Plane Crash in Peru

     In Lima, Peru investigators are trying to determine what caused a helicopter crash that killed seven people. Five out of the seven people were Americans. They were supporting oil exploration operation in Peru. When they were near Pucallpa, Peru when the helicopter crashed Monday afternoon. Minutes after they started flying authorities lost communication with the team and reported that they saw a huge cloud of smoke. It was not discovered what caused the crash. Three of the bodies found had no burn injuries. It was concluded that they jumped before the crash.  
     In this article they actually explained more on what happened an what might have cause it compare to the other article. This one didn't leave me with a ton of unanswered questions too. If a second article gave an update on why it happened I would probably read it. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/08/world/americas/peru-helicopter-crash/index.html?c=world

Train Collision in Swiss Town

     On Thursday, in Swiss town two passenger trains collided, that collision injured 17 people. Nine people were taken to the local hospital, but it has been reported that there wasn't any serious injuries that have occurred. The two commuter trains collided into each other close to the train station located in Neuhausen am Rheinfall. That was located 20 miles north of Zurich. Zurich was known for a popular tourist attraction on the Rhine river. 

     The local media, in Swiss town, reported that there was minor damage to the two trains and they both remained on the track. The railway service near the town, Zurich, has been halted for the day.
      From reading this article I'm glad that everyone was ok and that everyone wasn't seriously injured too terribly. In the article it wasn't explained on how or why the collision occurred. It brings many questions to the table. Was there a reason for the crash? How did they not know about each other? Was there problems with communication on the two trains? How did they prepare for the  collision? I feel that this article came with more questions than answers and was very vague. 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/10/world/europe/switzerland-train-crash/index.html?c=world

Teenager Gets Divorced From 70 Year Old Man

            On Wednesday a teenager from Saudi Arabia has been granted a divorce from a 70 year old man. The man said he was fooled by the family into paying $200, 00 but then taking the daughter back. The commission has said that they were fighting and then she ran way to her family. There is now a law in Saudi Arabia for a minimum age for marriage. There has always been a push for the law ion recent years but religious schools have fought against that. The marriage made many human rights groups and activists outraged. One if the groups voiced a concern about not only the age difference, but the circumstance of the marriage.

I think this story is really sad. IN the article it also mentioned the man claimed that he was only 70 and that the girl was 25. The commissioned has said that the girl is only 15 and that the man could be as old as the age of 86. In the article it didn’t mention at all what the parents thought of the marriage or if they were concerned at all about their daughter. So I do agree that maybe she was sold for just money and that it was not for a marriage at all.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/09/world/meast/saudi-teen-divorce/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

WC 212

Syrian Government Frees Civilians

A Turkish charity has said that thousands of mostly Syrian prisoners were exchanged Wednesday for a few dozen Iranian in Damascus. The deputy president of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation in Turkey, Huseyin Oruc, said the Syrian government let go of 2,130 civilians, 76 of them were women, in exchange for the release of 48 Iranians who had been held by Syrian rebels.  

FARS, Iran’s semi-official news agency, reported that Wednesday released that Iranians had been “abducted by terrorists’ in Syria in August. The exchange was taken place after a speech that was delivered Sunday, by al-Assad. He vowed to continue to push back against the rebels.  By late Wednesday all the freed civilians were returned to their homes. The swap was the result of three months of negations.

A car bomb exploded in Damascus suburb of Modamieyah on Wednesday. There were reports of deaths and injuries by an activist group. Rebels battled for a key Syrian air base continuing the fighting in Taftanaz. The weather has also appeared to have halted some military operations.

This is kind of a continuing blog from one of my earlier blogs. It seems that the violence that has occurred ion Syria may have one good thing happen but still doesn’t seem like there has been getting better there. The plans from that blog, from these articles, may have not been carried out yet? I guess I wouldn’t practically find out if they have been attempted from this article but violence is still occurring and nothing much has seemed to have happened.

WC 257

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/09/world/meast/syria-prisoner-exchange/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

Raging Fires Across Australia

In Sydney Australia, bush fires have been spreading across some of the most populated areas of Australia. Widespread drought and high winds made it difficult for firefighters on Wednesday when meteorologists tracked the country’s hottest spring and summer on record.

Back in September 2012 is when the four months of record breaking temperature first started. Fiore conditions have been spreading along the eastern and southeastern coasts of the country. In 1911, the highest average temperature across the country was 104 degrees Fahrenheit. David Jones, manager of climate monitoring prediction at the Bureau of Meteorology said, “From this national perspective, one might say this is the largest heat event in the country’s recorded history.” Firefighters struggled to contain fires in New South Wales. The fires scorched around 500 miles of forest and farmland since Tuesday.

Fires in Tasmania have destroyed more than 300 square miles since Friday. There have been no reported deaths confirmed with a connection with the fires, but about 100 people have been unaccounted for in Tasmania last week.  The fires are so large that they are clearly visible in photographs taken from space.

I was actually kind of surprised when I read this article. It was just one of those news stories that I wasn’t aware of. I wasn’t surprised because I didn’t think it was possible, just surprised because I never hear news from Australia and assumed that everything going on there was all good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/world/asia/record-heat-fuels-widespread-fires-in-australia.html?_r=0

WC 241

Schoolgirl Survives Assassination Attempt

15 year old Pakistani schoolgirl, Malala Yousafzai, survived an attempted assassination by Taliban militants. On Thursday, she was released from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England. It was said on the hospital’s Website, she “is well enough to be treated by the hospital as an outpatient for the next few weeks. She is still due to be readmitted in late January or early February to undergo cranial reconstructive surgery as part of her long-term recovery, and in the meantime she will visit the hospital regularly to attend clinical appointments.”

                At the age of 11, Malala became a speaker for the education for girls in Pakistan. She became an advocate when the BBC’s Urdu-language service published her “Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl.” The blog provided information of life under Taliban rule in 2009, after her home in the Swat Valley was taken over by the Islamist militants. In October she was airlifted to England after being shot in the head by a militant and received treatment in the same month.  Ziauddin, her father, Wednesday has been appointed to a three year term as the Pakistan’s education attaché in Birmingham.

From what I have heard from the news article Malala Yousafzai sounds like a brave and inspiring girl, for girls in Pakistan and for girls around the world. She inspires by teaching that everyone should fight for what they believe in. I think she has achieved a lot because of her blog and is fighting for a great cause. I hope that her recovery goes by smoothly and that she keeps on inspiring others. (WC 262)

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/malala-yousafzai-discharged-from-hospital/?ref=world

Typhoon in the Philippines

                On Tuesday, when 100 miles per hour from Typhoon Bopha struck the Philippines that brought heavy rains and destroyed villages and left thousands homeless.

On Wednesday, many roads and bridges have been washed away from the typhoon, causing a struggle to rescue teams to reach isolated villages in Southern Philippines. It left around 325 people dead and several hundred more missing. On Thursday morning when the Office of Civil Defense reported that the death toll went up to at 325 and that rescuers were searching through mud and debris for 379 people that were reported missing, source from The Associated Press. Most of the victims left by Typhoon Bopha have seemed to have drowned or been hit by falling debris.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/asia/typhoon-said-to-have-killed-hundreds-in-philippines.html?_r=0