The Economist compiled a visualization of the highest consumption of selected spirits worldwide. The selected spirits include vodka, rum, scotch whiskey, gin, and tequila.
The largest consumer of vodka is Russia, followed by the United States, Ukraine, Poland among others. The largest consumer of rum is India, followed by the United States, Philippines, and Cuba. The largest consumers of scotch whiskey, gin, and tequila are France, Philippines, and the United States respectively.
The Pew Research Center released today the results of its assessment of global restrictions on religion. A team of researchers combed through multiple sources of information to record concrete reports about government policies and actions, as well as specific incidents of religious violence or intolerance by social groups. One of the outcomes of the study is the thematic map shown above, which displays the level of government restrictions on religion as of December of 2011. The level is represented by the darkness of the color. The darker the color, the higher the level of government restrictions. The map shows that the Middle East and North Africa have many countries where governments restrict religion. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iran top the list of countries with very high government restrictions. China, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Russia also stand out due to the policies and actions of their governments.
The United States provides 60% of the funding to fight the AIDS epidemic worldwide. The highest recipients of this funding are African nations. Other countries include Bolivia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Latin America depends on these funds to fight AIDS too. Latin American nations are recipients of up to 24% of funding from the US along with Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Bulgaria, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Source: The Nation: Who Depends Most on US Funds to Fight AIDS Epidemic
To date, 15 countries allow gay marriage: Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, and New Zealand.
Same-sex marriage is legal in some jurisdictions of Mexico and the United States. Currently, 12 states in the U.S. permit same-sex marriage, while 30 states have amended their constitutions to ban it.
Resource: Pew Research Center: A global snapshot of same-sex marriage
The United States increased its funding to fight AIDS globally ten years ago. But, to qualify for funding, NGO’s had to enforce an explicit policy against prostitution. Female sex workers are 13.5 times more likely to have contracted the HIV virus, but because of the enforced anti-prostitution policy, female sex workers do not qualify to receive treatment.
This visualization by The Nation shows the rate of HIV infection among sex workers around the world. The highest rates of HIV infection are in Africa, with Swaziland at an staggering 70%.
Child labor is a serious problem that affects children all around the world. The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines child labor as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.” According to ILO, an approximate 215 million children around the world are working. Out of this number, 115 million are thought to be doing dangerous work in hazardous conditions. An estimated 150 million children between ages 5 and 14 are subjected to child labor globally.
According to the Child Labor Index for 2012 published by risk analysis company Maplecroft, countries with the highest risk of child labor violations include Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, India, and China among a group of 76 countries.
Read full report at: Maplecroft: Conflict and economic downturn cause global increase in reported child labour violations – 40% of countries now rated ‘extreme risk’
Outdoor air pollution kills more than a million people every year globally. This map by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows the number of deaths caused by urban air pollution (UAP) per 1,000 people.
Based on data for 2002, the highest number of deaths caused by UAP occurred in Argentina and Uruguay in the Americas; Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria in Europe; Iraq, Turkey, and Azerbaijan in Asia.
One of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is to reduce the number of people with hunger by half by the year 2015. An estimated 870 million people still suffer from hunger around the world.
This map published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), shows that a good number of developing nations have made progress toward reaching that goal, as can be seen for the countries in green, with East Asia and Latin America as the top performers. On the other hand, many countries in Africa and West Asia have not made any progress, or worse, their situation has even deteriorated as can be seen for the countries in yellow or red.
Comparing the levels of wealth per person for the years 1500 and 2015, as shown in these two maps, it is interesting to see how economic power has shifted from some nations to others.
Back in the 1500s, economic power was held by a majority of European nations leaded by Italy. China ranked number 23, India 53, and Japan 61. North America’s wealth was negligible compared to Europe’s, but the African region enjoyed more wealth than they do today.
A forecast for the year 2015 places Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore at the top in GDP per capita. Some European nations are still wealthy, such is the case of Malta, Luxembourg, Norway, and Ireland, but Italy is not in the lead anymore. Japan’s wealth per capita has increased, and so has the United States’, but the wealth of African countries has become the lowest worldwide.
Source: Global Finance: Wealth Distribution and Income Inequality by Country
This visualization by the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) shows the impact of natural disasters in the period 2000-2012.
Between 2009 and 2011 the economic cost of disasters increased from $50 billion to $371 billion due to the 2011 Great East Japanese Earthquake. The largest number of people killed occurred in the period 2009-2010, mainly due to earthquakes, including the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The largest number of people affected in the last twelve years occurred between 2001 and 2002, mainly due to droughts, including droughts in China and India.
Source: United Nations on Tumbler