第二週-敘利亞內戰

 Civil War

The country spirals into a Civil war as violence runs rampant through the country. Rebel brigades are formed and the fight to control the cities are started between rebel forces and governmental forces. Damascus and Aleppo see the most fighting and highest civilian death tolls 

By June 2013, the UN and other sources report that 90,000 people have been killed thus far during the Syrian Civil War. This number would double in the next year and has now reached over 250,000 sources at the UN report. 

The Syrian conflict is now multifaceted with many moving parts. These moving parts are more than just tensions between rebel and governmental forces. The country faces ethnic tensions, the introduction of world powers, jihadist groups, the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations. A UN commission of inquiry, investigating alleged human rights violations since March 2011, has alleged evidence to show that both sides of the conflict have committed war crimes since the start of the conflict. These war crimes include murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances. Other crimes include rebel forces have blocked access for food, water and health services for civilians. 

UN Security Council released resolution in 2014 demanding all parties end the "indiscriminate employment of weapons in populated areas". Since the release of the resolution, sources suggest more than 6,000 civilians have been killed by barrel bombs dropped by government aircraft on rebel-held areas. The UN has suggested that civilians have been directly targeted. In addition to those war crimes committed by rebel and governmental forces, the Islamic State has been accused of wagging terror on northern and eastern Syria and committing war crimes relentlessly against the civilians in the territories they occupy. 

US military intervention became a threat after the death of hundreds in August 2013 from the nerve agent sarin. The threat forced President Assad to agree to remove and destroy all of Syria's chemical weapons. The removal was a joint mission led by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The destruction was completed a year later. Even with the efforts of the international community, chemical attacks are still being reported by both the government and the Islamic State. 

來源:http://www.iamsyria.org/conflict-background.html

Who:syria

When:as violence runs rampant through the country.

Where:syria

Why:not  even

What: Rebel brigades are formed and the fight to control the cities are started between rebel forces and governmental forces.

How:not even

Keywords

1. violence猛烈
2. rampant 蔓延的
3. rebel forces 叛軍
4. multifaceted 多方面的
5. tensions緊張 
6.  jihadist groups聖戰組織
7. terrorist恐怖分子
8. torture拷問.拷打
9. enforced 強制的
10. indiscriminate 任意的

第一週-馬拉拉

Malala Yousafzai accepts Nobel peace prize with attack on arms spending

The Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai has used her Nobel peace prizeacceptance speech to launch a searing attack on “strong” governments that have the resources to begin wars but not to enable universal education.

During a powerful speech at the Nobel peace prize ceremony in Oslo, she said: “Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy, but giving books is so hard?”

Raising her voice in the silent room, where she was given a rousing standing ovation at the beginning and end of her speech, she said: “We are living in the modern age and we believe that nothing is impossible. We have reached the moon 45 years ago and maybe we will soon land on Mars. Then, in this 21st century we must be able to give every child a quality education.”

At the ceremony, attended by dignitaries including the Norwegian royal family but not the prime ministers of India or Pakistan, Malala was joined by young female activists she had invited from around the world. “I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls,” she said, pointing to her “sisters” in the crowd.

In an often humorous and gently self-deprecating speech, she noted that she wanted world peace but it was something she and her brothers were still working on. Malala recalled loving school so much as a child that she and her classmates decorated their hands with mathematical formulas and equations instead of flowers.

“We would sit there with big dreams in our eyes. We wanted to make our parents proud and prove that we could also excel in our studies and reach our goals which some people only think boys can,” she said.

She described her “paradise” home of the Swat valley before the Taliban gained control. “Education went from being a right to being a crime. Girls were stopped from going to school,” she said. “When my world suddenly changed, my priorities changed, too. I had two options: one was to remain silent and wait to be killed and the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one; I decided to speak up.”

She joked that although she was only 5ft 2in tall – in heels – she was not a lone voice. “I am many [...] I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education – and today I am not raising my voice, it is the voice of those 66 million girls,” she said.

“Sometimes people like to ask me, why should girls go to school? Why is it important for them? But I think the more important question is: why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they have this right?”

Malala, now 17, became the youngest winner of the prize after the Nobel committee acknowledged her “heroic struggle” for girls’ right to an education. She was shot by a Taliban gunman in 2012 after drawing attention to her own plight and the plight of girls like her, to get an education. She was airlifted to Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, where she was treated for life-threatening injuries.

Since her recovery, she has become a household name – speaking at the United Nations, meeting Barack Obama, being named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and publishing the memoir I Am Malala while continuing her education in Birmingham.

She was jointly awarded the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, the 60-year-old Indian child rights campaigner, who dedicated his prize to children in slavery.

He founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan – the Save the Childhood Movement – in 1980 and has protected the rights of 80,000 children. It was a momentous day, he told the audience, when “a young courageous Pakistani girl has met an Indian father and an Indian father met the Pakistani daughter”.

He recalled rescuing an eight-year-old girl from slavery. “When she was sitting with me in my car, she asked me: ‘Why did you not come earlier?’ Her angry question still shakes me and has the power to shake the whole world. What are we doing? What are we waiting for?”

During a pasionate speech he said despite rapid period of globalisation, governments and citizens still lacked empathy for others around the world. “There is one serious disconnect and that is the lack of compassion,” he said. “Let us inculcate and transform individual compassion into global compassion. Let us globalise compassion.”

Announcing the prize in October, the Nobel committee said: “Despite her youth,Malala Yousafzai has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations.”

“This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education.”

Of the joint award, the committee said it “regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism”.

Speaking before the ceremony, Malala revealed that she hoped to pursue a career in politics and become prime minister of Pakistan. “I want to serve my country and my dream is that my country becomes a developed country and I see every child get an education,” she told the BBC. “If I can serve my country best through politics and through becoming a prime minister, then I would definitely choose that.”

At a joint press conference with Satyarthi, she said she was disappointed that the prime ministers of India and Pakistan were not attending the award ceremony, but she said it was an honour to stand alongside the veteran child rights campaigner Satyarthi.

She reiterated her view that every child should have access to a decent education. “I had this wish from the beginning to see children going to school and I started this campaign,” she said.

“Now this peace prize is very important for me and it has really given me more hope, more courage, and I feel stronger than before because I see many people are with me. There are more responsibilities but I have also put responsibilities on myself. I feel I am answerable to God and to myself and that I should help my community. It’s my duty.”
來源:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/10/malala-yousafzia-nobel-peace-prize-attack

When:not even
Why:have the resources to begin wars but not to enable universal education.
Where:not even
Who:Malala Yousafzai
What: Nobel peace prizeacceptance speech to launch a searing attack
How:not even

Keywords

1. ceremony典禮
2. silent沉默的
3. dignitary高官.高貴的人
4. ministers執行者
5. female女性.女子
6. self-deprecating謙虛的
7. mathematical formulas數學的公式
8. committee委員會
9. memoir自傳
10. campaigner社會運動人士