Quoted: Lately, MIT has turned its attention toward concrete thinking to improve the lives of the world’s bottom billion, those who live on a dollar a day or less ...“Nearly 90 percent of research and development dollars are spent on creating technologies that serve the wealthiest 10 percent of the world’s population,” Ms. Smith said. “The point of the design revolution is to switch that.”

Quoted: In mineral-rich countries that had been all but abandoned by foreign investors because of unrest and corruption, Chinese companies are reviving output of cobalt and bauxite. China has even become the new mover and shaker in agricultural countries like Ivory Coast, once the crown jewel in France’s postcolonial African empire, where Chinese companies are building a new capital, in Yamoussoukro, paid for by Chinese loans.

Quoted: Across Africa, and especially in the relatively robust economies of southern Africa, there are clear winners and losers. Textile mills and other factories here in Zambia have suffered and even closed as cheap Chinese goods flood the world market, eliminating much-needed jobs in a country where less than half the adult population has formal employment. And the Chinese investment in copper mining here has left a trail of heartbreak and recrimination after one of the worst industrial accidents in Zambian history, a blast at a Chinese-owned explosives factory in Chambishi in 2005 that killed 46 people, most of them in their 20s.

Quoted: Liberation theology, which the pope once called “a fundamental threat,” retains its appeal in Latin America.

An in-depth article. A lot of it holds true not just for the Philippines but also in large swathes of South Asia.

Quoted: Migrant workers from the Philippines send billions back to their country. But the Comodas family’s multigenerational experience with working abroad shows that the human cost is harder to calculate.

Quoted: With his film “Bamako,” director Abderrahmane Sissako lashes out at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.