Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Latin America’s share of the global Catholic population has increased over the past century, according to Pew Research Center estimates, but the portion of the region’s population that is Catholic has declined.
When incoming Chinese President Xi Jinping takes office, he will be dealing with a public that is increasingly concerned about issues beyond simple economic growth. Such problems will provide some daunting challenges for the new president and his team over the next few years.
When Benedict XVI was elected pope in 2005, religious observance among Europeans had been in decline for decades, and he set out to stem the tide of secularization. How successful was he? Pew Research polls indicate that during his papacy, religious observance among Catholics in France, Germany, Spain and Italy remained low but fairly stable.
The ultimate public verdict on a U.S.-EU trade and investment agreement has yet to be rendered, but on the eve of such negotiations, both Americans and Europeans seem disposed to try.
Over the past century, the number of Catholics worldwide has more than tripled. But the world’s overall population also has risen rapidly from 1910 to 2010. As a result, Catholics have made up a remarkably stable share of all people on Earth, though their geographic distribution has changed substantially.
China’s alleged cyber-espionage campaigns against other governments, major corporations and, most recently, the media, have increasingly become a focus of U.S. officials and news reports. In the superpower competition between the U.S. and China, most American experts ranked cyber attacks from China as a more serious problem than the economic or military challenges it poses.
The news out of Pakistan is unrelentingly bad, but headline-grabbing events obscure a more insidious problem: the profound economic challenges facing Pakistani society. And this economic malaise is worsening, thus complicating India’s relationship with its neighbour.
Pakistan is a country beset with political difficulties, but they could be of secondary importance to its economic woes. The truth is that the Pakistani people are deeply troubled by the plight of their economy and their own economic prospects.
Two years after Egyptians first poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square chanting “Down with Mubarak” the legacy of the Arab Spring remains uncertain. Polling since the uprising shows that Egyptians want democratic rights and institutions, a major role for Islam in political life, and an improved economy – a challenging set of demands for the new cadre of Egyptian leaders.
