Current Events

"Stonehenge was a place of burial, researchers say"[CNN]
Most people thought that Stonehenge, a couple of incredibly heavy rocks that form is circle (located in England) was placed there by aliens. Reason? Because back then, cranes weren't invented and they were too heavy to lift. But now, researchers find out that it was just a burial areas.
But since when that people start burying their dead there? Get this. Since 3000 BC.
And the homes near the site used to house people from 3000 BC. Cool~!

"The burying started at 3000 BC and continued for 500 years, said researchers" [CNN]

Well at least now I know that those weren't from aliens...woo.

China - Recycling - USA - Europe

China has been getting exports from the USA and Europe. Why? And which countries?
Why? - "As China threatens to supplant Japan as the third-largest U.S. export market, local companies are finding that China's appetite for everything from old paper to chemicals to semiconductors"[CNN]
Los Angeles has been one of those countries that send paper to China.
In Florida, there is a China-Latin America Trade Center for Recyclables.
Mostly places where there are many industries in America, they sometimes send their waste products to China.

Sometimes though, China asks the companies to send their waste products to China. It seems that China is really serious about the green movement.

In Europe, countries like England and France are sending their waste products to China and China has been converting them into recycled paper. China has been saving many forest with their new improved technique, especially in India and Russia where many people get their paper.

Current Events

The FIFA world cup is a soccer game that every soccer player in the world knows about. Recently, the Iraqi soccer team has been banned from the games for a year. This was due to the Iraqi government dissolving all national sport federations. I think that this is unfair to the players on the team. They love soccer as much as every other player who is taking part of the FIFA world cup. So why do they have to be banned doing something they love because of politics and government?
Should Ariel be taken away her freedom to go shopping if someone else did wrong? Should boys stop playing computer games if someone else did wrong? No.
Just because the government dissolved all national sports federations, now they can't play the World Cup.

Current Events

[In this picture, police are firing rubber bullets at mobs and protesters. Rubber bullets are rubber made bullets that hurt as much as real bullets but do not go through the skin or enter to skin and "bounces off" the person, though it hurts like a real bullet]
Just recently in South Africa, there have been mobs and protests directed at the foreigners in Johannesburg. At least 22 people were killed in the small village at the mobs attacked at, and the Red Cross estimates that at least 3,000 more were displaced. The police also arrested at least 200 people for offenses including rape, murder, looting, and destruction of property.
"Police said those behind the attacks accused the foreigners of stealing jobs, criminal activities, and benefiting from social services -- such as free housing --meant to benefit South Africans. Police said at least one foreigner was burned alive over the weekend, while others had their houses torched, their shops looted and their possessions stolen. Many have sought refuge at police stations." [CNN]
They attacked those small villages "where locals are jobless, hungry and in need of basic services such as clean water, sanitation and housing" [CNN]. These attacks were meant to drive out the foreigners, like escapes from Zimbabwe from South Africa.
Its amazing that after everything that happened after the apartheid nationality is still a problem in South Africa.

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References

Mabuse, Nkepile. "Anti-foreigners violence kills 22 in S' Africa" CNN. May 19 2008. May 19 2008.
<http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/19/southafrica.deaths/index.html>

Current Events

Picture 1

Picture 2

We've heard about wars and riots and protests all around the world. Sure, man-made disasters. But so far this far 2 weeks there have been two NATURAL disasters in our continent of Asia. A cyclone in Myanmar and an earthquake in China. This topic has been very popular in our school too. Even here in Hsin-chu, people claimed that they too felt the tremors of the quake, which epicenter of located in the middle of China.
I believe that the real bad thing about natural disasters is the aftermath. The destroyed homes, the death tolls rising each day after new findings.
In China, many believe that their death tool from their 7.8 quake may hit 50,000 people. There have been stories of the sorrow in China. *Of "two grandparents carrying their dead grandson because they didn't want to put him down on the ground and destroyed areas". **Another story of how a "live baby was found under his dead mother and father because they had protected him with their lives". About 3.5 million homes were destroyed form this terrible earthquake. It is told that this is the largest most damaged earthquake in the last generation and that last largest earthquake was also in China in 1976.
While in Myanmar, the death toll could hit 100,000 people. And theif government still isn't letting any aid get in without their control over it first. They only allowed the helicopters from the US to hover over the land and drop the aid boxes so the Myanmar government can be the one who controls everything and delivers the aid to the people in need.

Its amazing what nature can do and how many lives it can take in just a few minutes or hours.

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* , ** = <http://his-jordanw.blogspot.com/2008/05/chinas-quake.html>

Picture 1 =
<http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/15/quake.thursday/index.html?iref=mpstoryview>

Picture 2 = <http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/15/myanmar/index.html?iref=mpstoryview>

Current Events

So far, the Olympic torch has been around the world. Today (May 11, 2008) the torch is in Fujian. The torch has been in many protest and rallies throughout the world. The following pictures are sections of the route that the Olympic torch has taken. The first picture shows the route of the Olympic torch from May 2 to August 6. The second picture shows where the torch is right now, which I had already said, Fujian, which is somewhere in China. link

CNN Student News

I watched a podcast of CNN Student News and I saw that actions of the school taking control of the drinking on prom nights.
I believe that this is a good way for keeping the students safe and get these situations under control. Theses schools cannot stop everyone because there will always be some students who find loopholes and use it against the teachers. Although I do not disagree that the teachers should be doing this because kids' life should not be interrupted by stupid things like drinking. Those teens who drink should really think about what they are about to do and what might happen after you and and the people around you.

Current Events

The Olympic flame reached the top of the world Thursday morning, carried to the summit of Mount Everest by climbers wearing oxygen masks to breathe in the thin air of the earth's highest point. A 23-year-old Tibetan woman, Tsering Wangmo, carried the flame atop the peak. She was the last of five climbers -- three Tibetans and two Han Chinese -- to pass the torch to each other near the summit.
Once there, the mountaineers removed their masks so television cameras could record their faces and so they could shout and cheer their feat.
The climbers, braving gusty winds and freezing windchill, relayed the flame -- ignited from the main Olympic flame, now making a course across China en route to host city Beijing -- to the summit by 9:18 a.m., about two hours ahead of schedule.
"They were very motivated; they were very excited," journalist Tomas Etzler said from the Everest base camp at 5,200 meters (17,060 ft). The climbers started their ascent at 3 a.m. Thursday (3 p.m. Wednesday) along the Tibetan side of Everest, known there as Chomolungma. Twenty-two of the 31 climbers were Tibetan.

Student 2.0

Think that the posts at Student 2.0 is kinda not really interesting to me. Most of the authors are all high school students with problems that high school students have. Like college? Do we really need to be worrying about college right now when we're only in middle school.
If we wanted to talk to people in Korea or Sudan, I think then we would have showed more interest in those countries. What people our age like doing is hanging out. Having fun for the few more years until we have to worrying about everything else.
We don't really bother about somethings that happen in another school. Will it have an impact of out school?
I think we should look into something and write about something that interests us...not something that might interest people who are older than us and have better will to do something they want...like blogging.

Three Lessons from High School: Student 2.0

I listened to the video of "Three Lessons from High School 2.0" and i think that Anthony Chivetta, the student who posted that blog post has many good advice, for someone in another type of school. Those kind of advice would have worked, depending on the school's situation and the type of relationships that people have. His school must have been a large school where you don't know the names of a person a year older than you. That is the school where no one really cares about what you do. His advice would have worked if you found some logic in it. Like what would happen in reality if everyone could track your mistakes and hold you to it forever. Those advice, in my opinion, expired about 10 years ago when everyone was best friends with each other in a school and there were no complications along the way.

I think that its better that the author, Anthony Chivetta used video as a post but he could have made it a little more interesting. Halfway I started to get bored and i almost fell asleep. An advice would have been to make the video presentation a little more interesting and something that would have caught the attention of normal students that may have other problems.

Current Events

This is a picture of an artist who is finishing up his sand sculpture in Vijfhuizen, Netherlans where there will be a SandSculpFestival. It was a big indoor exhibition of sculptures that are completely made of sand.

Current Events

These women are receiving rice at a local shrine in Islamabad, Pakistan because of rising populations and strong demand from developing countries and also because of crops that need bio-fuels and sent the food prices very high.

Current events

More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend its annual slaughter program. More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures.