KalahariLog
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The South African president Mbeki gave the equivalent of the state of the union speech the other day. He was expected to address the problems of HIV/AIDS, poverty, unemployment, and crime. He talked about all except the crime bit. BBC's coverage mentioned that over 20,000 people got murdered last year. This, in a country of about 40 million which makes the rate about 1 in 2000. To me, these odds sound pretty deadly. For comparison the US, where murder is quite popular too, has a rate of 1 in 20000 which is 10 times better and Canada has a rate of 1 in 100000 which is 5 times better than the US.
One of the reasons why people in and out of SA care more about crime these days is that the 2010 World Cup is scheduled to take place in SA. And many people are starting to get worried about going to a city like Johannesburg with a daily murder rate of 50! Since the announcement that the tournament is to take place in SA there have been rumors that this will be changed because the stadiums are not ready, the crime situation is intolerable, etc.
A very illuminating webpage providing all sort of international statistics can be found at NationMaster. Their main page touts the BBC calling them "a statistician's dream" and I've had a good time procrastinating there instead of doing real work. Here are a few gratuitous bits coming from that site: when it comes to water availability Botswana is 141 out of 141 with negative average, and when it comes to Chess Grand masters, Botswana is tied for the last spot with 60 other countries at 0 per 100000. Weather in Iceland must be conducive to chess as they lead the Grand masters list with 3 per 100000.
Of course, the US leads the world in death due to a motor vehicle accident to the tune of over 10,000 per year. Which makes the rate about the same as the murder rate in the US. Botswana is not on this list, but the per capita rate of deaths due to car accidents has got to be higher here than most other places on earth -- literally every day there are people killed on the roads here. If I recall correctly, I think I saw the figure 300 as the number of people killed in car crashes in Botswana last year. This would make the rate 1 in 5000 which is way worse than the US.
One of the reasons why people in and out of SA care more about crime these days is that the 2010 World Cup is scheduled to take place in SA. And many people are starting to get worried about going to a city like Johannesburg with a daily murder rate of 50! Since the announcement that the tournament is to take place in SA there have been rumors that this will be changed because the stadiums are not ready, the crime situation is intolerable, etc.
A very illuminating webpage providing all sort of international statistics can be found at NationMaster. Their main page touts the BBC calling them "a statistician's dream" and I've had a good time procrastinating there instead of doing real work. Here are a few gratuitous bits coming from that site: when it comes to water availability Botswana is 141 out of 141 with negative average, and when it comes to Chess Grand masters, Botswana is tied for the last spot with 60 other countries at 0 per 100000. Weather in Iceland must be conducive to chess as they lead the Grand masters list with 3 per 100000.
Of course, the US leads the world in death due to a motor vehicle accident to the tune of over 10,000 per year. Which makes the rate about the same as the murder rate in the US. Botswana is not on this list, but the per capita rate of deaths due to car accidents has got to be higher here than most other places on earth -- literally every day there are people killed on the roads here. If I recall correctly, I think I saw the figure 300 as the number of people killed in car crashes in Botswana last year. This would make the rate 1 in 5000 which is way worse than the US.
posted by Stephen Kobourov # 6:27 AM 
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