Peru kids loving “one Laptop per child” program
ARAHUAY, Peru — Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago.
These offspring of peasant families whose monthly earnings rarely exceed the cost of the $188 laptop can’t get enough of their “XO” laptops.
At breakfast, they’re already powering up the combination library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits. At night, they’re dozing off in front of them — if they’ve managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines.
“It’s really the kind of conditions that we designed for,” said Walter Bender, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff.
Deal likely to end monarchy
KATMANDU, Nepal — The world’s last Hindu monarchy is to be swept aside under a deal between former communist rebels and Nepal’s major political parties that sets the stage for the country to become a republic.
If it holds, the accord may finally bring a measure of stability that has long eluded this impoverished, near-feudal wonderland for backpackers and mountain climbers looking to scale Mount Everest.
At the center of much of Nepal’s turmoil has been King Gyanendra, the often-dour and widely reviled head of a dynasty that for centuries held absolute sway — a primacy he sought to reassert nearly two years ago when he dismissed parliament and seized dictatorial powers.
The power grab was his undoing, and the resulting weeks of unrest brought his enemies together.
Peace talks find boggy ground
JERUSALEM — Meeting for the second time this month as part of a new U.S.-influenced peace effort, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Monday bogged down again over familiar issues: proposed Israeli construction in areas the Palestinians claim for a state and Israel’s demand for a crackdown on armed groups.
The two sides have made no apparent progress since President Bush convened a peace conference last month in an effort to revive serious peace talks. Bush is to visit the region in two weeks.
Click, pay and pray
VARANASI, India — Visitors to this ancient city are struck by its timelessness, the feeling that life is as it was 1,000 years ago. The faithful still bathe at dawn in the waters of the Ganges River, the bereaved cremate their dead on funeral pyres and pilgrims retrace a well-trodden circuit of temples and shrines.
And at its most venerable house of worship, dedicated to the god Shiva, outsourcing prayers is possible with the click of a mouse.
Want a rich mate or better grades for your children? If you can’t make the pilgrimage here, an Internet connection and the payment of a small fee can book you the services of a priest at Vishwanath Temple who will, as Indians like to say, “do the needful” for your plea to be heard on high.
“It’s a demand of this day and age,” said Radhey Shyam Pathak, who runs the temple’s daily affairs. “There are many people who wish to come here but cannot. We can help.”
