WORLD TO BE PLANET OF THE SLUMS

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DANIEL HOWDEN, INDEPENDENT, UK - The combined forces of population
growth and urbanization are creating a planet of slums, where the urban
population will have doubled by 2030, according to a report released by
the United Nations today. The shanty towns that choke the cities of
Africa and Asia are experiencing unstoppable growth, expanding by more
than a million people every week, according to the "state of the world's
population" report.

The UN's findings echo recent predictions that 2008 will see a watershed
in human history as the balance of the world's population tips from
rural to urban. Many of the new urbanites will be poor and the shelters
into which they move, or are born, will be slums. . .

Mike Davis, a population expert, described this emerging underclass in
his recent work Planet of Slums as: "A billion-strong global proletariat
ejected from the formal economy, with Islam and Pentecostalism as songs
for the dispossessed." While some critics have accused Mr Davis of
scaremongering, the UN's findings appear to back many of his basic
assertions. . .

The rise of radical Islam in Africa, from the outskirts of Jakarta to
the slums of Egypt, is well documented but the continent is also
experiencing a Christian shift, with Pentecostalism winning converts
from Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo. . .

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2714169.ece

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