TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

 It is so important students choose a topic they can get interested in. Here is a selection.

 Each of these points should be an interesting starting point for you to find out more and get a discussion going.

Each statement is only a starting point for you to develop an opinion and do some personal research to find out more.

( If you are very interested in any of these topics you may ask Mr. Kelly for the detailed article that you can have a opy of for your personal use.)

1." Life Expectancy" The average Japanese woman can expect to live to be 84. The average Botswanan will reach just 39.

2." Obesity" A third of the world's obese people live in the developing world.

3.  "Teenage Pregnancy"The US and Britain have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the developed world.

4. China has 44 million missing women. ( They have a population imbalance due to preference for sons and the one child policy.

5. Brazil has more Avon ladies than members of the armed services.

6. Eighty-one of the world's executions in 2002 took place in just three countries: China, Iran, and the USA.

7.British Supermarkets know more about their customers than the British government does.

8. Every cow in the European Union is subsidised by $2.50 a day.  That is more than what 75% of Africans have to live on.

9. In more than 70 countries, same sex relationships are illegal. In nine countries, the penalty is death.

10.One in five of the worl'ds peoplelives on less than $1 a day.

11. More than 12,000 women are killed each year in Russia as a result of domestic violence.

12. In 2003, 15 million Americans had some form of plastic surgery.

13. Landmines kill or maim at least one person every hour.

14. There are 44 million child labourers in India.

15. People in industrialised countries eat between six and seven kilograms of food additives every year.

16.  The golfer Tiger Woods is the world's highest -paid sportsman. He earns $78 million a year -or $148 every second.

17. Seven million American women and 1 million American men suffer an eating disorder.

18. Nearly half of British fifteen year olds have tried illegal drugs and nearly a quarter are regular cigarette smokers.

20. Cars kill two people every minute.

21.Since 1977 , there have been more than 90,000 acts of violence and disruption at abortion clinics in North America.

22. More people can identify the Mc Donald arches than the Christian Cross.

23. The World's trade in illegal drugs is estimated to be worth around $400 billion dollars about the same as the world's legal pharmaceutical industry.

24. More than 150 countries use torture.

25. Every day , one in five of the world's population- some 800 million people go hungry.

26. Black men born in the US today stand a one in three chance of going to jail.

27. A third of the world's population is at war.

28. The World's oil reserves could be exhausted by 2040.

29. Eighty -two per cent of the world's smokers live in developing countries.

30. More , than 70% of the world's population have never heard a dial tone.

31. A quarter of the World's armed conflicts of recent years have involved a struggle for natural resources.

32. Some 30 million people in Africa are HIV - positive.

33. Ten languages die out each year.

34. More people die each year from suicide than in all the world's armed conflicts.

35. Every week, an average of 88 children are expelled from American schools for bringing a gun to class.

36. There are at least 300.000 prisoners of conscience in the world.

37. Two million girls and womwn are subjected to female genital mutilation each year.

38. There are 300,000 child soldiers fighting in conflicts around the world.

39.  Nearly 26 million people voted in the 2001 British general election. More than 32 million votes were cast in the first season of pop Idol.

40. America spends $10 billion on pornography every year- the same as it spends on foreign aid.