Through corporate crime, tax havens, transfer pricing and many other policies — both legal and illegal — wealthy individuals and multinational companies manage to avoided billions of dollars from being taxed. The much-needed money would helped developing (and developed) countries provide important social services for their populations. In light of the current global financial crisis, the issue of tax havens have come to the fore and even rich countries (who in the part were reluctant to do anything about it) are now contemplating measures to address some of the problems. But it seems like strong words in public are not necessarily translating into actual meaningful deeds. The update to this page includes further information and videos on this theme.

Energy security concerns raise a variety of issues, including geopolitics and power play, as well as practical concerns such as environmental degradation, climate change and sustainable development. This update includes a look at Bolivia, which has half the world’s lithium, a mineral that will power the next generation hybrid and electric cars, while already being used in smaller batteries today. Bolivia is concerned that others will exploit its resources and it will not benefit. This has typically been the case for resource-rich nations, exploited during the colonialism era and in poverty partly as a result of that. A video about this is included in this update.

Biodiversity loss and species extinction is on the increase. It is generally understood that the high species loss rate is in large part due to human activity. This update includes updated sections on declining amphibian species, more about dwindling fish stocks and declining shark numbers, and a video about ocean biodiversity.

Over 25,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to: 1 child dying every 3.5 seconds or 17-18 children dying every minute. It is like a 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 1.5 weeks, or an Iraq-scale death toll every 16–38 days. It means over 9 million children dying every year. For latest figures available, some 70 million children died between 2000 and 2007. The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Although the number of children dying each year is being reduced (some half a million less deaths in 2007 than 2006, for example), the rate of reduction is slow. Furthermore, it is feared that the global financial crisis will undo some of that annual reduction, with an extra 200,000 to 400,000 children dying from the knock-on effects of the economic downturn. And yet, despite the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage. This update includes updated numbers, charts and graphs.

World military spending has topped $1.2 trillion annually and is back to Cold War levels. This is based on latest data available, from 2007, before the global financial crisis hit. Updated graphs and charts provide some additional information.

The Israeli offensive on Hamas in the Gaza Strip on 27th December, 2008 ended on January 17, 2009 when both Hamas and Israel announced separate ceasefires, which have turned out to be quite fragile. The 3 week offensive claimed some 1,300 Palestinian lives, 400 of which were children. Another 5,000 were injured including some 1,800 children and 800 women. 13 Israelis were also killed. How did this crisis come about and what were some of the issues raised?

An overview of the Climate Change Conference (also known as COP 14), held in Poznań, Poland, at the beginning of December, 2008. As with past conferences, this too was not without its controversies. For example, while the Adaptation Fund was launched the funding of it caused lots of disagreements. The conference came at a time when Europe seemed to weaken their usually strong stance on climate change action and on news that in recent years, emissions from industrialized nations had risen.