Something in the news that relates to me:

Something in the news that relates to me:

Cambodia stampede:

On the 22^nd of November 2010, over 345 people where killed in a stampede in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, in a stampede at a festival known as the Water Festival. It was said to be the biggest disaster in Cambodia since the 1970’s when there was a carry out of mass killings. The stampede event was covered for a matter of hours by the BBC, yet what we have to think about is why? When was the last time an amount of people of that magnitude died in one single disaster in this country, and for how long was that event covered by the BBC. Disasters such as Hillsborough where ninety six football fans died, and the storm of 1987 which caused twenty two deaths, yet we still remember these today. The London smog of 1952 took many lives due to respiratory problems that were caused. Prior to that, the biggest disaster was of course world war two, but that was not unforeseen or natural. If the stampede had of happened in this country, at a place such as the 02 or the M.E.N arena it would have been recognised more. If 400 people were involved in such an incident, the event would have dominated the news for days and weeks to come. The BBC covers disasters form all over the world such as this, yet our country is supposed to be in dire straits and a crisis. The BBC has to bring world events into this country to make the mood of the country balance with our expectation in society of how bad life is presently. If this festival had of been a success, would it have been covered at all by the BBC, would we even know as a society that it existed, would we even care?

The country always concentrates on affairs and matters of others, instead of its own people and own affairs, and even when they do cover events in this country, they are always bad news, and events that are out there to shock the nation. An example of this is the Derby sex group. A group of men that targeted and groomed then sexually assaulted teenage girls. Nine of the men in question out of thirteen that were questioned stood trial. Only one of those nine men was deported back to their original country of Pakistan. The rest of them are in prison in this country that tax payers are paying for to keep them here, and pay for tem to be kept, and have religious privileges such as extra prayer time, as they will of course still be extremely religious even after committing crimes of sexual offences with underage girls. Some of the convicted had sentences of two years, or eighteen months for sexual offences relating to children. The highest convicted was a seven and a half year sentence for rape, which if he behaves himself in jail, he will only serve half of. One of the convicted is serving more time in jail for the supply of cocaine, as he was jailed for three years. So in actual fact, men who rape, abuse and neglect children, will get less time in jail, than somebody who supplies them with drugs to get so high of their face they wouldn’t understand what they are doing in the first place. How is what they are going to serve a punishment?  Another prime example of where this country shoots itself in the foot with rights and regulations it creates so tightly and precisely that convicted criminals actually benefit from our justice system.  These people will get less time in jail than people who commit fraud crimes, no matter how petty, as that is the rules of the government who have committed the biggest fraud of all towards their own country and people, yet these are the people’s hands that we trust our futures decisions in. That is surely anti-democratic towards justice, and a ludicrously hypocritical analysis of the whole justice system, and in fact humiliating to the country as a whole. The countries ethics and priorities are fundamentally backwards with no respect, no hope, and no clue as to why they actually covered the Cambodia event in the first place. They just saw it as an event, and news, not something that means anything to this country. For example in New Zeeland, the miners disaster where twenty nine men were believed dead, including two Britons. This event was covered for more time on the BBC and the U.K Foreign Secretary William Hague made a statement saying that the loss of those two men will have touched the hearts of many here in the U.K. Although there is no dispute that this is a sad story and a terrible incident, a note full comparison of two people being killed, in comparison to nearly four hundred dead, is purely discriminative and ignorant of our media and our country, to simply disregard something it covered of such a high magnitude, compared to a mere so called crisis we have in this country every day such as delayed traffic, heavy snow, or John Terry’s affair with his ex teammates ex girlfriend, such events that do not compare with the sheer magnitude of what was a true global crisis actually worth talking about in Cambodia, and something that should in fact shock this country and its media into realising why it covers such events in the first place.