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The AidData lab at the College of William & Mary has found 22 countries that have relied on often-opaque emergency lending from China since 2000, either via liquidity swaps with China's central bank or lines of credit from state-owned Chinese banks. This emergency lending is often at higher interest rates than emergency loans from the IMF, for example, and may not be recorded as external debt, concealing a country's actual debt load. www.statista.com/chart/29603/chinese-emergency-bailouts
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Foods represent a key intersection between biogeography and cultural geography. This article from Geographical (UK) looks at the importance of the nsenene, a seasonal, edible grasshopper, to communities in Kampala, the capital of Uganda: geographical.co.uk/culture/ugandas-beneficial-nsenene-feast
The Chagos Islands have been in the news this week. The Chagos Archipelago is in the Indian Ocean, northeast of Madagascar and Mauritius and south of the Maldives. In the 1960s and '70s, the British government forced more than 1,000 residents of the Chagos Islands to leave their homes to make way for a military base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, that was then leased to the United States. The Chagossians have fought for their return ever since. This week Human Rights Watch called for Britain to pay reparations to the Chagossians and allow for their return to their homes.
www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F21f707ea-3949-11e9-8581-34e77e2582ca.png Valentine's Day is a major chocolate-giving holiday. This site has an interesting collection of links related to the geography of chocolate: cocoarunners.com/the-geography-of-chocolate/
Over the last two decades, China's economic influence in Africa has grown enormously, as a lender, as a buyer of raw materials, and, as this map shows, as a primary source of imported goods. www.statista.com/chart/26668/main-import-countries-sources-africa
Megacities are generally defined as metropolitan areas of at least 10 million people. There are currently 33-35 megacities, depending on who is counting and who is being counted. This map looks at cities expected to reach megacity status by 2050: bucket.mlcdn.com/a/2764/2764870/images/0d7ca37bc55b1c8101a1a5e77cb243aae75162b2.jpeg
This geo-graphic from Statista looks at "land grabs" in the developing world, defined as "the buying, leasing or concession land use for commercial purposes by companies from abroad, affecting land that had previously been used communally, by small-scale shareholders or was natural environment." (Until 2019, the country experiencing the most land grabs was Peru, but Peru is not on this list because it has been reclassified as an upper-middle income country.) cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/19044.jpeg
For more than 7 years, Egypt has been planning and building a new capital city 40 miles east of Cairo. New Administrative Capital, as the city is called, is not yet complete, but civil servants are being asked to move to the new capital beginning this month, in the hope that other Egyptians will follow: www.wsj.com/articles/egypt-is-spending-billions-on-a-new-capital-that-egyptians-may-not-visit-11671838772
Negotiations over a "cap" on the price paid for Russian oil has been in the news recently. This geo-graphic from Al Jazeera highlights Russia's role in global oil markets: bucket.mlcdn.com/a/2764/2764870/images/e37fb5d7fa9398245e8017714bc383775d23a256.png
The world's tropical glaciers -- in Asia, in Africa, and in South America -- are essential sources of water for billions of people. This article looks at the looming disappearance of Africa's glaciers, due not just to warming but to drought and changing rainfall patterns across East Africa: www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/kenya-glaciers-africa-climate-change/
Electric vehicles are dependent on a variety of minerals. This article from The Wall Street Journal includes maps that show where cobalt and manganese, as well as lithium and nickel, are mined and refined: www.wsj.com/articles/electric-vehicles-scarce-parts-supply-chain-11668206037
This topological map from Visual Capitalist shows the number and percentage of each country's population deemed to be at high risk from once-in-a-century flooding, like the floods that inundated more than one-third of Pakistan earlier this fall, killing more than 1,700 people, destroying buildings and crops, and creating lasting crises in food security, education, and waterborne disease. www.visualcapitalist.com/countries-highest-flood-risk/
Chad's capital of N'Djamena sits at the confluence of the two major rivers that feed Lake Chad, to the north of the capital. A rainy season that came early and has produced unusually heavy rains, after years of drought, resulted in massive flooding in N'Djamena over the weekend, with many streets in the capital navigable only by boat. www.nationsonline.org/maps/Chad-political-map.jpg
Uganda is experiencing an outbreak of Ebola in the districts shown in brown on this map (from Forbes), all of which are northwest of the capital of Kampala, on the shores of Lake Victoria. Unlike previous Ebola outbreaks, the current outbreak in Uganda is caused by a strain for which there is no vaccine, no effective antiviral treatment, and no rapid test. imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/634062ae9ae26158286461d8/960x0.jpg
Africa, which produces about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, is expected to be hard hit by climate change. This map, from Statista, shows country-by-country assessments of Africa's anticipated resilience to climate change, based on a combination of forecasts vis-a-vis climate impact, local livelihoods, and governmental capacity to respond. www.statista.com/chart/28136/index-scores-for-climate-resilience-of-african-countries/
The Chinese government has become one of the world's biggest lenders, especially to countries in the developing world and those associated with its Belt and Road Initiative. This map, from Statista based on World Bank data, shows which countries are most indebted to China: www.statista.com/chart/19642/external-loan-debt-to-china-by-country/
Liquifying natural gas is a more expensive, energy-intense alternative to pipelines in the delivery of natural gas. Several European countries are trying to bring more liquified natural gas (LNG) capacity online as quickly as possible to replace Russian, pipeline-delivered gas. This geo-graphic from Statista looks at which countries are currently the biggest suppliers of LNG: www.statista.com/chart/27839/biggest-liquefied-natural-gas-exporters
Because inexpensive armed drones, including Turkey's TB2 drones, proved decisive in the 2020 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, other countries have been looking to add them to their arsenals. This map, from ProPublica, shows which countries have used TB2s, purchased TB2s, or are trying to purchase TB2s: assets-c3.propublica.org/images/articles/Screen-Shot-2022-07-15-at-5.48.51-PM.png
A viral hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola -- Marburg virus -- has recently been confirmed in Ghana for the first time, in the southern Ashanti region highlighted on this map. Unlike Ebola, Marburg has no vaccine. The Ashanti region is home to Ghana's second largest city, Kumasi. ghananursing2014.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/ashanti-region.jpg
According to a new report from the United Nations, global population is projected to hit 8 billion on November 15 of this year, India is expected to surpass China as the world's most populous country in 2023, and more than half of global population growth between now and 2050 will be concentrated in just 8 countries (alphabetically): the DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tanzania. For all the details, you can download the report here: www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/wpp2022_summary_of_results.pdf
In 2021, the European Union exported 33 million tonnes of waste to non-EU countries, a 77% increase in exported waste since 2004. Where did it go? This geo-graphic from Statista shows the top eight destinations for EU waste in 2021: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/24716.jpeg (China which, as recently as 2009 received more than 10 million tonnes of EU waste, now takes virtually none.)
World Refugee Day was earlier this week. Although Ukrainian refugees -- now numbering 5.2 million -- have dominated the news this year, this map from Statista is a reminder that Ukrainians are just a fraction of the world's refugees: www.statista.com/chart/18436/total-number-of-refugees-by-origin-country
This article from Geographical (UK) profiles the world's 10 fastest-growing cities -- chances are you've heard of relatively few of them -- and looks at new additions to the list of the world's megacities (population 10M+): geographical.co.uk/culture/the-fastest-growing-cities?
Although Russia has been the focus of the world's liberal democracies for the last several months, countering China remains the long-term project. In the wake of a recent security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, The Economist (UK) looked at other countries in Asia, Africa, and Oceania in which China either already has a military base or likely has an interest in establishing a military base: www.economist.com/img/b/640/356/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20220507_CNM979.png (Map from www.economist.com/china/2022/05/05/china-wants-to-increase-its-military-presence-abroad.)
The war in Ukraine is bottling up wheat exports and, especially in the southern and eastern parts of the country, damaging winter wheat fields planted last fall and interfering with spring planting. This geo-graphic from Statista highlights the countries most dependent on Ukrainian and Russian wheat: www.statista.com/chart/27181/least-developed-countries-dependent-on-wheat-from-russia-ukraine
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