-Caveat Lector-
"200 Americans have more money than 40 percent of the world's
population."
"20% of the population, living in high income countries, control 86% of
the world export markets, 68% of foreign investment and 74 percent of
telephone lines.
"Rich countries or corporations have directed 80% of their foreign
investments to only 20 nations in Eastern Europe and the developing world,
mainly to China."
"The UN report suggests the rules of globalization need to be changed to
make them work for people rather than profits, arguing against an unfettered
market economy."
Gap Between Rich, Poor Said Growing
By NAOMI KOPPEL
.c The Associated Press
GENEVA (AP) - Technology advances may be improving life for many people
around the world, but they are also widening the gap between rich and poor,
according to a U.N. report released today.
An international effort is needed to meet the needs of poor people in areas
of medical research, communications and information technology, according to
the 1999 Human Development Report.
Researchers with the U.N. Development Program examined income, education,
life expectancy and health care in assessing the quality of life in 174
countries.
Among their findings were that purchasing a computer would cost the average
Bangladeshi eight years' income, while the average American would pay one
month's wage.
Eighty percent of all websites are in English, but only one person in ten
worldwide speaks English, the report continued.
Even in more established means of communications the researchers found a gap
between rich and poor.
In the principality of Monaco in 1996 there were 99 telephone lines per 100
people, while in Cambodia the figure was one. People in Switzerland make an
average of six hours of international telephone calls per year, but in
Pakistan the average is one minute.
``This (technology) is a two-edged sword - it is cutting many people in, but
it is increasingly cutting many people out,'' the report's author Richard
Jolly told reporters.
Jolly said people using the Internet were increasingly young, white, male and
well-educated.
The report also ranks the countries and territories in a human development
index based on real income, life expectancy and educational standards.
Canada tops the list for the sixth year running, followed by Norway and the
United States. The bottom 22 countries on the list are all in Africa, with
Sierra Leone coming last.
The top 20 percent of the world's population earned 74 times as much as the
bottom 20 percent. In 1960 it was 30 times as much.
``The 200 richest people in the world have more money than the combined
income of the lowest 40 percent of the world's population,'' said Jolly.
Globalization did not necessarily make the situation worse, but Jolly said
governments should take into account more than just trade issues when they
consider international policy.
The report says international policy making must balance a concern for
profits with a concern for people who have been affected by turmoil in the
global marketplace.
It is also important to find a comprehensive approach to global threats such
as HIV infection, international crime, human rights abuses by multinational
corporations and transnational pollution such as acid rain.
``The aim is to put human concerns at the center of the globalization debate,
to focus on the global interdependence of people and not just of financial
flows,'' added Jolly.
UN: Internet helps create parallel societies
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, July 12 (Reuters) - When leaders of an attempted coup against
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev seized radio and television stations in
1991, Russians used a fledgling computer and facsimile network to disseminate
calls for resistance to defeat the revolt.
Within a few years, use of the Internet exploded, opening a fast track to
knowledge and communications. But fewer than 3 percent of Russians today
have access to it, says the 1999 Human Development report, released by the
U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) on Monday.
And in Bangladesh, buying a computer would cost the average person more than
eight years' income compared with just one month's wage for the average
American.
Some 88 percent of the world's Internet users -- 143 million in 1998 and a
predicted 700 million in 2001 -- are in wealthy industrial nations with the
United States having more computers than the rest of the world combined
The current Internet user, for example, is male, 35 years old or younger,
college-educated, English-speaking and more often than not a resident of the
United States, where 26 percent of the population use the World Wide Web.
The Internet, an example of the shrinking global village, at the same time
shows up glaring inequalities in the world economy, with rich countries
getting richer and new developments outpacing the ability of the poor nations
to deal with them, the report said.
``Even as communications, transportation and technology are driving global
economic expansion, headway on poverty is not keeping pace,'' said CNN
founder Ted Turner in a contribution to the report.
``It is as if globalization is in fast-forward and the world's ability to
understand and react to it is in slow motion,'' he said.
Yet many use the Internet in developing nations, especially scientists,
academics and governments, such as in India and Malaysia. India has also
produces software for export.
Telephones, a necessity, for connecting to the web, are uneven. Thailand has
more cellular phones than the whole of Africa and Bulgaria has more Internet
hosts than sub-Sahara Africa except for South Africa. In several African
countries average monthly Internet connection and use costs run as high as
$100 compared with $20 in the United States.
And even in South Africa, the best-connected African country, about 75
percent of the schools have no telephone.
The Human Development Report for 10 years has searched for new ways to
measure the lives of people, using a yardstick that goes beyond economic
statistics -- such as who goes to school, who has clean water and who shares
in economic benefits.
This year's 260-page survey focuses on trends in ``globalization -- the
growing integration of economies, culture and science around the world which
has been spurred by an explosion in information and communications
technology.
It concludes that the rules of globalization need to be rewritten to make
them work for people rather than profits, arguing against an unfettered
market economy.
``The challenge is not to stop the expansion of global markets,'' the report
said. ``The challenge ... is to preserve the advantage of global markets and
competition but also to provide enough space for human, community and
environmental resources to ensure that globalization works for people.''
Since the 1980s many countries have benefited from globalization, among them
Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Mauritius and
Poland, which have taken advantage of economic and technological
opportunities.
At the other end many countries reap few benefits, with Madagascar, Niger,
Russia, Tajikistan and Venezuela among them.
A fifth of the world's people living in high income countries control 86
percent of the world export markets, 68 percent of foreign investment and 74
percent of the telephone lines. Rich countries or corporations have directed
80 percent of their foreign investments to only 20 nations in Eastern Europe
and the developing world, mainly to China.
The result is a ``grotesque and dangerous polarisation'' between those
benefiting from the system and those who are ``merely passive recipients of
its effects,'' the report said.
But the authors of the report argue that pernicious trends of market
expansion are not inevitable.
Among their suggestions are creating regional labour, environmental and
social standards for multinational corporations rather than relying only on
voluntary codes.
Others include new sources of finance for technology, such as a ``bit tax''
on Internet messages and independent legal aid to support weaker countries in
the World Trade Organisation as well as debt relief for the poorest
countries.
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