Pets are big business in Japan.

 The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF),  Kristalina Georgieva, has said the war in Ukraine could result in a recession for more vulnerable countries.

“Since then the horizon has darkened,” she said, pointing out that the impact of the war in Ukraine was being amplified by a tightening of financial conditions, a rising US dollar and a slowdown in China. “2022 is going to be a tough year.”

Asked whether the IMF was forecasting a global recession, Georgieva replied: “Not at this point. It doesn’t mean one is out of the question…What we may see is recession in some countries that are weak to begin with. They haven’t recovered from the Covid crisis. They’re highly dependent on imports from Russia, of energy or food, and they have a somewhat weaker environment already.”

The IMF  had recently downgraded the growth prospects for 143 of its member states, which represent 80% of global output.

Georgieva said there had been a sense over the past week that the global economy was getting into rougher waters. The oil price had come down but “food prices continue to go up, up, up, up”. She said: “We can shrink the use of petrol when growth slows down but we have to eat every day. The anxiety about access to food at a reasonable price, globally, is hitting the roof.”

Jane Fraser, the chief executive of the US investment bank Citigroup, explained, “Europe is right in the middle of the storms from supply chains, from the energy crisis, and obviously just the proximity to some of the atrocities that are occurring in Ukraine,” she said.

War in Ukraine could cause recession in weaker economies, IMF boss warns | Davos | The Guardian

 Basic goods and services for a typical family with two young children are about £400 a month more expensive than they were last year. Energy prices added about £120 to families’ monthly costs as price caps rose and cheap tariffs ended. Transport costs, including petrol and parking charges, added at least £85 to families’ outgoings, while childcare costs rose by £66 a month.

 The gap between the pay of company executives and other workers is set to widen this year after falling during the height of the Covid pandemic, the High Pay Centre said.

The fortunes of food and energy billionaires have grown by $453bn over the past two years owing to soaring energy and commodity prices during the pandemic and Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, a report by Oxfam has revealed.  The charity said spiralling global food prices had helped create “62 new food billionaires” in just 24 months.

Cargill, which is one of the world’s largest food traders, now counts 12 family members as billionaires, up from eight before the pandemic. The Cargill family, along with three other companies, controls 70% of the global agricultural market.

Food prices, which are up more than 30% over the past year on average, are likely to push more than 263 million more people into acute poverty than before the pandemic. That would take the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day to 860 million by the end of the year. That is equivalent to the populations of the UK, France, Germany, and Spain combined.

A total of 573 new billionaires have emerged during the pandemic. Oxfam said the coronavirus crisis had been “the best time in recorded history for the billionaire class”.

Danny Sriskandarajah, the chief executive of Oxfam GB, said: “It is morally indefensible that people in east Africa are dying of hunger while the fortunes of the world’s super-rich are fuelled by skyrocketing food and energy prices. At a time when hundreds of millions more people are facing extreme poverty, there can be no excuse for governments not to address gargantuan profits and wealth in order to ensure that no one is left behind.”

Billionaires’ combined wealth stands at $12.7tn, according to Forbes magazine’s ranking on the super-rich. That is the equivalent to 13.9% of global GDP, and a threefold increase from 2000. The fortunes of the richest 20 billionaires are greater than the entire GDP of sub-Saharan Africa.

Food and energy billionaires $453bn richer than two years ago, finds Oxfam | The super-rich | The Guardian

  A recent report from the Poor People’s Campaign highlights a key overlooked demographic in the pandemic response: poor and low-income people. Data from over 3,200 counties across the United States show that, after the first wave of the pandemic, poor counties experienced substantially higher death rates than richer counties. 

 During the pandemic, people living in poorer counties died at nearly two times the rate of people who lived in richer counties: After grouping counties by median household income into ten groups with equal population size (deciles), the report shows that death rates in the highest income group are half the death rates in the lowest income group.

 • During the deadliest phases of the pandemic, poorer counties saw many times more deaths than wealthier counties: 

A recent Pew study that broke the pandemic up into six phases shows that the deadliest phases of the pandemic to date were in winter 2020-2021 and the Omicron period.

 Except for the first phase in March 2020, death rates were many times higher in poorer counties than in richer counties: 

 – The second phase was mostly experienced by poorer counties. 

 – During the third phase (winter 2020-2021), death rates were 4.5 times higher in counties with the lowest median income than in counties with the highest. 

– During the Delta variant phase (August-November 2021), death rates were five times higher in these low-income counties. 

– The Omicron variant phase (approx. December 2021-February+) has had a death rate nearly three times higher in counties with the lowest median incomes compared to those with the highest median incomes

ExecutiveSummary_7.pdf (poorpeoplescampaign.org)

 Of more than 7,000 edible plants worldwide, only 417 are widely grown and used for food.

 Who runs the country?

Judge Robert Summerhays of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana—an appointee of then-President Donald Trump—concurred with 24 Republican-controlled states’ assertion that the Biden administration’s decision to terminate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rule “violates the Administrative Procedures Act” because it “failed to consider the effects of a Title 42 termination on immigration enforcement and the states.”

The injunction blocks the administration of Biden from lifting Title 42, a Trump-era public health order that both presidents have invoked to deport around two million asylum-seekers under the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic. First implemented by the Trump administration in March 2020 at the pandemic’s onset, Title 42—a provision of the Public Health Safety Act allowing the government to prohibit entry into the U.S. of people who could pose health risks—was continued by Biden. More Title 42 removals have occurred during Biden’s tenure than Trump’s.

Blame the Republicans?

 Last month a bill by Sen. James Lankford (D-Okla.)—and co-sponsored by right-wing Democrats including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas)— was introduced to codify Title 42.

“If Congress locks Title 42 into law, what we’re really talking about is creating an asylum system that selectively doles out protection for certain groups, while keeping out Black and Brown people,” Helena Olea, associate director of programs at Alianza Americas, said in a statement. Olea contended that “Title 42 was never about protecting public health. It was about eliminating the possibility of asylum for people who cross the border by foot, fleeing instability and violence resulting from multiple factors, including U.S. policies.”

Tami Goodlette, director of litigation at the immigrant legal aid group RAICES, called the judge’s decision “both infuriating and unlawful.”

“President Biden could have ended Title 42 and all of Trump’s inhumane and immoral policies as soon as he took office in January 2021 with the flick of a pen,” she continued, “but instead, he surrounded himself with centrist advisers who coddled his fears on immigration reform and embraced deterrence as their central priority on immigration.” Goodlette then added, “Now, the anti-immigrant right-wing agenda continues to fly forward unchecked and immigrants seeking safety and asserting their legal right to asylum will continue to pay the price.” 

“Beyond the devastating humanitarian impact of Title 42, the court’s ruling also fails to recognize well-established domestic and international law,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. “Seeking asylum is a legal right, and yet this bedrock of the American legal system is quickly eroding at a time of unprecedented need.”

‘Arbitrary, Racist, and Unfair’: Judge Blocks Biden From Ending Title 42 (commondreams.org)

Expanding drought conditions, coupled with hot and dry weather, extreme wind and unstable atmospheric conditions, have led to explosive fire behavior in the south-western US, federal officials warned.  The climate crisis has set the stage for increasing and intensifying heatwaves in the coming decades, and models indicate that there could be between 25 and 30 extreme events a year by mid-century – up from an average of between four and six a year historically. They are also expected to cover wider swaths of land regionally than before.

Wildfires have broken out this spring earlier than usual across multiple states in the western US, where climate change and an enduring drought are fanning the frequency and intensity of forest and grassland fires. The nation is far outpacing the 10-year average for the number of square miles burned so far this year. Nationally, more than 5,700 wildland firefighters were battling 16 uncontained large fires that had charred over a half-million acres (2,025 sq km) of dry forest and grassland, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The largest fire currently burning in the US has blackened more than 300,000 acres.  In New Mexico,  the country’s biggest blaze – and the largest in state history – continues to burn.

Dozens of states across the US are bracing for historically high spring temperatures this weekend, as a scorching heatwave moves east. The early onslaught of sweltering weather, before what’s expected to be another hot, dry summer, is forecast to break or tie roughly 130 heat records for this time of year, with temperatures between 20F and 30F above average in the mid-Atlantic and north-east.

More than 120 million Americans are expected to be affected by the punishing heat, raising fears of health risks for the most vulnerable, outdoor workers and those who do not have access to indoor cooling. The National Weather Service issued a special statement cautioning residents to remain vigilant for signs of heat illness, take breaks inside when possible, and stay hydrated. Heat is a silent killer, often responsible for more deaths than higher-profile disasters like floods, hurricanes or tornadoes, and the rising toll is expected to worsen as the world warms.

Records are expected to be broken in large swaths of the east, including in Washington DC, forecast to hit 96F on Saturday, and in Boston, which could get up to 93F. Already, Texas has been pummeled by the heat, which delivered Dallas’s hottest May in history, and the south-west has cooked as strong winds fanned wildfire risks throughout the drought-stricken region.

Meanwhile, India’s heatwave also continues.  Last weekend, as temperatures in some parts of India’s capital Delhi hit a record-breaking 49C. 

“In a warming world, I would expect a place like India to experience these types of events as the norm rather than as an extreme,” said Luke Parsons, a climate researcher in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. “As we warm the globe, not only do the midday temperatures rise, but also the heat exposure in the early morning hours and evenings, times when outdoor workers traditionally do more labour intensive tasks. Therefore we will see more people exposed to extreme and unsafe labour conditions.”

Farmers across north India began to harvest their wheat crop in mid-April, amid temperatures that were regularly above 40C, they were confronted with damaged, shrivelled grain. Unseasonable winter rain and then a scorching summer heatwave that arrived two months early – both markers of climate change – had stunted crop growth and laid waste to grain and their livelihoods. The wheat harvest losses, which occurred across India, have left the farmers in terrible debt, having loaned money from a middleman to pay for seeds and fertiliser, but all found themselves with at least 50% less grain to sell. Profits from the harvest were not nearly enough to cover the money owed, and now interest on those debts is rising.

The low wheat yield had meant that the government’s own supplies have dipped to a 13-year low, and the shortage – exacerbated by alleged hoarding of wheat by private traders – led to prices in wheat and flour soaring by 40% in recent weeks. The Indian government announced it was putting a ban on all wheat exports, due to the heatwave decimating India’s expected harvest. 

 German agricultural minister Cem Özdemir warned that “if everyone starts to impose export restrictions or to close markets, that would worsen the crisis”. The United States said it hoped “India would reconsider” its decision to ban wheat exports which “will make the current global food shortage even worse”. 

Historic heatwave poised to hit dozens of US states this weekend | US weather | The Guardian

India’s wheat farmers count cost of 40C heat that evokes ‘deserts of Rajasthan’ | India | The Guardian

 The World Food Programme estimates about 49 million people face emergency levels of hunger. 

About 811 million go to bed hungry each night. 

The number of people on the brink of starvation across Africa’s Sahel region, for example, is at least 10 times higher than in pre-Covid 2019.

The total number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food assistance has nearly doubled since 2016, according to the Global Network Against Food Crises, a joint UN and EU project. 

 “An absolute crisis is unfolding before our eyes,” the World Food Programme’s director, David Beasley, said following visits to Benin, Niger and Chad. “We’re running out of money, and these people are running out of hope.”

Apocalypse now? The alarming effects of the global food crisis | World news | The Guardian