Africa is the dark continent. I recently saw a night satellite image of the world and could not believe how dark Africa is. The United States, Europe, and Japan are the most lit. Eastern China, Indian, and Indonesia also glow in the satellite image but Africa, for the most part, is a dark void.
Africa is the lost continent. It is as if the world has lost sight of Africa as she has come to grips with the ravages of war, ethnic cleansing, AIDS, and poverty. According to The Economist’s Pocket World in Figures booklet 23 of the 25 countries with the lowest life expectancy are African. If you where to live in Swaziland your life expectancy would be thirty years. The figures for HIV/AIDS is almost the same and in almost the same order as that of the life expectancy. According to the Pocket World in Figures 26 out of the top 30 least literate countries are African with Burkina Faso having only a 12.8% literacy rate. African nations also top the list in highest foreign dept (as % of export goods), lowest purchasing power, and lowest GDP per person.
[tags]africa, gdp, aids, life expectancy[/tags]
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[...] A flat world is a positive thing. In theory a flat world would removes barriers, borders, and hierarchies. A flat world would elevate the level of education in the world and bring health care to those that require it the most. But the world is not that flat yet. For one, the United States is building and militarizing borders instead of tearing them down. China and other repressive countries are using Flat World technology and companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Cisco to censor and suppress their own people. And Africa, the lost continent, has been largely ignored by the Flat World as it suffers from AIDS, genocide, ethnic violence, and high unemployment rates. [...]
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