Current Events: Week of 1/23–1/27

‘Kay! Now for your Current Events of this week! We’ve only really got one good story today…

Planning on going on a cruise? Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about doing that… The Costa Concordia ran aground near Italy after the ship’s captain decided to go off course to show off the expensive boat. (View some photos here.) 16 people died, and 17 people so far are missing. Also, the cruise liner could possibly leak oil and fuel into the wildlife sanctuary that it ran aground in. They are planning to pump out the oil by Saturday. Now, people are questioning the cruise liner industry. Lately, the standards for training for captains and crews in things like safety information are not very good. The cruise liners are not controlled like the airline industry, where the pilots are directed by a certain flight plan. Captains are able to alter the courses of the boats however they wish, though there are GPS’s and other instruments that are supposed to keep the liners on a certain course. Cruise liners’ growing sizes raise a problem too, as they are able to hold more people that way, and so evacuations can be harder. So, the cruise liner industry is under great discussion right now, and I’m not sure how that’ll affect you, but to be sure, there’s going to be changes!

Well, there you go! See you next week!