LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Third World: Countries
built 632 days ago
The term Third World was originally coined in times of the Cold War to distinguish those nations that are neither aligned with the West (NATO) nor with the East, the Communist bloc. Today the term is often used to describe the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania.
Source:
The development experiences of Third World countries since the fifties have been staggeringly diverse—and hence very informative. Forty years ago the developing countries looked a lot more like each other than they do today. Take India and South Korea. By any standards, both countries were extremely poor: India's income per capita was about $150 (in 1980 dollars) and South Korea's was about $350. Life expectancy was about forty years and fifty years respectively. In both countries roughly 70 percent of the people worked on the land, and farming accounted for 40 percent of national income.
Source:
The Third World displays little homogeneity; it is divided by race, religion, culture, and geography, as well as frequently opposite interests. It generally sees world politics in terms of a global struggle between rich and poor countries—the industrialized North against the backward South. Some nations, such as those of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), have found ways to assert their economic importance as sources of raw materials indispensable to advanced societies, and others may follow suit. Widely advocated within the Third World is a so-called New Economic Order, which through a combination of aid and trade agreements would transfer wealth from the developed to the developing nations.
Source:
Unemployment in Third World countries is confined to people out of work who can't find jobs. Minimum wages are as low as they can possibly be and are paid only to workers who are employed. Labor Unions are permitted under certain conditions provided that they do not intefere with people who are looking for work, who are working, or who have held a job at some time in their lives. Three strikes are the maximum permitted. No more than four balls are permitted in a year, unless replaced by family picnics.
Source:
To see what entrepreneurship in the Third World can achieve, consider the flowering of the garment export business in Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world. This started with a collaboration between Noorul Quader, a bureaucrat-turned-entrepreneur, and the Daewoo Company of South Korea. Quader's new company, Desh, agreed to buy sewing machines from Daewoo and send workers to be trained in South Korea. Once Desh's factory started up, Daewoo would advise on production and handle the marketing in return for royalties of 8 percent of sales. Daewoo did not lend to Desh or take any stake in the business. But it showed Desh how to design a bonded warehouse system, which the government agreed to authorize.
Source:
December 14, 1999 Dawn Tuberculosis Threatens A Third Of World Population. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis may affect about one-third of the world's population -- nearly 1.9 billion people, according to a Harvard Medical School study titled, The Global Impact of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Over half the world's TB cases are found in five countries - Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. In Pakistan, 350,000 new cases are reported every year, but only 2% of these cases use the World Health Organization's (WHO) strategy to fight the disease, Direct Observation Treatment Short-course (DOTS). TB cases in England and Wales "have soared by more than a fifth," usually from minorities who have been exposed to TB overseas.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Countries