Research In Motion- Battered and Bruised
The recent disruptions to Research In Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry service sparked outrage among millions of BlackBerry users worldwide. Though there is never an appropriate time for RIM to hit such roadblocks, the recent mishap could not have come at a more inopportune moment. The Waterloo, Ontario based company has been grappling with shrinking market share for the past year, has been unable to outdo its competition in the smartphone segment, has witnessed declining BlackBerry shipments and has missed earnings estimates.
Read MoreFirst Podcast from Kateryna & Sindhu!
Watch it for an introduction of two of your bloggers and two interviews of students around...
Read MoreThe European Union on Life Support
Some good news came out of Europe today for the first time in a long while. Ten hours of talks in Brussels ended with EU governments increasing their share of the rescue fund to 1 trillion Euros, or about $1.4 trillion. Furthermore, Greek sovereign debt holders were forced to take a 50% loss on their debt.[1] The announcement came amid increasing pressure by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy for all parties involved to push through with a deal before the European Debt Crisis grew completely out of control.[2] The deal’s primary focus was preventing Greece from having to default, but it also includes provisions to help prevent toxic assets from affecting Italy as well as measures to safeguard against bank failure. It is very fortunate that the deal came when it did. Hostilities have grown...
Read MoreEU: A Sinking Ship
As someone who was born in Ukraine, I often look at the future of my birth country and whether it will one day gain entrance into the European Union. I always remember hearing prerequisites that Ukraine must accomplish before it receives an invitation such as improving its relations with the rest of Europe or achieving an independence from Russian influence. However, one thing that seems to be a unifying theme for the European Union as of late is a high level of instability and debt, and to be honest, I am not sure that I still yearn as much for Ukraine to join this “union”. Out of the twenty-seven countries in the European Union, over half of them have public debt exceeding sixty percent of their GDP. Greece, which has suffered extreme recession especially in the past two years,...
Read MoreThe Future of Nuclear Weapons in Global Politics
Today, the United States dismantled its last B53 Nuclear Bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever developed. This marks the end of an era of outrageously powerful nuclear weapons, but does this really matter in the scheme of global politics? The famous historian John Gaddis once explained how nuclear weapons act as a deterrent against conflicts, particularly between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Nobody wants to be the person written down in history who pushes the button releasing the nuclear warhead that leads to the nuclear holocaust that ends the world as we know it. Retrospectively, this idea may have been technically true, but the nuclear deterrent, arguably, resulted in many proxy wars, in places like Korea and Vietnam, between the Americans and Soviets. Looking at present politics and the future, the nuclear deterrence present in the Cold War seems...
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