THE HAVES -- The richest fifth of the world's people consumes 86 percent of all goods and services while the poorest fifth consumes just 1.3 percent. Indeed, the richest fifth consumes 45 percent of all meat and fish, 58 percent of all energy used and 84 percent of all paper, has 74 percent of all telephone lines and owns 87 percent of all vehicles.

          NATURAL RESOURCES -- Since 1970, the world's forests have declined from 4.4 square miles per 1,000 people to 2.8 square miles per 1,000 people. In addition, a quarter of the world's fish stocks have been depleted or are in danger of being depleted and another 44 percent are being fished at their biological limit.

          THE GANGES -- The Ganges River symbolizes purification to Hindus, who believe drinking or bathing in its waters will lead to salvation. But 29 cities, 70 towns and countless villages deposit about 345 million gallons of raw sewage a day directly into the river. Factories add 70 million gallons of industrial waste and farmers are responsible for another 6 million tons of chemical fertilizer and 9,000 tons of pesticides.

          THE ULTRA RICH -- The three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 48 least developed countries.

          AFRICA -- The average African household today consumes 20 percent less than it did 25 years ago.

          THE SUPER RICH -- The world's 225 richest individuals, of whom 60 are Americans with total assets of $311 billion, have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion -- equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 percent of the entire world's population.

          COSMETICS AND EDUCATION -- Americans spend $8 billion a year on cosmetics -- $2 billion more than the estimated annual total needed to provide basic education for everyone in the world.

          THE HAVE NOTS -- Of the 4.4 billion people in developing countries, nearly three-fifths lack access to safe sewers, a third have no access to clean water, a quarter do not have adequate housing and a fifth have no access to modern health services of any kind.

          MEAT -- Americans each consume an average of 260 pounds of meat a year. In Bangladesh, the average is six and a half pounds.

          THE FUTURE -- By 2050, 8 billion of the world's projected 9.5 billion people -- up from about 6 billion today -- will be living in developing countries.

          SMOKE -- Of the estimated 2.7 million annual deaths from air pollution, 2.2 million are from indoor pollution -- including smoke from dung and wood burned as fuel which is more harmful than tobacco smoke. 80 percent of the victims are rural poor in developing countries.

          WRISTWATCHES AND RADIOS -- Two thirds of India's 90 million lowest-income households live below the poverty line -- but more than 50 percent of these impoverished people own wristwatches, 41 percent own bicycles, 31 percent own radios and 13 percent own fans.

          TELEPHONE LINES -- Sweden and the United States have 681 and 626 telephone lines per 1,000 people, respectively. Afghanistan, Cambodia, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have only one line per 1,000 people.

          ICE CREAM AND WATER -- Europeans spend $11 billion a year on ice cream -- $2 billion more than the estimated annual total needed to provide clean water and safe sewers for the world's population.

          AIDS -- At the end of 1997 nearly 31 million people were living with HIV, up from 22.3 million the year before. With 16,000 new infections a day -- 90 percent in developing countries -- it is now estimated that 40 million people will be living with HIV in 2000.

          LANDMINES -- More than 110 million active landmines are scattered in 68 countries, with an equal number stockpiled around the world. Every month more than 2,000 people are killed or maimed by mine explosions.

          PET FOOD AND HEALTH -- Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food -- $4 billion more than the estimated annual additional total needed to provide basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world.

          $40 BILLION A YEAR -- It is estimated that the additional cost of achieving and maintaining universal access to basic education for all, basic health care for all, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food for all and clean water and safe sewers for all is roughly $40 billion a year -- or less than 4 percent of the combined wealth of the 225 richest people in the world.

---------------------------------

          If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be:

   57 Asians 21 Europeans 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south 8 Africans
   52 would be female 48 would be male
   70 would be non-white 30 would be white
   70 would be non-Christian 30 would be Christian
   89 would be heterosexual 11 would be homosexual
   6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
   80 would live in substandard housing
   70 would be unable to read
   50 would suffer from malnutrition
   1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
   1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
   1 would own a computer.

---------------------------------
    From Left Business Observer
        The richest 1% of people in the world receive as much as the bottom 57%, or in other words, less than 50 million richest people receive as much as 2.7 billion poor.
        Someone with an income equal to US$25,000 is richer than 98% of the world population.
        The poorest tenth of Americans have average incomes higher than 2/3 of the world.
        The richest tenth of Americans — about 25 million people — have aggregate incomes equal to the poorest 43% of people in the world, almost 2 billion people.
        The ratio between the average income of the world’s top 5% and world’s bottom 5% increased from 78 to 1 in l988 to 114 to l in 1993.
---------------------------------

    Figures compiled by Don Sloan, M.D. for the People's Daily World

Number of people in the world, (pop. 5.5 billion) that live in abject poverty: 1.4 billion

Number of people currently expected to die from starvation: 900 million

Percentage of those that live in the undeveloped nations: 97

Number of children in world dying each year from controllable illness: 12 million

Number of people in world that died each of the five years of World War II: 10 million
Number of people in world that die each year of preventable social causes: 10 million

Cost of one new Osprey aircraft (50 planned): $84 million
Annual cost of treatment to eliminate world's malaria cases: $84 million

Money set aside annually for malaria control by organized world health: $9 million
Money set aside for Viagra pills per annum by organized world health: $40 million

Number of children in world blinded yearly from lack of Vitamin A: 500 million

Number of women who died during childbirth last year in world: 650,000

U.N. estimate of yearly expenditure on war: $800 billion
U.N. estimate of yearly expenditure on health services: $25 billion

Number of children in world that die by age 5 (yearly): 12 million
Percentage of those that succumb to routine preventable health causes: 90

Ratio of African-American to white new born deaths in U.S. last year: 2:1

Number of reported pediatric measles deaths in U.S. last year: 45
Amount of money not allocated by Congress for measles vaccines: $9 million

Average amount of 1999 year-end bonus paid to Oxford HMO execs: $6 million

Time it takes the Pentagon to spend annual federal allocation for women's health: 15 minutes