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2009 Reuters - The world population is projected to top nine billion in 2050, up from 6.8 billion this year and seven billion early in 2012, according to UN estimates. Most of the additional 2.3 billion people will swell the population of the developing world, estimated to soar from 5.6 billion this year to 7.9 billion in 2050. . . The 2008 Revision of the official UN populations projections forecast minimal change in the population of the more developed nations, which should rise from 1.23 billion to 1.28 billion during the same period. That population would have in fact dipped to 1.15 billion without the projected net migration from developing to developed countries, expected to average 2.4 million persons annually from 2009 to 2050, it noted. 2008 BBC - Denmark is the happiest country in the world, according to the latest World Values Survey published by the United States National Science Foundation. The annual study surveyed people in 97 countries to discover who is happiest. The survey asked people two simple questions about their happiness and their level of satisfaction with life. Puerto Rico and Colombia completed the top three happiest nations [sic]. Zimbabwe was found to be the least happy, with Russia and Iraq also in the bottom ten. . . The world's wealthiest nation, the United States, was found to be the world's 16th happiest country, behind Switzerland, Canada and Sweden. WORLD MILITARY SPENDING GREW 45% IN PAST DECADE AGENCE FRANCE PRESS World military spending grew 45 percent in the past decade, with the United States accounting for nearly half of all expenditures, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said. Military spending grew six percent last year alone, according to SIPRI's annual report. In 2007, 1,339 billion dollars was spent on arms and other military expenditures, corresponding to 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product, or GDP, and 202 dollars for each of the world's 6.6 billion people. The United States spends by far
the most towards military aims, dishing out 547 billion dollars
last year, or 45 percent of global expenditure. Britain, China,
France and Japan - the next in line of big spenders - lag far
behind, accounting for just four to five percent of world military
costs each. THE WORST COUNTRIES IN WHICH TO BE A WOMAN 2007  This chart, from Wikipedia, shows the top ten armed forces of the world. A separate list of the number of active troups finds Iraq listed at number 29 and Afghanistan at number 59. Bosnia is 125th slightly above Botswana. US ranks 17th among world's democracies    AMERICAN CHILDREN FARE BADLY AMONG RICHEST COUNTRIES   CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - In 2008, most people will live in cities This demographic shift is mostly taking place in Africa and Asia, largely in low-income settlements in developing countries - much of it in the 22 "megacities" whose populations will exceed 10 million and in some cases grow to more than 20 million by 2015. . . By 2015, there are likely to be 59 African cities with populations between 1 million and 5 million, 65 such cities in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 253 in Asia. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0112/p25s02-wogi.html DEVELOPING WORLD FACING BIG TEEN GROWTH PAM ADAMS, BEND WEEKLY, OR - Until recently, the idea of adolescence was unknown in many parts of the world, says Cynthia B. Lloyd, author of "Growing Up Global," a 2005 report commissioned by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine on trends affecting youth in developing countries. Currently, the total population of 10- to 24-year-olds is estimated at 1.5 billion, of which 86 percent live in developing countries. The growth is most rapid in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. Call it a new wave of global baby boomers who are, in some instances, the first true generation of "teenagers" their countries have known. . . Lloyd calls adolescence - or what Americans call the teenage years - a "relatively new life cycle phase" for many developing countries. Previously, young people tended to move directly from childhood to adulthood. Adult status was much more tied to physical changes, such as puberty, she says. . . Researchers like Lloyd and international development agencies suggest the possibility of a critical, and potentially dangerous, global generation gap as emerging adolescent populations age and their political and economic expectations rise. The World Bank's 2006 World Development Report, following up on "Growing Up Global," found: - Nearly half of all unemployment in the world is among young people. - 500,000 young people under the age of 18 are recruited by military and paramilitary groups. Some 300,000 have been involved in armed conflict in more than 30 countries. - 13 million adolescents give birth each year. - Young people account for nearly half of all new HIV infections. http://www.bendweekly.com/Living/1800.html 2006 RICHEST 2% HAVE HALF THE WORLD'S WEALTH FINANCIAL TIMES - Personal wealth
is distributed so unevenly across the world that the richest
two per cent of adults own more than 50 per cent of the world's
assets while the poorest half hold only 1 per cent of wealth.
A survey shows that middle-income countries with high growth
rates still have a long way to go before they have a hope of
catching up with the levels of prosperity of the richest. Adults
with more than $2,200 of assets were in the top half of the global
wealth league table, while those with more than $61,000 were
in the top 10 per cent, according to the data from the World
Institute fpr Development Economics Research of the United Nations
University. To belong to the top 1 per cent of the world's wealthiest
adults you would need more than $500,000, something that 37m
adults have achieved. . . Almost 90 per cent of the world's wealth
is held in North America, Europe and high-income Asian and Pacific
countries, such as Japan and Australia. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/41470ec0-845b-11db-87e0-0000779e2340.html THE LOCAL, SWEDEN - Sweden leads the world when it comes to national tax burdens, according to new figures from the OECD. For every kronor earned, Swedes pay more than anyone else in tax, and the figure has risen since 2004. . . In 2005 the total tax revenue as a percentage of Sweden's GDP was 51.1 percent - up from 50.4 percent the year before. The Scandinavian countries dominated the top five positions in the OECD league table. Denmark was ranked second, with a 49.7 percent tax burden, Norway fourth and Finland fifth. Belgium, where 45.4 percent of GDP is accounted for by tax, came third. Almost 40 percent of Sweden's tax revenue comes from income and company profits, while around 25 percent is from social charges and about the same again from tax on goods and services. OECD rank 1. Sweden: 51.1%   2005 AIDS CASES HIT RECORD BBC - The number of people living with HIV is at its highest yet, a report shows. UN Aids says there an estimated 40.3 m people currently living with the virus across the world, with almost 5 m infected in 2005. And it warns there are growing epidemics in Eastern Europe and Central and East Asia. But the report says falls in HIV incidence have been seen in certain groups, including sex workers and their clients in Thailand and Cambodia. . . Other groups in which education and prevention efforts have helped reduce HIV infection rates are young people in Uganda, injecting drug users in Spain and Brazil and men who have sex with men, across Western countries. Overall, the report says more than 3 m people died of Aids-related illnesses in 2005. Of these, more than 500,000 were children. The report says Sub-Saharan Africa is still hardest hit by HIV-Aids. Two thirds of the people living with HIV - 25.8 m - are in this area. In 2005, 2.4 m people in Sub-Saharan Africa died of an HIV-related illness, and a further 3.2 m were infected with the virus. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4450872.stm NUMBER, INTENSITY OF WARS DROPPING HOWARD LAFRANCHI, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - A report based on a three-year study by a group of international researchers [finds] that the world is witnessing fewer wars - and those wars that do occur are killing fewer people. The study, released Monday at the UN, also concludes that global conflict-prevention and post-conflict peace building efforts are becoming more numerous and more effective. "We knew the number of wars was coming down, because that has been around in academic circles for a while, but particularly surprising is how the decline in wars is reflected right across the board in all forms of political conflict and violence," says Andrew Mack, head of the Human Security Center at the University of British Columbia. He directed the team that delivered the report. That means that not only are interstate wars down, but so are civil conflicts, as well as other forms of political violence like human-rights abuses. The report finds that the total number of conflicts declined by 40 percent since the cold war ended. The average number of deaths per conflict has also declined dramatically, from 37,000 in 1950 to 600 in 2002. The study found 25 civil conflicts last year - the lowest number since 1976. Why the vast improvement? The report credits an "explosion of efforts" in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. The number of UN "preventive diplomacy" missions and government-based "contact groups" aimed at resolving conflicts has risen sharply in the last decade. Other specialists note that the number of democracies in the world is growing. And democracies, recent history suggests, do not go to war against each other. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1018/p01s01-wogi.html?s=hns THE LATEST UN DEVELOPMENT REPORT finds that the annual income of the richest 500 people in the world exceeds that of the poorest 416 million people WHERE PEOPLE IN THE WEST ARE MOST SATISFIED WITH LIFE  2004 EUROPE IS WORLD'S SUICIDE
HOTSPOT PETER O'NEILL,GUARDIAN - Europe
has the world's highest suicide rate and cases are rising among
young people, according to the World Health Organizatio. Dr Gudjón
Magnusson, WHO director for Europe in charge of mental health
[said] "There are 873,000 suicides worldwide and Europe,
east and west, has 163,000 of those. There are probably 10-15
times that number of attempted suicides," he said. Of around
30 countries which gave data to the WHO, Lithuania had the worst
rate at 44 suicides per 100,000, the UK nearly seven per 100,000
(higher than Italy and Malta) and the lowest number was in Azerbaijan
at 1.41 per 100,000. With an average maternal mortality ratio of 1,000 per 100,000 live births in 2001, the African Region is regarded as having the highest maternal mortality ratio in the world. Almost half of the 600,000 pregnancy and childbirth-related deaths recorded annually worldwide occur in Africa which has just 12% of the world's population, and only 17% of the global annual births, according to current WHO estimates. World military spending surged during 2003, reaching $956 billion US, nearly half of it by the United States as it paid for missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror, a prominent European think tank said. . . Military spending rose by 11%, which the group called a "remarkable increase." The $956 billion spent on defence costs worldwide corresponded to 2.7 per cent of the world's gross domestic product, according to the annual report. . . "It's very close to the Cold War peak in 1987," said SIPRI researcher Elisabeth Skoens, who co-authored the report. LESS THAN 1% OF BRITS OWN 69% OF COUNTRY JASON COWLEY, NEW STATESMAN - 69 per cent of the acreage of Britain is owned by 0.6 per cent of the population. Or, more pertinently, 158,000 families own 41 million acres of land while 24 million families live on four million acres. Spain (where 70 per cent of the land is owned by 0.2 per cent of the population) is the only other European country in which so much land is concentrated in the hands of so few, if you exclude pseudo countries such as Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Monaco. Even in Brazil, where the white elite have ruled with impunity for so long, land is more evenly distributed through-out the general population than it is in Britain. REFUGEE POPULATION LOWEST IN DECADEUN WIRE - The number of refugees in the world fell by 920,000 in 2003, bringing the global total to 9.7 million, the lowest level in at least 10 years, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said. The number of "persons of concern" fell even more dramatically, logging an 18 percent drop over the course of last year. The new figure of 17.1 million includes 9.7 million refugees; 1.1 million returned refugees; [and] 4.2 million internally displaced persons. . . Officials cited increased international involvement in the plight of uprooted people as reason for the improvement. They specifically cited the high rate of return of refugees to Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi and Iraq. More than half the 1.1 million refugees repatriated last year went to Afghanistan alone. COUNTRIES VARY WIDELY IN EFFORTS TO REDUCE POVERTY PATRICIA KOWSMANN U.N. WIRE - Rapid economic growth in East and South Asia over the last couple of decades has been responsible for a decrease in the number of people living in extreme poverty in developing countries, from 40 percent of global population in 1981 to 21 percent in 2001. However, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are still far from reaching the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty levels by 2015, says a new World Bank report. . . East and South Asia, particularly China and India, have lifted 500 million people out of extreme poverty - those living on less than $1 a day - in 20 years. Over that period, the population living in all developing countries on less than $1 a day dropped from 1.5 billion to 1.1 billion. [In other words, all the global drop can be credited to the decline in Asia, 80% of it in China - TPR] In the East Asia and Pacific region, gross domestic product per capita more than tripled, while the proportion of people in extreme poverty fell from 56 percent to 16 percent. In China, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell from 600 million in 1981 to around 200 million in 2001. . . In the Middle East and North Africa, extreme poverty rates also declined, from 5 percent in 1981 to 2 percent in 2001. . . However, in sub-Saharan Africa, poverty rose from 41 percent in 1981 to 46 percent in 2001, while GDP per capita decreased by 14 percent. Over the 20 years, 140 million people were included in the group of those living in extreme poverty. Given these negative figures, Bourguignon said, "we expect that sub-Saharan Africa will soon be the region where most of the world's poor. BBC POLL: AMERICA SEEN AS BIGGER THREAT THAN TERRORISM BBC - 52% said the US and globalization was the most serious threat Globalization and the US pose a more serious threat to the world than war and terrorism, according to a BBC poll. Corruption came second on a list of the biggest problems facing the world, the survey of BBC viewers worldwide found. Conflicts - war and terrorism - ranked third, with 50%, followed by hunger, 49%, and climate change with 44%. HARPER'S - In 2001, terrorists killed 2,978 people in the United States, including the five killed by anthrax. In that same year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, heart disease killed 700,142 Americans and cancer 553,768; various accidents claimed 101,537 lives, suicide 30,622, and homicide, not including the attacks, another 17,330. As President Bush pointed out in January, no one has been killed by terrorists on American soil since then. Neither, according to the FBI, was anyone killed here by terrorists in 2000. In 1999, the number was one. In 1998, it was three. In 1997, zero. Even using 2001 as a baseline, the actuarial tables would suggest that our concern about terror mortality ought to be on the order of our concern about fatal workplace injuries (5,431 deaths) or drowning (3,247). To recognize this is not to dishonor the loss to the families of those people killed by terrorists, but neither should their anguish eclipse that of the families of children who died in their infancy that year (27,801). MOST PEOPLE IN WORLD SOON TO LIVE IN CITIES AUSTRALIAN - Urban areas are growing so quickly that for the first time in history most of the world will be living in cities by 2007, according to the United Nations. A UN survey released yesterday found that by 2015 the list of the world's largest cities will be dramatically different, though for the foreseeable future Tokyo, now with 35 million people, will remain the largest city in the world WORLD UNEMPLOYMENT REACHES RECORD HIGH BOSTON CHANNEL - The United Nations labor agency says a record 186 million people around the world are unemployed, and hundreds of millions more have jobs that pay so little they can barely survive. The International Labor Organization says an extra 500,000 people were added to the unemployment totals in the last year. It cites factors like the SARS outbreak in Asia and Canada, the war in Iraq and a slump in global tourism due to terror fears. The number of people out of work in 2003 reached 6.2 percent of the total global labor for 2003 GLOBAL HIV RATES AT RECORD HIGH BBC - Around 14,000 people are infected with HIV every day A record number of people were infected with HIV around the world this year, a report says. Figures from UN Aids and the World Health Organization put the number of new infections at five million. The report also estimates that three million people died from the disease this year. But it warns that the figures could rise sharply in the years ahead, with Eastern Europe and Central Asia on the verge of epidemics. People living in sub-Saharan Africa continue to be most at risk. About 30% of people living with HIV/Aids are in this part of the world. South Africa, alone, is home to 5.3 million people with HIV - more than any other country in the world. In Botswana, 39% of the population is HIV positive, the report says. The annual Corruption Perception Index, published by anti-corruption group Transparency International, puts Bangladesh, Nigeria and Haiti at the bottom of the 133-country list. At the top of the list - which measures the perception of corruption among both locals and expatriates - countries such as Finland, Denmark, Iceland, and New Zealand remain the cleanest places to do business. The U.S. ranked 18th with score of 7.5 2002: ranked 16th with score of 7.7 Score of 10 indicates highly clean, score of 0 indicates highly corrupt. [BBC] NIGERIA ACCOUNTS FOR 40% OF MALARIA CASES - DAILY TRUST, ABUJA - Of the 500 million people suffering from the malaria scourge, 450 million (around 90%) are from Africa and about 40 per cent of those affected are from Nigeria.  BBC
CHARTTokyo has replaced Hong Kong as the world's most expensive city, according to the latest cost of living survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Moscow is in second place, followed by Osaka, which has moved up three places since last year. Asuncion in Paraguay, whose currency depreciated against the US dollar, has replaced Johannesburg as the least expensive city in the survey. With New York as the base
city scoring 100 points, Tokyo scored 126.1 points and is almost
three-and-a-half times costlier than Asuncion, which has an index
of 36.5 points. The results show the gap between the world's
most and least expensive cities continues to narrow. This trend,
however, has moderated, with the difference in the index scores
falling by four percentage points this year compared to 15 points
last year. U.S. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ENDED IN 1980 JANG, PAKISTAN Social conditions in the United States have not improved since 1980, putting the world's only superpower on a par with Poland and Slovenia in the latest edition of an index that measures development in 163 countries. That conclusion was drawn by Richard Estes of the University of Pennsylvania, who released his findings at a scholarly conference in Frankfurt, Germany on Monday, the university said in a statement. Using data from the United Nations and the World Bank, Estes looked at 40 different factors to come up with his Weighted Index of Social Progress. They include health, education, human rights, political participation, population growth, the status of women, cultural diversity, 'freedom from social chaos', military spending and environmental protection. At the top of the list were Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland; at the bottom, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone. The US ranked 27th. "Chronic poverty is the greatest threat to social progress in the United States," Estes was quoted as saying. "More than 33 million Americans -- almost 12 million of them children -- are poor." "Contrary to public perception, the majority of the poor in the United States are members of established family households who work full-time and are white. No other economically advanced country tolerates such a level of poverty." Other challenges to social progress in the United States include a sluggish economy, growing unemployment, unequal access to health care and deteriorating schools in urban areas, the statement said. Twenty-one African and Asian countries are nearing 'social collapse', Estes said, citing poverty, weak political institutions, economic woes, disease and isolation. "These roadblocks to progress are contributing to global social unrest, including religious fundamentalism and terrorism. Rich countries ignore the desperate plight of the world's poorest nations at our own risk." Conditions are especially bad in Middle, West and East Africa -- worse than they were in 1990. The most rapid social improvements are seen in South Central and Western Asia, linked to emergence of democratic countries and the oil wealth of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Social improvement in China is progressing rapidly, with that nation moving from 73rd on the index in 1980, to 69th. BIRTHRATES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES CONTINUE TO DECLINE UN WIRE - Birth rates in developing countries have continued to decline since 1990, as people prefer to have fewer children and increasingly use contraception, according to the latest issue of Population Reports published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs. Child survival rates fell far short of international goals for 2000 set in 1990, however. An average of 11 million children under the age of 5 died each year in developing countries during the 1990s. In some countries, the AIDS epidemic hindered improvements in child survival. The report also said that about 55 percent of married women in developing countries use family planning, up from 41 percent in 1990, and compared to 68 percent in developing countries. In some sub-Saharan African countries, however, less than 10 percent of married women use contraception. Also, in nine out of 16 sub-Saharan countries, fertility rates have fallen by more than 1 percent each year since 1990. IN PREVIOUS OCCUPATIONS  2002 % of Brits who drink regularly:
90% Average adult French consumption
of wine, 1960s: 120 liters a year [Wireless Flash] ZOGBY: Percent unfavorable to America's policy toward Arab nations and the Palestinians: Lebanon: 86
UN WIRE - As many as 20 percent of children worldwide are suffering from behavioral or mental problems, which could lead to future serious public health problems, UNICEF and the World Health Organization said yesterday in a new report. Blaming the trend on rapid social and economic change, poverty and the large numbers of children growing up in zones of conflict, the report says suicide and depression have increased significantly among children and adolescents . . . In the United Kingdom, boys are more at risk than girls. From 1984-94, suicide among males aged 15 to 24 increased 64 percent. Daily deaths around the world 24,000 from hunger [New Internationalist] According to a global sex survey by Harlequin Romance, 66 percent of Norwegians have done the nasty in public - the highest percentage among 20 countries surveyed. Only 15 percent of Canadians have had sex in public - far below the global average of 41 percent. - Only 16 percent of Japanese have had sex in a car, compared to 80 percent of Americans. - 28 percent of Australians have had sex in a movie theater and 16 percent have done it in a department store dressing room. - Finally, 73 percent of Danish folks think nothing of grabbing their partner's heiney in public but only 6 percent of Japanese can get behind that idea. MORE LIST [From Bill Blum's new book, "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower"] -- 1949 Kim Koo,
Korean opposition leader "Rogue State" is a mini-encyclopedia of all the wrongs of American empire during the past half century. An eye-opener to those who haven't been paying attention and a invaluable reference work for those who have - Daily
US trade deficit: more than $1 billion From 1945 to 1997, the U.S. "lost" 11 nuclear weapons, still unaccounted for. [U.S. Department of Defense, "Lost Weapons," 1997] Each American gives $33 for foreign aid - third lowest of 22 donor countries. Denmark gives $326 per person - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Percent of people who think treaties would do more to protect the U.S. than a national missile defense system: 53% [Pew} - Number of government monitors of trade agreements with China: 73 -4 billion persons use plants as their primary health care. -- NY Botanical Gardens - Number
of persons in sub-Saharan Africa living with HIV/AIDS today:
24.5 million The gap between the incomes of the richest and poorest countries was about 3 to 1 in 1820, 35 to 1 in 1950, 44 to 1 in 1973, and 72 to 1 in 1992 . . . Between 1980 and 1999, the proportion of underweight children in developing countries fell from 37% to 27%, and access to safe water has increased from 13% to 71% since 1970. But while income poverty in countries such as China has fallen dramatically, 1.2 billion people - a fifth of the world's population - are living on less than $1 a day. In addition, 100 million children are estimated to be living or working on the streets and 1.2 million women and girls under 18 are trafficked for prostitution each year . . .UNITED NATIONS -- Number
of Americans killed in terrorist attacks last year: 5 (3 in Colombia
and 2 in Uganda) [Extrapolated from State Department data] Mass Transit in Sao Paulo -- Number
of daily riders on Sao Paulo's bus system: 3,700,000 Chances
that you will die in a car crash: 1 in 6,000 If
the world There
would be: -- Number of people around
the world living in poverty in 1987: 1.2 billion Average hours worked per employee in 1997: 1,966 US -- One fifth of the world's people living in countries with the highest incomes produce 86 percent of world gross domestic product, 82 percent of world exports and 68 percent of foreign direct investment and control 74 percent of the world's telephone lines. The bottom fifth, in the poorest countries, produce about 1 percent in each category. -- The 200 richest people in the world more than doubled their net worth to $1 trillion between 1994 and 1998. -- Rich industrialized countries hold 97 percent of all patents worldwide. -- The income gap between the richest fifth of the world's people and the poorest fifth increased from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 74 to 1 in 1997. -- Tanzania's debt service payments are nine times what it spends on primary health care and four times what it spends on primary education. -- Women occupy more than 30 percent of parliamentary seats in only five countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands. -- English is used in almost 80 percent of all Web sites although fewer than one in 10 people world-wide speak the language. The number of computers with a direct connection to the Internet rose from under 100,000 in 1988 to over 36 million in 1998. -- Only 33 countries achieved a sustained annual growth rate of at least 3 percent per capita between 1980-96. During that period during, per capita growth declined in 59 countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and the former Communist nations in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. -- Organized crime syndicates are estimated to gross $1.5 trillion a year. The value of the illegal drug trade was estimated at $400 billion in 1995, about 8 percent of world trade, more than the shares of iron and steel and motor vehicles, and roughly equivalent to textiles and gas and oil. -- The cost of a three-minute phone call from New York to London fell from $245 in 1930 (in 1990 dollars) to 35 cents in 1998. -- The percentage share of the market by the top 10 corporations in each sector in 1998 was telecommunications, 86 per cent; pesticides, 85 per cent; computers, almost 70 per cent; veterinary medicine, 60 per cent; pharmaceuticals, 35 per cent; commercial seed, 32 per cent. -- Between 1975 and 1997, life expectancy in developing countries increased from 53 to 62 years, and the adult literacy rate rose from 48 to 76 per cent. Under-five mortality fell from 149 per 1,000 live births to 85. -- Adult
literacy among Brahmins, a group at the top of the Hindu social
system in Nepal, is 58 per cent and life expectancy is 61 years;
the figures for the country's Muslims are 22 per cent and 49
years. -- Number of people in poor countries deep in debt to rich countries: 700 million -- Number of highly indebted poor countries: 42 -- Amount they owe to the World Bank, IMF and rich countries: $106 billion. -- Amount IMF has given in debt relief since 1996: $200 million -- Increase in stock market wealth of rich countries during this time: $5 trillion -- Unrealized capital gains in IMF gold reserves due to accounting undervaluation: $22 billion -- Amount needed to write off debt to IMF: $8 billion. -- Amount owed commercial banks: $19 billion -- Amount already written off: most -- Amount owed US government: $6 billion -- Amount owed US government as recorded on its own books: $600 million -- Amount needed to write off recorded debt to US government: $600 million [Jeffrey Sachs, New York Times] THE REVIEW LIST BUDGET US
SHARE OF BUDGET EMPLOYMENT * Russia's
population compared to that of the Netherlands: 10 times larger A UN report that finds that the global gap between rich and poor continues to widen. In Africa, the average household consumes 20% less than it did 25 years ago. Other findings:
There's some confusion over the money Iraq gets from oil sales under UN rules. In fact, 30% goes to Kuwait in reparations, 18% to UN overhead, and the rest is administered by the UN itself. Not only do contracts have to be approved by the UN but the US has a veto over them. Number of eligible voters in the election that selected Tung Chee-hwa as chief executive of Hong Kong: 400 "prominent" citizens appointed by Beijing Number of eligible voters in the election that selected Martin Lee as one of Hong Kong's freely elected legislators: 2.7 million citizens whose choices make up only one-third of the governing body. [New York Times] Just for the record, in December 1995, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported that more than one million Iraqis -- including over a half million children -- had died as a result of the economic sanctions. Currently, a UNICEF survey finds that about 4,500 children under the age of five are dying in Iraq monthly due to hunger and disease. Number of manufacturing jobs lost in the US since the Tokyo Round of GATT fifteen years ago: 3.2 million. [Sen. Fritz Hollings] The gross domestic products of the 48 poorest countries as a percentage of the capital assets of the three richest people in the world: 100% Amount that would be left over if all the money spent on cosmetics in the US was spent instead on basic education for all developing countries: $2 billion. Amount that would be left over if all the money spent on pet food in the US and Europe was spent instead on basic health care and nutrition in developing countries: $4 billion. [UN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT] |
