The Hmong are an ethnic group from the highlands of Laos. When a communist movement called the Pathet Lao began to gain power in Laos during the Vietnam War, the Central Intelligence Agency recruited the Hmong to fight the communists and attack North Vietnamese supply lines. The resulting conflict far outlasted the Vietnam War.
High suicide rate. Approximately 30,000 Japanese people commit suicide each year. Japan has the highest life expectancy rate in the world in part because of universal health insurance, compulsory primary education and a general healthy lifestyle, according to a new study.
Gains since the 1980s were 6 years in Japan and 5 years in France and Italy, as opposed to 3 years in the Netherlands and 2 years in the United States and Denmark. These different rates of increase also changed the ranking of countries with respect to life expectancy.