Pages

Thursday, January 7, 2016

The Week of 1/7/16 in a Glance

Hi everybody! Hope you all had a good holiday. Due to Wi-Fi issues, we only have two stories today, but they are good ones. This week we have covered protests in the Mideast, and news on the gun control issue. Remember to comment and check out our instagram! Thanks for reading.
-Your Editors

Protests in the Mideast
By Owen Tucker-Smith


Last weekend, an event occurred that caused many protests in Bahrain, Iran, and Pakistan. These protests included the burning of Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Iran and a revenge threat, as well as peaceful protests. What could have caused this mess in the Mideast? Well, to put it very simply, Saudi Arabia.


Background? Saudi Arabia and Iran have never been good friends. Saudi Arabia is a mainly Sunni nation, and Iran is a mainly Shiite nation. Sunni and Shiite are both different branches of Islam. Over the years, the two countries have argued about many things, taking different sides in middle-eastern events such as the war in Syria. So what started to happen this past weekend was not at all good for their relationship, but it was not all that shocking.


So what exactly happened? Nimr Al-Nimr was a Shiite cleric that represented the Shiite minority group in Saudi Arabia group. He was known for being an activist, actually standing up against Saudi Arabia’s royal family. While Saudi Arabia doesn’t really like Al-Nimr, he is extremely popular among other Middle-Eastern Shiites. The country attacked him first by giving him a terrorist charge. This charge was for the protests he did in 2011. And he was killed over the weekend. Al-Nimr was executed not alone but with 46 others. As you could guess, many Shiites were extremely upset by this.


What did they do? Protest. As we said earlier, some people burned down the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Iran. In addition, Iran stated that they would get some real revenge. But when Saudi Arabia heard this, they just sent another bullet flying right back by cutting all diplomatic ties, or any peaceful relations, sending all Iranian diplomats in Saudi Arabia out.


In a Glance? Last weekend two major countries in the Mideast decided to make their bad relationship worse. Saudi Arabia executed a popular man, and that never ends well. It certainly didn’t this time, with protests happening all over the place. The Mideast is already juggling with a lot of bad events right now, such as the Syrian civil war and ISIS, so adding one more thing to the plate doesn’t seem to be helpful.


Tightening Loopholes
By Maddy Art

On Tuesday, Obama decided to take matters into his own hands when he announced some executive action on gun control. Currently, the definition for a gun dealer is very loose and has blurred edges. This makes it easier for buyers to find someone selling guns (but not licensed as a gun dealer) and to purchase a gun without a background check. Under this new action, background checks are expanded and all gun dealers are required to perform them. In addition, more funding is going to improve mental health treatment. Republicans are acting like this is too strict. Democrats are acting like it’s not enough. But certainly it is a step forward in the fight to decrease gun violence.

1 comment: