Pope calls for the removal of the death penalty

Pope Francis calls for world 'free of the death penalty'

ROME- Pope Francis called for a world “free of the death penalty” in a video message supporting the sixth World Congress against capital punishment, currently being held in Oslo, Norway. He said the practice brings no justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance.


“Indeed, nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person,” Francis said on the message released on Tuesday.

“It is an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person; it likewise contradicts God’s plan for individuals and society, and his merciful justice,” the pope said.

The pontiff defined growing opposition to the practice as a “sign of hope,” saying that it’s not “consonant with any purpose of punishment.”

“It does not render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance,” Francis said in Spanish.

The congress is being organized by the French ONG Ensemble contre la peine de mort and the World Coalition Against Death Penalty. It began on Tuesday, and will continue until June 23.


According to the World Coalition’s website, the three-day gathering unites members of civil society, politicians, and legal experts to elaborate abolitionist strategies for the years to come at the national, regional, and international levels

It also aims to send a message to the world: “Universal abolition is essential for a world where progress and justice must prevail.”

The previous congress was held in Madrid in 2013.

In the video, Francis also said that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” applies both for the innocent and to the guilty, adding that the Jubilee of Mercy is an occasion for promoting more evolved forms of respect for the life of each person.

Earlier in the year, he had proposed Catholic government leaders “make a courageous and exemplary gesture by seeking a moratorium on executions during this Holy Year of Mercy.”

As he has done several times before, the Argentine pontiff also called for an improvement of prison conditions so that they respect the dignity of does incarcerated. Rendering justice, he said, “does not mean seeking punishment for its own sake, but ensuring that the basic purpose of all punishment is the rehabilitation of the offender.”

According to Francis, the system of penal justice must allow the guilty party’s reinsertion in society, because “There’s no fitting punishment without hope!”

“Punishment for its own sake, without room for hope, is a form of torture, not of punishment,” he said.

Over 1,300 participants from 80 countries are participating in the congress, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland.


The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the traditional teaching of the Church “does not exclude” recourse to the death penalty when it is “the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.” It adds, however, that today such cases are “very rare, if not practically non-existent.”


In 2015, at least 1,634 prisoners were executed across 25 countries, and 1,998 people were sentenced to death across 61 countries, a record for the past 25 years. In that landscape, the advance of the abolitionist trend still encounters great resistance across Asia and the Arab world.




Statistics show that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran were responsible for 89 percent of the recorded executions last year, but these figures don’t take into account China, where information in this issue is classified as a state secret.




Of the 195 independent states recognized by the United Nations, 103 have abolished capital punishment for all crimes, six retain it for exceptional circumstances, such as crimes committed in wartime, 49 retain it but haven’t applied it in at least ten years, and 37 retain it both in law and practice.




The United States is one of two countries in the Americas where the death penalty is still practiced, with the other being St. Kitts & Nevis, a dual-island nation situated between the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.






Works Cited


Martin, Ines San. "Pope Francis Calls for World Free of Death Penalty." Crux. N.p., 21 June 2016. Web. 21 June 2016.




Response:

At first, this article comes at quite a surprise, because it's another thing that the Pontiff is trying to change in this world. Whether it's about religion, or human rights, and now even politics, Pope Francis is not holding back on trying to reform the world. The argument that the Pope tries to convey makes considerable sense, however I'm not sure to what extent I'd agree that there should be no death penalty. Honestly, if the judge deems that the crime was worthy of punishment, for example death, then it should be carried out. I'm also not sure if I would use the Bible in a debate that involved people who had no faith either. It's an interesting debate topic that would be interesting to see where people stand and to see why they believe what they believe.

Referring to bias, I think that there is some definite bias towards the Pope's views, and against the oppositon.

No ceasefire over Ramadan

Syria civil war: 224 killed in first week of Ramadan

Fast Facts
At least 224 people killed in first week of Ramadan in Syria, says monitor
Syrian and Russian air strikes caused majority of deaths, according to activists and monitor
Recent deaths include 41 killed in Idlib, with women and children among the dead

At least 224 people were killed in the first week of Ramadan in Syria, with the majority of the deaths resulting from bombings by Syrian and Russian warplanes, according to a monitor.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said on Monday that between 6 and 12 June - the first week of the Islamic holy month of fasting - at least 148 civilians, including 50 children and 15 women, were killed as helicopters dropped "explosive barrel" bombs.

It added that at least 12 people were killed in shelling by rebels and fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group. At least one man was executed by ISIL in the same period, the Observatory said.

"We ... renew our condemnation of the international community for its continued terrifying silence about the crimes committed against the Syrian people," the monitor said.

The death toll includes casualties from air strikes on a market in Idlib city, in which at least 40 civilians died on Sunday. Activists say most of those victims were women and children.

Several monitoring groups, as well as Turkish authorities, accused Russia of conducting the air strikes in Idlib, but Russian authorities denied any involvement.

The area is controlled by a coalition of rebel groups called The Army of Conquest, which includes al-Nusra Front. The coalition is not included in a partial ceasefire, which was negotiated in February.

The Observatory report comes as hundreds of civilians are fleeing the ISIL stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria and as fears grow for the thousands who remain trapped in the city, which is besieged by US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces.

The Syrian conflict, which began with peaceful protests in March 2011, has escalated into a multi-sided civil war.

The death toll has risen to more than 280,000 people, while half the country's population have been forced from their homes, according to UN estimates.



Source: Al Jazeera and agencies




Works Cited



"Syria Civil War: 224 Killed in First Week of Ramadan." - News from Al Jazeera. Aljazeera, 13 June 2016. Web. 14 June 2016.




In my opinion, it seems a bit ironic that during the holy month of Ramadan, people continue to be killed in the region where it seems that there should be at least a little peace for this holy holiday. Although it doesn't surprise me that IS continues to strike back and gain ground. I remember watching a movie where there was a ceasefire on Christmas and I don't know why the Muslims don't do that. On another note, after reading this article, it didn't even seem like that Russia was being very productive with the bombings and that they were bombing Idlib. It seems that the Russian involvement in the war doesn't seem to be helping the cause of the war either.



Concerning bias, their might be bias against the Russia forces, but other than that, there doesn't seem to be much else bias.

Is Bernie out for good?

Sanders campaign calls out AP for declaring Clinton win

ROAD TO THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION
The AP count includes superdelegates who will not pledge their votes until the Democrat convention in July
Superdelegates are unelected officials within the Democratic party who can vote at the conference
Excluding superdelegates, Clinton has 1,812 elected delegates and Sanders has 1,521
Superdelegates can and have changed their minds in their past

The Associated Press news agency has been criticised for declaring Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for the 2016 US presidential election.

Clinton has 1,821 pledged delegates but the AP's survey of so-called superdelegates gives her the 2,383 votes needed to secure the nomination.

A spokesman for the Sanders campaign called the move to declare a presumptive nominee a "rush to judgement". Speaking to MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday evening, Michael Briggs said superdelegates can and had changed their minds in previous contests.

"It counts superdelegates that the Democratic National Committee itself says should not be counted because they haven't voted and won't vote until the summer," Briggs told the show.

The campaign was still seeking to convince senior Democrats that Sanders was the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump in the US election in November.

"In poll after poll here in California and across the country, Bernie does far, far better than Secretary Clinton in match-ups with Donald Trump."

US election: AP says Clinton wins Democratic nomination

Supporters of Bernie Sanders argue that the timing of the announcement before a crunch primary in California on Tuesday adversely affects their candidate's chances of winning the state.

Many expressed their anger online that AP's count included superdelegates, who are not directly elected during the primaries and are not pledged to vote until the Democratic convention that starts on July 25.

Reactions to the AP tweet announcing the winner drew condemnations of the news media as a whole and surprise about its timing.

Clinton, who leads Sanders on pledged delegates, has cautioned that she would not "get ahead of herself", but analyst Bill Schneider from the University of California, Los Angeles said it was "impossible" to imagine Sanders winning the race now.

"The only way he could do it is with superdelegates but he's complaining that she's doing it with superdelegates ... she's ahead with elected pledged delegates and that's very democratic," Schneider said.

The winner of the Democratic primaries will likely face off with the Republican party's presumptive nominee Trump, whose populist campaign has seen him defeat party favourites such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.

New York: Primaries, politics and the press - The Listening Post

Source: Al Jazeera



Bibliography:

Works Cited

"Sanders Campaign Calls out AP for Declaring Clinton Win." - News from Al Jazeera. Aljazeera, 07 June 2016. Web. 07 June 2016.



Response:

The AP has publicly announced Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee and the Bernie Sanders camp didn't support the supposedly rash actions. This message from the AP has received much criticism as many people believed that it shouldn't have also counted the super delegate vote as well as that not all of the primaries have finished yet. Also the argument says that the super delegates don't actually have a part in the primaries at all. However, there is also the fact that many people believe that Bernie Sanders is separating the party by continuing to run, when it seems almost impossible that he'll win. Personally, I have a slight preference towards Bernie rather than any other candidate in the race, but I still wouldn't want a divided democratic party.

Concerning bias, the source is Aljazeera and I don't think they are inclined or swayed towards any direction, and also they presented both sides pretty well.

President Barack Obama Visits Hiroshima as the first seated President to do so

President Obama to Make Historic Visit to Hiroshima
Barack Obama will become the first serving U.S. president to visit Hiroshima during a trip to Japan later this month, the White House announced Tuesday.

The historic visit will "highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons," it said in a statement. He will travel to the site where America dropped the atomic bomb during World War Il in the company of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as part of a wider trip that will also include Vietnam.

Abe said that the visit was a "very big decision" for Obama, and said he welcomed the president 'Trom the bottom of my heart. " "Seventy years ago, so many people were mercilessly killed by the dropping of the atomic bomb," he told reporters. "I would like this visit to be an opportunity to honor all the victims in Japan and in the United States.

He said Japan had "consistently called for the abolition of nuclear weapons." "By having President Obama visit Hiroshima and see the realities of radiation exposure, and by having him communicate his thoughts and feelings to the world, I believe this will lend great power towards a world without nuclear weapons," Abe added.

Secretary of State John Kerry last month became the to visit Hiroshima, laying a wreath and describing the museum there as "stunning" and "gut-wrenching." Former President Jimmy Carter toured the site in 1984, and Nancy Pelosi visited in 2008 while Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140,000 people, on Aug. 6, 1945. Nagasaki was hit three days later.

Many Americans believe the atomic attacks were justified and hastened the end of the war. However,
Japanese survivors' groups have campaigned for decades to bring leaders from the U.S. and other nuclear powers to see Hiroshima's scars as part of a grassroots movement to abolish such weapons.
Obama's Japan visit coincides with his final G-7 Summit meeting in Ise-Shima.
Excerpted from President Obama 'o Make Historic Visit to Hiroshima - NBC News



Works Cited

Yamamoto, Arata. "President Obama to Make Historic Trip to Hiroshima." NBC News. N.p., 10 May 2016. Web. 10 May 2016.

Response:

Before opening the link to this article, I was taken aback a little after reading the title. I'm surprised that no other president of the United States has ever visited Hiroshima, Japan. Not only does this show progress, healing, and peace, but it symbolizes a possible future end to atomic weapons. President Abe of Japan in the interview stated that this could be the beginning of the end of atomic weapons. Although this trip was controversial, I think President Obama made the right decision in visiting this desolated place. The bias is hard to define in this article, however I think because it was a controversial move for Obama to visit Hiroshima, the article seemed to favor him in going to Hiroshima, rather than not visiting the place at all. Keeping in mind that this is not an apology from the United States, it makes me wonder why Obama is even visiting the place though. I assume that that is why the decision was a little controversial.

Greenpeace's Unrest

Greenpeace publishes confidential U.S.-EU trade deal documents
BERLIN A sweeping free trade deal being negotiated between the European Union and the United States would lower food safety and environmental standards, Greenpeace said on Monday, citing confidential documents from the talks. 

But the European Commission said the documents reflected negotiating positions, not any final outcome, and the EU's chief negotiator dismissed some of Greenpeace's points as "flatly wrong."
The U.S. Trade Representative's offlce also rejected them. While it would not comment on the "validity of alleged leaks," a spokesman said "the interpretations being given to these texts appear to be misleading at best and flat-out wrong at worst. " 

Greenpeace opposes the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), arguing with Other critics that it would hand too much power to big business at the expense Of consumers and national governments. 

Supporters say the T TIP would deliver more than $100 billion of economic gains on both sides of the Atlantic. Greenpeace Netherlands published 248 pages of "consolidated texts" for 13 chapters, or about half, of the deal on the website TTIP-leaks.org on Monday. They date from early April, before a round of meetings in New York last week. "We've done this to ignite a debate," Greenpeace trade expert Juergen Knirsch told a news conference in Berlin, adding that the documents showed the negotiations should be halted.

"The best thing the EU Commission can do is to say 'Sorry, we've made a mistake'. " European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom called the leak a "storm in a teacup" and told an audience in Geneva the EU would not compromise its principles just to get a deal before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017. "If it is not good enough we just have to say 'Sorry but we have to put this on ice' and wait for the next administration. Obviously we lose time and momentum but we cannot agree to TTIP-lite or something that's not good enough," she said.

Greenpeace said the documents showed differences had become entrenched between the two sides of the Atlantic. Malmstrom said it was "not very dramatic" to say there were disagreements and the EU was being as open as possible about the negotiations. Knirsch said the texts showed the United States wanted to replace Europe's "precautionary principle" - which prevents potentially harmful products from coming to market when their effect is unknown or disputed - with a less stringent approach.
Malmstrom said the precautionary principle was part of the "acquis" - the laws binding the EU together - and Greenpeace's assertion was not true.

Malmstrom called on EU governments to do more to explain TTIP's merits to their populations.
NO CHANGES ON GMOS
In Europe, there is widespread opposition to allowing more imports of U.S. agricultural products due to concerns about genetically modified foods. In Brussels, EU chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero dismissed Greenpeace's comments on the precautionary principle, adding: "We have made crystal clear that we would not agree on anything that implies changes of our regulatory regime on GMOs (genetically modified organisms). " The negotiators aim to have "consolidated texts" by July, when a 14th round of talks is due to be held. They would then try to settle the thornier issues in the second half of 2016. A survey published last month by the Bertelsmann Foundation showed waning support for a TTIP deal in both Germany and the United States after three years of negotiations. 

A spokesman for the German government said it was still working to complete a deal. An Economy
Ministry spokeswoman said Germany would not accept lower food safety standards.
(Additional reporting by Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels, Tom Miles in Geneva, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Andrew Roche and Andrea Ricci)

Works Cited:

Copley, Caroline. "Greenpeace Publishes Confidential U.S.-EU Trade Deal Documents." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 02 May 2016. Web. 02 May 2016.

Response:

Greenpeace, being respected internationally and even acknowledged by the UN, is attempting to try to cause commotion and stir a movement as it sees various deals potentially dangerous not just to the EU, but to the world. The TTIP, a very controversial trade agreement, is one of the main components of Greenpeace's argument and it appears that they disagree with the GMOs being traded from the US to the EU, and they also are against the amount of power national governments and large businesses are given through the success of this trade agreement. It surprises me that Greenpeace would publish leaked documents on a website like ttip-leaks.org, and not publish them on a more open forum. I find it interesting how these documents from this trade agreement are leaked when the US government supposedly published the full document on one of its sites. Of course it must be difficult to navigate, but it shows the secrecy of this trade agreement, and beckons the question of what is actually happening behind closed doors?

Concerning bias, I would have to say that the bias is leaning on the side of Greenpeace and against the opposition from the EU and US.

Wake up call in Bangladesh as another Gay right activist is killed

Gay rights activist killed in Bangladesh in suspected Islamist attack
(Adds details)
DHAKA, April 25 Suspected Islamist militants hacked to death a leading gay rights activist and a friend in an apartment in the Bangladeshi capital on Monday, police said. The attack came two days after a university professor was killed in similar fashion on Saturday in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. Five or six people went to the apartment of Julhas Mannan, an editor of Bangladesh's first magazine for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community "Rupban", and attacked him and a friend with sharp weapons, Dhaka city police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder said, quoting witnesses. Mannan previously worked at the U embassy. They also wounded a security guard, who was undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Witnesses said the attackers shouted "Allahu Akbar" as they fled the scene. The Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people has seen a surge in violent attacks over the past few months in which liberal activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have been targeted. Five secular bloggers and a publisher have been hacked to death in Bangladesh since February last year. A group affiliated with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the killing of a liberal Bangladeshi blogger earlier this month. Islamic State has also claimed responsibility for the killings of two foreigners, and attacks on mosques and Christian priests in Bangladesh since September. The government has denied that the Islamic State or al Qaeda groups have a presence in the country and said homegrown Islamist radicals are behind the recent attacks. At least five militants have been killed in shootouts since November as security forces have stepped up a crackdown on Islamist militants looking to establish a sharia-based Muslim state. (Reporting by Ruma
Paul, Editing by Richard Balmfofth) 

Works Cited:

Paul, Ruma. "Gay Rights Activist Killed in Bangladesh in Suspected Islamist Attack." Reuters. N.p., 25 Apr. 2016. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.

Response:

In a world where the number of individuals claiming to be LGBT is consistently growing, the fashion in which they are treated, and the way that we respond to them as individuals is always going to be critical in the way future generations will treat them. In the case of this article, terrorist groups such as al Qaeda or the Islamic State will always be persecuting people or groups that oppose their ideas and ways. However, with 6 reported attacks within the last year against LGBT people and allys, this is definitely an increasing number that is subject to grow exponentially. I'm not saying that when the Bangladeshi government claims to have no presence of terrorist organizations in their country that they are wrong, but the way in which they can handle the situation can be approached differently. Now the article doesn't mention what Bangladesh did if anything to prevent further attacks, but based on the data, most likely not much. Tracing back to my original thought, if the Bangladeshi government continues to sustain these attacks whilst not doing anything to help their people, then the cause for a government that protects its people is lost. The way they handle this situation right now, will affect the way future generations will handle similar if not the same situations in future conflicts.

Referring to bias on the article, the article does seem to appear more liberal in its views, making conservative groups and their affiliations appear to be more primitive and less intelligent possibly. 

The Salary Gap

The gender pay gap is mostly garbage: ONS statistics


The recruitment consultancy Robert Half decided to get some early PR out of International Women's Day this Tuesday. It published an analysis of salary rates in the UK for men and womenconcluding that women will earn £298,064 ($422,267) less than men over their lifetimes, a gender pay gap of 24%.

The press release has already been written up by the Evening Standard, The Guardian, and here at Business Insider.

The problem with this statistic is that ... it's rubbish.

The gender pay gap in the UK is just 9.4% and getting smaller every year, according to the Office for National Statistics, which does an annual survey of men's and women's wage rates specifically to monitor discriminatory pay.

And yet, the media persistently reports that women earn 20% or 30% less than men. The BBC made this exact claim as recently as February.

The Robert Half press release is somewhat misleading because it is written as if the company generated its own salary data independently. In fact, Robert Half's expert did an "analysis" only of existing data, and a footnote at the very bottom of the release says the data came from the ONS.

The ONS' data is excellent because it answers the central question that plagues the debate on pay: Do women earn less because they are discriminated against? Or are there other factors that make it appear that way?

The data drills down into hourly wages, without counting overtime (men tend to work more OT). Overall, the pay gap is only 9.4%. But the gap varies over your lifetime, and in some periods — until you're aged 30 — women can earn 6.5% more than men.

"For part-time employees separately, women are paid more on average, resulting in a 'negative' gender pay gap," the ONS says. "Although the trend is more volatile than for full-time employees, there is evidence that the gap [in favour of women] has widened in the long term. It has remained relatively stable in recent years, although it increased from 5.5% in April 2014 to 6.5% in April 2015."

In the chart, whenever the columns are at zero or dip below it, men and women are receiving equal pay or women are being paid more. "When looking at the differences for full-time employees, the gap is relatively small up to and including those aged 30 to 39 (with the exception of the 16 to 17 age group)," the ONS says. "In fact, in the 22 to 29 age group, women are paid on average slightly more than men."

The obvious trend in the chart is that once you hit your 30s, men start getting paid more. "From 40 upwards, the gap is much wider, with men being paid substantially more on average than women," the ONS says. The main reason: "This is likely to be connected with the fact that women who have children often take time out of the labour market."

It's not just that having kids hurts your earnings in later life, either. It's the work you choose to do, the ONS says. "It should be noted that the figures do not show differences in rates of pay for comparable jobs, as they are affected by factors such as the proportion of men and women in different occupations. For example, a higher proportion of women work in occupations such as administration and caring, that tend to offer lower salaries."

The overall point here is that yes, men do earn more than women. A lot more: Men get an average of £567 a week in Britain compared with £471 for women. That is, actually, a 20% pay gap. But men get that extra money because they don't work part time as much, because they work more overtime, because they don't take time off to have children, and because they tend not to work lower-paid jobs as much as women do.

Obviously, there is a debate to be had about whether we value child-raising fairly. Only women can get pregnant, and the number of men willing to put their careers on hold while their female partners go back to work is vanishingly small. And the men in some industries — software coding for instance — are objectively hostile to successful women (according to this excellent blind test of Github programmers).

But the good news is that the pay gap is getting smaller (in 2014 it was the smallest since records began). And the majority of the pay gap is not caused by sexist rates of pay. It's caused by women choosing to have children, and women going into less lucrative careers.

That last point ought to be especially important if you're a woman in your early 20s. Look at the chart above — the career choice you make now will be much more financially significant than the 9.4% discrimination penalty, especially when you hit your 40s.






Works Cited:
"The Gender Pay Gap Is Way Overblown by the Media - Here Are the Real Stats." Business Insider. N.p., 07 Mar. 2016. Web. 08 Mar. 2016.

Response:

The main question of the article was whether or not women are discriminated against in the work force. However what they found out from a survey was, was that they weren't asking particularly the right question. It wasn't if women were being discriminated against, but it was more of at what point, or age, do the salaries of women, when compared to men, have the largest gap in difference. They found that men were getting paid more, but as age went up, the salary gap between men and women became more distinguished. This shows that there might be discrimination against women, but also that discrimination becomes more fierce as the age of any woman increases.
In reference to bias, They showed little of the of the actual salaries that men were against what women were paid, making all men seem like the bad guys, where this is not always the case. However, the main point of the article was focusing on the salary gap of the women and whether or not they were being discriminated against, and they do make their point.

US student arrested in North Korea

U.S. student detained in North Korea apologizes

An American student who was arrested in North Korea apologized Monday, begging the Korean people and government for forgiveness for his "crime. "
North Korea said it arrested Otto Warmbier, a 21 -year-old University of Virginia undergraduate student, last month for allegedly "perpetrating a hostile act" against the regime. Warmbier was presented to the media in Pyongyang on Monday, where he apologized for trying to steal a political banner he said he wanted as a trophy for a church member in his hometown of Wyoming, Ohio, who was the mother of a friend. It wasn't clear if he made the admission voluntarily. Warmbier told reporters he arrived in Pyongyang via Beijing on Dec. 29. "On the early morning of Jan. 1, 2016, I committed my crime, of taking out the important political slogan from the staff-only area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel, which aimed at harming the work ethic and the motivation of the Korean people," he told reporters. Warmbier, who was staying at the hotel, said he was detained at Pyongyang International Airport the following day.
He said the church member offered him a used car worth $10,00() if he brought back an important
political slogan to be hung in the Friendship United Methodist Church as a "trophy," the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

"She continued to say that by taking this slogan, we would harm the unity and motivation of the North Korean people and show this country an insult from the West," he added, according to the news agency. "l have been very impressed by the Korean government's humanitarian treatment Of severe criminals like myself, and of their very fair and square legal procedures in the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)," he said. "I understand the severity of my crime and I have no idea what sort of penalty I may face, but I am begging to the Korean people and government for my forgiveness, and I am praying to the heavens so that I may be returned home to my family."
Warmbier was arrested while visiting the country with Young Pioneer Tours, an agency specializing in travel to North Korea. The State Department warns against travel to the North.
North Korea said he traveled to the country as a tourist but with the real aim of destroying the unity of North Korea with "the tacit connivance of the U .S. government." It said Warmbier was acting under "the U S. government's acquiescence and control," South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported The State Department said it was aware of the reports that a U.S. citizen was detained In North Korea. 

While campaigning in New Hampshire as a Republican presidential candidate, Ohio Gov. John Kasich called Warmbier's arrest "inexcusable." He urged President Obama to "make every effort to secure Mr. Warmbier's immediate release and keep (his) family constantly apprised."



Works Cited
Onyanga-Omara, Jane. "U.S. Student Detained in North
Korea Apologizes." USA TODAY. N.p., 29 Feb. 2016. Web. 1 Mar. 2016

Response:
The US student being held in North Korea was clearly violating North Korean law and possibly sovereignty. There appears to still be a lot of unknown information about this case, but if the student and press are telling the truth, then it seems that the student is at fault in a foreign country and the US government will probably do very little about it, and rightly so. It upsets me to think that high officials in the US want President Obama to intervene with this case and make it so that this student is safe, which is no problem. However, this student made his choice, a faulty one, and honestly just needs to grow up. Although, it's also interesting in seeing how the North Korean government might be telling the student to say things to the press such as that North Korea has been treating him well and that he is impressed with the humanitarian policies that North Korea has expressed. Maybe he wasn't forced to say that, yet I found it difficult to believe that someone being held at fault would seriously consider the treatment of sever criminals, such as the student himself.

In relation to bias, it would as usual that the article would have some bias against North Korean and its government. I'm not fully aware of the full statement that North Korea released about this student and his crime, but the Western Press doesn't seem to agree with how the North Korean government is handling it.

Caste System repercussions in India

Caste protests outside Delhi leave millions of people without water


NEW DELHI — The Indian army wrestled control Monday of a canal outside India’s capital from protesters whose blockades and rioting have cut off water in millions of homes for the third straight day.

The unrest was led by a privileged group in India’s society, still stratified by its ancient caste system. The group of farm owners, the Jats, want to be included in a government classification for the socially disadvantaged that would give them access to reserved seats for government jobs and schools.

Schools and businesses across the capital region were closed Monday after days of rioting paralyzed the nearby state of Haryana, leaving a dozen dead and more than 100 injured.

Over the last week, protesters had destroyed businesses and homes, blocked roads, forced the cancellation of more than 1,000 trains and left travelers stranded.

The violence prompted curfews in eight districts including the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon, home to many multi-national corporations, some of which closed down or let employees telecommute.

In Delhi, tanker trucks delivered water to the hardest hit neighborhoods, and officials called for conservation. The army’s seizure of the canal should enable the city to restore service, officials said.


[Study: Half the world suffers from water scarcity]

“They are essentially a farming class, and agriculture is suffering. That’s why they are asking for this reservation in jobs, so they can survive,” said Nawal Singh, 60, a Jat who protested in solidarity with others by blocking an intersection in his hometown last week. Singh is a retired banker, who owns a five-bedroom house and drives a new Honda sedan.

India has long reserved special seats in universities and government job for tribal communities and Dalits, the Hindi term for the group once called “untouchables.” Those set-asides were later expanded to include some socially disadvantaged castes, a designation called “Other Backward Classes.”

The Jats — who dominate politics and village life in Haryana — had long lobbied to be included in this second category, despite their history.

“Yes, we are in charge, but it’s not about the past, it’s about the future,” Singh said. “Of course we were the main landholders in the state but land is shrinking, land has been divided. If a family has a small plot of land, it’s very hard for them to survive.”

Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a government plan to include Jats in the reservation system, siding with the judgment of a panel which said they could not be classified as “backward” and would deprive more deserving groups of benefits.

In recent years, caste agitation by those who feel left out of the quota system has been on the rise, driven by those who feel they and their children are being shorted on university slots and cushy government jobs.

Last summer, another group of relatively privileged merchants and hoteliers from Gujarat, the Patels, mounted a similar string of agitations.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, after meeting with Jat leaders, said on Sunday that a committee would be set up to re-examine the issue, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling. Some critics accused the government of caving under pressure.

“Is violence the key to everything, you can bring a government to its knees for three days?” said Vivek Vats, 43, who runs mobile phone shop in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, the city was gripped by what Kapil Mishra, the water board chairman, called New Delhi’s “worst ever water crisis.” Seven water treatment plants were shuttered.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called for the city’s 16 million residents to conserve.

“We’ve completely run out of water,” he tweeted Monday.

Once the Army had evicted the protesters from the canal, Delhi officials said that the plants would open and water would be gradually restored in the city starting Monday evening.

Throughout the day in New Delhi, around 140 tanker trucks fanned out to give temporary water to neighborhoods, some of which had been dry since Friday.

“I have not had a bath for three days,” grumbled Akhilesh Maurya, 32, a civil service student. He said that he and his fellow students were paying double what they normally paid for bottled water and a street near his home was blocked by protesters.

“They should not trouble people with their agitation,” he said. “Common people shouldn’t suffer.”

Works Cited: 
Gowen, Annie. "Caste Protests outside Delhi Leave Millions of People without Water." The Washington Post. N.p., 22 Feb. 2016. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.

Response:
The Caste system, a system most would hope that by now would be forgotten, still frightens and terrorizes India and its people as the recent turmoil there is just an example of this. The Caste system is pre-modern and even though it has been said to be eradicated from Indian society, many still see glimpses of the repercussions from the system years and years later. A solution won't be eminent, yet is necessary because not only are the lower classes being affected, but the higher classes are also affected in the big scheme of things. Based upon what this article says, it seems to be that the Indian government has done very little in order to help solve this issue, and even "special seats" in organizations have a name for the lower class under the "Other Backward Classes." If this doesn't seem to humiliate them, then I'm not sure what will. This system needs to be critically analyzed if India wants a more stable country and economy.

For bias, the bias would appear to be against the Indian government because it states very little of what they have done to help and have only seemed to harshly criticize their ability to help in the situation.

Syrian Epidemic

Mass Deaths In Syrian Jails Amount To Crime Of 'Extermination': U.N. 

GENEVA (Reuters) - Detainees held by the Syrian government are being killed on a massive scale
amounting to a state policy of "extermination" of the civilian population, a crime against humanity,
United Nations investigators said on Monday. The U.N. commission of inquiry called on the Security Council to impose "targeted sanctions" on high- ranking Syrian civilian and military officials responsible for or complicit in deaths, torture and disappearances in custody, but stopped short of naming the suspects. The independent experts said they had also documented mass executions and torture of prisoners by two jihadi groups, the Nusra Front and Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. These constituted war crimes and in the case of Islamic State also crimes against humanity, it said. The report, "Out of Sight. Out of Mind: Deaths in Detention", covers March 10, 2011 to November 30, 2015. It is based on interviews with 621 survivors and witnesses and evidence gathered by the team led by chairman Paulo Pinheiro. "Over the past four and a half years, thousands of detainees have been killed while in the custody of warring parties," the Commission of Inquiry on Syria said. The U.N. criticism of the Damascus government comes at a time when its forces have been advancing with the aid ofRussian air strikes. A Moscow-backed government assault near the city of Aleppo this month marks one Of the biggest momentum shifts in the five year war and helped torpedo peace talks last week. Pinheiro, noting that the victims were mostly civilian men, told a news briefing: "Never in these five years these facilities that are described in our report have been visited and we have repeatedly asked the government to do so." There was no immediate response by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which has rejected previous reports. "Prison officials, their superiors throughout the hierarchy, high-ranking officials in military hospitals and the military police corps as well as government were aware that deaths on a massive scale were occurring," Pinheiro said "Thus we concluded there were 'reasonable grounds' - that is (the threshold) that we apply - to believe that the conduct described amounts to extermination as a crime against humanity. "

NAMES KEPT IN U.N. SAFE
Tens of thousands of detainees are held by the government at any one time, and thousands more have
"disappeared" after arrest by state forces or gone missing after abduction by armed groups, the report
said. Through mass arrests and killing of civilians, including by starvation and denial of medical treatment, state forces have "engaged in the multiple commissions of crimes, amounting to a systematic and widespread attack against a civilian population' . There were reasonable grounds to believe that "high-ranking officers", including the heads of branches and directorates commanding the detention facilities and military police, as well as their civilian superiors, knew of the deaths and of bodies buried anonymously in mass graves. They are thus "individually criminally liable", the investigators said, calling again for Syria to be referred to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a decision that only the Security Council can take. "It depends on the political will of states. Apparently for Syria now, there is none - there is total impunity, unfortunately," said panel member Carla del Ponte. "We are still waiting for a green light for international justice," she said. "The Security Council doesn't do anything and can't do anything because of the veto" she added, a reference to Russia, Assad's ally, which has repeatedly used its power as a permanent Council member to block resolutions against Damascus. Over the past four years, the investigators have drawn up a confidential list of suspected war criminals and units from all sides which is kept in a U.N. safe in Geneva. Pinheiro said "we have included new names" but gave no details. Del Ponte disclosed that the U.N. investigators have provided judicial assistance to various authorities in response to 15 requests for Information on foreign fighters in Syria. She declined to identify the countries involved, but later told Reuters: "These are low-level and middle- level perpetrators because they are foreign fighters, not high-ranking." The Nusra Front, which is allied to al Qaeda, and Islamic State, which has proclaimed a "caliphate" in swathes of Syria and Iraq, have committed mass executions of captured government soldiers and subjected civilians to "illicit trials" by Sharia courts which ordered death sentences, the report said. "Due to their exclusive control of large territories and its centralized command and control structure the so-called ISIS established detention facilities as far as we know are in Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Aleppo. Serious violations were documented in these facilities, including torture and mass executions," Pinheiro said. "Accountability for these and other crimes must form part of any political solution," the investigators said, five days after U.N.-sponsored peace talks were suspended without any result.

DEAD BODIES
Raneem Matouq, daughter of prominent lawyer Khalil Matouq missing since Oct 2012, said she had been held for two months in 2014 at Military Security Damascus Branch 227 after being arrested for her own "peaceful activism" while a student. Inmates at the detention facility, estimated to hold several thousand, have died as a result of torture, disease and appalling prison conditions, including chronic lack of food, according to the U .N. report. was with I O other girls in a room one-and-a-half metres long by two meters long. For guys it was a room the same scale but they had 30-40 men, with dead bodies," Matouq told Reuters on a visit to Geneva last week with Amnesty International. "It was full of insects, we were sleeping on the floor, there was no toilet," she said. "We were allowed to go to the toilet three times a day, we called it 'the picnic' because we could walk outside. "Sometimes we would find dead bodies inside the toilet (area). It was so horrible, they were all men."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Ralph Boulton and Peter Graft)
Also on HufJPost:


Works Cited:
Nebehay, Stephanie. "Mass Deaths In Syrian Jails Amount to Crimes of "Extermination": UN." Huffington Post. N.p., 8 Feb. 2016. Web. 9 Feb. 2016.


Response:
Reports from various news sources have been discussing this recent topic and the news has been depressing. We hear a lot of information from the media about Syria, and already the general public is disheartened about the reports, but with this new report, it should not only make the international community want to help, but it should light the darkness with new information about the once private country. The UN should see these crimes and not only release them to the public, but they should act upon them sooner. There have obviously been countless stories of escapees and something needs to be done in order to initiate progress in ending this epidemic.

The bias is obviously against the Syrian government and ISIS, but I think that they might've given a lot more credit than deserved towards the UN.

Next Gen Epidemic

Brazil says Zika virus outbreak worse than believed 

BRASILIA Brazil's top health official said on Monday that the Zika virus outbreak is proving to be
worse than believed because most cases show no symptoms, but improved testing should allow the country to get a better grip on the burgeoning public health crisis.
Health Minister Marcelo Castro told Reuters that Brazil will start mandatory reporting of cases by local governments next week when most states will have labs equipped to test for Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that has quickly spread through Latin America. The virus has no vaccine or cure at present. On Monday, the World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak to be a global emergency, a decision that should help fast-track international action and research priorities. In Brazil, believed to be the country hit hardest by Zika, the outbreak has sparked fear especially among pregnant women after local experts linked the virus to thousands of cases of microcephaly, or abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains, in newborns. "Eighty percent of the people infected by Zika do not develop significant symptoms. A large number of people have the virus with no symptoms, so the situation is more serious that we can imagine," Castro said in an interview.
"Our big hope is finding a vaccine," he added. The Zika emergency comes at a particularly bad time for President Dilma Rousseffs unpopular government, adding a new burden to a public health system hit by budget cuts in the midst of a severe recession. It has also cast a shadow on Brazil's hosting of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August.
The Rousseff government said there was no chance the Games will be called due to the health scare. "We have to explain to those coming to Brazil, the athletes, that there is zero risk if you are not a pregnant woman, " Rousseffs chief of staff Jaques Wagner told reporters.
The Brazilian government suspects the virus was brought to Brazil during the 2014 soccer World Cup by a visitor from Africa or Oceania where Zika is endemic. An estimated 1.5 million Brazilians have caught Zika, a virus first detected in Africa in the 1947 and unknown in the Americas until it appeared in May in the poverty-stricken northeastern region of Brazil.
The Pan-American health Organization said the virus has since spread to 24 countries and territories in the hemisphere. 

WORKING WITH U.S. ON VACCINE
Castro, a psychiatrist from Rio, said the virus cannot be transmitted from person to person, only by mosquito, addressing fears that it could be spread through saliva, semen or urine. By next week, labs in all but three of Brazil's states will be able to test whether a person has had Zika or not, he said. And by next month, the labs will have a test that can detect all three viruses borne by the Aedes aegypti mosquito - dengue, chikungunya and Zika. The test, however, will only be effective during the initial infection period of five days. Castro said Brazilian researchers are convinced that Zika is the cause of the 3,700 confirmed and suspected cases in Brazil of microcephaly in newborns. Ninety percent of children born with the condition will have retarded mental and physical development, experts say. "The microcephaly cases are increasing by the week and we do not have an estimate of how many there will be. The situation is serious and worrying," Castro said. Brazilian biomedical research centers are joining forces with U .S. counterparts to try to find a Zika vaccine in record time, Castro said. A partnership between the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Brazil's Butantan Institute will seek to develop a vaccine by adding a gene to an existing one for dengue, he said. Until there is a breakthrough on a vaccine, Brazil's only option is to try to eradicate the mosquito that spreads the virus, Castro said, with the government mobilizing all its possible resources and people, including tens of thousands of soldiers, to go door-to-door seeking places where the insect breeds. Rousseff signed a temporary decree on Monday that makes it obligatory for residents to allow health workers to inspect their homes and properties for still water deposits where the Aedes aegypti mosquito lays its eggs. Asked if Brazil would ease its restrictions on abortion to allow women with Zika to terminate pregnancies, Castro said it would be up to Congress to make that change. The government, he said, is sticking with the current law that makes abortion in the world's largest Roman Catholic country illegal except in cases of rape and risk to the mother's life. Brazil will follow the U.S. decision last week to prohibit blood donations from people who have been infected with Zika, Castro said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, has said it is planning to require people who have traveled to an affected country to defer giving blood, but details on how that might work are still being determined.

Works Cited:
Boadle, Anthony. "Brazil Says Zika Virus Outbreak Worse than Believed." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 01 Feb. 2016. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.

Response:
The Zika disease, which is now spreading fast in Brazil, could be the next Ebola disease scare. This disease, according to the article, has no cure or any type of treatment, making it more dangerous as it grows. Including factors of the Rio Olympic Games and with the new budget cuts, Brazil is a new a precarious situation and will need all the support it can get in order to fight off the disease. What makes it worse, is that people are getting the virus, but no resulting symptoms are taking place, making the number of people with the disease unknowable. One of the possible good factors is that the majority of the known cases are found in infants and in pregnant woman. However, this is also dangerous with the knowledge that very few people know who have the disease and how to then control it. Brazil needs to make the appropriate steps and put in place appropriate measures so that the disease doesn't blow up in its face.
The bias is hard to say from this article, but I would say that a possible bias could be that it's really demeaning towards Brazil and their outlook on the situation, and they almost praise the US in its efforts to help the situation, when the focus should be on how internationally, countries are supporting them.

Outcry of the Haitians

Protesters in Haiti Demand That President Quit

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Volcy Assad, a Haitian political activist, stood before an enormous plume of black smoke emanating from a pile of burning tires and made it clear that the demands of protesters had changed. "Today we are demanding the departure Of Michel Martelly," Mr. Assad said on Saturday, referring to the Haitian president. Around him, groups of young men, faces covered with T-shirts and bandannas to shield from tear gas, had blocked the streets with rocks. One day earlier, officials had bowed to widespread civil unrest and postponed a single-candidate presidential
runoff vote that was to be held on Sunday. Now, feeling emboldened in their objections to the first round of voting that many saw as deeply fraudulent, protesters are demanding the ouster of President Martelly. With just two weeks left in Office, he has become the central figure in a growing political scandal here that threatens the stability of a nation with a long history of social unrest and turmoil.
Mr. Martelly's supporters took to the streets on Sunday in counter protests and vowed to keep him in office, a situation of competing rallies that experts feared would lead to violence. In Port-au-Prince this weekend, protesters burned cars and barricaded streets as the police responded with water cannons and tear gas.
Thousands of people marched in the streets of Port au-Prince, the capital Of Haiti, against the
government of President Michel Martelly, with some clashing with the police.
In a situation several experts described as "fluid," it was increasingly unclear whether Mr. Martelly would remain in office until Feb. 7, when his mandate is scheduled to end. "They intend to push the insurrection to force the president to leave before Feb. 7," said Annibal Coffy, a lawyer who has served as a consultant to the Haitian Senate. "I think there is no way the country will survive a week of violent manifestations." The October presidential race, in which 54 candidates competed, was mired in fraud, according to opposition leaders and human rights groups. Because no candidate won a majority, a runoff was scheduled for Friday, but protesters who expected a rigged outcome blocked streets and burned voting centers, leading to the postponement.
The United States State Department, which has been criticized for supporting the disputed election, issued a statement on Sunday condemning the protests.
"The United States is taking great interest in how elections in Haiti are unfolding," Mark Toner, a deputy spokesman, said in a statement, "and expects that persons responsible for organizing, financing or participating in electoral intimidation and violence will be held accountable in accordance with Haitian law." On Election Day in October, the elections board distributed special passes to 900,000 observers from all political parties, who were allowed to vote outside their home precincts. Human rights groups said party loyalists used the accreditations to cast multiple ballots.
Mr. Martelly's handpicked successor, a banana exporter named Jovenel Moise, came in first with 33 percent of the vote. Mr. Moise is a virtual unknown, and many members of the opposition believed that the vote had been rigged on his behalf. The government denied the accusations. The United States and international observer groups said quick counts showed that the results of the race were accurate, despite the irregularities. Jude Célestin, a former government construction official who came in second, boycotted the runoff and refused to campaign. Civic, business and religious leaders argued that a one-candidate runoff should not take place, but Mr. Martelly failed to recognize the growing discontent among the populace. As recently as Thursday, he gave a combative radio address insisting that the vote would go forward, which further infuriated opposition groups. The vote was canceled hours later, but the protests continued. Mr. Martelly's spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday. Mr. Martelly, a former Carnival singer known as Sweet Micky, is blamed for the electoral crisis because he failed to hold elections during his five years in office. The terms of every elected official in the country eventually expired, leaving Mr. Martelly to rule by decree for an entire year. He was also criticized for efforts to change municipal boundaries in an area where he owns property and for creating a police brigade accused of repressive tactics. "The Martelly regime hasn't brought anything for the population," said Yves Jean Joseph, 34, an unemployed protester. "He had four years to hold elections, and instead he destroyed the Parliament. What we had were not elections. It was ballot stuffing.' Politicians spent the weekend in back-room negotiations to determine who would lead a transitional government after Mr. Martelly's term ends. People close to the negotiations said the president wanted to extend his term until a new election was held.


Works Cited:

Robles, Frances. "Protesters in Haiti Demand That President Quit." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Jan. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.

Response:

Volcy Assad and the opposition are turning the tide in Haitian history as Mr. Martelly, the current Haitian President, is being accused of doing nothing. Basically people want him out for being lazy. At the same time, the Haitian people don't seem to know what they want. The fact that they keep putting out demands and keep rioting, shows that they're indecisive and even potentially weak. They think that the only way they can make progress is through violent behavior and unnecessary acts of demonstration that really lead to nothing because the government seem to only be counterattacking with their force. In the end, it seems to be a lose-lose situation and no-one ends up happy. From a different perspective, the US also seems to have special interest in Haiti and they have said that they have not interfered in any way with the uprising in Haiti, and oppose the violence. Haiti claims to be a democracy, but it seems to be right now a dictatorship.

Madaya Rescue Mission

Aid Convoy Reaches Starving Town of Madaya

MADAYA, Syria An aid convoy entered a besieged Syrian town on Monday where thousands have been trapped without supplies for months and people are reported to have died of starvation.

Trucks carrying food and medical supplies reached Madaya near the Lebanese border and began to distribute aid as part of an agreement between warring sides, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

"Offloading of aid expected to last throughout night," ICRC spokesman Pawel Krzysiek tweeted.

Dozens are said to have died in the town from starvation or a lack of medical care and activists say some inhabitants have been reduced to eating leaves. Images said to be of emaciated residents have appeared widely on social media.

At the same time, another convoy began entering two Shi'ite villages, al Foua and Kefraya in the northwestern province of Idlib 300 km (200 miles) away. Rebel fighters in military fatigues and with scarves covering their faces inspected the aid vehicles in the rain before they entered.

Madaya is besieged by pro-Syrian government forces, while the two villages in Idlib province are encircled by rebels fighting the Syrian government.

A Damascus-based U.N. official who entered Madaya and oversaw the entry of the convoy of 44 trucks gave an eyewitness account of the plight of people in the rebel-held town of around 40,000 people.

"We have seen with our own eyes severely malnourished children ... so there is starvation, and I am sure the same is true on the other side in Foua and Kefraya," Yacoub El Hillo, U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, told Reuters by phone from Madaya.

Women cried out with relief as the first four trucks, carrying the banner of the Syrian Red Crescent crossed into Madaya after sunset, with civilians waiting on the outskirts of the town as the temperature dropped and it began to get dark.

The full aid operation was expected to last several days, the ICRC said.

Images said to be from Madaya and showing skeletal men with protruding ribcages were published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war, while an emaciated baby in a nappy with bulging eyes was shown in other posts.

Dr Mohammed Yousef, who heads a local medical team, said 67 people had died either of starvation or lack of medical aid in the last two months, mostly women, children and the elderly.

"Look at the grotesque starve-or-surrender tactics the Syrian regime is using right now against its own people. Look at the haunting pictures of civilians, including children - even babies - in Madaya, Syria," Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said on Monday.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people being deliberately besieged, deliberately starved, right now. And these images, they remind us of World War Two; they shock the conscience. This is what this institution was designed to prevent."

The United Nations said last Thursday the Syrian government had agreed to allow access to the town. The world body is planning to convene peace talks on Jan. 25 in Geneva in an effort to end nearly five years of civil war that have killed more than a quarter of a million people.

But Syrian opposition coordinator Riad Hijab accused Russia of killing dozens of children in a bombing raid on Monday and said such action meant the opposition could not negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad's government.

There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies any targeting of civilians in the conflict.

WATER AND SALT

Madaya residents on the outskirts of the town said they wanted to leave. There was widespread hunger and prices of basic foods such as rice had soared, with some people living off water and salt, they said.

One opposition activist has said people were eating leaves and plants.

The blockade of Madaya has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition leaders, who told a U.N. envoy last week they would not take part in the proposed talks with the government until it and other sieges were lifted.

The siege began six months ago when the Syrian army and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, started a campaign to reestablish Assad's control over areas along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Hezbollah responded to accusations it was starving people in Madaya by denying there had been any deaths in the town, and accusing rebel leaders of preventing people from leaving.

SIEGE WARFARE

Blockades have been a common feature of the civil war. Government forces have besieged rebel-held areas near Damascus for several years and more recently rebel groups have blockaded loyalist areas including al Foua and Kefraya.

Aid agencies welcomed Monday's deliveries but called for regular access to besieged areas.

"Only a complete end to the six-month old siege and guarantees for sustained aid deliveries alongside humanitarian services will alleviate the crisis in these areas," a joint statement from several international agencies said.

The areas included in the latest agreement were all part of a local ceasefire deal agreed in September, but implementation has been difficult, with some fighting around Madaya despite the truce.

Each side is looking to exert pressure on the other by restricting entry of humanitarian aid, or evacuations, in their areas of control, the Observatory says.

The last aid delivery to Madaya, which took place in October, was synchronized with a similar delivery to the two other villages.

Aid agencies have warned of widespread starvation in Madaya, where 40,000 people are at risk.

Hezbollah has said rebels in the town had taken control of aid, which they were selling to those who could buy. The people of Madaya were being exploited in a propaganda campaign, it said.

Syria's National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar said on Sunday that rebels had "disrupted" the entry of food supplies.

"They wanted to escalate it as a humanitarian issue ahead of the Geneva talks," he told Al Manar TV.

A U.N. commission of inquiry has said siege warfare has been used "in a ruthlessly coordinated and planned manner" in Syria, with the aim of "forcing a population, collectively, to surrender or suffer starvation."

One siege is by the Islamic State group, on government-held areas of the city of Deir al-Zor.

A U.N. Security Council on Dec. 18 set out a road map for peace talks calls on the parties to allow aid agencies unhindered access throughout Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

A newly formed opposition council set up to oversee negotiations has told U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura that this must happen before the talks he plans to hold on Jan. 25.

They also told him that before negotiations, Assad's government, which has military support from Russia and Iran, must halt the bombardment of civilian areas and barrel bombing, and release detainees in line with the resolution.

(Reporting by John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, additional reporting by Kinda Makieh on the outskirts of Madaya and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; editing by Giles Elgood, G Crosse and Mark Trevelyan)


Works Cited:

Abdullah, Ammar. "Aid Convoy Reaches Syrian Town of Madaya." Reuters. N.p., 12 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 Jan. 2016.


Response:

After becoming an international disaster with ISIS, Syria continues to face the heat from the world, with the starving Madaya. The UN and the International Red Cross have started an effort in trying to aid these people by first sending off an air convoy full of aid and supplies to help the people. The starving people have been under harsh condition becoming scavengers and becoming desperate for food. However, Madaya is not the only town in dire need, there are whole areas where it is estimated that it could take several years before the people there are self-sustainable. The war in Syria has been the primary factor with rebels and the Government at odds. This is a pressing international issue and deserves more air time as people continue to starve in Syria.

The Fight Against Gun Violence

Obama begins gun violence effort that could define his last year

Obama is returning to the rancor of the nation's capital Sunday after two weeks of fun and sun in his native Hawaii, saying he's "fired up" for his final year in office and ready to tackle unfinished business. At the top of Obama's priority list is executive action that is expected to expand when background checks are required for gun purchases. Obama will meet with Lynch to discuss a three-month review of what actions he could take to help reduce gun violence.

WASHINGTON — President Obama meets with his attorney general Monday to discuss his options for regulating guns, signalling that gun violence will be a top priority of his administration in the new year.

Calling the issue of gun violence "one piece of unfinished business" as he enters the last full year of his presidency, Obama said he gets too many letters "to sit around and do nothing." But anything Obama does by executive action is likely to be undone if a Republican moves into the White House in 2017.

The gun issue may dominate the White House agenda in the run-up to Obama's last State of the Union Address next week. Obama will participate in a televised town hall-style event Thursday on CNN called Guns in America. And on Friday, he'll mark the fifth anniversary of the 2011 Tucson shooting that killed six and wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who has since left Congress to found a gun control lobbying group that met with Obama personally last month.

Obama delivers his State of the Union Address to Congress on Jan. 12, a venue traditionally used to prod legislation from Congress and announce actions from the executive branch.

"The president has made clear the most impactful way to address the crisis of gun violence in our country is for Congress to pass some common sense gun safety measures," White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz told reporters in Honolulu, where Obama spent Christmas vacation. "But the president has also said he's fully aware of the unfortunate political realities in this Congress. That is why he has asked his team to scrub existing legal authorities to see if there's any additional action we can take administratively."

Schultz said that work would be completed soon. "The president has made clear he's not satisfied with where we are," he said.

The White House hasn't said what options the president is considering, but some of the most-discussed possibilities are likely to raise legal issues. The president can't re-write gun control legislation, but he can direct Attorney General Loretta Lynch to interpret and enforce those laws more aggressively.

For example, Obama has long decried the so-called "gun show loophole" that allows gun buyers to circumvent federal background checks by purchasing weapons at flea markets and collector's events, and could change regulations redefining whether those sellers should be required to conduct background checks.

In his weekly radio address on Friday, Obama acknowledged that any executive action would not stop mass shootings. "We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something — anything — to protect our kids from gun violence?" he said.

As Obama returned from a two-week vacation in his native Hawaii Sunday, Republican presidential hopefuls were condemning the as-yet-announced actions as illegal.

"To use executive powers he doesn’t have is a pattern that is quite dangerous," former Florida governor Jeb Bush said on Fox News Sunday. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Obama was acting like a "dictator" and said he would undo any executive actions not already overturned by the courts.



And at a rally in Biloxi, Miss., on Saturday, real estate mogul Donald Trump promised that if Obama signs executive actions on guns, he would "unsign that so fast" once he becomes president.
Works Cited:
Korte, Gregory. "Obama Begins Gun Violence Effort That Could Define His Last Year." USA TODAY. N.p., 03 Jan. 2016. Web. 04 Jan. 2016.



Response:
Being in his last year in the President's Office, President Barack Obama is trying to create a final lasting impact by using his executive powers. It's a known fact that the White House and Congress are not working together and nothing is getting passed and so he is now trying, with his own powers to end the "gun loophole" that currently exists in the United States. Whatever happens, whether congress and the white house do work together or not, something needs to be done about the widespread gun violence, and I believe that President Barack Obama is taking initiative. This may seem like a trait of a dictator to use executive powers with no checks or balances, but nothing was getting accomplished and people are suffering because of it. The "homeland" needs protection, and in a final push, President Obama is trying to pave the way.
Regarding bias, this article may have some bias towards the white house, however, it does do an excellent job by bringing both sides of the argument at the end. Although I'm not a fan of Fox News, I also believe that it's to produce opinions from the far right.