An Apology

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The term ‘third world’ which we have been using in articles posted on this website, and which refers to poor, mostly southern hemisphere countries, is now considered as being politically incorrect. It has been superseded by the more up-to-date expression ‘developing countries’. According to Wikipedia the term ‘third world’ is lately thought as having derogatory overtones, and as being insulting to the people who come from this part of the world, because it implies that their home countries are somehow third class or third rate, or in any case not as good as first class. The term ‘third world’ also gives the impression that these countries are stagnating and will forever be poor, whereas the term ‘developing countries’ has a fresher more vigorous feeling to it. Now that these countries have been re-designated we can be sure that the people living there will be motivated to work harder to build their countries up to ‘first world’ status, instead of deciding to leave and move to the ‘developed countries’ (that’s us). We can only apologise for using this demeaning language, thereby stifling the efforts of our ‘third world’ cousins.