Well established democracies include: North America, Europe, Mexico, South America,
Japan, the UK, South Korea, India, and Turkey.
Newly established democracies include: Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, and Sub-Saharan
Africa.
Middle East has the most theocracies and true monarchies on the planet
Iran is a Theocracy.
Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Morocco have some true old-school kings and queens still in
charge.
China and North Korea are one-party states.
Sept. 13 NOTES
Hilary Clinton’s opinion on the Mexican situation, “the US government is now
considering the Mexican violence as an insurgency,” therefore the US could possibly be
becoming directly militarily involved.
1.5 billion people are Muslims, that is 20% of the humans currently alive.
Nigeria is about to hold president elections. The guy who is about to win is good luck
Johnson. Nigeria is important to us because they are a major oil exporter (prob top 10 on
earth) and the US is its major consumer.
The leader of North Korea is in very critical condition and on his way out. His successor,
Kim Jun Un, is his son.
When he dies, there is a small window of possibility that the
country will collapse that day, because things are so crazy, there may be a war between
the military and his son for power.
That being said, they also have the biggest percentage
of military throughout its people.
Naoto Kan, leader of Japan, is fighting to keep post as the prime minister. Japan’s prime
ministers are not directly elected. You can be a leader of a political party, and then if your
political party has the most seats elected to congress, than that party can pick its leader. If
he loses this week, it will make him the 6
th
prime minister they’ve been unable to keep in
3 years (extremely internally unstable).
Naoto Kan’s nickname is “Mole Man”
Erdogan the “street fighter” has been a strong prime minister for Turkey. Very popular,
has over seen an economic boom in economy. Turkey however just had a huge
referendum in their constitution to make it more democratic. Beefed up human rights and
equal rights for women, and took power away from the Judiciary. Turkey is almost 100%
an Islamic country.
Also known as a divided country, since 60% of the country is what
we would consider conservative. Turkey is a HUGE US ally and a NATO member.
Capture of Mexican drug cartel leader “El Grande”. Filipe Calderon’s second big arrest in
two weeks.
Cool Calderon Bags a Barbie PlaidCast
Calderon is responsible for starting up a full-fledged campaign to stop the drug cartels.
Many people are worried that the drug cartels are going to take over the Mexican
government.
Calderon sending in armies to defeat these cartels has started an extreme
amount of violence and turf wars.
Edgar Valdez Villarreal aka La Barbie is a cartel thug murderer, head of a major drug
cartel. His capture is a win for Calderon, and shows as a glimpse of hope that these
cartels can be stopped.
He is actually a US citizen, grew up in Texas.
