Why Do I Need a Teacher When I’ve Got Google

uprooted people in June 2009 was standing at 42 million worldwide. And then there was the trouble in Sri Lanka, and the Swat Valley in Pakistan, and the floods in the Philippines, and the tsunami in the South Pacific Islands, and the earthquake in Indonesia … .
    5 Weapons of mass destruction becoming inexpensive
    These are real WMDs, not pretend ones.
    6 Growth of shanty-cities with extreme violence and poverty
    Where do I start? Take Brazil. A recent study found that 5,000 people aged between 12 and 18 are killed in Brazil’s cities and towns each year, most of whom are poor and uneducated black males. 6 The forecast is that figure will stand at 33,000 by 2012. Or India. This is from a report by the Asian Development Bank party funded by the British government:
    With more than half the world’s population projected to be living in urban centers by 2020, the dream of a better quality of life is being undermined by an increasing menace—urban violence. Surveys and poverty assessments show that urban violence has risen by 3%–5% per year over the last 20 years—and the degree of violence has intensified. This violence ranges from street crime, such as muggings, robberies, and carjackings; to kidnappings, murder, drug-related violence, and organized crime conducted by gangs; to assaults, sexual violence, and personal abuse. Asia experiences lower rates of violence than other regions. Butit is home to an explosive growth in urbanization, which brings a threat of more violence.
    ( www.adb.org/Documents/Periodicals/ADB_Review/2003/vol35_6/violence_poor.asp )
    7 Mass recruitment for suicide terrorism
    From the book,
The Making of a Terrorist: Recruitment, Training, and Root Causes
by James J. F. Forest, a three-volume set with over 50 contributors from around the world:
    While conventional wisdom prior to 9/11 would have many of us believe that terrorists and potential terrorist recruits reside in some remote location, today it is much better understood that recruitment for terrorism can take place anywhere, from big cities like London, Hamburg and New York to the picturesque town of Cour d’Alene, Idaho or the tranquil villages of Kamikushiki and Tomizawa, near Mount Fuji, Japan.
    (Forest 2005)
    8 Nuclear/biological terrorism
    This is ‘Recommendation 1’ from the
World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism
, a report submitted to George W Bush on 2 December 2008.
    The United States should undertake a series of mutually reinforcing domestic measures to prevent bioterrorism: (1) conduct a comprehensive review of the domestic program to secure dangerous pathogens, (2) develop a national strategy for advancing bioforensic capabilities, (3) tighten government oversight of high-containment laboratories, (4) promote a culture of security awareness in the life sciences community, and (5) enhance the nation’s capabilities for rapid response to prevent biological attacks from inflicting mass casualties.
    ( www.scribd.com/doc/8574914/World-at-Risk-The-Report-of-the-Commission-on-the-Prevention-of-WMD-Proliferation-and-Terrorism-Full-Report )
    9 Religious war between Muslims and Christians
    Only a few months before his controversial
Nobel Peace Price
win in October 2009, President Obama was still being accused of planting seeds of ‘revenge and hatred’ amongst Muslims, by Bin Laden.
    10 Exposure from extreme science to new dangers
    This from a 2001 online BBC report 7 : ‘Earlier this year, scientists in Australia were working on a genetically-based contraceptive to control the country’s mouse plague. But, in the process, they accidentally created an unusually deadly strain of mousepox, which is related to the human smallpox virus.’ Oops!
    11 Rivers and aquifers drying up
    A report in
The Economist
in April 2009 8 stated that the Rio Grande, the Colorado and the Yellow River no longer reached the sea and that, with farmers using three-quarters of the world’s water, we need to find an extra 60 per cent more to feed the predicted two billion extra mouths by 2030. Bear in mind that China has 15 per cent of the world’s population but just 5 per cent of the world’s water. A 1999 report from Earthwatch identified the depletion of aquifers as one of the main three reasons why the death rate was rising in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian sub-continent (the others were HIV epidemics and shrinking cropland area per person). It went on to state that in India,