A new seed capital fund committed to finding and investing in high-potential East African "pre-revenue" startups was launched in Kenya, the same week as a leading UN information and technology agency stated their intention to deliver broadband to 80% of African citizens by 2020.
Whether treating patients with drug-resistant diseases in the slums of Haiti or trying to reverse the hopelessness of the world's poor, optimism is essential, insists World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. For me optimism is a moral choice.
This video was created in order to show a side of Israel that the media doesn't show. All across Israel, both Arabs and Jews are living together peacefully in the hopes that someday the conflict will be resolved. So next time you hear about Israel in the news, think about the side of Israel that they are choosing not to show you.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin joined Israeli leader Shimon Peres to unveil a Victory Monument in Israel honoring the contributions of the Red Army to the victory in the Second World War. Israel's President Peres said the memorial, which includes giant wings that are made of white stone, symbolized a profound feeling of gratitude to the Russian people who helped saved the world from Nazism but lost 30 million of their own people in the struggle.
A weed called Kenaf can sequester huge amounts of carbon permanently while lifting villagers out of poverty by providing both protein-rich food and super-insulated building materials. A retired building contractor is working with the fast-growing, carbon-sucking plant that can grow 14 feet in a single year.
Ethiopia has more than halved its child mortality rates since 1990 through campaigns to increase the number of health workers and clinics throughout the country, government and aid officials said on Friday. The number of health posts has surged to more than 9,000 in 2011 from a handful in 2004 with priority shifted towards food-insecure areas, UNICEF said.
In three years, Rachel Wheeler raised more than $250,000, which helped build brand new earthquake-proof homes that have given shelter to 27 families that were still living in tent cities after Haiti's earthquake.
Last year in Timbuktu, an irreplaceable trove of manuscripts at risk of being destroyed by advancing fundamentalist rebels, was secretly evacuated at great personal risk by a team of archivists, librarians, and couriers. The manuscripts were saved from immediate destruction, but today they are still jam packed in footlockers used for their evacuation, while enduring higher humidity than ever before, without protection. Now, an internet campaign launched to fund the purchase of archival bags and boxes to protect these documents has engaged people around the globe and raised $42,500.
The economy of Iceland is growing at a clip that has surprised many people. A number of carefully planned steps has brought its fiscal deficit of more than 10 percent back to a near balance.
On May 7, 2000 the Irish Republican Army made its most groundbreaking pledge since its cease-fire six years ago: to put IRA arms beyond use and allow independent inspections of its hidden arsenals.
Increased demand boosted global manufacturing activity last month as U.S. factories expanded at their fastest pace in 2-1/2 years and Chinese output suggested improvement in the world's second largest economy. The 17-country euro zone's manufacturing sector also showed improvement in November, as did Britain's.
Almost every developed nation in the world was hit by the financial crisis, their economies became paralyzed. And then there's Sweden. The Scandinavian nation has accomplished what the United States, Britain and Japan can only dream of: Growing rapidly, creating jobs and gaining a competitive edge. The banks are lending, the housing market booming. The budget is balanced.
In America these days, if you are watching too much news, you're not getting the truth about the economy as much as political messaging and strategy. The truth is that the U.S. still has the strongest economy on the planet. America's performance should be measured against the current competition, not against the records it set in the 1990s or 2000s.
The U.S. Coast Guard rescued six Iranians from sea whose boat had flooded on Tuesday in the Gulf, the second time in less than a week that the American military has come to the aid of Iranians in distress. The earlier rescue involved pirates, with the US Navy boarding a ship to free 13 Iranian fishermen who had been held hostage for weeks by Somalis.
Cuba announced Thursday it is allowing the purchase and sale of real estate for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes ushered in by President Raul Castro. The change follows the legalization in October of the purchase and sale of cars.
A new Olympic Park arose in a once derelict and contaminated industrial area of east London turning neglected waterways into wildlife havens. Almost 500 acres of land (200 hectares) have been razed and redeveloped for the 2012 Olympic Games, and 45 of those have been given over to creating new wildlife habitats for kingfishers, bats, otters and snakes -- while much of the rest has been left as parkland.
At the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi late last week, the world's two richest men made a bit of philanthropic history. Carlos Slim announced his foundation will donate $100 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a new effort organized by the Gates Foundation to eliminate polio.
President Obama issued a directive for U.S. development policy that called for social and political reforms as a prerequisite for foreign assistance, along with more investment from the private sector. Just one year into the project, U.S. government executives at a Washington conference reported on genuine progress.
The four-day Diamond Jubilee celebrating 60 years of service from Queen Elizabeth ending yesterday with a concert and fireworks that gave the British people something to be proud of in the midst of their tough economic recovery. The pomp and pageantry of the many events offered something for the conservative and modern-minded alike. For the young and old, a concert last night with spectacular light show projected along the entire face of Buckingham Palace provided an artistic exclamation point to the weekend.
Most people think the world is more violent than ever, with more wars and murders, but in reality, we've never had it so peaceful. That's the thesis of a new book by prominent Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. It uses graphs and statistics to reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, and murder.
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