Drink Up

The world drank the equivalent of 6.1 liters of pure alcohol per person in 2005, according to the World Health Organization. The biggest boozers are mostly found in Europe and in the former Soviet states. Moldovans are the most bibulous, getting through 18.2 liters each, nearly 2 liters more than the Czechs in second place.

The WHO estimates that alcohol results in 2.5m deaths a year, more than AIDS or tuberculosis. In Russia and its former satellite states one in five male deaths is caused by drink.