Top stories from DAWNS Digest
World’s Less Peaceful than 5 Years Ago
The newest edition of the Global Peace Index from the Institute for Economics & Peace shows that violence is up around the world as compared to 2008. “Consistent with that trend, the Index also found that global peacefulness declined over the past year, chiefly due to the intensifying civil war in Syria; the rising number of homicides, especially in Mexico, Central America, and several sub-Saharan African countries; and increased military spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in many nations.” (IPS http://bit.ly/11uu1W6)
Why the Sahel Went Dry
A new climate study has the answers. “The biggest drought to hit the planet in the 20th century, the Sahel drought, sucked Central Africa dry from the 1970s to the 1990s. The severe famines that resulted killed hundreds of thousands of people during this period and gained worldwide attention. A new study blames the dry spell on pollution in the Northern Hemisphere, primarily from America and Europe. Tiny particles of sulfate, called aerosols, cooled the Northern Hemisphere, shifting tropical rainfall patterns southward, away from Central Africa, according to research published April 24 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.” (NBC http://nbcnews.to/1a20cUw)