May Current Events 3

Two Christian Aid groups have been suspended in Afghanistan. The groups have been prevented from doing their work because of allegations of proselytizing. The mainly Islamic Afghans do not want to except help from these people because they believe the volunteers will try to convert them to Christianity. Both groups have served all over the world providing emergency assistance and long term planning.

I thought that this issue was very important because it is an example of how difference in religion has put hindrances between the people of the world. Many religions, especially Islam, believe that they are the greatest, and because of it deny any friendly contact between members of other religions. This is especially important because the people of this service claim that they only wanted to provide help, and their advances were spurned because of their religion.

May Current Events 2

Even now, investigations in the issue between North and South of the sunken ship continue. South Korea has shared information with Russian torpedo experts, hoping to prove their case to the global audience. Konstantin Vnukov, Russia's ambassador to South Korea, said, "We are sending the experts to find out what exactly happened, who has to take responsibility and who did it."

I think that this issue is very significant still, because justice must be served. North Korea has been denying this speculation for months, and has even gone as far to accuse the South of faking the ships sinking in order to frame the North. There has long been much tension between these two nations, and something as little as one ship may cause a much bigger problem, and if this must happen, it should be on legitimate premises.

May Current Events 1

A U.S. official reported recently that Al-Qaeda's third in command Sheikh Sa'id al-Masri has been killed in a U.S. strike. Two years ago, Sa'id al-Masri was also reported dead, but this time his death has been reported by Jihadist websites.

This is significant event in the global battle against Jihad, because if we can diminish the amount of people planning these attacks on humanity, than we can reduce the frequency of their occurrence, and the severity. Al-Qaeda is one of the leading organizations of terror, and the death of one of their leaders is not monumental, but helpful towards the abolishing of terrorism.

Response to the Berlin Conference

My group represented Britain, and I would say that we did pretty well considering the circumstances. Portugal took the land in Southern Africa that we initially planned to claim, but we were still able to find good fertile land that also had some raw materials and resources. I think looking back we could have done better by planning a back up solution, and could have taken land such as that near the Suez Canal to help extend our power.

In our class's Berlin Conference I think it was Portugal who did the best. They got land that was good for farming, had many resources, and was convenient for trading. I think that Italy did the worst in our class. While it is possible that they got the most land, their land in just desert with no benfits.

One thing I learned from this experience is how little regard the Europeans had for the Africans. While we doing this project all we thought of was how to get the land that would benefit ourselves the most, the existence of the people who have lived in this land for centuries did not cross our minds. Because of the divisions made by the Europeans, bad blood exists today between tribes. By entering and ripping apart Africa they did more damage than they could have possibly imagined, because they just seemed to believe that the land was rightfully theirs.

Scramble for Africa

When I see this quote I think of all the nations that wanted to control Africa and use it for its resources. It really was a scramble because so many nations wanted a part of Africa. The confusing thing about this quote is that they make it sound like it was just free open territory that was theirs for the taking; not that it was land that was already inhabited.

African Rainforest Folklore

The African folk story was about a boy who was hungry, and set up a trap in the rain forest to catch an animal. Instead he caught a spirit child. He was so hungry he didn't realize he was eating a spirit. Then a spirit woman began looking for the spirit child, who was her son. She soon found he was dead, and she began to scream. The men of the boys village, were irritated with the screaming,and shot her.

I think the story was interesting because it was sort of shocking, and something kept happening, so it kept my attention.

The story taught about African culture because it spoke of spirits, especially those that the Africans believed existed in nature. It also showed how the African culture changed because of imperialism, because in the story the men of the village shot the spirit with guns.

I think this could apply to me, because we all do things without realizing it, like the boy, and many of us are impatient and easily annoyed by others, like the village men.