For me, topics of conversation during dinner with friends are always the best way to gauge social and economic trends. This is especially true in Shanghai, China's financial center, where I live.
In an extraordinary British documentary series, the latest edition being 56UP, a director has attempted to show how difficult it is for a person to escape their social class in the United Kingdom, highlighting how children from rich families tend to stay rich, while children from poor families often remain poor.
An overnight train ride from Nairobi to the seaside city of Mombasa can easily turn into a nightmare. It is not unusual for passengers to wake up in the morning stuck on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital. The train, which runs every two days, is supposed to leave Nairobi at 9 pm, but often does not depart until after midnight, and a journey that should take 15 hours can stretch to more than 20 hours.
Many Kenyans say their misconceptions about the Chinese have gone after working with them on the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway project.
Completion of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway is still a year and a half away, but changes have already taken place along the line during construction.
I have increasingly sustained a research interest in the nexus between economic growth and infrastructure development.
Ma Yingying says women are increasingly making their mark in Chinese business. The 33-year-old chief executive officer and founder of Lux Shine Media Company, which stages modernized performances of Peking Opera, says there is now a complete break from the male-dominated business environment of the past.
Wang Chun took an unconventional approach to not letting children get in the way of her business career.
Leading fashion designer Mary Ma insists she has achieved success in spite of, and not, because she is a beautiful woman.
The journey to the corner office has never been easy for women anywhere in the world. It is even slower and harder for African women.
Across the world, women are becoming critical actors in the formal economy. The global, high-tech economy that values brains over brawn has also opened up a host of opportunities for women that were previously not available. In some countries, women form the bulk of college graduates and they are making serious inroads in every field.
Cao Min, head of the Eastern Africa China desk of Standard Bank of South Africa has advice that in many ways goes against the grain for him. Rather than investing in China, Africa provides a new and promising chance for such medium-sized investments, given China's slowing industrialization, he says.
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