The annually occurring ozone hole over the Antarctic is one of the largest and deepest in recent years. Analyses show that the hole has reached its maximum size. The 2020 ozone hole grew rapidly from mid-August and peaked at around 24 million square kilometers in early October. It now covers 23 million km2, above average for the last decade, and spreading over most of the Antarctic continent.
Argentina is experiencing an economic and health crisis due to the coronavirus. This is why there are many critics of the management of the Government of Alberto Fernández. One of the most vocal is the former president and current vice-president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Two months after China said it found residues of Covid-19 in a batch of chicken wings imported from Brazil, Beijing authorities repeated the announcement, but this time in relation to Brazilian beef. Apparently, traces of Covid-19 were detected in beef packaging during an inspection carried out at the Port of Dalian, one of the largest in the country.
In the wake of heat waves, global warming, forest fires, storms, droughts, and a rising number of hurricanes, the UN weather agency is warning that the number of people who need international humanitarian help could rise 50% by 2030 compared to the 108 million who needed it worldwide in 2018.
The European Union demanded a substantive movement on Tuesday from Britain on fisheries, dispute settlement, and guarantees of fair competition in their talks on a post-Brexit trade deal, with Germany saying they were at a critical stage.
Their arms raised towards the sky, worshippers of Mexico's saint of death pray before a giant cloaked skeleton asking for protection from the coronavirus and its devastating economic fallout. The Grim Reaper-like figure, whose devotees include drug cartel members as well as ordinary Mexicans, has been rejected by the Roman Catholic Church as blasphemous.
Mario Molina, the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995 and the only Mexican scientist to be honored with a Nobel, died last week in his native Mexico City. He was 77 years old.
Thousands of Argentines flying the national colors on Monday took to the streets across the country's main cities to protest against the government of President Alberto Fernandez and his policies, which after over 200 days of quarantine/isolation have been unable to contain the pandemic, left the economy in shatters and threaten democratic institutions.
President Jair Bolsonaro has never been more popular in Brazil, despite his country's woeful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bolsonaro, who tested positive for the virus on July 7, has dismissed it as a “little flu”. Brazil passed five million Covid-19 cases on Tuesday and recorded its 150.000th death on Saturday.
The vast majority of International Monetary Fund loans extended during the Covid-19 pandemic have suggested or demanded spending cuts that would worsen poverty and inequality, charity group Oxfam says.