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Mexico-United States
Deal Reached to Share Migrants
The United States and Mexico have reached an agreement on one aspect of the ongoing migrant crisis on their shared border. In the past five years, more than six million Venezuelans have left their country. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, they have faced greater barriers of entry to neighboring South American states, including Chile, Peru, and Colombia, resulting in many turning north to the U.S.-Mexico border. With a record-breaking number of Venezuelans illegally entering the southern states, the new deal will allow 24,000 Venezuelan migrants to be financially supported in the U.S. provided that they fly directly from Venezuela into the U.S. Migrants who have illegally entered the U.S. across the southern border will be expelled to Mexico. The expulsion policy is based on Title 42, which was implemented during the pandemic to swiftly expel undocumented migrants for public health purposes.
This map depicts the typical routes taken by Venezuelan migrants after leaving Venezuela. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: BBC
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Haiti
International Assistance Protests
Haitians have been protesting the possibility of international military intervention in their country following an appeal by Prime Minister Ariel Henry to help quell gang violence. Haiti is in the midst of a massive crisis following the takeover of the country’s largest fuel depot by armed gangs in mid-September and a resurgence of cholera that killed 10,000 people the last time it emerged in the country three years ago. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded to Henry’s appeal with a call to deploy peacekeepers to Haiti on Sunday, but the following day, thousands of Haitians demonstrated against the proposal in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Activists and NGO’s have voiced concerns that the presence of foreign soldiers will only escalate violence. There are currently anywhere from 150 to 200 gangs competing for control of Port-au-Prince.
This map depicts the most recent numbers of cholera infections identified in Haiti, as gang warfare threatens to exacerbate a humanitarian crisis in the country. Click on the map to learn more.
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Space
DART Mission Proves Successful
Scientists and technicians at NASA are celebrating as the mission to test a defense strategy against asteroid strikes has proven successful. NASA launched DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) last November, with the intended goal of using a man-made spacecraft to alter an asteroid’s path by a direct collision. The team had selected the asteroid Dimorphos, a 525-foot (160 m) moonlet of the larger asteroid Didymos, as a good test subject for the experiment. DART reached its target on September 26, creating a remarkable impact visible by multiple systems monitoring the test. Yesterday, the NASA team confirmed DART had substantially redirected Dimorphos, reducing its orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes. This is the first time humankind has altered the orbit of a celestial object, giving scientists reason to believe similar strategies can be employed against objects that could potentially threaten Earth in the future.
This map depicts the effect of NASA’s DART spacecraft on the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, in the first instance of humankind altering the direction of a celestial object. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: Located on the border between Poland and Belarus, what extensive primary forest was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979?
A: Białowieża Forest
The Białowieża Forest sits on the border between Poland and Belarus, overlapping the watersheds of the Baltic and Black seas. It is a large forest complex including both conifers and broadleaved trees, and has been preserved in its natural state up until this day. It was initially inscribed on the World Heritage List as Poland’s Białowieża National Park in 1972, however 20 years later it was extended to include the National Park Belavezhskaya Pushcha (forest) in Belarus, and was extended again in 2014. The region is extremely biodiverse and, thanks to significant conservation efforts, it has managed to preserve its old growth forests and areas with undisturbed ecosystems. The UNESCO site is home to over 59 mammal species, 250 bird species, 13 amphibians, 7 reptiles, and over 12,000 invertebrate species. It is also home to the largest population of free-roaming European bison, known in Polish and Belarusian as “zubr”.
Source
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Q: Directly off the coast of Southern California and part of the Channel Islands, what is the name of the island group’s largest island?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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