(CNN) – In the hours before President Obama strode up to the podium to deliver his State of the Union Address, Bill Gates was quietly publishing his own thoughts for the year ahead.

Well, he was doing it as quietly as Bill Gates does anything.

Posting a link to his letter on Twitter, the businessman, philanthropist and regular entry on world rich lists wrote:  “We cannot tolerate a world in which 1 in 7 people is undernourished, undernourished (sic), stunted, and in danger of starving to death.”

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(CNN) – Is Africa ripe for investing?

While China and India have the fastest rate of growth, Africa has the "best future prospects" says Mark Mobius, who has been a major player in the emerging markets economies since the 1987 launch of Templeton Asset Management.

Today Mobius manages a $50 billion emerging markets fund and was listed by Asia Money Magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful and Influential People.

Despite problems with infrastructure, Africa presents tantalizing prospects for investors, especially as global investors are worry about risks in the developed economies in the wake of the EU debt crisis and tepid growth in the U.S. FULL POST

(CNN) - How infectious is this wind of change sweeping through North Africa? Will it blow south? Or continue to move east across the Middle East?

These are questions that are being debated in Africa.

The East African, a Kenyan-based newspaper, recently had an article entitled, "The Revolution in Black Africa won't be played out in the streets."

The Mail and Guardian’s Zimbabwean proprietor Trevor Ncube just published a hard-hitting analysis entitled, “We are our own liberators." In it he urges the "Zimbabwean masses to do what they have got to do; the cost of doing nothing is too high."

Both articles, and countless others written in the past month, reflect a deep sense of soul-searching by Africans. Hard questions are being asked if Africans can emulate what has been achieved on the northern edges of the continent.

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