conflict – Page 9 – Desdemona Despair

World Bank COVID-19 Business Pulse Survey Dashboard, March 2022. Data cover 24 middle-and low-income countries. As of January 2021, 40 percent of surveyed businesses expected to be in arrears within six months, including more than 70% of firms in Nepal and the Philippines and over 60 percent of firms in Turkey and South Africa. Graphic: World Bank

May 5, 2022

The next global debt crisis is hiding in plain sight – With emergency debt moratoriums ending, vulnerable households and businesses confront loan repayments they can no longer afford

By Carmen Reinhart and Leora Klapper 2 May 2022 WASHINGTON (Project Syndicate) – When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, private-debt crises were probably already brewing—albeit hidden from view—in many parts of the world, as a result of the economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the war is pushing even more countries toward similar […]

Press freedom situation in 180 countries and territories, 2013-2022. Graphic: Reporters Sans Frontières

May 3, 2022

RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index: a new era of polarisation – Journalism situation classified “very bad” in record number of 28 countries

2 May 2022 (RSF) – The 20th World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reveals a two-fold increase in polarisation amplified by information chaos – that is, media polarisation fuelling divisions within countries, as well as polarisation between countries at the international level. Читать на русском / Read in Russian The 2022 […]

Estonian cargo vessel the Helt sinks off Odessa, Ukraine, 3 March 2022. Reports claimed the Helt was captured by Russian forces on 2 March 2022 and scuttled. Photo: Andrii Klymenko

April 30, 2022

Russia’s war destroys Ukraine’s economy, spurs global food and economic crisis – “The war in Ukraine can throw more than 1/5 of humanity into poverty, destitution, and hunger on a scale not seen in decades”

25 April 2022 (Euromaidan Press) – February 23 was an ordinary workday for the thousands of employees on two very different facilities: Chornobayivka chicken farm near Kherson and Azovstal, a giant steel mill in Mariupol. Now, after two months of the war, they are equally jobless due to the destruction of both enterprises: either by […]

U.S. soybean oil futures, U.N. FAO edible oils index, and Malaysia palm oil futures, 2002-2022. Global edible oil prices have soared to all-time highs in 2022 on supply shocks. Graphic: Refinitiv / Reuters

April 23, 2022

Indonesia bans palm oil exports as global food inflation spikes – “Sky would be the limit for edible oil prices now”

By Fransiska Nangoy 22 April 2022 JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil producer, announced plans to ban exports of the most widely used vegetable oil on Friday, in a shock move that could further inflame surging global food inflation. The halting of shipments of the cooking oil and its raw material, widely […]

Sri Lanka rice farmer Niluka Dilrukshi with his wife, Milinda, and their two children. They saw their rice crop deplete by 60 percent in the last harvest due to the government chemical pesticide ban. Photo: Hannah Ellis-Petersen / The Guardian

April 21, 2022

Sri Lanka reels from rash fertiliser ban – “If things go on like this, in the future it will be hard to find a farmer left in Sri Lanka”

By Hannah Ellis-Petersen 20 April 2022 RAJANGANAYA, Sri Lanka (The Guardian) – Driving through the verdant landscape of Rajanganaya, a rural district in north Sri Lanka where the hibiscus flowers pop out of rich green foliage and the mango trees are already weighed down by early fruit, it is hard to imagine this is a […]

FAO Food Price Index (left) and FAO Food Commodity Price Indices (right), January 2021 - March 2022. Graphic: FAO

April 8, 2022

The FAO Food Price Index makes a giant leap to another all-time high in March 2022

8 April 2022 (FAO) – The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 159.3 points in March 2022, up 17.9 points (12.6 percent) from February, making a giant leap to a new highest level since its inception in 1990. The latest increase reflects new all-time highs for vegetable oils, cereals, and meat sub-indices, while those of […]

Afghan children play in the mud at an unofficial camp for internally displaced people in Herat, Afghanistan, May 2021. Photo: Charlie Faulkner

April 4, 2022

Devastated by worst drought in decades and economic turmoil, many in Afghanistan near starvation – “It is the speed, scale and source of the crisis that is so extreme”

By Holly Rosenkrantz 3 April 2022 (USA TODAY) – Afghanistan has faced grave hunger crises before. Two decades ago, people in the country were so hungry they resorted to eating wild grass. But the situation in the country now is unprecedented. Exacerbated by an unusually cold winter and the worst drought in decades, the economic […]

A body of a woman, who according to residents was executed by Russian army soldiers, lies on the street, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Bucha, in the region of Kyiv, Ukraine, 2 April 2022. Photo: Zohra Bensemra / REUTERS

April 3, 2022

Human Rights Watch report on atrocities in Russia-controlled areas of Ukraine: Summary executions, rape, and other grave abuses – “The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians”

3 April 2022 (Warsaw) – Human Rights Watch has documented several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations against civilians in occupied areas of the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine. These include a case of repeated rape; two cases of summary execution, one of six men, the other of one man; and other cases of […]

Futures prices of West Texas intermediate crude oil and lithium, May 2021-March 2022. Graphic: Bloomberg

March 29, 2022

A world that’s more expensive is starting to destroy demand – “A renewed spike in gas prices would see demand destruction become more widespread”

By David R Baker, Allison Smith, and Sheela Tobben 27 March 2022 (Bloomberg) – Prices for some of the world’s most pivotal products – foods, fuels, plastics, metals – are spiking beyond what many buyers can afford. That’s forcing consumers to cut back and, if the trend grows, may tip economies already buffeted by pandemic […]

Tokyo Tower is illuminated only in the lower-half part in response to the government’s request to save electricity in Tokyo, Japan on 22 March 2022. Photo: Issei Kato / REUTERS

March 27, 2022

The future of energy will require bigger sacrifices from citizens – “If you don’t want to act on going 1 degree lower for climate change, do it against Putin”

By Stephen Stapczynski and Shoko Oda 25 March 2022 (Bloomberg News) – Not since the late 1970s have governments around the world been under so much pressure to ask their citizens to cut energy consumption for the greater good. The need for more energy conservation has snowballed: The war in Ukraine is forcing Europe to curb […]