The Economy of Africa is comprised of more than 800 million people in fifty-four different nations. Africa's economy is emerging from the after-effects of colonialism and it struggles with difficult democratic, welfare and quality of life issues. Africa is by far the world's poorest continent, and more saliently it is on average poorer than it was twenty-five years ago. While rapid growth in China and now India, and moderate growth in South America, has lifted millions beyond subsistence living, Africa has stagnated, even going backwards in terms of foreign trade, investment, and per capita income. This poverty has widespread effects, including low life expectancy, violence, and instability—factors that further increase the continent's poverty. Over the decades a number of solutions have been proposed and many attempted, but no improvement scheme has shown much success.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Africa

Today's selected anniversaries:

1887 Bloody Sunday clashes in Trafalgar Square (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_1887)

1970 A 100-mph tropical cyclone hit the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people (this is regarded as the 20th century's worst cyclone disaster). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh)

1982 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington D.C. after a march to its site by thousands of Vietnam War veterans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial)

1985 The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupted, causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that buried Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevado_del_Ruiz)

1990 The first known web page was written. http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/Link.htm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web)

Wikiquote of the day:

"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time." ~ Thomas Carlyle (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Carlyle)