Hassana Ousmane rests her head against the bed where her 21-month-old daughter, Zeinab, suffering from malaria, rests at the Princess Marie Louise Children's Hospital in Accra, Ghana, April 25, 2012.

CLICK HERE - World Bank - Global Burden of Disease: Generating Evidence, Guiding Policy

voanews.com - by Joe DeCapua - September 12, 2013

The World Bank has released new reports outlining the health challenges facing six major regions. Those challenges include not only many types of disease, but road accidents as well. The bank says the reports will help policymakers develop evidence-based health programs after the Millennium Development Goals expire.

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World Bank - Global Burden of Disease: Generating Evidence, Guiding Policy
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/health/publication/global-burden-of-disease-generating-evidence-guiding-policy

A woman and her child walk between shacks, past a communal toilet in Khayelitsha township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009. South African President Jacob Zuma says mayors need to clean up corruption and stop political squabbling in the face of sometimes violent protests over lack of city services. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)

huffingtonpost.com - by Jessica Prois - September 12, 2013

The infographic below highlights the fact that 2.5 billion people have to seek out other options in lieu of a loo -- and it's just not OK.

Funny euphemisms aside, the World Bank created this illustration to detail the fact that lack of access to sanitation costs the world $260 billion yearly in health and productivity.

Health costs include $51 million spent on medication, transportation and hospitalization.

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ibtimes.com - September 3rd, 2013 - Zoe Mintz

Soot from the mid-1800s may be to blame for the retreat of mountain glaciers in the European Alps.

According to a new study published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, soot, or black carbon, produced during the period of rapid industrialization caused the abrupt retreat of mountain glaciers after the long cold spell known as the Little Ice Age.

"Before now, most scientists have believed the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1800s was due to a natural climatic shift, distinct and well before emissions of carbon dioxide reached levels that could start to influence climate and glaciers in the 20th century,” lead author Thomas Painter, a snow and ice scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.

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submitted by Albert Gomez

No Straight Lines - by Alan Moore - September 7, 2013

It has been said that privacy is dead. Not so. It’s secrecy that is dying. Openness will kill it.

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ncdc.noaa.gov - September 5, 2013

Human influences are having an impact on some extreme weather and climate events, according to the report Explaining Extreme Events of 2012 from a Climate Perspective released September 5, 2013 by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Scientists from NOAA served as three of the four lead editors on the report. Overall, 18 different research teams from around the world contributed to the peer-reviewed report that examined the causes of 12 extreme events that occurred on five continents and in the Arctic.

submitted by Albert Gomez

veritythink.com - by Andrej Verity - September 3, 2013

In my June post Who are the Humanitarian Decision Makers, I outlined why I have problems with how easily we use the phrase “for the decision makers” without really knowing who they are. Once you start investigating the problem, you quickly realize how large and diverse the range of decision makers are in humanitarian response.

Now, it is easy to complain but harder to do something. So rather than leaving this problem to fester within the community, a few of us decided to do something.

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submitted by Tim Siftar

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Health officials are watching in horror as bacteria become resistant to powerful carbapenem antibiotics — one of the last drugs on the shelf.

nature.com - by Maryn McKenna - July 24, 2013

As a rule, high-ranking public-health officials try to avoid apocalyptic descriptors. So it was worrying to hear Thomas Frieden and Sally Davies warn of a coming health “nightmare” and a “catastrophic threat” within a few days of each other in March.

The agency heads were talking about the soaring increase in a little-known class of antibiotic-resistant bacteria: carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CREs).

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un.org

Who is responsible for protecting people from gross violations of human rights?

Emergence of the concept

Debating the right to "humanitarian intervention" (1990s)

Following the tragedies in Rwanda and the Balkans in the 1990s, the international community began to seriously debate how to react effectively when citizens’ human rights are grossly and systematically violated. The question at the heart of the matter was whether States have unconditional sovereignty over their affairs or whether the international community has the right to intervene in a country for humanitarian purposes.

In his Millennium Report of 2000, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan, recalling the failures of the Security Council to act in a decisive manner in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, put forward a challenge to Member States: "If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica, to gross and systematic violation of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?"

Anti-war protesters gather on College Green outside the Houses of Parliament on Aug. 29, in London, England. Lawmakers there voted against plans for a UK military response to chemical weapons attack in Syria. (Dan Kitwood/AFP/Getty Images)

globalpost.com - by Benjamin Shingler - August 30, 2013

The architects of the UN's 'Responsibility to Protect' doctrine say it gives countries a mandate to attack Syria in order to stop mass atrocities.

MONTREAL, Quebec — As US President Barack Obama pushes to muster foreign support before dropping bombs on war-ravaged Syria, options for a broad international coalition are shrinking.

huffingtonpost.com - by David Yanofsky - August 28, 2013

For the first time ever, the combined gross domestic product of emerging and developing markets, adjusted for purchasing price parity, has eclipsed the combined measure of advanced economies. Purchasing price parity—or PPP for short—adjusts for the relative cost of comparable goods in different economic markets.

According to the International Monetary Fund—the supplier of this data—emerging and developing economies will have a purchasing price parity-adjusted GDP of $42.8 trillion in 2013, while that of emerging economies will be $44.4 trillion. In other words, emerging markets will create $1.6 trillion more value in goods and services than advanced markets this year.

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An aerial view shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and its storage tanks for contaminated water (bottom) August 20. Leakage from a temporary storage tank has raised new concerns about the ongoing problems at the plant.  Photograph by Kyodo/Reuters

The latest leakage at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant comes from a different, more contaminated water source and raises new questions about TEPCO's ability to manage the crisis.

nationalgeographic.com - by Patrick J. Kiger - August 21, 2013

In the latest crisis to strike the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has discovered that 300 tons (nearly 72,000 gallons) of highly radioactive water has leaked from a holding tank into the ground over the past month.

submitted by Prucia Buscell

plexusinstitute.org - August 8, 2013

Will global warming lead to more war, crime and violence?

Scientists say an analysis of 60 earlier studies offers strong evidence of a link between higher temperatures and human conflict in all regions of the world. Solomon Hsiang, Marshall Burke and Edward Miguel of the University of California at Berkeley report that research suggests higher temperatures, drought and extreme rainfall can increase the risk of both individual and societal violence.

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1. Where Google Street View is Available - Map by Google

submitted by Albert Gomez

twistedsifter.com - August 13, 2013

If you’re a visual learner like myself, then you know maps, charts and infographics can really help bring data and information to life. Maps can make a point resonate with readers and this collection aims to do just that.

Hopefully some of these maps will surprise you and you’ll learn something new.

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Expanding Access to Solar Technology By Supporting Women Working in Clean Energy - Photo Credit: Solar Sister

submitted by Albert Gomez

clintonglobalinitiative.org - August 9, 2013

It’s pretty evident: the world is getting smaller. Thanks to new tools and efforts across the globe, it’s also getting better.

For the evidence, look to Africa. From Casablanca to Cape Town, local, regional, and global leaders from every sphere of society are implementing innovative technologies and engaging in grassroots efforts to address some of the greatest challenges of our time. Many of them are members of the CGI community—individuals and organizations that are turning their ideas into action by increasing economic opportunities for women, promoting eco-friendly farming in Kenya, fostering youth entrepreneurship in Morocco, and more.

View the slideshow for 10 examples of mobilizers from within the CGI community that are working to advance positive change in Africa and increase shared prosperity in this ever-shrinking world.