Ukraine’s economy is expected to contract sharply in 2022 due to Russia’s invasion but could plunge into a devastating recession if the conflict lasts longer, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Monday.

Ukraine’s government continues to function, the banking system is stable and debt payments are viable in the short term, the IMF said, but warned the outlook could worsen sharply in case the war drags on.

And it also warned that the conflict could have broader repercussions, including threatening global food security due to rising prices and the inability to plant crops, especially wheat.

At a minimum, the country would see “output falling 10% this year assuming a prompt resolution of the war,” the IMF said in an analysis of the economy in the wake of the Russian invasion.

But the fund warned of “massive uncertainty” around the forecasts, and if the conflict is prolonged, the situation will worsen.

The report prepared ahead of the IMF's approval of $1.4 billion in emergency financing, said Ukraine's economic output could shrink by 25% to 35%, based on real wartime gross domestic product (GDP) data from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and other countries at war.

The country's economy grew 3.2% in 2021 amid a record grain harvest and strong consumer spending.

But in the wake of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, "the economy in Ukraine dramatically changed," said Vladyslav Rashkovan, alternate executive director for Ukraine on the IMF board.

"As of March 6, 202 schools, 34 hospitals, more than 1,500 residential houses including multi-apartment houses, tens of kilometers of roads, and countless objects of critical infrastructures in several Ukrainian cities have been fully or partially destroyed by Russian troops," the official said in a statement.

Ports and airports have also been closed "due to massive destruction," he said.

Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week estimated the damage at $100 billion so far.

'Hunger in Africa'

Despite the extensive damage, the government and the country have continued functioning.

"Banks are open, working even during the weekends," Rashkovan said in the statement dated March 9.

As of March 1, the country held foreign reserves of $27.5 billion, "which is sufficient for Ukraine to meet its commitments," he said.

The IMF, which last week approved a $1.4 billion emergency aid program for the country, said given large reserves and significant financial support, "debt sustainability does not appear to be at risk" in the short term, although there are "very large" uncertainties.

Beyond the human and economic losses in Ukraine, the IMF cautions about the spillovers from the war to the global economy.

Since the conflict began, energy and agriculture prices have soared and the fund warned they could worsen, fueling rising inflation.

"Disruptions to the spring agriculture season could also curtail exports and growth and imperil food security," the report said.

Ukraine and Russia, considered the "breadbasket of Europe," are among the largest wheat exporters in the world. Most Ukrainian wheat is exported in summer and autumn.

The initial impact will be on prices, which would also push prices of other food like corn higher, according to the IMF.

But an extended conflict could hit supplies if farmers are unable to plant.

"War in Ukraine means hunger in Africa," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said Sunday on CBS.

The United Nations World Food Programme in a report Friday cautioned that "export disruptions in the Black Sea have immediate implications for countries such as Egypt, which heavily rely on grain imports from Russia and Ukraine."

And countries that rely heavily on imported grain will also feel the pain, including "hunger hot spots such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Syria and Yemen."/agencies

Sitting protected by the rib cage on the right side of your belly and weighing about 1.3 kilograms (3 pounds), the liver has several essential biological functions, including detoxification and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. And while the best-known cause of this large, meaty organ's failure is alcohol abuse, it is not the only one.

You can't live without a liver. It's the body's main metabolic organ and performs numerous vital functions.

"Among other things, the liver helps to regulate fat and sugar metabolism as well as vitamin and mineral levels, and it stores important nutrients such as sugar, fats, vitamins and minerals," says Markus Cornberg, medical director of the German Liver Foundation.

It's also the body's detox headquarters, filtering toxic substances out of your blood. What's more, it produces many vital substances, such as proteins that, among other things, help your blood to coagulate.

If the liver is ill, we may not know it for years. "Symptoms such as fatigue or difficulty concentrating are often very nonspecific," says Ingo van Thiel, an adviser and writer for the German Liver Patients Association, a nonprofit organization that provides advice for liver patients.

The liver feels no pain, says van Thiel. "But some patients have pressure pain in the upper right quadrant of their abdomen if their liver is enlarged and puts pressure on surrounding tissues," he adds.

Comparatively few people with a liver disorder show telltale symptoms such as jaundice – yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes. "In the final stages though, severe symptoms such as abdominal dropsy (accumulation of excess fluid), sudden blood vomiting or brain disorders are possible," van Thiel says. "That's when some finally realize they're sick."

Although most people associate liver disease with alcohol abuse, it's just one of three main causes. The other two are a fatty liver – too much fat stored in liver cells – not due to alcohol consumption, and hepatitis B and C viruses.

So to keep your liver healthy, it's not enough to monitor your alcohol consumption. Smoking is harmful too. And you should cut down on sweetened beverages and juices, as they can cause a build-up of fat in the organ and possibly lead to a fatty liver.

"We're very concerned about fatty liver disease caused by metabolic syndrome," says van Thiel, referring to a combination of excess body weight, high blood pressure and high levels of fats and sugar in the blood that can do the liver serious harm.

No medications for a fatty liver have been developed yet. But coffee consumption, for example, can be beneficial. "It has a protective effect and can lower elevated liver values" and thereby reduce the risk of cirrhosis (scarring) and liver cancer, says Cornberg.

If you've got a healthy liver, there's no special regimen or diet to keep it that way, according to Cornberg, who adds: "A balanced diet with fresh and natural foods, and an active lifestyle are helpful nonetheless."

Proper nutrition can also play a positive role if your liver isn't healthy. "This is particularly true for people with a storage disease such as hemochromatosis (iron overload) or Wilson's disease (copper overload), for cirrhosis patients and for people with fatty liver disease," Cornberg says.

Screening is available for infection with the hepatitis viruses A, B, C or D, which cause liver inflammation. You can also get vaccinated against hepatitis A and B.

"The vaccines are safe, well tolerated and provide reliable protection against these viral infections," says Cornberg. "The hepatitis B vaccine also protects against infection with the hepatitis D virus."

Infection with either virus can cause chronic hepatitis and lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer, Cornberg warns, "so the vaccines also protect against cancer." While there's no vaccine for hepatitis C, "the disease is now curable with hardly any side effects in almost all patients."/GPA

In this week's roundup, the latest scientific research on the coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines suggest that infections by the omicron variant of the virus are contagious for at least six days, heart defects boost risks for hospitalized patients and the real death toll of the pandemic could be much higher than estimations.

Contagious for six days

Patients infected with the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 remain contagious for just as long as patients infected with earlier variants, according to a small study.

Researchers took blood samples from 56 newly-diagnosed patients, including 37 with delta infections and 19 with omicron infections. All were mildly ill, such as with flu-like symptoms, but none were hospitalized.

Regardless of which variant or whether or not they had been vaccinated or boosted, study participants "shed live virus for, on average, about six days after symptoms (began), and ... about one in four people shed live virus for over 8 days," said Dr. Amy Barczak of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who co-authored a report posted on medRxiv ahead of peer review.

"Although it is unknown exactly how much live virus is needed to spread the disease to others, we take these data to suggest that people with mild COVID-19 infection may be contagious on average for six days, and sometimes longer," Barczak said. "Decisions about isolation and masking should take such information into account, regardless of variant or prior vaccination status."

Heart defects boost risks

People born with heart defects who become sick enough from COVID-19 to be hospitalized are at higher risk for becoming critically ill or dying, researchers said.

The findings were drawn from a study that compared 421 patients with a heart defect who were hospitalized for COVID-19 with 235,638 similar hospitalized COVID-19 patients born with normal hearts.

After researchers accounted for patients' other risk factors, those with congenital heart defects were 40% more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit, 80% more likely to need mechanical ventilation, and two times more to die while hospitalized, compared to patients in the control group, according to the report published on Monday in the journal Circulation.

Hospitalized patients with a congenital heart defect and another health condition faced even higher risks for poor outcomes, the researchers found.

"People with heart defects should be encouraged to receive the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters and to continue to practice additional preventive measures for COVID-19, such as mask-wearing and physical distancing," study leader Karrie Downing of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

Real death toll

The true death toll from the coronavirus pandemic may be more than three times higher than official records suggest, researchers said.

Instead of the official estimate of 5.9 million COVID-related deaths, a more realistic estimate is 18.2 million, according to a report in The Lancet on Thursday.

Researchers compared data from 74 countries and territories collected from January 2020 through December 2021 with data collected during the previous 11 years. On average, among every 100,000 people worldwide, there were 120 deaths that would not have been expected had the pandemic not occurred, they estimated.

The highest estimated excess death rates were in Andean Latin America (512 deaths per 100,000), Eastern Europe (345 deaths per 100,000), Central Europe (316 deaths per 100,000), Southern sub-Saharan Africa (309 deaths per 100,000), and Central Latin America (274 deaths per 100,000).

The United States and the United Kingdom had an estimated 179 and 127 excess deaths per 100,000, respectively. Some countries, including Iceland, Singapore and Australia, appeared to have had fewer deaths than expected.

The highest numbers of estimated pandemic-related deaths were in India (4.1 million), the U.S. and Russia (1.1 million each), Mexico (798,000), Brazil (792,000), Indonesia (736,000) and Pakistan (664,000).

"Further research will help to reveal how many deaths were caused directly by COVID-19, and how many occurred as an indirect result of the pandemic," study leader Haidong Wang of the University of Washington in Seattle said in a statement./Reuters

France has shut down a mosque for a six-month period amid an ongoing drive against Muslims and their places of worship.

The Al-Farouk Mosque in Pessac district near the city of Bordeaux in southwestern France was closed for allegedly defending "radical Islam" and “spreading Salafist ideology,” the Gironde governorate said Monday in a statement.

The statement accused mosque authorities of giving sermons calling for non-compliance with French laws and legitimizing terrorist attacks.

It also accused them of spreading messages containing hate against Israel as well as supporting terrorist organizations or people who defend "radical Islam."

In August, France’s highest constitutional authority approved a controversial “anti-separatism” law that has been criticized for singling out Muslims, striking down just two of its articles.

The bill was passed by the National Assembly in July, despite strong opposition from both rightist and leftist lawmakers.

The government claims that the law is intended to strengthen France's secular system, but critics believe that it restricts religious freedom and marginalizes Muslims.

The law has been criticized for targeting France's Muslim community – the largest in Europe, with 3.35 million members – and imposing restrictions on many aspects of their lives.

It allows officials to intervene in mosques and associations responsible for their administration as well as control the finances of Muslim-affiliated associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It also restricts the educational choices of Muslims by making homeschooling subject to official permission.

Under the law, patients are prohibited from choosing their doctors based on gender for religious or other reasons and "secularism education" has been made compulsory for all civil servants.

France has been criticized by international organizations and NGOs, especially the UN, for targeting and marginalizing Muslims with the law./aa

France on Sunday warned Iran that its “irresponsible and dangerous” missiles attack in the Erbil city in northern Iraq can jeopardize prospects of returning to the nuclear deal.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said the attack, claimed by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), “threatens the stability of Iraq and the region.”

Earlier, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for Saturday's strike in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), saying the missile targeted Israeli facilities in the region.

“Such actions jeopardize efforts to bring about a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” the French Foreign Ministry statement said.

The ministry reiterated the "absolute urgency" of concluding the negotiations of the nuclear deal and underlined that Tehran must cease its "irresponsible and dangerous behavior."

Under EU chairmanship, representatives from Iran, China, Russia, France, the UK, and Germany has been negotiating since December in the Austrian capital on ensuring full compliance and the US’ return to the deal.

The Iran nuclear deal – officially named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – was signed in 2015 by Iran, the US, China, Russia, France, the UK, Germany, and the EU.

Under the agreement, Tehran committed to limit its nuclear activity to civilian purposes and in return, world powers agreed to drop their economic sanctions against Iran.

The US, under former President Donald Trump, unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to stop complying with the nuclear deal./aa