Korean War

In the article, "Korean War Part 2?" written by Choe Sang-Hun, he writes about how many years after the war the tensions is going up in the Korean peninsula. North Korea is a very isolated place; it only really communicates with China while S. Korea is associated with the U.S. and is protected by our troops. Both Nations aren't in war with each other but they sure aren't at peace with each other.

The leader of N. Korea, Kim Jong-Un, is considered as "unpredictable" because of his actions. He recently canceled the armistice that has kept peace for the past 60 years and "pre-emptive nuclear strike" threats have been sent toward S. Korea and the United States.

The U.S. has given S. Korea B-2 Stealth bombers to show that they are ready with force. The U.S is going to be spending $1 billion on missile defenses in Alaska and California. The missile defense device will see the missile coming and shoot it while it's still in the air instead of hitting people on the ground...

Former U.S. ambassador, Donald Gregg said "The Korean peninsula is heading into a difficult and very dangerous period." In 1945 when WW2 ended, the Soviet Union installed a Communist regime while occupying the North, as the U.S. and others were controlling what is now S. Korea.

N. Korea's economy collapsed as the Soviet Union did in 1991. Today there is a one-million man army and nuclear-weapons program that N. Korea spent all of their money on, but there are many, many people there who are starving because of no money.

N. Korea said that they had exploded a nuclear bomb in 2006 and shortly after in 2010, tested missiles and expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors. Most recently in February, N. Korea did a third test for their nuclear weapons towards China and China is N. Korea’s only ally.

S. Korea has about 28,000 American troops and the testing of nuclear weapons and the threats that have been made have the people of S. Korea want the government to have their own nuclear arsenal. Instead of them having to be supported by the U.S. military.

Han Yong-sup, a professor at Korea National Defense University says, "The third nuclear test was for South Korea what the Cuban Missile Crisis was for the U.S., it has made the North Korean threat seem very close."

If American doesn't hurry to try and prevent the nuclear attacks from the inside, there could be some damage. Many people think that the missiles will not reach all the way over to the U.S. but may hit S. Korea because of how close they are.

N. Korea's economy is very bad; most of the factories there have failed and are not being used. Droughts and floods led to crop failures in the 1990's causing 2 million people to die.

The people in N. Korea are very isolated, like their leader. Only very few people can get on the internet and there is no regular TV's or radios, they all have channels about the government. The people there are scared to go to labor camps if they try and go against the government.

American needs to try and get into N. Korea and try to prevent anything that will harm people to happen, before it is too late to try and do anything.

The only American who got into N. Korea and to hang out with the leader is Dennis Rodman, former NBA star. Kim Jong- UN is a major basketball fan. Obama even wants Rodman to call him.
According to Rodman Kim says that "I don't

Raising Minimum Wage

In the article "Time for a Raise?" the author, Patricia Smith, writes about how Barack Obama is proposing to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $9.00 per hour. The pay raise is striking many different problems to people and their businesses.

If Barack Obama is successful with his plans, many families will be helped out. Many people who are 25 years and older create the majority of people who earn minimum wage. But also many businesses will have to

10th grader Catrina Crable who attends Martin County High School works in a restaurant 20-25 hours a week making $7.79 a hour which pays for her gas, car insurance and her phone said "Even working so many house, I don't get paid that much, it's stressful."

People like Crable would support the change of her pay to pay for all of the things she has to and have money left over for herself.

During his State of the Union address in February Obama said "This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families, it could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank, rent or eviction, scraping by or finally getting ahead. For businesses across the country, it would mean customers with more money in their pockets."

A counterargument that many store owners have is that they will not be able to hire many more new workers or give other employees raises. The unemployment rate would go up because of businesses that cannot hire.

U.S Chamber of Commerce Randy Johnson who represents businesses said "Small employers often have to operate under very slim profit margins; an increase has to be shouldered by that employer."

All though the minimum wage rise is hurting some businesses, there are 19 states that have put there minimum waging higher than 7.25 per hour. The only state that set there minimum wage at $9.00 per hour is Washington.

Obama wants to make the minimum wage $9 because he wants to tie the federal minimum to inflation so that it can rise with the cost of living.

15 million minimum wage workers will make an extra $3,500 a year with the minimum wage increase. That extra money will help many family’s help get themselves out of many situations.

If the minimum wage is raised, many, many families will be helped and businesses will just have to make their way out of firing people and raising other workers pay. It's something that will change the world.

Slaughter of African Elephants

In the article "Slaughter of the African Elephants" written by Samantha Strindberg and Fiona Maisels, they also talk about how poachers and hunters are making elephants become almost extinct in southern Africa.

Mother elephants are very protective over their babies but if somebody (hunter, poacher ext.) comes to them with a gun they cannot fight the bullets that can kill them. Elephants are being killed for their tusks which are used to make very popular jewelry in China.

62% of elephants have basically disappeared from central African from 2002 and 2011 from being hunted and killed. The tusks they are being hunted for is made out of ivory, and people use ivory for trinkets that have no sole purpose but just to wear.

People don’t really think about what it takes to get these small pieces of jewelry or accessories, they only care about the design. No animal should be killed for something that can’t even be used for good or be killed for design purposes. Making a whole species endangered because of the rising demand of what people want is not okay.

Elephants are more than just animals that walk around all day. They travel around a whole lot and carry seeds out through forest for many miles and leaving trails that other animals use, the droppings that they leave behind help keep the forest healthy.

The animals are living in fear because of this. And because they are living in fear, the animals are scared to walk around and garden the forest and the younger elephants are also affected because they cannot have a social connection to the outside world.

When elephants are mourning they don’t walk around, and with the danger of being killed and any living moment by a poacher they don’t do much. Seeing any animal loose its life is a very sad thing to know about and that is why this needs to be stopped now.

Elephants mourn over loved ones who have died and young elephant’s mothers who die and they are living off their mother’s milk also die because of starvation. No mother means no milk and no milk mean hunger and when the babies are always hungry cannot live.

Wild life guards are doing their best to try and protect the animals from danger but are usually out gunned and are helpless to the animals.

It isn't too late to help the animals, but when it is we won’t be able to do anything. People don't know the danger and harm they are causing for a small accessories that has no use. If more people are warned about the elephant’s importance to the forest and savanna, that killing them is making the Earth a worse place, the demand will slowly but surely decrease.

blog 22: north korea

In the article "North Korea Calls Hawaii and U.S. Mainland Targets", the author Choe Sang-Hun, writes about the recent nuclear bomb warning on America. North Korea's military have threatened to bomb bases of the United States imperialist aggressor troops.

North Korea command says “They should be mindful that everything will be reduced to ashes and flames the moment the first attack is unleashed,” speaking about America.

North Korea has made many threats to America. Such as turning Washington into a "sea of fire" the leader Kim Jong-un has visited many military units within the last week. Kim Jong-un has ordered the military to send the enemies of America “to the bottom of the sea as they run wild like wolves threatened with fire,”

This war will have people panicking all over and to know that people such as Ms. Park who was one of the first woman to serve as South America's president is saying differently about the whole situation. “I strongly urge North Korea to change, North Korea must immediately abandon its thought that nuclear weapons will protect its regime.” states Ms. Park.

North Korea should realize that bombing America and going into war will not resolve any problems it will only cause more.

Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's conservative daily said that if North Korea launched a bomb similar to the Cheonan sinking, which South Korea's government blames on North Korea, the South Korean military would strike back by launching missiles at the huge statues of Kim Jong-un's grandfather and father, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il. The two statues are symbols of worship in North Korea.

North Korea's plans to attack back from that would be "thousand fold ten-thousand fold retaliation."

North Korea believes that if they go on with their plan of bombing South Korea and the America’s that the tension would make Washington and Seoul go back to the “negotiating table with concessions”.

Recently there were computer hacking reports from North Korean defectors and anti-Pyongyang activists saying that the attacks disrupted websites such as the Daily NK that carries articles that criticize North Korea.

The U.S. and S. Korea believe that there are computer hackers in North Korea that are trained for cyber warfare.

The whole situation is something that is very dangerous and if Kim Jong-un goes on with the plan of destroying parts of America and South Korea many lives will be lost and there will be many damages. We do not need to just wait for it to happen or when it's on the way and we are too late, something needs to be done now to stop these terrorist threats.