Over the week, the internet has been the main topic of discussion.
The social networking website Twitter and the "non-profit media organization" Wikileaks have been the two sites that we focused on.
Twitter, the 2006 founded website started out looking like a complete failure. Jack Dorsey, the inventor of the huge success that is Twitter "never appeared to expect any more than babble". Of course, Twitter is used for much more than "babble". People are now using it for countless useful things, as well as the unavoidable babble. Celebrities and politicians are using it to try and gain popularity and make them seem more like their countless followers. People in dire situations such as the protests and riots in the Middle East have been using the website to provide information about where to avoid in the streets, or where a protest might be held, and even to describe what is happening during one. Another very useful use is spreading important information such as locations of evacuation centers, or how far away the cyclone is from major cities and towns,as done during the Cyclone Yasi disaster in Queensland earlier this year.
While the success of Twitter is just growing and becoming more obvious, Julian Assange, the founder and head of Wikileaks has been deep in controversy for quite some time now. Wikileaks, the self described "non-profit media organization" is basically a website where people who have access to secret government and military information go to tell the world about it. It is known for being used to post information which is controversial and could cause a lot of trouble to someone. Different people have different views as to if what Julian Assange has been doing is good or bad. I personally believe that overall, it's hard to tell. Some of the things he (and his team) posts are good and can help people, or expose immoral information/footage, but other things that are posted can just cause harm to people. Not all that long ago, Wikileaks posted some footage that had been taken in an army plane of helicopter of a small group of people huddling in a group. The aircraft open fired and killed most of them, while only two of them were suspect in any way whatsoever. This is the awful truth that is modern day American-style warfare. This sort of thing should be seen and known about. On the other hand, Assange has been publishing names of people who seem to be corrupt in the slightest ways, putting them in danger by their government. Wikileaks also occasionally posts things that governments would really not want out there, sometimes even things that could ruin two (or more) nations relations (not that that has necessarily happened - that it is a possibility). So far, what the organisation has done, is, I believe good, but the day that Julian Assange starts a war will be the day his website becomes a hazard.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
People > Poverty
Over the week, we have been talking about poverty, wealth and the gap in between. Now, I am to make a quick summary of an organisation that battles to eliminate poverty. I have chosen the organisation Make Poverty History. Make Poverty History is an organisation made to assist people in heavily poverty stricken countries. Make Poverty History is a coalition of more than 70 aid and development organisations, community and faith-based groups. The organisation has been set up by some of the wealthier countries associated with the UN. Unfortunately, I was not able to access any information about the programs that they run to achieve their goals, which, for future reference are to:
-Eradicate poverty & hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Promote gender equality
-Reduce child mortality
-Improve maternal health
-Combat diseases
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Global partnership.
My next task is to personally rank the UN Millennium Development Goals. These goals are also essentially the goals of the Make Poverty History organisation. Here is a list of the goals in my prioritised order.
-End poverty and hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Improve child health
-Improve maternal health
-Achieve gender equality
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Combat HIV/AIDS
-Achieve global partnership.
All of these goals are very important to the development of the earth and its people. We cannot just make the world all happy and equal and poverty free by completing just one or two of these goals.
The reasons that I put the goals in this order are simple.
Poverty and hunger are the main pressing issues. If people can't eat, people can't live. People living in poverty find life so much harder than people with spare money in their pockets. But to end poverty and hunger, we need to improve universal education. If people are educated, they can find and excel in a job much easier than uneducated people. But simply education can not eliminate poverty. Child and maternal health both need to get better everywhere, especially countries like Chad, Afghanistan and Congo - the three countries with the highest rate of infant mortality, and also three of the countries with the lowest life expectancy. These three countries, (especially Afghanistan and Chad have three of the highest maternal mortality rates, showing that the two issues can be somewhat linked. Basically, health in general must improve. Gender equality, one of my personal highest valued issues is also most likely needed to help the world. If a woman were to try and provide for her family, or herself in a third world country (or a 'developing country' if you prefer) she would most likely find some difficulty in this - somewhat harder than if a man were to do this. If women can't provide for their families, their families stay poor, and they slip into (or stay in) poverty. Now, not to get all 'hippie' about this, but environmental sustainability is important for a great number of things. Health is affected if sustainability is not first thought about, resources disappear, making essentials harder to find and more expensive, and of course, climate change kicks in and kills everyone. Combating HIV/AIDS would have ranked higher in my list if it was simply "improving health" but HIV/AIDS are not the only thing people are dying from. It is a small problem compared to all of the other life threatening health issues in the world. Lastly, I listed "Achieve global partnership". Global partnership is certainly important for poorer countries to maybe be helped a little bit by the richer countries like USA, Britain, Australia, (I might have mention Japan if this was written last week, but probably not so much right now)and other well off countries.
*insert witty summing up line here*
-Written by me - Darcy.
-Eradicate poverty & hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Promote gender equality
-Reduce child mortality
-Improve maternal health
-Combat diseases
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Global partnership.
My next task is to personally rank the UN Millennium Development Goals. These goals are also essentially the goals of the Make Poverty History organisation. Here is a list of the goals in my prioritised order.
-End poverty and hunger
-Achieve universal education
-Improve child health
-Improve maternal health
-Achieve gender equality
-Work on environmental sustainability
-Combat HIV/AIDS
-Achieve global partnership.
All of these goals are very important to the development of the earth and its people. We cannot just make the world all happy and equal and poverty free by completing just one or two of these goals.
The reasons that I put the goals in this order are simple.
Poverty and hunger are the main pressing issues. If people can't eat, people can't live. People living in poverty find life so much harder than people with spare money in their pockets. But to end poverty and hunger, we need to improve universal education. If people are educated, they can find and excel in a job much easier than uneducated people. But simply education can not eliminate poverty. Child and maternal health both need to get better everywhere, especially countries like Chad, Afghanistan and Congo - the three countries with the highest rate of infant mortality, and also three of the countries with the lowest life expectancy. These three countries, (especially Afghanistan and Chad have three of the highest maternal mortality rates, showing that the two issues can be somewhat linked. Basically, health in general must improve. Gender equality, one of my personal highest valued issues is also most likely needed to help the world. If a woman were to try and provide for her family, or herself in a third world country (or a 'developing country' if you prefer) she would most likely find some difficulty in this - somewhat harder than if a man were to do this. If women can't provide for their families, their families stay poor, and they slip into (or stay in) poverty. Now, not to get all 'hippie' about this, but environmental sustainability is important for a great number of things. Health is affected if sustainability is not first thought about, resources disappear, making essentials harder to find and more expensive, and of course, climate change kicks in and kills everyone. Combating HIV/AIDS would have ranked higher in my list if it was simply "improving health" but HIV/AIDS are not the only thing people are dying from. It is a small problem compared to all of the other life threatening health issues in the world. Lastly, I listed "Achieve global partnership". Global partnership is certainly important for poorer countries to maybe be helped a little bit by the richer countries like USA, Britain, Australia, (I might have mention Japan if this was written last week, but probably not so much right now)and other well off countries.
*insert witty summing up line here*
-Written by me - Darcy.
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