The week in 5 charts | Rishi Sunak becomes British PM, Elon Musk acquires Twitter, and more

Here are 5 charts that will help you understand some of the key stories from this week

United Kingdom got its first ever non-white Prime Minister in Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Britain’s youngest Prime Minister in recent times. Mr. Sunak, 42, is of Indian descent and was born to parents who migrated to Britain from East Africa. The former investment banker and hedge fund manager will have the daunting task of trying to get the British economy back on the rails while attempting to unite the Conservative Party which has produced three Prime Ministers in under two months. Here is a timeline explaining the story of Rishi Sunak:

Elon Musk became Twitter’s new owner on Thursday, October 27, 2022. The $44-billion acquisition is the culmination of a remarkable saga, full of twists and turns, that sowed doubt over whether Mr. Musk would complete the deal. It began on April 4, when Mr. Musk disclosed a 9.2% stake in the San Francisco company, making him its largest shareholder. He began his ownership by firing Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde. The graphic below showcases the timeline of events that led to Mr. Musk’s ownership of Twitter.

The national capital on Tuesday witnessed the cleanest air quality on the day after Deepavali in the past seven years. The day after Diwali in 2021, Delhi’s average AQI was 462, whereas it was down to 303 on Tuesday, October 25, 2022. Bengaluru saw a spike in air pollution levels too, due to increasing levels of Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 and PM 10. The graphics below showcase the comparison of post-Diwali AQI in Delhi over the past 7 years, and the average daily AQI in Bengaluru in October 2022.

The number of people infected with tuberculosis, including the kind resistant to drugs, rose globally for the first time in years, according to a report issued on Thursday by the World Health Organization. The U.N. health agency said more than 10 million people worldwide were sickened by tuberculosis in 2021, a 4.5% rise from the year before. About 1.6 million people died, it said. India had the highest burden of MDR/RR-TB cases in 2021. The number of incident cases in seven countries with the highest burden of MDR/RR-TB cases in 2021 - which also accounted for two-thirds of global cases - is showcased below: 

The three main greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide - hit record high levels in the atmosphere last year, the U.N. weather agency said on Wednesday, October 26, calling it an “ominous” sign as war in Ukraine, rising costs of food and fuel, and other worries have elbowed in on long-time concerns about global warming in recent months. Since pre-industrial times, which WMO sets at around the year 1750, CO2 concentrations in the air have increased by nearly 50% to 415.7 parts per million, with the U.S., China and Europe responsible for the bulk of emissions. Methane is up 162% to 1,908 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide is up about one-quarter to 334.5 parts per million. The charts below display the increasing average global levels of the three gases.