Current Events

India temple stampede kills 100 - CNN.com

More than 100 people killed and 50 others were wounded today in a stampede on The Chamunda Devi temple in Western India. 25, 000 devotees had been trying to get to the hill-top temple though a steep and narrow pathway because they were having a gathering to celebrate the start of a religious holiday.
This is the start of a holiday known as Navaratri (or nine nights) and for nine night and 10 days, Hindus worship the different forms of a Hindu goddess.

The police do not know what caused the rush but many people said that they heard rumors of a bomb and reacted. Though these rumors where spread without a "baseline" these people would be scared anyways as across India, they have had a recent string of deadly bombings. The minister for the region has said that they had assigned 'enough' officers for crowd control but the large group of people had 'overwhelmed' them.

This stampede is a follow-up of last months, similar incident. More than 130 people were killed when the panicked worshipperes tried to run down a crowded street from a mountaintop Hindu temple in northern India when they heard of a landslide on the mountain above everyone. This landslide, of course was faked.

So much of these accidents were caused by faked panic and so many people had to die because someone started a rumor.

September 30, 2008
CNN.com

****

35 people killed in Pakistan bus accident- CNN.com

In Pakistan, at least 35 people died when their bus crashed into a milk tanker and caught fire.
This happened in central Pakistan late Monday near a city of Muzaffargarh. The bus speeding on a narrow road when it collided with the milk tanker and immediately caught fire. Authorities still can't identify the bodies of the 35 killed. These kind of accidents happen almost everyday in Pakistan because people don't care about the safety rules of the road.

September 30, 2008
CNN.com

Current Events

Kidnapped European Tourists Freed - CNN.com


Tourists in Egypt...

10 days ago, 11 European tourists and their 8 Egyptian guides were kidnapped from South of Egypt in Wadi al-Gadid, which is about 400 km from the Southern Egyptian city of Aswan. They were all traveling in 4 jeeps when they were apparently taken to Sudan. This kidnapping cause a start of a small conflict between Egypt and Europe.
The tourist group included 5 Germans, 5 Italians, and 1 Romanian. The guides were all Egyptian; 4 drivers, 3 security guards assigned to accompany the group and the owner of the company.

Today, all of them have been released unharmed.
All of them now are on a military flight back to another military base near Cairo, the capital of Egypt, reported Magdy Rady, a spokesman for the Prime minister of Egypt. However, the officials have not released the information of where they were kept and whether they made any arrests of the kidnappers.

September 29, 2008
CNN.com

Current Events

Tainted Milk Scandal Worries

After all this melamine-tainted milk starting up in China and it's products many countries all over the world, like Singapore and Taiwan, have been taking down food items that have milk in them and are from China. Now with this milk scandal, scientists have began to look into other products of China. Some crayons have already been tested and passed for a poison toxic chemical.
People everywhere have to be very cautious of what they consume now. In every foodstuff made in China, people everywhere are looking very closely at the labels to check whether the milk or milk powder came from China.
"(There's) no confidence any more. I'm now looking carefully at everything that's made in China," said one Singapore resident.
Some traditional Chinese medicine shops in Singapore said that business has been cut down by 20%.
Its very confusing why people would chose to cut corners in making these stuff when they can produce good items and have good feedback instead of the millions of emails, phone calls, and faxes of complaints and threats.

Written by Ryan Huang and S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia
September 25, 2008

Culture of where I'm from

I come from Singapore, which has many different races; Chinese, Eurasian, Malay, Indonesian...etc. The cultures may differ from our race but I'm from the Chinese culture. Though my family isn't really deep into the Chinese culture, we still celebrate some Chinese events like Moon Cake festival and Chinese New Year. Those are probably the only celebrations related to the Chinese culture that I celebrate.
During Chinese New Year, we would have a family reunion where all my cousins and my aunts and uncles come together at my grandparent's house. When we get there, we would have to present 2 tangerines to the grandparents and wish them a happy new year. We would eat and hang out and the elders would give red packets or 紅包 to us. Then our parents would just store them in our banks.
On Moon Cake festival, it isn't so intense as it is here. We would just buy moon cakes and eat them and when we were young, we would get lanterns and walk around the block at night with all the other children. I didn't actually get why we had this but I appreciated the moon cakes and their sweet savoring taste.
Singapore has a lot of religions and it usually matters on your race. Then again, you could be from Indonesia and still become a Christian at your choice. My family is Christian because my grandfather (on my dad's side wanted to go to church after one of his friends brought him there). Originally my ancestors were probably believers of those Chinese gods. But both of my parents' side became Christian on my grandparent's generation.
Transportation in Singapore. Singapore is really small and it's pretty easy to get to places. Most people use the public transport like the MRTs, or the buses. The taxi fares has raised since the gas prices rised and more tourist became interested in Singapore. Though people use the public transport a lot, slightly more than average families have at least 2 cars. Well- at least where I lived, I lived in the city.
The arts of Singapore. We don't actually have a specific way of design, we follow the arts and music of, like, America. There are very few popular bands in Singapore and I, for instance, always listen to the American broadcast on the radio. The way we dress can either be really expensive and fashionable or those dis-colored cheap second-hand clothing you buy in super markets. Most kids my age don't really get the chance to buy clothing because they're always so busy with work and they only spend an average of S$150 on clothing the whole year. But the normal clothes fit for Singapore is probably a tank and shorts with flip-flops.
Education in Singapore means everything. The schedule of an average Singapore student would be:
7:00 - 1:00 = School
After school = ECA (extra curricular activities...mandatory)
Evening: Tuition or Swimming or Music
9:00 - Arrive home and eat.
9:30 - Study
1 am - Sleep.

This is why you don't see much Singaporeans go into high classes colleges. Everyone gets such a good score, who can you pick is the best to go to your school? Friends are hard to find in Singapore, even at work, because everyone is trying to beat each other out and get to the top.
Economics: Singapore's money. I'm not all sure about it. We're known to be really rich from the outside, but while you're in Singapore, you seem really poor.
Food: Yes. We have a lot fo famous food. The Chili Crab. The Hainanese Chicken Rice. The Ba kut teh. The Chili crab is known to be really good but really spicy. Chicken rice is not just chicken and rice, the rice has a certain flavor that makes the dish unique. The Ba Kut Teh, most people know as drinking/eating in the morning is a bitter and sweet herb soup we drink. It's really deliecious with various veggies, herbs, and meat.
Singapore is pretty okay. It the place I feel the most comfortable.

Is Air Matter?

Air is matter. I think that takes up space is matter. Why do you ask? If you blow air into a balloon, it inflates. This is because air is pushing the rubber of the balloon to expand and to create space for itself.
Air contains, carbon dioxide, oxygen, dust, and all those junk we have in the air now in the 21th century. Dust is actually dead skins cells and bacteria and a lot of other stuff, dust can make dustbunnies. Dust bunnies, lots of dust stuck together. This creates a mass and it takes up space. Carbon dioxide and oxygen and other stuff in the air is made of elements in the Periodic Table. They contain atoms and they take up space. Just because we can't see them or weigh them, doesn't mean their not matter. After all- they do matter.

Current Events

Obama Heckled By Protesters


The African American protesters that showed up at Obama's recent rally. ^


Protesters being escorted out of the University of Miami's hall by the Secret Service.
***

This has not been the only speech that Sen. Barack Obama has been interupted by protesters. In one of his other rally (in the beginning of August in St Petersburg, FL) Obama was similarly interrupted by a smaller group of protestors with signs saying, "What about the black community, Obama?"
On his recent rally, just after he did his introduction, Obama was heckled by a group of 20+ blacks holding signs like "Blacks against Obama" or "Obama edorsed by the KKK".
Obama, instead of ignoring his protesters at first, handled the situation that should be greatly coveted. Once noticing the interruption, Obama stopped and allowed his crowd to try and drown out the chants from the protesters with "Yes we can".

"Hey young people out there – it's no problem for you to put your signs up," Obama says to the protesters, "but let everybody – let me finish what I have to say, alright? Come on guys."

After this, Obama headed straight back into his pre-written speech about everyday jobs and watching the prices go up...

As the group of African American protesters were being escorted out of the hall of the University of Miami, Obama says, "Alright guys, see ya" and waves along with the crowd to the leaving protestors. He continues with a, "Alright, let's get back to work."

September 19, 2008. www.abcnews.com

HIS Culture

HIS Culture

- Camp Taiwan: We've done it every year.
- Musical: We've done it every year.
- Family School: Every one treats another like family
- 1:1 Laptop School: We use technology and laptops instead of books
- Small School: We're a small international school
- WASC: An example of our school trying to grow and expand.
- 5 student outcomes; Active Learner, Critical Thinker and Problem Solver, Person of highs character, effective communicator, and community contributor.

Current Events

'Post-Olympic Era' Off to a Rocky Start - CNN.com

China has recently finished their Olympic Games. But all this excitement, or as they call it, "post-Olympic euphoria", everyone is ignoring all the "economic worries and safety crises" [CNN.com]
People all around the world saw the Olympic Games as something that will effect the political and social change of China.
Many citizens of China sent in compliants to the government over the China's Human rights record and "treatment of minorities".
Even before then, however, reality showed itself with the collapse earlier this month at an illegal mine waste dump that killed at least 259 people and forced the resignation of a provincial governor.Now, the contaminated milk powder has killed the fourth baby, and more than 6,200 in critical condition, the government isn't paying enough attention to them and the only times we read about them are in international records. The rest of the world is worrying while China is still celebrated their success of the Olympic Games.

September 17, 2008 CNN.com

Current Events

Rove: McCain went 'too far' in ads - CNN.com

This year's Presidential Elections in the United States has been in the top news globally. This fierce battle with Barack Obama against John McCain is what most of the world is talking about. After Sen. McCain announced his pick, and took the world by surprise, as Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, and after her speech that included many attacks against Obama, it's been a full out debate between the two parties.
Sen. McCain has had the experience, being in Congress, but many think that he may lead America to another four years of disappointment. Obama has very little experience, but he has fresh ideas from this very "young" mind of his. I think it's almost even ground here. It's like a playground fight where two kids are trying to claim the swings and the slide but to persuade the other kids they have to give them jellybeans. Both kid leaders have the same amount of jellybeans. Would American want another "Bush" as President? Or someone that doesn't have that much experience?
How are those two parties get so much votes when they are about even? To beat out the opponent, one has to persuade the citizens of America what they can do and what the opponent can't. Former Bush advisory, Karl Rove says that McCain has gone "one step too far" with the attacks against Obama in his ads. After this comment from Rove to Fox News, the Democratic party "leaped on the quote" [CNN.com].
Rove then said that both parties need to be careful what they say to each other.

On another hand, Former nominee from the Democratic party, Hilary Clinton, says, "Barack and I may have started out on two separate paths, but we are on one journey now." This, to me, shows that even though they were opponents, Clinton still remains on the Democratic side.

CNN.com September 14, 2008.

Why Students Should Blog

When I watched the Youtube video first about "Why Let Our Students Blog" I found the fact there are younger students (grade 2s - 3s) that are a 1:1 laptop school too. It's pretty cool to see what younger students have been doing stuff with the computers, maybe even better than us.
I enjoyed the part where the person who made the video included the part for our "digital future". As we go further up the years, our lives will obviously become incredibly "digital". With all the technology being created every day, we can't start learning about the electronic world when we're older. We have to start young and we'll obviously learn more stuff in the future. Gradually, we'll learn more more the gadgets and wizzes as we're in a 1:1 computer school. We can obviously learn all this stuff too...through blogging. :]

For the blog post about 20 (its actually 21 reasons) reasons why students should blog, I liked the part that states "Students are digital natives - blogging is a natural element of this." Yes, because we are children living in this generation, writing a lock-and-key diary is the same writing a blog. It's natural for us.
"Prepares students for digital citizenship as they learn cybersafety and netiquette" This is good because in the future

Current Events

"New Orleans Starts Up, but Not at Full Power" - NYTimes.com


Residents of Louisiana line up for a free meal from the Salvation Army.

Hurricane Gustav was thought to be a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, luckily, the city of New Orleans escaped with little serious damage. Although the power to tens of thousands of homes have been knocked out, the evacuees pile into the city again, rebuilding this lives. The small cafes and restaurants are packed full with people, the grocery stores, holding long lines, and the traffic on the streets keep rolling.
Mayor C. Ray Nagin said, "90 - 96 percent of the power will be back on by the weekend."

"The city is still improving, and improving rapidly, " Mr Nagin said, "Any business person who’s out there and not open yet, [should return] because you're losing a lot of money."

Many cities of Louisiana, were hit harder than New Orleans. But the recovery of this Hurricane Gustav seems to go by faster because of everyone' experience and easier.

Article by Adam Nossiter of the NYTimes.com published on September 4, 2008.

Current Events

"Bhutto Widower With Clouded Past Is Set to Lead" - NYTimes.com
Last year, the world was taken by shock when Prime Minster Benazir Bhutto, who was leading a rally for her Pakistan People's Party in the parliamentary campaign was killed in a suicide attack.
Many people then questioned, "Who will lead us now?" Her son was one of those people that others thought would carry his mother's legacy. However, he was still too young.
But now, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, is expected to become the president of Pakistan on Saturday. He has never been know as a leader in anything yet, but he said, "[He] wll learn on the job."Mr Zardari has "shown canny political skills" [NYTimes.com]
Hopefully, he will be able to lead this scarred country.

Article written by Jane Perlez of the NYTimes.com. Published on September 4, 2008
PHOTO: NYTimes.com "Asif Ali Zardari"