AIDS and HIV has reached epidemic proportions in many developing countries. It is serious enough for the United States to consider it a threat to its national security and in some nations has had a large impact on mortality rates and the economy.

UNAIDS estimated at the end of 2007 that worldwide, there were:

Some 80% of deaths for 2007 were in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that also has over two-thirds of adult HIV cases and some 90% of all children living with HIV.

An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour - one in six children in the world. Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations.

In Sub-Saharan Africa around one in three children are engaged in child labour, representing 69 million children.In South Asia, another 44 million are engaged in child labour.

Children living in the poorest households and in rural areas are most likely to be engaged in child labour. Those burdened with household chores are overwhelmingly girls. Millions of girls who work as domestic servants are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

Labour often interferes with children’s education. Ensuring that all children go to school and that their education is of good quality are keys to preventing child labour.

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Few public policy issues have inflamed passions as consistently and as strongly as the debate over capital punishment. Religious communities have been deeply involved on both sides of the issue, drawing on teachings and traditions of justice and the dignity of human life. The debate over the death penalty has been complicated in recent years by questions regarding both the fairness of the criminal justice system and the possibility of reform and rehabilitation among death row inmates.

The USA is engaged in a cruel, brutalizing, unreliable, unnecessary and hugely expensive activity for no measurable gain.

... There is no evidence that the US authorities have prevented a single crime with this policy ... They have diverted countless millions of dollars away from more constructive efforts to fight crime. And the macabre absurdity is that it creates more victims - the family members of the condemned - often in the name of victims' rights.

The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it. The sooner US politicians begin to find the political courage to educate public opinion rather than hide behind it, the better.

Amnesty International, March 1, 2001

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The global drug problem is being contained. The production and consumption of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines and ecstasy have stabilized at the global level—with one exception. The exception is the continuing expansion of opium production in Afghanistan. This expansion continues to pose a threat—to the security of the country and to the global containment of opiates abuse. Even in Afghanistan, however, the large scale production of opium is concentrated and expanding in a few southern provinces where the authority of the central government is currently limited and insurgents continue to exploit the profits of the opium trade.

On the whole, most indications point to a leveling of growth in all of the main illegal drug markets. This is good news and may indicate an important juncture in long term drug control. A stable and contained problem is easier to address than one which is expanding chaotically, provided it is seen as an opportunity for renewed commitment rather than an excuse to decrease vigilance.

World Drug Report 2007, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (p.25)

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The food crisis appeared to explode overnight, reinforcing fears that there are just too many people in the world. But according to the FAO, with record grain harvests in 2007, there is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone—at least 1.5 times current demand. In fact, over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2.0% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year. Population is not outstripping food supply. “We’re seeing more people hungry and at greater numbers than before,” says World Hunger Program’s executive director Josette Sheeran, “There is food on the shelves but people are priced out of the market.”

Eric Holt-Giménez and Loren Peabody, From Food Rebellions to Food Sovereignty: Urgent call to fix a broken food system, Institute for Food and Development Policy, May 16, 2008

Child trafficking is lucrative and linked with criminal activity and corruption. It is often hidden and hard to address. Trafficking always violates the child’s right to grow up in a family environment. In addition, children who have been trafficked face a range of dangers, including violence and sexual abuse. Trafficked children are even arrested and detained as illegal aliens.

UNICEF estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 Guatemalan babies and children are trafficked each year for adoption by couples in North America and Europe.

Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe) are trafficked as “mail-order brides.”  In most cases these girls and women are powerless and isolated and at great risk of violence.

Large numbers of children are being trafficked in West and Central Africa, mainly for domestic work but also for sexual exploitation and to work in shops or on farms. Nearly 90 per cent of these trafficked domestic workers are girls.

Children from Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana are trafficked to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon. Children are trafficked both in and out of Benin and Nigeria. Some children are sent as far away as the Middle East and Europe.

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In addition to the above figures, many other disorders affect the nervous system or produce neurological sequelae. Projections based on a WHO study show that worldwide in 2005, 326 million people suffer from migraine; 61 million from cerebrovascular diseases; 18 million from neuroinfections or neurological sequelae of infections. Number of people with neurological sequelae of nutritional disorders and neuropathies (352 million) and neurological sequelae secondary to injuries (170 million) also add substantially to the above burden.

About 877,000 people die by suicide every year.

One in four patients visiting a health service has at least one mental, neurological or behavioural disorder but most of these disorders are neither diagnosed nor treated.

Mental illnesses affect and are affected by chronic conditions such as cancer, heart and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and HIV/AIDS.

Cost-effective treatments exist for most disorders and, if correctly applied, could enable most of those affected to become functioning members of society.

Barriers to effective treatment of mental illness include lack of recognition of the seriousness of mental illness and lack of understanding about the benefits of services. Policy makers, insurance companies, health and labour policies, and the public at large – all discriminate between physical and mental problems.

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Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Once considered a problem only in high income countries, overweight and obesity are now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings.

WHO’s latest projections indicate that globally in 2005 approximately 1.6 billion adults (age 15+) were overweight and at least 400 million adults were obese.

WHO further projects that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

At least 20 million children under the age of 5 years are overweight globally in 2005.

Once considered a problem only in high-income countries, overweight and obesity are now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings

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The ability to receive and offer comfort within the support of their like-minded group reinforces pedophiles with the belief that their attraction to children and adult-child sex are an acceptable way of life.

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.Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity, where every species- all have an important role to play

Most scientists believe that climate change is here and is human-induced, and that it will lead to more extreme weather patterns such as hurricanes and drought, longer spells of dry heat or intense rain and seriously affect the world’s ecosystems, as well as humanity. Yet, politics appears to be getting in the way of effective action.

The human population of the planet is approximately 6 billion and rising. As the population continues to increase, there is the fear of more and more strain on the environment, adequate food production, nations ability to provide, economies to grow and society to flourish. People will be fighting for basic needs. But is all this the case or are there other issues and causes that need to be considered as well?

Some natural disasters like earthquakes and floods can often come at the least expected time. Others such as hurricanes and cyclones may be getting more severe. Typically, the poor are the worst hit as they have the least resources to cope and rebuild with.

Humans have destroyed more than 30 percent of the natural world since 1970.

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Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Have they been lazy, made poor decisions, and been solely responsible for their plight? What about their governments? Have they pursued policies that actually harm successful development? Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But deeper and more global causes of poverty are often less discussed.

Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.

In the face of such enormous external influence, the governments of poor nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle.

Racism is a very touchy subject for some, as issues concerning free speech and Article 19 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights come into play. Some people argue that it is just words. Others point out that these words can lead to some very dire and serious consequences.

Racism has always been both an instrument of discrimination and a tool of exploitation. But it manifests itself as a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to cultural solutions, such as multicultural education and the promotion of ethnic identities.

Tackling the problem of cultural inequality, however, does not by itself redress the problem of economic inequality.

Racism is conditioned by economic imperatives, but negotiated through culture: religion, literature, art, science and the media.

... Once, they demonised the blacks to justify slavery. Then they demonised the “coloureds” to justify colonialism. Today, they demonise asylum seekers to justify the ways of globalism. And, in the age of the media, of spin, demonisation sets out the parameters of popular culture within which such exclusion finds its own rationale — usually under the guise of xenophobia, the fear of strangers.

A. Sivanandan, Poverty is the new black, The Guardian, August 17, 2001

Tobacco and smoking have a number of negative effects:

Smoking narrows the arteries to your heart, causing them to become blocked. This can cause herat attach and death. Smoking can dubble your risk of dying from heart attack.

Smoking causes ireverrsible damage to back of the eye. This is known as macular degeneration. Centraal vision is lost, blindness may follow.

When you smoke you inhale the drug nicotine. In a short time you can find it difficult to control how much you smoke or to quit smoking. Many people don't realise they are dependent on tobacco untill they try to quit. Even lifelong smokers can and do quit.

Smoking narrows the atteries to your brain, causing them to become blocked. This cause a stroke that can result in permanent paralysis, inability to speak, disability or death.

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Domestic violence claims the life of one woman every four days in France. The situation is worse in many Asian and African countries. In 1999, the UN declared 25 November the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and invited governments, international organizations, and NGOs to organize activities to raise public awareness of the problem on that day.

"The research we have done so far shows that violence against women is pretty widely spread across all countries in all parts of the world, and it is a very commonplace abuse of human rights in all societies,"

AFP news agency reports that according to a recent French study, a total of 164 women and 47 men were killed in domestic-violence incidents in 2003 and 2004. All but one of the women were killed by a man, and all but one of the men by a woman. The information comes from questionnaires sent to police around France.

The first-ever World Health Organization (WHO) study on domestic violence, released on 23 November reveals that intimate-partner violence is the most common form of violence in women's lives -- much more so than assault or rape by strangers or acquaintances.

The WHO study is based on interviews with more than 24,000 women from rural and urban areas in 10 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania.

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... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

General Herman Goering, President of German Reichstag and Nazi Party, Commander of Luftwaffe during World War II, April 18, 1946. (This quote is said to have been made during the Nuremburg Trials, but in fact, while during the time of the trials, was made in private to an Allied intelligence officer, later published in the book, Nuremburg Diary.)

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