Crowdsourcing is a way of letting the public participate, the everyman, the everywoman. Hence, Julian Assanges was able to get the goods on a whole lot of diplomatic cables. He and his organization, Wikileaks, were able to give fresh everyday views on what nations do to cooperate with each other, to position themselves.

But he was also able to view the underside of the diplomatic cables. This is the side which does trample on human rights at times, to secure positions deemed favorable. Crowdsourcing could yield no proper opinion on such positions, unless one was to take the view that diplomacy has no professionals.

These professionals are the diplomats who have chosen and polished careers. They are the obvious, visible features of a country’s representatives. They do not operate without the invisible professionals, the spies and the secret technocrats. It is thought that Wikileaks exposed some of them, too. But has it been harmful? Has it been damaging?

No, it has not. Julian Assanges has given the United States a good call. He has shown some of the professionalism of diplomacy, its necessity. He has also exposed some of the apparent human rights violations, the murder of an Iraqi family and children by U.S. soldiers. The point is that the incident was on diplomatic record and is simply now part of the world Internet record. The Assanges effort did this.

With the Internet, Wikileaks lets the world know that leaders will no longer be able to hide grievous secrets of inhuman policies. Assanges’ effort is a quasi-organized one. Were he and his organization to go, crowdsourcing – the power of the people – will pop up another one just like it.

Because of the continued problems in Syrian politics and the lack of reform by Bashar Assad, as well as the military crackdown, Damascus is facing increased sanctions from both the United States and EU. The people that were once led by President Assad are beginning to vote with their feet and are fleeing the country in ever-increasing numbers. This is presenting a major refugee crisis for the country’s neighbors such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq.

Latest Events in the Revolution
Faced with this reaction by the people, Bashar Assad continues to fail to bring reform to his country. Conditions in the country are beginning to become so wretched that the country could quickly descend into a state of anarchy and become a Middle Eastern version of Somalia. The latest events demonstrate that Damascus has little or no intention of changing its methods for dealing with protests.

As recently as June 13, forces of President Bashar Assad were laying siege to the town of Jisr al-Shughour. In moves reminiscent of Hungary’s 1958 revolution, President Assad ordered tanks into the streets killing protesters by running them over and shooting them at point-blank range. In addition to this, in a move that would be typical of Joseph Stalin and the old Soviet Union, the leaders of Syrian politics have implicitly and in some cases directly ordered extreme brutality to be used against their people. This can be seen in the latest moves of the army in Syria, which included their merciless destruction of homes, needless slaughter of livestock, and horrific burning of crops of the people.

US and EU Sanctions In Response To Syrian Regime’s Brutality
As a result of the brutal tactics used by Syria’s government the United States and EU have been forced to take serious sanctions against Damascus. The EU and US sanctions have included freezing the assets of top Syrian officials and denying their visas for travel to the United States and European countries. In addition to this, further EU and US sanctions that would affect Syrian finances and trade are being considered that would be imposed on all present members of the Syrian regime. Whether this will be effective or not remains to be seen. In the past, EU and US sanctions have given a mixed result in Syria.

What the future holds for the situation in the country remains to be seen. It is hoped that the latest round of sanctions from the European Union and the United States will help the people there by bringing some degree of hurt to the leaders of the Syrian Government as retribution for the hurt they have inflicted on their people. In the end the people want freedom and democracy, hopefully the West and its allies in the region can work to help make that happen for the Syrian people.

Food prices, unemployment, and a dearth of human rights, combined with an oppressive police and military system caused, mostly young, Arabs to take to the streets. The revolution, that was spurred on by the ousting of President Zin El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, began the realization a dream that was more than thirty years in the making.

Now, the political landscape of the Middle East is being drastically altered as more Arab citizens are turning to revolution as a means of forcing dictators to step down. Inspiration grew, as the masses in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, watched Tunisia assemble a coalition government and translate revolution in to a viable political process. Countries including Northern Sudan, Yemen and Libya, are viewing the deposition of Mubarak as a rallying call for their own revolution to force leaders to step down. The result is causing the United States and Europe to rethink their dialogue with the region.

The United States has a long history of cooperation with Mubarak, as a liason between the Arab world and Israel, and has supported Egypt with billons of dollars in aid over the years. Strategically situated north of the Suez Canal, Egypt has long provided safe passage for U.S. military detachments, but with the recent revolutions, America must rethink its strategy, and wait for outcomes across the Middle East. The United Kingdom has already promised their support for the new government in Tunisia, but other countries are watching closely as the political process in the Middle East is being opened to a larger number of Muslim groups.

Hedge funds are an investment tool first created to reduce risk in the market. Now, hedge funds are often the cause of our financial crisis. These funds are short selling and creating greater risk in the market, causing serious investors to flinch and, in the long run, causing a recession.

As long as a financial crisis continues, you can guarantee to start feeling the pains of inflation. Prices of consumer goods will continue to rise to make up for the failures in the market. Causes of a financial crisis can be directed at many things. Outrageous government spending on a world wide basis, lack of consumer confidence, inflation and high unemployment are just a few of these causes. Other causes include market speculators taking unnecessary risks, banks making poor financial decisions and governments failing to act responsibly.

A financial crisis  has the possibility of becoming a full fledged recession if the people, and the businesses, are not careful. Every day that passes without consumers feeling comfortable with their finances, the worse the outcome will turn. At the end of year 2010, it seems that the financial markets are more balanced again. Hopefully all the participants learned their lessons from the past to prevent new doubtful developments – but the signs are not too good.

The Court consists of 15 judges who are elected after being nominated by the national groups in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Each judge is elected by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council to serve a nine year term. Each judge can be elected to only two further terms and elections are held every three years with one third of the judges up for election each time. The court is designed to represent the different civilizations and legal systems of nations around the world, covering civil law, criminal law, and socialist law. The main function of the court is to rule on contentious issues between adversarial states looking to settle a dispute. The court also provides advisory opinions when United Nations’ agencies seek the help of the Court on deciding complex legal issues.

The statutes of the International Court of Justice automatically cover all 192 members of the United Nations, although non-members can become party to the court’s jurisdiction. Countries that are party to the Court’s statutes are entitled to participate in cases in front of the court, but being a party to the Court’s does not always give the Court jurisdiction over parties involved in a dispute.

The power of the ICJ often comes into question though as its rulings and its power appear weak to many. In many cases the states involved can ignore the ruling by the court if they do not agree with it, though at times two sides bring a case in front of the court with full agreement ahead of time that they will abide by its ruling. The ICJ is not an autonomous group with full power as its rulings can be vetoed by the UN Security Council. Another knock out against the court is its inability to hear cases from individuals and private groups looking to have a ruling by their national Supreme Court overturned.