Syria Weapons Inspection Deadline Missed

The inspectors in Syria have missed a crucial deadline. They were supposed to go in and check on the schedule of destruction of chemical weapons that Syria was suppose to be compiling with. However, this deadline was missed by the international inspectors while going for a scheduled visit to Syria. They were unable to access the areas due to security concerns.

“The chief of the global chemical weapons watchdog disclosed for the first time in a report obtained by The Associated Press that Syria has declared 41 facilities at 23 chemical sites where it stored approximately 1,300 tons of precursors and agents, and over 1,200 unfilled munitions to deliver them.”

It is hard to really know what is going on in a country like Syria. It is in the middle of a civil war and people from both sides report things that everyone has to take with a grain of salt. There are vague reports and understandings of what really is happening. This is true for their count of chemical weapons which is why the international inspectors have to go into the country in the first place.

I think that it is interesting they announce their deadlines publicly- via media. I would suspect that this would have some implications to their security and to the stockpile of weapons Syria might have. There may be some that are hidden when these inspectors come in and people know when they will be in the country-causing targeting to become much easier.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/29/syria-weapons-inspectors-miss-deadline-for-visiting-declared-weapons-sites/

How does this effect the international community as a whole in a political way?

Maybe that is just me, but what do you think about this?

Website Issues

Kathleen Sebelius was under fire after the Affordable Healthcare Act website had some major issues involving signups and crashes. The website continues to have problems after its launch. It has crashed many times despite maintenance and many people have been unable to signup to obtain their healthcare.

Sebelius is head of the U.S. Health and Human Services and responsible for the creation of the website. 

There has been much debate about the process of the new healthcare and the changes it will cause. The website launch fail has not helped those who are doubtful of the new Obamacare health plan.

Many have responded to this launch failure directly on Sebelius and have called for her resignation. Even though this is happening, she still continues to promote Obamacare and insures the website will be working correctly soon-for her sake and those trying to receive insurance.

Many have also commented that the websites lack in technical stability is just foreshadowing how the Obamacare product will really be. There has also been backlash on Obama, and now his approval ratings are very low compared to his start of the second term in the oval office.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/24/kathleen-sebelius-health-law_n_4160222.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

What do you think about the website crash? Do you think this foreshadows problems with Obamacare itself?

What are your thoughts on the reprimand of Sebelius? Do you think it is deserved?

Malala Yousafzai

You may have heard of Malala. Back a few years ago she was shot by the Taliban for educating young girls under the Pakistani Taliban. This was illegal under Taliban rule. She was targeted and shot in the head/ face for refusing to stop teaching these women. Today she is only 16 and still living. After being shot, she was taken to England for surgery and recovery where she lives now.

Now the Taliban are after her again. She continues to stand up against the Taliban’s beliefs that girls/women should not be educated.  I can’t imagine the courage this teenager has. She was shot in the face before by the Taliban and knows how threatening they can be, but she still continues to stand up for what she believes in.

What do you think about Malala's stance? Do you think her efforts are going to be short-lived or do you think she will start a major social change in the Middle East?

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/10/07/malala-yousafzai-pakistani-girl-shot-by-taliban-under-new-threat/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fn

Border Patrol

This article is very interesting. According to a report by Breitbart News, these reports state that the stand-downs are due to budgetary restrictions. The report also says they are paying thousands of dollars to other departments for coming up with ways to cut Border Patrol pay and save money. This could mean bad news for the states and their security against people who illegally smuggle drugs and humans.

Also this could mean some bad news for other types of illegal aliens. This article makes a really good point in addressing the existence of people who don’t just smuggle drugs and are illegal traffickers. There are also some people who illegally want to get into this country to commit acts of terrorism.

Citizenship and illegal aliens have been a big debate in recent history. There are lots of questions to the ethics of the Border Patrol and services.

What are your thoughts?

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2013/10/02/exclusive-border-patrol-management-orders-agents-to-stand-down-while-tracking-smugglers

Kenya Claims Upper Hand In Mall Hostage Crisis

Recently in the news there has been coverage of the Kenyan mall attack/ hostage situation.  Five gunmen including at least one woman came inside Nairobi’s Westgate Mall with multiple different guns and grenades. After the lights shut off, the gunman continued to shoot only allowing Muslims to leave. Multiple people from various nationalities were at the mall during the time of the shooting and a festival was also being held where 50 children were in attendance.

Later in the day, Kenyan officials say the attacks could have been terroristic in nature, and later that afternoon a Twitter account that is reportedly associated with al-Shabaab claimed they were the ones responsible for the attack. As of now forces continue to secure the perimeter of the mall as they close in on the shooters. Many still remain hostages.

Officials also told Embassy workers to stay home and only monitor the local media for updates. These officials who could be in danger in their own homes turn to the media for guidance. I think this has been pretty typical in the past with domestic situations. Everyone turns on the news when they hear about some breaking news, but for an American living overseas to be able to turn on the news and find out what’s going on around the corner from their foreign homes is amazing. To think about how media coverage has grown—and so quickly—is something very interesting to think about.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=20334295&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=227433191

Control Room

I have been posting links to websites and things we hear on the news, but I would like to take this blog time to write about something I found to be very inspiring and useful from another class I had last semester. Like I said in my introduction paragraph, I am a Communication major. There is so much I find interesting with communication and how and why and the types of communication available, but I really enjoy news and journalism the most.

Like so many other Communication classes we go over these other types of  things, but what really tied it all together and my love for international affairs was the documentary Control Room (link below). If you ever have a chance to watch this, it is very well done.

Control Room is a documentary made in 2004 from the news organization Al Jazeera's point of view- relevant because they just opened Al Jazeera America.  Al Jazeera headquarters are based in Doha, Qatar. In 2004, America, like so many other allies, was at war in the Middle East and news coverage of the war was picked up from around the world. The documentary walks us through how news coverage in war is conducted. I thought the most interesting thing about the documentary is that it is from Al Jazeera's view point. Our cultures are similar yet so different, and seeing their point of view about war and media and other's media coverage was quite interesting.

One thing I found most interesting was the critique of American coverage of the war. Al Jazeera is known in America for their more graphic depiction of the war. While we can fight about whether the scenes with children suffering and so on is from an American strike, no matter it is still a chid in distress or people dead lined up along the street curbs. At the time Bush was president, and he went on air and demanded Al Jazeera stop displaying to captured, tortured, and dead America soldiers on their air for everyone to see. As Americans we get upset by these images. Now this is where the interesting part comes in. We get upset with Al Jazeera for showing these Americans, our own citizens, in distress, but we show these images of children, men, woman of the Middle East dead, hurt, distraught all the time without double thinking once.

They interviewed the Communication Director at the media base in the Middle East where all the media base in the coverage of war, and he had the same reaction I did. He had never thought of it that way and the cultural difference just goes to show the type of thinking that goes on between the two cultures. Now, of course any newsource you have to take with a grain of salt, because as we all know, there are biases everywhere.

What are your reactions? Have you seen this documentary before?


Link to documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmPUx7OH1T8

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/357051/al-jazeera-comes-america-clifford-d-may

How a Military Strike Might Unfold

I choose to look at this article because it deals with the crisis in Syria that has been in the news a lot lately. There has been a lot of talk about another war and debates about whether or not American interference in yet another international country dealing with a civil war should happen.

This article brings in both international politics and predictions of the mass media on strikes that could possibly be carried out in Syria.

I think international coverage of politics is very interesting. After reading this article, I realized that international predictions are so different than domestic political predictions. Internationally, there are so many countries with deep rooted histories and ties with each other and relations that these countries have goes back decades if not centuries before America was even named.

These political leaders, especially in the Middle East, are in control and very powerful. Also the media availability in most of the counties is also state run. Therefore, everyone is not privileged to freedom of media as a lot of other European countries and America are.  There is not a freedom of the media to investigate the actions of their government; therefore, more goes unknown until it is publicly carried out and too late- i.e. Syria chemical weapons attack. I do think that one of the main reasons for journalism is to be able to flush out what needs to be flushed out like in government and politics in order for the American citizens to make an informed decision for themselves, even though this usually doesn’t happen unfortunately.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/31/how-a-military-strike-on-syria-might-unfold/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/31/statement-president-syria