Health information is often sensationalized in the media, with various promises of quick fixes and miracle cures. Yet, that is rarely reality. How does it come to this?

This new article attempts to look at some of the ways in which media stories about health issues mislead, distort or confuse us with resources to better understand health related stories.

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It has long been recognized that rapid climate change can have a severe impact on biodiversity and on the ability for ecosystems to naturally adapt.

As well as problems such as ocean acidification, increasing ocean stratification and dead zones also pose a threat to the planet as they affect tiny organisms in the ocean such as plankton and phytoplankton that form the basis of our food chain and support life through the production of half the oxygen we breathe.

This page has been update with further explanation and multimedia explaining this further.

Read full article: Climate Change Affects Biodiversity

Some still doubt climate change exists or think it is a vast scientific conspiracy. Yet scientific consensus amongst publishing climate scientists is extremely high. Climate change impacts and effects on humans and the planet in general have been discussed before and are introduced on this page.

This particular update includes additional notes and multimedia on ocean acidification and on indicators of a warming world with human causes. Also updated is the warmest periods section (as this past decade is now the warmest on record) and asked why recent weather such as extreme cold in some regions this past winter is still a sign of global warming.

Read full article: Climate Change and Global Warming Introduction

In recent years, global military expenditure has increased again and is now comparable to Cold War levels again. Recent data shows global spending at over $1.5 trillion. This is despite the global economic conditions.

The highest military spender is the US accounting for just under half of the world’s spending, more than the rest of the G7 (most economically advanced countries) combined, and more than all its potential enemies, combined.

This update includes updated figures, graphs and charts exploring this further.

Read full article: World Military Spending

At the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was born. 192 countries, plus the EU, are now Parties to that convention. In April 2002, the Parties to the Convention committed to significantly reduce the loss of biodiversity loss by 2010.

Perhaps predictably, that did not happen. Despite numerous successful conservations measures supporting biodiversity, the 2010 biodiversity target has not been met at the global level. This page provides an overview on how the attempts to prevent biodiversity loss is progressing.

Read full article: Addressing Biodiversity Loss

It has long been recognized that rapid climate change can have a severe impact on biodiversity and on the ability for ecosystems to naturally adapt.

This page was quite old and had barely any content, so has been completely rewritten to look at the impact climate change will have on biodiversity in the arctic as well as the implications of increasing ocean acidification and more.

Read full article: Climate Change Affects Biodiversity

The Convention on Biological Diversity came into being many years ago. Most nations are party to the convention and agreed to meet a 2010 target to reduce biodiversity loss. Unfortunately, most indicators show those targets have not been met, despite increased conservation efforts.

This update includes additional details, numbers, graphs and charts on the scale of biodiversity issues, including new sections on the impact to inland water systems, additional information about deforestation, dwindling fish stocks, climate change impacts on lizards, how indigenous communities can often be guardians of nature, and an overview of attempts to address many aspects of biodiversity.

Read full article: Loss of Biodiversity and Extinctions

Military aid can be controversial. Its stated aim is usually to help allies or poor countries fight terrorism, counter-insurgencies or to help fight drug wars.

The aid may be in the form of training, or even giving credits for foreign militaries to purchase weapons and equipment from the donor country.

But military aid may even be given to opposition groups to fight nations. This could be understandable if the opposition is a potential democratic force standing up against authoritarian rule.

However, as was especially seen during the Cold War, democratic nations (or potentially emerging democratic fledgling nations) often found themselves fighting foreign supported undemocratic forces because of geopolitical goals of the superpowers who tolerated or supported such regimes and dictatorships in order to achieve their own geopolitical aims.

This new page provides a brief overview of some of the issues.

Read full article: Military Aid

This web site has provided a number of articles related to aid and they have been categorized under various other issues.

This new issue page simply brings them together and inter-relates some of those issues.

Read full article: Aid

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) recently published new preliminary figures for aid in 2009.

It showed official development assistance (ODA) aid from wealthy governments had increased to just over $123 billion in 2009 (at constant 2008 prices). This is roughly 0.31% of GNI (Gross National Income) of the donor nations.

Yet, almost 40 years ago nations promised to reach 0.7% of their GNI. While each year the amount of aid falls quite short of that 0.7% target, the quality and effectiveness of that aid is often questionable, sometimes benefiting the donor more than the recipient due to the types of conditions attached to this aid.

This update includes a number of new and updated charts and graphs.

Read full article: Foreign Aid for Development Assistance

Almost 40 years ago, rich country governments agreed to give 0.7% of their GNI (Gross National Income) as official aid to poor countries for development assistance.

The average aid delivered each year has actually been between 0.2 to 0.4%. The shortfall has therefore accumulated to over $4 trillion dollars at 2008 prices, while total aid delivered in that same time frame has reached just under $3 trillion.

This update includes updated charts and graphs that look into this further.

Read full article: Official global foreign aid shortfall: $4 trillion

Over 24,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 3.6 seconds
• 16-17 children dying every minute
• A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 9-10 days
• A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days
• An Iraq-scale death toll every 16–40 days
• Just under 9 million children dying every year
• Some 79 million children dying between 2000 and 2007

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes.

Although the number of children dying each year is being reduced (just under half a million less deaths in 2008 than 2007, for example), the rate of reduction is slow. Furthermore, it is feared that once more recent data comes in, the global financial crisis will undo some of that annual reduction.

And yet, despite the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage. This update includes updated numbers, charts and graphs.

Read full article: Today, over 24,000 children died around the world

Food subsidies in countries like the US are arranged in such a way that they encourage more meat production and unhealthy food consumption which become cheaper than healthy foods. On top of the environmental degradation caused by industrial farming, excessive meat consumption harms health.

Some additional statistics, graphs and charts have been added that look into this further.

Read full article: Beef

Coinciding with International Women’s Day, the beginning of March saw the 54th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women to report on global efforts toward democracy and human development through the empowerment of women.

Despite the 2-week meeting and many issues being progressed, there were still uncertainties in areas such as commitments to various gender related rights and funding.

This small update includes further links and description of the above conference, as well as further links, quotes and a video on women’s rights related issues.

Read full article: Women’s Rights

Obesity typically results from over-eating (especially an unhealthy diet) and lack of enough exercise.

In our modern world with increasingly cheap, high calorie food (example, fast food — or junk food), prepared foods that are high in things like salt, sugars or fat, combined with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, increasing urbanization and changing modes of transportation, it is no wonder that obesity has rapidly increased in the last few decades, around the world.

The number of people overweight or obese is now rivaling the number of people suffering from hunger around the world. Obese people were thought to be mainly from richer countries or wealthier segments of society, but poor people can also suffer as the food industry supplies cheaper food of poorer quality.

Environmental, societal and life-style factors all have an impact on obesity and health. While individuals are responsible for their choices, other actors such as the food industry are also part of the problem, and solution. Unfortunately, the food industry appears reluctant to take too many measures that could affect their bottom line, preferring to solely blame individuals instead.

The obesity page has been updated to include additional data, information and videos about the impacts of obesity, childhood obesity and what can be done about it.

Read full article: Obesity

Tiger numbers are on the decline. The estimated number of tigers remaining globally is thought to be between around 3,400 to 5,100 tigers with possibly just under 40 left in China.

The tiger is a powerful symbol of conservation, yet despite measures to help their numbers, various threats such as habitat loss and poaching continue to threaten their numbers.

These and additional numbers as well as a video from the BBC were added.

Read full article: Nature and Animal Conservation

The devastating earthquake that hit Haiti earlier in January has led to immense coverage of the ensuing humanitarian emergency.

But Haiti’s problems are numerous and goes back decades. A combination of a long turmoiled history, outside influence/interference preventing local democracy and development, political instability, environmental degradation, poverty and natural disasters all combine making it incredibly difficult to see how Haiti will be able to get out of its present situation.

The Haiti page on this web site has been updated to provide an overview of the earthquake related problems that occurred, though is not an up to date service on the relief efforts. However, the page has a lot of background information on Haiti from a geopolitical angle, which may provide some background and context to the nations’ troubles and challenges.

(The Inter Press Service news coverage on Haiti carried by this web site may be of interest for more up to date stories.)

Read full article: Haiti

Racism can be found in many places around the world, often rooted in complex historical circumstances mixed with contemporary issues and conditions. The racism article on this site was getting quite old, so it has been updated with a few more examples and background information. More will be added over time.

Read full article: Racism

Approximately 1 in 6 people live in informal settlements, or slums. In developing countries, some 1 in 3 people living in cities are living in slum areas.

While there have been some successes in reducing the number of people living in such areas in recent years by about a tenth (mostly in China and India), numerous problems persist.

Some settlements are not officially recognized despite being present for decades and being home to thousands of people. This then means that residents have been denied a range of essential services provided by the government to other residents such as water, sanitation, electricity, garbage collection, health, education, access roads and transport.

In some places, people face an almost daily threat of forced eviction without notice or appropriate compensation. Human rights groups have filmed cases where bulldozers come in without warning while residents are there. This often occurs when developers want the land for further development and may include state collusion.

Due to the very conditions in which people live, their ability to stand up for their rights and have their voices heard is greatly reduced. And yet, despite this, there is much of humanity to be found in these areas, with vibrancy and enterprising people struggling to make a living.

The poverty around the world page has been updated to explores some of these aspects further, with additional information and videos.

Read full article: Poverty Around The World

December 7 – December 18, 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark was the venue for the 15th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as the 15th Conference of the Parties — or COP 15.

As with previous conferences, thousands of politicians (including head of states), diplomats, journalists, lobbyists and NGOs attended hoping the summit would finalize a post-Kyoto international agreement on climate change to take effect in 2013.

The build-up to the meeting was full of optimism and hope, as the US was, for the first time in a long time, going to be seen as a positive contributor, and their involvement is always recognized as key. There was also increasing focus on emerging economies such as China and India.

Instead of a positive outcome, most commentators saw it as a failure, though for different reasons.

This article provides a very brief summary of the outcome and related issues:

Read full article: COP15 — Copenhagen Climate Conference