Africa Current Event News #3

In Africa, there are some poor countries and rich countries. Everyone would think that rich countries rank would be high about assessing the treatment of children. However, it is not. Malawi which is in Central Africa, it is not a rich country. However, Malawi did far better than Sudan and Angola. Among the top 10 were Malawi and Namibia. Sir Richard Jolly, formerly of UN children's agency Unicef and now an adviser to ACPF said that government did a great job protecting children and taking care children through better health and education. Not only those two countries' rank was high. Some other poor countries' score was high as well. This article is important because it tells people that poor countries are also developing as well. And tells that poor countries' medication is better than the rich countries. Or maybe the government of poor countries are caring children more than the government of rich countries.

Article from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7737784.stm

Central Africa Today

Basically, the countries of Central Africa are mostly poor. After the Civil War (too much damage), the countries are trying to recover. Central Africa is developing, however, it is not that easy. War, disease, and environmental problems have made it difficult. Because of these things, the economic development is growing slowly in Central Africa. Central Africa is developing because of minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has lots of minerals that could bring wealth to the country. Since, people of Democratic Republic of the Congo are poor, the minerals could bring wealth to the country and make the country rich. In Central Africa, war and disease killed many people like, malaria, HIV, and the virus that causes AIDS. Malaria isa disease which causes fever and pain. There are many countries in Central Africa and the common thing is that all the countries are poor, but because of the natural resources, the country would get rich. As you can see, Central Africa is developing slowly.

Cartoon Reflection - Africa

Questions:

1. What are the main visual elements?

2. What issue is this political cartoon about?

3. What is the cartoonist’s opinion on this issue?

4. What evidence in the cartoon supports your opinion?

5. What other techniques could the cartoonist have used to make this cartoon more persuasive?

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1. A foot print on a map of Africa. Maybe the foot print means the European colonizers. The European colonizers are stepping on Africa people.
2. The cartoon is about Africans, controlled by the Europeans. The foot print is the European colonizers and controlling the Africa. And the foot print is big and the Africa map is small. This means that Europe was a strong country and Africa was a weak country.
3. Maybe the cartoonist's opinion is that European colonizers should leave the Africa alone. Because the picture shows that Europe took over the Africa so much that Africa needs some freedom.
4. My opinion is European colonizers should leave the Africa alone. The big foot print on the Africa map supports my opinion. As I said before, Europe took over the Africa so much, so that it is time to leave Africa free.

5. Maybe the author should draw some people, for example, African people on the Africa map (black space) having a sad face, and European colonizers on the big foot print having a happy face.

Image from: http://img.photobucket.com

History and Culture of Central Africa

Many early people lived in Central Africa but about 20,000 years ago, new peoples began to migrate to Central Africa from West Africa. They made some kingdoms and one of the most important kingdoms is the Kongo Kingdom. It was located near the Congo River and founded in the 1300s. The Kongo Kingdom is important because the kingdom grew rich by trading animal skins, shells, slaves, and ivory. Europeans wanted the resources such as ivory. They used ivory for many different kinds of things. Like, furniture, jewelry, statues, and piano keys. By trading with Europeans, some African kingdoms became rich. Great African kingdoms and European colonizers have affected a lot to the history of Central Africa. People who lived in Central Africa, they spoke different kinds of languages. They had hundreds of different languages and spoke different dialects, regional varieties. There are many different languages because of the number of ethnic groups. Each ethnic groups had their own language. And there were lot of ethnic groups. The most major religion of Central Africa is Christianity. Then traditional religions, and then lastly, Islam. Europeans introduced Christianity to the Africans. For the Central Africa arts, it is famous for sculpture, carved wooden masks, and beautiful cotton gowns dyed in bright colors. Also, Central Africa is famous of music. As you can see, European colonizers affected the Central Africa's history and culture (a lot).

Africa News Current Events #2

In Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Congolese children were forced to join the military. Children were on their way back from school, and they met the rebels. The rebels made children to carry the luggages and told them to go with them. The rebels well-planned attempt to find new recruits. Six children and three teachers were kidnapped. Six children were Jean Vierre's (not his real name) classmates. Two boys were also kidnapped but after two days, they were able to escape. Last few months, there was a fight between Congolese army and the rebels. Therefore, the rebels were kidnapping those young children.
This is very important, because it is like a 'slave.' Children are forced to join the military. It is like those children who were forced to work. Some slaves tried to escape or succed at escaping. Same thing happened in this article. Some students tried to escape or succed at escaping. By reading this article, we could tell that these things (similar to slave) are still happening in Central Africa.

Article from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7724088.stm

Physical Geography - Central Africa

Central Africa's major physical features are Congo Basin and plateaus surrounding the basin. A basin is a flat region surrounded by mountains and plateaus. In Central Africa, there are two kinds of rivers. Congo River and Zambezi River. Congo River is made by hundreds of smaller rivers and Zambezi River flows eastward toward the Indian Ocean. Central Africa climate is humid tropical and has lot of forest vegetation. The Congo Basin and Atlantic Congo lies in the equator and in the low latitudes. That's why the climate is humid tropical. Because of this climate, there are many forests and plants. Therefore, there are many animals too, living in the forest. Also, there are many insects living in Central Africa's forest. The forests are huge so that animals are safe. The Central Africa's resources are forest products and minerals like copper and diamonds. It involves uranium, tin, zinc, gold, and cobalt also. In these minerals, copper is the most important. People find coppers in an area called the copper belt. Putting all this together, The Congo River, the climate (humid tropical), and the mineral resources are important in Central Africa's physical geography.

Can we trust Julius Lester? (TO BE A SLAVE)

Julius Lester is the author of a book called, TO BE A SLAVE. He wrote about slaves as you can see, and how people treated the slaves. The question is "Can we trust the "truthfulness" of what we read in TO BE SLAVE?" I would say yes, because TO BE SLAVE is a book of a Newbery Honor Book. If it wasn't true, then the book won't be a Newbery Honor Book. Also, these days in Africa, there are slaves and people are treating them very badly as it says in TO BE SLAVE book. Plus, Julius Lester is a famous author which means we could trust his book. I searched about him from the website called, Wikipedia, and it says that "Julius Lester is an award winning American author of books for children and adults.' As you can see, Julius Lester got many awards, and this book TO BE A SLAVE, got an award also. To get an award is not that easy. Therefore, in my opinion, I would trust Julius Lester and his book, TO BE A SLAVE in several reasons. "Truthfulness."

Go to this link to find out more about Julius Lester: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Lester