From roasting temperatures to rocketing energy prices and millions of refugees fleeing Ukraine, 2022 was a year of extremes.
AFP looks back at some of the records smashed:
FOOD AND ENERGY PRICES
Photo: AP
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February caused a massive jump in energy and food costs, with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index hitting a historic peak in March and the cost of gas in Europe reaching record highs.
The eurozone annual inflation climbed steadily to 10.6 percent in October, the biggest increase since the index began in 1997. It then slowed in November for the first time in a year and a half.
REFUGEES
The war also triggered the biggest wave of refugees in Europe since the end of World War II. More than 7 million Ukrainians fled to other European countries and a further 6.9 million were displaced internally, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Globally, the number of displaced people exceeded 100 million for the first time.
BURNING UP
Europe sweated through its hottest summer on record, with records tumbling in many countries, including England where the mercury topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time. Forest fires linked to the hotter, drier conditions also scorched more land than ever before in Europe — over 600,000 hectares.
HAIL OF MISSILES
North Korea fired a record number of missiles into the Sea of Japan in response to large-scale joint military exercises staged by South Korea and the United States.
A particularly intense peak saw 23 missiles fired in 24 hours on November 2.
FAREWELL QUEEN
After 70 years on the throne, Britain’s longest-serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, passed away on September 8, aged 96.
Before her massive state funeral, an estimated quarter of a million people queued round the clock to view the coffin as it lay in state.
MUSK MAYHEM
It was a big year for Elon Musk, although he ended it being knocked off his perch as the world’s richest man on Forbes’ billionaire list by French businessman Bernard Arnault of global luxury empire LVMH.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX added Twitter to his portfolio for $44 billion in October and swiftly caused controversy by firing half the staff and lifting bans of people who had been thrown off the platform, including Donald Trump.
In December Musk said he would resign as chief executive once he found a replacement, in apparent response to a poll he launched that suggested users wanted him to step down.
NEW ARTISTIC HEIGHTS
The art collection of Microsoft’s co-founder Paul Allen, which included works by Cezanne, Klimt and Van Gogh, was sold by Christie’s for $1.62 billion, the biggest amount ever for an art auction.
Marilyn Monroe was a big hitter too, with one of her photo portraits by Andy Warhol selling for $195 million, making it the most expensive 20th century artwork.
JET-SETTING SWIFT
The 10th album by the US megastar, “Midnights”, caused such a frenzy that Spotify broke down as more fans sought to listen to it over a single day than any other album.
Ten of its tracks were listed in the top ten Billboard Hot 100, also a first.
Less glorious for Swift was her topping the list for the “worst private jet CO2 emission offenders” among celebrities for her extensive private jet use.
In August when she was awarded the unenviable prize, she had already clocked up 170 flights in her private jet.
EIGHT BILLION HUMANS
In November the world’s population — which numbered 2.5 billion in 1950 — exceeded eight billion, according to the UN.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Six weeks before I embarked on a research mission in Kyoto, I was sitting alone at a bar counter in Melbourne. Next to me, a woman was bragging loudly to a friend: She, too, was heading to Kyoto, I quickly discerned. Except her trip was in four months. And she’d just pulled an all-nighter booking restaurant reservations. As I snooped on the conversation, I broke out in a sweat, panicking because I’d yet to secure a single table. Then I remembered: Eating well in Japan is absolutely not something to lose sleep over. It’s true that the best-known institutions book up faster
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