1 October (Wellington) The three Pacific nations face huge battles on the rugby pitch this weekend to achieve some mighty upsets that would enable any of them to get to the quarterfinals – rather like the battles they face on the world stage. Size and isolation count against them. In both rugby and social equality, France places above Tonga. The ...

1 October (Nelson) At first glance it looks as though Australia has both competitions sewn up. The Wallabies are a force to be reckoned with on the field while the Russian Bears rank a lowly 19th in the World Cup pool. Russia is also bringing up the rear in the social equality and justice rankings at number 20 while Australia sits somewhere in the ...

Further to yesterday’s blog on New Zealand’s ranking – the Pacifica nations also probably rank higher than they should in our indicative rankings – we haven’t factored in gender inequality properly yet. The latest Human Development Report 2010 had no figures for the Gender Inequality Index for Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. Presumably ...