Other important issues in the world today

Underdeveloped Countries

            The Third World refers to the technologically less advanced (or developing) nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They are generally typified as low income, having economies dependent on the export of major products to the developed countries in return for finished products. These nations also tend to have high rates of illiteracy, disease, and population growth, and unstable governments. Many are at the bottom of the league in terms of human development, such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu or Vanuatu.

Poverty

            Poverty is a worldwide problem which is the cause of many connected problems. People living in poverty often commit crimes to support themselves or their families.
Poor people don’t often have enough to eat, which leads to malnutrition (getting sick from not eating the right types of food) and starvation.
Poor countries also don´t have a working health care system, which leads to a population suffering from many illnesses and diseases. There are mostly areas suffering from natural disasters, too, and there are no money for the reconstruction of the territories destroyed by earthquakes, tsunami, hurricanes or forest fires.

We can see these problems in many African countries like Sudan, Nigeria, as well as in Central American countries like Guatemala, South American countries like Brazil, Asian countries like Nepal and Pakistan and even some of European countries – Romania and Albania. And there are the countries having been and being destroyed by the results of the war conflicts – Iraq, Afghanistan or Georgia.

AIDS disease

Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the worst affected region. In 2007 AT contained an estimated 68% of all people living with AIDS and 76% of all AIDS deaths, with 1.7 million new infections bringing the number of people living with HIV to 22.5 million, and with 11.4 million AIDS orphans living in the region. Unlike other regions, most people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa in 2007 (61%) were women.

Adult prevalence in 2008 was an estimated 5.0%, and AIDS continued to be the single largest cause of mortality in this region. South Africa has the largest population of HIV patients in the world, followed by Nigeria and India. South and South East Asia are second worst affected; in 2007 this region contained 18% of all people living with AIDS, and 300,000 deaths from AIDS. India has about 2.5 million infections and adult prevalence of 0.36%

Overpopulation

More and more people are born each year, mainly in the states and territories mentioned before. With the increase of population more pollution is generated, more natural resources are used up.

Probably the most important factors needed to slow down the population growth in the developing world can be education together with contraception – but many prejudices must disappear and in my opinion it will take a long time.

Terrorism

Terrorism has been practiced by a broad array of political organizations for furthering their objectives. It has been practiced by both right-wing and left-wing political parties, nationalistic groups, religious groups, revolutionaries, and ruling governments.

Broadly speaking there are two types of international convention on terrorism. Firstly there are truly international conventions which are open to ratification to all states. There are thirteen of these international conventions at present, though as of Feb 2006 only 12 are in force.

Secondly there are regional multilateral terrorist conventions, such as the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (2006); the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism (2002); and the Organization of African Union Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism (1999) and Protocol (2004).

Racism and Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination is treating people differently through a process of social division into categories not necessarily related to race. Racial segregation policies may officialize it, but it is also often exerted without being legalized.

Researchers, including Dean Karlan and Marianne Bertrand, at the MIT and the University of Chicago found in a 2003 study that there was widespread discrimination in the workplace against job applicants whose names were merely perceived as „sounding black“. These applicants were 50% less likely than candidates perceived as having „white-sounding names“ to receive callbacks for interviews. The researchers view these results as strong evidence of unconscious biases rooted in the United States‘ long history of discrimination.