Author: mp153628

Earlier today I watched the UN’s Daily Briefing. The spokesperson began by talking about how Yemen is facing a possible famine and what could be done to alleviate the rising issue.

Another topic briefly brought up is the ongoing situation in South Sudan and the unresolved aftermath of the flooding that affected 800,000 people since July. As of now, only 100,000 people have been able to receive support.

On the topic of COVID-19, the UN will be supporting Namibia by giving the country $2 million for medical resources. The UN urges Asian-Pacific governments to focus on addressing poverty and health care since the pandemic has shown weakness in several countries’ social protection systems. 

In Israel, the construction of 5000 housing units in the West Bank were pushed through despite the illegality of the action. According to the spokesperson, this is “one of the major obstacles to peace” between Palestine and Israel.

International Rural Women’s Day was the last subject addressed by the spokesperson. This year’s theme was “building rural women’s resilience in the wake of COVID-19.” The Secretary-General wants to bring attention to such women since many need more access to health care, social protection and agricultural services.

I think the most interesting thing that was brought up was the statistic that UNICEF brought up about how 40 percent of people worldwide do not have access to water and soap. On top of that, 43 percent of schools do not have access to water and soap, which directly affects 818 million children.

One question that stood out to me is: what is happening to the children and families left behind after the defeat of ISIL? The spokesperson was again unable to explain what is happening to the upwards of 70,000 people from Syria and Lebanon who have been displaced.

 

This semester I am planning on focusing the Philippine Islands mainly, with some input and viewpoints from the local Filipino communities in Queens and Manhattan.

Originally I wanted to tackle censorship and the closing of ABS-CBN in the islands, but upon further research I have grown wary about how easy or accessible information will be since a lot of more vocal sources seem to have become more careful about everything they say and post. A lot of the most outspoken currently are those who are located stateside, which offers a limited viewpoint through a westernized lens. I will continue to look into what routes I can take towards a more serious piece later on in the semester. 

While I work on looking into the aforementioned topic, I plan on doing a feature on Filippino “artistas” breaking into mainstream East Asian media. For a long time many actors and musicians were being snubbed for the fairer skinned Asians. However, some emerging Filipino stars are garnering negative attention for either “not looking Filipino enough” or being of mixed European descent. Aside from the starlets being criticized for their appearance, many critics claim that the media coming from the Philippines is inaccurate and tends to glamourize the Philippines as beautiful rich beaches despite 90% living close to the poverty line. I want to do a dive into the image the Philippines is portraying through music and movies and whether or not it is as detrimental as some claim.

The final topic I have considered covering is how LGBT is represented in the Philippines. Despite the country being quite conservative and strictly upholding Catholic values for the most part, the country is very accepting of homosexuals and mildly accepting of transgender people. Well, as accepting one can be while making these people the butt of the joke more often than not. My last idea would center around whether the acceptance and appreciation of the LGBT community in Philippine media is toxic or misunderstood.