Third World

With debt-burdened American consumers cutting back in response to the recession, many U.S. companies are increasingly looking outward, toward fast-developing countries such as China, India and Brazil. But instead of seeing these nations primarily as cheap producers of goods to sell to Americans, U.S. corporate leaders see them as potential customers for American products and services. That shift, which has been underway for several years but has intensified sharply during the downturn, comes as vast numbers of families in these emerging economies are moving into cities and spending like never before to improve their living standards.

The European Union fought Thursday to live up to its self-proclaimed leadership on combating climate change, with the 27 EU leaders at odds over how much to offer poorer nations to join the global battle. EU members failed to agree on a sum for climate change funding for developing countries during a first set of talks on Thursday, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said, promising to make new efforts to strike a deal on the second day of talks here today. "On climate, we are not ready yet. . . . We have not solved it," he told reporters after leading the talks.

The One Laptop per Child project is about to find out whether Microsoft Corp. -- a rival the nonprofit organization once derided -- is the solution to its problems in providing inexpensive computers to children in the developing world. The laptop organization and Microsoft announced Thursday that the group's XO computers now can run Windows in addition to their homegrown interface, which is built on the Linux operating system. Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the Cambridge, Mass.

The global economic crisis is destabilizing a growing number of developing countries, sharpening security risks in many regions at a time when the United States and its wealthy allies are preoccupied with their own problems. The distress is likely to push tens of millions of people below the poverty line, stirring social unrest that weakens governments and threatens to increase the number of "stateless zones," lawless areas that are havens for criminals and violent extremists, say U.S.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday made good on his pledge to appoint a woman from the developing world as deputy, choosing Tanzanian Foreign Minister Asha-Rose Migiro. Ban called Migiro "a highly respected leader who has championed the cause of developing countries," and said he planned to delegate much of the U.N.'s management and administrative work to her. She will also oversee socioeconomic affairs and development issues. The deputy secretary-general is a relatively new U.N.

JUSTICE Eta, 14 months old, held out his tiny thumb. An ink spot certified that he had been immunized against polio and measles, thanks to a vaccination drive supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant.

A multinational health group announced here Friday that it would commit $500 million over three years to strengthen healthcare systems and train additional health workers in developing nations, addressing a key problem for implementing its vaccination programs.

The founder of the ambitious "$100 laptop" project, which plans to give inexpensive computers to schoolchildren in developing countries, revealed Thursday that the machine, for now, costs $175 and that it would be able to run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system in addition to its home-grown, open-source interface.

Egypt made the most progress among developing countries in reducing deaths of children younger than 5 from 1990 to 2005, while Iraq deteriorated the most, a U.S.-based charity reported Tuesday. Save the Children tracked child mortality trends in 60 developing countries during the 15-year period. Twenty made no progress in reducing deaths or had higher death rates. The 60 countries accounted for 94% of child deaths worldwide, the report says. About 10.

The nonprofit that aims to seed the developing world with inexpensive laptop computers for schoolchildren has made peace with Intel Corp., the project's most powerful rival. The One Laptop Per Child program and Intel said Friday that the chip maker would join the board of the nonprofit and contribute funding.