ESL etc.

The UN recently released it’s new State of the Future Report wherein they discuss how things are going with regards to the various Millenium Development Goals.

A great review of the report is available here, from Solidarity, Sustainability and Non-Violence. Here are some of the statistics they pulled from the report:

• global population keeps increasing and is expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050
• emissions (greenhouse gases) could increase by as much as 90% over 2000 levels by 2030
• globally, 2% of the population owns over 50% of the wealth (the poorest 50% own 1%)
• the income of the 225 richest people equals that of 2.7 billion people, or 40% of humanity
• migration is exacerbating the brain drain, especially with regard to doctors and nurses
• there are 781 million adults who remain illiterate (two thirds of them are women)
• gender violence is the cause of more casualties (mostly female) than war casualties
• the number of people affected by natural disasters has tripled over the last decade
• international crime (drugs, human traffic, weapons) is estimated at $2 trillion
• it is estimated that between 12 and 27 million people are slaves (mostly women in Asia)
• millions of HIV orphans are potential recruits for organized crime/terrorist organizations

There are a lot of great (albeit frightening) topics for discussion and / or research activities here, many of which are often absent from American-based materials addressing global issues.

via the World 727 email list