Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and best endowed scholarships in the world. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship accepts less than 0.3% of applicants and remains extremely competitive. Each year, approximately 100 new graduate students from around the world receive funding to study at Cambridge University. The Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was launched in mid-2005 as a "Learning Initiative", and became a full-fledged program under the Global Development Division in early 2010. The foundation has since 2005 undertaken a wide range of efforts in the WASH sector involving research, experimentation, reflection, advocacy, and field implementation. In 2009, the
USS Thomas S. Gates to Istanbul, where she disembarked VADM Ilg (9–10 August). Owing to the crisis in Lebanon, which had dictated that the fleet flagship, guided missile cruiser not carry out her scheduled visit to Sevastopol, "Thomas S. Gates" then operated in support of the "Coral Sea" and battle groups off Beirut. Returning to Toulon, "Thomas S. Gates" there underwent a period of maintenance (7–13 September). After taking part in NATO Exercise Display Determination 89 (14 September- 3 October) in concert with units of the French and Turkish Navies, she conducted a period of escort operations (3–11 October) as she transited to the