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motherjones:

Extreme weather will drive up food prices and supercharge world hunger in the next two decades… unless we act fast on climate change.

Gabon’s war on illegal wildlife crime - in pictures

Gabon, in western central Africa, is home to some of the world’s most diverse ecosystems. A relatively wealthy and stable nation, the government has created a network of 13 national parks placing nearly 11% of the country under protection, invested in wildlife enforcement personnel and declared a zero-tolerance policy on wildlife crime. But national conservation initiatives are being challenged by ivory poachers, loggers and the rural poor who are using wild animals as a source of food.

(via faunafacts)

In 1981, 52 percent of the planet lived on $1.25 a day or less according to the World Bank’s estimates; today it is around 20 percent. In 1990, around 65 percent of the population lived on less than $2 a day; by 2008 that number had fallen to 43 percent. This is not just a story about China — though 663 million people in that country alone have climbed out of poverty since the early 1980s. Poverty has been declining in every region, and for the first time since the World Bank began making estimates, less than half of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lives in absolute deprivation.

That may seem like news too good to be true, but in fact it’s probably too pessimistic. First off, many experts argue that the World Bank’s poverty numbers are too high — not due to any conspiracy, mind you, but just because poverty is very hard to measure.

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jtotheizzoe:

Chagas Disease: Poverty, Immigration, and a ‘New HIV/AIDS’

Is this protozoan, Trypanosoma cruzi, causing a silent disease emergency? The insect-borne sickness, termed Chagas disease, can lead to heart enlargement and cardiac failure in as many as a third of those infected.

With as many as 10 million people worldwide infected, most of them in tropical, poverty-ridden locales, maybe it’s time to pay close attention to this emerging danger? Maryn McKenna has a great write-up of how “immigrant bias” might be giving public health officials an excuse to keep the sufferers at arm’s length. The problem is that Chagas is already in the U.S., and its hotspots (like Texas) aren’t requiring blood donor screening.

To fight an epidemic, you must first recognize that it’s beginning. Prejudices against the gay community prevented a head start against HIV, and we should make sure that doesn’t happen again with Chagas.

(via Wired Science, you can also read the original paper in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases)

I might have this. I got a really weird bite in Belize and no one knows what it is. I have to get tested everything I give blood because sometimes it doesn’t show up for years. And then one day your heart just explodes…

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fotojournalismus:

A woman flashes a victory sign as she sits with other women at the Taghyeer (Change) Square where anti-government protesters have been camping for more than a year to demand regime change in Sanaa, April 10, 2012. One of the poorest countries in the world and the worst for gender equality, according to a U.N. metric based on literacy and other factors, Yemeni women defied deep-rooted traditions by even participating in the campaign against Saleh, then became pivotal players in it.

[Credit : Khaled Abdullah/Reuters]

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united-nations:

Thursday 8 March is International Women’s Day and the 2012 theme is Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.  

You’re invited to take part on several online events. Details: 

Watch special events online here:

Joint IFAD, FAO and WFP Event: Empowering Young Rural Women — Inspiring Futures.
Rome, 8 March, 9:30-11:30 a.m., Central European Time
Programme | Webcast

Arria Formula meeting between the members of the Security Council and civil society on “Women’s role in conflict mediation and resolution” (co-hosted by the Permanent Missions of Portugal and the United Kingdom) 
New York, 8 March 2012, from 3 p.m., Eastern Standard Time
Webcast

Additional event information from UN WomenWatch 

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fotojournalismus:

A father and son in the poverty-stricken Rwandan countryside.

[Credit : James Nachtwey]

[via]

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timmyp10:

The Cost Of The Iraq War-  Here’s what you can buy with $2 TRILLION.

(via lostintheseaofgay)

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fotojournalismus:

A child covered his eyes as he walked past burning trash in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, Feb. 2. According to the 2012 Environmental Performance Index, Bangladesh is the country with the second-worst air pollution in the world.

[Credit : Abir Abdullah/European Pressphoto Agency]

fotojournalismus:

Lives in India’s Lower Classes : India is trying to engineer advancement for its underclass through a vast and growing affirmative-action program.(See related article). 

Photos : 

#1 : Children and adults look for small fish in the muddy remains of a pond in Kuliadanga village.

#2 : A young man moistens the clay while a girl shapes bricks at his feet.

#3 : Workers from the lowest Hindu group, Dalits, work at a leather waste processing unit in Bojerhat.

#4 : A boy poses with the fish he caught.

#5 : Teenage boys from the Chowduli community work at a tailoring shop in Chaymalpur village.

#6 : Laborers who process the leather earn $3 per day for an 18-hour shift.

All photographs by Sanjit Das/Panos for The Wall Street Journal.