Sam’s Social Studies blog

Citation to news article:

Author: not specified

Title of Article: “Fiji military chief stages coup”

Website Title: BBC

Date Published: Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Website Address: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6208758.stm

Date you looked at this site: 17 December, 2006
Picture of the event:

Map of Fiji.

1. Some new information I have found on this topic is troops were not ordered to go and coup. Meanwhile Prime Minister Qarase told Reuters news agency: “The deadline has now passed. I have been informed that the new deadline is Monday midday.” However, there has been no word from Commander Bainimarama on a new deadline.

2. What I found really interesting about this topic was finding out what a coup. I have never heard of this word until now. What I also found interesting was a commander is going against the Prime Minister, that truly is interesting to me.

3.What I liked about the initial blog posting was how Joe clearly spread out the citation of the news article, this made it a lot easier for me to see where he got his information from. I also really liked his picture, it clearly shows that they are against each other because it has that line separating them.

Picture of the event:  

Map of the location:

?What Is The Issue?

The issue is a helicopter was making an emergency landing but went into a lake. One of the people in the helicopter died, 3 people are missing and 12 passengers survived the landing.  

?Who Is Involved?

The people that are involved in this accident are all of the people who were in that helicopter when it made it’s emergency landing.

?Who Is Affected and How?

The people that are affected are the people who were in the helicopter, close relatives to the people in the helicopter and U.S people because now they are scared that more helicopters will have to make emergency landings.

?What Would you do if you were directly involved?

I think the best solution to solving this problem is to make sure before a helicopter takes off that there are no technical problems with the helicopter and make sure it is armored if it is going into a war field. Peoples lives are impacted because some people lost ones they loved very much. They will feel not good at all. They will also miss those people who died very much.

Citation:

Associated Press. “U.S. chopper ditches in Iraq lake; 3 missing, 1 dead.” http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/04/iraq.main/index.html. December 4, 2006. <http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/04/iraq.main/index.html>(December 4, 2006).

During the presentations today, I learned many intresting facts about West Africa. I learned How the Songhai Empire grew to Greatness, The conquest of Songhai by Morocco, The Kingdom of Mansa Musa, and The Kingdom of Gold.

Here is what I learned from the presentations:

The Kingdom of Gold

Indegious Religion

The people in Ghana worship their ancestors and only believe in one major god. They believed that if they treated their gods well, there would be not many disasters (natural disasters).

Sources of Ghana’s Strength

Ghana was a very strong country because of the tax and iron. The King was really good. Everyone was treated equal. The country overall was well run because of the King.

Trans-Sahara saving

Ghana was a safe place because there were a lot of military and soldiers. You couldn’t avoid paying tax because of the soldiers. If people couldn’t afford to pay money as tax, they could give food instead.

Islam

Islams were very religious people. They built a lot of mosques. The Islams were kept away from Ghana so Ghana wouldn’t become Islam and Islam wouldn’t become Ghana.

The Kingdom of Mansa Musa

Mali at it’s Height

Mali was remained powerful for almost about 200 years. Mali’s empire was twice the size of Ghana’s empire

Mansa Musa’s Pilgrimage

Mansa Musa’s Pilgrimage was bigger than the others. 500 slaves carried a bar of gold that weighed about 4 pounds. The gold was from Mansa Musa, he was a very generous man

Impact of Pilgrimage

Europeans put Mali on the map because of such great wealth Mali had. Prices went up because people were more rich in Mali now.

The fight

The fight of control was at Kirina. The fight was really bad. Both leaders used magic on the battlefield.

How the Songhai Empire grew to Greatness

Songhai Gains Independence from Mali

In the 15th century (1400’s), a person called Sunni Ali Ber helped gain independence from Mali.

The Empire under Askia Muhammad

Askia raised power and complete control and stated Islam as the state religion.

Songhai Empire at its Height

Songhai’s empire grew to be larger than Mali and Ghana’s empires combined! This was because of the Union that brought the two empires together. Songhai’s empire grew from fishermen and farmer (ancestors). Songhai was the last of the largest trading empires in Western Africa

What happened to Sunni Ali?

Sunni Ali had died but his son was still alive at that time. The people who didn’t like Sunni Ali’s son’s policies, they turned against him. So then Askia Muhammad ruled the country and ruled other countries also and thats the second reason why the empire became so big.

Conquest of Songhai by Morocco

At 1580 a morracon man wanted to conquer Songhai. He made a very expensive army with high classed shields, armour, and very good weapons. He wanted to also get the salt and gold resources. He sent out musketeers to see the salt and gold mines. When they went it was deserted. So they went to Gau (the major city in Songhai) to conquer Songhai. Songhai surrendered to Morocco for an offer to pay tribute to slaves. The Morrocan rulers remained in Songhai.