5 Current Events More Important Than Jordyn Woods

Jordyn Woods.

She’s been trending on all social media platforms from Twitter to Instagram to Facebook. Cosmopolitan, TMZ, E!, Harper’s Bazaar, and several other publications written articles about her. She even appeared with Jada Pinkett Smith in an interview on E! Entertainment News.

Jordyn Woods, the now ex-best friend of Kylie Jenner, was involved in a cheating scandal with Khloe Kardashian's significant other and baby-daddy, Tristian Thompson. The whole story is full of petty and ever-changing drama. It’s juicy, sure. But it shouldn’t be capturing the attention of the nation.

There are many more important things we should be focusing on. Here are five of them.

The Ethnic Cleansing in China

For the past eighteen months, China has conducted a massive campaign against Muslim minority communities in its vast western Xinjiang region, including placing nearly 1.8 million Uighur Muslims, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities into the 1,000 concentration camps with incredible secrecy.

Inside these camps, they force feed the Muslim prisoner's pork and alcohol, subject them to torture, religious brainwashing tactics, are bombarded with propaganda, forced to recite slogans and sing songs in exchange for food, and pressured to renounce Muslim practices.

The Libyan Slave Trade

Libya’s slide into chaos following the 2011 death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the collapse of the government has made it vulnerable to crime and exploitation. Because of this, many Libyans are fleeing the country to European nations and those who managed to reach Europe from Libya have long told of being kidnapped by smugglers, who would then torture them to extort cash. In recent years, this abuse has developed into a modern-day slave trade that has taken around 200,000 Libyans as slaves.

However, the trade is not only occurring in Europe but also in Libya. With help from Italy, the Libyan coast guard has been capturing vessels smuggling people into Europe. As many as one million migrants are trapped in Libya, where they are preyed upon by smugglers and other criminals who rob, rape, and murder them. The new slave traders operate with such freedom that some victims are being sold in public markets.

“I don’t understand how we’re letting this happen,” says Eastside senior Alayza Ruff. “People always say slavery is over, but how can we forget about it when not only is it affecting us today but there are still Africans being sold off like their some kind of property. This needs to be talked about.”

The Famine in Yemen

Upwards of three million civilians could die from starvation if the Saudi Arabia-led coalition does not stop its attack on the impoverished country of Yemen. Since 2016, the famine has been ongoing in Yemen which started during the Yemeni Civil War. Since bombing began in 2015, more than ten thousand people have already been killed in the fighting and another three million have been displaced.

The famine is being coupled with an outbreak of cholera, which is resulting in 5,000 new cases daily. The devastation of Yemeni infrastructure, health, water, and sanitation systems and facilities by Saudi-led coalition air strikes led to the spread of cholera. It’s now estimated that 50,000 children under the age of five could die from malnutrition this year alone, while 85,000 have died so far. That’s at least 130 children a day.

If you’d like to help alleviate the crisis, download the ShareTheMeal app. With it, people are able to donate and feed children in Yemen.

Cameroon Civil War

Cameroon is the scene of an increasingly brutal and bloody war to make an independent state from president Paul Biya’s repressive control. Ordinary cocoa farmers are now willing to fight and die to preserve their English-language culture and ways of life. These farmers blame their homeland’s lack of basic infrastructure on the French-speaking government.

The Ambazonia Defense Forces (ADF), an outgunned and chaotically organized militia group, is fighting for the Anglophone region’s independence. The Cameroon military is in total control wherever there are paved roads and town, blocking roads and indiscriminately killing Southern Cameroonians as young as thirteen. Since 2017, more than 150,000 people have fled their homes as government forces have burned Anglophone villages to the ground. Cameroonian forces have been taped and accused of indiscriminate torture, execution, and the rape and murder of civilians. However, the government defends its soldiers by saying they are only responding to the violence brought by the rebel ADF.

“We are fighting for freedom. We have no freedom,” said a young ADF commander. “They rape children, kill people without any reason, they just see young youth like this from 13 years upward and just kill — even pregnant women, they kill them, too, that’s the worst thing of it. Children are not safe. They kidnap our children and bury them alive.”

Israeli Testing On Palestinian Prisoners

Israeli professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian revealed February 19th that the Israeli occupation authorities issued permits to large pharmaceutical firms, allowing them to carry out tests on Palestinian and Arab prisoners. The Times of Israel also revealed that the Israeli military firms are testing weapons on Palestinian children and carry out these tests in the Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem.

“It’s really tragic that we allow stuff like this to happen,” says Eastside senior Ariel Dalcour. “People throw fits when animals are tested on, but don’t have that same compassion for people. That’s so sad.”