Author Archives: femikol

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A few months ago Singapore had a model example for dealing with Covid-19, but it recently had a mass outbreak.

 

So what went wrong?

 

Well to understand this, it would first help to look at what it did right. It cracked down immediately on travel - specifically outside contact. it being an island helped out quite a lot.  

 

The biggest issue was the overlooked migrant workers and an underestimation of how infectious the disease was. The place where the migrant workers were being kept were dormitories as well, which meant they were being kept at close quarters with one another. Unfortunately that mean now that Singapore is caught between a rock and a hard place, meaning that they have to start implementing new policies - with harsh punishments in order to put a clamp on the new wave before it catches too far off the ground.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/18/asia/singapore-coronavirus-response-intl-hnk/index.html

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Forrest Mikol

Roger Pearson

Geog 101

3/8/2020

 

Ronaldinho in court in Paraguay over fake passport claims

 

Former professional footballer Ronaldinho and his brother were both caught trying to use fake identification to enter Paraguay. Despite how simple the scenario is there is actually a lot to unpack.

 

First and foremost, the brothers swore that they received the passports when they arrived in Paraguay, claiming that they assumed that the passports were a courtesy gesture, which is a ridiculous notion, considering that Ronaldinho and his brother are both native Brazilians, and still live there to this day. To get a passport from Paraguay, they would have had to live in Paraguay for over three years in order to get their passports, but that is only the first of many steps required in order to obtain a passport from there.

 

Some of the geographical concepts highlighted here are the transition zones and regions, or where Brazil becomes Paraguay, and the laws change, and trying to sneak in doesn’t always go over well. It is arguable that spatial systems are also at work here considering that both Brazil and Paraguay operate differently at their core.

 

Link to Article - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51778788

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The article I chose was called "Passenger Plane Drew Fire in Syria, Russia Says" from the New York Times, link here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/middleeast/syria-plane-israel.html?searchResultPosition=23

No more than a few weeks ago Russia was dragged into a minor dispute involving an Israeli passenger plane with the title Beirut Lebanon (model Airbus A320) when it was caught under fire. The plane with a populace of one-hundred seventy-two passengers was attacked by Syria and was forced to make an emergency landing - a landing at one of Russia's military bases. The military base in question was called Hmeimim Air Base, which was interesting given that the base in question is located in Syria. The cause behind the attack in question was most likely caused by an Israeli airstrike that occurred very close to the time prior to the aircraft's attack. This, combined with what the Russians have reported on in their own light has sparked a debacle between Israel and Russia, though it culminated in nothing more than minor twitter discourse between generals, with talk of hating Israel, and conspiracy mostly dominating the argument. Such conspiracies being tactics like using civilian aircraft to protect military ones, and baseless accusations of general militaristic competence, or lack thereof. What happened was all-in-all a very strange occurrence involving country interactions and cause-and-effect and a fascinating dose of irony when it comes to the base's geographical location.

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Hello, I'm Forrest. I'm taking this class online because the physical location was all filled up. This class is going to be a requirement for me later down the line (teaching). My only experience with Geography has been putting names to states. I was born in Juneau before moving here. I've always wanted to visit all the villages in Alaska since I want to be able to explore the state I live in, but if I had to primarily pick a location it'd probably be Nome mostly because you hear about it all the time as a kid reading 'Balto'.