Some Interesting Facts!

These amazing facts were uncovered by the Strategic Foresight Group, an Independent Think Tank, during the course of their research:

• A weekly in Europe, Ekaitza, was fined in France in February 2002 for publishing a cartoon in the week after 9/11, showing the two collapsed towers with the caption that said "We dreamt of it – Hamas did it" and the publisher tendered an apology for publishing the cartoon. (This episode is mentioned in Globalised Islam by Olivier Roy, eminent French scholar, published in 2004 in UK.) .
• The Arab world is the founder of the modern thought, particularly in science and technology. Al Khwarizmi is the founder of modern algebra (circa 9th century). Al Kindi wrote 250 books on philosophy, physics, medicine and metallurgy. Ibn Haiyan founded chemistry. Ibn Haytham discovered the science of optics and also explored momentum and gravity of the earth 600 years before Galileo. Al Biruni determined the earth's circumference. Ibn Sina wrote 450 books on medicine and philosophy, mathematics and astronomy.
• About 400 million people have been killed in all the wars of the last 2000 years. Out of them more than 100 million were killed in the 20th century alone.
• About 100 million children die every decade because of hunger, malnutrition and preventable diseases; at this rate 500 million children will die in the first half of the 21st century.
• According to a UN report, there are 88 million unemployed young people in the age group of 15-25 years. As the UN methodology is liberal, the actual number of unemployed youth might be more than 100 million.
• The Gulf Cooperation Council states are likely to accumulate a surplus of more than $1500 billion from oil revenue during 2006-2010, if the price of oil is around $55-60 per barrel. The surplus of all oil exporting countries is expected to be over $2500 billion by 2010.
• Lashkar-e-Taiba, based in Pakistan, is the new leader of Islamic International Front created by Al Qaeda.
• Lord's Resistance Army, based in Uganda, is probably the most brutal terrorist organisation in the world; it forces its new recruits to kill their own siblings. Yet this group has drawn hardly any punitive action from the international community as compared to some of the other groups.
• In the first Crusade, the French and German Christians first killed Jews in large numbers in their areas before they marched to the East.