Hey there

For commercial reasons we have stopped publishing The Casual Truth.

In the next couple of months we will be taking the concept to a number of global publishers to see if they might be interested in furthering it. We feel it is a sustainable model, given the right resources.

We will keep you informed of any developments. Hopefully ‘The Casual Truth’ will return as a new and improved service at some stage in the near future.

Dear readers

Thanks for keeping in touch with the world this year via The Casual Truth.

If you want to have a look at 2010 in review, Google sums it up pretty nicely with this video.

We will be taking a break now from December 25 until January 24. We hope you have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and a great holiday.

Here are a few editors’ picks from the year to have a read over if you have time.

See you in 2011

The Casual Truth

• Heavy snow delays European Christmas travel
• Ivory Coast on the brink of returning to civil war

Heavy snow delays European Christmas travel

Heavy snowfall across Western Europe on Saturday disrupted flights for five days leaving travellers stranded just before the Christmas holidays.

Europe’s busiest airport London’s Heathrow was the worst affected due to a lack of infrastructure to deal with heavy snowfall.

As we can look ahead to 2011, a few economic storm clouds are gathering that could rain heavily on some people.

But there is also cautious optimism that the growth of emerging nations could be strong enough to offset much of the global pain.

This will be the central issue next year for most people, but there will also be a few other things to look out for.

US gridlock

• Asylum seekers die while trying to land on Christmas Island
• Botched terrorist attack in Sweden
• Bernie Madoff’s son hangs himself on anniversary
• Facebook founder named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Asylum seekers die while trying to land on Christmas Island

Despite water covering 70% of the world’s surface, over 800 million people have inadequate access to safe drinking water. Millions more live in regions where water supplies are scarce.

The problem is that 97% of global water is saline, which means that the salt content is too high for human consumption.

That’s why desalination – the process of converting saline water (usually seawater) into freshwater – is becoming increasingly viable.

Last Friday, delegates to the climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico signed an agreement that has breathed new life back into the climate change process.

Apart from the sole objector Bolivia, the agreement drew a lengthy applause and standing ovation from those in attendance after two sleepless nights of negotiations concluded.

And for frustrated investors waiting to pour money into crucial emission-reducing technology, a deal which will create the demand they need may finally be starting to look likely.

The new agreement

The increasingly familiar founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange now finds himself confronting two separate potential legal battles.

The first is whether he or his website can be held criminally liable for publishing thousands of documents stolen from the US Defence Department’s classified database.

• Wikileaks founder hands himself in amid cyber-battle
• Double tragedy in South America
• Ivory Coast update

Wikileaks founder hands himself in amid cyber-battle

The founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks Julian Assange has handed himself in to British police after a European arrest warrant was issued on behalf of Swedish police over sexual misconduct (he has not been formally charged yet).

Many governments in the emerging world are quickly becoming financial titans.

This is largely thanks to their Sovereign Wealth Funds that they have set up to invest their oil and gas proceeds or their large budget surpluses.

But as they buy more and more assets in the rich world, many are unsure whether to support it or stop it.

What is a Sovereign Wealth Fund?

A Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is a government-owned investment fund set up for its people’s future economic benefit.