The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private global development organisation in the world. In a SPIEGEL interview, Melinda Gates explains the couple’s start in philanthropy, the challenges of combatting disease in conflict zones and the unique responsibility of the wealthy. SPIEGEL: Mrs. Gates, how does it feel to be so rich that Read more
It takes nerves of steel to stand in your doorway and tell rebel soldiers waving guns that no, the woman they are seeking is most certainly not in the room behind you, when in fact she is hiding a few feet away, under your bed. But that’s what Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe did. It takes stunning Read more
A new study from Harvard University reveals that the message parents mean to send children about the value of empathy is being drowned out by the message we actually send: that we value achievement and happiness above all else. The Making Caring Common project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education surveyed 10,000 middle and high school students about what was more important to Read more
Pope Francis used the e-word against the mob for the first time this weekend. The Holy Father was celebrating mass on Saturday in Calabria, a mob-heavy region in southern Italy, when he deviated from his prepared remarks and announced that the mafia are excommunicated. “Those who go down the evil path, as the Mafiosi do, are Read more
One is an Argentine son of Italian immigrants, the other an Old Etonian whose mother worked for Sir Winston Churchill. Yet despite coming from opposite ends of the earth – both literally and metaphorically – Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury have some uncanny similarities. The two leaders of Christianity’s largest global communions were Read more
Tanksley has five tattoos, three of them with faith themes. A Greek Chi-Rho symbol can be found “hidden” on the inside of his left arm where the arm bends. The tattoo represents a time before Christianity was accepted and followers had to keep their faith a secret. Tanksley believes many still hesitate to express their Read more
It may not make his family wealthy, but Devran Mankar is still grateful for the pearl millet variety called Dhanshakti (meaning “prosperity and strength”) he has recently begun growing in his small field in the state of Maharashtra, in western India. “Since eating this pearl millet, the children are rarely ill,” raves Mankar, a slim man Read more
A photograph taken in Argentina in 2007 shows two cardinals, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Tarcisio Bertone, sitting side by side, although their chairs are on two different levels. At the time, Bertone was the Vatican’s Secretary of State, having traveled to a village in northern Patagonia “in the name of His Holiness Benedict XVI” to Read more
Water is creating lots of dairy millionaires, but at what cost to our environment? Recipe for prosperity: take flat land, skilled farmers, fertiliser and cows. Add cheap water. Fold in new technology, lashings of debt and permissive environmental rules. Voila! In a decade or two you have a thriving district with next-to-no unemployment, a rising Read more
It’s official: the deep Amazonas is more remote than Siberia. In all of the visits I have made to provinces of the Congregation of Jesus (CJ) all over the world, never have I been without a signal for my BlackBerry… until I visited one of our sisters living and working in a community along the Read more