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Four years ago, environmental protestors from Greenpeace demonstrated atop a passenger jet at London's Heathrow airport.   The stunt gained widespread media attention, and the battle for the future of Britain's aviation industry is still being fought.

Joss Garman is a senior campaigner with Greenpeace.

"Britain is already very well served by airport capacity and the problem is that a huge amount of that capacity is being taken up by short-haul flights to destinations less than 500 kilometers away," said Garman.  "So places like Paris and Manchester [are] easily reachable by train, which is ten times less polluting."

The British government has ruled out building a third runway at Heathrow and has no current plans to expand other airports.  But business groups say Britain is being held back.

Nicola Walker is head of infrastructure at the employers' organization, Confederation of British Industry.  Its offices overlook the Crossrail construction project, one of the capital's biggest infrastructure investments.  Walker says Britain needs to be more ambitious.

"Our current international hub Heathrow is running at 99.2 percent capacity, and we don't believe that there's the opportunity to put on new links to those high-growth emerging markets that businesses really want to attack," Walker noted.

That means markets like Chongqing in China.  Chongqing has grown from a small regional city to a manufacturing hub, home to an estimated 7-million people.

Additionally, Sao Paolo, Brazil is seeing a huge influx of European businesses keen on trying to exploit old colonial ties.

Research by the British Chamber of Commerce claims two-thirds of business leaders in Brazil, China, India, South Korea and Mexico are more likely to trade with France, Germany or the Netherlands rather than Britain, because they offer more direct flights.

Independent aviation consultant Peter Forbes says London's lack of direct flights means it is losing out to rivals.

"Frankfurt for example has, I think, something like seven routes into China in comparison with Heathrow's four," said Forbes.  "But Germany has a lot more trade with China and from their point of view it's good to have those links."

London Mayor Boris Johnson wants a new airport built in the Thames estuary. The architecture firm Foster and Partners, which designed Beijing's airport, has submitted plans.  But with Britain back in recession, analysts say it will be difficult to justify the estimated price tag of $80 billion. The government says it will make a decision later this year.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration held a marathon 12-hour hearing Thursday to evaluate evidence that Truvada, a once-daily pill currently being used to treat AIDS patients, also could be used to prevent HIV infection in healthy individuals.

A panel of independent medical experts voted overwhelmingly to back Truvada’s use to prevent HIV and urged the FDA to approve the drug for use by those who are considered to be at a high risk for contracting the disease.

“Using Truvada or pre-exposure prophylaxis, to prevent acquiring HIV, for an HIV negative person is a game changer, and it’s something that I believe is really going to take us to the next level," said Kali Lindsey, who is with the National Minority AIDS Council.

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New drug provides hope

Some critics have said Truvada could give people a false sense of confidence and lead to a reduced use of condoms. But HIV educator Brad Miller believes approval of the drug will actually promote a dialogue on condom usage.

“They’ll know more about their health and what they can do to protect their health, versus being told what to do about their health,” said Miller.

Lisa and her husband, Tracy, who is HIV positive, make up one of the estimated 140,000 couples in the U.S. with mis-matching HIV statuses.

“This woman cared more about me than what I was infected with. Because the average person around here when they hear it, would go running the opposite direction," said Tracy.

Lisa chose not to cut ties, but instead to tie the knot [get married], and also to try Truvada.

“I want to remain healthy, so that in the times of his need, that I’m there to assist. So when PrEP came along I jumped at the idea," said Lisa.

Optimism among advocates, users

PrEP refers to pre-exposure prophylaxis, and Tracy is a strong supporter.

“PrEP helps, it does. I think that’s one of the most positive things they could have come up with, along with their research of how to combat the disease," said Tracy.

Currently wait-listed for a trial where she would receive free PrEP drugs, Lisa worries about the cost - as high as $1,500 per month.

“I just hope that they approve the PrEP, so that many others that are living in the situation that I’m living in will have this resource available to them,” she said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not required to follow the panel's recommendation on Truvada, but FDA officials concluded the high-profile session by saying more must be done to prevent more HIV infections from occurring.

In 1920, Xultun was rediscovered, overgrown with vegetation. Work to map the 31 square-kilometer site and decode the myriad inscriptions on its monuments continues to this day.<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->

In 2008, Boston University archeologist William Saturno was exploring tunnels in the Xultun ruins that had been opened by looters in the 1970s.  One day his student assistant, Max Chamberlain, discovered the entranceway - close to the surface but hidden by vegetation - to a room-like structure.

“Max thought he saw the remnants of paint on the walls of this fairly small Maya structure,” Saturno says.

Once inside the room - part of a larger residential complex at the Xultun site - Saturno knew he was in a special place. On the opposite wall, he came face-to-face with the painting of a Mayan king, its regal colors remarkably preserved.<!--AV-->

“[He’s wearing] this gorgeous sort of blue-green head dress, he’s holding this white scepter in his hand," Saturno says. "He’s sitting on top of this throne. He is just incredible to look at."   

Another figure painted in brilliant orange wears a white medallion and holds a small stylus in his hand - possibly the artist scribe who lived in the house, Saturno speculates.  On the other walls are more male figures in black with white loin cloths and identical head dresses with a single red feather.  And running all around, between and sometimes on top of these figures is tiny Mayan hieroglyphic script.

“There are these large numerical arrays, just columns of numbers of one after another, after another," Saturno says. "This seems to be a place where Maya scribes are at work.  They are painting and repainting texts on the walls. They are in different hands and different scales and different sizes in order to have the calculations present.”<!--IMAGE-LEFT-->

According to Saturno, the painted numbers are a version of the Mayan calendar system, one that he notes predates the Mayan astronomical tables written on bark paper books in the 14th century. The parallels were obvious once he began to do the math.

“The Maya had a 260-day ceremonial calendar and a 365 solar calendar," Saturno says. "The Maya combined those two calendars to make a longer cycle of time that repeated every 52 years. But they also kept track of the motions of Venus and the motions of Mars and perhaps the motions of Mercury. And the numbers that are recorded on this wall are multiples of all of those cycles combined.”

The painted room also pays tribute to the way the Maya used those calendars to synchronize human activities with the larger cycles of the moon and planets they routinely observed in the heavens. Saturno says while modern humans keep looking for endings, the Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change.

“This is the type of calculation and dissemination of knowledge that we don’t get to look at for a people for whom this type of knowledge was central to their existence.”

Saturno is making images of the Xultun paintings that students and scholars can access using desk-top scanners and other tools. When that work is done, Saturno plans to rebury the site, leaving it to rest where the ancient Mayan people created it.  His study of the Xultun site is featured in the journal Science and in the June issue of the National Geographic magazine.

Okolloh admits that, as a woman, she also loves technology because it neutralizes gender stereotypes.

"I'm not sure I'd be as successful as I am as a woman in a profession other than in technology. Because it tends to be a bit neutral. If you have the tools, if you can code, it's a lot more sort of merit, and recognizes talent."

These innovators say that in as little as five years, a combination of fresh ideas and demographic imperatives will begin to revolutionize Africa. As several participants at the economic forum noted, half of the continent's population is under 30, and they are demanding change.

Ponyo suggests there is great potential to double agricultural growth, from three percent to six percent.  He says the country is only farming seven million hectares of the 75 million hectares of arable land.

The new government has just been sworn into office and has not yet drawn up a budget, so there were no details in the prime minister’s speech Monday on how much funding will be allocated to agriculture.

Funding will have to be sharply increased, says Roger Kizungu, who works at the Congo’s National Institute for Agricultural Research. Kizungu says that the first condition for achieving six percent growth in agriculture is for the government to commit 10 percent of its budget to rural development. He says the Congo has already made that commitment, but in fact it is spending far less than that and less than two percent on agriculture.

Rural development includes spending on rural roads. The poor state of the road network is one of the biggest obstacles facing Congo’s farmers.

Government vs. donors

Kizungu says the second condition for achieving six percent growth in agriculture is for donors to let the government shoulder its responsibilities.  He says everyone agrees aid is needed, but that donors should not take over the state’s role, because the government would then wait for the donors to do everything.

He says donors have pledged that, if the government commits 10 percent of its budget to rural development, they would commit funds in the same proportion.

An opposition member of parliament, Martin Fayulu, questions whether agriculture really ranks high on the government’s list of spending priorities.

"The Ministry of Agriculture is ranked number 20 [in spending].  You see the place they have ranked agriculture.  There is no consistency.  This country was number one for palm oil in 1960s, and today Malaysia is exporting $20 billion every year in palm oil from the seeds they took from this country.  What’s the proposal for palm oil for this country?  Nothing."

Competing needs

A member of parliament with the ruling alliance, Patrick Muyaya, says that that this government is making a priority of improving services for the Congolese people, but there are many competing needs.

"You know we have a lot of challenges in our country, but the first is to give solutions for health problems, school problems, water and power.  That’s the needs our people have," he said.

In his speech, Prime Minister Ponyo told parliament that he would be watching closely the performance of all sectors, including the national electricity company.  As he said this, there was a power cut - one of several during his speech.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.