TEN LEAST LITERATE COUNTRIES

I am putting this blog out a little early because I will not bedoing school this Friday, considering it is Good Friday. I figured the earlier the better, so here it is.

I have not heard that much about literacy around the world. You hear about HIV/AIDS, extreme poverty, bad water, but you do not hear very much in the news about illiteracy. I found out several interesting things while researching for this blog. I found out that the UN declared from 1 January 2003 to 2012 as the Literacy Decade. You can find out more about that here. I had no idea about this. Also, since it was first celebrated in 1966, International Literacy Day is September 8. More information here. There is also a Global Action Week from April 23 to 29th, 2007. You can find out about that here. There really is so much out there about literacy probelms but it is just not where we can hear it. And if we cannot hear it we do not think it exists. We ignore it. But it is a real problem and there are tons of people trying to solve this problem. Now, so you will know who they are, here are the ten least literate countries.



One interesting observation I made is that not all of these countries are in Africa. Sure, the majority of them are, but not all. I thought that was interesting, because most of the other lists like this one are all in Africa, but this problem is bigger than just Africa. So do what you can to help this. Sign the chain, take part in Global Action Week. Let us change the world for the better.

I will have a new post up next Friday about a new topic. You will have to check back and see what it is next time. So until then, Happy Easter everyone!

Jenna

TEN COUNTRIES WITH THE YOUNGEST AVERAGE AGE

This post is quite a bit different than the last one. I was not really sure what to expect with this question, but the results I got were definitely not what I was expecting. It makes sense now, after getting the information. Most of the top 45 countries with the youngest average age are in Africa and the Middle East. I figure that there are two basic conclusions you can come to with this information. Either these countries do not have birth control and so there are just a lot of kids around, or most of the population dies early, so there are more kids around. Most of the countries in this list (with the exception of the Gaza Strip, Sao Tome and Pricipe and Yemen) have a life expectancy of between 41 and 53. Compare that with the highest life expectancy of 83.51. That information makes me think that the latter is more true than the former. Also, I thought it was interesting that if you look on this map you will find that the countries with more people between the ages of 0 and 14 are mostly on and around the equator. I have no reson for this, but I thought it was quite interesting. Well, I guess it is about time for you to see the list, so here it is!


This information is from https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html and http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_age_str_014_yea-age-structure-0-14-years

I am not sure if I will be posting a blog next week or not, because it is Good Friday and there is no school. I will try my best to publish one next week if it is Thursday or Friday. Well, that is all folks. Keep reading and happy blogging!

Jenna

TEN COUNTRIES WITH THE MOST MCDONALD'S RESTAURANTS

I know you have all heard the saying that no countries with McDonald's have gone to war with each other. With all these serious blogs lately I decided it was time for a fun yet interesting blog. So I went with Mickey D's. While researching this I found out tons of information. Some of it was interesing and some of it I never wanted to know in the first place. Take India for instance. Did you know that since they do not serve beef in the Indian McDonald's, the have made an all lamb burger called the Maharaja Mac? And in Israel while the Passover is going on they have kosher products? All of this was very interesting, but when I got to the picture of the McCurry Pan I decided to stop my searching there. I have to say I am not a big fan of McDonald's and I am also not a big fan of Indian food, so when you mix the two together...I think you get the picture.
Here is some useful information about McDonald's. It started in 1940 in San Bernardino, California. Now it is located in about 120 countries. This list is the ten countries with the most McDonald's. On the site that the title of this blog is linked to you can find the countries with the most McDonald's per capita and per GDP. I guess I should go ahead and give you the McList I have been talking about, so here it is!

That is it for now. I hope you have enjoyed all the wonderful pictures of international McDonald's food! I will be back next week with more information. I hope you come back to find out what will be next!

Jenna

TEN COUNTRIES WITH THE HIGHEST AND LOWEST PERCENT OF PEOPLE INFECTED WITH HIV/AIDS

So, this week I decided to do my tenner on the ten countries with the highest and lowest percent of people infected with HIV/AIDS. I will start with the highest. I thought it was very interesting that 9 out of the top ten are the most southerly countries in Africa. All but Central African Republic are in the south. I am not sure exactly what that means, whether there are just more people in the South or if they do not have access to prevention drugs, but I thought it was interesting fact. Another thing I found is that it is not just that the population is small or anything. It varies from tiny little Swaziland to South Africa. Well, I guess you are now wondering what these countries I have been talking about are, so I will give you the list of the ten countries with the highest percent of people infected with HIV/AIDS.

Rank	Country	HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate (%)	Date of Information
1	Swaziland	38.80	2003 est.
2	Botswana	37.30	2003 est.
3	Lesotho	28.90	2003 est.
4	Zimbabwe	24.60	2001 est.
5	South Africa	21.50	2003 est.
6	Namibia	21.30	2003 est.
7	Zambia	16.50	2003 est.
8	Malawi	14.20	2003 est.
9	Central African Republic	13.50	2003 est.
10	Mozambique	12.20	2003 est.

That list was fairly predictable. I am sure most of you have heard of the AIDS epidemic in Africa lately. But a new question: what are the ten countries with the lowest percent of people infected with HIV/AIDS? This was interesting. They are all either islands or small countries in Europe or Asia. No common geographic area like with the highest percent of AIDS countries. There is no major variance in size like the previous list. They are just all small countries in the eastern part of the world. And here you have it.

Rank	Country	HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate (%)	Date of information
159	Brunei	0.10	2003 est.
160	Bhutan	0.10	2001 est.
161	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.10	2001 est.
162	Azerbaijan	0.10	2003 est.
163	Armenia	0.10	2003 est.
164	Qatar	0.09	2001 est.
165	Cape Verde	0.04	NA
166	Afghanistan	0.01	2001 est.
167	Saudi Arabia	0.01	2001 est.
168	Svalbard	0.00	2001

There was my research for this week. It was all quite interesting. Some of it was not quite what I expected and some was. Some information was more predictable than other information. In an earlier blog I gave some links to some organizations that may help change these lists in near future. Another interesting resource I found was this pdf file that has some data about AIDS.

I guess that will be it for now. I will not be posting a blog next week because of Spring Break, but the next Friday I should have another one up for you to read and discover new information!

Jenna

TEN LONGEST RIVERS

Amazon River
Sorry this blog was not on time, but I was out of town and I did not have a good internet connection. Hopefully I will have the blog for Friday up this FridayMost everyone I talked to about this post could name the first four rivers in this list, but no one could name the last six. I am not sure I can even pronounce some of these. I did some research and calculations and found out that the circumference of the earth is 24,902 miles. The total length of the top ten rivers is 32832 miles. So then, you could have a continuious river all the way around the earth and about 30% more with just the ten longest rivers. I thought that was quite interesting. Well, here is the list of the top ten longest rivers in the world. I will leave the pronunciation up to you.

Rank	River	Location	Approximate Length—miles
1.	Nile	Africa	4,180
2.	Amazon	South America	3,912
3.	Mississippi-Missouri-Red Rock	United States	3,710
4.	Chang Jiang (Yangtze)	China	3,602
5.	Ob	Russia	3,459
6.	Huang Ho (Yellow)	China	2,900
7.	Yenisei	Russia	2,800
8.	Parana	South America	2,795
9.	Irtish	Russia	2,758
10.	Zaire (Congo)	Congo	2,716