October 17th 2008 – Japan will have a seat on the United Nations Security Council for the next two years. It will be joined by Turkey, Austria, Mexico and Uganda. Iran tried for a seat, but it is out of favour because it is suspected of secretly building an atom bomb. Iceland also tried for a seat but failed.

So the present members are:

• Western Europe: Britain*, France*, Belgium, Italy, Austria
• Eastern Europe: Russia*, Croatia
• North America: United States*
• Latin America: Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico
• Africa/Arab: Burkina Faso, Libya, South Africa, Uganda
• Asia: China*, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Turkey

* permanent members with veto power.

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October 16th 2008 – A survey shows that the Chinese have lost much of their trust in milk, but will still drink it. This comes after four children died and thousands of others got sick from milk that had melamine in it. Melamine is put in milk so that it can be watered down but still pass quality tests. The heads of several milk companies got on television and said they were sorry.

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October 15th 2008 – the New York bank Merrill Lynch foresees strong growth in China despite banking troubles in the West. Because banks in China are largely controlled by the government, they stayed out of the sub-prime mortgage business that is destroying banks in the West. China will not be able to sell as much overseas as before, but there is enough demand within the country to keep growth at 8% or 9% a year. Not as fast as in past years, but still a strong rate of growth.

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October 13th 2008 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average is back above 9,000. After its worst week ever, the Dow today gained over 900 points. It comes after countries in Europe agreed to pour billions into banks to support them. It also comes a week after Black Monday when the Dow began its frightening slide below 10,000, for those of you who can remember back that far.

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October 13th 2008 – Paul Krugman, an American economist, won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics. He is well-known in America because he writes for the New York Times where he blasts President Bush’s economic policy. He is a professor at Princeton. He won the Nobel for his work  on trade patterns. He shows that globalization leads to the creation of huge cities.

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October 10th 2008 – Maarti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland and peacemaker for the United Nations, won the Nobel Peace Prize today. For over 30 years he has worked to make peace in places like Aceh in Indonesia, Namibia, the Horn of Africa, Kosovo, Northern Ireland and Iraq. He is proudest of Namibia whose independence from South Africa he helped to work out after many long years. Namibia made him an honorary citizen.

“These efforts have contributed to a more peaceful world and to ‘fraternity between nations’ in Alfred Nobel’s spirit,” said the Nobel committee.

Ahtisaari was president of Finland from 1994 to 2000.

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October 9th 2008 – French writer Jean-Marie Le Clezio wins the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature, considered to be by some the greatest living French writer. The Swedish Academy says Le Clezio is an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation.” Among his better known works are “Onitsha” (1991) and “Wandering Star” (1992). He travelled the world and even lived with the Embera Indians of Panama for a time. That gave him an outsider’s view of the life people live in the cities of the West. He says, “‘If I had to venture into philosophy, I’d say I was a poor Rousseauist who hasn’t really figured it out.”

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October 8th 2008 – The Nobel Prize for Chemistry was won by two Americans and one Japanese citizen for their work on green fluorescent protein (GFP). The winners were Osamu Shimonura of Japan, who discovered GFP, and Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien of America, who made it into a comon way for scientists to see what goes on inside the body.

GFP gives off a green light and is found naturally in jellyfish (Aequorea victoria) in the sea. Shimonura found the protein that was causing the light, Chalfie found a way to put it in other animals to study how parts of the body, healthy or diseased, grow and change, while Tsien found ways to make the light stronger and give off different colours.

Shimonura is the third Japanese citizen to win a Nobel Prize so far this year. One of the Americans to win is Japanese-American.

The Literature Prize comes out on the 9th, the Peace Prize on the 10th and the Economics Prize on the 13th.

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October 8th 2008 – Government banks cut interest rates today. Not just in America, where Wall Street is in deep trouble, but all across the world: the European Union, Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada and even China. Japan will probably cut rates too. Despite this move, stock markets are still falling.

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January 25th 2008 – Egypt was unable to seal its border with Gaza as Palestians continue to stream across for the third straight day in search of food and supplies. Israel has been trying to cut off Gaza from the world to help bring an end to rocket attacks coming from there.
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