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These 15 Reasons to be angry have been lifted from the urban 75 website 1. Since 1960 the countries where the richest 20% of the world's people live have increased their share of gross world product from 73% to 83%. These rich countries are now sixty times better off than those where the poorest 20% live. 2. 800 million people in the world are severely malnourished or starving. 3. 10% of the children in the poor countries of the world die before their fifth birthday. 40,000 children in poor countries die every day through preventable diseases - the equivalent of dropping a bomb similar to the one dropped on Hiroshima on the poor children of the world every three days. 4. 358 people own as much wealth as half the world's population. 5. About 11 million people are homeless in the world. One person in three in poor countries is homeless or in severely sub-standard housing. A third of the population in most third world countries are squatters. 6. 37 million people have been driven from their homes by violence or armed conflict, 80% of them women and children. 7. 400 million people live under military dictatorships propped up by multinationals that earn huge profits from the cheap labour these regimes provide 8. 10% of the Earth's species could be lost by the year 2000. 9. If present rates of destruction continue, tropical forests have at most a decade of life. 10. World military spending is $778 billion per year. 11. The richest 225 people in the world have a combined wealth of more than $1 trillion - equal to the annual income of the poorest 47% of the earths population, some 2.5 billion people. 12. Westerners spend $37 billion a year on pet food and perfumes - enough to provide education, food, health care, water and sanitation for all those now deprived of the basics - with $9 billion to spare. 13. A child born in New York, Paris and London will consume, pollute and waste more in their lifetime than 50 children born in a developing country. 14. There are 15 individuals in the world who are worth more than the whole of sub-Sahara Africa - some 600 million people. 15. Bill Gates could foot the cost for paying for basic education, health care and safe water supplies for the 4.4 billion people who lack basic sanitation and still be a billionaire ten times over afterwards. Source: United Nations 1998 |
