Karim Bakhtiar's Blog

$50 To Reduce World Poverty, For Free

Forget about signing petitions. Forget about 'awareness raising' wrist bands. Forget about Live 8.

The solution to world poverty isn't going to come from top-down government aid. It's going to come from bottom-up micro-credit.

"What's micro-credit?", you ask. It is where small loans are paid to poor individuals and entrepreneurs who lack the security necessary to get ordinary bank loans. Here's an example...

Aquilina lives in Peru. When her husband died, she was left alone to bring up her young children on her own. She supports her children and grandchildren by taking in laundry. She wants a loan of $350 to pay for a washing machine, in order to reduce the physical effort and to open up a small laundrette.

Aquilina will get her washing machine, I'm happy to say, thanks to micro-credit arranged by KIVA.ORG.

[Update 30/06/2008: She's paid back the loan in full, on time.]

There are many more people, in similarly poor circumstances, in need of your help.

So, let me make you an offer. I will send the first ten people who sign up to Kiva.org, and lend at least $25 via it, a $50 Kiva gift certificate.  All you need to do is submit a comment to this post, with the URL of your Kiva lender page and the email address to which you want the gift certificate sent.

It's your move.

http://www.kiva.org/

Mesmorizing

Above, Leona Lewis, the winner of Britain's 'American Idol', turns a god-awful song into a vocal tour de force.

As an added bonus, here's her surprise duet with top-selling British boy-band Take That:

[Credit: Perez Hilton c/o YouTube c/o SkippyTV c/o ITV c/o Talkback Thames.]

Pick Your Sliver Well

Licensed by Hugh Macleod of GapingVoid.com

London Terror Attacks

So, apparently there may have been terrorist incidents at London's Moorgate and Liverpool Street subway stations, and at several other locations. As someone who walks down Moorgate four times a day, and who works five minutes away from Liverpool Street Station, this is obviously of interest to me.

Just as disasters in Fox's drama series 24 always strike Los Angeles, British TV disaster dramas always show Liverpool Street station being hit. In the past few years dramas have shown it being hit by a dirty (i.e. crude nuclear) bomb, suicide bombers and chemical attacks. So a bomb in a tube is positively tame in comparison to the stuff we're been told might happen.

It will take more than a few bombs to scare Londoners. For years our city was attacked by Irish Republican bombers. Railway stations rarely have trash cans. There are signs everywhere on public transport warning for us to look out for suspect packages, and regular announcements over the public address systems warning us to be on guard.

I noticed a fire engine turning towards Liverpool Street station as I headed to work, and two fire service cars following behind, so the Emergency services were on the scene within about 10 minutes. Throughout the morning there were sirens, and the cell phone networks stopped working. At lunch time I walked along Moorgate and around Liverpool Street. To be honest, the incidents seems to be under control. There were no police or paramedics outside Moorgate subway station when I passed it as 12:45pm.  Liverpool Street was cordoned off, and police were standing around chatting. I saw a couple of ambulances rushing to the scene, but other than that it looked as though the injured had already been evacuated.

Here's some screen grabs from Sky News.

A Guest Blogger Writes

Hello. I am Karim's rowing machine.

Why am I used as a newspaper stand?

Did I do something wrong?

Help Cure Cancer

You can help cure cancer, without ever having to step into a science lab.

Just download and run a program on your computer that will use the spare processor cycles to help search for anti-cancer drugs, and that will help scientists better understand protein folding

One in four people reading this post will get cancer. Please do your your bit. Download and install the program now.