Global Us: What connects us all

The Indonesian capital of Jakarta is sinking by up to 25 centimeters every year. More than 30 million people in and around the city are at risk. Now urban planners have begun to act in the hope of averting disaster.

Lolita Hantantiana lives in Madagascar in a house she shares with nine other people. In her free time, the 15-year-old likes playing soccer. One of her goals is to improve her English.

Jordan is one of the driest countries in the world. The water sector accounts for some 15 percent of the country's electricity use. Energy efficient pumps aim to reduce that consumption and limit the harm done to the environment.

Millions of people in South Africa don't have enough to eat. Still, a third of all the food there is thrown away. Now some producers and supermarkets are giving away food that's past its sell-by date to people in need.

The waste crisis in Lebanon is a constant problem. It's due to the combination of corruption, poor governance and weak infrastructure seen in many countries. What can be done with the massive amounts of garbage, produced in our globalized world?

Deforestation in the Amazon jungle is destroying human and animal habitats at an alarming rate. An NGO in Iquitos is helping local farmers adopt methods that protect more trees and yield better harvests.

In the Philippines, being poor means looking for your food on a garbage dump. Filipa is one of them. She lives in a country where millions of tons of food end up in the bin - every year. Now the government approved a law that is supposed to fight food waste.

Meat is often on the menu when dining in Banja Luka. One favorite is ćevapi, kebabs of ground beef served in flatbread. We visit the Obelix Restaurant to see how it is made.

Beatriz de Abreau Soares Schmitz is 15 and lives in Brasilia. She loves to play guitar and to party with her friends, but she is also concerned about global problems such as water scarcity.

The sale of illegal wildlife has grown into a $20 billion business along with narcotics, arms sales and human trafficking. Online sales make wildlife trafficking even easier.