The globe this week

The Other Press

A weekly geopolitical update

By Keating Smith, Contributor

Africa: (South Africa) 12,000 miners have been fired from Anglo American Platinum, the world’s largest platinum producer. According to the BBC, three weeks of illegal strikes have cost the mining company over $82 million USD in revenue after “South African mining has been hit by a wave of wildcat strikes, in which miners and officials have been killed [since August].” The union has come out saying they are willing to fight to death over the firings.

Americas: (United States) American Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has admitted that declaring 47 per cent of Americans as government ‘dependants’ was “completely wrong.”  Romney was secretly filmed during a luncheon fundraiser last May. In response to the incident, Romney said that “clearly in a campaign, with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question and answer sessions, now and then you are going to say something that doesn’t out come right.”

Asia- Central & South: (India) Public access to Facebook and YouTube has been blocked in India’s Kashmir region. The move is believed to be “in response to the protests against the anti-Islam video [Innocence of Muslims] on YouTube.”

Asia- Pacific: (Hong Kong) The captains of a ferry and a pleasure boat were both arrested after the two ships collided in Hong Kong, killing 38 people. The incident is the city’s worst maritime disaster in decades. The men were arrested on Tuesday, with five others also arrested. The ferry passengers were watching a large National Day display of fire works when the two boats collided earlier last week.

Europe: (Turkey) Turkey’s foreign policy with Syria radically changed after a mortar attack on a Turkish village bordering Syria killed five civilians. Officials in Damascus have publicly apologized to Turkey for the shelling, but Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, still warned Syria that the countries were “not far” from war.

Middle East: (U.A.E) A replica of the India’s Taj Mahal is slated to be built in Dubai with a $1 billion price tag. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2014, compared to the decade of construction that the original took. The building dubbed the ‘New City of Love’ will ”host a 300-bedroom hotel, a shopping center, commercial area, and much more” claims developer Arun Mehra.

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