Did You Know That:
"BLACK men born in the US stand a one-in-three chance of going to jail. For white men the odds are one in 17."
"EVERY cow in the EU is subsidised by £1.40 a day-three out of four Africans have less than that to live on."
Book Description:
The world of the early 21st century is one of shocking inequality and absurd contradictions. Unbelievable wealth and abject poverty existed simultaneously, side-by-side and across continents. The book has surveyed on the life on plant Earth, including slavery, torture, persecution, famine, disease, racism and war blight millions of lives every day. Each fact from this eclectic range is followed by explanation and lively analysis. It aims to make people think twice about the world in which they live.
"These are facts, but they are not immutable truths," says Jessica Williams, the author of the book. "It's not too late to change the way our world works. Some of the facts need major shifts in thinking, while others require governments to start taking their responsibilities seriously. Neither of these will be easy to achieve, but if we don't try they'll never happen."
Here are 50 facts worth knowing concerning our world, will they make us want to change it?
1 THE average Japanese woman can expect to live to 84; her counterpart in Botswana will die at 39.
2 BLACK men born in the US stand a one-in-three chance of going to jail. For white men the odds are one in 17.
3 ONE in five of the world's population - 1.25 billion people - is undernourished.
4 NEARLY half of British 15-year-olds have tried illegal drugs and nearly a quarter are regular cigarette smokers.
5 CHILDREN living in poverty are three times more likely to suffer mental illness than children from wealthy families.
6 EIGHTY-ONE per cent of the world's executions in 2002 took place in just three countries: China, Iran and the USA.
7 SUPERMARKETS in the UK know more about their customers than the government does. They use loyalty cards to determine your income and what your interests are.
8 EVERY cow in the EU is subsidised by £1.40 a day - three out of four Africans have less than that to live on.
9 SAME-SEX relationships are illegal in more than 70 countries. In nine - including Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia - the penalty is death.
10 EVERY hour, UK households throw away enough rubbish to fill the Royal Albert Hall.
11 THERE are 27 million slaves in the world.
12 A THIRD of the world's population is at war. In 2002, 30 countries were fighting in 37 armed conflicts - a combined population of 2.29 billion people.
13 THE UK has the second-highest rate of teen pregnancies in the developed world, behind the US. There are 30.8 births for every 1,000 teenagers. Teenage mothers are twice as likely to live in poverty.
14 ONE in five people live on less than 50p a day.
15 THERE are 44 million child labourers in India, some working 16-hour days.
16 PEOPLE in industrialised countries eat between six and seven kilograms of food additives every year. A ham sandwich can contain up to 13 E-numbers.
17 GOLFER Tiger Woods is the world's highest-paid sportsman, earning £44million a year, including £30,000 a day for wearing Nike caps - which Thai workers get £2.20 a day to make.
18 EVERY week an average 88 children are expelled from US schools for carrying a gun.
19 LANDMINES kill or maim one person every hour.
20 THERE are at least 300,000 prisoners of conscience, often held in appalling conditions, sometimes tortured, simply for peacefully expressing their own beliefs.
21 CARS kill two people every minute.
22 THE US owes the United Nations $1bn in unpaid dues. Yet it spends the same amount on its military programme every 23 hours.
