The Acton Institute has won the Templeton Freedom Award for its documentary film "Poverty, Inc. [...] The feature-length documentary challenges the prevailing culture of charity and promotes entrepreneurship as a positive alternative to ending world poverty.

China’s soft power has also been ascendant in Africa. [...] China is leveraging its soft power — culture, investment, academia, foreign aid, public diplomacy — more effectively than before to influence Africa and other regions in the developing world.

Angus Deaton, who was yesterday awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, is a strong critic of foreign aid, arguing that it does more harm than good, damaging the opportunities for poor people to grow richer.  Deaton, who was awarded the prize yesterday for “his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare”, argues that aid actually stifles development in poorer countries and can help prop up brutal dictatorships. 

.. [R]eal aid requires more than just good intentions, and a snapshot of the realities that all too often lie behind the heartwarming imagery and simplistic appeals to compassion used by aid advocates when selling the work of their vast global industry to the public.

The latest series of WikiLeaks cables have once again embarrassed the Saudi government and forced it on to the diplomatic defensive. The cables, over half a million documents said to have come from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, contain titillating details about how Riyadh operates — but no smoking guns related to nuclear enrichment or other issues of global fascination.