The time of cholera

A look ahead to the world this week

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Good afternoon, Having not seen a single case of cholera in 15 years, Syria had an outbreak of the disease in August last year. Just five months later the war-torn country had reported 84,607 suspected cases and 101 deaths.  The acute diarrheal illness has now spread across the country and into Lebanon, where it had not been reported for almost three decades.  The re-emergence of cholera in Syria was "probably inevitable", said The Lancet. The country has suffered more than a decade of conflict, and today "two-thirds of its water treatment plants, half its pumping stations, and a third of its water towers have been damaged", the medical journal noted.  On top of this, its crops are often irrigated with raw sewage and its wastewater goes untreated. It was a prime risk for such an outbreak. But Syria is hardly alone. There was a massive surge in cholera cases globally last year following years of falling numbers. In 2022, there were outbreaks reported in 30 countries, 16 of which experienced extended episodes. And the spread has only accelerated in the early months of 2023.  Haiti, India, Pakistan and the Philippines, among others, have had outbreaks, according to the United Nations. But it is the African continent that has been hardest hit, with an estimated 26,000 cases and 660 deaths in ten African countries since the beginning of the year, according to UN statistics. With cases surging, the World Health Organization (WHO) is asking donors for help to fight the outbreaks for the first time, with a push for a $25m (£20.9m) fund for vaccines, medication and testing kits. "An unprecedented situation requires an unprecedented response," the WHO's cholera team leader Philippe Barboza told reporters at a press conference in Geneva on Friday.  Barboza pointed out that nearly half the world lacks access to safely managed sanitation. "Access to safe drinking water and sanitation are internationally recognised human rights," he said. "Making these rights a reality will also end cholera." For Syria, the road to recovery will be hampered by the recent devastating earthquakes that hit the country. An estimated 5.3 million people were left homeless by the disaster, but "there was a perfect storm brewing before the earthquake – of increasing food insecurity, collapsing healthcare systems, the lack of access to safe water and poor sanitation", said Eva Hines, chief of communications for the UN Children's Fund (Unicef). "More than half of people in Syria depend on unsafe alternative water sources when it comes to their water needs. And that, of course, increases vulnerability to fast-spreading waterborne diseases such as cholera," Hines told Al Jazeera. According to Andrew Azman, an epidemiologist from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, "a cholera outbreak is a very strong indication that things have gone seriously wrong with the running of a country and that water and sanitation systems are not functioning in anything like the way they should be".  In which case, The Lancet said, over the past year "things have gone wrong in a lot of places". Read on for the tense wait for results from Nigeria's general election and other global news, including the start of CPAC 2023. Arion McNicoll The Week @arionmcnicoll

What to watch out for this week Tense wait for Nigerians: The final results from the Nigerian general election are expected to be announced this week. Hopes that they would be finalised more swiftly, possibly even by last night, were dashed after a new system deployed by Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) reportedly developed significant technical problems. Speaking to The Guardian, 42-year-old voter Dennis Olatunji said he was concerned that a long delay could cause tensions to rise. "It's going to be a problem for everybody, whoever they voted for."  China to host Belarus: Tomorrow, China will roll out the red carpet for the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko – a staunch Kremlin ally who will arrive for a three-day state visit. The presence in Beijing of such a close partner of Russian President Vladimir Putin is "likely to increase international attention, and pressure, over China's straddling position on the [Ukraine] war", said The New York Times, and comes as the US has accused China of preparing to send lethal military support to Russia for its year-long invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that he will visit China in early April and ask for Beijing's help to end the war. "The fact that China is engaging in peace efforts is a good thing," Macron said. CPAC 2023 kicks off: The US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which bills itself as the most influential gathering of conservatives in the world, begins on Wednesday in Maryland. The headline act will be Donald Trump and many of the speakers are allies of the former president, including former housing secretary Ben Carson, senators Marsha Blackburn and Ted Cruz, and representatives Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Expect "a four-day festival of political incorrectness, Maga merchandise and Joe Biden-slamming bombast", said The Guardian. World's oldest living person: María Branyas Morera will celebrate her 116th birthday on Saturday. Morera is believed to be the oldest living person in the world, having assumed the top spot in the list of so-called "supercentenarians" following the death of French nun Sister André aged 118 in January this year. Morera uses Twitter – with a little help from her daughter – to communicate with her thousands of followers. "I am old, very old, but not an idiot," her Twitter bio reads.

STAT OF THE WEEK 200+ More than 200 US newspapers including The Washington Post have dropped the long-running Dilbert cartoon strip after its creator made racist comments. In a livestream on YouTube, cartoonist Scott Adams, who is white, said black Americans were part of a "hate group" and that white people should "just get the hell away" from them. In the wake of the comments, USA Today Network, which publishes more than 200 newspapers, said it "will no longer publish the 'Dilbert' comic due to the recent discriminatory comments by its creator". Adams, 65, was responding to a survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports in which people were asked to agree or disagree with the phrase: "It's OK to be white." The phrase "is believed to have emerged in 2017 as a trolling campaign and has since been used by white supremacists", the BBC explained. According to the poll, 53% of black respondents agreed with the statement, while 26% disagreed and others were not sure. Adams declared that those who disagreed were a "hate group". After being dropped from most newspapers Adams conceded that his career had been destroyed and that the majority of his income would be gone by next week.

Briefing of the week

Zelenskyy: from comedian to war hero Ukraine's leader was once known for winning his country's version of Dancing with the Stars – today he is a bona fide statesman Read more

Global round-up What you need to know about the biggest stories in world news Section 230 and the future of the internet Lawsuits brought against tech giants could have far-reaching consequences for the internet as we know it Read more Ukraine's children abducted and 're-educated' by Russia Russian camps 'brainwash' thousands of Ukrainian children Read more Brazil celebrates the return of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival More than 46m people joined this year's Carnival celebrations, the first to take place without restrictions since the pandemic Read more 15-minute cities and conspiracy theorists An urban planning idea has become the focus of protests against 'socialist' attempt to control population Read more Where does Belarus stand on the Ukraine war? Leaked documents show Russian plan to absorb neighbouring state by 2030 Read more

Person OF THE WEEK Jaouhar Ben M'barek Tunisian authorities have arrested Jaouhar Ben M'barek, the most prominent opposition figure to be rounded up during a campaign of detentions initiated by President Kais Saied. A series of arrests over the past month has confirmed "the worst fears of Tunisia's President Kais Saied's political opponents", said DW. At least a dozen politicians, activists and critics have been arrested and "labelled as traitors or criminals by Saied", the news site said. The president has already been accused of attempting to return Tunisia to autocracy, having frozen parliament and sacked the government in July 2021 and subsequently concentrating near total power in his office. Ben M'barek, who was once a government adviser, is a leading member of the opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front (NSF), and chief of the Citizens Against the Coup movement, which both came about following Saied's anti-democratic manoeuvres. On Friday Salsabil Chellali, Tunisia director at Human Rights Watch, condemned Saied's treatment of opposition groups in the country. "After putting himself in charge of prosecution and firing judges right and left, President Saied is now going after his critics with utter abandon," Chellali said.

unexpected turn Mexican president posts 'elfie' Mexico's president posted a photo on his social media accounts over the weekend showing what he claimed was a mythological creature similar to an elf. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador "did not seem to be joking" when he posted the photo of an "Aluxe, a mischievous woodland spirit in Mayan folklore", the AP news agency said. López Obrador wrote that the photo "was taken three days ago by an engineer, it appears to be an aluxe", adding "everything is mystical". The grainy photo is of a "mysterious-looking animal with glowing eyes", the Daily Mail said. Since it was posted, the tweet has been retweeted and liked more than 32,000 times and, according to Twitter, the photos have been viewed by users 4.4 million times. As for the creature's identity, many commenters believe it is most probably a gibbon or langur monkey.

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