Environmental change

Describe one major pollution event affecting more than one country and examine the consequences of and responses to this event.

A major pollution event can take into the place of a human-induced hazard. Pollution is mainly due to human induced actions such as the burning of fossil fuels, etc. An example of this human-induced hazard that polluted vast areas was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This event occurred in April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico in the BP-oil Macondo Prospect. This event is known to be the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. High pressured methane gas from the well caused an explosion in the drilling rig which resulted in an estimate of 4.6 million barrels of oil was collected, making it the largest oil spill in history. 

The spill caused a traumatic effect on marine life and further leading into health-consequences due to contaminated water and fish. However, the economic impacts that the BP Oil Spill affected local and international companies. Local economies such as Louisiana have been prominently affected due to it's economies' dependence on tourism and it's marketing of fish. The incident has costed the BP Oil company a loss of 17 billion dollars, which was the largest corporate loss in UK history. 

Responses ensured environmental protection for marine life, beaches, etc. Clean-ups along coastlines have been the most common response to the spill. In Louisiana alone, 4.6 million pounds of oily material was removed from the beaches just last year. 

Economic Interaction and flows

Call me: Tech powers Philippines call centre success

What intrigued me into this article is that the Philippines overtakes India as the call centre capitol with around 600,000 call centre workers in the year of 2011. Now, people are more likely to encounter a Filipino call center worker than an Indian worker. This is mainly because, due to US colonisation, Filipinos speak English in an accent that is perceived as more coherent internationally, adding the fact that English are Filipino's second language and also seen as the "national language". In addition, what also intrigued me is the rise of BPO's (Business Process Outsourcing) and having it recognised as the "future" over call centres. 

Question:
What exactly will happen to call centres in the Philippines once BPO's start becoming more of the "modern thing"?

Political Outcomes: Russia to redirect trade elsewhere in case of EU-US sanctions

Russia to redirect trade elsewhere in case of EU-US sanctions

Summary:

• Russia wishes to switch with other trade partners if the there are economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union. The situation in Ukraine and having the United States impose economic transactions will be considered unacceptable according to Russia. However, the introduction of sanctions may lead to a considerable amount of financial losses for the European Union.

My thoughts:
Russia will definitely suffer if they switch with other trade partners since a percentage of their exports goes to the European Union. Finding other partners utilizes time and money in order to develop. According to BBC News Europe, the EU ranks as Russia's number one trading partner, accounting for almost 41% of all trade. This large percentage exhibits how Russia's economy will be afflicted if they ever do take action in redirecting their trade. The detriment will for sure be more on Russia than on the European Union and the United States; therefore, I'd suggest that Russia does not take action despite the fact that they are being imposed with economic sanctions. In addition, the United States and the European Union impose these sanctions for a reasonable cause. When the Russian Federation sent troops to Crimea - a sovereign country illegally, redirecting trade elsewhere due to the urge of the imposed sanctions is clearly not the best path for Russia to go on.

Socio-cultural exchange

Choose either the concept of cultural diffusion (voluntary/consented change in culture) or cultural imperialism (enforced/pressured change in culture) and using specific examples explain how transnational corporations either intentionally or unintentionally spread consumerism through your chosen concept.

Cultural diffusion also known as trans-cultural diffusion is the spread of cultural items such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies, languages, etc. Transnational corporations usually spread consumerism in many areas around the world. Fast food in this generation are one of the best examples for cultural diffusion from the United States. Corporations such as McDonalds started to expand into foreign markets into cities such as Beijing, London, etc. Now, according to Business Insider, McDonalds serves around 1% of the world's population every day and can be found in more than 154 countries worldwide. 

However, speaking of McDonalds, cultural diffusion never seems to appear in it's original form. When thinking about it, the Chinese food from China is not the same as the Chinese food in the United States, the same concept goes for McDonalds. In the Philippines, the Filipino favourite "Burger McDo" won't be on the menu in the McDonalds in France or London. In fact, every country has certain meals on the menu specific for that country or region. Therefore, I believe that the McDonalds corporation is unintentionally spreading consumerism, mainly because the company strives to preserve the culture in a more unique way than other corporations.

The one and only Burger McDo

Globalization: good or bad?

Researching about globalization has provided a number of advantages and disadvantages about it. From Buzzle, a number of pros and cons were given about globalization:

PROS:

• Living standards can go up faster because productivity increases when countries produce goods and services in which they have a comparative advantage.
• Inflation is not as likely to leave tracks/derail on economic growth because of cheap imports and global competition among companies.
• Economies from other countries flourish with ideas from abroad.
• There is a worldwide access to different products from other countries, therefore customers have better access to these products (e.g., Mcdonalds is a world wide corporation and customers from around the world have easier access to Mcdonalds).
• This point also shows that since there is a worldwide market, there are more investment options for other companies.
• The development of technology and communication has skyrocketed over the last centuries. Sharing this information with other countries allows them to stay in pace with other countries in terms of the development of technology (e.g., Skype, Viber, etc).

(A worldwide map showing countries with or without McDonald's)

CONS:

• Globalization may lead to the loss of cultural identity among many countries since Western cultures' ideas are usually imposed upon other ideas.
• There is a potential threat that corporates will eventually "rule the world" due to the amount of power they obtain from the amount of money gained from investments due to globalization.
• Great amount of pressure to workers in developing countries who are continuously under the threat that their job could be terminated.
• Some critics believe that globalization along with the positive affects may lead to social degeneration and communicable diseases. 
• There have also been arguments that globalization could lead to a more sophisticated form of colonization due to nation's at the receiver's end who give up their reins in the ends of a foreign company. 

Why is it that the rich get richer and the poor stay poor?
"The richer get richer and the poor stay poor" is a catchphrase that is used when describing economic inequality. It's commonly used when describing the criticisms of a free market system, a.k.a capitalism implying that it's inescapable from Karl Marx's idea of the "The Law of Increasing Poverty". 

Economic disparities date back to the colonial era. By the 1600's, almost all the continents were connected together by European brutal domination which was diffusing progressively across Africa and Asia. The construction of this global colonial system started when conquistadors stole religious artefacts, riches, and land from the Incas and ruled the land as their own. This is the process of where the upper class receives communal land from the lower class families which has a result in depriving the latter from their livelihood. 

In the present day, trade policies also create income disparities, this is because economic practices such as free trade can be looked at a negative impact on a certain country. Free trade allows corporations to trade without barriers which enables them to share the income among working families unequally. This causes the rich to get richer, and the poor to stay poor. 

Endangered corals get their own sperm bank

Endangered corals get their own sperm bank

Scientists in Queensland are building a coral reef sperm bank to protect as many species of coral as possible against extinction. A study shows the estimates that we've lost half our coral reefs since 1985.