Summary

Tens of thousands of women die every year in India during pregnancy or childbirth-related problems. A human’s rights group is blaming the medical system’s poor planning, caste discrimination, lack of care and lack of access to proper healthcare. India has a maternal mortality rate 16 times higher than Russia and 10 times higher than China’s. This means that one out of every seventy women in India that reach reproductive age will die due to childbirth-related problems or childbirth itself.

“For an emerging global economic power famous for its medical prowess, India continues to have unacceptably high maternal mortality levels,” the report said.

Aruna Kashyap, the lead researchers claims, “Seventy-five percent of maternal deaths (in India) are preventable.” The maternal mortality rate has decreased over the passed few years, but in certain area’s of the country it continues to rise. In 2005 about 117,000 women died due to maternal-related reasons. One of the main problems is the government and hospital workers trying to avoid the responsibilities. The fee for a woman to have a successful labor, is $10 for the actual procedure, $1 to cut the umbilical cord and $1 for the delivery room cleaner. This seems like a cheap price to pay, but for many of the patience support there families on only $2 a day, so this fee may be to high for them to pay for.

Personal Reflection

I think that is is ridiculous that, that many women can die of a preventable cause and the government doesn’t do anything about it. This really shows how the government feels about it’s people. They would rather make some money off there people than help them and buy proper facilities and make it an affordable price for the patience.

For More Information

“Report Finds Maternal Deaths in India Preventable – ABC News.” ABCNews.com – Breaking news, politics, online news, world news, feature stories, celebrity interviews and more – ABC News. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=8769371>.

Summary

The falls came after Nakheel, a property develper asked to trade some of his Islamic bonds to be suspended. The shares are trading for the first time since the company, Dubai World asked for an extension on repaying its debts. The central bank of the United Arab Emirates said it would supply the banks with extra liquidity. Dubai’s Financial Market Index fell 6.9% just with the first hour of trading. Construction and financial stocks aslo fell  nearly 10%. Dubai World fell 15%.

Personal Reflection

I think that Nakheel’s decision to suspend some of his trades was a stupid decision. This really shows how much power some of the rich companies have. He makes one simple decision affected the whole economy of Dubai and some of the surrounding countries. This just goes to show why it’s nad for one person to have so much control and power.

Unknown Words

Liquidity-The degree to which an asset or security can be bought or sold in the market without affecting the asset’s price. Liquidity is characterized by a high level of trading activity. Assets that can by easily bought or sold, are known as liquid assets.

U.A.E.- Uniter Arab Emirates

Work Cited

“BBC News – Dubai stocks plunge as debt crisis fears continue.” BBC NEWS | News Front Page. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8385164.stm>.

I’ve always been interesting in hacking and how it works, so seeing this video was very interesting to me. For a bit I did a bit of hacking on my own but nothing harmful, something as simple as hacking my iTunes store for free music. But seeing how hackers can take over tens of thousands of computers was amazing. It’s scary to see how easy it is for someone to literally by control over my computer and have access to all my information and use my computer as a weapon. I think that it was risky for BBC to actually hack computers, which is illegal but I think that it was to educate people on the dangers of BotNets.

This made me think of an anonymous hacker group who is hacking and taking down websites worldwide. They are a group called anonymous. No one is sure who they are, but there main purpose is to take down the church of Scientology, but they are also hacking innocent peoples computers and are now sending death threats. The group originated from a group in 4chan, /b/. After being exposed by fox news they actually took down the Fox News website for a short period of time.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9kSYr5Cyks&feature=related[/youtube]

The United States is still ahead in space development, but China is making a lot of progress and it has been noticed by many other countries. “I think anyone who’s familiar with the space business, and particularly the history, our history in the space business over the years, would have to be absolutely amazed at the advancements that China has made in such a short period of time,” said Gen. Kevin Chilton, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of the military’s space operations. The US is very interested in China’s intentions in space. China is not revealing there intentions of getting into space, but it could simply be for the power or attention. America is worried because they are already aware of what China is capable of, after the incident in 2007 when China destroyed a low orbiting satellite. China is also developing more advanced weapons like lasers, high powered microwaves and high particle beams. China s also thinking about “co-orbital” anti-satellite systems. It’s purpose is to have a satellite that can catch up to and destroy or jam another satellite.

I think that the US has a reason to be worried about China. Because they already have had conflicts with the country. US naval boats were harassed by Chinese ships in International Waters, and China has been reported to have tried to hack into the US’s computer system.

Work Cited

“In today’s space race, watch out for China – CNN.com.” CNN.com – Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. <http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/11/18/china.space/index.html>.

Overall I enjoyed the debate and think it was successful in getting people to argue about there side of the debate. But, I enjoyed it more when it was online, the chat room and the forum. I think that when it was online it gave everybody more of a chance to speak than if it was  in person. This was because you couldn’t be interrupted, also if you were scared to talk in front of people doing it online was no problem. I think the end result of the debate would have to be that drilling for oil needs to stop. I think that team was more convincing because they always had a rebuttal for any statement we made.

I made a video as a follow up to my geography reports using XtraNormal. The host is Ali G, a fictional character that Sacha Baron Cohen got famous.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6dhx2BAwjw&feature=youtube_gdata&ytsession=f4PEG3AV8FqL7OSaP2_3snbMsrZEq_BTN5ww8fYlTLIUe0hfXAKb89_1kAHaNnqRysbbJY37kC5e6euw41rlJTuCnKZfh8iLfHYER0FHv7226FdI7uH-R8atbBuxax9O3a9WASB9WQ6eMxq2XrY_dRnrHylyaIsInkgjonsLkI_JIsfK2SuSS4DDNtorUvhFt3AEM-an8kS0hZZwQORscGNsxdNtPSx9UImB9v9t9d7CR8PVX4DrYePKHoVX4CJTN4sXj9MhJAUGqbaQoDin4C0_MtbWsTTj8aH806blp8ekPnuSJp69cn2kJXCQV8_UYZttWJPuZxiEVX7CFke7LKaDOcTnMDWBwHmLlXmSuRrnYxVY0zhNIOstGTROcYIYSdkjVYFxsjmBy45Y1GtREmn65tXVCfxfwZHs1SwjsT9SUaLhDfXapnskkXJY0lmY[/youtube]

I think that expressing my ideas through a video is better than through an essay. It is also more entertaining for others to watch a funny video than reading an essay.

I used a very easy and useful application called XtraNormal. It allows you to make videos very easily, it is also free unless you want to be a premium user. It’s very simple you choose your scene then you add in the text for what you want the characters to say and finally you can add in emotions or expressions. I made a video using XtraNormal explaining XtraNormal. It isn’t a serious video, I was just messing around seeing how it worked.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCg4soMRfZQ[/youtube]

Nick and Aidan

Our plan for helping make the world a better place is to organise a Battle of The Bands and have all the money go to a local orphanage. We could also sell t-shirts and food at the event to make extra money. Instead of doing it at school

we could make it a public event so we can bring in more ticket money. The bands could be from any of the schools in Ho Chi Minh City, they would have to pass auditions. If this event is a success we could make it an annual event.

Picture Credit

Ever since a young age both boys and girls were surrounded by people with perfect bodies. For example most little kids play with either Barbies or G.I. Joe. But the truth is if Barbie is a real person she would stand 5′9 and weigh 110 pounds. She would be way under weight for her size. She would be so sick from inadequate diet that she would not be capable of menstruating. The boys all wanted to be huge and buff like G.I. Joe, but if he were real he would have a 55-inch chest, and 27- inch biceps. His biceps would be the size of his waist.

We continue to be surrounded by perfect people throughout our lives. On average a person sees about 400-600 ads a day. Whether we realize it or not, this is affecting the way we think of ourselves. Most people want to look just like the perfect figure on the T.V. 4 out of 5, 10 year old are afraid of being fat. People with a bad body image of themselves are more likely to develop an eating disorder. They are also more likely to suffer from depression, isolation, low self esteem, and obsessions with losing weight. You can take a quiz to see if how body image affects you (link is in the bottom of the resources).

For More Information

Achieving Universal Primary Education

How do we achieve primary education for all? We have the money to achieve this we just need to spend it wisely. We can build schools in the areas where children are not receiving a primary education and enforce that they go to school until a certain age. We would also have to train the teachers and pay them, so the students don’t have to pay to enroll in the school. Although this sounds like a very easy task it is not, where is the money we are using to pay for the school and pay the teachers coming from? How do we know where to build the schools? How do we enforce the children to enroll in the schools? The money could come from the MEDC to help the world. And the schools would need to be strategically placed so the kids have easy access to the school. There is no way to monitor all the children and make sure they are enrolled in primary school, but what we can do is inform them on how getting an education can help them in the future, to get a job. If we achieve this goal it would also help with many of the others, hopefully most of the children continue to get an education and a job with a descent wage allowing them to buy food for themselves and support there families.