The IMF was formed in 1944 to stabilise currencies after the depression following the wall street crash. Countries that joined, paid money into the fund so it could be lent out to other countries that needed it. Voting power in the IMF is decided by how much money the country pays in. Naturally, the wealthy countries paid the most into it and so received the largest vote. This affects developing nations as financial management, if the country borrowed from the IMF, is primarily decided by wealthy nations. This can keep countries such as Ghana and Kenya locked in debt and unable to develop a strong economy.

Places like Kenya and Ghana, for years have been used as Europe’s ‘exotic garden’. Countries such as the UK have been importing exotic fruit and vegetables for years, giving the farmers very little for their produce, allowing them to be sold cheaply. For example Ghana is one of the world’s largest producers of cocoa, supplying large TNC’s like Kraft and Nestle.  These companies are also responsible for preventing the economy of the countries from developing.

The price of goods coming from developing nations is also controlled by wealthy countries. Classed as commodities, the price of these goods, much like oil and gold, is always in flux. This means, supply and demand decide the price of the goods. This means farmers don’t know how much they are going to get paid for a crop. This can decide whether or not a child goes to school one year, or how much healthcare someone gets if they get ill.

By controlling the economy and finance of a country, you essentially control that country. This is because you can dictate the prices of its goods, while keeping control of the country’s financial situation and public spending, resulting in a control over the infrastructure. This could be called neo-colonialism.

However cooperative’s in developing countries are starting to take control away from the IMF and the TNC’s restoring it to the farmers and the government. Farmers can now sell produce to cooperatives such as Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana, to ensure a fair and consistent price. Cooperatives then sell the produce in bulk to companies through the futures market, or through fair trade schemes.

The futures market is a trading market where large companies can buy supplies to be delivered in a few months, securing supply. However it also secures a price for suppliers, in this case being cooperatives. This allows them to give a fair and consistent price to producers.

Another way this has been achieved is through fair trade schemes. These schemes ensure a fair price is paid to producers by paying them directly, and paying them more than usual. This can be done through cooperatives or done directly with the farmer. For example, since 2009, Cadbury has been using fair trade cocoa in its ‘Dairy Milk’ brand. Large companies such as Cadbury help spread awareness of fair trade to the public, and increase demand for it. This could cause other companies to go for fair trade supply. This is because it gives the company a better image and allows them to charge a premium for the product. This helps developing nations as it gives suppliers more revenue and more consistent revenue.

Overall, the introduction of cooperatives and the use of fair trade helps establish a developing country as being independent and able to make its own decisions. This therefore goes against the ideology of neo-colonialism.

So to conclude, to a certain extent it can be said that neo-colonial rule in developing nations is present. Through indirect means, MEDC’s can be seen to control their former colonies. However as time progresses, the countries in question are taking management of their country into their own hands through development schemes and commodity cooperation’s to  control the flow of products and the price of those products. This presents the case that the countries are moving away from neo-colonial rule, and into proper independence.

But I am not talking about that simple hunger, the hunger of boredom, or the “I guess it’s time to eat” hunger. I am talking about the kind of hunger that makes  …

you feel weak

your head hurt

your stomach ache so bad that it actually is a burning sensation

makes your body tired, so that even moving to try to find food is difficult

when you will even eat bugs, grass, anything to stop that burn

makes you light headed and dizzy, sometimes to a point where you can not see

your breathing get harder

The kind of hunger where you can not wait for sleep to come, becasue for a brief moment, you will not feel it

the kind of hunger where that is all that is on your mind

The kind of hunger that makes you ravenous.

Do you know what hunger is?

The ending was, however the most moving part of the entire series. The beginning of the end was perhaps when Katniss, Gale and their team is infiltrating the capitol. After the death of their leader Boggs, Katniss assumes the leadership role and leads the team to the center of the capital. Along the way, Finnick was also killed by some rose scented lizard mutts.

However, rock bottom was when Katniss herself, sees her younger sister, Prim being sent to the frontlines and caught in an explosion. She entered the games in the first book, with one objective, that of saving Prim. In the end, it just goes to show that not even the strongest of people can accomplish anything.

After realizing that she was being used by both the Capitol and the rebellion, she decides to take her life back by assassinating Coin, making sure that she was not a part of anyone’s games. In the end, Katniss is somewhat forced to live with Peeta in district 13, seperated from her family, and Gale.

Some may say that this was a somewhat, sad and disappointing ending, but I believe that Suzanne Collins created the perfect ending. It just goes to show that in war, there are no winners. War results in losses from both sides. This is what Peeta, whether brainwashed or not stated in his interview. This proved to be true.

I have received one of these emails that we are used to get on these days. On it, the author tries to convince us that we, in the advanced world, shouldn’t complain so much when others are a lot worse off in many parts of the World. I know this and I also know that we don’t have to go very far to see distressing cases out of our front door. 

The email, which is a Power Point presentation, shows me photographs of people and children dying of hunger, playing on the ground with stones and weeds… It is distressing view, of course.

But here on the western world, we aren’t better off. Everyday, when I go out, I see people begging. Some of them have most probably lost their jobs. Many have been evicted from their homes, because they lost their jobs and couldn’t pay up their rents or mortgages. Other thought that by emigrating to other lands could have a better living, but have found the opposite.

Rather than words I prefer actions on what little one can possibly help.

I do praise what organizations such as Doctors Without Frontiers do in less fortunate countries. They have launched a sort of tablets, which in fact are sweets, and they are sold in chemists at one euro a box. This is to help them cope with so much distress where they are. These doctors could be comfortably in their hometowns working as GP’s or specialists. They could be among their friends and relatives. Yet, they have chosen to live and work far away from their homelands to try to relieve those people from pain and diseases. 

A couple of years ago, I read about an English organization that required school material to send in third world countries over the Christmas period. I really like this initiative, because I have always thought that education as it is written on the blackboard above equals to future. 

What we get in childhood will decide on our future lives in adulthood. That is why here in developed countries we are opposed to governmental plans to privatise or cut on public education and health expenditure.

Take children to school to learn to read and write and they will have a chance in the future. It is what it is commonly said teach them to fish rather than give them a fish.

There is money worldwide, but the trouble is that it is in few and wrong hands.

The recently-aired television programme V posited the arrival of an alien race which possesses superior technology and a reptilian, lizard-like physiology. The aliens, who are led by a queen who seems to wield absolute authority in a semi-matriarchal society (at the elite levels, that is, as we are given little information on how the massed proletariat of the aliens, if any, live).

Alas, it transpires that the aliens have malign intentions but, in the initial phase of their campaign, they pose as benevolent partners who usher in a new age of global development and environmental renewal. This is achieved through what are presented as unilateral and unexpected impositions of technological solutions which revolutionise the lives of millions and perhaps billions of people. Would such an approach work in real life?

The first thing is to consider what changes were actually brought about – we can ignore the how since, as the phrase has it, science that far advanced compared to what we can achieve is indistinguishable from magic. It appears from coverage provided that changes wrought that the earth has been cleansed of pollution and climate change emission, while much of the land has become significantly more fertile. It is not clear whether these changes are sustainable in the long-term or have unexpected side effects but let’s be optimistic about these issues.

The hundreds of millions of people who are likely to perish in the middle and later decades of the current century would survive, which is an intrinsically good thing. The changes brought about have not required any political or social change within human societies, however, other than coming to terms with the presence of the massive alien ships. It is likely, therefore, that societies will continue to pursue exploitative economic growth with little regard for the environmental consequences – indeed, they might feel free to intensify their efforts in the knowledge that their reptilian friends will help them out again in the future. It seems inevitable, in these circumstances, that the aliens would be obliged (irrespective of whether they want to or not) to institute a forcible world government led by themselves.

Would people be better off under an enforced alien government? There are millions of people who would be – freed from hunger and poverty, they could focus on obtaining education for their children and attaining better standards of living for the future. They would have to sacrifice a number of people for the dinner tables of the lizards but then again large numbers of people are sacrificed every day to hunger, poverty and ignorance. Many people would think the bargain worthwhile.

What about freedom? Freedom is only privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all. Too many people are not free from poverty and hunger.

evil bug (Photo credit: acidpix)

Who is the world’s worst enemy? Right, many answers like these will come to mind in answer to this Question: Religious crises, Proliferation of mass distraction weapons, political insecurity in Africa and in middle-east, suicide bombing and terrorism, global economic meltdown and environmental hazards, and many more evil like them not mentioned here. Granted, all these and the likes like them have the potential power of being called the world’s number one enemy, considering the roles they play in deteriorating our dear world, but their influence could not be more influential than the influence of what I am about to tell you. I am not here to tell you about what I am not sure of. I had been there, and the experience had taught me that there is nothing more devastating and evil influencing like hunger. Understand it before you judge. Trace the root of most problems the world have had, and you will be sure that hunger has something to do with them. Hunger is the war we fight. Agree with me that the most troublesome people and those that could easily be used in creating troubles are mostly hunger people and those that were influence one time or the other in the past, during their growing up, by hunger. During a period of hunger, a hungry person loses greater percentage of his/her conscience to the power of lack and could do anything to satisfy the urge, including unreasonable things. And a prolonged hunger kills conscience completely and leaves the body in total control of external influence, most of which are negative.             Taking my country as an instance, up to 90% or even more of trouble agents are hungry people. Being filled with the thoughts of their lacks, they could easily be bought with little to ferment troubles. Being filled with thoughts of food, they hardly allow space for rational thought’s flow before following an opinion given to them. Being filled with the agony of their state, they could easily choose to die since there is nothing they could live for. Their sources of information are usually misguided because they are largely based on rumour and on cheap articles. Is it not when one has eaten and have left over that one puts one’s excess in seeking quality information. Here in my country, and in other countries that resemble us, we don’t have left-overs. We don’t even have enough let alone having left overs. We are hungry, and a hungry man is an angry man, don’t forget. And an angry man is a devil’s workshop. And who is devil? The destroyer of the world; the originator of troubles; anything bad is fit for it to answer. That is the one the world has become his work’s place through hunger.             No part of the world is devoid of hungry people. If anyone claims there is, then, such a fellow is part of the world’s problem. For inasmuch as there are greedy people, hungry people will abound. Or can anyone tell me one part of the world that lacks greedy people? There is none, for all mankind has it as a general inclination, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, which ceaseth only in death.             We can fight the world’s number one enemy. It is not invincible. We have concentrated our energy so much on the periphery while the Centre is neglected. Let’s together fight hunger as the world’s number one enemy, starting from Africa, down to the middle-east, to the rest of Asia and Caribbean, Australia and America will not be left out, and so also will be Europe and the utmost part of the world, wherever there is life. For man, wherever he may be without the basic need of life, is hungry, and is angry, and is a potential works place of devil, capable of producing those evils we wrongly call the number one enemies of the world today.

He was a young Puerto Rican boy,

and considered one of life’s defeats,

it’s when life cheats,

tall, thin, light skin,

living on the street,

sells his body

just to make ends meet,

he was so cute,

young girls would have loved him,

but instead he got dirty old men,

he would lie and steal,

if it meant a hot meal,

tortured eyes, a weak frame,

this hungry boy has no last name,

his life hanging in the balance,

with death in the fold,

in the winter he does jail-time,

just to stay out of the cold.

When you’re talking about “The Hunger Games,” it all comes down to Katniss.

Like other strong-minded women who have driven book sales into the stratosphere — think Lisbeth Salander of the “Dragon Tattoo” triology and even Bella Swan of the “Twilight” series — ace archer Katniss Everdeen is an indomitable heroine whom nothing fazes or flusters for long.

Making a successful “Hunger Games” movie out of Suzanne Collins’ novel required casting the best possible performer as Katniss, and in Jennifer Lawrence director Gary Ross and company have hit the bull’s-eye, so to speak.

Photos: Meet the main cast of ‘The Hunger Games’

An actress who specializes in combining formidable strength of will with convincing vulnerability, Lawrence is the key factor in making “Hunger Games” an involving popular entertainment with strong narrative drive that holds our attention by sticking as close to the book’s outline as it can manage.

As those who’ve seen Lawrence’s Oscar-nominated work in “Winter’s Bone” know, playing Ree Dolly in that film gave the actress a head start on Katniss. Not only was Ree similarly determined and intrepid, she paralleled Katniss in growing up poor in blighted surroundings and having to head the family after the departure of her father hampered her mother’s ability to cope.

Ree’s story, however, was set in the present, while Katniss’ tale unfolds in a bleak future where a nation called Panem exists where the United States once stood. Every year, to mark the anniversary of a peace treaty that ended a bloody rebellion, each of Panem’s districts has to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18, known as tributes, to the Capitol to participate in a brutal kill-or-be-killed event called the Hunger Games. Only one child comes out alive.

Photos: ‘The Hunger Games’ premiere

“This is how we remember our past,” intones the official propaganda for this, the 74th annual games, set in a sizable wooded area that functions as an outdoor arena. “This is how we safeguard our future.” So that no one misses the message, numerous concealed cameras turn the Hunger Games into the ultimate in must-see TV for Panem’s residents.

Collins came up with the idea for “Hunger Games” while switching between a reality TV show and coverage of the Iraq war. And the finished film, though it combines elements familiar from short stories “The Lottery” and “The Most Dangerous Game,” does come off as a lethal “Survivor” or even”American Idol” with deadly weapons.

In District 12, where coal mining is a way of life and the people dress like characters from “The Grapes of Wrath,”16-year-old Katniss is primarily concerned with getting food for her family and bonding with her hunky best friend, Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth).

But when her 12-year-old sister gets chosen as a tribute, Katniss impulsively volunteers to take her place and heads off to the Capitol clutching a pin in the shape of a mockingjay (the visual symbol of both book and film) as a good luck charm.

Photos: Josh Hutcherson vs. Liam Hemsworth

On the train to the Capitol, Katniss exchanges glances with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), her fellow District 12 tribute, and spends quality time with key players like the ebullient Effie Trinket (an unrecognizable Elizabeth Banks) and the inebriated Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), a former champion who is supposed to mentor both Peeta and Katniss.

At the Capitol, an effete, decadent place that looks like a 1930s image of futuristic architecture, more characters materialize, including Stanley Tucci’s foppish host and Lenny Kravitz’s sensitive pageant stylist. Preliminaries out of the way, the games begin with roughly an hour gone and 90 minutes left on the clock.

Since what happens during the Hunger Games should stay in the Hunger Games, specifics of the combat will not be revealed here, except to mention the presence of young actress Amandla Stenberg, who makes a powerful impression as 12-year-old Rue.

Though the film is faithful to the book, the trio of practiced screenwriters (Ross, who has a trio of Oscar script nominations, author Collins and Billy Ray) have made some changes. The biggest one is elimination of the book’s first-person structure, which allows for scenes — such as private conversations between President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and head gamemaker Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley) — that were not in the novel.

Ross also makes the shrewd choice to have us frequently glimpse the unfolding games action on the huge TV screens the citizens of Panem are watching, enhancing the uncomfortable intertwining of violence and voyeurism that is one of the story’s themes.

As to the kid-on-kid violence that has been the subject of so much talk, Ross has managed to adroitly downplay that, keeping the mayhem to a PG-13 level. Most of the children in the film want nothing to do with killing, and the ones who do look considerably older than the heroines of previous ultra-violent films like “Hanna” and “Kick-Ass.”

Katniss, of course, is one of the reluctant participants, and Lawrence’s ability to involve us in her struggle is a key to the effectiveness of “Hunger Games.” The film’s strengths are not so much in its underlying themes or its romantic elements, (the weakest aspect, in fact) but its recognition of the book’s narrative strengths and its ability play them straight. If, as the ads suggest, the whole world will be watching this, viewers will likely be satisfied with what they see.

Hunger could be so rude,

vigil and crude,

she heard the crying

through the solitude,

and through those cries

she knew it would hurt a lot

hunger doesn’t compromise,

you’re either hungry or you’re not,

their stomachs hurt so much,

they could feel it bleeding,

so tender to the touch,

it was time for a feeding,

but there was nothing to give,

and they continued to live,

hunger could be so rude,

as it watches you beg for food,

God would stare in an odd way,

closed his eyes

and listened to them pray,

from deep inside you would shout,

curse at God,

then comes the doubt,

cries were heard,

words were cries,

and what binds were those ties,

all they wanted was food,

and perhaps a little solitude…

In the spring of 2003, three filmmakers (Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole) traveled to Africa to document the genocide that was occurring in Darfur. Instead, they stumbled upon a little-known war that originated in northern Uganda in 1987, making it Africa’s longest-running war. They produced a documentary named Invisible Children about the children being abducted and turned into child soldiers by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Out of fear of being abducted, the children of Uganda would walk miles every night to places of refuge in order to avoid the LRA. The film follows a group of these children and tells their stories. 

The three filmmakers later formed an organization named Invisible Children Inc.

In 2012, Invisible Children released a short film on the social media platform YouTube demanding the capture of Kony. A website called Kony2012 released a short video promoting awareness of Kony and his actions.

The film ‘KONY 2012’ is a film (written and directed by Jason Russell and others) and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice. The film gained over 50 thousand views on YouTube in just one day after being released on March 5th, 2012. By the 6th, it had 1.3 million.

Spread

The phrases “KONY2012”, “Make Kony Famous”, and “Kony for President” have been spammed on countless YouTube pages and Facebook walls, contributing to the spread.

On March 6th, 2012, Rihanna tweeted saying “#KONY2012 Spread the word!!!”

http://j.gs/314643/kony-2012  - Watch the video!