Obama to send troops to U.S.-Mexico border

Almost 1200 National Guard troops will be sent by the Obama administration to the U.S.A. and Mexico border today to improve security. Gabrielle Gilfords, the Democratic Representative, said that Obama will use $500 billion for securing borders alone. John McCain, Republican senator, will pay for half of the troops moving there. The governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, only recently found out about this move to her state. 4 years earlier, George Bush had sent in troops in a similar fashion for the arrestation of illegal immigrants but this plan had not worked ver efficiently. The plan had been to keep these troops there until professional agents arrived. The project had cost $1.2 billion at the time. After National Guard arrived, traffic rates dropped significantly at the border and politicians aspire to stop Mexico's illegal drug smuggling from spilling over in the United States. A small number of officers still continue to stay there.

This is very important for the overall protection of the Southern United States as due to the fact that Mexico has a very rate of poverty, it would seem certain that illegal immigration, law breaking, drug dmuggling, etc... would be bery common at the border. To end this both President Bush and Obama are doing the right thing. However, I feel that the use of such a large amount of money in excessive training is virtually useless and irrelevant to the situation of problems at the border. When simple police officer training is ideally enough for border guards, why spend more money for extra training that won't be used very commonly. It is as if President Obama expects special cases at the border. Otherwise overall, this is generally a good idea for the safety of the country.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/25/obama-troops025.html

Body In Barrel

Toronto Polic recently found a barrel containing a dead body in Lake Ontario. Homicide detectives and a police marine unit was called to investigate the steel drum which was removed from 6 meters of water at Queens Quay and Jarvis St. It is being called a murder and will take an estimated 72 hours to identify the victim. Homicide detective Justin Vander Heyden refused to guess or give any details on the case like another case he did about a missing teenage girl on September 2009. He believes this barrel murder was an organized act. Since the body is encased in concrete within the barrel it will be very hard to find out who it is.

This murder seems very disturbing as it involves the remains of a human body in a very strange alternative, a barrel. Usually a murderer leaves his victim in a place where he can't be found but the fact that he tried to go this far and put him in a lake is very strange. Additionally this case of using concrete with the barrel is another strange aspect. Whoever did this apparently had thought through the plan very well. The only matter that I feel for though is that this group of men or possibly even single man should immediately be found.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/05/23/14054501.html

U.S. man charged with faking his way into Harvard, duping school out of $45,000 in funds

In Woburn, Massachusetts, a 23 year old man origninally from Delaware was charged with faking into Harvard. Adam Wheeler became a student there in 2007 after he gave false claims of his pefect academic record in Philipps Academy and his one year of studying in Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wheeler's will to do better and accomplish more is what got him caught. He went for the Rhodes and Fulbright Scholarship which is when Harvard started looking his writing. They found some connections with another colleague. He received 20 offences involving identity fraud. Wheeler was trying to transfer to Yale or Brown as an English student when he got caught. District Attorney Gerry Leone is concerned about the fact that many students must have lost unfairly in the competition to get into these schools. His transfer applications included fake recommendations from an employee at McLean Hospital and the Dean of Harvard. Harvard must keep this case under secrecy due to legal rights. Looking back into Wheeler's past, it was found that he was expelled from Bowdoin College in 2007 for cheating.

Why people still continue this disgraceful act of cheating strikes me honestly. It is not needed in the simplistic world of education where idealism should be prevalent. What doesn't make sense in fact is what sense of accomplishment does one get by cheating his way into one of the top schools in the world. It is a very true story and common tale that the more lies one says, the more he tangles himself in his web of lies and soon he is caught himself. The idea of this perfect academic record, SAT score, international scholarships, seemed a little strange to some authorities and in his will to do more, the violator, Wheeler, got himself caught. This leads onto the idea of greed runing someone. Ifhe had only cheated into getting into Harvard but hadn't made fake transfer applications and tried for scholarships, then he would not be in such deep trouble. However he carried events a bit far and I feel he should pay dire consequences for cheating on the numerous other honest students who could have taken his place at Harvard or Yale and Brown.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/a29366.html

Atlantis Astronauts Begin Spacewalk

Two astronauts on the shuttle Atlantis started a 6 and a half hour walk today outside of the ISS (International Space Station). Garreit Reisman and Stephen Bowen's mission is to install a dish antenna and a storage platform for Dextre, a Canadian robot. These two specialists also have two spacewalks scheduled for Wednesday and Friday. The camera inspection of Atlantis was limited due to a pinched cable which NASA says will be easy to free. Tomorrow the astronauts will attach a Russian compartment to the ISS. The ISS currently orbits 352 kilometers above the Earth's crust and is where the 6 member crew of the Atlantis will be for the next week. They need to do some experiments such as Hypersole which will tell Canadian researchers how sensitive the astronaut's skin is to the sole of the boots. This could help fix balance problems. Atlantis has served in 31 missions already and this one is its last so NASA has given it spare parts to deliver to the ISS.

My first thoughts to reading this article were about how this is affecting the environment, in other words the tons of carbon dioxide and rocket fuel being burned during take-off, the millions of space junk already floating around the Earth's atmosphere ready to fall in, etc... Satellites have fallen back to Earth in the past because they malfunction and not used anymore. Destability is very common and usually it takes the launch of another satellite close to an already broken one for it to drop to Earth spilling tons of chemicals and other metals such as lead which may harm the evironment in a significant way. But then again, space research does prove to be important in some ways as we are polluting this world and some scientists are giving ideas about moving to another planet. In this case it is helpful to know about how humans can accommodate to outer space. In that regard, I feel experiments like Hypersole which astronauts are carrying out from Atlantis, will help.


http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/05/17/shuttle-walk.html

Female Peacekeepers Reach Liberia

Liberia is a country currently in a great struggle of trying to recover after a 14 year civil war. In response, the UN sent the first all-female unit to Monrovia, Liberia to help. There are almost 100 women, all from India, that will help to train the local police in a 6 month period. In the upcoming local elections, these women will be the security. In total there are currently 15000 peacekeepers in Liberia to help with this cause. These women come from Kashmir and North-Eastern India and are fully experienced in handling insurgencies such as this one. Mark Kroeker, a UN police advisor in Los Angeles, says allowing the involvement of women allows more change in more vulnerable places. He also believes that this proves that women can be a strong part in a police force.

It is always amazing to be able to distinguish certain groups of people for their achievement and to take away any generalizations about them. Similarly women have once again proved to be a strong force in helping, which may prove to be a lesson for some countries where women do not yet have all their rights. It is also nice to see that the UN is trying to help in some way before it gets too late. For example in the Rwandan genocide, despite the fact that they arrived late already, they had a restraining order to not shoot which made the situation helpless. It destroyed the point of them ever going there. However this news leaves me one very broad question still. Why are women and men being trained in fighting and new arms being built when the hope is to avoid war and not engage in it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6314263.stm

India, Pakistan to hold talks in July

This July, former two rivals, India and Pakistan are going to meet to talk about peace. This has to be done to assure normality between the two countries after the Mumbai bombings which were done by Pakistani terrorists. The Foregin Minister of Pakistan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and the External Affairs Minister of India, S.M. Krishna, have both agreed to this meeting in the capital of Pakistan on July 15th, Islamabad. This is based on an earlier meeting in late April when both the Indian and Pakistani prime minister (Manmohan Singh and Yousaf Raza Gilani) met. Singh was discussing how anti-India terrorist groups in Pakistan remained a threat. Gilani responded with saying that Pakistan was trying to do a fast trial as possible for the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba who killed 160 people dead in the Mumbai attacks. The "composite dialogue" which was a peace process in 2004 called for discussion over the Kashmir terrorism and Indian river dams which block water from reaching Pakistan. Four rounds of diplomatic meetings have already proceeded over this.

Two wars have been fought between these countries since 1947 over Kashmir and the latest, being the terrorist attacks. I feel it is time for Pakistan to close this case up as fast as possible by capturing the extremist group in their country. This rash history has been destroying the once fruitful relationship that they shared before 1947. To some extent, it is a matter of religion and the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba being extremist Muslims wishing to expand their religion. If these hopes can be accommodated in another way other than violence, this history would be ceased.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/05/11/pakistan.india.talks/index.html

Concern rising over oil tankers n Vancouver waters

Vancouver's Burrard Inlet is getting more oil tankers every day and in light of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, there is some rising concern amongst environmentalists. According to the Port Metro in Vancouver, the amount of oil on these tankers has tripled. Almost 65 tankers pass annually now. Bill Gannon, a retired environmentalist wants this to stop completely. Kinder Morgan in Alberta, sends the oil by pipe to a tanker terminal in Burnaby. The oil spill, according to Gannon, could kill all the fish, bad for the fishing industry, and the beaches would be gone. The harbour is deciding on now changing the pathway under the second bridge to reduce chances of an accident, but that will allow for more oil on each tanker. Kinder Morgan is saying they have a 50 year safety record and so he wants to double the amount of oil. Accidentally a construction crew broke one of the pipes spraying oil on 50 homes and sending oil into Burrard Inlet. Then much later, 200000 liters of oil came out of a storage tank on Burnaby Mountain and went into a containment bay where it was stopped before reaching the environment.

The idea of oil spills is not particularly not a good one for the enviroment. The least we can do is not to carry so much oil at once across vast stretches of water near residence. It can harm a tremendous amount of wildlife which affects the fishing industry as well. The same process can be carried out with less efficiency but with more environmental safety. Additionally some tankers should be removed. Less tankers and less oil on each one with more trips is a better equation.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/05/07/bc-vancouver-tankers-oil-spill.html