As you may well be aware, this new look follows on the heels of our decision to make the entire site free for all users. With this new redesign, when you are viewing a certain statistic, correlations and graphing tools are more easily accessible: with just a click of a button you can view up-to-date information with our unique visualization technology. Feel free to let us know if our redesign makes your researching and stat surfing more user-friendly.

Our redesign not only effects your ability to use our site; it also includes new behind-the-scenes technology that allows us to update our database more quickly and easily. This technology upgrade translates into more time-sensitive information at your fingertips, existing stats getting even more frequent updates, and new stats added at the drop of a hat. The ball is rolling at NationMaster: evermore relevant, evermore accurate, and getting larger all the time!

In other news, we've just made a NationMaster search engine plug-in for Mozilla-based browsers. This allows you to search NationMaster pages no matter what website you happen to be on, an excellent search function located on your toolbar. Click here to download the NationMaster plug-in.

And of course, it would have never been possible without our loyal fans. Everyone here at NationMaster would like to thank you for making us an indispensable internet resource! Be sure to give us plenty of feedback: what works, what doesn't, why there aren't more statistics on popsicle choking or off shore oil rigs. We read all our mail, and your reactions are important to NationMaster's continuing mission of being the one source for all your by-country statistical needs!

At NationMaster, we've always prided ourselves on being a largely free service – journalists come here for information about stories, net-users link to us to prove arguments in chat rooms, and stat buffs from all over the world come just to sift through the endlessly interesting statistics – all for free. But special functions – such as pie charts, scatterplots, and correlations graphs – have traditionally been reserved as rewards for those who chose to give a little bit extra to support the site.

Until today.

Now the entire site is free. For the first time, anyone in the world can generate pie charts, scatterplots, and correlations graphs for just about any statistic. And the results are amazing – even if we do say so ourselves! Want a pie chart showing which countries make up the greatest percentage of total world arms exports? Need to know what the correlation is between mobile phone use and women’s rights? Just try it out – we're sure you’ll be astonished at what you find.

Luke Metcalfe, founder of the site, explains the reasoning behind the shift:

"Because of all the support we've received over the past few years, we've reached a point where the site is financially self-sustaining. Rather than give ourselves a pay rise, we've decided it's a good time to give something back. Not enough people have been getting access to some of NationMaster's most amazing features. Now everyone can use all the site, all the time."

To use any of the newly free features, just adjust the "View" entry in the green NationMaster "Make Your Own Graph" toolbar. By default, it reads "Map & Graph / Table". Simply click on the arrow beside it, and select "Scatterplot", "Pie Chart", or "Correlations" from the drop-down box. Then select the statistics you want to compare. It's that easy!

Lastly, a word to our loyal supporters – from all of us here at NationMaster, thank you. Without your generous support, we would never have arrived where we are today – ready to give the whole world free access to the entire site.

Once again, everyone here at NationMaster extends a big thanks to all our supporters! Enjoy the newly free features!

Detailed statistics on population have also been added, so be sure to cruise through our age categories for both males and females. In particular, up-to-date information on annual rate of growth listed in percentages (with Afghanistan leading the way at an astonishing 4.8%) and births per 1,000 people (Niger is #1 at 51 births), may start more than one debate about the world's overpopulation.

The world's energy reserves are in focus as well, with around 50 key stats added. Critical information is at your fingertips, including oil barrels consumed daily, nuclear consumption rated on a scale of equivalent oil use, coal production, and hydroelectricity consumption in Terawatt-hours - all timely statistics essential toward understanding our ever-shrinking world. Get only the facts, and make the conclusions yourself!

Rather than focusing on link-based technology like Google, Factbites delves into the tone and subject matter of the given topic. The engine "reads" the content of each page and determines how meaningful the text is. It seeks out authoritative and informative content, preferring encyclopedia-style fact-based descriptions to the chatty, spammy and inconsequential.

The end result is a clean summary you can almost read from beginning to end. Not only is this an effective filter against spam and clutter, it's also a time saver, because it gives users a clear picture of what each destination site is about. For encyclopedia-style content, the site makes some large claims. The website challenges users to compare Factbites results to Google results at Factbites vs. Google. When searching for quick information on the sort of things you'd usually go to an encyclopedia for, the results are surprisingly clear - Factbites wins hands down. Don't take our word for it, check the site yourself - Factbites!

What can we do about this fury of nature? We can try to do what we are best at - give you the countrywise breakup of all the latest figures as we get them.

So you want to know the death toll in each country? See how many tourists are dead or missing? Just look at the 'Disaster' category we've just created. We have brought you details of the 'Aid Packages' pledged by various countries and also give you a brief look at the economic impact on the countries concerned. If you wish to see any other statistic related to this story, do tell us about it.

If you're wondering which countries have adopted major UN conventions against terrorism such as the Convention on the Seizure of Aircraft or the Convention on Protection of Nuclear Material, look no further! If you're fed up with politics, you might want to check out how often diplomats get away with not paying their parking fines.

This update includes some valuable statistics on what many people consider the most important thing in the world - happiness. How many of your country's citizens rate themselves as "very happy"? How many are not happy at all? Which nations provide the greatest life satisfaction?

Some of the new stats are sure to generate some controversy. Is there any relationship between church attendance and teenage pregnancy? What about with cannabis use? Which nation has put the most of its citizens in prison?

We also have a huge number of great new stats on education. Check out the starting salaries for primary teachers all over the world, the proportion of 20 year olds in tertiary education, and the share of university degrees awarded to females. Which nation's kids study the most? Which nation's teachers work the most weeks per year? How much teaching time is devoted to, say, mathematics? The answers are all here.

On the military front, take a look at our stats on tanks, US military exports, and worldwide military exports to developing nations.

This list doesn't really even scratch the surface. Kidnappings, world poverty, banana imports, days off work, and many, many more - we are the world's largest country database, after all.

In other news, a blogger has created a NationMaster search plugin for Mozilla / Firefox users, bringing NationMaster search into your browser.

As part of our ongoing effort to include reliable statistics on everything, we've added a whole selection of data on Catholicism to compare between nations. Where else could you find the number of Catholics, Catholic priests, Catholic parishes, and the number of permanent deacons, and compare them all between major nations in a per-capita format? More statistics on other major religions to be posted shortly.

In short, the latest NationMaster.com update has stats for everyone. Sports fans will be interested in the results from the first World Air Games, held in Turkey in 1997. Those with an interest in people movements might want to have a look at our new stats on refugees, including refugee outflow from the major nations and US approval rates for refugee status applications. Of particular note are our new pollution statistics, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and nuclear waste, all per capita.

We've also made a number of interface changes: