•Cigarette Smuggler: Not sure if you have heard of Mokhtar Belmokhtar who was killed in a US airstrike a couple of days ago. He was on the run for the past seven years. After an Algerian court sentenced him to life in absentia he joined several fringe groups. He became interested in jihad in 1972. Now, comes the odd part. He was worth $300 million. Where did he keep this money? How did he make that much money? Mostly through smuggling cigarettes across the border and earning the title Mr. Malboro.

•Forgotten Nepal: Has everyone forgotten Nepal including the media? Seems like it. Where is all goodwill and charity and why are there no updates on how things are doing. Over 8,600 people lost their lives according to the official statement and double that were injured. No one has even given a helping hand to the ‘Come to Nepal’ campaign to regain traction in the tourism sector and that is the country’s lifeline. How quickly it is all forgotten.

•Passion Over Compassion: In India, everyone is in a broil over helping former IPL boss Lalit Modi visit his sick wife in Portugal and how a few political bigwigs like Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj put in a good word. Get over it. In a nation where people who killed people are permitted instant bail and can fly abroad what is a little bit of humanitarianism. If all those charged with corruption in India were locked up the nation’s population problem would be solved.

•They Are The World: How do we sleep at night knowing 30 million children are destitute? Next time you gorge or waste or display greed think about it. It hurts. And add to that the official refugees of 59.9 million excluding the ones we haven’t reached or do not factor in like child laborers, the exploited and the enslaved. On the other side of the scale a million people became millionaires. Not you. Not me. We are still trying to make our two ends talk to each other.

•The Moneymakers: The number of people worth $US1 million or more rose by 920,000 last year, hitting a record 14.6 million according to a report from consultant Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management. More than a third of new millionaires — 345,000 — were in the US. The rise in the number of millionaires — 7 percent — was about half the rate from the year before.

•Crackdown On Child Abuse: England goes onto the front foot in its drive against child abuse after latest reports show the number of recorded sexual offences against children in England and Wales has risen by a third, according to the NSPCC. There were 31,000 offences recorded in the year up to April 2014, up 8,500 on the previous year. Figures compiled by the charity show 85 offences were recorded by police every day, with significant rises in Scotland and Northern Ireland also. There truly is a lot of bad out there.

•The Punctured Football: Do you get the feeling that FIFA has scored a self goal beyond all doubt and isn’t going to win this match. Imagine 53 bank violations that have to be investigated. Do you really see the noose not tightening around all those top officials? One can see President Sepp Blatter and General Secretary Jerome Valcke being shepherded somehow into the probe. There is no real way they can be exempted. Swiss police seized FIFA computer data last month and Switzerland's third largest listed bank, Julius Baer, said it had launched its own internal investigation in connection with FIFA.

•The ‘New’ Sicilian Mafia: Migrants versus the homesteaders seems to be the central issue in Sicily where over 200,000 boat people have been allowed on shore and are now ‘upsetting’ the balance so to speak. Sicilians are resentful and in what can only be seen as irony find themselves victims of robber gangs who defend their assaults by saying they have had no money for seven months and are left with no choice.

•Carnage In The Church: Racism in its worst form has America reeling as a white supremacist kills nine people in an Afro-American church in Charleston. Church pastor Clementa Pinckney, who is also a state senator, reportedly was among the dead in what is now being labeled as a hate crime. Coming as this massacre does on the heels of several white co-black victim reports the tinderbox could be more than just dry. It could be kindled into another race war.

•Banning Fasting: Most amazingly China has banned Ramadan fasting in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang. China's ruling Communist party is officially atheist and for years has restricted the practice in Xinjiang, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority. Officials were given orders: “During Ramadan do not engage in fasting, vigils or other religious activities.” How do you force someone to eat if they have the will not to. It is one of those absurd commands that cannot be obeyed.