The Martlet

Old 2008 was a newsworthy year. Little surprise, then, that stories like the ones that follow were lost amid the din of Obamamania and the Olympics.

Russian Navy plays war games

Last January the Russian Navy sent a naval task-force consisting of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, along with 47 long-range bombers and 11 support vessels, to conduct war games off the coasts of Spain and France.

During the war games, they test-launched nuclear-capable cruise missiles, conducted tactical air-strike practices and held anti-submarine evasion drills. The activities, in conjunction with Russian naval operations off the coast of Venezuela and in the Mediterranean, demonstrate a pattern of increasingly assertive posturing by the Russian Federation.

Blindness is cured

The future for restored sight is one step closer as of April 21, 2008. According to the Daily Telegraph, that was the date when two blind British patients at Moorefields Eye Hospital in London received ocular implants placed at the back of their eyes.

The implants receive transmissions from a tiny camera in a special set of glasses that will allow them to distinguish different objects based on light levels. According to Dr. Lyndon da Cruz, the retinal surgeon who carried out the operations, more procedures will be scheduled when the post-op evaluations of the two trial participants are completed.

Slavery still alive

There are more enslaved people now than any other period of human history. According to Foreign Policy’s article in their March/April edition, “A World Enslaved” by E. Benjamin Skinner, there are some 27 million people enslaved around the world.

Mr. Skinner’s source is a book by David Batstone, From Sex Workers to Restaurant Workers, the Global Slave Trade Is Growing, which claims that, despite 12 different international anti-slave trade treaties, the industry is thriving.

The U.S. Department of Justice admits that about 30,000 slaves pass through the U.S. annually on their way to international destinations. The FBI and the International Labour Office estimate the revenues from the trade are between $9.5 billion and $32 billion a year, respectively. And despite numerous arrests by Interpol, the FBI and the Japanese National Police Agency, the numbers of enslaved people are expected to grow.

Democracy comes to Europe

The last feudal state in Europe, the English Channel Island of Sark, introduced democracy to its citizens.

On Jan. 16 and Feb. 21, the Chief Pleas (legislative body), under direction of the Seigneur of Sark, dissolved Sark’s feudal system and established an elected 30-member chamber.

Elections were held in December 2008, to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.