Summary: China has executed two men, Hu Ming (55) and Su Binde (27), for abducting and selling 15 children. They were executed Thursday morning. Hu Ming sold nine children from April 1999 to October 2005 and all the boys were returned to their families. Su Binde abducted 6 children from September 2005 to July 2006. 5 of the children were rescued but the sixth child is still missing. Child trafficking is a serious problem in China. Earlier this yea, the police rescued about 2000 abducted children.

For more information about human/child trafficking: www.humantrafficking.org

Link for article: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1943169,00.html

Reflection: Abducting children is a horrible thing to do. Execution is also cruel, but I think these people ‘earned’ it. Children are not objects. They should not be separated from their families and work in terrible conditions. I hope that all the children who were abducted has a normal life now. However, I think it might be hard for them to forget the excruciating pain they went through. I hope that the police keep on trying to rescue the children in China and wish that the children can have happy lives.

After reading this article, I was curious about the situation of Vietnam because Vietnam is also a developing country like China. I have researched and found out that human/child trafficking is also a serious problem in Vietnam. Many men, women, and children are sent to Cambodia, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, South Korea, UK, and other countries for sexual and labor exploitation. However, the government of Vietnam has begun to improve services for trafficking victims. I hope that countries all over the world will improve this situation and save children from child trafficking.

Unknown Words:

Abduction: to carry off a person illegally and by force.

Detained: to keep from proceeding

Map:

Summary: Just because you are using electric power doesn’t necessarily mean it is clean energy. Power plants all over the world burns fossil  fuel which emits thousands of tons of CO2 and other fumes. David Wheeler, created a database that tracks down the power plant polluters. He said that we are not limiting the emissions, when we aresuppose to. There are 20,000 power plants in the world and only 100 of them create 60% of the total carbon emissions. This problem used to be talked about in the western countries. However, the developing countries are also emitting similar amounts of CO2 as the developed countries. In 25 years, it is estimated that the developing countries are going to produce the same amount of CO2 as the developed countries now.

For Video

http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/news/features/clean-power-invu-071116.wmv

For Database

www.carma.org

Reflection: I think that David Wheelmer made a great data base. We can easily see which countries and power plants produce the most amount of carbon dioxide. I found it shocking that only 100 companies out of 20,000 produce 60% of the world’s total carbon emission. That is unbelievable. This statistic shows that those 100 companies produce a massive amount of carbon dioxide compared to other companies that produce electricity. Which countries are these 100 companies located at? I think that they are mostly located in the developed countries such as America and Europe. However, this news said that in 25 years, the developing countries will produce the same amount of carbon dioxide as the developed countries. I hope that the companies find out a way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide but produce the same amount of electricity because we can’t really live without it.

Unknown Words :

disclosure : giving out of information

Map (map of the world from carma.com)

The video we watched during ICT was pretty scary. It was about internet bots and how it can affect computers. An internet bot is a software that can run automatic tasks over the internet. People buy and sell these bots for large amounts of money. The ‘owners’ of the bots can send spam mails to get bank account numbers to hack into their accounts. The bots can also close down a whole website because of them going on at the same time. That is known as the Distributive Denial Of Service, also known as DDOS.

In the video we watched, the bot was ordered to send thousands of spam mails to two certain e-mails. It only took a few hours to send 2000 or more e-mails to the e-mail accounts. The interesting part is that all the e-mails were sent with a different title. No wonder why people get tricked into these spam mails.

This video made me wonder if my laptop was a part of a bot net. I wonder if there are people out there who knows all my passwords and private information. I hope that my laptop isn’t affected with it and I should be aware of the spam mails that I receive. We all should be aware of what can happen to our computers and make sure that we are safe.

For more information:

http://www.tech-faq.com/botnet.shtml

http://antivirus.about.com/od/virusdescriptions/a/botnet.htm

Picture Credit

http://politech.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/zhelatin-worm-botnet-spread-to-10-million-pcs-now-via-automated-blog-postings/

Today, we did a debate about if we should drill for oil or not. Our debate was held silently and live. We first had our debate online in forums.  Even though we weren’t talking, the situation was intense and exhilarating. It was sort of confusing because there were a lot of posts, but it was fun experiencing a different way of debating. It would’ve been better if there were notifications every time a person posted a comment on your post, but I still found my way around. However, the one bad thing about this was having to read every thing. Whenever the post was long, I naturally didn’t read it because I was too lazy. Also, in the online debate, we couldn’t show any body language so we couldn’t really show how we felt. On the other hand, in the online debate we had time to think and post. In a live debate we need to think quickly about a rebuttal and how to attack back, but in an online one we could think calmly about how we should attack back.

The live debate was also exciting and fun. In the live debate we were able to show body language and tone of voice to express our feelings. There were some arguing involved, but we could make our point exactly and clearly. In this debate we were also able to have direct eye contact and conversation with a specific person which made it easier to attack their points. The live debate required faster thinking but it was also a great debate.

I think that both types of debating were great and it was a exhilarating experience. Each of the types had its unique properties and  I wish that we can do this again.

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In our debate, many points and ideas came out. Some of the points made for FOR were; that we need oil to survive, without oil there will be no development, and that the economy will crash with out oil. The points made from AGAINST were; drilling oil causes problems in the environment(ex. oil spills), what will we do when oil runs out, and that there is not enough oil for everybody. All of these points were wise and thoughtful. My position was FOR but I did agree on some of the AGAINST points.

As a conclusion, I think that we should drill for oil but lessen the amount. It’s true that we cannot live with out oil. Our world already depends on oil too much and most of the things are made with oil and our economy would crash if we just stopped drilling. However, it does ruin the environment greatly and if we start to lessen the amount we drill now that means we will have oil for a longer period of time since oil will run out; it’s non-renewable.

Even though drilling can cause global warming and oil spills, we need to drill because we cannot live even one day without oil. We probably won’t be able to live even one hour without oil. Therefore, we should drill for oil but drill less so we will lessen the impact of it.

This is a video I made with Xtranormal about the Millennium Development goals. I explained what the Millennium Development goals are and explained my idea of helping achieve one of the goals, universal primary education. I used the blog post I have posted before to make this video.

I think this Xtranormal video is an easier way to explain the Millennium Development goals and my idea. However, actually writing about it allows you to analyze and define your thoughts better. In a video, you should only have the big, main points so you can’t really clarify the information and thoughts specifically. On the other hand, making a video would be a more creative way to share information than just writing about it. Watching it would make a bigger impact on people than reading a plain text. More people would be interested in watching something, not reading something. Having a visual post and a lingual post are both unique and great ways to share your thoughts and information.

Here is the video I created:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjJLLf55KYY[/youtube]

Extra normal is a program where you can just type in dialogues and make movies. Our class had to make a video explaining what extra normal is and what you can do on it. I think extra normal is a great and creative way to make presentations and videos. However, it would be better if there were more settings, actions, and fluent accents. The voices sound extremely awkward and too robotic. Overall, I think it is a great program to use.

Here is my video :

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

One of the United Nation Millennium Development goals is to achieve universal primary education. For our class to be involved in this goal, I have thought of an idea. We could organize a marathon or run to raise money for the orphans in orphanages in Ho Chi Minh City to attend a proper school to have the primary education they need.

This ‘run’ could be called the Run of Knowledge because the money raised is for the orphans of  Ho Chi Minh City to have primary education. Why did I think of this idea? It’s because one of the Millennium Development goals is to achieve universal primary education, and education should be for all people, not just for the rich. The Run of Knowledge could be in January or February in Phu My Hung. Our geography class, or the whole 9th grade, can work together on this project. We could ask for volunteers from other schools such as ISHCMC, BIS, ABC, and other schools. We would need about 20-30 volunteers from each school. We would also need a lot of volunteers from our school. The volunteers would help us hand out drinks, direct people during the run, and help if help is needed. Our class can advertise this run by posting posters in schools and buildings all over the city. For example, we could advertise them in ISHCMC, BIS, ABC, Korean School, hotels in town, companies, offices, and cafes. We could have the joining forms in schools and major buildings so anybody could access and join easily. We would have to go collect the money, or the people who are responsible for the forms at the school or buildings could send the money to us. We could ask foreign companies in HCMC if they could donate some money or water for the run.

We could also use part of the money we raise to improve the facility of the orphanage. If the orphanage had better facilities that means more street kids will be able to live at the orphanage.

Some orphanages i found that are in HCMC are Dieu Giac orphanage and Thien Phuoc orphanage. The Dieu Giac orphanage is in district 2 and they don’t always have the money to send the children to a local school. Thien Phuoc orphanage is an orphanage for disabled children. If there is a local school in HCMC that would accept these disabled children that would be wonderful, but if they can’t we could go every Saturday or Sunday to teach them some English and math. The Thien Phuoc orphanage is located at district 12.

For more information:

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/education.shtml

http://www.orphaned.org/index.html

http://thienphuoccharity.com.vn/Default.aspx

Picture Credit

Eb78. Scour. 2008. Photograph. Phnom Penh. Flickr. Flickr, 15 Mar. 2008. Web. 1 Nov. 2009. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/74486811@N00/2334798456>.

The millennium goals are 8 goals to be achieved by the year 2015. We are more than halfway to the deadline, and with the help of many organizations and countries united, the goals are slowly being achieved.

The first goal is eradicating poverty and hunger. The target is to reduce half the people who are living under 1$ a day. Unfortunately, the status of this goal is becoming slower because the global economic and food crisis. However, during the time period of 1990 to 2005, the number of people who live on less than 1.25$ a day decreased from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion. That is a great achievement. Even though there was this improvement, there still can be more done. We, as students can do a lot of things to help the poverty situation. For example, we can have a fund raiser at school or in the community and donate money to the poor. We can also ask companies in this country to donate money. There are a lot of foreign based companies, so there are quite a few companies with a lot of money. We could also collect money, buy large amounts of food for a cheap price and have a sale for poor people in Ho Chi Minh City. We would have to sell them at a really low price, but we would be buying large amounts of food for a low price therefore it wouldn’t be so bad.

The 6th goal is to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. There are more than 300-500 million cases of malaria and over 1 million deaths caused by this disease. Nearly 7,500 people get infected with HIV/AIDS and nearly 5,500 people die because of HIV/AIDS everyday. There is an estimated 33 million people who are infected with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is also a big issue in Vietnam. As students we could study about HIV/AIDS and go to local high schools to explain how they can prevent them from getting HIV/AIDS. For example we can teach them about safe sex and the use of condoms. We could also have a small presentation for the people in HCMC to make them aware of the situation and how they can prevent themselves from becoming infected. For the problem of malaria, we could have a fund raiser in our community and have other schools involved. With all the money that we earned we could buy insecticide-treated bed nets and hand them out to the people who are most vulnerable from getting malaria.

Even as students, we can do many things to help the people in this country which is a country benefiting from the millennium goals. Everybody should try to help and become a part of the millennium development goals because the goals would only be able to be achieved if everybody was involved.

If the world continues to develop like this, how will it end like? Why should we care for the poor?

The world is developing rapidly. The MEDC’s are becoming stronger and ruling this world. Some of the LEDC’s are breaking out of poverty. However, some of the LEDC’s are becoming even poorer. Even though the UN is trying to improve this world and trying to achieve the millennium goals, some of the poor countries are not developing. The trade system, no primary education, poor health care, and a weak government is corrupting the poor countries and is not developing. The pile of aid and debt is increasing and it is almost impossible for the LEDC’s to pay back and break out of poverty. If the world continues to develop like this, the poor would get poorer and the rich would become richer and it’s not suppose to be like that.

The world needs to improve the situation of poverty. A solution to it might be debt cancellation. The rich countries are still rich even though they give out aid and lend other government’s money. Therefore, even if they cancel the debts, they won’t have a huge problem. Debt cancellation would be a huge step for LEDC’s towards breaking out of poverty. If the poor countries didn’t have debt to pay back, they would be able to use their profit on themselves, not on paying back the debt.

However, canceling the debt is not an easy decision. If it was easy, our world wouldn’t be like what it is now. The government is not the only organization that can help the poor. Even we can. Why should we? Why should we use our precious money to help the poor? It’s because we are not one of the 800 million people who go to sleep hungry. We are not one of the 2.6 billion people who don’t have basic sanitation. We didn’t die under the age of five unlike the 6 million kids who die every year because of malnutrition. We are the lucky ones and we should help the poor for them to have what we have. We should all try to make this world a better place for the poor people and us.

All we see on TV, magazines, and advertisements are skinny, beautiful, slim, perfect women and men. Everybody knows that the photos published are photo shopped.

You’ll see stomachs flattened, skin blemishes removed, breasts made fuller, navels made ‘perfect’, limbs made skinny, and waistlines lose inches. (Celebrity Retouching: 10 Reasons to Revise Your Reality)

Even though we know that the pictures are not actually them, we assume that they are the perfect models and that we should be like them. We lose our confidence of our own bodies and realize that we are not perfect at all. People are too impacted by the “perfect bodies” and tries to be like them, which is basically impossible.

Being as skinny, pretty, and beautiful as the photo shopped images are almost impossible. However, numerous people try everything they can to achieve that goal. Not all of them choose a healthy way. Some people have eating disorders and become anorexic or bulimic to lose weight. Some teenagers become depressed, anxious, or sometimes even suicidal because their dissatisfaction with their body. Approximately 8 million people in USA has eating disorders and 90% of them are female.

Statistics say that eight out of ten women are not satisfied with their appearance. 80% of children are afraid of being fat and more than 50% of 10 year olds wished they were thinner. However, the “perfect body” is only achieved by 5% or less of the female population.

The photo shopped images destroy people’s self-confidence and health. People should be proud of how they look and accept themselves.

Believe in who you are. (The Beauty Myth-youtube video)

Research

“Celebrities BEFORE & AFTER Photoshop – XciteFun.net.” 1 Oct 2009 <http://forum.xcitefun.net/celebrities-before-and-after-photoshop-t12707.html>.