Global issues

A steep decline in coral cover right across the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Queensland, Australia, is a phenomenon that “has not been observed in the historical record”, a new report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) says.

 “The predicted consequences of climate change include more powerful storms and more frequent and more intense bleaching events. Reefs in the northern section have lost about half their coral cover. The central section also sustained significant coral loss”. Total coral cover decreased from 22% in 2016 to 14% in 2018.

Massimo Bottura is one of the world's greatest chefs. He has made it his mission to put an end to global hunger and believes that technology can make this a reality.

In the summer of 2019, French swimmer and anti-plastic campaigner Ben Lecomte swam through the giant floating rubbish mass known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 

The exact size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is impossible to determine, but estimates put it anywhere from 700,000 to 15,000,000 km² (or the size of Texas to the size of Russia). The patch is caused by the North Pacific gyre—a circle of currents that keep plastic, waste and other pollution trapped. According to scientists, the Patch has been growing “exponentially” in recent years.

The standard classroom maps we all learned geography from are based on the Mercator projection, a 16th century rendering that preserved lines used for navigation while hideously distorting the true sizes of continents and oceans further from the equator. The result is a widespread misconception that Greenland is as big as Africa, Siberia and Canada are disproportionally massive, and that Antarctica apparently just goes on forever.

The number of asylum seekers to Japan grew 80 percent to a record 19,628 in 2017--but only 20 were accepted.

Immigration is a controversial subject in Japan, even as the population ages and its workforce shrinks. The government in mid-January 2018 limited the right to work only to those Japan regards as bona fide refugees. As a result, the average daily number of applicants for asylum fell by 50 percent in January as compared to December 2017.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman R.S. Sharma has called for the Internet being kept open and free, and not cannibalised.

“No one owns the Internet... so, it should be open and accessible to everyone,” Mr. Sharma said, suggesting that service providers should not indulge in gate-keeping of this important platform.

The TRAI issued the much-awaited recommendations on Net neutrality and has sought to bar service providers from any discriminatory practice on Internet access.

In 2015, 85% of global GDP was generated in cities. Growing cities require substantial investments in infrastructure if they are to continue expanding at their present rate. It’s estimated that we will invest $78 trillion in global infrastructure over the next 10 years alone to accommodate this growth. New York, Beijing, Shanghai and London will need $8 trillion in infrastructure investments alone. 

Big Question: From Vladimir Putin's expansionist aims to the advances of Islamic State, the news is full of threats to global stability - but what do specialists in war studies think we should fear most?