From the sources shown below, it is clear that there are many acts of terrorism. One of the incidents involving terrorism would be of course, the bombings on the World Trade Center on the 11th of September 2001. These bombings were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by the Al-Qaeda On the morning of the tragic day, four commercial airlines were hijacked and two were used to crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, which collapsed two hours after the plane crashes. As a result, 2973 cicilians and 19 hijackers were killed.
Another example of terrorism would be the 2004 Madrid train bombings. The terrorists were 'Al-Qaeda-inspired' and the bombings were carried out three days before the general elections would be held to show anger at Spain's two main political parties accusing each other of concealing evidence for electoral purpose. The bombings caused 191 deaths and around 1800 casualties. In the wake of the heightened security concerns, especially the train bombings of Madrid, as the targets are mainly the commuter lines, several measures were taken by the Singapore government to ensure better security in Singapore, and to hopefully prevent such incidents from happening here. A few months after the train bombings, SBS Transit and SMRT Corporation employed unarmed guards to patrol the train stations and platforms, and check the belongings of commuters to ensure there was nothing suspicious. The use of closed-circuit cameras(CCTVs) were also used, as well as announcements to report any suspicious-looking commuters or items.
However, there is yet another impact of terrorism. As there is much violence in the Middle East countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia, oil-producing countries, terrorist attacks may cause interruptions to oil-producing facilities. As seen in Source C, the sabotaged oil facilities cause the oil supply to decrease. Because of the high demand for oil, a decreased supply can cause a rise in oil prices. This is especially so because Saudi Arabia is the largest oil-producing country. Therefore, if the price of oil increases suddenly in Singapore, it may cause another economy downturn. As much of the tax put on goods is based on oil, used for transportation of the goods, a sudden hike in prices may cause a huge deterioration in the economy.
From the evidence collated, one can see the different impacts of terrorism from the political, social and even economic areas of Singapore. Each source shows the different situations of terrorism and the explanations therefore highlight the different impacts of terrorism on Singapore. To handle the situations, the Singapore government has stepped up security measures, especially in MRT stations and trains. For example, more patrols are being held, CCTVs are used to be able to monitor the stations and the public's co-operation is sought with the request to report any suspicion of items or people. Terrorism also has a great impact on oil production and a sharp decrease in the supply due to terrorist sabotages could unbalance the economy as there is a very high demand for oil. Hence, I can conclude that terrorism has many different impacts on our lives.
Bibliography
1) Singapore economy to weaken
http://business.asiaone.com/Business/News/Story/A1Story20081020-95056.html
2)2004 Madrid Train Bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Madrid_train_bombings
3)Security on the Mass Rapid Transit(Singapore)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_on_the_Mass_Rapid_Transit_(Singapore)
4)September 11 Attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11
No comments:
Post a Comment