NEWS
EVENTS
These 6 BIG news stories of 2016 WILL cheer you up
2016 has been a notoriously bad year, yet amongst all the celebrity deaths and political screw ups there were a few news stories that will instantly pick up from your mainstream media slump.
1) Ebola should no longer wipe out humanity
The scars of the deadly Ebola outbreak are still visible in West Africa, yet this year the disease was finally wiped out in Liberia, meaning that there are no known cases of the tropical virus left on the continent.
Although the hard work hasn’t finished, hopefully the hardest part is over.
Our #Ebola bus scanning teams in #Freetown worked 7 days a week for 4 months and scanned 1.13 million passengers at 6 major terminals pic.twitter.com/gXJRPHNAoj
— Humanity First Int'l (@humanityfirstuk) 3 December 2016
2) World hunger reached its lowest point in 25 years
The spread of globalisation and technology has developed poorer parts of the world at an ever increasing rate. To some in the West this has been seen as a challenge as countries traditionally seen as ‘the enemy’ have threatened Western dominance.
However, this development has given these people the technology to communicate and develop their societies. In fact 2016 was the first time ever, that the amount of money needed to end poverty fell below the amount spent on foreign aid.
3) Fossil fuels started to become a thing of history
A number of large nations including China, India and the USA increased their use of solar panels to create electricity. In fact solar produced more energy than coal for the UK this year (I’m surprised we had enough sun), with the UK announcing it would phase out the use of coal as an energy source by 2025.
4) The amount of conflict fell
Following the announcement of a ceasefire in Columbia which brought the long running civil war to an end, all of the world’s conflicts are limited to an arc containing less than a sixth of the world’s population.
5) 2016 was the year of the Panda, Panda, Panda, Panda
Panda by Desiigner was one of the hits of 2016 and maybe it was this what raised awareness for the creatures as Pandas and Humpback whales were both taken off the endangered list in 2016.
This marked success in a very long battle to stop these creatures from going extinct.
6) People from around the world became more generous
Global spending on aid and development increased by 7% and spending on refugees doubled, amazing statistics. Possibly linked to people in the country become richer charitable spending in China rose by an amazing 1000%!
There is still a lot of shit to sort out but here’s to an even greater and more positive 2017!
