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...Computer For Every Child O.K., so his big brother John is director of national intelligence and delivers daily briefings to the President. But Nicholas Negroponte, 62, is trying to reach a far more challenging audience: the world's poorest children. The co-founder of M.I.T.'s Media Lab and former Wired columnist took a leave from academia last year to build a computer - a laptop so cheap that developing countries could buy them by the millions to help their kids leapfrog into the 21st century. It's an ambitious project, but the charismatic Negroponte has a persuasive pitch...
...Poliomyelitis, a contagious viral disease that once crippled and killed thousands of children annually, has been eliminated in most of the Western world thanks to a vaccine invented by Jonas Salk in the 1950s, but it still survives in some of the world's poorest countries. India seemed to be on the verge of eliminating polio last year, when it reported just 66 cases of the disease, down from 1600 in 2002. This year, however, things have gone horribly wrong with India's polio elimination campaign; 325 cases have been reported already, and at least 23 of them have been...
...Jafari adds that paranoia is not the only reason for the hostility to the polio drops. Uttar Pradesh is notorious for being one of the worst-administered regions of India, and most of the state has appallingly bad hospitals and health services. Muslims, who are among the poorest of Indians, bear the brunt of this collapse in the state's health infrastructure. Dr Jafari says: "There's a sense of frustration among many Muslims: they tell the health workers, we've never seen anyone coming to take care of us, why are you coming just to give us polio drops...
...Since 2001, the income of the poorest 10% of Brazilians has risen 23%, while the income of the richest 10% fell by 7.5%, according to Neri. "The period since 2001 is one in which we've seen the biggest reduction in inequality in 36 years. I think this is a historic and important moment. We are changing Brazil...
...middle classes." Lula came to power in 2002, promising to reduce a gap between rich and poor that sees 45% of national income going to 10% of the wealthiest households. His government has delivered programs such as the Zero Hunger initiative, which aims to put food on the poorest familes' tables. Since 2002, Brazil has posted low inflation, rising gdp and a strengthening currency. But in the slums, signs of progress prove as elusive as the rats that dart between the shacks. Wilson, 15, lives in the favela of Heliópolis, where half the 125,000 inhabitants are under...