1 and 2
Count every child in the world by one’s and two’s. Every second child is poor. 33% of children in the developing world are homeless. 25% have no access to safe drinking water. 15% have no access to health services.
121 million kids worldwide don’t go to school because their families cannot afford it and their governments aren’t building enough schools. 1.4 million children die annually due to unsafe water and sanitation. Moreover, 15 million children have lost their parents to AIDS/HIV.
The numbers are dizzyingly alarming. What are you doing to help the poor?
This is my post for Blog Action Day 2008.
1986
The year the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed professional sports federations to permit their athletes to compete in Olympic games. In 1988, professionals in tennis, soccer, and equestrian sports were permitted to compete in the 1988 games in Los Angeles. 1988 also marked the year when the International Basketball Federation (IBF) allowed professional basketball players to join the Olympics. The USA’s “Dream Team”, led by Michael Jordan, went on to win the gold medal in 1992 in Barcelona. International boxing groups, such as the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA), only allows amateurs to participate in Olympic events, partly due to differences in scoring and rules in amateur and professional boxing matches. And this is the reason why Manny Pacquiao won’t win the Philippines’ first Olympic gold medal.
525,600
Number of minutes in a regular year, as proclaimed in a song of the Broadway hit “Rent”. But there are actually 525,949.2 minutes or 365.2425 days in a Gregorian year. The excess minutes about equal one day after every 4 years, hence the leap year.
4
Daily wage, in US dollars, of Ghazala Khamis’s husband, now the father of a total of 10 children after Ghazala gave birth to a healthy set of septuplets last August 17, 2008. The family hails from Egypt.
9
Number of Olympic gold medals Michael Phelps has won, matching the all-time record gold medal hauls of swimmer Mark Spitz and track star Carl Lewis. Phelps hopes to beat that record by winning his next race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 200m Butterfly. Should Phelps win all his 8 races, he shall have set another record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics.
50%
Percentage of South Ossetia, Georgia’s 70,000 residents holding Russian passports. Russia justified its attacks on Georgian territory “to protect its citizens”, but the whole world including the USA had condemned their “disproportionate” military actions. {link}
1,300,000
Estimated value, in US dollars, of the Menlo Park, CA property where Larry Page and Sergey Brin originally built their company, Google Inc., at the time it was eventually sold to them in September 8, 2006. Back in 1998, Page and Brin paid $1,700 a month to use the garage of an acquaintance named Susan Wojcicki, who needed extra cash to pay her mortgage. Wojcicki is now Google’s Vice President for Product Development. Brin married her sister, Anne, in May 2007. {link}
302
Number of gold medals to be won at the 2008 Summer Olympics taking place in Beijing, China. The first gold was won by Czech shooter Katerina Emmons. {source}
1,000
Number of years, says Mars Society’s Robert Zubrin, it would take to terraform Mars into a habitable planet. Zubrin lays out his six-step plan here.