The bad news is that over half a million children still die of measles each year, even though we can save these lives for less than a dollar each, using the measles vaccine. The good news is that, since 1999, the number of children dying of measles in Africa has Read more…
According to Ireland Online, Bob Geldof has asked Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to be robust when they ask President Bush to increase aid to help to reduce poverty. At the launch of the Africa Commission report, Geldof said: Tony and Gordon have to prepare to ring up George and Read more…
Brad DeLong rightly attacks Supreme Court Justice Nino Scalia for saying that "government comes from God". As DeLong says Nino Scalia’s views on this are profoundly–there is no other word for it–UnAmerican. Here in the United States, we are all children of Thomas Jefferson. God does not give us rulers. Read more…
Dr Charles Townes was on National Public Radio yesterday, because he has been awarded the Templeton Prize for progress or research in spiritual matters. Dr Townes won the Nobel Prize for physics for inventing the laser, and is Professor here at Berkeley. What shocked me was that Dr Townes said Read more…
In 2001, using the resources released by debt relief, Tanzania increased the education budget by 130 percent and eliminated school fees, with the aim of reaching universal basic education by 2006. Almost overnight, an estimated 1.6 million kids returned to school. By 2004, the number of children in primary school Read more…
The Dutch Health Minister has proposed a system under which people who sign organ donor cards would receive points which would raise them on the waiting list should they one day need an organ. That’s a good idea. I’d also be in favour of an "opt-out" system, in which everyone Read more…
According to Jeff Sachs in this week’s Time Magazine: Aid per sub-Saharan African in 2002 was just $30. Of that modest amount, almost $5 was actually for consultants from the donor countries, more than $3 was for emergency aid, about $4 went for servicing Africa’s debts, and $5 was for Read more…
Over at Our Word is Our Weapon, Jim from North London writes a well-informed and interesting blog about current issues in international development, as well as various other issues of social policy. This week, Jim has rightly taken Tim Worstall to task for claiming that aid does not work. As Read more…
In 2004, 75 million Americans – 37% of the adult population and 61% of online Americans – used the internet to get political news and information, discuss candidates and debate issues in emails, or participate directly in the political process by volunteering or giving contributions to candidates. See the full Read more…
My forecast was wrong: Denmark did not block the the EU Council of Ministers from approving a proposed law which would allow patents on software. According to Groklaw, Bill Gates threatened the Danish Prime Minister with the loss of 800 software jobs if Denmark did not support the patents. Clearly Read more…