SIPRI: From climate to war, world entering a critical era

The world is not ready for an age in which environmental degradation meets increased armed conflict, suggests a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.



Researchers found that armed international conflicts had doubled from 2010 to 2020

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has painted a vast and worrying picture in its latest report, entitled "Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk."

The independent research institute, or SIPRI, which has received worldwide recognition for its annual tracking of international arms exports, warns of a global emergency.

"A compound environmental crisis and a darkening security horizon are feeding each other in dangerous ways," SIPRI's researchers write. Felled forests, melting glaciers and polluted oceans are occurring simultaneously with an rise in the number of conflict-related deaths, arms expenditures and increasing numbers of people at risk of starvation. Pandemics pose further dangers.

Somalia provides an example of such simultaneous emergencies. The East African country is dealing with a two-year drought, poverty and attacks from the terror group al-Shabab.

Similar problems have arisen in Central America. Crop failures linked to climate change have combined with conflict and corruption to trigger a mass exodus toward the United States.

Greenland's ice sheets represent 8% of the world's frozen water — and they are melting faster every year

'Time to act is now'

Lacking a global plan, the world is "stumbling" into these intertwined dangers, according to SIPRI.

"Nature and peace are so closely linked that damaging one damages the other. By the same reasoning, enhancing one enhances the other," SIPRI's director, Dan Smith, told DW. "Action is possible — and the time to act is now."

The report's release coincides with the start of the ninth annual Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development and is SIPRI's wake-up call for politicians and decision-makers. According to SIPRI, many governments have failed to recognize the depths of the crises — or have even actively ignored the issues, allowing them to become worse.

Smith said some governments "would like to act, but they have other priorities that demand time and attention as a matter of urgency, such as the pandemic for the last two years and the war in Ukraine today."

Watch video 05:13 Climate and conflict

The 30 authors of the report, drawn from SIPRI and other institutes, conclude that, though humans overall are financially better off than they used to be, they are also more insecure in many other ways. Over 93 pages, the authors describe the consequences of regional catastrophes and conflicts in an interconnected world.

Extreme weather events caused by climate change and the coronavirus pandemic have threatened global supply chains. Conflicts and crop disasters have made farming unreliable, sending farmers into the global migration flows. Often the countries that farmers are fleeing from are also dealing with high poverty levels and poor governance, according to SIPRI.

SIPRI reports that the number of armed conflicts between countries doubled from 2010 to 2020, to 56. The number of refugees and displaced people around the world also doubled, rising to 82.4 million.

In 2020, there was also an increase in the number of nuclear warheads in the world — after years of decreases. In 2021, the world's military spending exceeded $2 trillion (€1.9 trillion) for the first time.

Unsustainable exploitation continues

The SIPRI paper also explores climate change, pointing out a number of sobering facts: About one in four species face extinction; the number of pollinating insects is rapidly declining; soil quality is deteriorating; and natural resources continue to be exploited at unsustainable levels.

Climate change is also leading to more frequent and intense extreme weather events. "The pandemic shows us clearly the risks we run when we choose not to prepare," Margot Wallstrom, Sweden's former foreign minister and a former European commissioner for the environment, said in a statement accompanying the report's release.

"As the environmental and security crises get worse, governments need to assess what risks lie ahead, to develop the capacity to deal with them and to make societies more resilient," said Wallstrom, the chair of the panel of international experts who helped guide the project's researchers.

The researchers write that South Korea provides a good example of how to act with foresight. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, South Korea applied lessons learned during the 2002 SARS outbreak.

Over the two years of the pandemic so far, South Korea has mostly managed to keep its national mortality rate to about 10% of that of countries with similar-sized populations. In doing so, South Korea has also avoided many of the economic and societal problems that other countries have dealt with.

Common threats

The SIPRI researchers also offer possible off-ramps for the global crisis, as well as short-term measures. This new era of risk requires new modes of cooperation to address common threats. And, according to the report, decision-making processes everywhere from the United Nations to municipal projects should always involve the people who will most feel the impact.

But is this kind of advice realistic? Given Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the potential for a new Iron Curtain and tensions between China and the West, is the idea of improved international cooperation not just wishful thinking?

"Assuming something is impossible makes it impossible," said Smith. He suggested that self-interest should convince governments to act. Officials know that "the environmental degradation is generating — and will generate — insecurity," he said. And that "can only be addressed by cooperating," he added.

"Since they need security, they need to reverse environmental deterioration," said Smith. "They can do this only by working together, as China and the US recognized in their joint statement on cooperating on climate action at COP26 last November in Glasgow."

As a major economic power, Germany can play a vital role in shaping the necessary change, said Smith. "Germany was the first country to raise the links between climate change and insecurity at the UN Security Council." Now, he said, Germany has the opportunity to "start with an energy transition that doesn't just wean it off Russian fossil fuels, but off fossil fuels altogether."

This article was originally written in German

WORLD WATER CONFLICTS: THE GLOBAL HOT SPOTS

Water conflicts worldwide

Water conflicts have more than doubled over the last 10 years compared to previous decades, research shows. Sometimes the essential resource is at the root of these clashes but more often than not, disputes over water alone will not spark violence. Instead, water can act as an accelerant when mixed together with other problems, such as poverty, inequality and hunger.

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 SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

COACHING IS ABUSE

Sport's serious problem with 'sextortion'

The nature of organized sport can "perpetuate the issue of sextortion," according to an international anti-corruption body. High-profile sexual abuse cases in sport have drawn attention but the problems run deep.

The issue of 'sextortion' has often been swept under the carpet in sports

A worryingly high prevalence of "sextortion" within the sport sector has been highlighted in Transparency International's latest report.

A survey of German athletes, one of four countries alongside Romania, Mexico and Zimbabwe focused on by the corruption watchdog, saw slightly more than one in three report they had experienced at least one situation of sexual violence in organized sport.

While recent high-profile cases in sports such as gymnastics and football have underlined the extent of sexual abuse, the issue remains largely under-reported within the industry.

Sextortion — defined as the abuse of power to obtain a sexual benefit, a form of both sexual abuse and corruption — is yet to be widely recognized.

Power dynamics

"What I found striking is the sports sector provides all the conditions needed to be met to perpetuate this issue of sextortion," Marie Chene, Head of Research at Transparency International, told DW.

"The power differentials are huge, there are a lot of children in vulnerable positions, coach and athlete relationships that are very close, emotional and physical because of the nature of sport.

"The relationship has the power to make or break your career in some cases and there is a general governance environment which is very weak. It creates an explosive environment."

Simone Biles was one of a number of US Gymnastics athletes who spoke up about sexual abuse

Due to the relatively new defintion of sextortion, the report relied upon statistics compiled on sexual abuse within sport, which was found to be rife across all sporting disciplines around the globe.

Nevertheless, a key component behind TI's decision to investigate sextortion within the sporting industry was the belief that the sector holds the power to provide a basis of real change.

"We consider the sport sector to have a key role to play in shaping values," Chene explained. "In principle sport is about social justice, it's about fair play and merit.

"If sexual abuse, which is one of the two components of sextortion, is happening in sport it undermines the mission that the sector has. Sport is very visible and if we want to make this issue visible, and have sextortion recognized as a form of corruption, we felt the sport sector could be a good vehicle for that."

Although many of the cases from which statistics were drawn showed both genders were affected by sextortion, the report confirmed that studies consistently proved the perpetrators of sexual abuse to be overwhelmingly men.

Gender disparity

The proportion of male abusers ranged from 96%-100% across various studies. TI criticized what it termed a "hyper-masculine culture." This, coupled with a lack of gender equality for female athletes in terms of pay and visibility, and few women in organizational positions of power, only further propagates the issue.

"Women's sports is not valued as much as men's sport," Chene added. "There is a huge gender pay gap, very little representation of women athletes and women in leadership and governance roles.

"There is this 'old boys network' where old men stay in positions of power for decades have no incentive to change the status quo, so the system perpetuates itself."

Sylvia Schenk, Chair of the Working Group on Sport at Transparency International Germany, explained in a statement: "From China's Peng Shuai whose alleged assault by a senior government official was covered up, to the US' Kylie McKenzie, who no longer has a chance to compete after facing long-term harassment and abuse from her association-assigned coach —  far too many have faced the consequences of a sexist and exploitative system."

The case of Peng Shuai drew international attention

Attempts to change have lacked true oversight with the German Olympic Sports Confederation's (DOSB) adoption of the Munich Declaration for the Protection against Sexualized Violence in Sport in 2010 falling flat.

The declaration's 15 measures include the prevention of sexual violence as a mandatory topic in sport qualifications and the adoption of a code of ethics.

Nine years later, a study showed that fewer than half of the national sport federations included the prevention of sexual abuse in their statutes.

Prevention paramount

It forced the DOSB to introduce a policy which has made public funding for the federations conditional on the adoption of prevention measures.

Equally, inadequate reporting systems for sports organizations also continue to further hamper progress in addressing and preventing sexual abuse.

"To stop enabling abuse, sports organizations and governments must act," Schenk continued in a statement.

"The first line of defence is to prevent abuse before it happens with a transparent culture, strong prevention frameworks, including education on sextortion and other sexual abuse as well as the broader ramifications of sexism.

Act fast

The report included a series of recommendations, and for the first time in relation to sextortion TI put particular emphasis on prevention.

Although many are long-term suggestions, Chene reiterated the urgent need for change to begin swiftly.

"During our research we have heard so many horror stories, so many dreams smashed," she said. "It's not just about the sexual abuse, it also about how reports of the sexual abuse are being received and survivors are being shut up."

Chene added in a statement: "It is time to change the culture of silence and impunity for all forms of abuse in sport.

"Sports organizations, governments and civil society must take abuse seriously and act now to stop sextortion."

Edited by: Matt Pearson

From WWI to Russia's war in Ukraine: Historical lessons

Historian Christopher Clark, author of "The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914" discusses with DW the complexities of war, and why Putin's behavior does not represent Russia.


World War I developed into a full-blown conflict involving many countries

DW: Your book "Sleepwalkers" caused people to rethink the First World War, and whether it was just Germany starting the war, or whether it was rather many European nations sleepwalking into a massive battle. What was your ultimate conclusion in your work?

Christopher Clark: Well, I think the conclusion of the book about 1914 was that the causes behind this war were complex.

A debate had been underway — which is still not finished — about what brought this war about. That's because the story was so complex.

And so I suppose the book was really making a plea for complexity, to understand how complex these things are. That was the first main point.

And the second argument was that we need to think about not just why wars come about and who's guilty for the outbreak of war. We also need to think about how they come about in order to be able to do better next time.

For example, if you think about the current war in the Ukraine, if we simply decide Mr. Putin is a very bad man and he caused a war and that's the end of it, we will learn nothing from this war.

Clark has a deep understanding of European history

We can learn much more if we think about the whole story of how this situation came about. It wouldn't in any way ease his responsibility for what has happened, which I think is unquestionable. But it would at least enable us to learn how to manage these situations better in the future.

How could we learn from that? What are the parallels between the lead-up to World War I and the current situation?

In some ways it's a lesson. It's interesting because when the [Russian-Ukrainian] conflict began, at least before the war itself actually broke out, I was reminded of the situation before 1914, because I imagined that it might be Putin's plan to send 200,000 men to the border with Ukraine and then to pull them back again, having pressured the West into concessions or Ukraine itself into concessions that didn't work.

On February 24, 2022 the Russians invaded Ukraine

And then it turned out that he was planning a war all along.

So that's not like 1914, because in 1914 there is no single actor who just decides to invade another territory.

It starts in a place nobody expects, down in the Balkans, in Sarajevo, with an assassination. Then there's a complex question, you know: How will the Austrians react? How will the Serbs react to the Austrians' reaction? How will the Germans react to the Austrians' reaction to the Serbs? How will the Russians support Serbia, or not — even though the Russians are not themselves under under attack?

It's immensely complex and every power that gets pulled into this war comes in by virtue of a different logic.

Prelude to World War I: During a visit to Sarajevo, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife died in an assassination attempt

But now we have a much simpler situation. Russia is quite isolated and Putin has taken this decision himself.

Clearly, a lot of the senior people in his system were not aware of this decision until it was actually made. It's very much Putin's war. And he's currently, as far as we know from intelligence reports, actually personally playing a role in the management of this war. He makes decisions even at the level of operations.

So it's quite a different picture really from 1914. It's less complex.

You formulated the First World War as a "modern event." What did you mean by that?

I was thinking in particular of the fact that when I learned about it at school, it seemed like an event from a bygone world — all these gaudy Hapsburg uniforms, complicated rituals at court. It seemed like an oldie.

But then when I began to write this book, I realized that it begins with a motorcade, with a group of motor cars driving through a city. It involved suicide bombers — a modern figure. So it was modern in lots of ways. It wasn't a kind of old-fashioned crisis.

And it seemed to me that the arguments people made for getting involved in this war were arguments that we still hear today. For example, this tendency to play the victim, to see the provocations of the other side, but to be completely blind to the contribution you have yourself made to a crisis, to see your own measures as defensive and the measures of the opponent as offensive. These habits have clearly not died.

Clark's book was published in 2013

What have people learned in the past 100 years — or not?

We've clearly learned to do certain things much better. But whether we've become more intelligent as a political species, as a sort of as homo politicus, that's another question.

I think that's an area where we're very slow learners, and there's a tendency always to sort of fall back on old patterns of behavior.

I do think that the EU is a kind of learned historical lesson. It's the lesson of the two world wars turned into a political order.

So there are examples of lessons which have found an institutional expression and which acquire a sort of durability they might not otherwise have.

But it seems to me that in other respects, if you think about Putin — not just his decision to invade Ukraine, but his whole persona as a leader, you know, riding around shirtless on the back of a horse, all these kind of macho things; these are very atavistic.

Clark finds Putin's self-projection as a leader 'atavastic'

But on the other hand, if you look at how many of the leaders of the European states are women, if you look at how much strategizing about how to manage this aggression is being written by women: It's not the case that we haven't changed.

I think the West is a very different place from what it was and so is Russia. And there are many Russians who want to have no part of this terrible policy of risk and adventurism that Putin has embarked on.

But Putin, unfortunately, for reasons which I think are probably anchored in his biography, is someone who's reaching for atavistic patterns of behavior and self-presentation in a way that suggests we haven't learned.

Do you think then in that regard, are we on the brink of a Third World War?

Well, my first answer is I very much hope not. Like you and like everybody else.

Secondly, I think that Putin knows that this would be a sort of self extinction. He would have to be suicidal to reach for that option.

Are the Russians united behind Putin? Christopher Clark is skeptical

A lot depends on whether he's that irrational and whether his system would do that if he made a decision like that. There's a lot of evidence that the system itself would be robust enough to resist that kind of risk.

So the answer is we don't know, of course.

But if we simply let him do what he wants, then we end up licensing and effectively legitimizing his criminal breach of international law. And if, on the other hand, we overreact and over-respond, we run the risk of escalating the problem further.

But we didn't create this crisis. So the West needs to dose its responses carefully. And I think by and large, it's doing that. The fact that the arguments mainly are in the direction of the West, for responding too slowly, especially the Germans. Why aren't they delivering more, faster? Why isn't more being done for Ukraine? That suggests that we're about right, because there are others saying we're doing too much, that we're provoking

Watch video 04:59 It was time for Europe 'to draw a line': historian Christopher Clark

So you seem confident that the people around Putin could hold him back from pushing the nuclear button?

Well, I think that there's a lot of evidence that Putin is having difficulty with a lot of people in the wider circles of his regime system network. Putin has isolated himself more and more.

So my hope is that if there is a major decision to escalate risk through the deployment, for example, in tactical nuclear weapons, that there would be people who would say, no, we won't do that. And that has happened in the past.

Russia does not speak with one voice. Russia is a complex nation. It's a sophisticated nation. It's part of Europe. Very large numbers of Russians have left the country and are now in other places. They include many members of the intelligentsia and the media and so on. The game isn't over yet and Putin does not speak for all of Russia.

Edited by Elizabeth Grenier.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

California Mayor Resigns Amid Baseball Stadium Deal Scandal

AP / AP NEWS
Mon, May 23, 2022

FILE - Fans line up outside Angel Stadium of Anaheim for an opening day baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Chicago Cubs in Anaheim, Calif., on April 4, 2016. The mayor of the Southern California city of Anaheim is resigning amid a swirling political scandal over the sale of Angel Stadium to the baseball team. Mayor Harry Sidhu is quitting his post effective Tuesday, May 24, 2022, his lawyer, Paul S. Meyer, said in a statement Monday. He said the stadium negotiations were lawful and that Sidhu didn't ask for campaign contributions linked to the deal. 

(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File) (Photo: via Associated Press)More



ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — The mayor of the Southern California city of Anaheim is resigning amid a swirling political scandal over the sale of Angel Stadium to the baseball team.

Mayor Harry Sidhu is quitting his post effective Tuesday, his lawyer, Paul S. Meyer, said in a statement Monday. He said the stadium negotiations were lawful and that Sidhu didn’t ask for campaign contributions linked to the deal.

“Mayor Harry Sidhu has always, as his foremost priority, acted in the best interests of the City of Anaheim, and he does so today,” Meyer said in a statement.

The resignation comes a week after the Orange County city of 347,000 people said it learned Sidhu was being investigated by federal officials in relation to the stadium deal.

Since then, Sidhu’s colleagues on the city council have called for him to resign and raised questions about whether the stadium sale can move forward. The city is expected to discuss the stadium plan at a meeting Tuesday.

“No one ever wants to see their mayor resign in difficult circumstances like this but we do welcome this resignation,” city spokesman Mike Lyster said. “We will welcome some clarity as part of a larger effort to evaluate the situation we’re in and figure out the best path forward for our city.”

Anaheim has been negotiating the sale of the land around the stadium to the Los Angeles Angels. The team would agree to stay in the city through 2050 and buy the stadium and its surrounding parking lots, where it would build homes, shops and restaurants.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Sidhu is being investigated by federal officials for allegedly giving confidential information to the Angles at least twice during negotiations in the hope of getting a campaign donation.

Sidhu has not been charged with a crime.

The scandal has ballooned in Anaheim since last week when a former chamber of commerce executive was charged by federal officials of lying to a mortgage lender as part of a broader investigation. This weekend, a California Democratic Party official resigned her post after it came to light she was a cooperating witness in the probe, and authorities said they suspected she had paid bribes to public officials.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

State attorney general asks for hold on Angel Stadium land sale amid corruption probe

Bill Shaikin
May 16, 2022·

Fans enter Angels Stadium before the team's season opener against the Houston Astros in April. (Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

Harry Sidhu made it his business and his campaign promise in 2018: I’m the mayor that is going to keep the Angels in Anaheim for decades to come.

In 2022, Sidhu is campaigning for re-election as mayor. The city had agreed to sell Angel Stadium and the surrounding parking lots to the team owner in 2019, but the state housing agency had found the deal in violation of California affordable housing law.

Anaheim could have redone the deal. Instead, the city remained liable for a $96-million fine.

That, according to an FBI affidavit filed Monday in Orange County Superior Court, was because Sidhu wanted to see the deal through to solicit a campaign contribution from the Angels.

“We’ll push them at least [to] have a million dollars,” Sidhu said, unaware the FBI had arranged for the conversation to be recorded. “You know, for [an Angels official] to say ‘no’ is bad.”

The Angels official was not identified.

On Monday, the state attorney general asked a court to put the $320 million sale on hold. The court filing explained why: a detailed FBI affidavit showed Sidhu is under investigation for public corruption, and the attorney general said he does not yet know whether the facts uncovered in the investigation could make the sale illegal.

“We will determine what this means for the stadium plan in the days ahead,” Anaheim spokesman Mike Lyster said in a statement.

Marie Garvey, the spokeswoman for Angels owner Arte Moreno's company, declined to comment on Monday's developments. She also declined to say whether Moreno wished to continue to pursue the project.

"It would be inappropriate to comment at this time," Garvey said.

In the affidavit, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by anyone associated with the Angels and no evidence the proposed solicitation was made.

However, FBI special agent Brian Adkins wrote: “I believe Sidhu illustrated his intent to solicit campaign contributions, in the amount of $1,000,000 … in exchange for performing official acts intended to finalize the stadium sale for the Angels.”

Adkins also wrote that he found probable cause to believe that Sidhu shared confidential information about sale negotiations with the Angels — as the city was negotiating against the team — “with the expectation of receiving a sizeable contribution to his reelection campaign from a prominent Angels representative.”

Adkins also said Sidhu “has attempted to obstruct an Orange County grand jury inquiry into the Angel Stadium deal.” The agent also said he believed there was probable cause that Sidhu “may have engaged in criminal offenses,” including fraud, theft or bribery, making false statements, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu, shown at his home, sought campaign contributions from the Angels, according to an FBI affidavit filed Monday in Orange County Superior Court. (Karen Tapia / Los Angeles Times)

The attorney for Sidhu, Paul Meyer, said: “We are making no comment at this time.”

In a statement, Anaheim City Manager Jim Vanderpool said: “We are troubled by this. Throughout this process, Anaheim staff and the City Council have worked in good faith on a proposal that offered benefits for our community.

“What has been shared with us was unknown to the city administration before today, and what is being described falls outside of the city’s process on the stadium.”

Sidhu and the city administration carefully managed the release of stadium-related information to the public. In 2019, when the city extended the Angels’ window to opt out of their stadium lease by one year, the city declined to highlight that it also had reinstated the lease in full, giving the team control of the land through 2038. That meant the city had handcuffed itself in negotiations, since the option of demolishing the stadium in one year and selling the land for half a billion dollars was off the table.

In December 2019, the city announced the sale price at $325 million, later reduced to $320 million. The city said the price could be adjusted for development credits but did not say how much, although The Times reported then that the actual price could be half the announced rate. Nine months later, the city announced the actual cash price: $150 million.

And last month, the city announced a settlement with the state: more affordable housing in the city, but less on the stadium site. It was not until this month that the city disclosed how much less: about 80%.

In March, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled that the city had not violated the Brown Act — the state’s open government law — in negotiating the sale. The citizens’ group that filed suit against the city had asked a judge to nullify the sale.

“There is no basis to nullify the decision,” Judge David Hoffer wrote in his ruling.

But, according to Adkins, Sidhu’s actions “may have affected the ruling” because a cooperating witness said Sidhu gave him information about a land appraisal so he could share that information with the Angels. Because that information came from a closed session of the city council, Adkins wrote, “Sidhu’s actions may have violated the Brown Act.”

Adkins said he believed Sidhu “knowingly provided confidential information intended for the sole use of Anaheim and its negotiating team to the Angels … with the intent of concealing his actions from the negotiating team and the public, for the purpose of assisting the Angels and himself at the expense of the city of Anaheim.”

Angels owner Arte Moreno (Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

Sidhu, according to the affidavit, met with a witness who was cooperating with the FBI investigation, although the mayor was unaware the person was an FBI source, and coached the witness to lie to the county grand jury about what the two had discussed and when they had discussed it.

The evidence, according to the affidavit, also showed Sidhu pursued an Arizona address to register his helicopter, despite the fact that he lived in Anaheim and based the helicopter out of Chino.

Had he registered the helicopter in California, he would have owed $15,888 in sales tax. Had he registered the helicopter in Arizona, he would have owed a $1,025 vehicle tax.

Adkins said there was no record of Sidhu registering the helicopter in either state.

On Monday afternoon, just before news of the affidavit broke, the city councilman who has been the most vocal opponent of the stadium deal – primarily because of what he considered a rushed and secretive process – said he was interested that the state housing agency had taken a renewed interest in the stadium deal.

The state housing agency told the Los Angeles Times on Friday it objected to the city’s proposed solution to violations of affordable housing law: absolving Moreno of almost all of his commitment to build affordable housing there.

Moreno’s development company would return $96 million in credits from the $320-million sale – so the city could say taxpayers had not paid the $96 million -- but the company had the potential to make more money from the hundreds more units of housing it could sell at market rate.

“What I was most concerned about seems to be playing out,” said councilman Jose Moreno, no relation to the Angels owner.

“At the end of the day, out of this illegal land sale, Arte Moreno and the city of Anaheim’s leadership are continuing to maximize the private profits for Arte Moreno and the private interests of the development site, and not looking out for the public benefits.”

Within two hours, he and everyone else at City Hall had learned the mayor was under investigation for corruption. Sidhu has not been charged with a crime.

This, Jose Moreno said, called for a complete do-over of the stadium deal.

“The news of Mayor Sidhu’s alleged political corruption regarding the Anaheim Stadium deal is both unfortunate and tragic,” Moreno said.

“My hope for the people of Anaheim is that this matter is fully investigated and brought to closure so we can move on developing a more open, transparent and legal land deal that truly benefits the people of Anaheim and puts trust back into our local affairs.”

Times staff writer Adam Elmahrek contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

50% jump in active-shooter incidents from 2020 to 2021: FBI

When a disgruntled employee opened fire in the parking lot of a FedEx distribution facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, in April 2021, the shooter did so because he wanted to commit "suicidal murder," an FBI report released Monday concludes.

That incident, according to the FBI, was one of deadliest mass killings that year.

As a whole, active-shooter incidents in the United States increased by more than 50% from 2020 to 2021, according to the report.

Over the past five years, active shooter incidents have steadily increased, the FBI said, with the most recent in Buffalo, New York, on May 14 when a gunman killed 10 Black people at a local supermarket.

That shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.


In this April 22, 2022, file photo, the Federal Bureau of Investigation seal is shown at the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, D.C.

The new report, titled "Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2021," says there were 61 mass shooting incidents in the U.S. in 2021, representing a nearly 100% in active shooter incidents from 2017, which saw 31.

MORE: Missed signals in 4 mass shootings: What went wrong?

The FBI defines an active shooter as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. Implicit in this definition is the shooter's use of a firearm.

The shootings occurred in 30 states, which saw 103 die and 140 wounded, according to the FBI, which says 12 of the shootings met the "mass killing" definition.

The FBI defines a mass killing as a three or more killings in a single incident.

John Cohen, the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, told ABC News that the United States is seeing a trend with active shooters.

"The U.S. is in the midst of a multiyear trend where we are experiencing an increase in mass shooters who are seeking to advance their ideological beliefs or based on a perceived personal grievance," Cohen now an ABC News contributor said. "A growing subset of our population believes that violence is an acceptable way to express one's ideological beliefs or seek redress for a perceived personal grievance."


Members of the Buffalo Police department work at the scene of a shooting at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., May 17, 2022.

Nearly all of the shooters were male, and half the accused shooters were arrested by law enforcement. The FBI says 55% of the shootings took place in the afternoon and evening hours.

More than half of the shootings took place in areas of commerce.

"The locations range from grocery stores to manufacturing sites," the FBI said.

The youngest shooter was 12 and the oldest was 67.

"For 2021, the FBI observed an emerging trend involving roving active shooters; specifically, shooters who shoot in multiple locations, either in one day or in various locations over several days," the FBI concluded.

Activist moved from Cairo prison to desert facility after nearly 48 days of hunger strike

Amarachi Amadike - Saturday

National Post

Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist, was transferred from Cairo’s Tora Prison Complex, a maximum-security prison where he was allegedly tortured and denied basic rights, to a new correctional facility.

In this file photo taken on May 23, 2015, Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah looks on from behind the defendant's cage during his trial in Cairo for insulting the judiciary. 

KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images

His new prison, Wadi El-Natrun, is located in a desert valley 150 kilometers north of Cairo. The 40-year-old former computer programmer arrived on Wednesday morning and was allowed a visit from family members the following day.

“We’re really glad that Alaa Abdel Fattah has been removed from the ‘guardianship’ of officers who bore him a personal hatred,” said his aunt, Ahdaf Soueif, on facebook. “We’re relieved that he is in a place which has some medical facilities.”

Mona Seif, Abdel-Fattah’s sister, revealed on Facebook that for the first time in years her brother is allowed to sleep on a mattress.

Prior to his transfer, Abdel-Fattah had been on a hunger strike for almost 48 days in protest of his treatment in prison. His family said that he was denied exercise time, visitation privileges, medical care and even books.

Egyptian activist Abdel Fattah sentenced to five years in prison

Prominent Egyptian activist arrested as crackdown continues

Numerous complaints were filed regarding his mistreatment which, according to Abdel-Fattah and his family, included being beaten and humiliated by guards. Officials denied any wrongdoings or of witnessing his hunger strike.

“Unbelievable!” said Seif on Facebook following contradictory reports from officials on Egyptian state media. “According to a [high-level] ‘security official’ on Egyptian TV, Alaa is not on hunger strike, he is eating three meals a day, he walks around and he isn’t even at a maximum-security prison!”

She went on, in a sarcastic post that tagged the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to inquire as to why the British consulate has been prevented for months from bearing witness to Cairo’s “exemplary” prisons.

Although Abdel-Fattah has since been moved, his sister said on Facebook that they don’t know if this will be an improvement.

“The problem with the prison where Alaa was is not just that it is a maximum-security prison, it is that the ministry of interior and state security and Egyptian authorities were actively depriving him of every facility and every right that should be easily provided in the prison.”

His transfer comes after a petition was signed by hundreds of Egyptian women and filed with the National Council for Human Rights. The Associated Press reports that as a result of the petition, Abdel-Fattah would be moved to a prison where human rights standards are met.

Abdel-Fattah, who gained British citizenship through his U.K.-born mother, has been imprisoned since 2014 for his part in an unauthorized protest in which he allegedly assaulted a police officer. He enjoyed a few months of freedom before being taken back into custody in a crackdown against anti-government protests.

Following the Arab Spring, a 2011 pro-democracy uprisings that spanned the Middle East and effectively toppled long-time Egypt President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian government, now led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, implemented a law that has since banned all street protests. As a result, many top activists involved in the uprising are now in prison.

Seif said that her brother — one of Egypt’s most famous imprisoned dissidents and a symbol of the country’s 2011 revolt — will continue with his hunger strike until “an independent judge” reviews his complaints about inhumane conditions he has suffered while incarcerated.

Ancient 'Dragon of Death' flying reptile discovered in Argentina


By REUTERS - 
© (photo credit: PIXABAY)


Argentine scientists discovered a new species of a huge flying reptile dubbed "The Dragon of Death" that lived 86 million years ago alongside dinosaurs, in a find shedding fresh insight on a predator whose body was as long as a school bus

The new specimen of ancient flying reptile, or pterosaur, measured around 30 feet (9 meters) long and researchers say it predated birds as among the first creatures on Earth to use wings to hunt its prey from prehistoric skies.

The team of paleontologists discovered the fossils of the newly coined Thanatosdrakon amaru in the Andes mountains in Argentina's western Mendoza province. They found that the rocks preserving the reptile's remains dated back 86 million years to the Cretaceous period.

The estimated date means these fearsome flying reptiles lived at least some 20 million years before an asteroid impact on what is now Mexico's Yucatan peninsula wiped out about three-quarters of life on the planet about 66 millions years ago.

'Dragon of Death'

Project leader Leonardo Ortiz said in an interview over the weekend that the fossil's never-before-seen characteristics required a new genus and species name, with the latter combining ancient Greek words for death (thanatos) and dragon (drakon).


Scottish fossil of flying reptile leaves scientists 'gobsmacked' (credit: REUTERS)

"It seemed appropriate to name it that way," said Ortiz. "It's the dragon of death."

The reptile would likely have been a frightening sight. Researchers, who published their study last April in the scientific journal Cretaceous Research, said the fossil's huge bones classify the new species as the largest pterosaur yet discovered in South America and one of the largest found anywhere.

"We don't have a current record of any close relative that even has a body modification similar to these beasts," said Ortiz.

Expert: Monkeypox likely spread by sex at 2 raves in Europe

MARIA CHENG

May 23, 2022

LONDON (AP) — A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of the rare disease monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that might be explained by risky sexual behavior at two recent mass events in Europe.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’s emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.

“We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission,” said Heymann.

That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates and outbreaks have not spilled across borders.

A German government report to lawmakers, obtained by the AP, said it expected to see further cases and that the risk of catching monkeypox "mainly appears to lie with sexual contacts among men.”

The four confirmed cases in Germany have been linked to exposure at “party events including on Gran Canaria and in Berlin, where sexual activity took place,” it said.

To date, WHO has recorded more than 90 cases of monkeypox in a dozen countries including Britain, Spain, Israel, France, Switzerland, the U.S. and Australia. On Monday, Denmark announced its first case, Portugal revised its total upwards to 37 and Italy reported one further infection.

Madrid’s senior health official said on Monday that the Spanish capital has recorded 30 confirmed cases so far. Enrique Ruiz Escudero said authorities are investigating possible links between a recent Gay Pride event in the Canary Islands, which drew some 80,000 people, and cases at a Madrid sauna.

Heymann chaired an urgent meeting of WHO’s advisory group on infectious disease threats on Friday to assess the ongoing epidemic and said there was no evidence to suggest that monkeypox might have mutated into a more infectious form.

Monkeypox typically causes fever, chills, rash, and lesions on the face or genitals. It can be spread through close contact with an infected person or their clothing or bedsheets, but sexual transmission has not yet been documented. Most people recover from the disease within several weeks without requiring hospitalization. Vaccines against smallpox, a related disease, are also effective in preventing monkeypox and some antiviral drugs are being developed.

In recent years, the disease has been fatal in up to 6% of infections, but no deaths have been reported among the current cases. WHO said confirmed cases have so far been the less severe West African group of monkeypox viruses and appeared to be linked to a virus that was first detected in exported cases from Nigeria to Britain, Israel and Singapore in 2018-2019.

Monkeypox Outbreak Linked to Gay Sauna and Festival

While not considered a sexually transmitted disease, monkeypox is spread through close contact.

BY ALEX COOPER
MAY 23 2022 

Spanish health authorities believe that a string of new monkeypox cases is linked to a gay sauna near Madrid and a Pride event in the Canary Islands that drew tens of thousands of people.

Spain announced 23 new cases Friday. Madrid regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero told journalists that health officials have been tracing the cases from an outbreak at the now-closed sauna, Reuters reports.

"The Public Health Department will carry out an even more detailed analysis... to control contagion, cut the chains of transmission and try to mitigate the transmission of this virus as much as possible," Escudero said.

He told the Associated Press that another link may be a Pride event in the Canary Islands that saw around 80,000 people in attendance, the news wire reported Monday.

Elsewhere in Europe, an outbreak of monkeypox in Belgium has been connected to visitors at the Darklands fetish festival in early May, PinkNews reports.

At least three cases have been linked to the festival, according to the organizers.

“There’s reason to assume that the virus has been brought in by visitors from abroad to the festival after recent cases in other countries,” they said in a statement.

While many of the recent cases of monkeypox are among men who have sex with men, Dr. Agam Rao, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, told NBC News that monkeypox isn’t considered a sexually transmitted disease.

“It’s probably premature and potentially even harmful to assume that there are only cases within that community,” she said. “There's going to need to be studies related to trying to isolate virus from seminal fluid or vaginal fluid. There’s really quite a lot of work that would need to be done before we would say that it can be transmitted sexually.”

However, the former head of the World Health Organization told the AP, “We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission.”

The illness is endemic in animals in central and western Africa, according to the news wire.

Last Wednesday, Massachusetts confirmed the first confirmed case of monkeypox in the U.S. this year.

“The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) today confirmed a single case of monkeypox virus infection in an adult male with recent travel to Canada,” the department said in a statement.

In a statement last week, Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said that the new cases that have emerged in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere, have been “atypical.”

“Firstly, because in this instance all but one of the recent cases have no relevant travel history to areas where monkeypox is endemic, in West Africa or Central Africa. Secondly, because most of the initial cases found are being detected through sexual health services and are among men who have sex with men. And thirdly, because of the geographically dispersed nature of the cases across Europe and beyond, this suggests that transmission may have been ongoing for some time,” he said.

Kluge added that the WHO is troubled over the summer season’s festivals and parties.

“I am concerned that transmission could accelerate, as the cases currently being detected are among those engaging in sexual activity, and the symptoms are unfamiliar to many,” Kluge said.

Monkeypox is a zoonotic orthopoxvirus that appears similar to smallpox, although significantly less deadly. Most outbreaks in Europe and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere are related to the exotic pet trade and international travel.

Initial symptoms of the monkeypox virus include fever, headache, myalgia, fatigue, and swelling of the lymph nodes. After one to two days, lesions may develop in the mouth and later the face and extremities like the palms and soles. The rash may further spread, and the number of lesions can range from just a few to thousands.

Monkeypox is spreading through sexual contact, but it’s not a sexually transmitted infection, WHO says. Here’s what that means

Andrew Marquardt
Mon, May 23, 2022

Melina Mara/The Washington Post — Getty Images

Monkeypox, a potentially lethal disease responsible for an alarming rise in cases in North America and Europe over the past three weeks, is primarily spreading through sex between men, according to the World Health Organization.

The disease is spread through close contact with infected people, animals, or materials that are contaminated with the virus. It enters the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract or through the eyes, nose or mouth, according to the CDC.

The virus is not considered a sexually transmitted infection, or spread through semen and vaginal fluids, WHO officials noted. Anyone in close contact with a person who has the virus is considered at high risk of infection, however.

“Many diseases can be spread through sexual contact. You could get a cough or a cold through sexual contact, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a sexually transmitted disease,” Andy Seale, an adviser to the WHO about HIV, hepatitis and other sexually transmitted infections, told CNBC.


In response to the rising number of monkeypox cases worldwide, Bavarian Nordic, a Danish vaccine manufacturer, is ramping up production of its smallpox vaccine to help governments fight the growing outbreak, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

As of May 21, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported to the WHO from 12 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Germany, and Spain.

In the U.S., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials told Fortune last week that health officials are monitoring six people for suspected cases of monkeypox, all of whom sat next to a person on a May 3-4 flight from Nigeria to London who eventually developed the virus.

Monkeypox is a rare disease related to smallpox and cowpox that causes fever, muscle aches, and lesions. The incubation period, or time between exposure and the onset of symptoms, is usually a week or two but can range from five to 21 days, according to the CDC.

In Africa, where the disease is typically found, monkeypox has proven deadly in as many as 10% of infected persons, the CDC notes. The illness typically lasts anywhere between two and four weeks.

While there is no vaccine that specifically targets monkeypox, smallpox vaccines including the one offered by Bavarian Nordic, can protect against monkeypox infections by at least 85%, according to the CDC.

Known as Jynneos in the U.S., the Bavarian Nordic smallpox vaccine is one of two vaccines currently licensed in the U.S. to prevent smallpox, according to the CDC. It is the only vaccine that the U.S. specifically licenses to prevent monkeypox, however.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin said the company has received calls from “dozens of countries” in recent weeks asking about Jynneos, which is known as Imvanex in Europe and Imvamune in Canada.

Supply of the vaccine is currently limited, but the company will be increasing its manufacturing in the weeks and months ahead, Chaplin told the Wall Street Journal.

“We feel confident based on discussions that we’ll be able to meet the demand in a relatively short period of time,” Chaplin said.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, President Biden said the public should be concerned about the rising number of cases in the U.S. and abroad.

“They haven’t told me the level of exposure yet, but it is something that everybody should be concerned about,” Biden told reporters. “It is a concern in that if it were to spread, it would be consequential.”

On Monday, Biden backtracked those comments, saying the country has “vaccines to take care of it.”

"I just don't think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19,” Biden said.

According to Chaplin, the U.S. and Canada are the only two countries that have meaningful stockpiles of the Bavarian Nordic vaccines. The CDC says the U.S. has access to enough doses of smallpox vaccine to vaccinate every person in the United States if an outbreak were to occur.

Global food crisis looms as fertilizer supplies dwindle

Joel K. Bourne, Jr. -
National Geographic
© Photograph by Peter Essick, Nat Geo Image Collection


Think the global fertilizer shortage is someone else’s problem? Take a look in the mirror. If you are reading this in North America, Europe, Latin America, or Asia, chances are that the bundle of amino acids staring back at you is alive today because of chemical fertilizers.

In fact, according to noted Canadian energy researcher Vaclav Smil, two-fifths of humanity –more than three billion people—are alive because of nitrogen fertilizer, the main ingredient in the Green Revolution that supercharged the agricultural sector in the 1960s. The chemical fertilizer trifecta that tripled global grain production—nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K)—enabled the greatest human population growth the planet has ever seen. Now, it is in short supply, and farmers, fertilizer companies, and governments around the globe are scrambling to avert a seemingly inevitable tumble in crop yields.

“I’m not sure it’s possible any more to avoid a food crisis,” says World Farmers’ Organization President Theo de Jager. “The question is how wide and deep it will be. Most importantly, farmers need peace. And peace needs farmers.”

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a body blow to an industry that has been hammered by various events for more than a year. Russia typically exports nearly 20 percent of the world’s nitrogen fertilizers and, combined with its sanctioned neighbor Belarus, 40 percent of the world’s exported potassium, according to analysts at Rabobank. Most of that is now off limits to the world’s farmers, thanks to Western sanctions and Russia’s recent fertilizer export restrictions.

“If you speak to a farmer in North America or Oceania, the main talk is fertilizers, specifically the price and availability of fertilizers,” de Jager told a virtual conference on the subject recently. “Prices are more or less 78 percent higher than average in 2021, and this is cracking up the production side of agriculture. In many regions farmers simply can’t afford to bring fertilizers to the farm, or even if they could, the fertilizers are not available to them. And it’s not just fertilizers, but agrichemicals and fuel as well. This is a global crisis and it requires a global response.”

Most of the response thus far has been pretty ad hoc, with every farm and government for itself. But last week, the U.S. and global development banks announced a major “action plan” on global food security totaling more than $30 billion in aid, in hopes of staving off a repeat of the food riots that toppled governments during the last food price crises in 2008 and 2012.
U.S. farmers are feeling the burn

Rodney Rulon is better off than many farmers this year. A progressive farmer in Arcadia, Indiana, he has been using no-till techniques, cover crops, and chicken litter on his family’s 7,200 acres of corn and soybean fields since 1992. Combined with extensive soil testing each year, he’s cut his chemical fertilizer use 20 to 30 percent, he says—but it’s still his largest input.

“We’re making big cuts to what we’re spending on fertilizer this year,” Rulon says. “It’s $1,200 a ton for P and K. It was $450 last year. Nitrogen was $500-550 a ton last year. Now it’s well over $1,000. You just took our biggest expense and doubled it.” He can’t even get the 3,000 tons of chicken litter he normally uses in place of chemical phosphorus and potassium. He had a gentleman’s agreement with his supplier to purchase his usual amount for $60 a ton, but it sold out to a higher bidder.

High fertilizer prices have caused a run on manure in many parts of the country as farmers scramble for alternatives and seek ways to cut their fertilizer bills. That might not be a bad thing, says Antonio Mallarino, a soil scientist and plant nutrient expert at Iowa State University, who has been trying for decades to get farmers to stop overfertilizing.

“On 50 to 60 percent of fields in Iowa you could not apply P (phosphorus) and K (potassium) for 10 years and they’d be okay,” Mallarino says.

Though corn prices broke $8 per bushel in February, close to the all-time high set in 2012, many farmers are switching to soybeans, which require fewer nutrients and so less fertilizer. The USDA’s planting survey, released on March 31, showed farmers intend to plant a record 91 million acres of soybeans this year, 4 percent more than last year, while corn acres fell to 89.5 million acres—the lowest in five years.

“If this situation continues it may be good for the environment,” Mallarino says. “We may not have all this excess nitrogen and phosphorus going into the rivers and lakes.”

Bert Frost has heard more than a few grumbles from farmers about fertilizer prices. He’s the senior vice president for sales, supply chain, and market development for CF Industries, one of the largest producers of nitrogen fertilizers in the world. The smooth interplay of supply and demand that has kept nitrogen prices in a narrow range for the last 10 years is no longer working, he says—because both supply and demand have been hit by external shocks.

“What we have today is a confluence of all the factors not working in concert with each other,” Frost says.

A rebound in industrial activity that uses the raw ingredients in fertilizer coming out of the pandemic, combined with low global inventories of food grains, have pushed demand through the roof. Suppliers, on the other hand, have been knocked back by one extreme weather event after another. Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 literally froze production at fertilizer plants from Iowa to Texas, knocking several offline for a month or more. Six months later, Hurricane Ida tore through Louisiana’s chemical alley, damaging several fertilizer producers, including CFI’s Donaldsonville complex. With its six ammonia and four urea plants (urea is a fertilizer chemically derived from nitrogen), it’s the largest such facility in the world. The company was forced to cancel its contracts for a while.

“And I’ve got more,” Frost says. “Then China and Russia impose export restrictions on fertilizer. China exports 10 percent of the urea supply in the world. Their exports went to zero. Then Russia invades Ukraine and all hell breaks loose.”

The market was reeling, in other words, even before the war, the sanctions, and the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

“All the factors I laid out for you earlier, we haven’t had those before,” Frost says.“So the logistics are screwed up. I don’t think this resolves itself.”
Latin America: running on empty?

North American farmers will eventually get the fertilizer they need this season, says Frost, even if they have to pay dearly for it. But it’s the agricultural powerhouses in Latin America that are the most vulnerable to fertilizer disruptions, particularly Brazil, which imports about 85 percent of its fertilizer, a quarter of it typically from Russia.

If farmers there cut back on fertilizers and their yields fall, it could have a significant impact on global food supplies. Brazil is among the world’s top three exporters of soybeans, corn, and sugar, as well as beef, chicken, and pork, according to a recent USDA report.

The major planting season in the Southern Hemisphere begins in September, and the Brazilian government is scrambling to find new fertilizer sources. Earlier this year it even struck a barter deal with Iran—working around U.S. sanctions on that country—in which Iran would send 400,000 tons of urea to Brazil in exchange for corn and soybeans. So critical are Russia’s fertilizers to Brazil and the world food supply, the Biden administration carved out a loophole for them in its suite of Russian sanctions in late March. Although financial sanctions are still hindering deliveries, analysts hope the move will ease the pressure on global food prices.

“It’s impossible to make forecasts on this situation,” says Micaela Bové, farming solutions director for Yara Latinamérica, based in Buenos Aires. “I never imagined COVID would still be here, and yet it is. I never imagined this invasion would become a war, and yet it has. But farmers are the heroes in this. They were hit by everything that you can imagine, and they always produce food.”

Bové says her division of Yara, the Norwegian fertilizer behemoth, is not seeing shortages in her region, which runs from the smallholder farms of Mexico to the vast estancias of Argentina, excluding Brazil. But the high prices are causing many to use less. So she and her team are promoting tools and apps to help farmers use their product more efficiently. “Fertilizer decisions depend on the crop,” she says, “And a maize farmer in Mexico has different needs than a citrus farmer or banana farmer elsewhere.”
Africa: From little to none

African farmers on average use the least fertilizer per acre in the world and have some of the lowest yields, particularly for corn and other grains that provide the bulk of the continent’s calories. As a result, despite having 60 percent of the world’s arable land, almost half the countries in Africa depends on imported wheat from Russia and Ukraine, with 14 African countries getting more than half their wheat from the two warring nations. Rising food prices now threaten to push millions of African families into poverty and malnutrition.

And the distant war is not their only challenge, says Agnes Kalibala, the president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a Nairobi-based non-profit that has worked with African governments and foreign aid agencies to increase the use of fertilizers and improved seeds to boost yields across the continent. “The most important part to me, even before fertilizers, is how much farmers are suffering from a climate change perspective,” says Kalibata, the former minister of agriculture for Rwanda. “In countries where it didn’t rain last year, there was generally a depression in interest in fertilizers. So the question now is will that interest pick up as the rains are coming to some of those areas.”

But even if countries can get fertilizer, farmers often can’t afford it, she says. Governments that typically subsidize fertilizer are struggling with massive post-COVID debt that in some nations is more than 50 percent of their gross domestic product. Kalibata’s group is working with the African Union, the African Development Bank, and the G7 nations to help with emergency funding, but also encouraging farmers to look at alternatives.

“In Africa our productivity is very low and we have high nitrate depletion in our soils,” Kalibata says. “It’s very difficult to grow maize or rice without nutrients. But there are other opportunities like fava beans, which are grown in Ethiopia and Sudan, that can fix 100 percent of their nitrogen needs. That is a fantastic opportunity.”

Nitrogen fixation is a natural symbiotic process that distinguishes legumes from cereal grains, which are in the grass family. Rhizobia bacteria living on the plants’ roots convert atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia that the plants can use, while the plants provide sugars to the bacteria. Beans are great nitrogen fixers: Soybeans supply up to 70 or 80 percent of their own needs. Common beans, a staple bean grown all over Africa, can fix up to 30 percent.

“So you still use nutrients, but you use less,” Kalibata says.

As always, climate is still the wild card. Without rain, fertilizer has little if any effect.

“If we can get rainfall in some of these areas, these countries should be able to find alternatives,” says Kalibata. “If they don’t, we’ll have multiple crises on our hands.”
Better off organic

About the only farmers who are not complaining about fertilizers this season are the rising number of organic growers. Their mantra has long been to feed the soil, not the plant, and to eschew chemical fertilizers and pesticides for legume cover crops, diversified crop rotations, and promoting beneficial insects and microbes in their fields. Some cover crops, like hairy vetch, can produce up to 300 pounds of nitrogen per acre, according to Jeff Moyer, executive director of the Rodale Institute in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.

Rodale, with help from the Pennsylvania State University, has been conducting side-by-side comparisons of conventional and organic cropping systems since 1981—the longest-running such field trial in North America. After a five-year transition period, they found organic yields were not only competitive with conventional yields, they yielded up to 40 percent higher during drought. Most importantly, they earned farmers three to six times more profit, while releasing no toxic chemicals into rivers and streams.

“Fertilizer is just the tip of the spear of the problems farmers are facing,” Moyer says. “Look at Kansas and Nebraska. Both states are on fire this year and this is supposed to be their wet season. With weather patterns changing and energy costs going up and not coming down, we need to revolutionize our production models to minimize these impacts.”

Converting to organic takes time, however, and that’s something many of the world’s farmers are running out of as well.