I think this is the kind of world that we all yearn for. However, does this world exist only in our dreams? Well, we have barely been into the 4th year of the 21st century, but it has already been marred by so much bloodshed. There was the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Afghan war, the Bali bombings, the Iraq War, the JW Marriott bombings and even more recently, the taking of Russian children as hostages and the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.

I think that the world has become an uglier place, with all that killing of innocent people. What makes of you when you take defenceless children hostage? The taking of adults as hostages is a totally different story. What you are talking about here are just little tots, who definitely have done nothing to deserve being treated so brutally, and to be traumatized. The emotional trauma will haunt them forever, I believe. What did they do which warranted such treatment? Nothing.

I believe that such acts of terror would not cease. There is every reason to believe that such acts of terror will become more frequent, and perhaps even deadlier.

The dawn of the 21st century has not spelt hope for us. Rather, we find ourselves fighting a war- the war on terror. We find ourselves wanting to say, "What a beautiful world".