Body Scanner "Harassment"

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/03/25/uk.heathrow.scanner/index.html?npt=NP1

A 25 year old male who works at London's Heathrow Airport has been given a warning after making a "lewd remark" about a lady that was scanned by one of their new full body scanners. A spokeswoman for the BAA, which runs the airport, said that this situation will be investigated more thoroughly and the "appropriate action" will be taken for the employee. These new full body scanners were implemented by other airports to strengthen the security after the December 25th incident. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown believes that these scanners are necessary to combat against terrorism. However others believe that it is an invasion of privacy.

This is important to the world because other nations might be going through the same problems as they are trying to decide if this is a good or bad way to combat against terrorism. Terrorism has affected so much, and it has made regular flights more difficult. Now we have to start go through security that invades our privacy. If countries are willing to implement this, they need to make sure what happened in Heathrow Airport is never going to happen.

Russian Subway Incident

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/03/30/russia.subway.explosions/index.html

Two women were responsible for 39 deaths and 60 injured people, on the Moscow metro. The two women denoted their explosives just before 8 A.M. on 3/29/10. The Russian officials believe that the Chechen rebels were behind this terrorist attack. They also believe the two women had accomplices to help them out. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev plans to use force to eliminate terrorists and bandits. Ramzan Kadyrov, the Russian backed leader of Chechnya believes that these terrorists should be "poisoned like rats". President Medvedev and Kadyrov both want to eliminate terrorism, but they both acknowledge how difficult the road is going to be. It's not a surprise that this attack was from Chechen rebels. This fight against Russia and Chechnya which has been going on for nearly 20 years. Chechens claim to land own the land in the Caucasus Mountains region which is currently owned by Russia. Thousands of people died and suffered for this fight.

It's always sad to hear about terrorism. It's devastating to see those innocent lives taken away for a selfish reason. This also showed that terrorism doesn't always occur in the Middle East and it's a global issue we must all fight. From this article it states that these two have been fighting for almost for 20 years. It needs to stop because if it doesn't more deaths are going to occur.

South Korean navy ship sinks

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/26/south.korea.ship.sinking/index.html

A South Korean ship sank in the Yellow Sea on friday near the island of Baengyeoung which is located near the borderline of South and North Korea. South Korean officials have reported that out of the 104 crew members in the boat, only 58 were rescued. The ship sunk from an explosion that occurred near the rear of the ship. No one knows at this time how the explosion started but South Korean naval officials said that South Koreans shot a vessel towards the ship in the north. The President of South Korea Lee Myung-Bak ordered a "quick and thorough investigation" and they are considering all possibilities. There was no evidence of this being a North Korean attack, but that has been ruled out. Also, the South Korean officials are not sure if a North Korean vessel was involved in this incident.

This is a serious issue towards the whole world because if the two countries get into a war then the U.S. and more UN countries would have to get involved in it. I hope the incident wasn't caused by the North Koreans so a war can be avoided. I can't imagine what would happen if it was North Korea and because of this the two countries get into a war. North Korea has a strong military so a lot of aid will be needed to help out South Korea. North Korea also has possession of nuclear weapons. Almost all of my relatives live there and I would be devastated if there was a war in Korea.

Westernization, Imperialism, Nationalism, and Zionism in the ME

I think the Western countries mostly the European countries, caused many problems for many areas. We saw it in Asia especially in China where they caused problems there like the Opium addictions that many Chinese people couldn't escape that were sold by the Europeans. They also caused problems in North America when they first arrived in America. There were fierce battles between the Indians and the Europeans for land. We see the same thing in Africa where now the whole continent is going through major problems since the Europeans just left them after imperializing. Now in the Middle East, I feel that it has been the driving force for their hatred towards the West. Imperialism led to the many problems that we face from the Middle East today. The European countries just took their land and tried implementing their culture when the Middle Eastern countries already had their own culture. Other countries had the same response where none of them liked the European countries coming in with their culture. It shouldn't be a surprise that the Middle East countries have such hatred against the West.

Imperialism and Zionism had the most impact. Between them, I think imperialism had a bigger impact on the anti western mindset. I think this because imperialism started everything. Without it the other factors such as Westernization or Nationalism could have happened. Because of the European countries coming in, nationalism rose in order to get rid of the European countries. The Middle Eastern countries had to get westernized to become strong enough to beat the Europeans. The saying in order to get rid of the Barbarians, you got to be like them was what the Middle East did. Since the European countries had control over Palestine, they let the Jews to come back which fueled the idea of Zionism brighter. If the Europeans didn't come into the countries, there might have not been those extremists that have been the enforcer of terrorism. Extremists saw how the Europeans were when they entered the country and the way the West lived angered them.

Veil

I personally don't like seeing Muslim women in their veils because it hides their identity and it also just automatically raises stereo-typical views of them. But from these two articles, I could see why Muslim women wear the veil. It seems like wearing a veil is not a law since it's not specifically stated in the Koran, but it's like a custom now since women wear the veil. The women who converted to Islam had good points in her paper about how women still have their freedom, but I felt like she was too biased for her view. She made it sound like all women want to wear the veil and that it was like an honor to wear it. She should have put facts like who actually enjoys wearing the veil and who doesn't to show the other side of this issue. Since it is not like a set rule, I think there should be a law stating that if women want to wear it, they should, but if women don't want to wear it, they shouldn't be forced to.

Clash of Religions

I think what the journalist said has a point and that we may be the cause the terrorism that goes around the Earth. I think the Western part which includes like European countries and America are cause of many problems in the world. It all started when the European countries imperialized the Middle East that started all this hate from the Muslims and people from the Middle East. Imperialists came in trying to change up everything and Middle Easterners felt that their cultures were going to be broken. I think that's when their hate started. As we started getting more carried away with money issues and walked away from our religion, this angered the Muslims even more. This is what really angers the Muslims from what the article is saying and I see his points. It said in the article that "As monotheists, Jews and Christians have historically been entitled to Muslim respect and even protection"(D'Souza 2). Muslims had respect for Christians so that can't be the reason all of a sudden. U.S. has been more about money and its economy instead of our own religious beliefs. The article says that this is the real reason that we have been under attack for not being religious enough and by being secular. I believe that the U.S. has been more focusing on other areas than our religions.

I do not agree with Bin Laden's and the Muslim extremists' actions towards our apparent problem from their perspective. Even though we have been less religious, that doesn't mean that we should get attacked upon. We are not killing others by not being religious, but they are killing others to become more religious. It's very ironic, but it's something that we will never be able to change because it is firmly stated in their roots of Islam.

Holy Land

Jerusalem is the center of problem for 3 different religions. All three religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, proclaim that it is their Holy Land. They all have legitimate reasons, but I believe the Holy Land belongs to the Jewish population. They were the first ones to establish Jerusalem as their holy city and remained steadfast to it all this time. It is such an integral part of Judasim as Jews pray in its direction, mention it in prayers, and stands as the only city with a Jewish majority during the whole of the past century. Jews lost the land couple of times, but they never denied it as their Holy Land. From the passage it seems like other religions fought for the land and proclaimed it was theirs. I don't think it's fair for one religion to say that it is more important to them than the other religions. Jerusalem has a special meaning to each religion. Since the Jews were the first to proclaim it as theirs, I believe it should remain to the Jews. They tried staying faithful towards their Holy Land but difficult circumstances got in their way which drove them away from Jerusalem.