An overview of the Climate Change Conference (also known as COP 20), held in Lima, Peru in December 2014.

While it seemed like it was a successful meeting, because developing nations were committed to drawing up their own plans for emissions reductions for the first time, a number of important issues were left undecided such as how financing would ...work.

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) recently published new preliminary figures for aid in 2013.

It showed official development assistance (ODA) aid from wealthy governments had increased to just under $135 billion in 2013 (at constant 2012 prices). This is roughly 0.3% of GNI (Gross National Income) of the donor nations....



Yet, over 40 years ago nations promised to reach 0.7% of their GNI by the mid-1970s. While each year the amount of aid falls quite short of that 0.7% target (less than half of that 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 >>

Over 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 almost $5 trillion dollars at 2012 prices, while total aid delivered i...n that same time frame has reached $3.6 trillion.



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

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

It is well known that tobacco smoking kills. But it also exacerbates poverty, contributes to world hunger by diverting prime land away from food production, damages the environment and reduces economic productivity. Second hand smoking also affects other people’s lives. Despite many attempts to prevent it, a global tobacco control treaty became in...ternational law in 2005.

However, challenges still remain as tobacco companies try to hit back, for example, by targeting developing nations, increasing advertising at children and women, attempting to undermine global treaties and influence trade talks, etc.

This update includes updated stats, as well as more information on the above issues.

Read full article: Tobacco →

In recent weeks there have been more questions about whether climate change has paused, or even stopped. However, it seems that maybe these suggestions are coming from looking at long term surface temperature changes only which do seem to have shown a small decline in very recent years. But the bigger picture shows that overall, unfortunately, warm...ing continues.



In addition to more details and images about the above issue, the climate change introduction page was updated with additional notes about rising emissions and the super-storm typhoon Hiayan.

Read full article: Climate Change and Global Warming Introduction >>

At the start of June 2013, a large number of documents detailing surveillance by intelligence agencies such as the US’s NSA and UK’s GCHQ started to be revealed, based on information supplied by NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden.

These leaks revealed a massive surveillance program that included interception of email and other Internet communicatio...ns and phone call tapping. Some of it appears illegal, while other revelations show the US spying on friendly nations during various international summits.

Unsurprisingly, there has been a lot of furor. While some countries are no doubt using this to win some diplomatic points, there has been an increase in tension with the US and other regions around the world.

Much of the US surveillance programs came from the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. Concerns about a crackdown on civil rights in the wake of the so-called war on terror have been expressed for a long time, and these revelations seem to be confirming some of those fears.

Given the widespread collection of information, apparently from central servers of major Internet companies and from other core servers that form part of the Internet backbone, activities of millions (if not billions) of citizens have been caught up in a dragnet style surveillance problem called PRISM, even when the communication has nothing to do with terrorism.

What impacts would such secretive mass surveillance have on democracy?

Read full article: Surveillance State: NSA Spying and more »

In recent years, global military expenditure has increased again and is now comparable to Cold War levels. Recent data shows global spending at over $1.7 trillion, despite the global economic conditions. It is still approximately 1% increase since 2008 when the financial crisis began, for example.

Not all nations have felt the impacts of the global ...financial crisis in the same way. Some have grown economically, including many Asian countries, which has allowed some of them to increase their military spending. There are geopolitical interests at stake for various powers, so economic troubles or not, military spending is seen as important to maintain, or at least to minimize possible reductions.

The highest military spender is the US accounting for 39% of the world’s spending, more than the next top 10 countries combined, and more than all its potential enemies, combined. But this represents a slight decline over previous years as other nations, especially China and Russia, increase their spending. At the same time, the US has reduced military spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, while Western Europe’s austerity programs affect their military spending budgets.

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

Read full article: World Military Spending >>

For a while now many European governments have resorted to austerity measures to deal with the recession and financial crises affecting them. This may have either been by choice, or pressured from the outside.

However, as has been warned countless times, excessive austerity rarely works. Furthermore, focusing on debts and deficits appears to miss ...the point that the economic problems were caused by a collapse in markets and banking sector in particular, resulting in less revenues for governments; not necessarily an excessive overspend by governments.

19% of the world’s reptiles are estimated to be threatened with extinction according to a study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Zoological Society of London. Reptiles include snakes, lizards, crocodiles, turtles and tortoises. But some species are at more risk than others. For example, freshwater turtles alone ...are at a 50% risk of extinction. Reasons vary, but include the usual suspects such as climate change and loss of habitat.