World Events: Do you know what's going on?

This thread is for the real news. I mean real news, this isn't the fluffy stuff about what's going on in your town, or the scary stuff like murders within fifteen minutes from you, this is the news that is happening that no one seems to care about.

Why is it that people care about Brittany Spears' problems, and other celebrity news, but no one seems to pay mind to events such as Darfur or Rwanda?

Here are a few topics that not a lot of people have knowledge about.

Darfur: You may have seen ad campeigns from advocacy groups such as the Save Darfur Coalition, Amnesty International, or Oxfam for this. Darfur is a classic genocide, where tons of Non-Arabs are being exterminated just because they are occupying land. Often they are sent to refugee camps in neighboring countries, especially Chad, the closest country to them. A lot of people are aware that Darfur is happening, but no one seems to know what's really going on, that the Sudanese government is the mastermind of all of this.

China: This one goes hand in hand with Darfur. Amnesty International recently had their members send a letter to China to pressure them to withdraw trade. China is Sudan's main import in weapons, and Sudan is China's biggest import of gasoline. If China stopped trading with Sudan, then the Sudanese government would have difficulty economically.

Zimbabwe: Elections this year are going to be the same as always. President Mugabe is going to win, and he knows it, that's because he rigs it. He's been president for over 20 years now, and is going to serve yet another term. He denies that the elections are rigged. He has been compared to Hitler, and his reaction is "If I am Hitler, let me be hitler tenfold" because he thinks that all Hitler wanted was to help his people. But in reality, Mugabe has been letting the Zimbabwe economy drop for his own personal gain. If you were to go to Zimbabwe, and exchange currency, you would get 100,000 Zimbabwe dollars for 1 US dollar. That is how bad the economy there is.

Now my information not be completely correct, because sometimes all of this stuff comes at me at once and it's kind of a lot to take in at once, but I gave it my best shot. That's not even close to the amount of things that are going on in the wolrd. There is flooding in Mozambique as well, and other things that I do not know about well enough to describe them here. If anyone has anything to add, please do.

www.AmnestyUSA.org

www.SaveDarfur.org

www.oxfam.org

If this is a duplicate thread, so sorry.

 

Re: Wolrd Events: Do you know what's going on?

I agree. Some of these things are all over the news but sometimes you sit there and wonder what exactly all about.

Darfur: It's a sad crisis, and once again highlighting the inability for humans to accept one another as equals. As far as I know, the crisis started out with a number of problems but ultimately deals with lack of resources causing people to search elsewhere and so causing conflict in the Darfur area. It's all long winded and complicated, but that's what I understand anyway.

As for Zimbabwe, didn't the tally say he lost? But according to this article, Mugabe's party is demanding a revote. Probably they forgot to rig it properly in the first place. It's a shame really; Mugabe started of as very strong leader to the African people, but has since been corrupted by power. He should have stepped down when he was at the top and led the way for future leaders rather than what he's doing now, losing everyone's respect.

One think I'm interested in is the Tibetan protests in China and how it's going to affect this year's Olympics. I'm sure the Chinese are incredibly stretched with the matter whilst preparing for the events AND dealing with this new problem. I applaud them on being able to stand their ground though.

Oh, and there's a little typo in the thread title, could a mod fix that please? (unless it was intentional )

 

Re: Wolrd Events: Do you know what's going on?

Ha nope, that's a typo, sorry about that!

Thanks for adding some stuff/correcting me. I've just started to really get into learning about what's going on in the world, and having all of it hit you at once, especially when it's something that has been going on for a while, it feels like you're starting a story in the middle of a book.

Did anyone see what they had to do to the Olympic torch in France? They had to put it out and take it on a bus! I'm really wondering what China is going to do about this. With pressure from the UN to stop trading with Sudan, and these Tibetan riots, will the Chinese crack under pressure?

 

Re: Wolrd Events: Do you know what's going on?

This is really interesting thread! I don`t know much about Africa and Asia but I`m always interested in finding out more. I live in Serbia and we will have elections on May 11th and I`m pretty much occupied with that...

 

Re: Wolrd Events: Do you know what's going on?

I really hope the Chinese don't crack under the pressure. It's important for them, and I believe they should, to stand their ground and show the world that they're not a country to order around. The chinese are a strong, hardworking and proud race - they're good at what they do, and if there's one thing they don't like, it's being told what to do by other people.

I hope they don't bow to the pressures - they've done good so far in standing their ground. People seem to board the "let's create havoc!" bandwagon without much afterthought.

Tibet wants its independence - can it really sustain independence and provide for its country? China is its biggest asset, I can't see why they want to throw that away.

Marija_Magdalena, I'm waiting to see how the Serbian Elections turn out. I hope all goes well, and as smooth as possible.

I'm from Malaysia, and as some of you might have heard, we had our elections a month ago, and the results were slightly worrying to the ruling party. I see this as a good thing. Right now, we have a large colition party, and on the other side we have the opposition made up of smaller parties. If the opposition is getting stronger, I hope that means Malaysian politics is slowly evolving into that of a more developed nature.

 

Re: Wolrd Events: Do you know what's going on?

Okay, first I've gotta applaud Wyoming for starting this thread. I too am so sick of hearing about Britney Spears; that stuff is just not important. This year I've been taking a lot of social science courses and so I've been learning a little about world issues. I think it's important that we, especially the young people, the next generation, educate ourselves about all of it.

I didn't know about Zimbabwe or Sudan, so thanks for that. But in my Politics class we have been discussing China/Tibet quite a bit. I really hope other countries don't boycott the Olympics because 1. the Olympics are supposed to be a sporting event where the world nations come together. It is supposed to be enjoyable, and I really don't think politics has a place there. 2. When the US boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, Russia just turned around and boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. So I don't buy into the idea that boycotting Bejing will be a wake up call for China and they'll give Tibet its freedom. It's a nice thought, but it's just a little naive.

I think I'm gonna favourite topic this thread.

 

Re: Wolrd Events: Do you know what's going on?

Adding to LibertyBell's kudos...Wyoming, thanks much for starting this thread. One can only take so much fluff without choking and/or becoming mentally deficient and worse yet oblivious to the world in which we live.

Gaelen, your country's recent elections really made history! I never ever thought that the BN (ruling political party) would be displaced in such fashion. Shows you what can happen if the opposition factions decide to work together and pull as one. I reckon BN has been running complacent for all these years and this is one heck of a shock to their system. One hopes the real winners in all of this will be the people of Malaysia.

China is SUCH a massive world power today and will continue to be so in the future. To continue to treat them like second or even third string players is myopic in the extreme. We need to learn and learn quickly how to engage them and go the route of "win-win".

The situation in Darfur is wrenching. It's astounding that we have the monstrosity of a Rwanda -situation if not patently worse happening again while the global community looks on yet again in paralyzed fashion.

Add to the the escalating food supply crisis. It's been rightly called "the silent tsunami". Does it make sense at all that this (imo), crazed, realignment of food sources to biofuels is leaving starving masses of peoples and food animals withering in its wake whilst the powers-that-be continue to bellow out their justification for doing so? Even countries with the money to burn cannot buy enough food. So what about those that have next to nothing? Who feeds their peoples?

 

Re: Wolrd Events: Do you know what's going on?

I hope so. Barisan National (BN - a coalition party) has been running unchallenged since the very beginning. I think it's time that they receive some competition to better themselves, as well as the Malaysian people. I hope that the country is mature enough to conduct changeover (in the future if it ever happens) in a peaceful way. The last elections definitely have one heck of a shock, and I'm glad it did too - they need to realise that their power comes from the people, and if we're not happy, they get squat.

The World Food Crisis really is saddening, especially the justification of producing bio-fuel even though it's obvious that it would help the world if the food supply was increase by cutting back on those projects. I think what's worse is that some people are not even aware of the implications to those that aren't as well off. The average family would probably notice the increase in prices but I don't think everyone knows what that means to people who were already living on the bare minimum - now they can't even afford to feed themselves.

I think the world needs to go on a diet.

I read an article about someone trying to create bio-fuel from algae - pond scum actually. Sounds promising since it's supposedly more efficient then getting energy from corn.

 

Okay, let's wake this thread up again.

The death toll in the China earthquake hasn't stopped climbing. It's now at 32 000. The real tragedy is so many of those were children. I heard there's gonna be an inquiry into why the schools collapsed so easily, and somebody's gonna pay for the crappy structure.

Aid finally got into Myanmar after their cyclone. Now it would be nice to see the aid actually go to the victims. This is so frustrating. People are still dying and they could be saved if the government weren't so :censored:.

Zimbabwe is going to hold a second round of voting on June 27th. In the meantime, Mugabe's people are plotting to assassinate Tsvangirai. Guess that's the only way they can win. I don't understand why the current gov. is trying to say the violence is the opposition's fault. Really, who's going to buy that? Even if Tsvangirai wins the second round, I don't see this violence ending anytime soon.

This turned into a very depressing post.:lol: But that's all the world news is, isn't it? Death death death and more death.

 

Actually it's now 50 000 and some 30 000+ missing :/

 

and now it's 60 000+ they expect over 80 000