The Nation / 10 September 1998 Headlines Thailand 12th among developing nations THAILAND ranks 12th among developing countries, by United Nations' standards, with a small percentage of the population living in poverty, while it fares well in human development, staying in 59th spot among the 174-country list this year. In its annual Human Development Report published on Wednesday, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said Thailand and Singapore are the two Southeast Asian countries that fare well among other developing countries in terms of life expectancy, literacy and living standards that formed the basis for the Human Poverty Indicator (HPI). The HPI used the criteria of percentage of individuals with a life expectancy of less than 40 and children of insufficient body weight, adult illiteracy, access to health care and drinking water. According to the report, among the top countries are Trinidad and Tobago, followed by Chile, Uruguay, Singapore, Costa Rica, Jordan, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Jamaica and Thailand. In Thailand, the life expectancy at birth is 69.5 years and the adult literacy rate is 93.8 per cent. China came 16th, the Philippines 19th, Indonesia 21st, Iran 26th, Guatemala 39th, Egypt 46th, India 47th, Pakistan 63rd and Ivory Coast 64th. The ten at the bottom are mostly African countries, namely Mozambique, Senegal, Yemen, Guinea, Burundi, Mali, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Niger. For the industrialised countries, the HPI takes into account the percentage of life expectancy of at least 60, a poverty level lower than half of the personal income, long- term unemployment and illiteracy. In terms of human poverty, Sweden ranks best, followed by The Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Italy, Finland, France, Japan, Denmark, Canada, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Britain, Ireland and the United States. Nineteen per cent of Americans live below the poverty line, compared with 13.5 per cent in Britain, 11 per cent in Ireland, Japan and Canada, 7.5 per cent in France and some six per cent in Finland and Germany. In the Human Development Indicator which also takes into account decent living standards and unemployment, Thailand ranks 59th, following Singapore (28th) and Brunei (35th), but leading Malaysia (60th), Indonesia (96th), the Philippines (98), Vietnam (122th), Laos (136th) and Cambodia (140th). An UNDP official in Bangkok said this indicator, however, did not reflect the present state of affairs following the Asian financial crisis since it is based on data available two years ago. The ten leading countries are Canada, France, Norway, the United States, Iceland, Finland, The Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand and Sweden. Germany is 19th, Italy 21st, Hong Kong 25th, Brazil 62nd, Russia 72nd, South Africa 89th, China 106th and India 139th. The bottom ten are Gambia, Mozambique, Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Burundi, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone (163rd). According to the report, in total the world's richest nations are home to more than 100 million people who have incomes below the poverty line, at least 37 million who are unemployed, 100 million who are homeless and almost 200 million people with a life expectancy of less than 60 years. The Nation / 10 September 1998 Workers sneak through Laos FOREIGN Ministry spokesman Kobsak Chutikul said on Wednesday that an increasing number of Thais are seeking illegal employment in China and South Korea using the land route through Laos. Kobsak said the Thai Embassy in Beijing last month helped three Thais who became stranded having travelled as tourists into China with the intention of seeking employment in South Korea. He said the three had valid visas for China and did not require visas for South Korea because Thais are allowed to stay up to 90 days there without visas. However, the economic crisis in South Korea has forced the country to expel illegal workers and has dramatically reduced the number of legal workers in the country. According to the Chinese authorities, an increasing number of Thais are using the land route from Vientiane to the border. After crossing the Lao-Chinese border, they move to Kunming in the Southern part of Yunan before travelling to Beijing. Rights Group Says U.S. Immigrants Abused In Jails By Anthony Boadle WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A human rights group criticized the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Wednesday for holding detainees in jails where they were mixed up with criminals and subjected to abuses. In a report on jails in seven U.S. states, Human Rights Watch urged the INS to stop using local county jails for detainees, whose numbers have overwhelmed INS facilities in an ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration in the United States. In one case, INS detainees at Jackson County Correctional Facility in Florida said they had been shackled to concrete slabs and given shocks with electrified batons. "The INS is shipping immigrants off to local jails where they don't belong," said Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth. "This practice violates international standards and must stop." The INS welcomed the report's recommendations, but said an explosive rise in detentions due to the enhanced enforcement of immigration laws had meant holding detainees in facilities where INS officials do not control prison conditions. "Ideally, we would like to house all detainees in INS- run facilities because they are the ones over which we have the greatest control of conditions," INS Commissioner Doris Meissner said in a statement. "This is not a viable option, however, given the growth in demand for bed space and budgetary constraints we face." Meissner said the number of detained immigrants in the United States had soared from 6,600 in 1995 to 16,000 on Sept. 1 of this year. INS detainees include asylum seekers, illegal immigrants picked up on the street or during workplace raids, as well as foreigners who are awaiting deportation. But Human Rights Watch said none had criminal sentences and should not be placed in jails with common criminals. Abuses cited in the report included the denial of medical care, frequent and unexplained transfers to other jails, no outdoor exercise, and isolation from families and friends with restrictive telephone, correspondence and visitation policies. Immigration detainees had a hard time getting legal counsel in jail, the report said. Roth said immigration detainees who cannot be deported, because neither their own country nor any third country will accept them, were effectively serving an open-ended criminal sentence in a U.S. jail. Immigrants from Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq and Iran had been held for three years or more and had no idea when they would be released or deported, the report said. Asylum seekers who had fled abusive governments and were protected by international laws have faced a new kind of abuse by being mixed up with illegal immigrants and criminals in jail, the rights group said. The INS said 5 percent of detained immigrants were asylum seekers and, wherever possible, the INS held them in INS facilities due to their special circumstances. The INS said it also tried to segregate immigrants from criminals, but that was not always possible, and was revising the standards it requires at local jails. The average length of stay for all detainees was 34 days, the INS said. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 200 INS detainees in 14 jails in Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. The INS is now holding more than half of its detainees in local jails at an average cost of $500,000 a day, or $58 a day per detainee, the report said. The INS has contracts with 75 jails in Texas, 33 in Florida and 26 in Louisiana, it said. Rich and Poor-List By The Associated Press The United Nations Development Program's annual "human development index" ranking countries in terms of life expectancy, income and education: 1. Canada 2. France 3. Norway 4. United States 5. Iceland 6. Finland 7. Netherlands 8. Japan 9. New Zealand 10. Sweden 11. Spain 12. Belgium 13. Austria 14. United Kingdom 15. Australia 16. Switzerland 17. Ireland 18. Denmark 19. Germany 20. Greece 21. Italy 22. Israel 23. Cyprus 24. Barbados 25. Hong Kong (China) 26. Luxembourg 27. Malta 28. Singapore 29. Antigua and Barbuda 30. South Korea 31. Chile 32. Bahamas 33. Portugal 34. Costa Rica 35. Brunei 36. Argentina 37. Slovenia 38. Uruguay 39. Czech Republic 40. Trinidad and Tobago 41. Dominica 42. Slovakia 43. Bahrain 44. Fiji 45. Panama 46. Venezuela 47. Hungary 48. United Arab Emirates 49. Mexico 50. St. Kitts and Nevis 51. Grenada 52. Poland 53. Colombia 54. Kuwait 55. St. Vincent 56. Seychelles 57. Qatar 58. St. Lucia 59. Thailand 60. Malaysia 61. Mauritius 62. Brazil 63. Belize 64. Libya 65. Suriname 66. Lebanon 67. Bulgaria 68. Belarus 69. Turkey 70. Saudi Arabia 71. Oman 72. Russia 73. Ecuador 74. Romania 75. North Korea 76. Croatia 77. Estonia 78. Iran 79. Lithuania 80. Macedonia 81. Syria 82. Algeria 83. Tunisia 84. Jamaica 85. Cuba 86. Peru 87. Jordan 88. Dominican Republic 89. South Africa 90. Sri Lanka 91. Paraguay 92. Latvia 93. Kazakhstan 94. Western Samoa 95. Maldives 96. Indonesia 97. Botswana 98. Philippines 99. Armenia 100. Guyana 101. Mongolia 102. Ukraine 103. Turkmenistan 104. Uzbekistan 105. Albania 106. China 107. Namibia 108. Georgia 109. Kyrgyzstan 110. Azerbaijan 111. Guatemala 112. Egypt 113. Moldova 114. El Salvador 115. Swaziland 116. Bolivia 117. Cape Verde 118. Tajikistan 119. Honduras 120. Gabon 121. Sao Tome and Principe 122. Vietnam 123. Solomon Islands 124. Vanuatu 125. Morocco 126. Nicaragua 127. Iraq 128. Congo 129. Papua New Guinea 130. Zimbabwe 131. Myanmar 132. Cameroon 133. Ghana 134. Lesotho 135. Equatorial Guinea 136. Laos 137. Kenya 138. Pakistan 139. India 140. Cambodia 141. Comoros 142. Nigeria 143. Democratic Republic of Congo 144. Togo 145. Benin 146. Zambia 147. Bangladesh 148. Ivory Coast 149. Mauritania 150. Tanzania 151. Yemen 152. Nepal 153. Madagascar 154. Central African Republic 155. Bhutan 156. Angola 157. Sudan 158. Senegal 159. Haiti 160. Uganda 161. Malawi 162. Djibouti 163. Chad 164. Guinea-Bissau 165. Gambia 166. Mozambique 167. Guinea 168. Eritrea 169. Ethiopia 170. Burundi 171. Mali 172. Burkina Faso 173. Niger 174. Sierra Leone