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The Sarmatian Review Index

September 2006

Volume XXVI, No.3


Readership of newspapers in the United States

Percentage of people who regularly read newspapers: 50 percent.
Percentage of people who read a newspaper once or twice a week: 75 percent.
Percentage growth of Web readers of the New York Times and Chicago Tribune, respectively, from December 2004 to December 2005: 22 percent and 99 percent.
Percentage growth of Web readers of newspaper web sites from December 2004 to December 2005: up 30 percent, or 55 million people.
Number of Web blogs worldwide: 27.2 million.

Source: Scarborough Research, Nielsen Net Ratings, Researcher Technorati, as reported by Brian Deagon, “Digital Era Leaves No Time For Newspapers To Rest In Print,” Yahoo News, 18 February 2006.

U.S. Government spending in 2006
U.S. Government spending per household: $23,760.
Breakdown: Social Security and Medicare, $7,875; defense, $4,701; low-income programs (Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies, tax credits), $3,579; interest on the federal debt, $1,930 (debt is currently at $8.2 trillion, of which $4.9 trillion is held by public bond owners and the rest by federal agencies); federal employee retirement benefits, $870; education, $732 (includes spending on low income children); health research/regulation, $671; veterans’ benefits, $618; community and regional development, $456 (includes Katrina relief); highways and mass transit, $402; justice administration, $363; unemployment benefits, $338; international affairs (foreign aid, cost of diplomacy), $302; natural resources/environment, $287; agriculture, $235. The remaining $398 is allocated to all other federal programs.

Source: Brian Riedl, “You be the judge: Do taxes give our money’s worth?” Houston Chronicle, 15 April 2006.

Police corruption in Russia
Percentage increase of crime in the Russian police force between 2004 and 2005: 50 percent.
Number of police officers in the Caucasus found to have cooperated with the Chechen freedom fighters: 156.
Number of police officers held criminally responsible in 2005: 4,269, including 630 senior officers.

Source: Interior Ministry’s internal security department, as reported by Interfax and then by Jonas Bernstein of Russia Reform Monitor, no. 1348, 3 February 2006.

Number of crimes committed in Russia in 2005: 3.5 million, up 25 percent over 2004.
Number of crimes that the police failed to record (according to Prosecutor General): 140,000, including 700 murders, 1,500 violent assaults, and 80,000 property crimes.

Source: Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov on 3 February 2006, as reported by Russia Reform Monitor, no. 1349,6 February 2006.

Stalin cult in Russia
Name of a major city in Russia which opened a museum glorifying Josef Stalin in March 2006: Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad).
Number of families who suffered political repression under Stalin in the Volgograd region: approximately 100,000.

Source: Eduard Polyakov, head of the local association of victims of political repression, as reported by Russia Reform Monitor, no. 1353, 20 February 2006.

Updated HIV statistics from Russia
Percentage of HIV-infected Russians who are 15-30 years of age: 80 percent.
Official number of HIV-infected citizens per 100,000: 231, or nearly double the 121-per 100,000 rate in 2001.

Source: Interfax, as reported by UPI (Moscow), 3 April 2006.

Polish soldiers in international missions
Number of Polish soldiers serving in UN, NATO, and EU peace missions in troubled areas in the world and in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq: about 2,000, including 900 in Iraq, 343 in Israel and Syria, 300 in Kosowo, 274 in Bosnia and Hercegovina, 213 in Lebanon, 130 in the People’s Republic of Congo, 124 in Afghanistan, and 6 in Georgia.
Source: Izabela Leszczynska in Dziennik (Warsaw), 19 June 2006.

Lithuanian demand for compensation from Russia
Amount of money the Lithuanian parliament has requested from Russia as compensation for the Soviet Russian occupation of their country between 1940-1989: 28 billion dollars.
Format in which the demand for compensation has been made (and, according to the speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament Arturas Palauskas, will continue to be made): raising the issue with Russian officials.

Source: RIA Novosti; UPI, 23 March 2006.

Persecution of the Catholic clergy and religious in Soviet-occupied Poland in 1945-1989
Number of documented cases of Catholic priests and nuns imprisoned or deprived of work and sustenance in 1945-1989: over 800.
Number of those killed: about 100, including over a dozen after 1981 (Father Jerzy Popie∏uszko being the best known).
Percentage of Catholic clergy and nuns otherwise harrassed during the period of the Soviet colonial occupation of Poland: between 10-15 percent.

Source: Dictionary of Polish Clergy Repressed in 1945-1989: the Killed, the Imprisoned, the Exiled (in Polish), edited by Jerzy Myszor, vol. 3 (Warsaw: Verbinum, 2006); reviewed in Rzeczpospolita, 16 June 2006.

Economic emigration from Poland

Number of people who in the last two years emigrated from Poland to Great Britain, Ireland, and Sweden, the three countries that opened their job markets to new EU members: 350,000.
Source: J´drzej Bielecki in Rzeczpospolita, 9 March 2006.

Polish physicians and emigration
Number of physicians in Poland in 2006: 120,000.
Number of physicians who sought and obtained certificates entitling them to work as physicians in other countries of the European Union: about 4,500.
The most common specialization among those emigrating: anesthesiology.

Source: Sylwia Szparkowska in Rzeczpospolita, 8 March 2006.

The view from Germany: emigration from and immigration to of physicians
Number of German physicians who worked abroad in 2006: 12,000.
Number of physicians with foreign passports who work in Germany: 17,991.
Number of current vacancies for physicians in Germany: about 6,000.
Number of physicians in Germany: about 140,000 in private practice and 145,000 in hospitals and clinics.
EU countries to which German physicians have emigrated: Great Britain (currently home to 2,600 German physicians), Norway (650), Sweden (700), France (593), Austria (786), Italy (538).
Countries from which physicians emigrate to Germany: the Russian Federation (1,591), Greece and Iran (1,265 each), and Poland (1,086).

Source: “Der Ärztetreck bewegt sich Richtung Westen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 March 2006.

Young Germans’ view of procreation
Percentage of Germans between 20-30 years of age who do not intend to have children: 25 percent of men and 20 percent of women.
Source: A German poll quoted by George Weigel in Europa, no. 26/2006 <www.dziennik.pl/magazyny/europa/wydania/artykul,114,strona,3.html>, as of 1 July 2006.

Internet use in Poland
Number of internet users in Poland in 2006: 10 million, or one in four citizens.
Percentage of people aged 15-19 who use the internet: 75 percent.

Source: Michal Jankowski in Donosy, no. 4189 (20 April 2006).

Flat tax in post-Soviet nations
Flat tax rates for individuals and businesses in Estonia in 2006: 23 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
Flat tax rates in Latvia: 25 and 15 percent; Lithuania 33 and 15 percent; Russia, 13 and 24 percent; Slovakia, 19 and 19 percent; Ukraine, 13 and 25 percent.

Source: Mary A. O’Grady, “Costa Rican Poverty Fighter,” Wall Street Journal, 5 May 2006.

Another reason to like IKEA
Countries that provide raw materials for IKEA merchandise: China, 18 percent; Poland, 12 percent; Sweden, 9 percent; Italy, 7 percent; Germany, 6 percent.
Source: Maggie Galehouse, “Sweden’s global accent,” Houston Chronicle, 20 May 2006.


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