Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action

• Congratulations to Dr. Denis Mukwege, Congolese gynecologic surgeon, and Nadia Murad, ISIS escapee and activist, on the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for their work against sexual violence.
  • NPR profiled Murad a few months ago, and Mukwege in 2016, and it’s also worth listening to this thoughtful piece from the Rough Translation podcast on what the attention from NGOs around rape in the DRC did to local communities there.
• Congratulations also to MIT economist Amy Finkelstein on being named a MacArthur “genius” Fellow. You can read an interview with her from the Minneapolis Fed or watch her TEDx talk here.
• The new President of the San Francisco Fed, Mary Daly, whose research focuses on labor and inequality is now on twitter. She’ll also have a great-sounding podcast, “Zip Code Economies” looking at the micro-economies, and particularly local stories about disadvantaged people trying to do better in life.

• This weekend I’m planning on reading this crazy-looking story about the Ocean’s 11 team that tricked the government of Angola into sending $500 Million to an accountant’s front office in London and how they were caught (h/t Ken Opalo)
  • Liberia apparently is missing shipping containers containing over $104 million in bank notes (about 5% of GDP), which they claim is not really missing.
    

• Follow Laura Seay & Kim Yi Dionne for updates on the First Lady’s trip to Africa (and in general).
• For World Teachers’ Day, a Dave Evans teaching research roundup, and a new World Bank tool to help all teachers be effective.
• Something that doesn’t happen every day – the U.S. Congress approved a new development finance agency which will take over some functions of USAID and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and will be able to be more China-like in taking equity stakes in development projects. More from CGD.
• A very nice interview with new physics Nobel laureate Donna Strickland. And don’t forget, Monday’s Columbus Day in the U.S., but also when the econ Nobel is being given out, so if you have any economist friends you’ve been meaning to catch up with, feel free to call them at 4:30AM, don’t worry, their ringers will be on.