But officials are wary of reading too much into the mini-boom in tourism, noting that to the outside world eastern DR Congo remains "a war zone" and that although there are some signs of positive change, the country is a long way from emulating neighbouring Rwanda's dramatic transformation.
The stakes are high for a country strategically positioned in Middle Eastern politics and in world trade through the Suez Canal.
We mentioned the Western Hemisphere above, but we would like to start somewhere unexpected - the Old World shetls of Eastern Europe.
Between 1000 and 1250, Turkish converts gained control of Baghdad, and the Islamic world split into eastern and western spheres.
Coal, which is mainly carbon, is subsidised in much of Eastern Europe and the developing world, as well as in Germany and Spain.
Deepak Chopra is the founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, California, and is acknowledged as one of the master teachers of Eastern philosophy in the Western world.
FORBES: Exclusive: Deepak Chopra Explores the Evolution of God
He says he must take harsh measures not just to impress visiting Eurocrats but to prevent Romania from sliding into the third world like its eastern neighbours, Moldova and Ukraine.
Anyone who has done anything but the most cursory reading about the Eastern Front in the Second World War knows that the use of human wave attacks is hardly a uniquely Persian phenomenon.
But the idea has also spread to eastern Europe and Asia and may even be reaching the bankruptcy-averse Muslim world (last year ten Middle Eastern and north African countries signed a joint declaration on planned reforms).
Parts of the world, most notably Eastern Europe, experienced below-average to extreme cold temperatures this winter.
CNN: U.S. sees warmest March in recorded history, NOAA reports
First, Eastern Canada beat the touring Australian World Cup side by five wickets.
Thatcher's strength and drive made her an icon to conservatives in many parts of the world, especially in eastern Europe.
In some parts of the world, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, flat taxes have been cited as a spark for economic growth.
The Arab world is not like eastern Europe two decades ago, when repressive regimes tumbled because ordinary people suddenly dislodged the prop of Soviet power.
And if Asian countries are in any doubt about what can be done on their own, they need look no further than Latin America and Eastern Europe, parts of the world where (admittedly) they have hardly been accustomed to find economic or regulatory models to emulate.
While disconnected from the world at large I, again like countless others up and down the Eastern Seaboard, also fell out of touch with the sports world.
FORBES: Bloomberg's Marathon Mistake And Other Post-Sandy New York Sports
Of course, baseball's recent ruling class isn't yet willing to surrender, even if an Eastern Division team hasn't made the World Series since 2009.
The European Union is to hold an informal summit in Klagenfurt, Austria, to discuss the world economy, EU expansion into eastern Europe and the crisis in Kosovo.
The prints in question were made in eastern North America, a part of the world then full of rift valleys similar to those in East Africa today.
"To recover your wealth you have to work over many years to rebuild your capacities, to produce goods and services to sell to the world, to compete with the eastern countries, " he says.
Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I ace, bravely founded Eastern Airlines in the late 1930s.
OPEC, which is dominated by Middle Eastern producers, owns three-quarters of the world's proven reserves (see chart), it currently produces only 41% of the world's annual oil supply.
In 13 countries of eastern and southern Africa that are regarded by the World Health Organisation as being priority areas for the procedure, over half a million men were circumcised explicitly for AIDS protection between 2008 and 2010.
The world holds its breath as 08.30 Eastern Time approaches on the first Friday of a new month.
To a western world whose darkest fear is that south-eastern Europe will slide into anarchy, a strongman who can deliver may seem preferable to chaos.
One German newspaper says Lipschis, who was born in what is now Lithuania in 1919, finished World War II fighting for Germany on the eastern front.
BBC: Former Auschwitz Nazi guard Hans Lipschis found in Germany
They saw their contemporaries in the rest of the world -- Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe -- gaining new skills and opportunities, while they remained out of work.
They were members of the Satmar Hasidic sect, whose men dress in dark coats and hats, wear long beards like their Eastern European ancestors and have limited dealings with the outside world.
The most controversial suggestion arose before it started, when the third-running candidate, Riitta Uosukainen, parliament's (Conservative) speaker, said she would like to see the return of Karelia, a south-eastern province of Finland captured by Russia in the second world war.
应用推荐