Top 10 ignored news in 2011

Top 10 ignored news in 2011 Recently, the American "Foreign Policy" magazine published an article selecting the top 10 ignored news in 2011, saying that these 10...

2. The “New Europe” is no longer in love with the euro. Two years ago, joining the Eurozone was regarded as a panacea to solve the debt worries of Eastern European countries. However, the 10-year-old euro has encountered greater troubles. Countries such as Greece and Italy have encountered serious debt problems, which has caused the EU to encounter great challenges. Currently, those Eastern European countries that have been trying to join the euro area are also beginning to waver on whether to join or when to join. Poland was supposed to join the euro in 2012, but the process has been put on hold indefinitely. In April, Bulgaria's center-right government postponed its plan to join the euro zone in 2013, saying it would have to reconsider. Romania's president also said that the plan to join the euro zone in 2015 will be postponed for "one or two years." Latvia and Lithuania were originally keen to join the euro zone after Estonia, but now both countries say the current timetable is a bit unrealistic, and the governor of Lithuania's central bank has warned that euro zone membership is "do or die". 3. Mexico’s drug war spreads to Central America. Drug violence on Mexico’s northern border has become a major political issue facing the United States, but the disastrous consequences of the conflict on southern countries have received less attention. Cartel gangs such as the Sinaloa and Zetas have been trying to break into new territories as they evade crackdowns by the Mexican government, opening more drug shops in politically turbulent Central America. Currently, all seven Central American countries are on the White House’s list of major drug trafficking countries. According to a report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, 60% of cocaine entering the United States through Mexico first passes through Central American countries. Over the past five years, homicide rates have increased significantly in four of the seven countries, more than doubling in Honduras. In May, Guatemala witnessed its worst massacre since the 1996 civil war, when 27 people were beheaded by drug gangs in the north of the country. The entire area is basically under the control of the Zetas, Mexico's second-largest drug cartel. This organization has machine guns, rockets, and even built its own airstrip in the jungle. In the early months of this year, the Guatemalan government launched a large-scale armed crackdown on Mexican drug cartels, but it failed. There have been numerous reports that Guatemalan officials accepted kickbacks from drug cartels or were involved in drug trafficking. As of now, cocaine is only produced in the Andean regions of South America where coca leaves can be grown. But in March, the first cocaine processing laboratory was discovered in Honduras. El Salvador, where crime rates have soared, Sinaloa and the Zetas are believed to have established ties with local gangs, such as the notorious Mara Salvatrucha group. 4. The number of camels has dropped sharply. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reported that the number of meat camels in Saudi Arabia has dropped from 426,000 in 1997 to 260,000 now, a decrease of 39%; the number of camels in Pakistan has now dropped to 700,000. From 1994 to 2004, the total camel population in Asia fell by 20%. In famine-stricken Somalia, there are reports of mass die-offs of the camels that provide transportation, livelihood or food for many families, with some tribesmen reporting losing half of their herds. In previous famines in Africa, camels were seen as an early sign of human death. An old Somali man told the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) in 2009: "Camels are the last animals to die. Once camels start dying, it is only a matter of time before people start dying."

5. The United States cracks down on illegal immigration. In 2012, the Republican presidential candidates in the United States are debating who can better protect the U.S.-Mexico border, and are also criticizing states for providing services to illegal immigrants. At this time, the White House is quietly launching the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in history. Despite Obama's promise of comprehensive immigration reform (which Congress has repeatedly blocked), deportations have reached an all-time high. In 2010, the United States deported a record 392,000 illegal aliens, and this past fiscal year, the number was nearly 400,000. As of October, the Obama administration had repatriated nearly 1.2 million people, while the Bush administration had repatriated a total of 1.5 million people in eight years. The Obama administration has also cracked down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Comparing the first year of the Obama administration to the last year of the George W. Bush administration, the number of companies surveyed doubled. 6. Another war in Pakistan Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province, accounting for 48% of the country’s land area. This region is the most active area of ​​violent activities by separatist groups (sometimes called Pakistan’s secret war), but it is far less eye-catching than other crises in the country. In Balochistan, major natural gas pipelines have exploded several times, killings of immigrants from Punjab have occurred, and there have been assassinations of political figures and oil company employees. In 2010, the Pakistani government also carried out very brutal military strikes against Balochistan, and this trend continued into 2011. A Human Rights Watch report shows that from January to June this year, 150 people were killed in "kill and abandon" operations possibly carried out by Pakistani security forces. Most of them were young people from the Baloch separatist forces. The Taliban, based in the provincial government of Quetta, have free access to the country's 800-mile border with Afghanistan. The sparsely populated area has also become a haven for smugglers and Iranian rebel groups.

7. Globalization of Piracy As of October 2011, Somali pirates have launched 199 attacks, compared with only 126 in the same period last year. But unfortunately, although it is believed that piracy has been curbed in other areas in recent years, piracy is not limited to the Gulf of Aden, and global piracy is rebounding significantly. Piracy cases in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea have soared this year. There were 19 reported pirate attacks off the coast of Benin in 2011, compared with none in 2010. In addition, six cases occurred off the coast of Nigeria and three off the coast of Ghana, and there appear to be many more cases that have not been reported. West African pirates are more traditional than Somali pirates and tend to rob ships rather than kidnap for ransom. Meanwhile, the Indonesian Chamber of International Commerce reported this year that pirate attacks were at their highest level since 2007. Even in Peru, which has never heard of piracy, there was an attack on a Japanese trawler this year. The criminal group that carried out the attack called itself "Sea Bandits." According to statistics, in the first nine months of this year, 352 piracy incidents occurred around the world, setting a historical record.