Madness in the Streets

Yesterday marked one of the biggest legal decisions that our country has seen in quite some time. The Michael Brown shooting has consumed many peoples minds ever since the incident went down over the summer. Yesterday the people who have been waiting on an answer on whether Darren Wilson would be convicted got one, and it wasn't the answer that they where looking for. The Missouri grand jury ruled that Wilson was innocent and that no charges would be brought against him. Shortly after the decision was read, mass chaos broke out in Ferguson, Missouri. Cars were set on fire, store windows where shattered, stores were looted, and shots were fired. The peaceful protests that were asked for by the Brown family turned out to be quite the opposite. I understand the gravity of the situation, but to be completely blunt, I have no sympathy for the protesters/rioters. The forensic evidence that was provided by both the federal and district prosecutors was presented to the jury, and with that evidence they made a decision. Just because it wasn't the decision that they wanted they decided to act like barbarians, they deserve no respect or recognition.  Whatever this shooting may have stood for was completely thrown out the window. They say they were protesting for change.....last time I checked Dr. Martin Luther King didn't rob stores, break windows, or set fire to police cars. This incident was one that was completely astonishing and embarrassing for the respectable members of the black community.  These members recognize violence isn't the way. I hope that in a couple days time the people that ruined a community filled with small business owners by destroying its buildings and its reputation look back and realize that their actions aren't the way you achieve change and that they have done more harm than good.

Nukes in the Wrong Hands

Jumping away from are targeted regions today, we will examine a story that has great significance not only in the Middle East but also in the rest of the world. As most of us know by know, Iran has been in the process of building it own nuclear stockpile. This whole debacle started a couple years ago when we found out that Iran had built nuclear facilities which they swore where only for power purposes. Even more recently they have began enriching large amounts of uranium (which isn't necessarily needed for power purposes). This move put them on the worlds radar. Major world powers and organizations have increased pressure on Iran to discontinue their nuclear endeavors, and finally after they agreed to meet in Vienna to have talks with the major world powers to come to an agreement they have failed to do just that thus extending any any further negations to be pushed back any further. The major world powers want Iran to curb their nuclear production and amount of uranium enrichment in exchange for a reduction in sanctions, even though they swear they only want atomic energy (the world powers aren't buying it). This delay till June provides a very large time period for Iran to continue to produce at the rates it wants. It will be interesting to what comes of this six month hiatus.




http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30180968

Hitting Close to Home

Yesterday I wrote about how Russia was ramping up its presence in Ukraine and how the U.S. and Europe are issuing even stronger warnings against these actions. If the growing threat of a World War in Europe isn't enough to alarm you, how about the possible threat of a new Cold War? 

Russia hasn't just limited its focus to Ukraine, its decided that it now wants to grow it's presence in the Western Hemisphere. There were talks earlier this year with Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to establish military bases in the countries. With tensions heightened, Russia has focused its attention again in making its presence known in our back yard. We are getting closer and closer to a very disturbing situation, with what looks to be a the makings for a WWIII and new Cold War it will be interesting to see if the leaders of the United States and Europe stick with warnings and sanctions or switch tactics and go with a more hardline approach in dealing with Russia. 

Putin and Castro meeting outside Moscow

Tensions Rising in Ukraine

Getting back to one of the main topics of this blog so far, the crisis in Ukraine is ramping up again. With Russian tanks and troops rolling into Eastern Ukraine along with Russian jets flying routes that go through sovereign air space belonging to EU countries, there is more tension than ever. European countries have issued strong warnings to Russian regarding their recent moves. Perhaps the most vocal are the Germans as their foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, plans to visit Moscow making him the first EU minister to visit the country since July. We all saw how seriously Russia has taken the warnings so far, not only will this visit be interesting but I believe we are all just a little curious as to how far Russia is willing to take this. 

Elections, Elections, Elections...

Today's blog post is regarding two uniquely different elections that have taken place in the world. One that has just completed and provided one of the biggest swings in congressional history, and the other election in question has to do with the legitimacy and the future of democracy in Ukraine. 

As we all know in the United States we have just completed the midterm elections. This year the elections were extremely important because of the balance of power in the United States Senate. However what some of us may not know is that there have been plans for elections in Ukraine that have controversy attached to them. With the southeastern part of Ukraine still entrenched in conflict, the leaders of the the two separatist regions are threatening to hold their own elections to be separated from Ukraine with the support of Russia. The US, the EU, and other ally countries have warned both of the regions in question, as well as Russia for recognizing them. With tensions heating up, it will be interesting to see how this dynamic election season wraps up. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29875093

A Small Glimmer of Hope in a Devastated Region

This blog post is somewhat off the beaten trail given what I usually talk about, but its level of importance in geo-politics is astronomical. In Tunisia, an Anti-Islamist party won the majority of the seats in the nations recent election. This marks the first time and Anti-Islamist party has held the majority since the Islamic Revolution that swept the region. The significance of his story is that both the United States and the EU have been helping these countries purse a democratic election as well has been hoping for an Anti-Islamist party to hold power. While this may seem like an un-important post, it actually could be the first of many countries to successfully reject the harsh islamist state rule.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/10/27/secular-party-looks-to-win-tunisia-elections/17998263/

Airport "Screenings:" Are They Enough?

As many of us know by now, several major airports in the United Stated (5 to be exact), have declared that they will start screening passengers arriving from the ebola effected areas. They will do this by monitoring temperatures and by asking questions. Is this enough though? Personally I believe that we should stop all flights from those effected areas until we have this disease under control. The best way to stop an outbreak is to start at ground zero. Nigeria recently has declared that it is virus free and they attribute their success to closing its borders to anyone traveling from the effected counties. I'm not saying that we should close our borders all together, but when it comes to people traveling from the effected countries, we should not allow them to step foot on a plane until they have been declared virus free. Let me know what you all think.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p1008-ebola-screening.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29685127

An Alarming Agreement

This week I am taking my blog in a different direction. As most of you know by now, this blog is supposed to highlight the difference between the media in the states and the media across the pond, but this week we are going to highlight the similarities. It is very rare that you get the United States and the majority of the continent of Europe agreeing on something in general, let alone the use of military in another country. While I have some what neglected the topic of ISIS in the blog thus far, today we will highlight its effect on the U.S. and Europe. For the first time since 9/11, both our country and the majority of Europe have decided to use military action or support the Iraqi and Kurdish people in some way. This is significant in many ways. Not only does this rarely happen, but it also means that this terrorist group is funded, armed, and networked to the point that we have gotten all of these countries to agree. The majority of the media in the U.S. and in Europe believe that this group has the capability to be more destructive and powerful than Al Qaeda. Not only that, but this group has also caused other terrorist groups to fight for relevancy again, they want to be the top dog. The fact that you are having officials and scholars from both side of the pond agreeing on how devastating this group can be is very alarming and should continued to be reported on (along with other international news) both here and abroad. 

Two Stories, Equal Attention

This weeks post is more or less a continuation of the last post regarding the lack of coverage of the growing crisis with Russia. To begin, yes there was a cease fire agreement reached between the rebels and Ukraine, but that by no means that this crisis is over or winding down. While there may be an absence of physical fighting, the tactics by both sides have not ceased. Our allies across the pond have continued to place sanctions, France stopped the delivery of a Russian naval vessel, and at the NATO summit held in Whales there was lobbying for Ukraine to join the organization. On the other side, Russia has continued it's rhetoric, it severely warned Ukraine against its lobbying, threatened France on its delay of the delivery, and in wake of the increased sanctions by the rest of Europe, Russia has threatened to close off its air space to European planes. Don't be surprised if all of this information is new to you.....its not your fault. Just to remind those of you who may be new to my blog, the theme behind it is our relation with Europe and how our medias vastly differ, and the reason that some of the information I laid out above might sound new to you is because the media over here has barely touched on it. Yes there was some coverage on the NATO summit but that was in correlation to the ISIL situation, and yes there was some mention of France halting its delivery of the ship but that barely lasted a day, but if you where interested enough to visit one of the major European news papers, a lot of their headlines where in regards to Russia. The most interesting thing to take away from this is the fact that Europe is dealing with ISIL too, they are probably even more effected by it, but their media has managed to split the focus between the two highly important situations. I said it in my first post and I will say it again, I am by no means taking anything away from the importance of the ISIS crisis. All I am pointing out is that even though it's not the most flashy of news stories, the American media outlets need to keep equal attention on the the situation going on in Ukraine, if the European outlets can do it so can the American ones, because this situation has potential world war implications.

More than one headline

This post is in the wake of the second beheading of and American by the terrorist group ISIS, which is undoubtedly a very big headline and a very unfortunate circumstance. The content of this post however isn't about this horrific incident, it is instead about another major political news story, one that has drifted out of focus on all major U.S. news sites. The news story that I am talking about is the Ukrainian crisis, and over the past couple days there have been serious moves by Russia that have been put on the back burner in the U.S. media. This isn't the first time since the start of the Ukrainian/Russia crisis that the ongoing story has been forgotten, during the however long Ferguson controversy, the potential war starting incident was all but ignored by all major U.S. news sites. In Europe however this story is still on the front page. The importance of this news story is astronomical, and has major implications attached to it, and even though there are other major headlines that need to be reported on, the media, no matter which way they swing the story, should keep this story relevant to the U.S. given it's potential implications.

The reason this story is a headline on European sites is because it is in their backyard, they have a first hand view of events unfolding, and they more than anyone understand the potential implications. While Ukraine has been a headline in the U.S. media before, it has lost it's luster and therefore been set aside for the time being for stories covering how celebrities personal photos have been hacked and leaked (clearly far more important than a countries sovereignty). This is just a small example of our ever growing disconnect with the continent we once aligned with.
 
Below I have attached an example of a headline from the BBC Europe (it was the headline story).

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29029060

Welcome

For my mass media and politics blog I have decided to write about the relationship between the United States and Europe. The reason that I have chosen this topic is because I feel over the last 14 years or so, due to certain circumstances, the media has diverted its attention else where leaving Europe a relatively unknown situation to general public of the U.S.. Europe is home to some of the worlds most powerful countries, countries that we as a nation should have a vested interest in and should pay serious attention to. The goal of this blog is to help show how the decisions made across the pond effect our country and the decisions we make.