Note that the tables there are life expectancy at birth. It would be interesting to see tables for life expectancy for, say, 30 year olds. Many countries with low life expectancy get that way mostly because infants and children have to run a gauntlet of disease. This really brings the average down.
A recent EconTalk, not sure which one, one of the ones on health care, also suggested that some countries with very low infant mortality are that way because they record fewer live births than the US.
Never thought that Cameroon were that bad before. I mean, you know it's a country in Africa and that's not the best place to be, but you never hear anything about it. It's not like they are mentioned together with the other countries where people die all the time.
I also thought that South Africa was not that bad too, but from this point of view they are in a pretty bad shape.
It should be noted that most countries toward the top are among the smallest.
E.g., in this list:
1 Monaco
2 Macau
2 San Marino
3 Andorra
the countries listed are not just small, but among the smallest in the world. Monaco is not even more than 1 sq. mile!
This is a good example of the law of small numbers. The PDF posted to Hacker News just five days ago provides an excellent explanation of why small countries would be at both the top and the bottom of this list. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893258
