Pak among five least popular countries in world: BBC Poll

London, Mar. 30 (ANI): According to the annual BBC's World Service Survey, Pakistan stands among the five least popular countries, which have the most negative influence on world affairs.

Eighteen countries have mainly negative views of Pakistan's influence, according to the survey conducted after the Mumbai terror attack, widely believed to have been carried out by Pakistani-based guerillas.

Israel, Iran, North Korea and the US were widely seen as exerting the most negative influence on world affairs, The Dawn reports.

Views of the United States remained predominantly negative despite the victory of Barack Obama in the November 2008 presidential elections.

"Though BBC polls have shown that most people around the world are hopeful that Barack Obama will improve US relations with the world, it is clear that his election alone is not enough to turn the tide," said Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, which helped conduct the survey.

The survey, which questioned some 13,500 respondents in 21 countries around the world, found that perceptions of Russian and Chinese influence also became considerably more negative during 2008.

Respondents also included citizens from China, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, and Australia in the greater Asian region. Polling also took place in Egypt, Ghana, and Nigeria.

Respondents were given a list of 15 nations and asked whether they thought those countries exercised a 'mainly positive' or 'mainly negative' influence on the world. They could also volunteer that they were neutral or didn't know or care to express a clear opinion.

As in last year's survey, Germany topped the favorable list, with an average of 61 per cent of respondents describing its influence as 'mainly positive' and only 15 per cent who said it was 'mainly negative'.

At the other end of the scale, the most negatively viewed country was Iran with an average of 55 per cent of respondents describing its influence as mainly negative and 17 per cent as mainly positive. (ANI)