Word: poorest
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...equipment through slush and snow. Harvard’s intramural program is woefully inadequate, throwing experienced players (Canadians) and novice skaters (hacks from small, hockey-hating suburbs like my own) together on the same line. Ice-time is scarce, and we’re usually meted out the poorest of the poor—ice that is slow, crunchy and un-Zambonied...
...acres (1 hectare) of Brazil's Atlantic forest and 1,300 butterfly species from a corner of Peru's Manu National Park, both more than 10 times the number from comparable sites in Europe and North America. At the other extreme, the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, with the poorest and coldest soils in the world, still harbor sparse communities of bacteria, fungi and microscopic invertebrate animals...
...dealing with the extinction crisis is no simple matter, since much of the world's biodiversity resides in its poorest nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Can such countries justify setting aside national parks and nature reserves where human encroachment and even access is forbidden? Is it legitimate to spend large sums of money to save some species--be it an elephant or an orchid--in a nation in which a sizable percentage of the people are living below the poverty line...
Consider a country that the IMF and World Bank regard as a success: Tanzania, the vast East African nation that is among the poorest places in the world. Best known to Americans for Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti Plain, it has been stable and relatively peaceful since it gained independence in 1961. For two decades, it steered a course of self-reliant socialism--a one-party government controlled the economy, taxed mightily and spent lavishly; its literacy rate was among the highest in Africa. But by the mid-1980s, Tanzania's economy was flat-lining, with hyperinflation, huge budget...
With Tanzania's debt from IMF, World Bank and other loans now at $6.4 billion, the government has been spending 40% of its annual revenue on interest payments--more than it spends on health and education combined. Even the poorest families are subjected to "cost sharing"--paying fees for basic health care and even elementary school. In response, 70% of the people consult faith healers (this in a country with an HIV epidemic), and school enrollment has fallen from 93% in 1993 to 66% today. "The data are very clear," says I.F. Shao, director of the Institute of Development Studies...