Until the last few weeks the conventional wisdom in Washington, London and Arab capitals was that Isis had been forced on to the back foot, suffering from shortages of cash, weapons and problems of resupply, even if its morale was sustained by a slick propaganda machine that kept attracting recruits.
Asylum seekers in detention on Christmas Island are often dangerously misdiagnosed due to a complicated and inadequate IT system, and can regularly go without basic medicine including paracetamol due to frequent shortages, according to the letter signed by 15 doctors who have practised on Christmas Island.
Related: NHS England chief: cash shortages could hit plans for seven-day health service A: No. Cameron's pledge raises a large number of questions, none of which are easy to answer, especially – despite his rhetoric – given the lack of detail about the services he intends to run 24/7.
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) is staging rolling action in various parts of the UK on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to highlight its concerns about staff shortages.
Even where formal supply networks have been established as part of favela urbanisation programmes, many of the city's poorest residents live at the end of the distribution network, where water, when there are shortages, simply fails to reach.
He said: "It reads as a nightmare catalogue of serious safety breaches aboard and alongside these nuclear-armed submarines... Shortages of all types of crew on these submarines has been well-documented and the description of personnel in extremely stressful situations must be alarming given the huge responsibility some of these sailors are given.
The restrictions on imports, combined with the high rate of inflation in Argentina's economy, South America's second-largest, have led in recent years to periodic shortages of pharmaceutical products including latex gloves and needles.
Shortages of safe drinking water and disruption to vaccination programmes are increasing the risks.
But today, there are already shortages in nursing and general practice, and – as the economy recovers – filling vacancies without paying better might become impossible.
National Grid has called on electricity suppliers to declare how much spare capacity they could muster to cover peak times either side of Christmas – highlighting the possibility of power shortages this winter.
The test of a nation is not how many millionaires you have, but how many millions you lift out of poverty … Donald Kaberuka Kaberuka also warns that Africa's economic development is being choked by chronic energy shortages: "Today, in every single African country, from South Africa to the north, the biggest impediment to economic growth is energy," he says.
