30:30 Apartheid in South Africa

I believe that Rugby helped South Africa overcome apartheid because it was something that the country found everyone liked. Regardless of skin color or race, rugby was a common like that both blacks and whites could come together and watch. The problem was that they would watch it together, but not cheer for the same team. Mandela showed that the past is the past and you must swallow your pride and move toward the future. Even though he was locked up for many years of his life because of the white people in South Africa, he came out of jail with an open heart, looking to make peace with whites and blacks. When black South Africans saw this, and saw Mandela wearing the South African rugby hat, they followed him. This helped end apartheid because much of the tension and fear many people had was vanished because rugby showed that blacks and whites can live together and they are no so much different from one another. Sports was the best way for these two groups to come together because it is a non violent event that brings feelings of nationalism. War would bring nationalism but in a violent way. Also it is a South African tradition so it wasn't hard for people to get thrilled and deep into the game of rugby.

Storm hits Central America

A tropical storm hit Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador during the weekend. It is estimated that 92 people died in Guatemala alone, and nearly 112,000 were evacuated. The storm destroyed homes, buildings, and towns through Central America. In Guatemala City the tremendous downpour created a sinkhole. It has been stated that a three story building and a house fell into this sink hole. It is believed that a poor sewage drainage system is the cause of the sinkhole forming. In all about 115 people died.

This is globally important because disasters like this have been happening constantly throughout the world. We are currently learning about many problems and difficulties Africa is currently having, but this is not the only place with problems. In order for Central America and other countries to overcome such events is involves help from other nations and new invention to stop such events from happening again.

Israel attacks boat to Gaza

A boat was going into Gaza with humanitarian goods. The people and groups on the boat were activists, and many were killed by Israeli soldiers. They claim that Israeli soldiers came onto their boat and just opened fire on them. However, Israel claims that they boarded the ship looking for weapons. They are fine with humanitarian goods going into Gaza, but not weapons because they don't want the Hamas to get stronger. Israel claims the activist beat them and started attacking them with knifes and even a gun. The soldiers shot them in self defense.

This has global importance because it shows the conflict of Israel. This conflict goes on every day and is a on going war between Arabs and Israelis and Palestinians and Israelis. In this story I believe that the Israeli soldiers didn't just go onto the ship and open fire. This was the fifth or sixth ship that they boarded to search for weapons, so why would they have randomly chose this ship to kill people on. I believe that they shot the people aboard because they really were being attacked and used self defense.

North Korea war

In recent news it was found that a South Korean ship was sunk by North Korea. South Korea is deciding whether or not they should retaliate. It will be very risky to attack North Korea back because North Korea claims that they will wage war. They claim they will have all out war with South Korea if they try to retaliate in any way.

This effects us globally because the North Korean and South Korean conflict has been a very large conflict for many years. They could break out into war any second and it would be very devastating. If other nations get involved it could end up being a WWIII. I believe that South Korea should attack back. They can't just let North Korea sink their ships and then not do anything about it, because that shows that they are afraid of North Korea. If they attack back they will reveal how weak North Korea is and if the U.S gets involved, also known as the world power, they would help South Korea.

Berlin Conference

The country that I had was Spain. Spain had the fifth pick in its land and only got one square inch of land. I believe that our group did the best with what we had. All main natural resources and minerals about line B, which is where we had to chose land, was taken. We chose an area right next to Ethiopia. Getting this land allows us to be next to one of the independent African nations and also allows us to have access to the Indian Ocean which the only way Spain could get to before was through Europe or around Africa. Also we chose two smaller regions with minerals.

I believe that Great Britain did the best out of all the European nations. They were allowed to have five square inches and they took a little more than what they were allowed to take but they still did very well. They got the majority of the land and were very spread out. If they didn't take more land then they were supposed to take, then I think Portugal would have won. They have good minerals and a lot of major ports. I think that Germany did the worst however. They took land right in the middle of Africa and had no way of getting out. Also they didn't do that best with ports or minerals. They got some rivers but these rivers were already taken by Portugal.

The Berlin Conference was similar to this. Britain and France got the majority of the land. Britain did the best. Africa was completely split up and looked like a puzzle of European nations much like how our map in class looked after the game. Also Ethiopia remained independent even though Italy attacked them in our game and in real life.

Scramble for Africa

When I see the phrase "The Scramble for Africa" I think of Imperialism. I think of European nations scrambling and fighting for land to own and take control of in Africa. I think of this because many European nations went to Africa and took land. When you look at the map of Africa during European Imperialism there, it is many different nations all scrambled into Africa.

Palestine blocks Israeli goods

Palestinian authorities have blocked the sale of Israeli settlement made goods. The reason they are doing this is to end their dependency on on Israel's West Bank settlements. If a Palestinian is caught with a sale like this they can be fined and punished by law. They called this the 'cancer' to Palestine and they want to stop it by any means necessary. They estimated that the sale of settlements in West Bank account for 2 million dollars worth of sales.

This is globally bad and good I feel. It is bad because this is causing more separation between the two groups and this will only cause more conflict and war. It is good though because I don't think Palestine should be dependent on Israel. But they need to make peace and I believe the way to do this is not to stop the sale of goods between each other but to talk and negotiate. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this.