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All regions of the world saw water extremes last year — both floods and droughts — and billions of people had insufficient freshwater, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Large areas of the planet recorded drier than normal conditions in 2021, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said in its first annual State of Global Water Resources report.

The report assesses the effects of changes in the climate, environment and society on the Earth’s freshwater resources — limited supplies that are under growing demand — so they can be managed better.

“The impacts of climate change are often felt through water — more intense and frequent droughts, more extreme flooding, more erratic seasonal rainfall and accelerated melting of glaciers — with cascading effects on economies, ecosystems and all aspects of our daily lives,” said WMO head Petteri Taalas.

“And yet there is insufficient understanding of changes in the distribution, quantity and quality of freshwater resources.”

Some 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to freshwater at least one month per year. That is forecast to rise to more than five billion by 2050, the report said.

Between 2001 and 2018, 74 percent of all natural disasters were water-related, according to UN studies.

In 2021, all regions saw devastating water extremes, the report said.

There were record-breaking floods in western Europe and the Amazon, while water levels in rivers in Paraguay and southern Brazil dropped to an all-time low.

The report assessed streamflow — the volume of water flowing through a river — over a 30-year period.

Drops in water volumes were twice as widespread as rises.

Major river basins in the Americas and central Africa saw water volumes shrink. Rivers in northern India and southern Africa saw above average increases.

– Frozen resources –

Terrestrial water storage — all water on the land surface and in the subsurface — shrank more than it grew, the report said.

Negative hotspots included Patagonia, the Ganges and Indus headwaters, and the southwestern United States.

“Some of the hotspots are exacerbated by (over-extraction) of groundwater for irrigation. The melting of snow and ice also has a significant impact in several areas, including Alaska, Patagonia and the Himalayas,” the WMO said.

The world’s biggest natural reservoir of freshwater is the cryosphere — glaciers, snow cover, ice caps and permafrost — and changes to this reservoir affect food production, health and the natural world, the report said.

Around 1.9 billion people live in areas where drinking water is supplied by glaciers and snow melt but these glaciers are melting increasingly fast, it stressed.

It urged authorities to speed up the introduction of drought and flood early warning systems to help reduce the impact of water extremes.

China’s major cities of Beijing and Shanghai were blanketed with security on Tuesday in the wake of nationwide rallies calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid lockdowns. 

The country’s leadership faced a weekend of protests not seen in decades as anger over unrelenting lockdowns fuels deep-rooted frustration with its political system. 

A deadly fire last week in Urumqi, the capital of the northwestern region of Xinjiang, was the catalyst for the wave of outrage, with protesters taking to the streets in cities around China. 

The demonstrators said Covid-19 restrictions were to blame for hampering rescue efforts, claims the government has denied as it accused “forces with ulterior motives” of linking the fire deaths to the strict Covid controls.

Anger over lockdowns has widened to calls for political change, with protesters holding up blank sheets of paper to symbolise the censorship to which the world’s most populous country is subjected.

– ‘So many police’ –

More protests had been planned for Monday night but did not materialise. AFP journalists in Beijing and Shanghai noted a heavy police presence of hundreds of vehicles and officers on the streets.

People who had attended weekend rallies told AFP on Monday they had received phone calls from law enforcement officers demanding information about their movements.

In Shanghai, near a site where weekend protests saw bold calls for the resignation of President Xi Jinping, bar staff told AFP they had been ordered to close at 10:00 pm (1400 GMT) for “disease control”. 

Small clusters of officers were deployed to metro exits near the protest site.

AFP journalists saw officers detaining four people throughout Monday, releasing one later, with a reporter counting 12 police cars within 100 metres along Wulumuqi street in Shanghai, the focal point of Sunday’s rally.

Frustration with zero-Covid remained palpable despite the overwhelming police deployment.

“The (zero-Covid) policies now -– they’re just too strict. They kill more people than Covid,” one 17-year-old passerby, who asked to be identified only as Ray, told AFP.

He said he had been surrounded by police when passing through the area.

A man can be heard in an audio recording shared with AFP asking for his address. In response, Ray insists law enforcement officers do not “have the right” to demand it.

Some rallies did go ahead elsewhere on Monday night. 

In semi-autonomous Hong Kong, where mass democracy protests erupted in 2019, dozens gathered at the Chinese University to mourn the victims of the Urumqi fire.

“Don’t look away. Don’t forget,” protesters shouted.

In Hangzhou, just over 170 kilometres (105 miles) southwest of Shanghai, there was strict security and sporadic protests in the city’s downtown, with one attendee telling AFP that 10 people were detained. 

“The atmosphere was disorderly. There were few people and we were separated. There were lots of police, it was chaos,” she said.

– ‘Many died in vain’ –

Such widespread rallies are exceptionally rare, with authorities harshly clamping down on all opposition to the central government.

But China’s strict control of information and continued travel curbs have made verifying protester numbers across the vast country challenging.

US President Joe Biden is monitoring the unrest, the White House said Monday.

Solidarity protests also mushroomed around the world.

“Officials are borrowing the pretext of Covid, but using excessively strict lockdowns to control China’s population,” one 21-year-old Chinese participant in a Washington protest, who gave only his surname, Chen, told AFP. 

“They disregarded human lives and caused many to die in vain,” he said.

– ‘No longer afraid’ –

China’s leaders are committed to zero-Covid, which compels local governments to impose snap lockdowns and quarantine orders, and limit freedom of movement in response to minor outbreaks.

But there are signs that some local authorities are taking steps to relax some of the rules and dampen the unrest — and that authorities may be seeking a path out of the rigid policy.

Beijing has banned “the practice of barring building gates in closed-off residential compounds”, the official news agency Xinhua said on Sunday.

The practice has fuelled public anger as people found themselves locked in their homes during minor outbreaks. 

China’s National Health Commission announced on Tuesday a renewed effort to expand low vaccination rates among the elderly — long seen as a key obstacle to relaxing zero-Covid. 

Many fear that lifting the policy while swaths of the population remain not fully immunised could overwhelm China’s healthcare system and cause more than a million deaths.

Just 65.8 percent of people over 80 are fully vaccinated, NHC officials told a news conference.

China has also not yet approved mRNA vaccines, which are proven to be more effective, for public use.

They also said local efforts “inconsistent with national policies” had caused a “great impact on people’s work and life”, but did not suggest a change in policy was imminent.

A longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Kudrin, stepped down Tuesday as the head of the country’s audit chamber amid reports he will oversee the reconstruction of tech giant Yandex following sanctions over Ukraine.

Kudrin, a former finance minister who has a reputation of being an economic liberal in Moscow, has been in Russian politics since the 1990s.

The 62-year-old said he was “leaving the post of Chairman of the Audit Chamber” after “around 25 years in the public sector.”

“Now I would like to focus on large projects that are related to the development of private initiatives in a broad sense, but at the same time have a significant impact on people.”

He held the post since 2018, appointed after Putin was re-elected for a fourth term in the Kremlin.

Last week, Russian state news agency TASS reported that Kudrin will be given a senior role in Yandex before the new year.

“The decision has been taken,” TASS quoted a source as saying. 

Yandex — often dubbed the “Russian Google” — has a search engine and also provides Russia’s main taxi and food delivery service. 

It is registered in the Netherlands and has European, UK and US subsidiaries, but the bulk of its business is in Russia and Russian-speaking countries. 

Last week, its board of directors said it will weigh “options to restructure the group’s ownership and governance in light of the current geopolitical environment.”

It said this could include developing some of its services — including self-driving technologies, cloud computing and data labelling — “independently from Russia.”

It added that the company “anticipates” that it will “in due course be renamed”.

Yandex said it could “divest ownership and control of all other businesses in the Yandex Group”, such as advertising, e-commerce and food delivery.

This summer Yandex said it was selling its search engine — the largest in the Russian-language internet — to the government-controlled VK group which owns the country’s largest social network VKontakte. 

Equities rose with oil prices and the dollar weakened Tuesday as China avoided another night of protests after a weekend of unrest, with speculation growing that officials will announce a further easing of the country’s strict Covid containment measures.

The gains were led by a rally in Hong Kong and Shanghai, with property firms enjoying a much-needed surge on the back of moves to ease funding restrictions on troubled developers.

But sentiment was tempered by warnings from top Federal Reserve policymakers that US interest rates would rise further and could go higher than initially thought to fight inflation.

The remarks were partly to blame for big losses of more than one percent in Wall Street’s three main indexes.

China was rocked by demonstrations at the weekend calling for more political freedoms and an end to the country’s long-running and economically painful zero-Covid strategy that has seen millions thrown into lockdown for months.

Several arrests were made and security forces were out in force Monday to prevent a repeat of the protests, which were the most widespread since pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed in 1989.

The return of some calm helped Hong Kong stocks rally more than five percent and Shanghai more than two percent, with rumbling that the unrest could help push leaders to ease some of the strict containment measures. 

Beijing announced Tuesday afternoon a plan to speed up vaccinations of people aged 60 and older after seeing record daily case numbers in recent days.

Talk of a lighter approach to fighting the disease has helped reopening-linked firms rise, with retailers, cinema chains, Macau casinos and other tourism stocks benefiting.

Property firms were among the best performers after China said it would end a ban on firms raising cash by selling stocks, the latest measure to ease pressure on the sector, which has seen several companies collapse and threatens the wider economy.

Chinese investors were taking “a more pragmatic approach to the current Covid proceedings”, said SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes. “Indeed, a probable outcome is a quicker loosening of restrictions once the current Covid wave and numerous protest flash points subside.”

Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Wellington, Bangkok, Mumbai, Taipei and Manila were also in positive territory, though Tokyo dipped with Jakarta.

London, Paris and Frankfurt all opened on the front foot.

The more upbeat mood saw the dollar drop against its peers, while oil prices rallied on the prospect of a pick-up in demand in China if leaders roll back some of their measures.

Attention is turning to the United States this week with a number of Fed officials due to speak, including boss Jerome Powell, while Friday sees the release of key jobs data, which could provide an idea about the bank’s plans for monetary policy.

Bets on a slowdown in its pace of rate hikes have boosted markets for the past weeks, but some high-ranking members on Monday looked to play down the chances of a more dovish pivot.

St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard warned “markets are underpricing a little bit the risk that the (policy board) will have to be more aggressive rather than less aggressive in order to contain the very substantial inflation that we have in the US”.

And Richmond Fed president Thomas Barkin added: “I’m very supportive of a path that is slower, probably longer and potentially higher than where we were before.”

The officials indicated borrowing costs would not likely come down until the end of next year or in 2024.

– Key figures around 0820 GMT –

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.6 percent at 28,027.84 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 5.2 percent at 18,204.68 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 2.3 percent at 3,149.75 (close)

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.5 percent at 7,511.04

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0356 from $1.0347 on Monday

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 138.20 yen from 138.87 yen

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2024 from $1.1952

Euro/pound: DOWN at 86.13 pence from 86.50 pence

West Texas Intermediate: UP 1.6 at $78.46 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: UP 1.8 percent at $84.68 per barrel

New York – Dow: DOWN 1.5 percent at 33,849.46 (close)

British airline EasyJet on Tuesday confirmed a third annual loss in a row, which was however far less than during the worst of the Covid pandemic.

The airline, which flies mainly across Europe, posted a loss after tax of £169 million ($203 million) for its financial year to the end of September.

That compared with a net loss of £858 million in 2020/21, EasyJet added in a statement.

The Covid pandemic ravaged global aviation, grounding planes worldwide and forcing airlines to slash thousands of jobs in 2020.

Demand has recovered sharply after most lockdowns were lifted. However, airlines and airports are struggling to recruit sufficient staff after having axed so many positions.

“EasyJet has achieved a record bounce back this summer,” chief executive Johan Lundgren said in the statement.

He added that during the current “tough” economic climate, consumers would still look to go on holiday but seek out value, helping the no-frills carrier to do better than more established rivals.

“Legacy carriers will struggle in this high-cost environment,” Lundgren said.

Rocketing energy bills are forcing Hungary to shutter libraries, theatres, swimming pools and even its new football stadiums for winter.

The state-of-the-art grounds — symbols of right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 12 years in power — are among a long list of buildings no longer able to cope with rising energy prices in the central European country.

Despite being one of the country’s richest cities and being run by Orban’s own party, Szekesfehervar is one of many closing its museums, libraries and theatres.

Its new 14,000-capacity city-run stadium also pulled down its shutters this month to save costs, said mayor Andras Cser-Palkovics.

“Community spaces are what make a city. No one was happy about the measures but they accepted that they are needed,” Cser-Palkovics, a member of Orban’s ruling Fidesz party, told AFP in Szekesfehervar’s City Hall.

– ‘Won’t wait for miracles’ –

Like other cities, Szekesfehervar, 60 kilometres (37 miles) southwest of the capital Budapest, has tried to mitigate the effects of these closures.

The next Hungarian league games are in late January, so no football matches have had to be called off because of the stadium’s closure. 

Local side Fehervar FC, which usually trains at the stadium during the winter, can use other pitches in the city.

“Fehervar FC’s professional work is not particularly affected by the drastic decision to save energy,” the club said.

Cser-Palkovics said the plan is for the stadium, only built in 2018, to reopen in mid-January, adding that he has asked the league to reschedule evening games in the New Year to save on pitch heating and floodlight costs.

“We should not wait for miracles, we can help ourselves by our own measures,” he said.

Elsewhere in the city, the Vorosmarty Theatre will close after performing its Christmas and New Year programme and will reopen in March when the spring season kicks off, said its head Janos Szikora.

“We won’t sit around desperately thinking, ‘Oh my God what will happen,'” Szikora told AFP, adding that while the theatre is closed actors will find other spaces to rehearse.

– Blaming Brussels –

The energy crisis — a ripple effect from the Ukraine war — has piled pressure on nationalist premier Orban, who has made low household utility bills a core policy over the last decade. 

Inflation in Hungary reached 21.6 percent in October, its highest level since 1996, and the third highest in the EU, according to Eurostat.  

Government-mandated price caps on basic foodstuffs and fuel aimed at stemming price rises have led to shortages in some shops and petrol stations.

With recession looming — GDP contracted by 0.4 percent in the third quarter — EU funds totalling more than 14 billion euros ($14.4 billion) have been withheld over corruption and rule-of-law concerns.

“Rising energy bills and even more so inflation are affecting everyone — the question is who Hungarians will blame for these economic hardships,” said Andrea Virag, strategy director of the Budapest-based Republikon think tank.

A government billboard campaign accuses the EU, saying “Brussels sanctions are ruining us”, while a government “national consultation” survey sent to households poses leading questions also critical of the sanctions.  

“It is clear that the tactic of the Hungarian government and Orban is to put all the blame on Brussels,” Virag told AFP. “There is some research that suggests that a huge amount of people believe Fidesz’s narrative.” 

It remains to be seen how many businesses will be forced to close for good in the months to come.

While industrial Szekesfehervar is relatively wealthy, other municipalities particularly in poorer eastern regions are threatened by bankruptcy unless they get state support, according to mayor Cser-Palkovics.

Geza Deli, a pensioner walking on Szekesfehervar’s main street, told AFP he agreed with City Hall’s strategy of reducing services deemed non-essential. 

“Obviously there are some basic public services which need support — primarily education and healthcare. It is more important that a doctor can take care of me than I can go to a football match,” the 72-year-old said.