2nd
For all its problems, the first 10 years of the 21st century were in fact humanity’s finest, a time when more people lived better, longer, more peaceful, and more prosperous lives than ever before.
Consider that in 1990, roughly half the global population lived on less than $1 a day; by 2007, the proportion had shrunk to 28 percent — and it will be lower still by the close of 2010. That’s because, though the financial crisis briefly stalled progress on income growth, it was just a hiccup in the decade’s relentless GDP climb.
As recently as two years ago, mobile banking in the developing world was an object of skepticism among financial insiders. While proponents argued that cell phones could revolutionize personal finance in poorer countries, regulators warned of money laundering and most bankers worried that low customer balances wouldn’t be worth the transaction costs. Many thought of “m-banking” as a niche product that, at most, could maintain the loyalty of existing traditional bank customers. Few imagined it might bring savings, credit, and liquidity to those who don’t belong to a bank in the first place.
Now, however, the doubters have been proved entirely wrong. The spontaneous and unplanned explosion of m-banking in the developing world has gone well beyond expectations. And the effects for development could be monumental. (via The M-Banking Revolution - By Jamie Holmes and Jamie Zimmerman | Foreign Policy
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A Polish man living in Germany spent five years with a bullet in the back of his head having forgotten he was shot because he was drunk when it happened. (via BBC News - Polish man finds bullet in head five years after party
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Tuesday marks the 1,600th anniversary of one of the turning points of European history - the first sack of Imperial Rome by an army of Visigoths, northern European barbarian tribesmen, led by a general called Alaric. (via BBC News - 24 August 410: the date it all went wrong for Rome?
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