The accusations were brought up by the Inter- American Press Association (IAPA). Chavez called the accusations a “manipulating media campaign”. In response there was a pro-Chavez rally held in Caracas, and attended by several hundred people. The IAPA claims the rally was government organized and sponsored.

This comes after a long history of tension between Chavez and most of the western democracies, particularly the United States. Heated words have been exchanged between President Bush and Chavez. Bush has accused Chavez of sponsoring terrorists, and has said that Chvez’s social justice agenda is nothing more than a ‘thirst for power’. In return Chavez has called Bush a terrorist, as well a “the devil”, and “a donkey”, and ‘Mr. Danger.’

Chavez has also warned that although he finds it hard to think of a worse president than Bush, communication between the two countries could become even worse should McCain be elected. He has said that ‘”McCain also seems to be a man of war.” He has said that after the elections he hopes the new president,who ever they may be, will be willing to regain “the level of relations we had with ex-President Clinton.”

Personally, I’m kind of ambivalent about Chavez. A lot of his people seem to support him, and he’s trying to stand up to bully nations (like the US) and it seems, usually looks out for Venezuela’s best interests foreign policy wise. I don’t think most of Bush’s attacks have any relevance, since he pretty much calls anyone he doesn’t like a terrorist. ‘Terrorist’ is to Bush what ‘gay’ is to most of America’s teenage population – a descriptor used to put down something one doesn’t agree with.

Despite what Chavez appears to be doing for his people, it does look like he has a lot of media censorship, and there certainly aren’t free elections. A dictatorship is a dictatorship, regardless of good things the dictator does.

-Reggie

Chavez ‘stifles Venezuelan media’ (BBC)
Chavez condemns ‘warlike’ McCain (Al Jazeera English)
Bush lashes out at Chavez (Al Jazeera English)

The two died have not been formally identified yet. But one man has been identified as David Leslie a 54 year old man who was a former british touring car champion. The other man they think to be Richard Lloyd a 63 year old man who was the boss of Apex motorsports and also a former touring car champion.

The palne had taken off from Biggin Hill airport and was heading for Pau, just southwest of France. It was 3 kilometers from the airport when it crashed. A witness said that he saw the pilot steer away from a field where he and his friends were playing football.

The chairman if the Biggin Hill airport said that he did not know what had caused the plane to fail and crash into the house. They are still investigating what had happened with the plane.

“To all you bandwagon jumpers who know nothing about chinese history and to all you bashers, let me give you some solid FACTS why Tibet was, is and always will be a part of China,” [sic] says the opening statement of a video on YouTube that the site says was viewed nearly 2 million times by Saturday. The video goes on to give the history of US involvement in Tibet, how the Chinese have helped the Tibetan infrastructure, and compares asking China to leave Tibet to asking the US or Canada to return to Europe.

This is all in response to newspapers reporting on the Chinese ‘crackdown’ on Tibetan protests. (The students point out that ‘crackdown’ is a biased word choice)

There does seem to be more favor toward pro-Tibet people. Recently 20 Tibetan students entered a UN Compound in Nepal to voice their opinions. Instead of being escorted off the compound, they were fed lunch, and asked to write down their grievances on paper to be given to UN officials.

Recently there have been calls by the EU and President Bush for China to open a dialog with Tibet, and specifically its spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. All parties say they will be keeping a close watch on China for human rights violations, and although an Olympic boycott has been discussed, the idea doesn’t seem popular.

So far there have been 19 (China’s number) and 140 (Tibet’s number) deaths resulting from the boycotts. Either way, something has to be done, and China’s ‘crackdown’ is only increasing the unrest and casting a negative light on China. There definitely need to be some communication opened between Tibetan officials and Chinese officials. The Dalai Lama says he doesn’t want Tibetan independence, only autonomy.

I’ve watch the video referred to above, and although it does raise some legitimate concerns most of the counter arguments can be easily refuted. For instance, it says America should return Texas if it wants China to free Tibet, but there are no Texan rallying for independence (and I, for one, am all for giving it back to Mexico anyway. Nothing good has ever come out of Texas.) It also talks about the money China gives Tibet, but if China freed Tibet it obviously wouldn’t be giving it money anymore. The Tibetan people apparently want freedom more than money, so implying that China shouldn’t free Tibet because China supports Tibet is implying that you know better than the Tibetan people what is best for them.

-Reggie

The YouTube Video (Tibet WAS,IS,and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China)
The Facebook Group for the video
Bush urges restraint by China on Tibet, talks (The Guardian)
Young Chinese abroad launch Internet attacks against Western press over Tibet unrest (International Herald Tribune)
EU Ministers Call for Talks Between China, Dalai Lama (Voice of America)
EU agrees on Tibet talks, not Olympics boycott (ABC News)
Tibetan Students Enter U.N. Compound (The NewYork Times)

Most civilains supported the attack, because the despised Mahdi Army controls most of the city. However, now residents are beginning to get agitated because of the continued violence and the ineffectiveness of the Iraq army. Despite about 16,000 of the 30,000 Iraqi troops being from the Basra police forces, the army was apparently woefully unprepared for the assault. The militia gunmen had an easy time, as the Iraqi tanks couldn’t enter the narrow streets in order to attack. On top of this the militants had better weapons than most of the army.

Although the fighting is mostly centered in Basra it has spread else where, including the fortified Green Zone, which includes the US and British embassies and the Iraqi government headquarters. As swarms of Sadr supporters took the streets to protest, many civilians were killed or wounded. In Kut, a city 105 miles south of Baghdad, 10 people, including a baby girl, were killed and 31 were wounded, mostly from mortar shells.

All of this has forced Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to call for all militants to turn in their guns within 72 hours. Those who do disarm, and sign a statement renouncing violence, will not be persecuted. But “any gunman who does not do that within these three days will be an outlaw,” Maliki said.

Despite the call for disarmament, or perhaps because of it, the violence actually seems to be escalating. If the call persuades the Mahdi Army to completely disregard the cease-fire from last year, violence may rise to 2004 levels, when the militia fought intense battles with American forces that destabilized the entire country. This would, of course, impede American troops from coming home even further.

The entire situation is a gamble for Iraq and American forces. The American’s want to prove Iraq had gained some military and political autonomy, and Mr. Maliki doesn’t want to embarrasses himself or his new government.

Although it’s nice to see Iraq attempting to take some responsibility for itself, the continued American instance that they have nothing to do with it does tend to make one suspicious. While they may not be supplying troops to the cause, it’s a bit unclear precisely where the idea to attack and call for disarmament came from.

It’s also obvious at this point that this stratedgy is not working. Violence is continuing to worsen and death toll just keeps climbing. They’re not weakening the Sadr followers at all, they’re just provoking them. This is all going on even though Sadr called for negotions with Maliki.

I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that it’s hard to tell where the incompetince is coming from: the American’s or the Iraqi’s.

-Reggie

Guardian Article
New York Times Article

The E.U. (European Union) estimates that 500,000 people are affected by trafficking every year in Europe.  In 2006, more than 100 Polish workers were freed from forced labor camps in the Puglia region of Italy where they had been promised seasonal farm work. Human trafficking is surprisingly a very large problem in foreign countries and especially throughout Europe.

“They are told, come for a good job in Milan, or Amsterdam or Madrid. Then it turns out it is not a job at a bar or a hairdresser, instead they are forced to have sex with many, many different men and the traffickers are paid. Sometimes they try to escape but they are capture and brought back again. Sometimes they are sold from one gang to another, so we are really talking about a form of modern day slavery,” said Harriet Harman, the Solicitor General for the UK

It is truly appalling to know that across the world, there are still people living as slaves doing things that nobody else will do for the amusement of the wealthy.  The problem is the same as it is in America.  People who are desperately seeking work cannot find it anywhere but abroad.  But, to get the job they must be smuggled into the country, and in most European cases, they don’t get the job they’re promised.  It is shocking to look in at the secret lives of others and find that many are following lifestyles against their own will.  Like many problems, this just highlights the true con of man.  Greed has never been as prevalent as it is today.  Lives are being forfeited for the economic interest of another.

This passage from Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” follows the idea that evil will always be in existence, “…it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin’ through the mountains of a night. Goin’ through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin’. Never said nothin’ goin’ by. He just rode on past… and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin’ fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. ‘Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin’ on ahead and he was fixin’ to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.”

 Ed Tom Bell, the character who says this quote is expressing his thoughts on a type of evil that no moral man can understand.  He believes that his father in the dream can create a light in the darkness, but then he woke up.  This goes to show that evil will always be prevalent.

 
There will always be evil, but there will also always be good to counter it.  I believe that situations like human trafficking should not be ignored.  If anything should be focused on in Europe, one should definitely be the underground slave trade that still exists today.

 
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/64471

http://www.oliverwillis.com/news/index.php/2008/03/26/bulgarian-sisters-were-circus-slaves-forced-to-swim-with-piranhas/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7314175.stm

The Finance Minister of India, P Chidambaram, goes on the record saying that it is “outrageous” that developed countries are turning food crops into bio fuels. Chidambaram claims that the use of grown foods to provide transportation is an “uncaring” policy and should be strongly condemned. Mr. Chidambaram said developing economies were shouldering an “enormous burden” from the relentless rise in prices of food and commodities. Chidambaram claims that the prices of maize, rice and wheat have at least doubled between 2004 and 2008.

“It is a sign of the lopsided priorities of certain countries that they will resort to measures that will produce fuel at a cheaper cost in order to meet the transport requirements of a section of their population,” Mr. Chidambaram said.

Mr. Chidambaram has shined light on a topic oft ignored in popular media: world hunger. In the growing ecological awareness of developed countries, it is easy to become enthralled with breakthroughs like biofuels and ethanol. But, the use of food to create oil is more than selfish of the developed countries of the world. Oil has truly become the poster-child for greed.

“It has been estimated that nearly 20% of corn grown in the United States is diverted for producing bio-fuels. As citizens of one world, we ought to be concerned about the foolishness of growing food and converting it into fuel,” said, Mr. Chidambaram.

Mr. Chidambaram also said the rise in oil prices from about $30 a barrel in 2004 to above $100 in 2008 is another example of “greed overtaking the common good of the world”. While it seems to be a great scientific breakthrough it appears to be a blessing and a curse.

http://www.livemint.com/2008/03/26171014/India-blames-US-biofuel-policy.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7315308.stm

I believe that Kenyan conflict is mostly because of ethnic conflict. I think that land problems have something to do with wars. But I think that it is the main reason.

Though Wednesday marks the fifth year of American presence in Iraq, it does not mark the true beginning of the unjustifiable war.  

1992 – Paul Wolfowitz takes the lead in drafting an internal set of military guidelines, called a “Defense Planning Guidance,” which is routinely prepared every few years by the Defense Department. His draft argues for a new military and political strategy in a post Cold War world. Containment, it says, is a relic of the Cold War. America should talk loudly, carry a big stick, and use its military power to preempt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And if America has to act alone, so be it.

This is the first draft of the Bush Doctrine which was drafted by the only people who wanted to reenter Iraq after the Gulf War.  Everyone involved in its creation has worked their way into the Bush administration to help create their war. 

In the winter of 1998, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol, and other current members of George W. Bush’s administration, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton write to then President Bill Clinton:

The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

The Doctrine lay dormant until September 11, 2001 when the chief politicians finally found justification for their little war.  From that point on the Doctrine became a part of the U.S. government’s NSS (National Security Strategy).

So here we are, five years later with nothing to show for the war except a dead dictator and a religious civil war being mediated by the United States Army. Leaving would lead to the total destruction and defragmentation of the Iraqi state, and to stay costs more money than we have and more lives than we can afford.  At what point will it be evident that it isn’t our fight?  This is not our conflict it is someone else’s.  Hopefully with the upcoming election, a new president will soon show us an end to this five year mistake so we can move on and work to better the world we live in.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/18/iraq.main/index.html?eref=rss_world

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/world/middleeast/18iraq.html

Foreign Conflict: of, pertaining to, or derived from a quarrel or controversy in another country or nation.

The purpose of this blog is to explain, detail, and discuss the numerous foreign issues and controversies that populate much of the news today. This blog is run, produced, and created by City High School students in their Modern Problems class. We are all citizens of the United States of America and live in Michigan. We plan to give an open perspective from an American’s point of view on the modern problems of today. Our goal is to thoroughly discuss any foreign news story that catches the mass media’s attention or ours. Information will be obtained through Google Reader, and sources will include mainly BBC, CNN, the New York Times, NPR, the Guardian, and a selection of international news outlets. We hope you enjoy our blog!