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| The average Japanese woman can expect to live to be 84. The average Botswanan will reach just 39 | |
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| A third of the world's obese people live in the developing world | |
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| If you stand at the Junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street in central London, there are 161 branches of Starbucks within a five-mile radius | |
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| China has 44 million missing women | |
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| Brazil has more Avon ladies than members of its armed services | |
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| Ninety-four percent of the world's executions in 2005 took place in just four countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA | |
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| Supermarkets know more about their customers than the government does | |
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| Every cow in the European Union is subsidised by $2.50 a day. That's more than what 75 percent of Africans have to live on | |
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| In more than 70 countries, same-sex relationships are illegal. In nine countries, the penalty is death | |
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| One in five of the world's people lives on less than $1 a day | |
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| More than 12,000 women are killed each year in Russia as a result of domestic violence | |
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| In 2006, 16 million Americans had some form of plastic surgery | |
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| Landmines kill or maim at least one person every hour | |
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| There are 44 million child laborers in India | |
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| People in industrialized countries eat between fourteen and fifteen pounds of food additives every year | |
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| David Beckham's deal with the LA Galaxy football team will earn him $100 every minute | |
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| Seven million American women and 1 million American men suffer from an eating disorder | |
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| Twenty-eight percent of American teenagers have tried illegal drugs and more than a quarter are regular cigarette smokers | |
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| One million people become new mobile phone subscribers every day. Some 85 percent of them live in emerging markets | |
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| Cars kill two people every minute | |
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| Since 1977, there have been more than 120,000 acts of violence and disruption at abortion clinics in North America | |
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| Global warming already kills 150,000 people every year | |
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| In Kenya, bribery payments make up a third of the average household budget | |
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| The world's trade in illegal drugs is estimated to be worth around $400 billion - about the same as the world's legal pharmaceutical industry | |
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| A third of Americans believe aliens have landed on Earth | |
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| More than 150 countries use torture | |
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| Every day, one in five of the world's population - some 800 million people - go hungry | |
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| Black men born in the US today stand a one in three chance of going to jail | |
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| A third of the world's population is at war | |
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| The world's oil reserves could be exhausted by 2040 | |
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| Eighty-two percent of the world's smokers live in developing countries | |
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| Britons buy 3 billion items of clothing every year - an average of 50 pieces each. Most of it ends up being thrown away | |
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| A quarter of the world's armed conflicts of recent years have involved a struggle for natural resources | |
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| Some 30 million people in Africa are HIV-positive | |
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| Ten languages die out every year | |
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| More people die each year from suicide than in all the world's armed conflicts | |
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| Every week, an average of 54 children are expelled from American schools for bringing a gun to class | |
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| There are at least 300,000 prisoners of conscience in the world | |
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| Two million girls and women are subjected to female genital mutilation each year | |
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| There are 300,000 child soldiers fighting in conflicts around the world | |
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| Nearly 26 million people voted in the 2001 British General Election. More than 32 million votes were cast in the first season of Pop Idol | |
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| One in six English teenagers believe that reality television will make them famous | |
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| In 2005, the US spent $554 billion on its military. This is 29 times the combined military spending of the six "rogue states" | |
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| There are 27 million slaves in the world today | |
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| Americans discard 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. That's enough bottles to reach all the way to the moon every three weeks | |
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| The average urban Briton is caught on camera up to 300 times a day | |
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| Some 120,000 women and girls are trafficked into Western Europe every year | |
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| A kiwi fruit flown from New Zealand to Britain emits five times its own weight in greenhouse gases | |
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| The US owes the United Nations more than $1 billion in unpaid dues | |
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| Children living in poverty are three times more likely to suffer a mental illness than children from wealthy families | |