Gardon,+Benjamin

Post for 4/9/10

The president of Israel fired his chief of staff yesterday because of his supposed involvement in a sex scandal. Video showed Cheif of Staff Rafiq Husseini undressing and calling for a woman to come. A committee made by President Abbas found that Husseini was in fact not guilty of political misconduct, but though the results of the case are not public Husseini did some thing wrong because he was fired. Husseini says that he was framed.

The CNN article had everything, it had quotes from Husseini, quotes from the committee and quotes from the president, as well as some in depth information about the scandal and how it happened. On the other hand the NY Times article has next to nothing. The NY Times article is one paragraph and had a bare bones summary of the events.

In terms of coverage I think the CNN article was way better than the NY Times article. I think that Husseini is definitely guilty of whatever he was accused of. Whenever someone shouts "umm.... I WAS FRAMED!" you know it's a lie. It's probably good Husseini was fired, otherwise he would have gotten into more mischief.

[[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/middleeast/08briefs-Abbas.html?ref=middleeast|http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/middleeast/08briefs-Abbas.html?ref=middleeast

]][[http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/04/07/mideast.sex.tape/index.html|http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/04/07/mideast.sex.tape/index.html ]] Post for 3/12/10

Hundreds of thousand of protesters will march around bangkok this Saturday night. They are protesting the coup that recently occurred in Thailand, which took Thaksin, the old prime minister out of power. The protest was originally supposed to have 1,000,000 participants but organizers expect 600,000, and the current government expects only 100,000. Although 100,000 still sounds like a lot of people.

The CNN video report had no quotes or cited sources and only gave a brief overview of what was happening. On the other hand Al Jazeera did a very good job of getting quotes and giving a deeper view of the issues behind the protest. The CNN video seemed to be on the side of the protesters, were as the Al Jazeera article was more supportive of the new government. Both sources outlined the same key events and predictions for the protest.

I thought that the CNN coverage was very incomplete, as to sources and background information. The Al Jazeera article had more background and quotes, but both sides were biased. I really don't know what to think of the event, both sources portrayed the protests inn different ways such that I don't think I know enough to make a judgement or predict an out come, but I be some thing big will happen. [] []

Post for 2/5/10

Robert park was released on Saturday after being held in north Korea for two months. Park apparently crossed a frozen river into north Korea with letter to the country leader, Kim Jong-il calling him to change on some human rights issues. park is expected to return to US soil soon. According to the Korean official news agency (which is kinda like the mouth of truth from 1984) Park repented for illegally entering the country, they said he saw now that the North Korea really gave people religious freedom and was a great place to live, or something along those lines.

Both sources had the same information; Park crossed a frozen river, got caught, is coming home, and the news says he repented. however the feel of the articles is somewhat different. BBC took the statements by Korea's news agency in a very negative way, as propaganda. Aljazera looked at the statements in a much less biased light and left the conclusion making to the reader.

On the event, I think North Korea is being paranoid and faking park's statements is not gonna help. Conversely I think park is equally wrong he seemed to think he could just waltz in and give his letter to Kim Jong-il, which he cant. On the coverage, I think it was fine I cant think of any thing it lacked save an interview with park.(This goes for both sources)

[] []

Post for 1/29/10

China has cut off most military communication with h us and is very upset about the us arms deal with Taiwan. This happened very recently. China says that this threatens Chinese national security. The sale included missiles, helicopters, communication systems, and mine hunting ships, but not fighters. Apparently neither the US or China recognizes Taiwan as a state but the US will still make deals with them.

Oddly the CNN article seemed to concentrate much more on China and the aljazeera article on the US. Other than this both articles are basically th same information and position on the issues in the issue. CNN talked allot about fighters, but that was the only difference content wise, as both were fairly impartial.

I really don't know why a nation as paranoid as the US would help arm another nation, especially when it inflates tension with another loony nation like China. As to the coverage I think that it covered the US China perspective well but completely missed the Taiwan perspective, which is important.

[]

[]

Post for 12/11/09

The election results have come in! President Hifikepunye Pohamba has been reelected as president of Namibia. Pohamba won 76.4 percent of the vote for his party; the South West Africa People's Organisation or Swapo. In the senate swapo won 75.3 percent of the votes and 54 seats. However not all is well in Namibia, 13 of the opposition parties are opposing the erection, saying that they were " not adequately informed about the vote verification process." The opposition is now making a case against the electoral body with the reasoning that it was unfair.

The events in these articles distress me because the contested election along with the rising poverty, unemployment, and the degradation of the countries school and health care system could lead to another civil war, which no one wants especially so close to diamond rich South Africa (sound familiar?) Concerning the coverage, I have concerns about the Google article because it seemed to be mostly the same as the Aljazeera article, and it repeated information. (the opposition parties statement about being uninformed was repeated twice as new information)

As usual I think the Aljazeera coverage was spot on and unbiased, I think it adequately portrayed the situation, allowing the reader to draw from it what they will. On the other hand I think that while the Google article portrayed the information well it felt un professional to read, it lacked credibility. I think the Aljazeera article was better.

[] []

post for 12/4/09

Apparently the military leader of Guinea, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara was shot Friday by one of his aides. The reason he was shot is not yet apparent nor is how badly or whether or not the aide has been caught. police also oppened fire on a group of protesters in a stadium and apparently the aide was there as well.

The BBC article had allot of information on the shooting at the stadium where as the NY Times has very little, but neither article is very clear about what happened, so there is not a great picture given of whats going on.

[][] I think the coverage was confusing and lacked solid information. furthermore I was unable to draw any decent conclusions from the information provided in both articles, it sounds like the aide shot Camara and was at the stadium at the same time. I cant figure out how he got away after shooting Camara. Bad coverage.

post for 11/27/09

Once again i'm doin' the pirates of the coast of Somalia. On Monday November 30th 9 pirates seized a Greek vessel with it's 28 crew and are now holding them hostage. The pirates have been doing this for a long time now and have gained millions of dollars off of it.

The Reuters article gave allot of in depth info and quotes about the incident and was generally much more in depth. The AfricaNews article looked like someone has read the Reuters article, chopped out 2/3 of it and used it as their own. It had one quote and bare bones of an explanation of what happened.

[] [] On the subject of the event i'm getin' bored of this and it's really repetitive. On the coverage I think the Reuters article was great and the AfricaNews article was pretty bad. Thats all.

post for 11/20/09

For years pirates have been attacking, hijacking, and ransoming merchant ships and yachts off the coast of Somalia. the EU, US and a few other countries are trying to police the area but are running into many legal problems and tactical problems. many times when the pirates see naval forces coming they simply dump their guns and then can't be arrested they are seen boarding a vessel, which rarely happens because the area is so big and once the pirates are on the ship it's too late.

The two articles are very similar in that they have mostly the same coverage of the same ongoing event. The two sources give slightly different statistics and sources but are otherwise the same. [] []

I thing that both articles did a very good job of explaining the problem and how hard it is to solve. The problem sounds like are real thorn tin people's thigh but the ships taking on an armed crew is good news.

post for 11/13/09

In South Africa, last Tuesday or Wednesday a police officer shot a 3 year-old boy in a car with a couple of "suspected criminals". The officer claimed that he thought the boy had a gun. In past months there have been a string of police killings and wounding, this almost immediately follows the president's comment that police should be allowed to use what ever means necessary to capture a criminal and deadly force.

The WikiNews article spoke only of the shooting of the child, but was more in depth. The BBC article on the other hand, gave very few sentences about the circumstances surrounding the child's shooting. The thing the BBC did have was a much broader view of what's happening. They gave examples of other incidents and talked about policy and the international ramifications.[]

[]

First I think that while the killing is tragic the important thing to see is how the policy, or the comments of the country's leader influenced the judgement of the police force. I think that a very well excepted notion in police theory is that giving police too much leeway makes problems.(one way to restrain police that we use here is making every thing a police man does turn into a pile of paper work. no one likes paper work.) Both articles had very definite and pronounced failings, but together they tell the story quite completely.

post for 11/6/09

These two articles are a continuation of last week's post about the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler. The two had been sailing in their yacht when pirates attacked and took them hostage around the 28th of October. This follows an upward trend in piracy off the coast of north Africa in recent months.

The CNN article gave a breif summary of what was happening and the gave some general information and statistics about piracy off the coast of Somalia. The NY Times article too gave a breif summary of the event and then proceded to give more specific information as to how the couple were treated and where-ish they were. The NY Times article also gave quite a few quotes and exerpts from interviews from the pirates and the Chandlers (over phone).

Sources [][]

I am sorry to use such old articles but they contained more up to date information and it was all i could find as a follow up. I think that both articles add a lot of new and interesting information in the form of statistics and interviews or quotes. It is good to hear that the hostages are unharmed and from the information that they are in the captain's room they must be being treated well. That is good.

post for 10/30/09

A UK couple was kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Somalia, (which is full of piracy) four days ago. The British government is currently investigating the kidnaping, but don't know there Paul Chandler and his wife Rachel Chandler are being held. A ransom is expected soon. Because Somalia has no real government the pirates off its coast have run rampant and the last few years have seen a huge increase in pirate activity and naval forces patrolling the area.

It would appear that the Newser article was written after the yahoo article, because in the yahoo article the journalist did not know if it was a pirate attack that took the Chandlers, but in the newser the pirates had issued a statement. The Newser article however, was very brief it simply explained the situation and stopped, whereas the yahoo article gave quotes, background, and transcripts from the Chandler's blog.

Sources [|http://www.newser.com/story/72650/pirates-hijack-yacht-kidnap-uk-couple.html] [|http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20091027/tuk-kidnap-fears-as-uk-yacht-disappears-a7ad41d.html] I think that this whole business is bad, but on the other hand piracy is very good for the economy of the Somalian coast, as I learned from an unrelated source the pirates never hang on to the money long so it is fed directly back into the tumultuous economy. It would be nice if the pirates could find respectable jobs like normal people, but hopefully the Chlanders will eventually be turned over unharmed.