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Background: Over the past half century the global tendency for improvements in longevity has been uneven across countries. This has resulted in widening of inter-country disparities in life expectancy. Moreover, the pattern of divergence appears to be driven in part by processes at the level of country groupings defined in geopolitical terms. A systematic quantitative analysis of this phenomenon has not been possible using demographic decomposition approaches as these have not been suitably adapted for this purpose. In this paper we present an elaboration of conventional decomposition techniques to provide a toolkit for analysis of the inter-country variance, and illustrate its use by analyzing trends in life expectancy in developed countries over a 40-year period. Methods: We analyze trends in the population-weighted variance of life expectancy at birth across 36 developed countries and three country groups over the period 1970-2010. We have modified existing decomposition approaches using the stepwise replacement algorithm to compute age components of changes in the total variance as well as variance between and within groups of Established Market Economies (EME), Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The method is generally applicable to the decomposition of temporal changes in any aggregate index based on a set of populations. Results: The divergence in life expectancy between developed countries has generally increased over the study period. This tendency dominated from the beginning of 1970s to the early 2000s, and reversed only after 2005. From 1970 to 2010, the total standard deviation of life expectancy increased from 2.0 to 5.6 years among men and from 1.0 to 3.6 years among women. This was determined by the between-group effects due to polarization between the EME and the FSU. The latter contrast was largely fueled by the long-term health crisis in Russia. With respect to age, the increase in the overall divergence was attributable to between-country differences in mortality changes at ages 15-64 years compared to those aged 65 and older. The within-group variance increased, especially among women. This change was mostly produced by growing mortality differences at ages 65 and older. Conclusions: From the early 1970s to the mid-2000s, the strong divergence in life expectancy across developed countries was largely determined by the between-group variance and mortality polarization linked to the East--West geopolitical division. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the relationship between the policies of the Soviet Union and the state of communism in Europe following World War Two. The author attests that two fundamental differences arose in the Soviet attitude regarding Europe: the cessation of revolution as a viable means of solving conflicts between states and the emergence of a communist influence that was integral to Europe’s future. The role of Joseph Stalin, who held the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee, is discussed. The paper urges that the hostilities that arose between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia led to the demise of any potential for international communism.

Understanding rainfall variability in the arid, rugged landscapes of Iran requires studying the climatology and spatial patterns of daily precipitation. This paper applies geostatistical and other methods to daily precipitation data from 90 stations that are distributed across Iran to calculate daily rainfall concentration and intensity and map their spatial distribution. The results show that daily precipitation tends to be irregular and intense across much of Iran and that a disproportionately large share of the annual rainfall comes from a small number of high intensity to extreme rainfall events. Analysis of daily rainfall concentration confirms that extreme events are widely distributed across the country, with more than 20% of the land area exposed to the risk of extreme rainfall. The areas experiencing the most frequent extreme events are the hot, dry southern coast and the western slopes of the main north–south range, the Zagros Mountains. Even the wettest parts of the country along the Caspian Sea coast derive a significant amount of their rain from high intensity and extreme events. A cross-validation analysis supports the reliability and accuracy of the geostatistical modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]