30 for 30

The story of South Africa's rugby team was a Cinderella type of story. South Africa just elected their first black president who spent 27 years in jail previously. The whites expected terrible punishments and did not like the look of how the country was changing. The blacks were mad for getting mistreated for years by the whites and it seemed like the two groups were in for a battle. However Nelson Mandela, the new president had different plans. He wanted to bring peace between the whites and the blacks and he did this with the sport of rugby. Nelson Mandela urged for the Rugby World Cup to be held in South Africa and they hosted the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Rugby was considered a white sport and there weren't blacks playing. Blacks enjoyed the whites getting hit hard by the opposing team and rooted for the opposing team. However this was all before the 1995 Rugby World Cup. As a team with little to none international experience, the Springbok team entered the Rugby World Cup without any recognition from other nations. On the Springbok team, one black was named to be on the roster. Throughout the Rugby World Cup, Nelson Mandela urged the nation to rally behind the Springbok rugby team. It was amazing to see the people in the stands rooting for their team the Springbok. Whites and Blacks celebrated the team's success and both races were rooting for Springbok to win. What makes the story even more extraordinary is the fact that the Springbok made to the finals against the powerhouse New Zealand. No one gave South Africa a chance but the South Africans still rooted for their country. The whole nation watched the game together. The white people respected Mandela for his kindness towards them and the black people were able to find a connection with the whites through the sport of Rugby. Even though there were still problems afterwards, the sport of rugby brought the two sides closer significantly.

Helium balloons carries propaganda

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/31/south.korea.message/index.html

North Korean defectors that now resides in South Korea have sent bags full of paper, dollar bills, and radios attached to a giant helium balloon. They hope this will reach the heart of Pyongyang where they feel that many people have been brainwashed by Kim Jong Il. The group of defectors believe that if North Korea can't receive messages from the outside world, the news have to be delivered to them by the outside world. A North Korean defector, Kwon Young-Hee says that North Koreans know nothing but the power of Kim Jong Il as a general and no nothing of the truth. The Fighters for Free North Korea hopes that the citizens of North Korea can listen to the illegal radios and realize the truth about North Korea. Even though the propaganda war is heating up, the citizens of South Korea don't feel threatened by a real war.

This is important because I would think that this would anger Kim Jong Il and make matters worse between the two countries. War should be avoided but I don't understand why South Koreans would do such a thing that might agitate Kim Jong Il. It said in the article that South Koreans feel that North Koreans wouldn't attack because South has too many strong ties with their allies. I don't think South Korea should depend too much on their allies because even though they do have allies, no one wants to go into war.

Israeli military gives version of flotilla incident

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/31/gaza.flotilla.israeli.raid/index.html

Nine people were killed in the fight between the Israeli soldiers and a group of activists. A group of activists on a flotilla were looking forward to deliver aid to Gaza and while attempting to do so attacked Israeli soldiers. Israeli soldiers said that they were immediately attacked by the group of activists as they boarded the boat. One soldier said that they were beat by metal sticks and knives from the activists. The soldiers said that there were about 30 activists and that they were all speaking Arabic. While the soldiers say that they were attacked, the activists have said that the soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians.

This is important because skirmishes between Israeli soldiers and the group of activists who seem to be Palestinians have been going on for years now. This conflict has been difficult to solve. The Israelis have been looked as the bad guy in this conflict because the media states that they killed citizens. There are two stories behind this but when viewers see that Israeli army has opened fire on unarmed citizens then the Israeli army looks like the bad guys even though they were only trying to protect themselves.

Tropical storm leaves many dead in Central America

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/05/31/honduras.storm.emergency/index.html

A big hurricane hit Central America as it killed at least 135 people. The storm hit 3 countries, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador; it affected Guatemala the hardest. 92 were reported dead, 52 missing, and 59 were reported injured in Guatemala. Bridges collapsed, houses were destroyed, and rivers were dramastically over their normal levels in Guatemala. In Honduras, 14 people have died. Nearly 3500 were evacuted from their homes and nearly 3300 were living in shelters. Many houses have been destroyed or damaged due to the storm. In El Salvador, the conditions were less severe. Only 9 people were dead and the rain had stopped. This storm was recorded as the first pacific hurricane.

This is important news because even though it's not as bad as the Haiti earthquakes, people still died from this natural disaster. Nations need to learn from this and need to prepare their citizens better so nations don't have the death toll up to the 100s. Many people have been affected throughout the 3 countries so it will be vital for the government to replace them back to their homes.

Response to the Berlin Conference

I thought our group did well for the position we were in. We were the last group to pick and we were able to surround Ethiopia. That was one of our goals to surround Italy and perhaps attack them once again to gain more land. We were able to get much of the Sahara dessert which contains oil for future use. A chunk of land in Madagascar were left so we took that land as well. We also were able to gain a little of land in the south where there were a lot of raw materials.

Great Britain did a good job with their planning and got a lot of land. They were able to gain land that possessed raw materials and land that was suitable for farming. I thought France didn't do as a good job that they should have done. If you look at what they were actually able to do, they were able to obtain a large amount of land. In our run through, France only gained small lands around ports near France. I thought they could have done better and try to get more raw materials which they really didn't go for.

The Berlin Conference affected Africa greatly because Africans had no say in what happened and all of their land was lost. Foreigners came into their land and they could do nothing else about it. Families were separated, cultures were broken, and many lives were lost during this phase. It still affects Africa now because many African countries are in terrible conditions. European countries used the land and destroyed the African's lives. After they left, they didn't help and let the countries run by themselves. Europeans encouraged tribes to fight against each other and now there are violent wars going around in Africa. Now, many countries in Africa need help and lack sanitary living conditions. They are plagued by diseases such as AIDS, dirty water, wars, and lack of food.

The Scramble for Africa

This quote refers to the European countries rushing down to Africa and claiming their territories. The European countries broke up Africa and divided it so they can have the materials Africa contains. For a while, almost the whole Africa was claimed by Europeans. European countries took people, broke up families, and took many raw materials.

African traditions

1. Child takes the characteristics of his/her name. I think this is very bizarre because in the U.S. the name doesn't make the person. The father in the show was worrying about what to name his child because the child took the characteristics of his/her name. It's good to have names that have positive vibes but we don't let the name dictate our lives unless if it's our last name for some people.

2. When the boys are 15, they are taken away to become brave men. This was like their way of going to the army. It was mandatory for boys to go and people in the village took this very seriously. The kids went without even knowing what was going to happen.

3. The goal of war is to win, not to kill. Warrior respects another warrior. This was a different strategy than many other countries would prefer. If a country was in war, they would want to defeat the other country by killing their soldiers instead of just letting them go. Our mindset is to weaken their army by killing and not giving them a second chance to attack.

4. Boys that turn into men can't stay with the family and must live in his own hut. These kids were still about only 16, but they were still forced to leave their parents and live by himself. From this one camp the boys are forced go to, their lives change so much afterwards. It was peculiar to see how the boys changed so much after the camp. The main character in this story acted like a totally different person.

5. Father builds a hut for his son while his son is at camp. I guess men couldn't live in the same house back in the day in Africa. So as the sons prepare to become men, the father has to like jump start his son's life by building a hut for him. Even though not all parents do this, but this would be like getting a car after the teenager finally passes his license test. It would be nice if all the parents were like the ones in Africa.

African Folklore

Sahara- Their folklore was about a girl named Binta who created peace between the djinns and the humans. One day Binta and her friends were walking home and they saw a tafaka, a lizard, pregnant. Binta helped the lizard with the birth. Few weeks later a stranger comes to her house to help give birth to somebody named Tafaka. She goes and finds out that the tafaka was a djinn. She stays at their camp for 40 days and learns more about the djinns. When she returns home, people know about what happened to Binta. One day a handsome man comes in her tent and she decides to match him up with a djinn. They get married and because of their marriage the women of Air are beautiful and lovely even till this day.

This folklore involved a human helping out an animal from the wildlife and importance placed on wildlife is one of the elements of African folklore. It explained why the women of Air are lovely by showing how the first generation met. The moral lesson from this folklore can be if you help someone without any selfish intentions, then you will receive a reward. Binta helped willingly and she got a reward of becoming friends with the djinns. This wasn't very entertaining to me, but it could have been entertaining to people back then. I guess it's funny that there was a random lizard pregnant and some girl passing by helped with the birth. Suprisingly the lizard was some kind of god and from that experience the girl can have a friendship with the gods. I could connect to this myth by trying to be like Binta and help out without any selfish desires.

Rescuing girls from sex slavery

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/29/cnnheroes.koirala.nepal/index.html

Koirala and Maiti Nepal have been saving 12,000 Nepali women and girls ever since 1993. U.S. State Department reported that between 10,000 to 15,000 women and girls from Nepal have been sexually exploriated through prostitution. Geeta, as a 9 year old, she remembers staying up late and having sex with many men per day. She was sent into a brothel and forced to go out on the streets and have sex with men that wanted them. Koirala, who have been on this movement to save girls in this terrible situation, decided to help these girls after her abusive relationships in the past. Now her group goes around raiding brothels to save girls and women that have sex for a living. Her goal is to rescue these girls and help them live a happy life. She helps them cope with problems and has an open home for them. The group wants these girls to be able to go out into the world and reintegrated into society.

Reading this article showed that anyone could become a hero in the world. This woman worked dilligently and rescued so many young lives. She was determined to change something and now with her group she is saving 4 girls per day. At a global standpoint, India should start enforcing harsh rules against these people that are forcing women into prostitution. 10,000 to 15000 is a very large number of girls that are sexually exploriated. The U.N. should take action into this issue and encourage India to be more active in order to rescue more girls and prevent this from continuing.

U.N. eyes international tribunals for pirates

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/04/28/un.pirate.tribunals/index.html

The U.N. has put more emphasis on the pirate attacks that have been going on near the coast of Somalia. The 15 member body unanimously voted for countries to persecute and jail people that may be suspected of being a pirate. All the countries wanted piracy to be eliminated and more suspects to pay for what they have done. The U.N. also looked forward to see other organizations such as the European Union and NATO increase their role in the fight against piracy. Countries neighboring Somalia was also asked to increase their efforts against piracy.

This is a good decision by the U.N. to fight against piracy. Piracy has made traveling and trades harder for countries all over the world. Ships carrying goods in the area often got robbed and lost all their goods. People were captured and held hostages by the pirates in the area. Last year, I remember that a U.S. sailor was kept captive by the pirates. The U.S. marines were able to free him and kill some of the pirates. The pirates are thieves on waters and same rules need to apply just as if they were any other convicts.

South Korea holds funeral for 46 sailors

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/04/29/south.korea.ship.funeral/index.html

Last month a South Korean ship sunk which led to numerous number of sailors missing. After weeks of searching, South Korean officials announced that 40 were dead and 6 were still missing. The whole country was in a somber mood as they buried 40 young sailors. Head of naval operations Kim Sung-Chan said "We will never forgive whoever inflicted this great pain on us." South Korean officials are still trying to find out what truly happened. They believe it was from an external explosion. Even though North Korea media has denied accusations of an attack and no evidence of any unusual movement was detected, there are still speculations of North Korea causing this dilemma. A U.S. military official also believes that a North Korean torpedo was the most likely cause of the explosion. There were no mines in the area and it would have been highly unlikely a mine to hit a moving vessel. The South Koreans are still searching for pieces underwater, but so far no pieces of torpedo or mine has been found.

This was a terrible incident that happened that led to the death of many young sailors. Even though I didn't know any one of them, it still hurts to see the country I used to live in, in pain. This is a global issue because if pieces of torpedo are found, all fingers are going to be pointed at North Korea for this attack. There were some strong words from the head of the naval operations and if this was an attack from North Korea, some kind of a riot seems inevitable. If these two countries go into war then many other countries will have to get involved in it. It's going to be frightening to see what the cause of this truly was.

African Wonders

Pyramids at Giza- The pyramids have been standing in the heart of Egypt for 4600 years. The 3 pyramids were built by Egyptian kings Cheops, Khafre, and Menkaure from the 4th dynasty. Even though it was built such a long time ago,the pyramids are a highly advanced piece of work. It's amazing to note that it was the tallest structure on earth for 43 centuries. The pyramid itself is a wonder; the angles on each side are exactly 51 degrees and the measurements are unerring. There are about 2 million blocks of stones used to build the pyramid and some suggest that from all of the blocks from 3 different pyramids, a 10 ft high, 1 ft thick wall can be built around France.

Temples of Abu Simbel- These temples were built between 1290 and 1224 B.C. by Pharaoh Ramses II.There are 2 temples and these were built to dedicate Egyptians gods. There are statues built outside the temples, inside the temples, on the walls of the hallways, and in different chambers. The interesting fact about one of these works is that on every February 22 and October 22 at sunrise, the light illuminates the faces of the figures. The temples are highly treasured that when a construction of reservoir for the Aswan High Dam threatened the temples, an international team spent 40 million dollars and more than 4 years of hard work to reassemble it on a higher platform.

Christian art- Ethiopian artists produced many paintings of extraordinary beauty. They have a number of distinctive styles. They incorporated elements from Western Europe and India. It's odd to see that the Ethiopian artists put no emphasis on the skin color of the saints they drew. Having different skin colors mean a lot and depending on your skin color, your life is very different from another person's life with a different skin color. Also one would think that their pictures would be about the Islam religion, but it's bizarre to see some of there masterpieces were of the Christian religion.

I believe that we don't get to hear of these wonders of Africa because these wonders are from the distant history and it gets shadowed by the negative things that are going on in Africa. Even though these are some great things, these wonders are thousands of years old. With the world today, people are more interested about the present and the future rather than the past. Now, Africa is going through major problems that attract all the attention. The public hears about how Aids is spreading and children are used in wars and this is all the media has to say about Africa.

Africa

When I think of Africa, I think of a continent with undeveloped countries. I know that many countries are going through many difficulties in Africa and many lives are being lost. There's problem with health, violence, and education. European countries imperialized the countries and hurt the countries. The state they are in now is attributed from European imperializing them. Wars are going on in Africa constantly. People are mistreated to do what the rebels want them to do. Some children are forced to shoot guns and kill people. In some areas, clean water is very rare and living conditions are terrible. AIDS have been a problem and I think the number was like 1/3 of the population was diagnosed with the disease. On a positive note, the World Cup is going to be held in Africa which I look forward to.

Obsession

1. Culture of Jihad- They kill people not to just see dead bodies but to bring the West down. Dying in order to kill the West is an honorable mention in their religion. Jihad is a religious holy war. This is for the sake of Allah. Islam people believe that the U.S. is trying to eradicate their religion and that the U.S. is becoming a threat. Jihad literally means self struggle. The Muslims want to eliminate not only the U.S. but Israel,

2. Culture of hatred- Muslims view Americans and Israelis as satan. They hate America and the Western culture so much that they are willing to die to bring down the West. America is categorized as a threat and this is used to stir up the people of Islam. When 9/11 happened, Palestinians were more than happy to see what happened to America.

3. Jihad in the West- Islam extremists have been spreading their ideas to the west as well. There are terrorist meetings at mosques in London. The terrorist leaders brainwash people and tell them that it's okay to murder. The bombing in London in 2005 were people from London. 9/11 terrorists practiced their act in U.S.; they were able to disguise themselves as Americans and take airplane classes in America.

4. Culture of denial- Americans still believe that terrorism is not a threat. Americans don't want to recognize this as a threat. America cannot ignore the fact that people in the Middle East want to kill Americans on a daily basis. Many believe that this will become like WW2 and that many lives will be lost.

5. Hitler and the Mufti- Mufti and Hitler had a relationship and a connection in achieving the goal of exterminating the Jews. Mufti raised an army of Muslims to fight with the SS of Hitler.

6. What do radical Muslims want- Destroy Western civilization and defeat Christians and Jews. The Muslims believe that Islam is the only way to go; no other religions will prevail and other believers will die. Islam leaders want to Islamize the whole world. The Muslims believe that Allah commanded them to control the world.

7. We've been here before- Even though it seems like many Muslims seem like terrorists, there are still Muslims that seek for a world without terrorism. They do not follow what the extremists are doing and do not believe in the actions they take. More support is needed for this group so the world can overcome these extremists that want to take over the world. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of Evil is for Good men to do nothing" is true and fits this situation. Evil can be torn down, but good men have to work upon it for it to be won. Looking at those statues of Communist leaders torn down, the Tiananmen Square protest, and the fall of the Berlin wall provides a small hope in terrorism eradicating one day.

War against Afghanistan

I wrote my whole paper on this issue, but even as I was writing it, I started to doubt what I had written. I wrote that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda groups would be eliminated, but it's really hard to see that happening. From the information I gathered, the U.S. forces had been affecting the terrorist groups. However, I think even if the U.S. forces were to kill all of the Taliban and al-Qaeda members, they would just rise back again. In the video one of the commentators said that the U.S. hasn't realized in 25 years that Afghanistan people aren't going to listen to what the U.S. wants to do and will do what they want to do in their own way. Any group can rise up again to fill the spots that the terrorist groups left and create their own terrorist groups. The U.S. may think they won the war in Afghanistan after we defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but in the end, other groups are going to step up and perform terroristic activities in their place. Therefore I don't think the war can be won in Afghanistan.

Why President Bush went to war with Iraq

The whole article criticizes the Bush Administration for waging war in Iraq. Doherty believes that the reason that we waged war was because of 3 reasons: oil, Israel, and military transformation. I always thought the U.S. went to war in order to combat against dangerous forces. However after reading different articles such as this one, my mind is beginning to think of different reasons why we went to war with Iraq. Out of the 3 reasons stated by Doherty, the oil issue sounds the most reliable. I don't think for the two other reasons, we would risk thousands of lives of young Americans. If we wanted to strengthen our relationship with Israel, we could attacked the other Middle Eastern countries that want to eliminate Israel. The third reason was very confusing to understand. Oil is something that the President Bush would risk for because the U.S. was so dependent on oil. As we were desperate for more oil and noticed that oil in Iraq was not exploited, we decided to invade Iraq and take control of some oil. Doherty pointed out when necessity and opportunity came, we took action and waged war. 9/11 and the whole terrorism issue could have been the decoy for going into Iraq. Eliminating Saddam Hussein was the decoy in this war and our addiction to oil seems like the main reason why the U.S. ever went to war with Iraq.

Oil in the Middle East

I believe the U.S. should strive for new ways to fuel our transportation. We need to stop depending on oil which we don't have a lot of. We keep spending our money on oil and towards a wrong cause. The countries in the Middle East have been feasting from the money we spent on oil. They use it against us and boost the prices to see us struggle. They view it as our Achilles-heels and we need to find a solution towards that. The money spent there is also being used as money for weapons. We can't have the Middle East countries acquiring more weapons. Our need for oil is basically helping terrorism because the Middle East countries now have more weapons from the money we spend on them. It just imposes more danger to the world. Terrorism grows while we lose money. I like the point the author used of how if we start changing then others may follow as well and not be dependent on oil.

The world should be concerned about the water issue because at the end it's going to affect everyone. In countries that are already lacking water, it's going to affect the people. For countries that are about to lack water, they are going to start fighting for water. Countries like the U.S., who have water are also going to get affected because water shortages are going to pay more for water. Everyone is going to suffer because of water shortages. Something needs to be done because of the alarming number of people that died from dirty water. Also lack of water is going to affect the oil in the Middle East because water is needed to drill oil out of the ground. If they lose the ability to get oil, then our country is going to be without our main oil source which will lead to more problems. Even though we are still going to have water, prices are going to start rising up and later in the future, we might not even have oil.

True Life: I live in a Terror Zone

The person that stood out to me the most was the 25 years old teacher Yoni. He was born in the U.S. but moved to Israel. He lives close to other Arab villages, but he is not scared. He actually is willing to live where he resides now. This is a way of him showing how the Israelis aren't going to run out of the country because of the Arab's attacks. This stood out to me. I also picked him because his mom was murdered from one of the Arab attacks. I could imagine how he would feel and he has the right to want revenge against them. However, if everyone sought for revenge then the world would be much worse than it is now. As I was hearing about his life, I really felt bad for him. He lost his mom, couldn't be in the army when he wanted to, and lived a life he didn't want to live. It was usually the Palestinians complaining, but I noticed how bad it was personally for Yoni living through his emotions.

My life compared to the teenagers in Israel were very different. The Palestinian teenagers lacked so many rights. They were forced to stay inside, couldn't travel easily, couldn't receive I.D.s, and were treated so much worse than a regular Israeli would be treated. The Israelis had similar rights as I did. They were able to travel freely and could go outside whenever they felt like. However they always had the risk of getting killed by a random attack.

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.