Pakistan, China ahead in the Failed States Index

The prestigious Washington Post publication, Foreign Policy, in collaboration with an independent research organization, The Fund for Peace, has released the fifth annual Failed States Index, which ranks 177 states in order from most to least at risk of failure. Expectedly, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan occupy top slots as states most likely to fail.  

The preface to this year's release says that these are indeed sobering times for the world's most fragile countries, what with a sapping global economic crisis, natural disasters, and government collapses. Yemen, it says, is experiencing a near-perfect storm of disappearing oil and water reserves; a flood of migrants, some allegedly with al Qaeda ties, coming in from Somalia, another failed state next door.

For insurgency-plagued Pakistan, says FP, the global crisis was a near-death experience. The state is bracing itself on IMF life support.

Other countries, dependent on the import and export of commodities-from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea to Bangladesh-have had a particularly rough time last year, suffering a ''whiplash effect'' as prices spiked sharply and then plummeted.

The survey says that with an increasing number of states teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and /or political chaos, world leaders from the United Nations, and organisations such as the World Bank, may well be faced with an uncomfortable dilemma: Whom to help when so many need it?