Development

China has experienced unprecedented economic growth over the past 20 years, with some reports estimating that China’s per capita GDP and consumption each increased by a factor of four between 1990 and 2010. Surveys of Chinese citizens suggest, however, that the quality of life in China has not increased by the same magnitude as the country’s economy.

According to 2012 estimates by the World Health Organization, as many as 34 million people globally are infected with HIV, a condition that causes progressive failure of the immune system.

Since the beginning of the 2011 Arab Spring, observers have been examining the various underlying factors that may have helped fuel revolution and unrest across North Africa and the Middle East. One of the factors frequently cited is the unusually high rate of youth unemployment throughout the region.

Since the beginning of the “Arab Spring” in December 2010, governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have fallen, while protests and strife continue in Syria, Yemen and other nations. The source of the discontent was diverse, but deeply felt — decades of struggling under authoritarian regimes, certainly, but also high rates of unemployment and a grinding sense of inequality.