UN's "Top Places to Live"

nelison · Post by **nelison** » 7/15/2004, 10:37 pm

So this year's rankings were released....

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u ... ries_col_1

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands ranked as the best five countries to live in but Africa's quality of life plummeted because of AIDS (news - web sites), said a U.N. report released on Thursday.

The United States was ranked in eighth place, a drop of one position from 2003 in the report that rates not only per-capita income but also educational levels, health care and life expectancy in measuring a nation's well-being.

The Human Development Index, prepared by the U.N. Development Program, is issued annually and includes every country for which statistics are available.

Iraq (news - web sites), Afghanistan (news - web sites), North Korea (news - web sites), and Liberia (news - web sites) were among nations not included because of lack of data.

Norway has led the list for the past four years.

Aside from the overall index, the report produces indicators on women's equality, income inequality and consumption, poverty and other categories that countries use to measure development. In Canada, for example, the index has been used in advertisements to attract business.

The industrialized nations as usual were in the top 20, their ratings close to one another. Belgium was in sixth place, followed by Iceland, the United States, Japan, Ireland, Switzerland, Britain, Finland, Austria, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, New Zealand, Germany and Spain.

At the bottom of the list for the seventh year was Sierra Leone, emerging from a decade of civil war. Right above it were Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Burundi.

The world's newest nation, East Timor (news - web sites), was included for the first time and ranked 158th out of 177 countries.

In Africa, the AIDS crisis reduced the average life expectancy in many countries to 40 years or less, making it the biggest factor in the decline of overall human development indicators, the report said. In comparison, the average life expectancy in Norway was 79 years.

At least 20 nations suffered development reversals since 1990, 13 of them in Africa: Angola, Central African Republic, Lesotho, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the report said.

"The AIDS crisis cripples states at all levels because the disease attacks people in their most productive years," said Mark Malloch Brown, head of U.N. Development Program.

In Latin American and Caribbean nations, Barbados again headed the list, in 29th place. Argentina ranked 34th, Chile, 43; Costa Rica, 45; Uruguay, 46; Bahamas, 51; Cuba, 52; Mexico, 53; Venezuela, 68. Surprisingly, Brazil dropped to 72nd place, one above Colombia, compared to last year when it ranked 65th.

In Asia, Hong Kong was in 23rd place and Singapore in 25th, South Korea (news - web sites) in 28th, Thailand, 76; Philippines, 83; China, 94; India 127; Bangladesh 138 and Pakistan 142.

In the Middle East, Israel led the list in 22nd place, followed by Cyprus in 30th place, Bahrain, 40; Kuwait, 44; Qatar, 47; United Arab Emirates, 49; Libya, 58; Oman 74; Saudi Arabia, 77; Lebanon, 80; Jordan, 90; Tunisia, 92; Palestinian territories 102; Syria, 106; Algeria, 108; Egypt, 120; Morocco, 125 and Yemen, 149.

The 285-page report can be found on the Web at http://hdr.undp.org.

Axtech · Post by **Axtech** » 7/16/2004, 7:34 am

Here's a nice list from the site linked at the end of the article: http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/ind ... 2_1_1.html

Canada's #4! Woo!

Eelco · Post by **Eelco** » 7/16/2004, 7:58 am

Obviously the price of beer wasn't included in the calculations. Norway and Sweden have the highest taxes on alcoholic drinks.

nelison · Post by **nelison** » 7/16/2004, 8:04 am

I think they have the highest taxes in general.

Axtech · Post by **Axtech** » 7/16/2004, 9:02 am

But, from what I hear, it's very much worth it.

Eelco · Post by **Eelco** » 7/16/2004, 9:06 am

High taxes are not necessarily a bad thing. As long as the money is used for good education and health care, instead of going to war for instance.

Axtech · Post by **Axtech** » 7/16/2004, 9:37 am

Exactly

Corey · Post by **Corey** » 7/16/2004, 10:16 am

Hey when you got somebody else footing the bill to protect you, you can afford to put more money into those things.

nelison · Post by **nelison** » 7/16/2004, 11:08 am

Right... because Norway, Sweden, Austrailia and Canada have tremendous amounts of enemies in the world eh? I'd rather have the best quality of life then be the sucker whose trying to protect the world.

Axtech · Post by **Axtech** » 7/16/2004, 11:11 am

Exactly. The fact of the matter is, these countries are extremely diplomatic, and take a friendly approach to world realtions, rather than the "agree with us or we'll blow you all to fucking hell" approach.

It's a concept lost on the US today. It's called peace.

Corey · Post by **Corey** » 7/16/2004, 11:18 am

Right, and those countries would know peace and prosperity just as well if nobody chose to stop Nazi Germany or Socialist Russia. Its easy to say, "look we don't need to fight" when somebody else does it for you. Just ask France.

Of course you won't have enemies when you let somebody else do your dirty work for you.

starseed_10 · Post by **starseed_10** » 7/16/2004, 11:46 am

world war 2 was a long time ago, and we helped in that one....

it's all the pointless crap happening today that everyone disagrees with.

Corey · Post by **Corey** » 7/16/2004, 11:57 am

Pointless? Or preventing more World Wars?

Let's face it. If the US didn't have the largest military, somebody else would. For the MOST part, the US uses it to ensure sovereignty around the World. That's not so bad compared to what others COULD be doing with it. There are several nations that would be up a creek if it weren't for the US flexing its muscles at their opponents.

lemonphile4 · Post by **lemonphile4** » 7/16/2004, 12:35 pm

Corey wrote:Right, and those countries would know peace and prosperity just as well if nobody chose to stop Nazi Germany or Socialist Russia.

If you got your head out of your ass and into a world history book, you'd realize that it wasn't the US's benevolence for the rest of the world that led to the downfall of Nazi Germany or Socialist USSR.

The US actually sat back and watched what was happening for a few years. Eventually they gave support to Western Europe until the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor, and then they got involved. It was far from a "here comes the heroes to save the day" story, and the US was definitely not the only one getting rid of Nazis.

In the case of the USSR, the Cold War was a power struggle about which country is better, not a war to stop communism. The whole thing cost a lot of money and gave a generation of people nightmares about nuclear war. All we learned about it was that if you spend too much money making weapons and you've got a weak economy, your citizens are going to suffer and eventually you're not going to be a country.

Axtech · Post by **Axtech** » 7/16/2004, 12:37 pm

In fact, the war wouldn't have been as severe as it was if the US hadn't sat back and watched, while supplying weapons to both sides.

Long Jonny · Post by **Long Jonny** » 7/16/2004, 1:18 pm

US=manifest destiny

lemonphile4 · Post by **lemonphile4** » 7/16/2004, 1:43 pm

*shrugs*

Sufjan Stevens · Post by **Sufjan Stevens** » 7/16/2004, 1:44 pm

Ahhh, Manifest Destiny, that brings me back to my AP US History class. Don't ever bring me back there again.

lemonphile4 · Post by **lemonphile4** » 7/16/2004, 1:58 pm

AP US History! Did you take the test?

Sufjan Stevens · Post by **Sufjan Stevens** » 7/16/2004, 2:07 pm

Yeah, I did, and it wasn't fun.

ClumsyMonkey.net

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UN's "Top Places to Live"

UN's "Top Places to Live"