Let’s fact it, there will always be people who are addicted to gambling and although the online gambling news suggests that the number of people joining online casinos and UK online bingo sites is increasing on a daily basis, that is not the same as saying the number of gamblers has increased. Some people join the gambling sites simply for the chance to network on forums and chat rooms, while others soon get caught up in the thrill of the game.
Online gambling news is not suggesting that there is some implicit fault in the growth of online gambling sites, but they do think that trends are worrying. More people join a UK online bingo site to have some fun and perhaps earn themselves some money, Others get so taken by the fact that they have won once that there is the risk that they could become serious gamblers. All worries aside the fact is that people have enjoyed bingo and card games for many years.
Most of those people who do play know their own limits and will stop if they find themselves on a losing streak. Unfortunately there have always been people who get stricken by the gambling bug and who will waste away every penny that they can get hold of – will online gambling sites really make much of a difference to ordinary people’s lives?
The first casualty is the truth … So far avoided torture, summary execution and rape? Still capable of dodging approaching helicopters and machete wielding thugs but have nowhere to run? If so, you had better hope someone, somewhere is paying attention to your plight; and if you want to receive Western help you had better pray one of the ‘holy trinity’ of the stock market, national security, and price of oil is affected in your favour. Otherwise, you’re screwed! If the war affecting you does not have a western angle it risks falling off the news page; if it ever gets that far. Minus a few notable exceptions, the western media’s coverage of conflict is very discriminating. While we all had front row seats for the Nato bombing of Belgrade, we saw little or nothing of the carnage happening, at the same time, in parts of Africa, Asia and South America. These are the forgotten wars, where the West may supply the weaponry, but the conflict never makes it to our television screens. In these conflicts people die brutal, savage deaths that go unrecorded and uncounted. Why do we hear so much about the human rights of some and so little of others?
If human rights were really the issue, if the desire for peace really spurred on our politicians the conflicts in Congo, Angola, Sudan and Eritrea, that were no less bloody, would not have gone virtually unreported during the Kossovo conflict. In our global theatre the media coverage is often so intense it produces detrimental affects. Governments make ad hoc decisions without real thought to the consequences; aid agencies, desperate for intervention, arrange itineraries and logistics for the press.
Then, once the media circus packs up in search of a more photogenic war, what of the people left behind? Kofi Annan, last year urged journalists to engage in ‘preventative journalism’ instead of fuelling crisis he asked journalists to “identify an issue that is likely to blow into a crisis leading to bloodshed and conflict, keep reporting it, thus forcing policy makers and leaders to act on it before it explodes.” He went on to say “Don’t go away when the blood stops flowing.” With these forgotten wars, it is not just a question of journalists leaving when the blood stops flowing, but that they were never there in the first place.
