Politics seems to involve leaders... kings and presidents and dictators... as well as the bureaucracy needed to keep people in power. World events can include drought or disease but is usually seen on a global or massive scale, and usually is something sudden and newsworthy. A war or meteor strike would be a world event. An event is different from a condition: living underwater like mermaids is different from a flashflood drowning the gulf states. I suspect that what lemur01 has in mind are the long-term quiet personal social issues such as lack of education or grinding poverty which don't usually make the news but which underly a lot of the conditions which do result in what are often deadly outbreaks later. For example: some people with no education listen to preachers and become jihadists, some people with no jobs may riot and bring down a government, some people with no sanitation or health coverage might die by the thousands to flu or malaria or diarrhea. But nobody pays attention when it is just a woman raising a passel of kids alone or a farmer agonizing over the dustbed which he'd planted in wheat. The face of a boy sent to the coal mines instead of school can be a telling social document. (I'm wondering if he is using "The Cry of the Children" as an inspiration?) These don't always have to be desperate or gritty! A street filled with little white houses and perfectly trimmed lawns is also a social statement, as is a hilltop covered in ticky-tacky, pink flamingos, and new owners. Carolly