Word: half
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...says Mark Rosenberg, president of Florida International University in Miami and an expert on Honduras and Central America. "But it's very incomplete." Even in Costa Rica, President Oscar Arias is elbowing for greater executive powers while weakening his country's famously strong environmental standards. The region's health - half of all Guatemalan children under age 5 suffer chronic malnutrition - and its education levels remain pathetically low. Only Africa has a worse regional literacy rate...
...known more for cuttlefish than cinematography - has won a permanent place of prestige in the global film industry's annual circuit of stars and schmoozers. There are plenty more below the radar, however, advancing good causes and, from time to time, good work. Here's a roundup of a half-dozen events that may be short on glamour but have atmosphere to spare. (See the top 10 Cannes film festival movies...
...which helped accelerate the construction of a new subway system, highways and other projects. A similar scenario has been playing out in other western China cities like Chengdu and Chongqing. BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research calculates that the GDP of China's western provinces grew 9.3% in the first half of 2009, compared with 6.5% in the east. This trend is likely to continue. "Growth is shifting to the interior," says Ting Lu, a BofA Merrill Lynch economist...
...first nine months of 2009, retail sales in Xi'an jumped 19% compared to those in the same period a year earlier, well above the 14.8% posted in China's cities nationally. BofA Merrill Lynch estimates that retail sales in the western provinces rose 19.2% in the first half of 2009, 3 percentage points more than in the east. "Xi'an has reached a very important development stage," explains Chen, Xi'an's mayor. "Incomes are just at the first point when people can buy homes and cars...
...YoVille, zyngapoker and Roller Coaster Kingdom. Founded in July 2007 by Mark Pincus, 43, Zynga had 45 staffers by June 2008 and now employs 600, counting contractors. Its most recently launched game, FishVille, hooked 9 million users in a week. Zynga is privately held, but a rival less than half its size was recently bought by Electronic Arts, the GM of games, for $400 million. How could an outfit that offers scammy mobile-phone horoscope subscriptions get so popular...