New edition of the annual best-seller of fascinating facts and figures about the world we live in. The 2001 edition has been completely updated, revised and refreshed, with expanded coverage that includes an appropriately-2001 section on space exploration and UFO sightings. As regulars will know, the book contains extensive global information on subjects as diverse and comprehensive as geography, population, business, the economy, trade, transport, finance, the environment, society, culture and crime. If you want to know the highest mountain or the longest river, where economic growth is fastest or inflation is highest, who consumes most energy, where computer or mobile phone ownership is highest, the highest murder rate, who spends most/ who spends least on health, the heaviest drinkers and smokers, where the internet has taken greatest hold, there is no more authoritative and absorbing a source.