*http://home.co.ke/index.php/arts-and-culture/culture/127-culture/425--kenya-... (from Access Kenya) For all y'all who'd packed your bags and were leaving for other countries, here's some news that may give you pause ... * A survey carried out by American periodical, Newsweek, has ranked Kenya as the best country in East Africa, fourth in sub-Saharan Africa, (after Botswana, South Africa and Ghana), and 87th worldwide. The ranking was out of 100 countries and five categories of national well being --- education, health, political environment, economic dynamism and quality of life --- were used to deduce the ranking. Although Newsweek says that their study is not 'perfect', it does give a good idea of how countries are performing around the world. According to Newsweek, the best country in the world is Finland, followed by Switzerland, Sweden and Australia. The USA and UK were ranked 11th and 14th respectively. Out of about 193 countries in the world (the number varies depending on who is doing the counting), numbers 80, 82, 86 and 87 went to Botswana, SA, Ghana and Kenya. North African countries, categorised differently, seemed to rank on average better than sub-Saharan countries. Egypt, for instance, was ranked 74. Tunisia and Morocco were 65 and 67 respectively. I was surprised to find that Rwanda was not mentioned at all in the top 100. And our oga brothers (Nigeria) came in at 99. Countries with smaller populations seemed to rank higher than those with big populations. Of the top 10 best countries, seven have small populations of less than 20 million people and they each enjoy a high per capita income of more than $12,000 per year --- Sh967,000 per annum or Sh80,000 per month. /Compiled by Judy Mumo/ --