Bad news: 3rd term final exams and projects are this week at JHSPH. Good news: next week is Spring Break! Some links for the week:
Japan: Hard to think of good things in the wake of tragedy, but it could have been much worse: Millions saved in Japan by good engineering and government building codes.
On GAVI: Some coverage by Tom Paulson of Seth Berkley's appointment as the new CEO of the GAVI Alliance, which funds vaccinations in many developing countries. Paulson also links to a thought-provoking read, "Six Ideas and Questions for GAVI's New CEO," by Amanda Glassman of the Center for Global Development, and an article Paulson wrote on the early days of GAVI. (And I spent a good chunk of my weekend working on a paper comparing policy alternatives for GAVI's co-financing policy for a class taught by @orinlevine.)
Cote d'Ivoire: Close to half a million people have been displaced by the Cote d'Ivoire crisis so far.
Microcredit: Is microfinance a neoliberal fairtytale?
Baltimore: David Simon (creator of The Wire) on the drug war in Baltimore and beyond.
Refugees: Jina Moore with this disturbing story: "Why an American lawyer is pulling the plug - literally - on a Rwandan refugee."
Rwanda: The Trouble with Rwanda by Lindsay Morgan.
Religion (or lack thereof): Sociological Images presents demographics of the non-religious.
Random: The blog Best of Wikipedia has been on a roll lately: see Errors in the US Constitution, dihydrogen monoxide hoax, and Mozart and scatology (ie, toilet humor).