Watching the news is something that we all need to do every day. Sometimes we can see the news and see the weather report. We might watch the news to get information on sports. We might watch the news because there is something happening in our city or in our area. The news can be a good place to get information.

But sometimes the news does not have a long memory. Sometimes the news is not interested to tell us about trouble that is happening around the world. Sometimes the news is just a bunch of stories about funny things, cute animals, local food, or something about a cool singer or Youtuber.

In truth, there is a lot of news that is not on the television or in the news on the Internet. In truth there is a lot of war, and trouble, and violence all over the world. Some of these wars and news stories started many years ago and continue until today.

For example, there has been war and violence in Myanmar since 1948. There has not been peace in Myanmar for 74 years. Afghanistan has had violence and war since 1978, so they have not had peace for 44 years. Mexico and the war on drugs has been continuous violence since 2006. Columbia has been without peace since 1964, and Somalia has been at war since 1991. Iraq and Sudan have been violent since 2003, and Syria has been extremely dangerous since 2011.

The world has several very serious problems and the news is not reporting it so much. We have too many poor and hungry people in the world. This is completely unnecessary and a problem that can be fixed. We have problems with global warming that needs many countries to do more to slow and reverse these environmental problems. There is still many people with problems connected to the COVID pandemic, and we have many problems of racism and violence to women and children.

But the news we see many times does not talk about so many of these bigger problems.

Sometimes the news is very good and they get a lot of information about new problems happening, but we also need to remember and to not forget the past. All of these wars and places of violence and trouble need our help and our cooperation. If the news does not report about the problems of the world, we will forget and the violence will not stop.

Learning history here at Otemae, and also Social Studies and Modern Society are all very important to make you educated and intelligent. You are lucky to have so many great teachers here at this school to help you understand how to read the news, and also to understand the problems of the world. Of course there are many things that we cannot change quickly. But the first step, and a very important step, is to learn about these places and to try to understand why violence and war can happen.

When we learn about the past of our own country, and about the geography and society of other cultures we can understand better how to make changes. And these changes always start small. If we want a cleaner world we need to clean around us. If we want a world with less violence we must make peace with people around us. If we want to have a fair world and stop the imbalance of power and money we need to be fair to others, support our local people, and make our cities and country better.

We all need to understand and think globally and to make good actions locally.