Tag Archives: poor

Speed Demons

Angels wheel and deal Call it “speed,” “crank” or “poor man's coke,” the powder produces a cocaine-like high at half the price. Methamphetamine, at $60 a gram, is the discount drug of choice on the West Coast and a multimillion-dollar-a-year business for a new form of organized crime, a California-style Cosa Nostra on wheels.

Nobel Peace Laureate urges Africans to ‘rise up’

The same problems that brought the global banking system to its knees are shackling Africa to a future of corruption and hunger, Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai told CNN. “In any society, if there is no regulation, if there is no control, you will always get greedy and selfish people who are prepared to take the economy very far for their own selfish ends,” she said. The 69-year-old Kenyan was speaking on the phone ahead of the launch of her book, “The Challenge for Africa,” in the U.S.

Postcard from Sao Paolo: Business

The world economy may be going to hell in a handbasket, but you wouldn’t know it in Maria Irece da Silva’s tiny cosmetics store in the impoverished favela of Jardim Carumbé. “The rich talk about the crisis but the poor don’t mention it,” says Da Silva, whose business — helping women look good in a country where style always trumps substance — is booming. Not even the worst recession in memory has stemmed the flow of shampoos, lipsticks and nail varnish from the shelves of her tiny beauty-aids store.