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Alcohol Kills 2.6 Million Drinkers Annually, Says WHO

Published

1 year ago

June 25, 2024

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Alcohol kills nearly three million people annually, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, adding that while the death rate had dropped slightly in recent years it remained “unacceptably high”.

The United Nations health agency’s latest report on alcohol and health said alcohol causes nearly one in 20 deaths globally each year, through drunk driving, alcohol-induced violence and abuse, and a multitude of diseases and disorders.

The report said 2.6 million deaths were attributed to alcohol consumption in 2019 — the latest available statistics — accounting for 4.7 per cent of all deaths worldwide that year.

Nearly three-quarters of those deaths were in men, it said.

“Substance use severely harms individual health, increasing the risk of chronic diseases, mental health conditions, and tragically resulting in millions of preventable deaths every year,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

He pointed out that there had been “some reduction in alcohol consumption and related harm worldwide since 2010”.

“(But) the health and social burden due to alcohol use remains unacceptably high,” he continued, highlighting that younger people were disproportionately affected.

The highest proportion of alcohol-attributable deaths in 2019 — 13 per cent — were among people aged 20 to 39, the WHO said.

Drinking is linked to a slew of health conditions, including cirrhosis of the liver and some cancers.

Of all the fatalities it caused in 2019, the report found that an estimated 1.6 million were from noncommunicable diseases.

Of these, 474,000 were from cardiovascular diseases, 401,000 from cancer and a huge 724,000 from injuries, including traffic accidents and self-harm.

Alcohol abuse also makes people more susceptible to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and pneumonia, the report found.

An estimated 209 million people lived with alcohol dependence in 2019 — 3.7 per cent of the global population.

Total per capita consumption worldwide decreased slightly to 5.5 litres of alcohol in 2019 from 5.7 litres nine years earlier, the report found.

However, alcohol consumption overall is unevenly distributed around the globe.

Well, over half of the world’s population over the age of 15 abstains completely.

Europe accounted by far for the highest levels of per capita drinking, at 9.2 litres, followed by the Americas at 7.5 litres.

The lowest consumption was in predominantly Muslim countries in Northern Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the report said.

Among people who drank alcohol in 2019, the report determined they consumed 27 grammes of pure alcohol per day on average.

That is roughly equivalent to two glasses of wine, two small bottles of beer or two shots of spirits.

“This level and frequency of drinking is associated with increased risks of numerous health conditions and associated mortality and disability,” the WHO warned.

In 2019, a full 38 per cent of current drinkers acknowledged having engaged in heavy episodic drinking, defined as consuming at least 60 grammes of pure alcohol on one or more occasions in the preceding month.

Globally, 23.5 per cent of 15- to 19-year-olds were considered current drinkers.

That jumped to more than 45 per cent for people in this age group living in Europe, and to nearly 44 per cent in the Americas.

The WHO said it was essential to improve access to quality treatment for substance use disorders.

In 2019, the proportion of people contacting such treatment services ranged from below one per cent to 35 per cent in countries providing this data.

“Stigma, discrimination and misconceptions about the efficacy of treatment contribute to these critical gaps in treatment provision,” Vladimir Poznyak, head of WHO’s unit for alcohol, drugs and addictive behaviours, told reporters.

AFP

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UK Nursery Worker Jailed For Abusing 21 Babies

Published

16 hours ago

September 26, 2025

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A judge on Friday jailed a nursery worker for eight years for a string of “gratuitous” and “sadistic” attacks on babies.

In one incident, Londoner Roksana Lecka, 22, kicked a little boy in the face several times.

Lecka, who blamed cannabis for her crimes, admitted seven counts of cruelty to a person under the age of 16 and was convicted after a trial of another 14 counts.

Sentencing her for attacks on 21 babies, Judge Sarah Plaschkes said she had committed “multiple acts of gratuitous violence” at two London nurseries where she worked.

“You pinched, slapped, punched, smacked and kicked them. You pulled their ears, hair and their toes. You toppled children headfirst into cots,” she said.

“Often the child would be quietly and happily minding its own business before you deliberately inflicted pain… Your criminal conduct can properly be characterised as sadistic,” she added.

Lecka’s cruelty was revealed in June 2024 after she was seen pinching a number of children.
Police were called in and found multiple incidents recorded on the nursery CCTV.

Victim impact statements submitted to London’s Kingston Crown Court from parents of Lecka’s victims told how they were left heartbroken and guilt-stricken by the attacks.

“These children were so innocent and vulnerable,” one mother told the court.

“They couldn’t speak, they couldn’t defend themselves and they couldn’t tell us as parents that something had happened to them,” she added.

“They were totally helpless and Roksana preyed upon them.”

The hearing was told that she had apologised to the parents in a letter to the court in which she said cannabis had turned her into a different person.

She had been addicted to the drug around the time of the offences, but had not told the nursery.
She was found not guilty of three further counts of child cruelty.

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Italy Fines Six Oil Firms $1bn Fine For Restricting Competition

Published

19 hours ago

September 26, 2025

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Italy’s antitrust regulator said Friday it has slapped Italian energy giant Eni and five other companies with fines totalling more than 936 million euros ($1.1 billion) for “restricting competition” in the sale of fuel.

The authority said in a statement that Eni, Esso, Ip, Q8, Saras and Tamoil “coordinated to set the value of the bio component factored into fuel prices”, which tripled between 2019 and 2023.

A probe following a whistleblower’s complaint revealed that “the companies implemented parallel price increases — largely coinciding — which were driven by direct or indirect information exchanges among them”, the authority said.

“The cartel began on 1 January 2020 and continued until 30 June 2023,” it added.

AFP

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Trump Signs Order For TikTok’s Sale, Valued At $14bn

Published

21 hours ago

September 26, 2025

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United States President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order declaring that his plan is to sell TikTok’s US operations to American and global investors.

As reported by Reuters on Friday, the order requires companies bidding for TikTok to meet the national-security requirements of the 2024 law that otherwise would ban the app unless its Chinese owners divest.

Speaking to reporters at an Oval Office briefing on Thursday, Vice President James Vance said the newly created US entity would be “valued around $14 billion.

“We actually think this is a good deal for investors, but they will make a determination about what they want to invest and what they think is the proper value,” he said.

The White House on Thursday pushed back the law’s enforcement date to January 20 to allow time for the transaction, investor commitments, and negotiations with Chinese authorities.

The publication of the executive order shows Trump is making progress on the sale of TikTok’s US assets.

However, details remain to be worked out, including how the U.S. company would handle TikTok’s most valuable asset: its recommendation algorithm.

“There was some resistance on the Chinese side, but the fundamental thing that we wanted to accomplish is that we wanted to keep TikTok operating, but we also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans’ data privacy as required by law,” Vance said.

According to Reuters, Trump’s order says the algorithm will be retrained and monitored by the U.S. company’s security partners, and operation of the algorithm will be under the control of the new joint venture.

Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had indicated approval of the plans. “I spoke with President Xi,” Trump said. “We had a good talk, I told him what we were doing, and he said go ahead with it.”

Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. TikTok did not immediately comment on Trump’s action.

Trump has credited TikTok, which has 170 million U.S. users, with helping him win reelection last year. Trump has 15 million followers on his personal TikTok account. The White House also launched an official TikTok account last month.

“This is going to be American-operated all the way,” Trump said.

He said that Michael Dell, the founder, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies; Rupert Murdoch, the chairman emeritus of Fox News owner Fox Corp, and newspaper publisher News Corp, and “probably four or five absolutely world-class investors” would be part of the deal.