conflict – Page 3 – Desdemona Despair

EIU Democracy Index 2022, global map by regime type. The average global index score stagnated in 2022. Despite expectations of a rebound after the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions, the score was almost unchanged, at 5.29 (on a 0-10 scale), compared with 5.28 in 2021. The positive effect of the restoration of individual freedoms was cancelled out by negative developments globally. The scores of more than half of the countries measured by the index either stagnated or declined. Western Europe was a positive outlier, being the only region whose score returned to pre-pandemic levels. Graphic: EIU

February 3, 2023

EIU Democracy Index 2022: Frontline democracy and the battle for Ukraine – “Overall the story is one of stagnation. This is a dismal result given that in 2022 the world started to move on from the pandemic-related suppression of individual liberties that persisted through 2020 and 2021”

1 February 2023 (EIU) – The Democracy Index, which began in 2006, provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide in 165 independent states and two territories. This covers almost the entire population of the world and the vast majority of the world’s states (microstates are excluded). The Democracy Index is based on five […]

A sign that reads in Portuguese “Justice for Dom and Bruno” and with images of the British journalist Dom Phillips, on the left, and the indigenous specialist Bruno Pereira is displayed on the Arcos da Lapa aqueduct during a protest by environmental groups in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 26 June 2022. Brazilian police said Monday, 23 January 2023, they planned to indict Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, a Colombian fish trader, as the mastermind of the murders. Photo: Bruna Prado / AP Photo

January 30, 2023

Brazil police: Businessman ordered killings of men in Amazon

By Fabiano Maisonnave 23 January 2023 SAO PAULO (AP) – Brazilian police said Monday they planned to indict a Colombian fish trader as the mastermind of last year’s slayings of Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips. Ruben Dario da Silva Villar provided the ammunition to kill the pair, made phone calls to […]

The Doomsday Clock in 2023. In 2023, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the clock to 90 seconds from midnight, the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been. Graphic: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

January 25, 2023

2023 Doomsday Clock statement: A time of unprecedented danger – It is 90 seconds to midnight

By John Mecklin 24 January 2023 (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward, largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds […]

Percentage of OECD countries experiencing higher-than-average inflation, 1970-2022. The global inflation shock that began in the United States in 2021 and took hold worldwide in 2022 will have powerful economic and political ripple effects in 2023. It will be the principal driver of global recession, add to financial stress, and stoke social discontent and political instability everywhere. Today’s historically high inflation comes from multiple sources. First was the Covid-19 pandemic, which prompted governments to cushion the fall in incomes with extraordinary fiscal and monetary stimulus at the same time that it disrupted global supply. Then, just as the United States and Europe were coming out of the pandemic thanks to vaccines, China doubled down on its zero-Covid policy, locking down the global economy’s most important manufacturing and shipping hubs. Finally, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s sanctions in response put a strain on the global supply of energy, food, and fertilizer. This unprecedented confluence of overlapping shocks pushed inflation to levels most countries hadn’t seen in nearly 50 years. Graphic: Eurasia Group

January 22, 2023

Eurasia Group’s Top Risks for 2023 – “The risks this year are the most dangerous we’ve encountered in the 25 years since we started Eurasia Group”

By Ian Bremmer and Cliff Kupchan 3 January 2023 (Eurasia Group) – Russia has no way to win in Ukraine. The European Union is stronger than ever. NATO rediscovered its reason for being. The G7 is strengthening. Renewables are becoming dirt cheap. American hard power remains unrivaled. Midterms in the United States were decidedly normal […]

FAO Food Price Index in real terms, 1961-2022. In 2022, the U.N. organization’s Food Price Index hit the highest level since its records began in 1961, according to FAO data. Data: UN FAO. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

January 6, 2023

Global food prices in 2022 hit record high amid drought, war

ROME, 6 January 2023 (AP) – Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger worldwide. The FAO […]

Aerial view of people arriving at a displacement camp in southern Somalia in late September 2022. Photo: Jerome Delay / AP Photo

December 31, 2022

Doomiest Images of 2022

31 December 2022 (Desdemona Despair) – The year 2022 produced the usual terrible images of abrupt climate change, from record-breaking floods in Australia to drought-stricken refugees in Africa. But 2022 had a new subject for doom imagery: large-scale war in Europe, when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. War in Europe Not since the […]

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 […]

Satellite view of the Chibayish marshes in Iraq before and after drying from extended drought. Photo: Planet Labs

December 20, 2022

Politics, climate conspire as Tigris and Euphrates dwindle – “Life has ended here”

By Samya Kullab 18 November 2022 DAWWAYAH, Iraq and ILISU DAM, Turkey (AP) – Next year, the water will come. The pipes have been laid to Ata Yigit’s sprawling farm in Turkey’s southeast connecting it to a dam on the Euphrates River. A dream, soon to become a reality, he says. He’s already grown a […]

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 […]