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France
Interpol Warns of SE Asian Crime
On Wednesday, the head of Interpol said organized crime rings who fueled an ‘explosion’ of human trafficking and cyber scam centers during the pandemic have expanded from Southeast Asia into a global network making up to $3 trillion a year. Driven by online anonymity, inspired by new business models, and fueled by COVID, these organized crime groups have rapidly expanded the scale of their work. Scamming hubs have set up shop in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Myanmar. The new scam-centers, often staffed by unwilling staff trafficked with the promise of legitimate jobs, have helped organized crime groups diversify their revenue from drug trafficking. Drug trafficking routes are also now being used for the trafficking of human beings, arms, intellectual property, stolen products, and car theft. Many of the scam centers operate under the umbrella of armed groups tied to the military, as in the case of Myanmar, or with links to powerful local political figures, such as in Cambodia.
This map depicts the location of known scam compounds and casinos in mainland Southeast Asia. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: UNODC
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Mexico
Forest Fires Rage in Mexico
Strong winds are fueling forest fires in 18 of Mexico’s 32 states, affecting more than 3,500 acres (1,416 hectares). Four people have perished in the fires, with all deaths occurring in Mexico state, which surrounds the capital city. Fires are burning as far south as Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala. Years of abnormally low rainfall and higher temperatures associated with climate change have produced drought conditions across Mexico, powering the blazes. The forest fires come during a worsening water crisis in Mexico City. Latin America’s most populous city may run out of water in just months as drought conditions, leaky infrastructure, and uneven urban development increasingly strain the city’s over-burdened reservoirs.
This map depicts the location of forest fires burning in Mexico. Click on the map to learn more.
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World
Wine Regions Under Threat
Agricultural researchers warn traditional wine-producing regions are under threat from global climate change. A review in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment notes how warming has already affected wine grape development, making wines more alcoholic and sweeter, and moving the harvest up to three weeks earlier than four decades ago. But if temperatures continue to warm, large areas where wine is traditionally produced will not be able to sustain their vineyards anymore. A warming of 3.6°F (2°C) would make 70 percent of these regions unsuitable. Particularly under threat would be coastal and low-lying vineyards in Spain, Italy, Greece, and southern California, and popular varieties of wine including chardonnay, merlot, and sauvignon blanc. In such a scenario, winemaking would have to shift to varieties of grapes that are more drought resistant, and would also move to regions further north.
This map depicts the major wine-making regions of the world and the chances the regions’ vineyards are under threat from climate change. Click on the map to learn more.
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An 85-year-old grandfather whose rock map of Scotland went viral on social media has said he would love to see it painted as a mural. Harry Young completed a 28-year project to create a geologically accurate map of mainland Scotland from rocks in 2020. He collected rocks during amateur geology trips and organized the map to be geologically correct and also aesthetically pleasing. A former hydrologist who measured rivers and rainfall, he was inspired by an interaction with a hydrogeologist who gave him some fossils. He began to collect rocks for his map across Scotland, and even marked fault lines in the right places on the design. Young aims to scale this rock map up and place the whole of Scotland on the side of a building. Read more here.
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Q: What two islands make up nine-tenths of the land area of the Pacific Islands?
A: New Zealand and New Guinea
The Pacific Island region covers more than 300,000 square miles (800,000 square km) of land—of which New Zealand and the island of New Guinea make up approximately nine-tenths—and millions of square miles of ocean. The Pacific Island region comprises three ethnogeographic groupings—Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia—but conventionally excludes the neighboring island continent of Australia, the Asia-related Indonesian, Philippine, and Japanese archipelagoes, and the Ryukyu, Bonin, Volcano, and Kuril Island arcs that project seaward from Japan. The population of the Pacific Islands is concentrated in Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Hawaii, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands.
Source
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Q: What island is the smallest and easternmost of the Greater Antilles?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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