Hundreds killed by human stampede in Cambodia

people panicking during the stampede

Massive crowds gather every year for one of Cambodia's main events. The water Festival. On the final day of the water festival a large group of people overcrowded a bridge, it is unknown as to what caused the panic.



All of a sudden people were desperately trying to get off the bridge, people who tripped and fell were trampled and killed. An estimated 340 people were killed and 410 people injured. This is truly a tragic event not only for the people of Cambodia, but for the families of foreigners who were killed.
When countries hold an event that attracts thousands upon thousands of people to a small area, the local government should be responsible for the safety and security of these people. In this case, Cambodia should have put measures in place to protect the festival goers from piling up on bottlenecks such as bridges. I am not exactly sure how this could have been accomplished. Instead of spending loads of money on identifying dead bodies, they should spend their money on preventative measures.

Chinese woman sentenced to a year in prison for a tweet

Ten days after posting a tweet to her twitter account Cheng Jianping was sentenced without trial to be sent to a labour camp for one year. Cheng was participating in a low level of online activism against Japanese products. Essentially this woman has been imprisoned for posting a single tweet of less than 20 characters.

First of all, I already disagree with China's censorship laws which limit freedom of speech. But the imprisonment of a Chinese woman over one tweet by Chinese authorities is completely ridiculous and despicable. This is a social Justice issue in two main ways. One, this woman has been imprisoned unlawfully and without trial. Two, the Chinese government is censoring it's citizens beyond a remotely reasonable amount. For the sake of this woman I hope that this story receives lots of media attention outside of China.

US Soldier accused of esiponage for bringing light to cilivian killings in iraq

Apache helicopter in Iraq

      In 2007 a video of an American Apache helicopter gunning down 12 civilians including 1 journalist and 2 children was leaked to the public via wikileaks. Recently US army specialist Bradley Manning has recently been charged and accused of releasing the video.



Under the espionage act, he could face up to 50 - 70 years in a federal prison. He has already spent 2 months in a prison in Baghdad, two months after the video's publication.

It would be ridiculous for the US government to send this soldier to jail for releasing this video. What is shown in the video is despicable. Even I could tell that these civilians were not carrying weapons. If I was Manning I would have done the same thing and released the video. There are 12 innocent dead men killed for no reason other than one of them was carrying a camera. The real criminals are the helicopter gunners who took the shots that killed these men. If the US government wants justice, they should charge the gunners with 12 counts of manslaughter. For the sake of the families that are affected by the shooting I hope the case against Mannings does not stand up in court.