The Monsoon Arrives

This week marks the arrival of the south Asia monsoon. You can watch a BBC video clip about when the monsoon normally bursts over India here. Last year, the monsoon brought catastrophic flooding to Pakistan - you can watch a video clip including satellite images here. If you need a reminder of what causes the monsoon rains, you will find it here.

Drought in China

Parts of China are suffering a record breaking drought. The Yangtze River (the longest river in Asia) is very low - you can see pictures that show how severe the drought is here.

The 3 Gorges Dam on the Yangtze has been opened to allow more water to flow downstream, but some people believe that the building of the dam has made the situation worse. This article explains what has been happening.

Bad News on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The International Energy Agency reported this week that we are unlikely to be able to limit temperature increases caused by human activity to 2C. You can read about the report here. The latest on talks aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are ongoing - you can read about them here. The Guardian's Climate Change section is a good place to find out the latest information - don't forget your text books are already out of date on this topic!

Cost of war

Visit this website to see the total cost of wars since 2001 to the USA. There are also separate counters for the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The figures are huge but if you look at them as a proportion of GDP there is a different picture emerges.....



Source: www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cost-war

Impacts of war

This website is excellent for your 'breadth' examples of the environmental and social impacts of war. Remember to only use examples from the last 30 years though.

Mississippi floods of 2011

The floods along the Mississippi are bringing misery to hundreds of thousands of people. Have a look at the set of photos from the Guardian.

This article attempts to identify some of the winners and losers of the floods while here there is a discussion as to whether efforts to control the floods have made the flooding worse.

Cuba - poorest of the healthy or healthiest of the poor?

Is Cuba the poorest of the healthy? Or the healthiest of the poor?

Read the introduction here then look at the fabulous Gapminder website which here shows the relationship between the wealth and health of nations.

Taliban kill head of girls school

Unfortunately the news yesterday reported the murder of the head of a girls school in Afghanistan by Taliban gunman. The story is here.

This just goes to show that the situation isn't as secure as we would like!

Vaccines: the case of measles

Although we don't specifically look at measles during our AS Health topic, this article is useful for looking at the use of vaccines (and, of course, how some countries can afford them and others can't!).

Oldham schools divided by race

This article discusses the division of primary schools in Oldham, Lancashire, by race. This is a useful example of issues related to multicultural societies.

The article here gives you more information on how Oldham remains divided following race riots in 2001.

Georgia uprising

The news is reporting that 10,0000 people in Georgia's capital Tbilisi have been stopped from demonstrating by riot police with water canons. The full story is here. This is a good example of the way conflict is expressed (demonstrations) and the reasons for the conflict (poverty, low pensions, rising food prices and unhappiness with the way the President has dealt with these issues). The current President came to power in 2004 after a popular uprising toppled his predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze.

Timor-Leste's journey to development

Since Timor-Leste was recognised as independent in 2002 it has been successful in starting to move from being a fragile state along the development pathway. This article details how the country has managed to increase it's GDP by 228% between 2005 and 2010.
This would be a good example to use for the Conflicts issue "No development without security and no security without development".

India's lack of baby girls

Quite depressing reading but this article does show how India's population changes are skewing the gender ratio.
Click here for the article.

This is a useful example that covers several aspects of the Conflicts syllabus

Consequences Of Conflict In Sri Lanka

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Patterns of disease

The page here gives patterns of disease for TB, Malaria, cholera and HIV/Aids.