What’s New April 2010

This page lists changes to this site for April 2010.

See below for other updates and to get notified of changes to the site.

Over 24,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to:

  • 1 child dying every 3.6 seconds
  • 16-17 children dying every minute
  • A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 9-10 days
  • A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days
  • An Iraq-scale death toll every 16–40 days
  • Just under 9 million children dying every year
  • Some 79 million children dying 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 (just under half a million less deaths in 2008 than 2007, for example), the rate of reduction is slow. Furthermore, it is feared that once more recent data comes in, the global financial crisis will undo some of that annual reduction.

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.

Food subsidies in countries like the US are arranged in such a way that they encourage more meat production and unhealthy food consumption which become cheaper than healthy foods. On top of the environmental degradation caused by industrial farming, excessive meat consumption harms health.

Some additional statistics, graphs and charts have been added that look into this further.

Coinciding with International Women’s Day, the beginning of March saw the 54th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women to report on global efforts toward democracy and human development through the empowerment of women.

Despite the 2-week meeting and many issues being progressed, there were still uncertainties in areas such as commitments to various gender related rights and funding.

This small update includes further links and description of the above conference, as well as further links, quotes and a video on women’s rights related issues.

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