Global

As global confirmed COVID-19 cases cross 90,000, with more than 3,000 fatalities, the World Health Organization’s Director-General says the world is now in “unchartered territory” but the virus can still potentially be contained.

Digital rights advocacy group Access Now has released its annual report revealing that governments around world are increasingly shutting down the internet, often to stifle dissent particularly during times of protest or elections.

A new report from a WHO infectious disease team is estimating about two-thirds of Covid-19 cases worldwide have gone undetected. The analysis suggests the global spread of the novel coronavirus is greater than the current volume of confirmed cases.

Following more than a week of meetings the World Health Organization's Director General, upon advice from its Emergency Committee, has declared the ongoing coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

In a milestone for humanity, the World Health Organization has officially announced the global eradication of wild poliovirus type 3. One strain of the virus remains, with small numbers of cases continuing to be reported in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The latest global population report from the UN estimates the world's population will peak at 10.9 billion by the end of the century. The vast majority of population growth is expected to come from sub-Saharan Africa, with declining population growth predicted in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Preliminary measles surveillance data released by the WHO has revealed a stark surge in global cases over the first three months of 2019. The data indicates measles cases are 300 percent higher than at the same time in 2018, with major outbreaks currently occurring in a dozen different countries.

The annual Global Burden of Disease study is a giant peer-reviewed assessment of global health trends. The results this year, published across a series of articles in The Lancet, present some concerning trends, from a worrying plateau in global mortality rates to a decline in global fertility rates.

On its third attempt, NASA has successfully launched its Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. The orbiter is designed to take high resolution moisture maps on a global scale, mapping the entire planet in the space of only two to three days.

NASA has created a "Global Selfie" photomosaic comprised of over 36,000 individual photographs taken on or around April 22, 2014, also known as Earth Day. Users can scan and zoom to view the individual photos that make up the 3.2-gigapixel image.

A new "culturomics" research project has used a supercomputer to examine a dataset made up of a quarter-century of worldwide news coverage to forecast and visualize human behavior.

During the first decade of the 21st century, information and communication technologies came within reach of most of the world's people.