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The world’s wildlife populations, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, have dropped by more than half in the last 40 years, the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) said in its latest report. “Put another way, in less than two human generations, population sizes of vertebrate species have dropped by half,” Director General of WWF International Marco Lambertini said in a statement.
In the hinterland village of Pedtad in North Cotabato province, Philippines, a group of former Islamist fighters have put aside their guns in exchange for a more peaceful life managing fishponds. “Tending the farm and pulling out water lilies is safer than carrying guns and roaming the mountains,” said Harun Imba. “In the mountains, your life is always in danger.”
Migrants trying to reach more prosperous countries have died at a rate of 8 every day for the past 14 years, the majority of them trying to get to Europe, according to the most comprehensive ever tally of migrant deaths.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has recently called for “clear, credible and consistent signals from policy makers” to help lower deployment risks to investors and inspire confidence in harnessing solar energy as it clearly holds potential to overtake oil and gas as the main source of power generation by 2050. “The sun could be the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050, ahead of fossil fuels, wind, hydro and nuclear,” according to two reports issued by IEA, the Paris-based world’s top energy think tank.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 1.3 billion tons of food go to waste globally every year. Meanwhile, 805 million of the world’s people are still experiencing chronic undernourishment or hunger, Ren Wang, Assistant Director General of FAO’s Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department, told the 11th International Media Forum on the Protection of Nature.
The Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, which concluded last October, seemed lackluster and uneventful, at least from the point of view of secular media and generally disinterested observers. For one, no concrete solutions and strong positions were made on the issues that were debated on the floor. For example, a decision on whether divorced Catholics who remarried will be allowed to take Holy Communion, one of the hotly-contested issues in the Synod’s working document, was not made.
As many as 1.4 million people could be infected with Ebola by mid-January 2015 if efforts to quarantine the epidemic aren’t taken immediately, according to predictive models released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently.
In a recent report, Amnesty International said a rising number of Chinese companies are profiting from the trade of the so-called “tools of torture,” which include electric shock-stun batons, metal-spiked batons and weighted leg cuffs. The London-based group says 130 mostly state-owned Chinese companies now produce and trade the equipment. That is up from just 28 a decade ago.
Is Japan a spiritual-oriented or materialistic society? The answer is definitively spiritual, according to the most recent national livelihood survey by the Cabinet Office. The highest percentage of Japanese ever – 64% – said they are now placing priority on “spiritual fulfillment” rather than “material richness.”
A new translation of the Bible into modern Persian, which was recently launched in London, marks a significant moment for Christianity in Iran.
