What Happened This Week
1) Vladimir Putin won Russia’s presidential elections with 64% of the vote. Voter fraud was widely reported as Putin organized people to vote in multiple times and inflated his vote count. Following the victory, Putin gave a triumphant speech proclaiming, “We won in an open and honest battle!”
2) Super Tuesday did not prove decisive for any of the Republican presidential candidate. Romney took home the majority of the delegates winning 6 states while Santorum won 3 and Gingrich one. Romney will almost certainly win the nomination, yet he'll get it without ever receiving support from the Republican party’s conservative base.
3) Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, visited Washington D.C. to meet with Obama regarding the situation in Iran. Obama called for Israel to work with the international community to pressure Iran through sanctions. PolicyMic’ers debate why calls for war with Iran are heating up now.
4) Invisible Children, a non-for-profit that advocates for children in Africa, released KONY 2012, a short film that advocates for the capture of the infamous Ugandan war lord, Joseph Kony. The film has been seen over 65 million times on YouTube, over 50 million times in the past 3 days. The social media storm has now caused a severe backlash with critics attacking Invisible Children’s intentions and methods.
5) The average price of gas in the U.S. continues to rise, now at $3.79. 3 reasons have caused gas prices to rise: (1) improved global growth outlook, (2) supply issues in South Sudan and the North Sea, (3) worries about the Iranian situation.
Top Stories – Dying to Communicate: North Koreans Struggle for Access to the Outside World (Jieun Baek) – North Korea prevents its 24.5 million people from accessing the internet, but there's a fairly established system for smuggling technological devices into the country.
The No Nonsense Dictionary of American Politics (Michael Luciano) – Tired of all the empty talking points from the campaign trail? This handy dictionary will help you cut through the b.s.
Top 10 Most Important Senate Races in 2012 (Zaid Zaid) – A year ago, Republicans thought that they had a chance to retake the Senate. Today, that looks less likely.
What We’re Reading – Understanding how memory works (NYT); 5 so called health foods you should avoid (WaPo); Why being a member of Congress sucks (Politico); Drug policy as race policy (NYT).
Photo Credit: vasvas
