A new city for Saudi Arabia... what's so interesting about that?!

As part of the Y11 Society and Culture course, Kate told us about an amazing current event - the design and building of a brand new city in Saudi Arabia... for women only!! I thought it was interesting from a Geography perspective too.

In GEOGRAPHY it presents a new concept in the reasons for building new cities. WHO will POPULATE it? What will be the EFFECTS of this? What will this mean for the future of Islamic CULTURE?
See Kate's full report for more information on this story.

International Stats - UN Development Indicators

Here is a great website to find out a bit about different countries around the world.
Particularly useful for studying Global Inequality and th Global Link of Aid.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/map/
Click on the statistics tables tabs for even more data and to be able to search by country too.

Air Traffic Control

Check out this satellite view of global air traffic.
What do you notice about the More and Less developed countries??
Can you see the change from day to night around the world??

Earth Clock

Could watch this forever...!
Poodwaddle Widgets: Poodwaddle Earth Clock: Poodwaddle.com

Philippines swamped by flood waters

Storms, including Typhoon Haikui have pummelled Western Asia-Pacific, triggering floods.
This video from BBC Weather describes the reasons behind these events:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/19178740

At least 19 people have died in severe floods in the Philippine capital, Manila, and nearby areas as a result of intense, heavy rainfall over recent days. The capital city of Manila got 504 millimeters (about 20 inches) of rain on Tuesday.

BBC News Video Report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19160563

More than 80,000 people are being looked after in emergency shelters, with torrential rain leaving low-lying areas underwater.

BBC News Video Report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19178288

Rescuers are using rubber boats to reach stranded people, but some have refused to leave amid fears of looting.

Fuelled by seasonal monsoon rains and a nearby tropical storm, widespread flooding in the Philippines worsened on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people, the national disaster agency reported.

A landslide in the Manila suburb of Quezon City buried two houses, leaving nine people dead and four others injured, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Centre. Three of the dead were children, the state-run Philippines News Agency reported.

Click on the links for a selection of images from recent days showing the impact on people and the environment from Reuters and The Daily Mail

CNN Video report:

The worst hit parts of Manila were mostly the poorest districts, where millions of slum dwellers have built homes along riverbanks and other areas susceptible to flooding. Residents of low-lying slums fled the huge shantytowns, lining Manila's rivers and sewers for the safety of schools, gymnasiums and government buildings as the downpour generated by seasonal monsoons struck overnight.

About 80 per cent of Manila, a sprawling metropolis of about 12 million people, remained inundated on Wednesday, Benito Ramos, head of the national disaster agency, told Reuters news agency.

Global Issues - Revision and Quizzes

Use these links to see what you know about the world around us.
(Don't forget to also check out the 'Geography in the News' section of this Blog too!)

Issues That Affect Us All
http://www.globalissues.org/

Oxfam – Cool Planet
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/kidsweb/

Measure your carbon footprint!
http://www.google.co.uk/carbonfootprint/index.html

Newsround – what is going on in the world today?http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/world/default.stm

Seven Cameroonian athletes have disappeared while in Britain for the Olympics.

David Ojong, the head of the Cameroon delegation, said five boxers, a swimmer and a female football player had been missing since the weekend. The reason for their disappearance is not known, amid some reports that they wanted to stay in the UK for economic reasons.

Mr Ojong said the athletes had visas allowing them to stay until November.
"What began as rumour has finally turned out to be true," Mr Ojong said, in a letter sent to the Cameroonian sports ministry.
"Seven Cameroonian athletes who participated at the 2012 London Olympic Games have disappeared from the Olympic Village."
A reserve goalkeeper for the women's soccer team, Drusille Ngako, was the first to vanish, according to Mr Ojong. She disappeared while her teammates left for Coventry for their last preparatory encounter against New Zealand, he said. Her disappearance was followed by that of swimmer Paul Ekane Edingue, reportedly along with his personal belongings.
The five boxers who had been eliminated from the games disappeared from London's Olympic village on Sunday, Mr Ojong said. They were named as Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Abdon Mewoli, Blaise Yepmou Mendouo and Serge Ambomo.
The home office said it could not comment on whether any of the seven had sought asylum in the country, the Associated Press reports. According to the news agency, it is not the first case of its kind, with Sudan's embassy confirming last month that three athletes had gone missing. One had applied for asylum and the other two were expected to do so.

If the Earth were a village of a hundred people

This year the world population tipped over 7 billion. It is practically impossible to image the actual size of the Earth and it's population. So try condensing it into a community of just 100 people and check out this Miniature Earth website!
What if, rather than grapple with endless triplets of zeros, we shrank the world, and all the potentially flummoxing data we mine from it, down to a more manageable size? What if the world were a truly global village of, say, 100 people? What would those faces look like, and who would those people be? How many people would be from Oceania? Click on the link and find out!

There are lots of other versions of this idea too, try finding more in an internet search. Why do you think different versions have slightly different results?