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Interesting graphics - even they they are american based

"By Christmas Eve, the Philippines will have spent $1bn (£0.6bn) paying foreign debts in the seven weeks since typhoon Haiyan devastated much of the country. It will have spent a total of $8.4bn on foreign debt in 2013, and faces a further $8.8bn in 2014. While a little more than $100m has been pledged by international donors for relief work, more than 800 times that amount of money leaves the country every year to pay debts"

"Police in Paris set up checkpoints around the city on Monday to enforce a vehicle ban in an effort to cut dangerous pollution levels. All vehicles bearing even-numbered license plates are banned from driving in French capital for the day. The restrictions were introduced after pollutions levels reached dangerous levels for five days in a row"

"As Brazil comes under the World Cup spotlight, life goes on as usual for millions of Brazilians working to make a living in the shanty towns - or favelas. The largest favela in Rio de Janeiro is Rocinha, where homes are packed together in a sprawling maze of streets and alleys."

"The world is becoming more and more interconnected. Globalization changes how people consume, work and live almost everywhere on the world. Today, many economic, political, cultural or ecological relationships are not explainable from a national perspective. At the same time, a controversial debate about the consequences of globalization has begun. But what are the main causes for globalization? In what areas it is most prominent? And who are the winners and looser of globalization? These are the questions this animated Video clip of the WissensWerte series deals with. "

"The gardens are home to one of a growing number of azoteas verdes - or green roofs - that are springing up around Mexico City as part of the metropolis's efforts to purge its air of the pollution that has long been among its least-desired claims to fame."

"Flying over East Asia, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) took this night image of the Korean Peninsula. Unlike daylight images, city lights at night illustrate dramatically the relative economic importance of cities, as gauged by relative size. In this north-looking view, it is immediately obvious that greater Seoul is a major city and that the port of Gunsan is minor by comparison. There are 25.6 million people in the Seoul metropolitan area-more than half of South Korea's citizens-while Gunsan's population is 280,000."

"Many workers earn just 30p a day and risk permanent injury, say NGOs, as they call for EU crackdown on unfair trading practices"

"The deaths of around 300 migrants off the small island of Lampedusa on 3 October has brought the issue of migration in the Mediterranean sharply back into focus."

Record levels of immigration have had "little or no impact" on the economic well-being of Britons, an influential House of Lords committee has said. It says competition from immigrants has had a negative impact on the low paid and training for young UK workers, and has contributed to high house prices.

Since its first franchise opening in Des Plains, Illinois, in 1955, McDonalds has expanded to well over 30,000 locations worldwide. This animation chronicles the spread of McDonalds across the globe.The data used for this animation were taken from mcdonalds.com and mcspotlight.org, and were current up to the year 2000.

"EU's executive arm accuses China of selling panels below-cost and threatening 25,000 jobs in the European solar industry"

"WHAT EXACTLY IS THE GIRL EFFECT? The girl effect is a movement. It's about leveraging the unique potential of adolescent girls to end poverty for themselves, their families, their communities, their countries and the world. It's about making girls visible and changing their social and economic dynamics by providing them with specific, powerful and relevant resources. Created by the Nike Foundation in collaboration with the NoVo Foundation, United Nations Foundation and Coalition for Adolescent Girls, the girl effect is fuelled by hundreds of thousands of girl champions who recognise the untapped potential of adolescent girls living in poverty."

"If population levels continue to rise at the current rate, our grandchildren will see the Earth plunged into an unprecedented environmental crisis, argues computational scientist Stephen Emmott in this extract from his book Ten Billion"

Try this at home ?