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Google's Project 10 100 started over a year ago with a call for ideas to change the world, that will reach as many people as possible. Now the 154,000 ideas that were submitted, have been aggregated to 16, and the voting will run until Oct. 8, 2009, to select the best 5 ideas for Google's $10M seed money, and backing to implement. What a cool idea! Thanks DH, for the link.

Source: Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Date of retrieval: 09/09/21) Wish I could say " happy peace day " ... but there's anything peaceful about this day.

The UN refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has a stated purpose to lead, coordinate and safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees worldwide. It exists to ensure "everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country." And by UNHCR's own count, business is unfortunately quite good, and has only been getting better since the agency was established at the end of 1950. UNHCR today lists 31 million people to be in some state of concern around the world -- directly assisting 4.5 out of 11 million refugees, and advocating for the rest. It's an admirable job, with Africa, the Middle East and Asia, getting most of the attention. Wherever there is trouble, you'll probably find the UNHCR logo fluttering in the parched, smoky and quite possibly, violent winds. Critics of UNHCR however hardly see th...

I finally got around to logging into my Kiva account tonight, and re-loaned $75 that was sitting in my account for a little while. It's amazing to know that I'm my own little development bank for those in developing countries, and that $75 has already made the rounds and a difference in lives far-far away.