Numbers: Oct. 1, 2007

Correction Appended: Oct. 1, 2007

CHILD MORTALITY

9.7 million

Number of children under age 5 who died in 2006 worldwide–a record low, down from almost 13 million in 1990

19%

Percentage of children under age 5 who died of pneumonia between 2000 and 2003. Undernutrition is the root cause of 53% of deaths in that age group

GAY RIGHTS

195

Number of major U.S. businesses that earned the highest score in the Corporate Equality Index, a Human Rights Campaign metric that rates how employers treat lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees on a scale of 0 to 100. UPS, Yahoo! and MasterCard were among the companies that received top marks

13

Number of businesses that received the top rating when the index was first released, in 2002

MOTORCYCLES

10%

Percentage of motorcyclists in the U.S. who are female. Women make up the fastest-growing segment in the $9.7 billion industry

41

Average age of motorcyclists today, up from 32 in 1990

SKYSCRAPERS

2,625

Expected height in feet (800 m) of the Burj Dubai, a hotel, business and residential complex under construction in the United Arab Emirates. It just surpassed the CN Tower in Toronto, which stands at 1,814 ft. (553 m), as the world’s tallest freestanding structure

$4.1 billion

Cost of the Burj Dubai. Workers have already completed 145 of 165 floors, working at a pace of one floor every three days

Sources: UNICEF (2); Human Rights Campaign Foundation (2); Seattle Times (2); CTV News (2)

The original version of this article incorrectly cited FedEx as being one of the companies that received a top score in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. The company was in fact UPS.