submitted by George Hurlburt  

The new Sensi Technology Innovation Hub hopes to help the country rebuild after its Ebola crisis

cnn.com - by Peter Guest - November 7, 2015

(CNN) - Morris Marah was working in the Sierra Leonean High Commission in London when the devastating Ebola outbreak struck his country last year.

Desperate to help, he went home; first to volunteer in a community health center, then by applying his technology skills to build an SMS-based platform that disseminated weekly information and advice on how to avoid contracting the disease to more than 500,000 people.

"I felt, sitting in London there wasn't much I could do from that far away. I wanted desperately to come out here and see how I could be useful," he says over the phone from the capital, Freetown.

Working on that platform, called Sensi, and on other public health initiatives demonstrated how successfully technology could be leveraged for social good, and inspired him to look for ways to bring the country's small, but talented, tech community together to help restart the country's stalled economy.

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Increased use of low-carbon energy sources instead of fossil energy sources is making it easier for countries to decouple economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report.  Photograph: Mick Tsikas/Reuters

New report from green think tank Heinrich Boll shows OECD countries grew their economies 16% in last decade – and cut greenhouse gas emissions 6.4%

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH REPORT - Turning point: Decoupling Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Economic Growth

theguardian.com - by Bruce Watson - September 26, 2015

As the world works out how to avoid catastrophic climate change, one of the biggest questions remaining is whether we can continue to grow economically without also increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

latinamericanpost.com - by Keith Johnson - August 29, 2015

The Chinese contagion that sparked “Black Monday” is especially worrisome for crude oil prices, which this summer were thought to have finally found a floor after a year of steady price declines. But that floor suddenly looks rotten: U.S. benchmark crude prices fell well below $40 a barrel on Monday, their lowest levels since the depths of the global financial crisis.

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washingtonpost.com - by Thad Moore and Drew Harwell - August 21, 2015

A worldwide sell-off pushed U.S. stocks to their worst week since 2011 as spooked investors scattered amid worries of an economic slowdown in China and the potential for higher interest rates at home.

The Dow Jones industrial average capped a four-day losing streak by dropping more than 500 points to close at 16,459.75, sinking 10 percent from its May peak and following even steeper market declines in Asia and Europe.

The rout will further rattle workers whose 401(k) retirement accounts have taken a troubling hit. Investors have lost billions in recent weeks and are flocking to safety-net Treasury bonds as they wait for the bleeding to stop.

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