Spinach, peanuts, pistachios...now what??

The Center for Disease Control, or CDC, are now saying that we need an overhaul of the current regulation system. When the food safety system was made, food were groen and consumed more locally, but now there is a whole shipping and transporting factor in the food supply that makes it easily for E. coli and other harmful bacterias to find their way into our food.

Here in the US, people assume that the food we are eating is fully inspected and okay to eat because of our extensive regulation. But are we regulating enough? Growing up in the United States, I never thought twice about eating something that I bought from the store, assuming that it was fresh and not contaminated in any way. I'm scared to learn that that may not be the case.

Do you think that the government should spend more money to update the food regulation system in the country? With this economy, should that be the first priority? Or should our first priority be injecting the economy with money?

The pirates are not linked directly to any terrorists

The US hasn't found any direct ties between East African pirates and terrorist groups, but it continues to search for signs of links between the two factions in the wake of the recent Indian Ocean hijacking. According to the article this post is liked to, "military and counterterrorism officials say that in the transient world of Somalia's combative coastal dwellers, a Somali clansman can be a fisherman one day, a pirate the next, and a weapons trafficker the following day". This sounds a lot like the vietnam war to me, where a man could be a vietcong by night, and a simple villager by day. I do not believe the US stands a chance of wiping out piracy or terrorism, but I am shocked that the pirates would attack a US vessel after centuries of not doing so. There must be a reason behind this bold act. If they are in some way connected to a terrorist group, that might explain, but beyond that...any ideas?

Obama seeks $83.4 billion in special war money

Obama asked Congress on Thursday for $83.4 billion for U.S. military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for special troop funding that he opposed two years ago when he was senator and Bush was President.
This request, including the money needed to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, would push the costs of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The additional money would cover operations into the fall.
Obama is also requesting $350 million in new Pentagon funding to deal with Mexican drug cartels and conduct other security activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, along with another $400 million to help Pakistan in counterinsurgency efforts along the border with Afghanistan.
Robert Gibbs--the White House press secretary--said it was needed this time because the money will be required by summer, before Congress is likely to complete its normal appropriations process.
"This will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan," Gibbs said.
This monetary request by Obama shows his shift of focus from the war in Iraq to the war in Afganistan, where many challenges remain.

The Old Man and the Fee

On April 7, Somalian pirates once again attempted to hijack a ship on it's normal route so they could hold the crew for ransom. The only difference from previous hijackings, is that this ship was being run by an American crew. This is the first time in a couple of centuries that pirates like this have attacked a United States' crew and cargo. The ship, the Maersk Alabama, carried food supplies and other aid like materials that were to be used to help different communities in the Kenyan port of Mombosa. However, the hijacking didn't go as planned and the American crew, along with American Naval Officers stationed near the Somalian coast, have taken back the ship and thwarted most of the pirates' plans. Yet, there's a problem. Before the skirmish was over, the captain of the Maersk, Captain Richard Phillips, allowed himself to be taken by the pirates so as to save his crew. Four of the pirates took him on one of the Maersk's lifeboats and are holding him hostage until their demands are met. The United States Navy and the FBI Hostage Negotiations Unit are both working to negotiate Captain Phillips' safe return. But the pirate's are "desperate" according the the USA Today article. Desperation causes people to do stupid things and it's very likely that Captain Phillips' life is at stake. This represents the first serious, albeit small, "security risk" for the Obama administration. I'm not aware of how much power each person of the government has in these type of situations, but what should the person calling the shots do in this type of situation? If you pay the ransom, you not only let the pirates get away, but you also encourage repeat attempts because they know it pays off. If you don't pay the ransom, sure you capture the pirates and discourage future attempts, but you would be putting the good captain in serious risk and also risk the lives of the pirates themselves. The press would have a field day if they knew the US forces allowed the captain to be killed in order to not pay a ransom. How much is an American citizen worth to the the United States government? How much are pirates lives worth? I would personally try to pay the ransom (there's an interesting article on how they do that here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7752813.stm) secure the hostage, then take the pirates before they escape...but even that's really messy and there's no telling what the pirates will do. It all comes down to how much the pirates want to survive this incident.
Also, pirate attacks have been increasing (especially off the Somalian Coast) with this being the sixth hijack attempt this week! Why is this not a major concern at things like the G20 conference when it is obviously hindering trade and travel?

Oil's big 5 are thrilled with Obama's green outlook

As might be expected, the planned 150 billion dollar expenditure towards a greener future posed by the Obama administration is not sitting well with big oil companies like Shell and BP. The companies claim that the alternative energy would not be able to handle the vast amount of energy needed to run this country. Although the companies have run commercials claiming that they support alternative energy and will be experimenting with biofuels, their investments are quite small and are not a focus of their long term goals.

I think that alternative fuels are necessary to find and I think it's important for oil companies to make it a priority, but at the same time, we also have to keep our oil flow steady because our country still relies heavily on oil. Is it realistic to assume that we can replace conventional forms of energy in the time frame that Obama has given? Should we focus all our efforts on helping our dying planet and use a substantial amount of money towards alternative fuels?

Iran willing to talk to US if Americans are Honest

Finally, a step has been taken to prevent a potential nuclear war with Iran. The Obama Administration said today that they were planning, together with other world powers -Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia- to join a new round of talks on its nuclear program.
Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been cautious in his press conferences. He has stated that he is willing to talk to President Obama as long as the United States is honest and does not try to take advantage of the situation. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not yet taken a strong stand against the new American administration, like it did with President Bush.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said that Iran favored dialogue as long as it was based on mutual respect. “We favor dialogue with other countries but it has to be based on justice, respect and national security of our and other nations,” he said.
Let’s remember the campaign trail of the now President Obama. It had been an issue of debate the fact that Mr. Obama was one of the few or only candidates willing to talk to our enemies overseas without preconditions. The strong rival for the Democratic nomination, the now Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, criticized Mr. Obama for his weak stand against our enemies.
It will be interesting to know, how Secretary Clinton feels about the new “relationship” with Iran.

Night of the Living Taliban

(I would read this post on the Taliban before reading the article, if you choose to do so.)
With the assurance that all combat operations will end in Iraq by late 2010, and that our troops will be evacuated by 2011, President Obama now refocuses American foreign policy and troops on fighting the problems in Afghanistan. However, the situation in Afghanistan is much like having a house whose occupants you evicted, you left for a while to deal with other houses and now those original occupants are back and bugging the current owners. Apparently, the Taliban are back and causing enormous problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But first, a little history of the Taliban (because I think it's important for later on):
The Taliban (which sort of means "religious students") started as a mujahideen ("holy warriors") group back when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. When the Soviets retreated, the Soviet-backed government had hard times trying to control the conflicting mujahideen and ultimately failed into obscurity around the early 90s, letting Afghanistan fall into the hands of corrupt warlords holding sway over their local territories. The Taliban up to this point, had been composed of various factions of religious students who had fought the Soviet occupation but were still unorganized and unpowerful when they were separated. However, in 1994, the Taliban united under the local faction of religious students in the city of Kandahar, taking that city, then began a push that eventually ended up with the now united Taliban capturing the capital city of Kabul and thus taking control of Afghanistan in 1996. At the head of the Taliban was a fierce cyclops of a man, Muhammed Omar, a one-eyed cleric who believed devoutly in the practices of Islam. He imposed Sharia, or Muslim law, over Afghanistan, banning education or other rights for women and supporting terrorists in the country. But yet, most citizens were relieved to see him come because he took power from the corrupt warlords and restored a sense of peace and trade to the region that it badly needed. Situations in the country deteriorated under the Taliban's rule, but Afghanistan WAS united (for the most part) rather than involved in an all out civil war. The Taliban continued in their oppressive peace from 1996 until 2001, when the United States invaded and took them out for harboring Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda ("the base" for those who don't know) in their country. The United States forced the Taliban out of power by aiding the opposing northern alliance of Afghan tribes and by bombing key Taliban military installations. The Taliban fell out of power and the new government, led by a funny-hat wearing man by the name of Karzai, seemed fit to rule instead. We thought that the Taliban was dead. Most of their leaders had been killed or had fled, and the Taliban as a whole seemed to have lost all power. We thought wrong. While the United States was fighting for six years in Iraq, the Taliban had come back from the dead, like very determined zombies. Violence and attacks by the Taliban have been increasing annually, with two NATO troops being killed just today in a car bombing. Their ties to Al-Qaeda have only strengthened and they are making a comeback. Yet, now that the Iraq War is (hopefully) winding to a close with the agreements that we will have our troops out within a year or two, the United States is ready to come back into Afghanistan and kick some ass! But it's not as simple as we found it. We can't just focus on Afghanistan if the Obama Administration is serious about taking down Al-Qaeda and the Taliban who support them. There's a problem, though, in that the Taliban and the majority of their ethnic make-up, the Pashtuns, have very strong ties to not only Afghanistan, but Pakistan. We didn't eradicate the Taliban, we just let them slip through our fingers into Pakistan where they've been gaining strength and occasionally mounting attacks into Afghanistan. Muhammed Omar, the cyclops leader of the Taliban, still eludes capture and the Taliban themselves guarunteed a safe haven for themselves while we were busy dealing with the climax of violence in Iraq, around late 2006 to early 2007. In those years, ex-president of Pakistan Musharref ("friend" of the United States) signed a deal saying the Taliban could hold sovereignty and rule over the area they had been basing in, including the Pakistani city of Quetta, which seems to be the stronghold of the group. Fans of the agreement argue that it contains the Taliban and helps prevent more factions from springing up elsewhere. Critics say it gives the Taliban and thus, also Al-Qaeda, a base of operations. However, this region and the city of Quetta are where "Cyclops" Omar and the rest of the Taliban have been planning against the new Afghan government and the resurging United States' plans of operation. The Pakistani government (without Musharref now) have seemed ambivalent towards the Taliban living within their borders. The Taliban have fought against the established government and caused trouble for the current leaders. And thus, according the the BBC, "Mr Obama has pledged substantial economic assistance for Pakistan - more than $1bn (£684m) annually over the next five years - but the money will depend on the army's performance against the Taleban and al-Qaeda. " While Obama was at the G20 conference and touring Europe, he sent special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the capitals of the those respective countries to "clarify Washington's thinking" and guaruntee the funding to the Pakistani Government. However, at the same time, according to the New York Times, "American officials say that Pakistan's military intelligence agency has continued to offer money, supplies and guidance to the Taliban forces in Afghanistan as a proxy to help shape a friendly government there once American forces leave." Pakistan's government refuses to be resolute on where it stands and could become a threat to the United States when we start to focus our efforts on destroying Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Afghan War might just expand to be the Afghan-Pakistani War and destroying the terrorist organization and capturing Osama Bin Laden could become bigger than just "refocusing our troops in Afghanistan."
Obama "unveiled a new strategy which suggested both Afghanistan and Pakistan needed to be fully engaged in the confrontation if the militants were to be defeated." (BBC) The presence of the Taliban in Pakistan is a big threat to the United States for two reasons: one) The Taliban have been closely interconnected with Al-Qaeda for decades, and their presence in Pakistan means there is an Al-Qaeda threat in Pakistan. and two) their presence in Pakistan gives a major base of operations to oppose any economic prosperity and peace United States' troops could fight for in Afghanistan.

I wanted to make sure people understood the background if this war gets bigger. Couple of questions though: Should we continue to fund Pakistan when we know there performance against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban has been shaky in the past? Would it be reasonable for the United States to expand it's war against terror into Pakistan, or would we be disrespecting the rules of internation law and sovereignty by exercising our own views and wills on a certain group? What should we do and how much power do we have to eliminate threats like terror in other people's countries? and to that same effect, what right do we have to carry on with drone attacks in Pakistan, and what does that show if our attacks are inhuman?

My information on the Taliban came from my own memory and summaries from the New York Times (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/taliban/) and infoplease.com (http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taliban.html). The future plans of the Obama administration came from the article from the BBC and from the administration's website (whitehouse.gov).

Job Losses Will Increase This Year, Biden Says

According to Vice President Biden, American job losses are going to continue to increase throughout this year, but the seeds of recovery are in place. The over $700 billion stimulus package pushed through Congress by Obama will hpoefully begin to make our job loss slow and our GDP go up. "We went out there and we came up with a major recovery package of over 700 billion dollars which we are spending now to prevent another 3.5 million to four million jobs from being lost in the meantime," he said. Thoughts anyone?

Obama's Guantanamo Policy to be Tested by Supreme Court

For the first time since he took office, President Barack Obama may see his Guantanamo detention policies tested before the US Supreme Court. This occurred after 14 Chinese Uighurs (members of the predominantly Muslim and Turkinc-speaking Uighur minority) who were detained without any charges lodged a petition for their release. They were captured in Afghanistan in 2001, and have since been cleared of all accusations that they were "enemy combatants". Legal battles regarding their fate still continue.
This case has become a major political headache for the Obama administration, which has sought to avoid a major diplomatic bust-up with China while attempting to unpick detention policies of the preceding administration (that was Bush, for those of you who are still unaware).
The nine justices will decide this summer whether to hear the case that was filed Monday. If the court does decide to hear the case, it may fid itself sucked into the establishment of new rules regarding the detention of terrorsit suspects. Stay tuned, and read the article at the link I posted!

Are colleges really "need-blind?"

This year, colleges have blurred the definition of "need-blind" acceptance as a result of the reduction of donations made to the colleges.

The definition of "need-blind" acceptance is that students are accepted into the college no matter what financial situation they are in. This ensures that the colleges don't accept too many wealthy students, thus not having to pay a substantial amount in scholarships and financial aid.

Although admissions committees report nothing of the sort, colleges have been using sneaky tactics in order to accept more students that are able to pay tuition in full. For example, Bowdoin college in Maine are planning to offer admittance to 50 more students over the next 5 years, but those spots will not be need-blind admittance. Also, Brandeis are planning to accept more wait-listed and transfer students, both of which are admitted not using the "need-blind" system (Zernike, New York Times).

It is unfortunate that us seniors have to deal with something like college admittance at such a horrible economic time. People are already turning to more local schools or junior colleges for higher education, and I think it's horrible that instead of accomadating those students who need more funding in order to go to their dream private school, colleges are trying to trick us out of that needed money and giving those spots to the more well off. I understand that colleges need money in order to keep their campus learning at its fullest potential, but private universities still are getting a lot of revenue in existing tuition paments and still have loyal alumni who donate millions.

Any thoughts?

Obama Makes Unannounced Visit to Iraq

On Tuesday, Obama arrived to Iraq in an unexpected visit. This is the first time he has visited Iraq since he became president.
Addressing hundreds of troops gathered at a military base here, Mr. Obama said that it was time for Iraqis to “take responsibility for their country and for their sovereignty,” winning enthusiastic applause.
President Obama told the troops that he believed it was time for the Iraqis to take charge of their country, and that it was all due to the help of the American troops.
He met with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, asking him to take steps to unite political factions, such as the Sunnis, in Iraq.
Under Mr. Obama’s new Iraqi War strategy, the roughly 140,000 American troops now in Iraq will be drawn down to between 35,000 and 50,000 by the end of August 2010.
There have been speculations, that he would move them to Afghanistan, but the White House has not admitted or denied that it was part of the plan.
“I have a responsibility to make sure that as we bring troops out, that we do so in a careful enough way that we don’t see a complete collapse into violence,” Mr. Obama said. “So some people might say, wait, I thought you were opposed to the war, why don’t you just get them all out right away? Well, just because I was opposed at the outset, it doesn’t’ mean that I don’t have now responsibilities to make sure that we do things in a responsible fashion.”

Obama Seeks Nuclear Arms Cuts

After the Korean missile test, President Obama said that even though the threat of nuclear war has gone down, the risk of attack has gone up. “Black Market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a bomb has spread.”
The President of the free world said that his administration will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy. He believes that if America shows that is willing to decrease its nuclear power, others will follow.
President Obama also said that too few resources have been committed to developing a strategy to stop terrorist groups, like Al Qaeda, from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Vermont makes same-sex marriage legal!

The Vermont legislature overrode a the governor's veto of a bill yesterday that would make same-sex marriages legal. On Tuesday, the legislature passed the bill by a margin of 95-52, which was not a big enough margin to pass over the promised veto by the Vermont governor. But today, the legislature's same-sex marriage supporters triumphed over the veto in the House by 100-49 and opened the churches to gay couples.

Vermont was the first state in the US to allow civil unions, and many Republicans that didn't support this current bill were willing to instead extend those benefits. After having passed this bill, however, Vermont will the the fourth state in the US to allow gay marriage, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa.

After the passing of the infamous Proposition 8 in California, this has been a sore subject around the Bay Area. In my opinion, when historians write about this period, allowing gays the right to marriage will be comparable to women's suffrage--a no-brainer.

Last night, on The Daily Show with John Stewart, he commented on the irony of the fact that conservative Iowa, not super-liberal Vermont, was the first state to allow same-sex marriage. Do you think this could be the beginning of the domino effect, being that both a red state and a blue state now allow gay marriage? Or could it be the first sign of a United States split in two by "social values?"

Korean Missile Was a Failure

After a highly expensive but failed attempt to launch a satellite onto space, North Korea has once again shown itself as a nation with nuclear power aspirations. It seems that North Korea wanted to show that they could be a potential adversary to the western world. Experts believe that even though the missile fell onto the sea, it should be seen as a major step toward military nuclear weaponry.
The launching had led to a widespread rebuke by President Obama and other world leaders, and prompted a United Nations Security Council to go into an emergency session.
Other nations that pose a threat to the western democracies, like Iran, seem to have had better luck with their missiles.
“It is not unusual to have a series of failures at the beginning of a missile program,” Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control specialist at the new America Foundation, a research group in Washington, said in an interview. “But they don’t test enough to develop confidence that they are getting over the problems.”
Dr. Lewis added that in a 1998 report from former Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld, argued that North Korean rockets might be good enough to pose a threat to the United States.
Now, the Obama Administration has started talking to its allies to launch a series of agreements and sanctions that could hopefully lead to disarmament of nuclear weapons.

Everybody Loves Walgreens!

Walgreens has decided to give a helping hand by offering unemployed and uninsured individuals free access to its clinics. "Take Care Healh Systems," the Walgreens-owned company that runs these free clinics, offers its services in 342 locations. However, not all individuals (and not all illnesses) qualify for these free services. Individuals had to have lost their jobs on or after March 31st of this year and needed to have gone to a Take Care Health clinic some time during the last year. Individals must be eilgible for unemployment benefits, and they need to exhibit only minor illnesses. This means that you cannot show up to the clinic with a broken leg and expect to get a cast for free. Only things such as warts, cold sores, splinters, burns and minor cuts qualify. If you want a physical examination, you must be willing to pay the fees, which start at $60.

Although I commend Walgreens' efforts, I feel that there are some other motives at work here. Walgreens may just be trying to help those in need, but I highly doubt that. Self-interest must be at work here to some degree. The free clinics serve as advertisement for Walgreens, and those unemployed individuals who end up visiting the clinics also end up going to Walgreens to buy other goods. Walgreens knows that it can make a profit out of these individuals, so it doesn't hesitate to do so. What do you guys think? Is this just a gimmick to earn money, or is Walgreens genuinely concerned about the public's well-being? Check out this website for more information regarding this project: http://health.usnews.com/blogs/on-health-and-money/2009/04/01/walgreens-clinics-offer-free-medical-care-for-unemployed-uninsured-workers.html

FBI Cracks Down on White Collar Criminals

Ever since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI has been consumed by cases that have to do with terrorism. However, the current economic crisis has forced them to switch gears and start to focus on white collar criminals (aka individuals who take advantage of the economic situation and commit fraud). The FBI has started investigating more than 200 mortgage-fraud cases and 36 corporate-fraud cases. "The increasing mortgage, corporate fraud, and institution failure case inventory is straining the FBI's limited white collar crime resources," says FBI director John Pistole (according to US News article: http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/04/01/amid-recession-fbi-makes-new-push-on-financial-crimes.html). Congress has been discussing the possibility of increasing the FBI's budget so that it can better address the current problems.

So what exactly is the FBI doing to curb fraud? For one, it is sending its agents into firms and is telling its accountants to track "illicit securities deals." There is apparently some sort of difficulties between the agents and the FBI leaders, but nonetheless, they are making progress. The rise of white collar criminals has also come at a good time for the FBI. The FBI has been getting fewer and fewer terrorism cases since 2001 and has not really been taking many of them to trial. As a result, the FBI can commit more energy and time into combating financial fraud, and less of it to combat terrorism.

"They are incredibly labor-intensive cases, especially if the criminals were educated the country's best business schools," says FBI director. Pistole is right, considering that cases take years just to get enough research and background information; the magnitude of paperwork is huge.

I feel that the FBI is finally doing something productive in terms of our public safety. Terrorism isn't really that big of an issue anymore, so it's about time that we started refocusing our efforts on more important issues. Financial fraud is an especially pertinent topic considering our current situation. I finally approve of what the FBI is doing.

April Fools - You Didn't REALLY Get into UCSD

UC San Diego had a huge fiasco the other day in terms of its acceptance letters. Instead of sending the "We're thrilled that you've been admitted to UC San Diego" email to the 18,000 individuals who actually got in, the email was sent to the entire applicant pool - all 46,000 students. Although students were notified a few hours after the original email was sent, it still got people's hopes up (and down) rather quickly. This article (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ucsd-reject1-2009apr01,0,7943711.story), for example, tells of one student who, upon getting his "acceptance" letter, managed to book a flight and hotel room only to find out that he had been rejected a few hours later. The article says that the boy was "crushed", and I don't blame him. When it comes to college acceptance letters, it isn't really a laughing matter; students are pretty serious about them.

Apparently, the email was a result of an "administrative error;" the UCSD staff "accessed the wrong database." But why would it take a couple hours for the staff to figure out this mistake? In the age of Internet and technology, that error should have been addressed much faster! Either way, this is not the first time that an error of this sort was committed. Cornell and Northwestern had a similar situation, but neither school made the mistake with so many students.

Although I feel sympathetic for those individuals who were accepted/denied, I kind of understand why such a mistake occured in the first place. So many more students are applying to colleges this year that the institutions are just being overwhelmed with paperwork. However, despite the increase in the applicant pool, the number of individuals who are actually accepted has decreased. Here are some stats that I got from http://www.usnews.com/blogs/paper-trail/2009/03/31/top-colleges-see-record-low-acceptance-rates.html.

Harvard: accepted 7% of applicants, a decrease from the 7.9% it accepted last year.
Columbia: accepted 9.8% of applicants
Dartmouth: accepted 12% of applicants

It seems like getting into college will only be tougher for next year's seniors!

G20 Summit A Success

Leaders of the world's largest economies met in London this week to discuss the worldwide economic crisis. According to BBC News, this summit was a "historic" event because it created a economic plan potentially worth $1.1 trillion. Obama, of course, was present and actively participated in drafting the new agreement. The plan calls for stricter control of bankers' pay/bonuses, a new board that will work directly with IMF to "provide an early warning mechanism for the financial system" (BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7979483.stm), and $100 billion in aid to poor countries. The G20 countries also plan to inject $5 trillion into the world economy by the end of next year. Despite some disagreements between certain countries (the US and UK wanted more public spending while Germany and France wanted more financial regulation), it was decided that the leaders would reconvene in New York next year to check on the agreement's progress.

I personally think that this summit was a commendable effort by our world leaders. We really needed to meet with other foreign nations and reach a final agreement, because when it comes down to it, we are all interconnected whether we like to admit it or not. I am a little hesitant about the amount of money that is being injected into the world economy, however. $1.1 trillion is a lot of money, and it has the potential to do a lot of damage if it is not used properly. It seems, though, that the leaders have used the money for a good cause - increasing the trade credit of some of the poorest countries. These countries will have more trading capabilities now, allowing them to right themselves once again.

However, the G20 summit has also caused a lot of drama in terms of protests. 400 protesters stood in front of the Bank of England, while a few hundred more stood in front of the ExCel Centre. Roughly 120 arrests were made. I really don't understand what these individuals are protesting. The summit agreement, in my opinion, should help our economic crisis tremendously.

Russia and US Decreasing Number of Nuclear Weapons

If you take the total number of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia have together, you can easily blow up the world more than ten times. It is no wonder, then, that both countries are trying to reach an agreement that will lower nuclear weapon numbers on both sides. Obama met with Russian President Medvedev in London to discuss a new plan, and it looks promising.

When Bush made an agreement in 2002 with then-president Putin, it was decided that both countries would decrease their number of warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 (BBC News:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7977031.stm). Obama is hoping that this number can be decreased even further to ensure the protection of the nation and the world. Obama has decided to meet again with Medvedev in December to finalize a new plan, considering that the old plan (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is ending at the end of this year. A concern has been voiced regarding the speed with which this new agreement is trying to be passed. Most arms treaties have taken years to create and finalize, so trying to create such a plan in one year seems almost unheardof. However, "there is a political will behind this [plan]" (BBC News), so hopefully it all works out. I thought it was interesting that the afore mentioned article said that although the number of nuclear weapons on both sides will decrease, it will never go down to zero. No country is dumb enough to get rid of all of their major weaponry, so we will always have the threat of a nuclear war over our heads.

I was reading an article on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction) regarding Russia's nuclear weapons, and was completely astounded by the statistics. Apparently, Russia reported 28,000 tons of chemical weapons in 2008 and 5,200 nuclear weapons. This doesn't even include the number of unknown tactical nuclear weapons that Russia may have. I just don't understand why any country needs to have SO MANY weapons, considering Russia is not really being threatened by any country. I'm definately for any agreement that Obama and Medvedev can come up with; we NEED to get the world's nuclear weaponry under control.

Obama's Afghanistan Plan: More Troops

Throughout his campaign, Obama made it clear that he wanted to tie up loose ends in Iraq and bring our troops home. However, in my opinion, Obama seems to be tying up loose ends in one place just to untie them again in another. Obama has announced his plan for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it doesn't look pretty.

According to a US News Blog, (http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/iraq/2009/03/30/with-new-afghanistan-plan-obama-makes-the-war-his-own.html), Obama is planning to send 4,000 US troops into Afghanistan to help with police duties. He is also planning to bring US diplomats and agricultural experts into "this increasingly violent land" (US News). Isn't Obama supposed to be bringing troops home and not sending them to die in a different country? And 4,000 troops is A LOT of people, not to mention a lot of money spent on weapons, food, and the like. Can America afford to spend so much given the economic crisis? I certainly don't think so! We have to be saving our money, not spending it on another foreign crisis.

Also, America is becoming increasingly involved in Pakistan. The CIA is still conducting Predator drone strikes (using unmanned aircrafts) and spending money on things that I personally feel do not concern us. Obama has been quoted saying that he wants to "help Pakistan defeat these extremists," (BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7970935.stm) but is now the best time. Although Obama has said that he wouldn't be sending any ground troops to Pakistan, I think it will only be a matter of time until he might consider it. You can't really "help" a country get over "extremists" with Predator strikes for very long. I just hope that he makes the right decision and doesn't send more troops there. I really don't want another Iraq War and another 4,000 casualties.

Also: see video clip of Obama at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7970935.stm