The discussion Thursday at the World Food Prize symposium about hunger and poverty in developing nations turned largely from the controversies of global warming and genetically modified crops and focused on governments and their role in solving social ills.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and philanthropist Howard Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, discussed how they and the foundations they’ve created work in African nations and elsewhere to improve lives.
The discovery of a 1.8-million-year-old skull of a human ancestor buried under a medieval Georgian village provides a vivid picture of early evolution and indicates our family tree may have fewer branches than some believe, scientists say.
The fossil is the most complete pre-human skull uncovered. With other partial remains previously found at the rural site, it gives researchers the earliest evidence of human ancestors moving out of Africa and spreading north to the rest of the world, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The United States on Wednesday cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to its Mideast ally Egypt, responding to the military ouster last summer of the nation’s first democratically elected president and the crackdown on protesters that has sunk the country into violent turmoil.
While the State Department did not provide a dollar amount of what was being withheld, most of it is linked to military aid. In all, the U.S. provides $1.5 billion in aid each year to Egypt.
When Orange County, Calif., freshman Ansley Bridges walked into an Ethiopian classroom at the age of 13 and saw students without school supplies, she knew she had to do something.
This experience six years ago was the spark that created an Ethiopian tutoring service that would transform lives.
For Richmond senior Jolene Damoiseaux, a thesis was more than an Honors College requirement. Damoiseaux turned her thesis into Mothers On the Move, a program that provides pregnant women on the Nyakach plateau in Kenya with transportation to the Sigoti Health Centre.
Damoiseaux’s interest in medical research began her sophomore year in a research and design class taught by Dr. Lisa Baker, clinical faculty member in the Honors program, Damoiseaux said.
Kenya’s president proclaimed victory Tuesday over the terrorists who stormed a Nairobi mall, saying security forces had “ashamed and defeated our attackers” following a bloody four-day siege in which dozens of civilians were killed.
President Uhuru Kenyatta said the dead included 61 civilians whose bodies have been recovered so far and six security forces, while some 175 were injured, including 62 who remain hospitalized.
Dr. David Clinton is a professor of political science, studies international relations theory, American foreign policy, the art and practice of diplomacy and ethics and international relations. The Baylor Lariat asked Clinton to share some of his thoughts on the Syrian conflict.
In late August, the city of Damascus was hit by a chemical weapons attack which killed over a thousand people. The Obama administration has expressed interest in getting involved with the conflict in hopes of finding a resolution and preventing further attacks.
U.S. and Russian negotiators remain at odds on a U.N. Security Council resolution that would hold Syria accountable if it fails to live up to pledges to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpiles, American officials said Tuesday, as President Barack Obama warned the world body that it risks its credibility and reputation if it does not act.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met for nearly 90 minutes at the United Nations and though progress was made in some areas, they were unable to reach agreement on the text of a resolution that would meet Obama’s standard, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss publicly the closed-door meeting.
Inside the gallery, artworks by Syrian artists were drawing auction bids from collectors. Outside on the street, the artists traded the latest gossip from Syria and checked their smartphones for news from the civil war.
So goes the divided world for a cadre of Syrian artists brought to the safety of Dubai by their gallery to continue their work but still remain deeply connected and influenced by the bloodshed they left behind.
Baylor students will soon be able to use a new online platform to donate to The Wells Project and provide clean water for communities across the world.
A student-led organization, The Wells Project focuses on bringing clean water to people across the world whose lives are being affected by the poverty and sickness that unclean water brings.
President Barack Obama told a war-weary nation Tuesday night that diplomacy suddenly holds “the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons” in Syria without the use of force. But he also vowed the U.S. military will be ready to strike against President Bashar Assad if other measures fail.
For now, Obama said he had asked congressional leaders to postpone a vote on legislation he has been seeking to authorize the use of military force against Syria.
In a 16-minute speech, the president repeatedly offered reassurances that even the failure of diplomacy — in promised talks at the United Nations or elsewhere — would not plunge America into another war.
Battling stiff resistance in Congress, President Barack Obama conceded Monday night he might lose his fight for congressional support of a military strike against Syria, and declined to say what he would do if lawmakers reject his call to back retaliation for a chemical weapons attack last month.
The president made his comments as a glimmer of a possible diplomatic solution appeared after months of defiance from the Russian-backed government of President Bashar Assad in Syria. In a rapid response, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cited “international discussions” in unexpectedly postponing a test vote originally set for Wednesday on Obama’s call for legislation backing a military strike.
In a series of six network interviews planned as part of a furious lobbying campaign in Congress, Obama said statements suggesting that Syria might agree to surrender control of its chemical weapons stockpile were a potentially positive development.
President Barack Obama gained ground Tuesday in his drive for congressional backing of a military strike against Syria, winning critical support from House Speaker John Boehner while key Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to back a no-combat-troops-on-the-ground action in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack.
Officials said the emerging Senate measure would receive a vote Wednesday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Approval is likely.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday declared unequivocally that the United States has “concluded” that the Syrian government carried out a deadly chemical weapons attack on civilians last week.
Obama did not present any direct evidence to back up his assertions. He said he is still evaluating possible military options in retaliation for the attack that killed hundreds near Damascus, but vowed that any American response would send a “strong signal” to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
It wasn’t quite a Cinderella story. Sure, I was running around at midnight. It’s true, I’d just seen fireworks at a party. But instead of dropping a glass slipper, I’d left something a little more valuable behind.
The trip up to this point had been like a fairy tale. This past summer, I spent a month in Italy studying writing and photography through Baylor’s study abroad program. We’d been in Italy for a few weeks, had already seen Rome and were now starting classes in Florence.
The study abroad trip wasn’t going as she’d hoped.
Austin junior Rachel Clark watched as one American student after another left for the Cairo International Airport.
On June 1, a little more than a month before Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was deposed, Clark arrived in Cairo to take two six-week classes, Egyptian Polictics and Government and Arab Society. Originally, she was supposed to stay for eight weeks. Because of the turmoil of Morsi being removed from office, Clark was forced to leave three weeks early.
The fishing trip off the rugged north coast of St. Lucia was supposed to last all day, but about four hours into the journey, the boat’s electric system crackled and popped.
Dan Suski, a 30-year-old business owner and information technology expert from San Francisco, had been wrestling a 200-pound marlin in rough seas with help from his sister, Kate Suski, a 39-year-old architect from Seattle. It was around noon April 21.
An eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh’s capital on Wednesday, killing at least 87 people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands.
Residents huddled outdoors Saturday night in a town near the epicenter of a powerful earthquake that struck the steep hills of China’s southwestern Sichuan province, leaving at least 156 people dead and more than 5,500 injured.
A powerful earthquake jolted China’s Sichuan province Saturday near where a devastating quake struck five years ago, leaving at least 41 dead and more than 600 injured and prompting state media to warn the casualty toll could climb sharply.
Tensions emerged Wednesday in a newly announced alliance between al-Qaida’s franchise in Iraq and the most powerful Syrian rebel faction, which said it was not consulted before the Iraqi group announced their merger and only heard about it through the media.
As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, left her marks on many parts of the world — including Baylor.
In a statement released Monday, President Ken Starr recalled his relationship with the woman he described as “the U.K’s second greatest prime minister of the 20th Century.” According to Starr, after meeting Thatcher in 1998, they developed a personal relationship.
Secretary of State John Kerry worked Monday to corral Israeli and Palestinian leaders into a new and ambitious peace process that includes reviving parts of a long-dormant plan embraced by the Arab world a decade ago, officials said.
The 2002 initiative that Kerry wants to revive parts of would have provided Israel recognition throughout the Arab world in exchange for a pullout from territory conquered in 1967.
Love her or loathe her, one thing’s beyond dispute: Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain.
The Iron Lady, who ruled for 11 remarkable years, imposed her will on a fractious, rundown nation — breaking the unions, triumphing in a far-off war, and selling off state industries at a record pace. She left behind a leaner government and more prosperous nation by the time a mutiny ousted her from No. 10 Downing Street.
The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the first international treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade Tuesday, after a more than decade-long campaign to keep weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists, warlords, organized crime figures and human rights violators.
Loud cheers erupted in the assembly chamber as the electronic board flashed the final vote: 154 in favor, 3 against and 23 abstentions.
For nearly 30 years, the Berlin Wall was the hated symbol of the division of Europe, a gray, concrete mass that snaked through neighborhoods, separating families and friends. On Wednesday, it took hundreds of police to guarantee the safe removal of 15 feet (less than 5 meters) of what’s left of the wall.
Construction crews, protected by about 250 police, hauled down part of the three-quarter of a mile (1.3-kilometer) strip of the wall before dawn to provide access to a planned luxury apartment complex overlooking the Spree River.
Raising tensions with South Korea yet again, North Korea cut its last military hotline with Seoul on Wednesday, saying there was no need to continue military communications between the countries in a situation “where a war may break out at any moment.”
The hotline — a dedicated telephone link between the two militaries — was used mainly to arrange for South Koreans who work at an industrial complex in the North to cross the heavily armed border. When the connection was last severed in 2009, some workers were stranded in the North.
A record-breaking cyberattack targeting an anti-spam watchdog group has sent ripples of disruption coursing across the Web, experts said Wednesday.
Spamhaus, a site responsible for keeping ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills out of the world’s inboxes, said it had been buffeted by the monster denial-of-service attack since mid-March, apparently from groups angry at being blacklisted by the Swiss-British group.
The harsh spending cuts introduced by European governments to tackle their crippling debt problems have not only pitched the region into recession — they are also being partly blamed for outbreaks of diseases not normally seen in Europe and a spike in suicides, according to new research.
Queen Elizabeth II needed no convincing to appear in a James Bond-themed skit during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics — in fact, she volunteered, according to the show’s director.
Director Danny Boyle says he had initially thought a lookalike — possibly actress Helen Mirren — would play the role of Elizabeth alongside Bond actor Daniel Craig.
