Survey Shows a Record 40 Percent of World Is Free

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A report on worldwide democracy and human rights released on Wednesday found major progress in those areas in Mexico and Yugoslavia, with over 40 percent of the world's population living in free nations.

The Freedom House report, ``Freedom in the World 2000-2001,'' said 86 countries, representing 2.5 billion people, or 40.7 percent of the world's population, were ``free,'' the highest proportion given that rating in the history of the survey, which dates to 1981. Inhabitants of those countries enjoy a broad range of rights.

Another 59 countries, encompassing 1.4 billion people, or 23.8 percent of the world's population, were described as ''partly free,'' with limited political liberties and civil rights.

Finally, 35.5 percent of the world's people live in the 47 nations considered not free, where citizens are denied basic political rights and civil liberties, according to Freedom House...

But the group reserved its ``worst of the worst'' status for Afghanistan, Burma, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan, 11 nations in which citizens are denied a broad range of even the most basic freedoms, it said.