After the Tohoku Earthquake,Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Crisis.

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami wavesup to 38 meters high struck the northeastern part of Japan, causingwidespread devastation. As of April 11, a month after the disasters, thedeath toll exceeded 13,000, with 14,600 still missing and about 150,000people still in shelters. It will take a lot of time, money, and effortto restore and reconstruct the affected areas.

New report shows urgency of ensuring good governance in climate policy. As governments prepare to spend up to US$100 billion annually by 2020 to limit climate change and prepare for its impact, Transparency International (TI) warns of the corruption risks of climate finance flowing through new, untested channels and recommends strengthening governance systems to tackle them. The Global Corruption Report: Climate Change sets out practical guidelines to prevent corruption undermining climate change measures and calls on governments, international organisations, businesses and civil society to ensure good governance in climate policy.

Swiss Re’s new sigma study reveals that natural catastrophes and man-made disasters caused economic losses of USD 218 billion and cost insurers USD 43 billion. According to Swiss Re’s latest sigma study, worldwide economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters were USD 218 billion in 2010, more than triple the 2009 figure of USD 68 billion. The cost to the global insurance industry was more than USD 43 billion, an increase of more than 60% over the previous year. Approximately 304 000 people died in these events, the highest number since 1976.

Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods, a new UN report* shows. Based on an extensive review of the recent scientific literature, the study calls for a fundamental shift towards agroecology as a way to boost food production and improve the situation of the poorest.

The government and Central Bank of Bangladesh is presently operating the expulsion of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Prof. Muhammad Yunus founded by him from the "bank for the poor," Grameen. Instead there will now take over the state power. Grameen Bank is currently one of the poorest themselves as cooperative with the open letter we want to prevent this scandalous nationalization of the most successful "Bank of the Poor". Every vote counts support. We ask everyone to participate in this action and each one's friends to call attention.

Just like last year’s World Social Forum held in Belem (Brazil), the Forum in Dakar took place under the impression of the deep crisis of neoliberal globalization. Whereas the economy has recovered for some time already in some regions of the world, it started to do so recently in others. But all that cannot hide the existence of deep social, economic and ecological problems. The WSF provided a meeting point for a broad range of individuals originating in movements and civil society who hope to overcome neoliberal globalization: Either by establishing social and ecological regulations, for instance by implementing a “Green New Deal”, or by breaking with capitalism in general. This range of political alternatives characterized this WSF, just as the alterglobalist movement in general. In the run up to Dakar, Gustave Massiah (2011a & 2011b)* wrote a widely acknowledged book and published 12 theses on the alterglobalist movement. By Sven Giegold

Report provides a roadmap for food security and agricultural investment, revealing 15 high- and low-tech solutions that are helping to reduce hunger and poverty in Africa. Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2011 Shows Agricultural Innovation Is Key to Reducing Poverty, Stabilizing Climate.

“Bread and Freedom” said the insurgents’ many posters in Cairo and Tunis. The hunger of millions of people and rising food prices were undoubtedly among the triggers of both revolutions. One of the main causes of hunger is climate change and the weather extremes that precede it, a fact which climatologists have been predicting for years.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) releases its Annual Report 2010: Human Rights Situation in Tibet. This 90-page report documents violation of right in Tibet in the area of Civil and Political Rights, Religious Freedom, Right to Education and Right to Subsistence.

Energy production from plants could provide up to twenty percent of the world's energy demand in 2050, half of it from biomass plantations alone – but only at the price of a substantial expansion of land used for cultivation, to the expense of nature. This is the finding of a study carried out by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) “which for the first time determines the potential and the risks of energy production from biomass plantations in a complex biogeochemical computer simulation,“ lead author Tim Beringer says. Human land use could increase by ten to thirty percent, depending on the scenario, and irrigation water demand could double.