Blog Topic #11

I thought that this map was pretty good, even though it does not really show much, it does show how much Americans know about other countries. So it is good that we take geography classes that talk in depth about all of the other regions in the world so we know what that place is all about.

Blog Topic #10

I think that the money should go to developing trade, infrastructure, and industry. With the all the money that is getting sent there it obviously is not getting used properly, so if we could help with these three things then the money will be going to better living and therefore the aids should go down. Because the more that the area gets developed then there will be more jobs, and money flow coming in and out, so not just the money being donated but the money from the trade and industries.

Blog Topic #9

Protests in Algeria were much like the Egypt and Tunisia, they wanted their president Abdelaziz Bouteflika out. Four hundred people were arrested and it was estimated that 1500 people were clogging streets and making havoc. To stop this they put 28,000 riot police to stop this. They want their leader out of the government and many people said that the fear that the police are putting in them is gone and they will do anything to get him out of office.

Blog Topic #8

After letting the it spin for awhile and just watching then stopping it after a couple of minutes, I realized something very interesting. We tell all of our little kids lies, because if you look at the top of the globe, there really is no such thing as the north pole! So that was just something interesting that I noticed, and I guess I never really thought about it too much.

Blog Topic #7

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE20Df01.html

For this blog I chose to do mine on the opium wars in Afghanistan. I think that it is obvious that the Taliban is one of the main causes of this high amount of opium production. In this article it talks about their influence on the opium all over the world. It says that they produce 90% of the worlds illicit opium, which the farmers have to grow themselves, but the Taliban will come around and collect taxes from them on the opium. The farmers that grow the opium are not Taliban themselves, they are just men that are trying to get money so they can put food on the table and make it through the winter.

The prices of opium are starting to rise because of the disease that has happened to the crop causing the poppies to wilt and therefore are pretty much useless. So with the supply going down and the price going up this is just going to bring in more money for the Taliban. Even though the supply is down, they have stockpiles of opium that they can sell and therefore when people wonder how the Taliban has so much money, well that is why.

Blog topic #4

I think that the major thing that stuck out to me in Slumdog Millionaire is the actual slums. This video is of Mumbai and walking through the slums. I amazed me that people could actually live in so much poverty, and have no way to get out. National Geographic said that in Dharavi (the main slum in Mumbai) there are up to 18,000 people living in on one single acre of land. Wow, and its still not the biggest in the world, that goes to Mexico City's Neza-Chalco-Itza.

Blog Topic #6

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/17/25858.shtml

This is an article from the day that China decided to install the "great firewall". The Chinese government is doing this because they have a major fear of people having access to free information. Things like CNN and the Washington Post are removed, and internet cafe's that did not have the blocking software that allows the government to monitor what is being seen on the internet.

The case of Huang Qi was so disturbing that someone would do this to a man, that tried his hardest to find seven missing girls, but since the gang that took them had sources with the police he was tortured. They said that he was guilty of "organizing national seperatism" and "subverting the socialist system." Only another reason that I am glad that our government is the way that it is.