A Great American Secret, Bill Gates and Carlos Slim in Mexico… also the `little man` has the right to die of chemical food. (and you thought that Monsanto's GM-food was gone…WHOEHAHAHAHA)

Bill Gates And Carlos Slim To Partner On Reducing Hunger

 

http://www.cimmyt.org/

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On the eve of his visit to Mexicothis week,  billionaire Bill Gatescompared Mexican telecommunication tycoon  Carlos Slim Helu  (the world’s richest  man) to fellow American billionaire William Buffet.  “Carlos is a very interesting guy… He reminds me a little of Warren Buffett in his ability to find undervalued investmentopportunities. I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with him, getting to hear his thoughts on business trends and the future of Latin America. His father immigrated to Mexico from Lebanon,” Gates wrote on his websitethegatesnotes.

“Carlos started several businesses when he was quite young and was already very successful by his mid-20s,” Gates noted. “ His interests in construction, real estate and mining eventually branched out into many other businesses, including Mexico’s largest telecommunications company.”

Under a new post that he titled  “Mexico, Carlos Slim, and Me,”  Gates tells his readers that he is excited about his visit to Mexico this week for a series of events with Carlos Slim,  “whom I’ve enjoyed getting to know for his business insights – but also because of some of the innovative approaches he’s taking to philanthropy.”

Gates was invited by Mexico’s non-profit International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT),  to open new CIMMYT facilities at its headquarters near Mexico City. The facilities were funded by the Slim Foundation.

In a  joint statement released his week by the  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carlos Slim Foundation,  Gates and Slim said they planned to use their foundations to promote research and the development of agricultural technology to increase farmers’ productivity and reduce hunger among the world’s poor people.

“The new infrastructure donated by the Carlos Slim Foundation will allow CIMMYT to apply its latest agriculture findings through the use of the most recent digital innovations,” the billionaires said in their statement. “The Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation will assure that these practices, and the necessary resources to increase productivity, reach farmers in Africa and Southeast Asia.”

“With a staff of 1,100 in Mexico and 13 regional offices around the world, CIMMYT is helping reduce hunger and raise living standards in many poor countries through programs focused on increasing maize and wheat productivity. Our foundation has invested in CIMMYT, and Carlos Slim has been a big supporter.”

The new CIMMYT facilities include a  gene bank that holds the genetic diversity of 130,000 wheat and 28,000 maize varieties worldwide.

In his notes, Gates mentioned that  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Slim’s foundation have collaborated before in helping launch the Salud Mesoamérica 2015 initiative to support health projects in Chiapas, Mexico and across Central America.

Gates said that part of what makes his visit to Mexico “particularly exciting”  is that the expansion of CIMMYT represents a very important and positive global trend: newly industrialized countries such as Mexico, China, India and Brazil are becoming leaders in efforts to help less developed countries. “Mexico is in a great position to work closely with poor countries both because of its progress and because of its quite advanced technical capabilities in agricultural development. CIMMYT is a prime example of that.”

Gates also said that despite the many challenges Mexico still faces, “since 1995, the country has been able to cut its poverty rate from about 15% to less than 2% today.”  Despite  Gates’ wishful thinking, the fact is that the percentage  of  the Mexican population living below the national poverty line in 2010 was 51.3 %, according to the World Bank.

According to its website, the Gates Foundation has an endowment of  $36.2 billion in assets.  Arturo Elias,  Slims’s spokesperson and son-in-law, said in an e-mail message that the Slim Foundation’s assets are $5 billion, in addition to $2 billion of the Telmex Foundation.

 

To give or to keep? Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Mexico’s Carlos Slim follow different paths

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