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

The statistics in this article from The New York Times Magazine are rather stunning, as is its conclusion about the cause of Britain's precipitous decline: "In December, as many as 500 patients per week were dying in Britain because of E.R. waits, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, a figure rivaling (and perhaps surpassing) the death toll from Covid-19. ... By the end of next year, the average British family will be less well off than the average Slovenian one, according to a recent analysis by John Burn-Murdoch at The Financial Times; by the end of this decade, the average British family will have a lower standard of living than the average Polish one." www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/uk-economic-decline-nhs.html

This map from Geographical (UK) is a reminder that the Eurasian plate, from Italy through Iran, is intensely seismically active: geographical.co.uk/science-environment/danger-zones-mapping-earthquakes-in-europe

As this map shows, thus far, the winter has proved warmer than usual in most of Europe, which has allowed natural gas and other energy prices to fall back to more normal levels. But a colder-than-usual winter in parts of Asia is creating natural gas shortages and heating problems in China, in particular.   (Map from www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/business/china-natural-gas-shortages.html.)

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

What is a "dunkelflaute" and why does it matter?  Without access to Russian gas, European consumers are at the mercy of Mother Nature: specifically, a particularly cold winter this year will spell trouble for energy supplies for the next 12 months and possibly beyond. A dunkelflaute is a German word that refers to cloudy, cold, windless weather -- the kind that increases heating demands while shutting down solar and wind production. The UK, for example, experienced a multi-day dunkelflaute earlier this month, with snow falling in London and wind energy dropping from 20% of the UK's electricity mix to 4%. qz.com/can-europe-survive-the-dreaded-dunkelflaute-1849886529

Working on behalf of a free press and the public's right to know is often a dangerous job. War zones figure into this map showing where the most journalists were killed in 2022, but Mexico continues to be the most dangerous place to be a journalist: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/1181.jpeg

Which countries have the largest share of their populations living abroad? It turns out island nations -- nearly one out of three Polynesians is living outside of their home country, for example -- and, not surprisingly, countries with stagnant economies and/or conflict are high on the list. This geo-graphic from Statista looks at the top 8 countries (min. population size 750,000) and a sampling of others:   www.statista.com/chart/4237/the-countries-with-the-most-people-living-overseas

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

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/ 

Cyprus has long been an offshore home for Russian assets.  Now, Cyprus is becoming a home for Russians themselves. Because of its membership in the EU and its liberal visa and immigration policies, Cyprus is seeing a major influx of Russian tech workers, in particular. According to some who left Russia, entire IT industries, like game design, have left Russia since February, despite the Russian government's attempts to keep IT workers in the country with discounted mortgages and military deferrals. Russians are not the only ones arriving in Cyprus, though; at least 16,000 Ukrainians have also arrived in Cyprus since February, contributing to domestic political tensions in Cyprus, which is supporting EU sanctions on Russia despite its long reliance on Russian money and Russian tourism. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/23/cyprus-russian-expat-tech-workers/

Natural gas prices are 8x higher than normal in Europe, and most countries are desperate to obtain and store enough natural gas to get them through the winter, but although liquified natural gas (LNG) deliveries are arriving, the capacity to regasify the LNG is maxed out. This map from Reuters shows more than 35 LNG ships waiting in the Atlantic and Mediterranean to offload their cargo at Spanish LNG terminals: graphics.reuters.com/EUROPE-ENERGY/LNG/dwvkroxdgpm/Congestion%20at%20Spain%20LNG%20Terminals.jpg  (Map from www.reuters.com/business/energy/dozens-lng-laden-ships-queue-off-europes-coasts-unable-unload-2022-10-17/.)

Partitioned from the rest of the island when Ireland (the country) was granted independence in 1921, Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, is the historically Protestant-majority northeastern section of Ireland (the island).  However, a recent census shows that Catholics now outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time. www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/world/europe/northern-ireland-census-catholics-protestants.html

Western Europe is one of the world's most rapidly aging regions. This geo-graphic looks at the anticipated increase in dementia rates by 2050 in a sampling of Western European countries: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/28310.jpeg

The fight for eastern Ukraine is not just about land or population or territorial integrity. It is also about Ukraine's mineral wealth, a disproportionate share of which lies east of the Dnieper River, as these maps show.  (Maps from  www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/10/ukraine-russia-energy-mineral-wealth/.)

This geo-graphic compares per capita spending on pharmaceuticals in the U.S. to that in a sampling of peer-group (OECD) countries: www.statista.com/chart/3967/which-countries-pay-the-most-for-medicinal-drugs

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

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.)

Soil composition is a vital but often-neglected component of physical and biogeography. Like the American Midwest, Ukraine and southern Russia have some of the world's most productive soil, called chernozem (in Eurasia and Canada) or mollisol (in the U.S). This article from Science News looks at ways in which war has a lasting impact on the underlying soil chemistry, hydrology, structure, and physical composition: www.sciencenews.org/article/ukraine-russia-war-soil-agriculture-crops. (For a map that shows soil types around the world, check out this one from the USDA: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/?cid=nrcs142p2_054013.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently compared himself to Czar Peter the Great, who waged war against neighbors to "reclaim" Russian lands. This map from Statista compares the borders of Russia today with the borders of the Russian empire at the beginning of WWI: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27605.jpeg

Historically, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was considered an autonomous subordinate of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (long considered first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox Church) announced its intention to grant autoencephaly (religious independence) to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at some point in the future, causing the Russian Orthodox Church to sever communion with Constantinople. In January 2019, after intense opposition by Russia, which reportedly included involvement of Russian security services operating in Ukraine, various factions of the Ukrainian Orthodox community agreed to unification, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was granted autoencephaly by Constantinople shortly thereafter. Since then, more than 2,000 Ukrainian parishes have switched from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to the newly unified and independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This map, created by a Reddit user 5 years ago, hints at the complexity of Orthodox Christianity in Europe and the Mediterranean. preview.redd.it/y2s27pd5oobz.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=cd386b0ae22f56b311ce36bfa4000926bf6f70d1

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

Tomorrow, French voters will go to the polls to choose between current president Emmanuel Macron and perennial far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. This geo-graphic from Statista shows where right-wing populist parties have had the most electoral success in Europe: www.statista.com/chart/20094/national-election-success-of-far-right-parties-europe (For those who cannot make out the flags to the left of the bars, the top three countries shown are Hungary, Poland, and Switzerland.)

Maps are powerful and easily understood vehicles for conveying geographic information. This excellent article from Geographical (UK) looks at the some of the less-obvious issues that  data visualization professionals are needing to consider as they prepare maps about the war in Ukraine, from color choices  to spatial precision to arrows or no arrows and more. geographical.co.uk/places/mapping/item/4316-mapping-ukraine