First of all: this does definetely not look like a first program. You have already done things lots of people need years to grok: strict, warnings, CGI.pm .

First hint: often it's just more beatiful to hard-code a list using qw//, not quting each element of the list...

my @members = qw/Algeria Indonesia .../;
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Second: The HTML-generating functions of CGI.pm work differently. You must nest the functions like the resulting HTML.

print $query->td( { -style => 'width:600px' },
    $query->p( '....' )
);
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Avoid the use of globals like your $period variable (a lexical that works like global here): First, it's confusing, especially when you have a lexical $period within a sub and second: it's obfuscating anyways. Rather pass such things as parameters.

Finally you're inconsistent about the use of CGI.pm to generate HTML. A very personal note: please consider using XHTML.

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