I enjoy collecting generalizations/facts offered by ‘experts’. Here’s 20 from the excellent book by Keith Suter, 50 Things You Want to Know About World Issues… but were afraid to ask (Bantam 2005)

(I’ve not offered page numbers: don’t be lazy: you can easily find them by looking at the relevant chapter headings 🙂

1. More than 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas by Arab slave traders.

2. Melbourne is the world’s third-largest Greek city, and more Maltese live in Australia than in Malta.

3. A treaty for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism adopted by the League of Nations at Geneva in November 1937 was ratified by only one country – India.

4. Poor developing countries owe developed countries – such as Australia – about US$500 billion. Every day they repay about US$100 million to rich western countries: they spend more in debt repayment than they receive in foreign aid. No developing country government has actually defaulted on any loan. All future monies to developing countries should be given as grants and not loans.

5. The UN estimates that 7 million children die unnecessarily each year from diseases that can be cured and from unclean water that could be made safe.

6. Over one tenth of all New Zealanders now live in Australia.

7. During the Vietnam War CIA field staff kept reporting that the war couldn’t be won. But the closer their reports got to the White House, the more they were changed to create the ‘spin’ that the war was winnable.

8. The U.S. currently gives the lowest level of foreign aid (as a percentage of GNP) out of all the countries in the developing world. The U.S. gave 2 per cent during the Marshall Plan era; it now gives only 0.1 percent, most of which goes to Israel and Egypt.

9. Gaddafi doesn’t like the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and was one of the first leaders to warn the world about Osama bin Laden.

10. Since September 11 Bush hasn’t criticized Russian violence in Chechnya.

11. Australia is one of the most over-governed countries in the western world – one politician for every 930 electors (vs. the UK – one for every 22,000 electors). Tasmania is said to have more politicians per capita than anywhere else in the world.

12. At the beginning of the 20th century Australia probably had the world’s highest standard of living.

13. Australia’s Old Parliament House, built in the 1920s, had no toilets for female politicians.

14. In 1914 only 40 percent of British recruits in World War 1 were physically fit for military service. In 1939 the percentage hadn’t improved by much.

15. Only two countries in Africa have no recent history of colonization: Liberia and Ethiopia; and two countries in Asia: Japan and Thailand.

16. 97 percent of all the world’s scientists are located in the developed western and former Communist nations. That means 80 percent of humankind have only 3 percent of the world’s scientists.

17. Many more Muslims have been killed by Christians, than Christians by Muslims.

18. The high rate of forced marriages in Saudi Arabia is believed to be a factor in the country’s steep divorce rate: about 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.

19. China and India represent almost 40 percent of the world’s population but have only 10 percent of the earth’s surface. Canada, Australia and New Zealand occupy another 10 percent of the earth’s surface but have less than 1 percent of the world’s population.

20. Queen Victoria governed a larger number of Muslims than any other person in history.

Shalom! Rowland Croucher