Egypt Final Post

               Through the semester our group has been covering the ongoing crisis that is occurring in Egypt as a result of the military takeover.  There has been constant unrest as pro-Morsi supports have continued to protest through the weeks since the military takeover.  A topic that our group kept a close eye on has been how the current military run government has responded to pro Morsi supports and their actions.  In addition, we have covered the ongoing actions that the new military run government has taken.  Based on our reports over the weeks is does not appear that the military run government is going to be changing soon.  There have been rumor and talks of the current Army/chief defense minister (el-Sissi) potentially running for office.  This news has not yet been confirmed but the rumors did not help to keep the peace in Egypt.  Furthermore, since the military takeover there have been multiple account of public media networks being permanently banned for portraying the current government in a negative light.  There have been many other instances of military-backed interim government using its power to silence or push back against negative publicity.  University students have also organized themselves and started to protest but they too have been met with military personal.  When members of the interim government were asked why they ordered the peaceful protest to be shut down, many member responded in a similar pattern.  Member of government stated that the protesters were inciting violence and had to be stopped in order to keep the peace.  Inciting violence is the same crime the current government is charging ousted president Morsi and many of head Muslim brotherhood members with.

               Each week when our group met, we would all take 45 minutes to 1 hours to look over popular news articles.  We would always make sure we were reading different ones so after we all had finished we could compare the information and opinions of what we had read.  We would then discuss what information was most important/relevant to include in the current weeks blog and how it related to what happened in the previous weeks.  When reading an article I tried to imagine how each week’s events were effecting everyday citizens both Morsi supports and non-Morsi supporters. How the different actions taken by the government would affect the protesters and if the actions taken by the protesters ever went too far and warranted the use of military action.  I commonly used the Al-Jazeera website as a source of information.  The website was perfect because it offered a synapses of major event and how those event have affected the citizens of Egypt.  Working in a group really allowed me to look at each story from a different viewpoint.  Almost every week members of our group would offer different ideas of analyses or idea as to how the interim government’s actions would affect the country as a whole in both the short and long term.

               Through the semester I have gotten a much better understanding of the current crisis that is occurring in Egypt.  I understand that Egyptian citizens and Muslim brotherhood supporters are angry because the president they elected, Morsi, was forced out of office.  This action was viewed by many protesters as a direct violation of the democratic election process the country had just recently implement.  As a result many citizens feel there rights and voices are being ignored.  Citizens and pro-Morsi supporters then began to protest and perform mass demonstrations with the goal of having Morsi reinstated.  The protesters did not just culminate in the capital city.  Protest group formed at universities, small town, workplaces etc. all demonstrating their disapproval with the outing of Morsi and his upcoming trial.  Even with the protesters performing many types of demonstrations the current government has tracked down and detained all head members of Morsi’s party.  With all the members in custody the trial involving ex-president Morsi has moved forward.  The upcoming trial has only further shown how unstable Egypt still is.  The public and many Morsi supports are greatly concerned with how legitimate the trial will be. In the last weeks of studying the ongoing crisis it has become clear that Egypt is split.  Citizens on one side believe that with the start of Morsi’s trial Egypt will finally begin to settle and they country will leave the current oppressive government behind and return to a more democratic state.  On the other side many citizens fear that the trial of Morsi will not change and the current military-backed interim government will remain in power for a greater amount of time.  It is clear that there are still a lot of changes to occur in Egypt and only time will tell what the final result will be.

           

Final Post - Syria

       Throughout the course of the semester my group and I covered over the conflicts of the Syrian Civil War. We looked into the more in depth information about the chemical weapons that were being manufactured. There was talk about US intervention, to extract the chemical weapon capabilities of Syria. It was in debate for the US to bomb Syria as punishment, for the government's use of chemical weapons to kill some of it's citizens. After conflicting with Russia, the US and Russia along with China all agreed to extract the chemical weapons without the use of force. The UN personal were sent to Syria to confiscate the weapons to dispose of them properly. As this is happing the Civil War gets worse, forcing the UN to halt their progress for a short time. The growth of violence is still an issue today.
       At the beginning of the semester it was fairly easy to obtain information about the current progress of Syria. The media was coming up with new information everyday so we just simply took the most recent information and wrote about it. As the semester progressed we learned that it was getting harder to find the information, due to the fact that it has been already decided that the US was not going to put troops on the ground. In our group we often discussed about the information so we could have a better understanding on what was going on. Personally for me it was good to be in a group because in our discussions I found out that some of the group members had a different understanding on certain points of the information; this helped me broaden my understanding of the issues.
        One of the main things I learned from doing this project is that the media tends to give out the information that is relative to the United States. If it looks like it will effect the daily lives of fellow Americans the media will cover it. Once the news about a certain place is not relative it becomes harder and harder to find more information on the subject. It's almost as if the conflict was resolved, in fact this is not the case it got worse. Another thing I learned about was some of the global politics on decision making. I didn't know that if a country wanted to intervene or start a war they need to discuss it on a global political scale. The issue on Syria was a good example of this when Russia, China and the US were conflicting over getting involved in Syria's Civil War.

Final Post: Around China's world pursuits in 110 days

 

 

 

Throughout the semester our group has explored China’s various exploits worldwide and offered commentary on its methods for gaining resources. We have also discussed how this influences the global economic power dynamic. We began our tour with Africa where China was laying a new framework for developmental progress, then to the Middle East examining Chinese interests in oil, next to South America where China may be building a generous infrastructure or looking to increase its own trade capabilities, next sojourning in Europe where China continues to diversify its economy with luxury-good producing companies, then moving to North America where China has picked up high-value real estate, and finally to Australia where China has been purchasing billions of tons of iron. While on this journey, we contemplated how Chinese economic pursuits look to challenge the global status quo, specifically as Chinese funds have provided support to many weak and now indebted economies.

Our posts were made possible because each week our group met to share interesting stories related to our topic as well as to determine which sector or locale to focus on for our upcoming post. Then we designated a person to do more in-depth research of the particular topic and type up the week’s post. That draft was then sent to members of the group for editing and opinions. This system of working in a group was useful because we could help each other stay up to date on our topic, locate reliable sources, and offer additional analysis for the post.

Reflecting back, this blog has helped me develop a much richer understanding of China’s economic and political policies, particularly how they vary from those in the West. The articles portrayed the Chinese as having an unapologetically different, and perhaps more successful, way of doing things. Along with these topic related findings, I have also learned a great deal about evaluating sources, communicating within a group, and being dependable as well as dependent upon. I feel lucky to have shared this project with the members that I did because we were each able to bring a diverse perspective, and as we share different interests, were able to approach our topic from different angles, be it economically, politically, historically, or culturally.

 

 

Final Blog Post

            Throughout the fall semester, my group was in charge of tracking and covering the European Financial Crisis, specifically in Greece. We mainly covered how the economic crisis was affecting the citizens of Greece and what actions the leaders and politicians were taking in order to reestablish stability for the country. Furthermore, as a group we also followed quantitative facts and updates to observe if there were any positive improvements in the financial crisis. We attempted to track and form a pattern of advancement from the previous years. Lastly, with the information we found through researching, I tried to form my own opinions and stance of how the European Financial Crisis in Greece will shape up to look like in the future.

            The research and collaboration for each week’s post did not go as well as I had planned or expected. I always had an idea that group projects can either go well or be a complete disaster. Members of the group were not able to meet up at the same time or place every week so we split it up so two or three members were designated to work on that week’s blog post. Problems and tension soon arose between group members because some members were not posting blog posts in time or at all. Working as a group definitely influenced our approach to this project because some members wanted to research more about how corruption within the Greek politics was affecting the EU crisis and others wanted to focus more and approach this project on how it was affecting people on a global scale. However, at the end, working in a group did benefit us because we were able to take many different approaches in order to make better, more interesting blog posts. For each week's post, I did research on the current events of that week and then chose the most interesting or the event that popped up the most to analyze. I used BBC, other European news sources, and twitter. 

            I not only learned a great amount of information about the European Financial Crisis in Greece, but I also learned a lot about working in a group. At the beginning of the semester, I chose this topic because I have always loved traveling to Europe and so I wanted to learn more about how the European financial crisis is affecting the people living there and if there are any effects, it might have on tourism. I learned a lot about the continuous, yet slow recovery process of the EU crisis in Greece as they are constantly asking the IMF and EU for loans in order to pay back their debts. I learned that previous politicians were corrupt and have caused stress between the citizens and the government. As far as what I learned about working in a group, I was reminded how huge of a challenge it is to evenly split the amount of work and effort between group members. Something I did not expect and made me uncomfortable was when a group member criticized my work and effort. I thought working together in a group was to learn how to help each other work to each of our best abilities and not question or demote a student’s competence.

Final blog on Egypt

Our Focus on Egypt enabled us to witness the events over there and to ask ourselves if Egypt intended to return to a democratic regime or to remain a military regime. Until now the situation is still critical with protests going on daily. Since Hosni Mubarak’s forced exit, the country is still in chaos. Even though there have been democratic election and the appointment of a new president, Mohammed Morsi, the changes required by the citizens of Egypt have not been met. As a result protests have led to the removal of Morsi, which was done by the army, who once again stepped in to keep order. In the mean time, all the the Muslim Brotherhood leaders have been arrested and some news agency had to close their doors as they did have a favorable opinion on the Muslim Brotherhood. With so much censorship and so many arrests going on, it is hard to believe that Egypt is showing an example of democracy. Now that Morsi is on trial and with its next court appearance in January, the situation is moving at a slow pace with no real end in sight. If convicted, Morsi could face the death penalty.

 I did my research by looking online and keeping myself updated with the events in Egypt. I visited websites like USA Today and NPR to keep on being updated on current affairs. Originally, to start informing myself about Egypt, I watched some videos on Youtube, of news reporters reporting on Egypt. My group usually met once a week, in the cafeteria and we individually researched and later discussed our subject together. We used the internet to gather the most recent news and summarized them in one post. even though we researched the same thing, different members of the group contributed informations that one of us overlooked, making the post full of diverse informations. The group discussions allowed us to be aware of the true story and not take notes on biased sources with bad informations.

 I was originally interested in the Egyptian revolution but sometimes not motivated enough to conduct research on the subject. This project allowed me to become knowledgeable about the recent events in Egypt and analyze the reasons and consequences of what happened. Working in a group has allowed me to hear different opinions on the subject and to better mold my own. My group thought of things and found new informations that were not known to me and this helped me expand my awareness about the situation in Egypt. Together we were able to produce up to date unbiased blogs about Egypt’s turmoil.

Final Post - Sinead Gilman

Throughout this course, my group has been following the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. Much of our focus was on the clean up of the nuclear spill, as well as Japan's and the rest of the world's response. Japan - and the rest of the world, for that matter - until recently was uneasy to say the least regarding the seriousness of the radiation and its effects.  Although TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) has urged the public that they are taking measures and that progress in the clean up is being made, they are still having serious issues regarding Reactors one, two, and three that suffered damage during the earthquake and tsunami and are still dangerously radioactive. Similarly, we looked at the governments' role throughout the disaster, and last month we found they they could no longer keep their promise in reducing green house gases. 

Since we couldn't continue to meet every week, each member would research on their own regarding that week's Fukushima news. We created a Google Doc and compiled our information, as well as made edits and fixed any loose ends. One group member was assigned to make sure everything was perfectly in place and after everyone had contributed and looked the document over online, that one member would submit the final post. I believe this was the best way possible to work together even with busy schedules such as ours. 

Before taking this course, I knew very little about Fukushima. I knew that there had been a nuclear accident involving an earthquake and a tsunami, but that was the extent of my general knowledge. I had always been interested in world news, and even though I did and do care very much about what's happening outside of my United States bubble, I never found myself seeking to learn more about what was going on around me. This assignment taught me the importance of regularly keeping up on current events, and learning what their effect might have on me. Fukushima is still one of the biggest issues in our world news today, and it seems that many people in our country still do not know the basics of this monumental catastrophe. I was happy this was chosen to be a group project. My group was always very on task and we were there for one another if we missed anything. I enjoyed my topic and my group equally. 

Final Blog Post- Jasmin Rezaie

Throughout the course of the semester my group and I analyzed the Syrian Civil War and its effect on the International community. It became quite evident that this was not a war just within a country, but many other countries had interests in the outcome too. For large economic powers such as Russia, the Unites States, and China it created tension. When the news broke that they believed the Assad regime had used chemical weapons on its own people, which is banned by international standards, the United States wanted to intervene. Three of the major members of the United Nations were at odds which created this tension. They came to an agreement to remove all chemical weapons in Syria, which appeared to fix that problem. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has already gotten rid of the factories to make these weapons, but it will take a bit more time for them to remove all the stockpiles of weapons from Syria. It is dangerous for this team to do their job due to the ongoing violence in Syria. Now cooperation from both sides of the war is important to the U.N. sanctioned mission. The war continues to carry on with no apparent end in sight. Once again it threatens to drag in other neighboring countries.

            Each week my group and I would meet on Thursday night to write our blog post together. Usually we discussed the events of that week and what we had seen in the news. Then we would all individually research the news for Syria for that week some more. Then we would compile that news into one summary, and together we would all contribute ideas on what to write. That is how we wrote our blog posts. Working as a group caused me to actually process the information so that I could or someone else could explain our findings to the rest of the group. The paragraph about its relation to international politics forced us to discuss our ideas about its effects in order to write that paragraph.

            I learned that wars that seem like civil wars really effect the international community because of alliances, the presence of international institutions like the U.N., and individual interests of each country. For some the Syrian Civil War is an essentially a proxy war. I learned a lot about the key role of international institutions in situations such as this, and the role of the United Nations specifically in diffusing the problem. By working in a group I learned that the best ideas come from a combination of other’s views.