There’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous: It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households.

Two M.I.T. economists, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, found that the world’s poor typically spend about 2 percent of their income educating their children, and often larger percentages on alcohol and tobacco: 4 percent in rural Papua New Guinea, 6 percent in Indonesia, 8 percent in Mexico. The indigent also spend significant sums on soft drinks, prostitution and extravagant festivals.

For more than 30 years, Robert Munsch has fascinated young readers with his unique stories that have made his books staples of any child’s library. But it is his latest story, one of admission to cocaine and alcohol addictions, that has become the most shocking and captivating one, a story not intended for his young “Munschkin” fans. In a message titled “Note to Parents” posted on his website, the bestselling author admits he's been diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive and manic-depressive. “Those challenges have led me to make some big mistakes,” Mr. Munsch says, without providing further details. But in an interview with Global Television aired Saturday, Mr. Munsch admitted he is a recovering cocaine addict and alcoholic, adding he has been clean for about four months. In his note to parents, Mr. Munsch, 64, wrote that his mental health and addiction problems are not a secret to his friends and family.

“Japan doesn’t like being told what to do,” said Isao Kondo, 83, who retired near here after a career as a manager at the Japan Whaling Company, now defunct. “But like it or not, whaling is dying.”

More equal societies spend a higher proportion their income on overseas aid and perform better on the Global Peace Index.

Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden's Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did.What sets Rosling apart isn't just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You've never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling's hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.

One Year After Storm, Myanmar Opens a Bit New York Times, The (NY) - Friday, May 1, 2009 Author: THE NEW YORK TIMES Abstract: Life in Myanmar has settled back into some of its familiar rhythms after cyclone Nargis struck in May 2008; United Nations officials, aid workers and foreign diplomats in Myanmar say that since storm increase in humanitarian aid may have opened breach in hard political wall around country; junta now readily accepts air shipments of foreign aid, even from West; map; photo (M)

This May, a massive earthquake rocked Sichuan Province in China. Reaching a magnitude of 8 on the Richter scale, it claimed the lives of 400,000 people. Half a year later, though the destruction seems to have lost its newsworthiness, the reconstruction is still very much a reality. However, it doesn’t have to be hopeless! How about a temporary shelter made of paper? In Chengdu city in Sichuan, students from Japanese banlab, architect Shigeru Ban’s research center, and the Hironori Matsubara Lab at Keio University used cardboard tubes to build temporary school buildings. Today, PingMag talks with Wataru Doi, the director of this student project, about the role of architecture after disasters.

Vast greenhouses that use sea water for crop cultivation could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers. The Sahara Forest Project, which is already running demonstration plants in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, envisages huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), a technology that uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays, creating steam to drive turbines to generate electricity.