hotspots, depending on the poverty line, emerge in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly in the Sahel region, the Balkans and the Caspian Basin. Graphic: UNDP

July 7, 2022

Cost-of-living crisis drives 71 million people into extreme poverty in three months – “This cost-of-living crisis is tipping millions of people into poverty and even starvation at breathtaking speed”

By Marc Jones 7 July 2022 LONDON (Reuters) – The global cost-of-living crisis is pushing an additional 71 million people in the world’s poorest countries into extreme poverty, a new report published by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday has warned. Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, said an analysis of 159 developing countries showed that […]

Evolution of democracy by category, 2008-2021. The EIU Democracy Index score ranges from 0 to 10, with 10 being best. this chart shows what has happened to the average global score across the five categories of the index between 2008 — before the global financial crisis — and 2021. The categories that have recorded the biggest deterioration in global terms are civil liberties (-1.00 on a 0-10 scale) and electoral process and pluralism (-0.47). Suggesting a possible correlation, functioning of government and political culture both recorded a very similar decline in their average global scores (-0.38 and -0.37 respectively). Graphic: EIU

May 3, 2022

EIU Democracy Index reached all-time low in 2021 – Fewer than half (45.7 percent) of the world’s people now live in a democracy of some sort – “Another bad year for democracy”

By Chauncey Devega 2 May 2022 (Salon) – Global democracy is sick. In the United States, Donald Trump’s supporters in the Republican Party continue to steamroll the Democrats and other pro-democracy forces. To say that the latter have for the most part been hapless, uncoordinated and paralyzed by denial is not overstating the case. Political scientists and […]

South African environmental activist Fikile Ntshangase was assassinated by four gunmen in her own home on 22 October 2020. “Mama” Ntshangase was a leading member of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation, which is taking legal action against the proposed expansion of an open-cast coal mine operated by Tendele Coal near Somkhele, situated near Hluhluwe–Imfolozi park, the oldest nature reserve in Africa. Photo: Rob Symons / All Rise

September 13, 2021

Record number of environmental activists murdered in 2020 – “Fighting the climate crisis carries an unbearably heavy burden for some, who risk their lives to save the forests, rivers, and biospheres”

By Claire Marshall 13 September 2021 (BBC) – A record number of activists working to protect the environment and land rights were murdered last year, according to a report by a campaign group. 227 people were killed around the world in 2020, the highest number recorded for a second consecutive year, the report from Global […]

Global quantities of cocaine seized, by region, 1998–2019. Quantities of cocaine seized reached record levels in 2019. In 2019, the global quantity of cocaine seized increased by 9.6 percent compared with the preceding year to reach 1,436 tons (of varying purities), a record high. The 90 percent increase in the quantities of cocaine seized between 2009 and 2019 is likely a reflection of a combination of factors, including an increase in cocaine manufacture (50 per cent between 2009 and 2019) and a subsequent increase in cocaine trafficking, as well as an increase in the efficiency of law enforcement, which may have contributed to an increase in the overall interception rate. Graphic: UNODC

June 28, 2021

Illegal drug trade back to business as usual in 2020 and 2021 – Cocaine production hits record high – Number of people using illegal drugs increased by 22 percent in 2010-2019 decade

By Pia Lee-Brago 28 June 2021 (The Philippine Star) – Around 275 million people used illegal drugs worldwide in the last year of unprecedented upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, up by 22 percent from 2010, and it is “business as usual” again for drug traffickers, according to the latest annual world drug report by […]