Weekly Assignment 9

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Weekly Post #9
Article 1: 'It's Finished': Last of U.S. Soldiers Leaving Iraq - Martha Raddatz

This article is about how all the soldiers who were fighting in Iraq are coming back. After nice years and almost 1 trillion dollars they finally return. Since the war began 4,500 American soldiers have died and huge amount 104,000 Iraqi soldiers died. The bad thing about this though is that many soldiers are without job now and are desperately looking. Some without even a college education now searching for jobs.

Article 2: EDITORIAL: Close the Strait of Hormuz (FOUCS) - Washington Post

Iran says they want to close their straight that they export all of their oil from. They say it will impact the rest of the world more than it would impact them because 1/6 of the world’s oil comes from there. But, it really wouldn’t the world can get oil from other countries just as easy like Nigeria and Brazil, and Iran doing this would just make themselves go bankrupt from not being able to sell their number one export. Iran says that they plan to do this because they want to make a point that “If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.” I chose this as my focus article this week because we have been talking about Iran in class this past week and about putting sanctions on themselves and how we need to stop their economy, but if Iran does this to themselves, they will destroy their own economy by not getting money from other countries. It would be a dumb move for Iran because sure it would make the prices go up temporarily but we could find a replacement oil producing country and give them more business and make Iran go bankrupt.

Article 3: Millions From Diamonds Go to Mugabe, Observers Say - John Eligon

Apparently 10 million dollars in diamonds have been secretly given to Robert Mugabe to help give him money to expand his 31-year reign. These diamonds are coming from the state-owned mines in Eastern Zimbawe. It might even be more than 10 million, because apparently the treasury was shortchanged 60 million dollars last year. Mugabe no longer is in control of the finance ministry because of other cases that some of the money was going to allies.

Article 4: Euro Troubles Continue - PRI the world

The Euro keeps facing problems almost every single week now. The EURO fell under $1.30 for the first time in almost a year. Also the UK decided not to sign with a summit deal that was made by many other countries in the “Eurozone” But, the UK said they will still remain an active member in the EU despite their non-agreement on solving the issue.

Article 5: Journalist is Shot Dead in Russia’s North Caucasus Region - MICHAEL SCHWARTZ

Another journalist from Russia has been shot which adds to a rising amount of journalist and human rights workers killed in the last few years in Russia. The journalist who was killed was Khadzhimurad Kamalov who was the founder of a newspaper that covered delicate issues like police abuse and corruption. Police say they still don’t know who the gunman is but they are searching for him.



Learning Reflection:

This past week our class created a fake UN debate about whether or not to add more security to Iran and the goods they are exporting. We split up into groups of two, each group having its own country and had a debate. All of the countries came to a unanimous vote and all voted to freeze their central banks. All the countries, besides Iran, came up with a single group essay about why and how we should add more sanctions to Iran. Also in individual countries, we all made opening speeches about why that individual country chose to contribute to this single cause of freezing their banks. This was perfect timing because in my focus article, just recently Iran closed their own straight that they export oil out of.

Weekly Assignment 8

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Article 1 and Focus Article: "Warning Euro Fix Could Take Years, Merkel Urges Action" by Nicholas Kulish: found on the NYTimes
         Chancellor Angela Merkel held a meeting today that was intended to amend the European treaties and to address the debt crisis.  At the meeting Merkel addressed the German Parliament about how indebted countries have roiled global markets and brought down governments.  She said that she wanted some quick changes to happen by the end of the year that would help to debt crisis, but she said that to fix the whole problem would take several years.  She has now called for a new treaty and since the release of that the market rose slightly.  I chose this article as my focus article because in class this past week we have been talking about economics.


Article 2: " Pakistan Refuses to Help as U.S. Sorts Out a Fatal Attack" by Matthew Rosenburg: found on The NYTimes.
      Pakistanis are refusing to help sort out the confusion about the airstrike that happened last week that killed two dozen people.  Both sides are in dispute about almost every aspect of the event.  Both sides said they were fired on first.  Also the chief of the Pakistan Army has now declared that he gave permission to the whole army to return any fire without any permissions required.

Article 3: " Go Online, Beat a Puzzle and Become a British Spy" by John F Burns: posted on NYTimes
         This article is basically about how the British Spy Agency has posted a puzzle on the internet located here (http://www.canyoucrackit.co.uk/) where if you beat the puzzle you will be able to get interview by the British Government about becoming an internet spy for them, stopping terrorism and organized crime.  Apparently about 50 people have already beaten this almost impossible puzzle since its release last month.  A normal person would have lots of trouble beating this puzzle because all it is is decrypting 160 codes- so basically only a hacker would be able to beat it.

Article 4: " Camp Victory, emptied of U.S. troops, is handed to Iraqi government by Liz Sly: on Washington Post.
         The U.S. headquarters outside of Baghdad was handed over to the Iraqi government on Friday which the U.S. has owed for almost a decade.  This large base used to hold 68,000 soldiers and they all got to go
 home.  There is currently only 12,000 troops left in Iraq now down from a peak of 170,000 in 2007.  Col. Barry Johnson said that by the end of the year all the troops will be gone.


Article 5:  This picture is about the 24th annual world aids day held in Taipei Taiwan.  Dozens of volunteers made a human ribbon to help aids sufferers everywhere.  The color red is supposed to symbolize "love and care".








Learning Reflection : This week in class we talked about economic geography and about resources.    
We learned about 4 types of resources , Natural, Nonrenewable, Capital, and Human Resources. We also talked about how technology is effecting the way we get our energy, we went "from wood to wind".  We also talked about how different countries can be more valuable than others depending on resource access and level of education.