Manny Pacquiao

On the day after Oscar De La Hoya retired, the man best poised to succeed him as the world's most popular active boxer made it clear he knows his drawing power comes not from his smile or magnetic personality but from his work in the ring.

"I try to focus only on training and fighting," Manny Pacquiao said Wednesday inside Hollywood's Wild Card Gym in a news conference in advance of his May 2 junior-welterweight fight against England's Ricky Hatton at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Riding the heights of his unexpected battering of De La Hoya in December and feted to a hero's welcome in his native Philippines, Pacquiao (48-3-2, 36 knockouts) has been confronted by what his business manager describes as "the double-edged sword of stardom," where endorsement and media requests beckon at new levels but the grunt work of training remains his most important task.

"Manny overextends himself with kindness; he can't say no," Michael Koncz said. "We all knew the torch was passed when Manny beat Oscar . . . how he'd be the face of the sport now. So even though there are times he's overwhelmed, he's focused here in the gym. He's back in his zone now."....... more from LA Times

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Paul Kagame

In 1994, Rwanda suffered one of the world's worst genocides where around 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were massacred by extremist Hutus.

“It is a day we remember systematic slaughter of over a million of our innocent fellow Rwandans, an orgy of bloodletting unprecedented in the history of our nation.”

"It is about time we de-link our continent's survival and foreign aid. Aid must only be used to mitigate emergency situations.."

"Aid can not be a long term substitute for investment and economic growth. This erodes the dignity and self-worth of Africans.." AFP

You kept quiet... When these victims wanted your help to survive, you kept quiet.

"The gacaca process is the only viable process that can help us out of our dilemma," President Kagame said. "So many people got involved in the crime of genocide [more than 800,000 were charged], which requires justice. There must also be...

"We have done very significant and tremendous progress. Our future, no one can decide it for us. We have to continue to move and look forward,"

"As we remember, life must go on. We must continue to build a better future,"

We cannot turn the clock back nor can we undo the harm caused, but we have the power to determine the future and to ensure that what happened never happens again.

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Lagos

Africa's second most populous city has grown explosively, from 300,000 in 1950 to an expected 18 million by 2010, when it will be ranked as one of the world's ten largest cities. This happened so quickly that the city had no effective institutions, engineering, planning, or traditions to guide the hypergrowth. Nigeria's booming oil industry fueled it, and it will likely only accelerate, taking Lagos along and drawing even more immigrants from rural areas, as well as from neighboring countries. Overcrowding (averaging six people per room), poor sanitation, air and water pollution, clogged sewers, solid-waste contamination, and staggering traffic fester even as efforts are being made to improve the national and city infrastructures in a time of political turmoil. Residents survive all those conditions and have kept the food supply moving through the efforts of individual vendors who sell their wares in vast outdoor markets. National Geographic

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) is a tropical island lying close to the southern tip of India and near the Equator. From the coast, the land rises to a central plateau, where tea plantations are found. Sinhalese form the country's major ethnic group (74 percent) and Tamils are the largest minority, at 18 percent. Population density is highest in the island's southwest corner—where Colombo, the capital, is located. The Tamil minority tends to be geographically concentrated along the eastern and northern coastal areas.

Under European control for some 450 years, Ceylon won independence from the United Kingdom in 1948 and changed its name in 1972. Since then a segment of the Tamil Hindu minority has pressured the Sinhalese Buddhist majority for a separate state. Conflict broke out in 1983 and escalated to civil war. Violence continued after the assassination of President Premadasa in 1993 by Tamil separatists. Thousands of lives have been lost. Hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians have fled Sri Lanka. The civil war has had a negative impact on economic growth, which is based largely on tea and garment manufacture. .......read more>>>>

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Map: Columbia.edu

Benicio del Toro

Benicio Del Toro emerged in the mid-'90s as one of the most watchable and charismatic character actors to come along in years. A favorite of film buffs, Del Toro gained mainstream public attention as the conflicted but basically honest Mexican cop in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000). Born in Puerto Rico on February 19, 1967, Benicio is the son of lawyer parents Gustavo and Fausta Sanchez Del Toro. His mother died when he was young, and his father moved the family to a farm in Pennsylvania. A basketball player with an interest in acting, he decided to follow the family way and study business at the University of California in San Diego. A class in acting resulted in his being bitten by the acting bug, and he subsequently dropped out and began studying with legendary acting teacher Stella Adler in Los Angeles and at the Circle in the Square Acting School in New York City. Telling his parents that he was taking courses in business, Del Toro hid his new studies from his family for a little while. During the late 1980s he made a few TV appearances, most notably in an episode of "Miami Vice" (1984) and in the NBC miniseries "Drug Wars: The Camarena Story" (1990). Del Toro's big-screen career got off to a slower start, however--his first role was Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big Top Pee-wee (1988). Things looked better, however, when he landed the role of Dario, the vicious henchman in the James Bond film Licence to Kill (1989). Surprising his co-stars, Del Toro was, at 21, the youngest actor ever to portray a Bond villain. The potential break, however, was spoiled as the picture turned out to be one of the most disappointing Bond films ever; it was lost amid bigger summer competition......continue reading

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Hanan Ashrawi

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a compelling and influential voice in the contemporary theatre of Middle Eastern politics, has been a central player in the struggle for a Palestinian homeland. A tireless campaigner for human rights, she has distinguished herself in both the academic and political arenas. Her academic expertise has played a vital role in the development and recognition of Palestinian culture, while her longstanding political activism on behalf of the Palestinian people has contributed greatly to the establishment of an independent and self-governing Palestine. Continue reading....

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Image: Sydney Peace Foundation