Newsademic American English edition 236

November 13, 2014American English edition

Issue Number 236

In this issue

Madagascar’s tree gardenersBerlin Wall 25th anniversaryFallstreak holes explainedPhilippine typhoon rememberedAPEC 2014Poppies at the TowerYasakuni shrine solution?Big Circles of the Middle East photographedUprising in Burkina FasoEarhart’s missing plane clueRare musk deer sightedSpaceplane accidentBorder crossing attackStudent deaths’ outcryMidterm elections in U.S.Mosquito’s and infraredAnzac troopship centenaryCatalonia’s unofficial voteSinging frog discoveryGlossary Crossword and Wordsearch Puzzle

First picture taken by Philae on 67P, one of the lander’s three feet is in the foreground (ESA)

On November 12, space engineers and scientists in a control room in Darmstadt, in southern Germany, received a signal. It had traveled a distance of 316 million miles (510 million kilometers). The sci-entists celebrated. The signal confirmed that a small washing machine-size spacecraft, or lander, called Philae, had touched down on a speeding comet. This had never been done before.

The comet’s gravity is very weak. The scientists worried that Philae might “bounce off”. As part of its design, the lander has several harpoons, or spear-like hooks. These were to be fired into the comet’s surface. The hooks would make sure that Philae stayed attached to the comet. In addition, screws in the lander’s feet would drill into the comet’s surface. Special thruster jets on its roof were to hold Philae down on the surface just after it landed.

Not everything went to plan. The jets did not work and the harpoons failed to fire. Philae landed on a flat, open area, which had been specially chosen. Then, as the harpoons did not work, it bounced off. Philae “bounced” several more times. It eventually landed near a cliff-like wall with only two of its three legs on the surface. However, the scientists reported that Philae was not badly dam-aged. Importantly, its testing equipment was soon all working correctly.

The comet’s official name is 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Two Russian astronomers discovered it in 1969. The comet is about 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) across. The figure “67” is the comet’s list number. These numbers are given by an organization in the U.S. called the Minor Planet Center. This organization col-lects information on all known asteroids and comets.

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A larger unmanned spacecraft, or “mothership”, called Rosetta, re-leased Philae. The lander’s descent to the comet’s surface took seven hours. Rosetta has been traveling through space for ten years. It final-ly arrived next to 67P just over three months ago. Since then Rosetta has been circling, or orbiting, the comet. While doing so, it took many pho-tographs. From these the scientists were able to pick a good landing site for Philae.

Artist’s impression (not to scale) of Rosetta, Philae, and Comet 67P (ESA)

The Rosetta space mission is one of the most complicated ever attempted. It has been organized by the European Space Agency (ESA). Some people believe that Philae’s landing is the most important event in space since the 1969 lunar land-ing. Then, Neil Armstrong, the American astronaut, became the first person to walk on the Moon.

Comets are made of ice and dust. They are often described as large “dirty snowballs”. Comets have a nucleus, or solid center. It’s mainly made of frozen water. Yet the nucle-us is also thought to contain other chemicals. These probably include ammonia, carbon dioxide and meth-ane. When in deep space, comets are completely frozen. As they get clos-er to the Sun, they start to warm up and release dust and gases.

Like the planets in our Solar System, comets go around the Sun. Yet most take far longer to do so.

Comets with an orbit of less than 200 years are known as periodic, or short-period, comets. Those with or-bits longer than 200 years are called long-period comets.

The “P” in 67P’s name shows that it is a periodic, or short-peri-od, comet. It takes about six and a half years to complete one orbit of the Sun. 67P travels at about 84,000 miles (135,000 kilometers) per hour. Short-period comets are thought to come from a part of the Solar Sys-tem called the Kuiper belt. This is beyond the orbit of Neptune and the dwarf planet Pluto. Long-peri-od comets are believed to originate from a place about 1,000 times far-ther away. This region is known as the Oort cloud.

Carrying Philae, Rosetta was launched on top of a powerful rock-et in March 2004. The spacecraft has traveled more than 3.73 billion miles (six billion kilometers). After its launch, Rosetta completed three huge loops, or orbits, of the Earth. This helped it to build up speed. Ro-setta has also been around the Sun five times.

Rosetta generates the power it needs from the Sun. It has large so-lar panels. By 2011 Rosetta was not able to make enough energy to keep operating. It was too far away from the Sun. Then, as part of ESA’s plan, Rosetta was deliberately shut down and put into hibernation, or “a deep sleep”. It woke up 31 months later. The spacecraft then moved towards 67P, as the comet began its journey towards the Sun.

Rosetta is named after the Ro-setta Stone. This ancient artifact was discovered in Egypt just over 200 years ago. Carved on the stone are three different translations of the same text. One is in Egyptian hieroglyphs and another Ancient

Greek. Around the same time, an obelisk, or tall stone monument, was found in Egypt. It was discov-ered on an island in the Nile River, called Philae. This also has hiero-glyphs and Ancient Greek carved on it. Jean-François Champollion (1790 – 1832), a French scholar, used the Rosetta Stone and Philae obelisk to work out how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Philae has enough power for only 64 hours. It was designed to do all its experiments and recordings very quickly. This information is sent to Rosetta and then transmitted to the Earth. The lander has some small solar panels. They could create one hour of power every two days. How-ever, Philae seems to have landed in the shade. So it may not be able to recharge its batteries. Philae will eventually shut down. Rosetta will continue to follow 67P for another 20 months.

Comets such as 67P are very very old. They date back to the beginning of the Solar System, or around 4.6 billion years ago. This was when planets such as the Earth were just starting to form. Researchers say comets are like time capsules. Studying them is like looking way back in time.

Some researchers believe that many thousands of comets crashed into the Earth about 3.8 billion years ago. Might this explain where all the Earth’s water came from? If comets delivered water, did they also bring certain organic molecules to the Earth? Could these molecules in-clude the “building blocks of life”? Philae has ten special instruments on board. They have been designed to work out what 67P is made of. When researchers get this informa-tion they might be able to answer these questions.


MADAGASCAR’S FOREST FARMERS

A team of international researchers has been studying lemurs. These an-imals are only found on the island of Madagascar. Many lemur species are endangered. The researchers’ study shows that some trees in Madagascar need lemurs to spread their seeds. Therefore, if these animals die out, the trees will also be in danger.

Red-bellied lemur (Rachel Kramer)

Madagascar has been an island, cut off from other landmasses, for around 88 million years. This ex-plains why much of the wildlife on the island is not found anywhere else in the world. Many of Mada-gascar’s animals and plants have evolved over this long period in a particular way.

Lemurs are a type of primate. Yet they are not monkeys or apes. So far, just over 100 species of lemur have been found on Madagascar. Scientists believe that nearly 90% of them are endangered.

Most lemurs feed on fruits and plants. Some eat insects. The larg-est lemur is called the indri. Adult indris are about 2.5 feet (75 centi-meters) tall. The mouse lemur is the smallest type. Including its tail, this lemur is only 11 inches (27 centi-meters) long. Another is called the blue-eyed black lemur. Other than humans, this lemur is the only pri-mate that has blue eyes.

Madagascar’s rainforests are the natural habitat of most types of le-mur. The large island used to be almost completely covered in trees. Yet, in recent years, many have been cut down, or felled. Local people do this to sell the wood. Wood from some trees that grow on Madagas-car is very valuable. Other trees are felled so the land can be used for farming.

Many species of tree in Madagas-car’s forests produce fruits. Birds and bats eat some of the smaller ones. These animals do not digest the seeds inside the fruits. So the trees’ seeds are dispersed, or taken to other places, in their droppings. However, some tree fruits are too big to be eaten by birds and bats. Le-murs eat many of these larger fruits. Like the birds and bats, the lemurs do not digest the seeds.

The researchers studied three types of lemur: the red-fronted brown lemur, the red-bellied le-mur, and the southern black-and-white ruffed lemur. They tracked 24 groups of these lemurs for 12 months. The researchers recorded how the lemurs dispersed the seeds of certain trees in their droppings.

Red-fronted brown lemur (Surrey John)

Over a longer period the re-searchers did some experiments with the seeds. These showed that seeds had a much greater chance of growing if far away from the parent tree. This was especially true if they were taken to open areas with fewer

trees. Here, it was lighter. So young trees, or saplings, can grow faster.

If the lemurs do not eat the larger fruits, the seeds fall to the ground. They land near the parent tree. The researchers’ experiments showed that these seeds rarely take root and grow. Here, there is not much light. What’s more the seeds are more likely to be eaten by other animals or insects.

The researchers describe the le-murs as tree gardeners, or forest farmers. They believe that many types of trees would be affected if there were fewer, or no, fruit-eating lemurs. This, the researchers say, is another reason why these animals must be protected.

BERLIN WALL ANNIVERSARY

On November 9, over 100,000 peo-ple gathered in the center of Berlin, Germany’s capital city. There, they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This high concrete wall divided the city into East and West Berlin. Even though most of the Berlin Wall was knocked down in 1989, it has become a sym-bol of both “freedom” and the Cold War.

During the Second World War (1939 – 1945) the U.S., Britain, France, and Russia were allies. All fought against Germany. After the war ended, these countries agreed to divide Germany into four zones, or areas of occupation. Berlin, Germa-ny’s capital city, was in the Russian part of Germany. Yet, because of its importance, Berlin was also divided into American, British, French, and Russian zones.

In the last year of the war Rus-sia occupied many Eastern Euro-pean countries. These became part


of the Russian-led Soviet Union. The U.S. (together with its allies in Western Europe) and Russia began to mistrust each another. Within a few years the Cold War started. This was not a real war. The name is used to describe the period between 1947 and 1991. During this time the Soviet Union and the U.S. (with its allies) were enemies.

What used to be Germany be-came two separate nations. Their official names were the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Federal Republic of Germa-ny (FRG). The two countries were more commonly called East and West Germany. East Germany was the Russian zone. West Germany was made up of the American, Brit-ish and French zones.

People from East and West Berlin standing on the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989

Many people in the “East”, or Russian controlled part of Europe, started moving to the “West”. To stop this from happening Russia built a long border fence. It sepa-rated European countries that were part of the Soviet Union from the rest of Europe. A wire fence was also put up between East and West Berlin. These fences became known as the “Iron Curtain”.

In Berlin a few people still risked crossing the fence. In 1961, a high concrete wall replaced the wire fence in the city. East German bor-der guards were told to shoot anyone

climbing over the wall. Between 1961 and 1989, at least 136 people died trying to cross from East Ber-lin to West Berlin. The Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall became the dividing line between “communist East” and “democratic West”.

Illuminated white balloons mark the place where the Berlin Wall used to stand (berlin.de)

In the 1980s, several protests began in Soviet Union countries. In Poland, Lech Wałęsa led strikes by workers at a large shipbuilding company. In 1989, Hungary’s lead-ers said that they would no longer stop people from crossing the Iron Curtain into Austria. Thousands of people living in East Germany went to Hungary to cross to West Germany. Frequent demonstrations were held in East Germany. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russian leader at that time, told communist officials in East Germany that Russia could no longer support them.

On the evening of November 9, 1989, thousands of East Germans marched towards the wall. They began to climb over it. People from West Berlin, on the other side, helped them. The border guards did not try to stop what was happen-ing. Within hours, Germans from both sides of the Berlin Wall began knocking it down.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was an important date in world history. Af-ter it came down, most Eastern Eu-ropean countries, controlled by the Soviet Union, became independent

nations. In 1991, Russia elected its own president. Mr. Gorbachev stepped down and the Cold War end-ed. Within 12 months most former Soviet Union countries had demo-cratically elected governments. In 1990, East and West Germany were officially reunited.

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, led the 25th anniversary celebrations. Also invited were Mr. Wałęsa and Mr. Gorbachev. Mrs. Merkel used to live in East Berlin. She was a student when the wall came down. Like many others, she crossed into West Berlin for the first time on November 9, 1989.

Around 8,000 illuminated white balloons, on long poles, marked the places where the Berlin Wall used to stand. During the anniversary cele-brations they were all released into the night sky.

FALLSTREAK HOLE

On November 3, people living in a small town called Wonthaggi, in Australia, were surprised when they looked up at the sky. There seemed to be a large “hole” in the clouds. Some suggested that an alien space-ship made the hole. Others said that it looked like a passage, or entrance, into another world.

However, weather experts soon explained what had caused the strange cloud shape. They said that the unusual sight was a fallstreak hole, or hole-punch cloud. These holes do not occur very often. They form in clouds that are high in the sky. Fallstreak holes are a circular or elliptical shape. Often rainbow-like colors can be seen at their center.

Fallstreak holes appear when water droplets in clouds become ice crystals. The hole is created when


the ice crystals suddenly “fall out” of a cloud. For a hole to form, water droplets in the cloud have to be very cold. A water droplet in a cloud will not turn to ice if the air temperature falls just below 32ºF (0ºC). Normally, these droplets do not freeze until the temperature is around -40ºC (-40ºF).

Fallstreak hole

However, a water droplet can freeze above this temperature. This happens if it is in contact with an “icing” nucleus, or particle. An ic-ing nucleus could be a speck of dust, pollen or volcanic ash. The icing nucleus “encourages” the droplet to freeze. After freezing, the drop-let falls to the ground as rain. This is what happens with cloud seeding operations. Planes or rockets are used to scatter certain chemicals, such as silver iodide, into clouds. The chemical encourages droplets to freeze and fall as rain.

Once they form, fallstreak holes can increase in size until they are 31 miles (50 kilometers) wide. It’s known that freezing water droplets create fallstreak holes. Yet, why the freezing starts in one part of a cloud, and how a hole grows in size, are not fully understood.

However, recent research seems to confirm what many weather sci-entists suspected. In certain condi-tions, planes flying through high cloud can start the freezing process. Air passing over the wings of air-craft gets much colder. This lowers

the temperature enough to cause wa-ter droplets to freeze. However, only a small part of the cloud, or the part the aircraft flew through, freezes.

As the droplets turn to ice they give off a tiny bit of heat. This caus-es the air around them to rise. The warmer air makes the area of cloud around the edge of the hole sink. As it sinks, the water droplets warm up and evaporate. This is probably how fallstreak holes increase in size.

Fallstreak holes have been re-corded in many parts of the world. Yet they are not often seen.

TYPHOON REMEMBERED

On November 8, church bells rang in the Philippine city of Tacloban, on the island of Leyte. Crowds gath-ered in the city as 1,000 white bal-loons were released. The balloons represented the thousands of people who died in this part of the Philip-pines 12 months ago. On this day in 2013, Tacloban was hit by a “super typhoon”.

Typhoons are very powerful trop-ical storms. They occur in the west-ern Pacific Ocean. Typhoons can affect large areas. They bring strong winds and very heavy rain. Similar storms in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Ocean are called hurricanes. In the Indian Ocean and northern Australia the storms are known as cyclones.

The Philippines is an archipel-ago, or group, of around 7,000 islands. It has two main, or larger, islands: Luzon in the north and Min-danao in the south. There are many small islands between Luzon and Mindanao. Leyte is one.

It is not unusual for as many as 20 typhoons to hit the Philippines each year. Soon after these tropical

storms first form they are given a name. The official name of the storm that hit Tacloban 12 months ago was Typhoon Haiyan. However, in the Philippines it was called Yolanda.

Just before Typhoon Haiyan struck Leyte and other nearby is-lands, the storm’s wind speeds were recorded. Its winds were blowing at 145 miles (235 kilometers) per hour. Yet some gusts were as high as 195 miles (315 kilometers) per hour. This meant that it was a Category 5, or su-per, typhoon. It’s believed to be one of the most powerful storms ever re-corded to hit land, or make landfall.

Satellite picture of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) just before it struck the Philippines (EUMETSAT)

Tacloban is a city of 250,000 people. A few days before the storm arrived government officials issued a warning. They said that people who lived near the coast in this part of the country should leave. They were told to move to higher ground or go to evacuation centers. These are churches, schools and larger government buildings. Not every-one did so.

Tacloban is on the coast. As well as the wind and rain, it was hit by what’s known as a storm surge. When typhoons make landfall they can create storm surges. These huge waves of water are pushed inland by the powerful winds. The storm surge that hit Tacloban was about 23 feet (seven meters) high. Many people who had decided to shelter in their homes were unable to escape


the huge waves. Most of the city’s buildings were destroyed.

At least 7,000 people were killed by the typhoon. Over four million lost their homes. Those that died were buried in mass graves near Ta-cloban. Tens of thousands of people affected by the storm are still living in tents or temporary shelters. The United Nations (U.N.) and many countries donated money to help the people in the city. Most people in Tacloban are angry. They say that the government is taking too long to rebuild their homes.

APEC IN CHINA

The APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders’ summit, or annual meeting, took place on No-vember 10 and 11. It was held in Beijing, the capital of China. APEC is an economic and political organi-zation. Xi Jinping, the president of China, hosted the summit.

APEC 2014, group photograph

APEC has 20 member countries, although it prefers to call them “member economies”. Hong Kong, which became a part of China 17 years ago, also takes part. Most members are countries that have coastlines around the Pacific Ocean.

Today, about 40% of all the peo-ple in the world live in APEC mem-ber economies. Roughly 44% of the world’s trade (items made in one country and then sold to another) comes from APEC members.

APEC’s members include large countries such as Canada, Russia and Australia. Others like Brunei and Singapore are very small. The coun-tries with the three largest economies in the world, the U.S., China and Ja-pan, are members of APEC.

The first APEC meeting took place in Australia in 1989. The or-ganization was set up to try to make it easier for member countries to trade with each other. Decisions at APEC summits are made by con-sensus. This means that disagree-ments or arguments rarely happen at these meetings.

In recent years there has been bad air pollution in Beijing. It gets worse when there is little wind. Some “smog” or haze comes from the exhausts of cars, trucks and bus-es. Yet smoke from surrounding fac-tories and power stations is the main cause. Many Chinese power stations burn coal to produce electricity. To make sure that the air was clear during the summit, factories were ordered to close for five days. Gov-ernment workers and school chil-dren were given an extra five-day holiday. This reduced the number of vehicles on the roads.

Most of the talks and discus-sions during the summit were about trade. Barack Obama, the president of the U.S., has been trying to start a new trade agreement. Called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),

it includes 12 APEC members, but not China or Russia. Mr. Xi has a different idea. He wants to set up a trade agreement called the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. Both agreements are meant to make it easier for countries to buy and sell goods from and to each other.

As part of the summit there were many bilateral meetings. These are discussions, or talks, between the leaders of two countries. For exam-ple, the day before the summit began, Mr. Xi met with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. They then an-nounced a deal whereby China will buy large amounts of Russian natu-ral gas. This gas will be transported to China in long pipelines. Mr. Xi held other bilateral meetings with Mr. Obama and Shinzō Abe, Japan’s prime minister.

One past tradition of the APEC summit was a special group photo-graph. In it, the 21 leaders wore the national dress of the host country. In recent years this didn’t happen. Last year’s APEC meeting took place in Indonesia. There, each leader was given a Batik shirt to wear for a group photograph. Batik is a col-orful, patterned type of cloth. It has been made in Indonesia for over one thousand years. For one evening event in Beijing, the leaders all wore traditional Chinese outfits. These are single colored plain suits with high collars.

AustraliaBruneiCanadaChileChinaHong Kong, ChinaIndonesia

JapanMalaysiaMexicoNew ZealandPapua New GuineaPeruPhilippines

RussiaSingaporeSouth KoreaTaiwanThailandU.S.Vietnam

APEC MEMBER ECONOMIES


This APEC summit was Joko Widodo’s first international meet-ing. He officially became Indone-sia’s new president three weeks ago. Next year’s APEC meeting will be held in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

TOWER POPPIES

On November 12, 8,000 volunteers began to collect thousands of pop-pies. The poppies are ceramic, or made from clay hardened by heat. They had been placed or “planted” around the Tower of London. This is a famous old castle in Britain’s cap-ital city. The poppies were part of an art installation. It was set up to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War (1914 – 1918).

The Tower of London is next to the Thames River. Parts of the building are over 900 years old. During its long history, the Tower has been a royal palace, a castle, a prison, and a mint or place where coins were made. The Tower used to have a moat. This meant that it was surrounded by water from the river. Hundreds of years ago the wa-ter was drained. The moat is now an open grassy area.

The art installation at the Tower was called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red. This is the first line of a poem written by a British soldier. His name is not known. It’s thought that the soldier was killed in Flan-ders. This is an area of Belgium and northern France where many First World War battles took place.

Remembrance Day, or Novem-ber 11, is the anniversary of the end of the First World War. On this day in 1918 the countries involved in the war agreed to stop fighting. This type of ceasefire agreement is

known as an armistice. Therefore, Remembrance Day is also known as Armistice Day. In the U.S., Novem-ber 11, is called Veterans Day. In some countries, such as France and Belgium, November 11, is a nation-al holiday.

Poppy art installation at the Tower of London

The poppy flower has become a symbol of Remembrance Day. This is because of a poem written during the war called “In Flanders Fields”. The poem describes the battlefields in Belgium and northern France. John McCrae, a Canadian soldier, wrote the poem.

In Flanders, during the summer months, millions of red poppies grow wild in the fields. For many people, the Flanders’ poppies rep-resent the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who died during the war. This is why many people wear a red paper poppy on the days leading up to Remembrance Day.

The ceramic poppies were at-tached to green stems. Each is about 24 inches (60 centimeters) tall. The first ones were “planted” in the Tower’s moat in July. Day by day, more and more of the moat was cov-ered by the red flowers. Some were arranged on a wall under a window. It looked as if blood was flowing out of the window and filling up the moat.

The last poppy was planted on November 11. In total there were 888,246 poppies. There was one poppy for every British and

Commonwealth soldier killed in the war. Many of the countries that used to be part of the British Empire are known as the Commonwealth.

Over four million people visited the Tower to see the installation. Many came from other countries. The volunteers began collecting the poppies the day after Remem-brance Day. People were able to buy the poppies. They quickly sold out. Each poppy cost $40. Some of this money will go to charities that look after former servicemen.

YASAKUNI SHRINE

The Yasakuni shrine is in Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Its purpose is to commemorate people who have died while serving their country. This includes the soldiers, sailors and air-men who were killed during the Sec-ond World War (1939 – 1945).

Yasakuni shrine, in Tokyo (Kakidai)

Yasakuni is controversial. The leaders of several nearby countries, such as China, South Korea and Tai-wan, get angry when Japanese pol-iticians visit the shrine. This is be-cause some people “enshrined”, or commemorated, at Yasakuni were found guilty of war crimes.

Now a group of people have sug-gested a solution to the problem. This group represents bereaved families, or those whose relatives died in the war. The group says that a special ceremony should be held


at Yasakuni to expel the war crimi-nals’ souls, or spirits.

In 1910, Japan seized control of what is now both North and South Korea. In the early 1930s it occupied the northern part of China. Japan’s army then began to take over other large areas of the country. During this period many Japanese troops and their commanders behaved very badly. Tens of thousands of people were needlessly killed.

Shinzō Abe, Japan’s prime minister

In 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. This attack marked the start of the Second World War in the Pacific. During the next four years Japanese forces occupied several other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Burma (now also known as Myanmar) and the Philippines. Often the Japanese treated local people and prisoners of war in a very cruel and inhumane way.

By 1944 Japan was losing the war. It eventually admitted defeat and surrendered in 1945. This was after the U.S. had dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hi-roshima and Nagasaki.

After the war ended an inter-national court was set up. Around

5,700 Japanese military command-ers and politicians were imprisoned. Many were accused of war crimes. These people were put on trial. About 900 were executed for what they had done. Others were given prison sentences. Those accused of the most serious crimes were called Class-A war criminals.

Since the end of the war many people in Asian countries have com-plained about Japan’s leaders. They claim that Japan has never fully apol-ogized for what happened in the past. Apologies have been made, yet many think that they have not been sincere.

Around 2.5 million people are enshrined at Yasakuni. Their names are recorded. Also listed are their dates of birth and where they died. Many Japanese people believe that Yasakuni is no different to places of remembrance in other countries. For example, those who died in war are commemorated at the Cenotaph, in London, the capital of Britain. There is a memorial to America’s war dead at Arlington National Cemetery.

However, in 1978 priests at Ya-sakuni enshrined 14 Class-A war criminals. They include Hideki Tojo. He was an army general and Japan’s prime minister for most of the war. Tojo was sentenced to death by hanging. The priests did not tell anyone what they planned to do. The enshrining of the war crimi-nals upset many Japanese people. Since then the Emperor of Japan and members of his family have not been to the shrine.

Some politicians often visit the shrine. Shinzō Abe, Japan’s prime minister, went to Yasakuni in 2013. He was the first prime minister to do this for seven years. His visit an-gered China and South Korea. After Mr. Abe’s visit, China stopped all talks with Japan for several months.

The Chinese government says that expelling the spirits, or souls, of the Class-A war criminals would solve the problem. Yet the shrine’s priests insist that it’s not possi-ble. They claim that an enshrined soul at Yasakuni is like a drop of water in a large pool. It cannot be removed.

STONE CIRCLE MYSTERY

A team of archaeologists in the Mid-dle East recently took some aerial photographs. The pictures are of large circular shapes on the landscape. They are known as “the Big Circles of the Middle East”. No one knows why these structures were made or who built them. The photographs are part of a new investigation.

A “Big Circle of the Middle East” (APAAME)

The circles were first discovered in the 1920s. The aerial photographs show 11 large circles in a desert area of Jordan. Each has a diameter of around 1,300 feet (400 meters). They are an almost perfect circular shape. The circles are difficult to see on the ground. Yet they are easy to see from high in the air.

The team has also identified another circle in Jordan. This one looks as if it was never finished. Older satellite pictures show anoth-er two circles. One is in Jordan and the other in Syria. Both have been destroyed during the last ten years.


The outlines of the circles were made from stone walls. However, these were only about 24 inches (60 centimeters) high. It’s therefore un-likely that the circles were a type of corral, or place where animals were kept. The walls were far too low. They seem to form a continuous cir-cle. When the walls were built there were no gaps, or entrances, in them.

The circles are thought to be 2,000 years old. Yet some suspect that they are very much older. One circle has several cairns within it. Cairns are piles, or mounds, of rock. They often mark ancient burials. The team of archaeologists believes that these cairns were set up a long time after the circle was built.

Even though they are large, the team says that the circles may not have been difficult to make. Con-structing them would have needed some organization. The person in charge could have used a long rope. This would have been tied to a post in the center. The person would then hold the end of the rope and walk around the post. So a large circular shape could have been traced on the ground. As the walls were low, it would not have taken long to build them.

Excavations now have to take place. Archaeologists will need to dig through the remains of the walls and inside the circles. By doing this they should be able to work out when they were built. Discovering what they were used for may be much more difficult.

BURKINABE UPRISING

Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is the president of Mauritania. He is also the current head of the African Union (AU). On November 10, Mr.

Aziz traveled to Ouagadougou (pro-nounced guaga-do-gu), the capital city of Burkina Faso. There, he met with Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac Zida, an army commander.

Mr. Aziz talked about the need for civilian rule to return to the West African country. About ten days be-fore Mr. Aziz’s arrival, Blaise Com-paoré, Burkina Faso’s president, fled from the country.

Mr. Compaoré, Burkina Faso’s former president

For many years Burkina Faso was a colony of France. Then it was known as Upper Volta. It became an independent nation in 1960. The country’s name was changed to Burkina Faso in 1984. In the local language, Burkina Faso means “the land of the upright (or honest) men”. People who come from Burkina Faso are called Burkinabé.

Burkina Faso is a member of the AU. This organization has 54 member countries. It was set up in 2001. All AU member countries are in Africa. The AU is sometimes de-scribed as being similar to the Euro-pean Union (EU). The only African country that has chosen not to be an AU member is Morocco.

Mr. Compaoré was Burkina Fa-so’s president for many years. He is a former army officer. In 1987, he seized power. Then, Mr. Com-paoré was only 37 years old. When

military leaders take over a country in this way it is known as a coup d’état, or coup (pronounced “coo”). After taking control of Burkina Faso, Mr. Compaoré won four elec-tions. The last was in 2010. Howev-er, many people disputed the results of these elections. They claimed that there had been cheating and many votes were not counted correctly.

Burkina Faso’s next presidential election is in 2015. The rules by which the country is governed, or its constitution, say that Mr. Compaoré cannot stand again. He had already been in charge of the country for 27 years. The political party that Mr. Compaoré led arranged a special de-bate in Burkina Faso’s National As-sembly, or parliament. It wanted to change the constitution. This would mean that Mr. Compaoré could take part in the next election.

The debate was to be held on October 30. However, a few days before, crowds gathered in the center of Ouagadougou. Tens of thousands of people took part in large demon-strations. All said that Mr. Compaoré should not stand again. Police used tear gas to try to control the protests.

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On October 30, some demonstra-tors got into the National Assembly. Parts of the building were set on fire. Mr. Compaoré announced that the parliament would be closed. He also declared a state of emergen-cy. When this happens curfews are organized. Soldiers are ordered to


control the streets and large meet-ings, or demonstrations, banned.

Protests continued. Mr. Com-paoré then secretly fled. He is now in Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), a nearby country. Colonel Zida is one of the leaders of the presidential guard. This is the group of soldiers that protect the president. Soon af-ter Mr. Compaoré left, Colonel Zida announced that he was in charge.

Colonel Zida says that he wants to hold new elections in 12 months’ time. In recent years the AU has tried to stop military takeovers in member countries. It wants a group of politicians to run Burkina Faso. This group would act as a temporary government until proper elections were held. Mr. Aziz warned Colonel Zida. Burkina Faso, he said, will be expelled from the AU if a civilian government is not appointed soon.

EARHART MYSTERY CLUE

In 1991, a metal panel was found on a remote beach on a Pacific atoll. Made of aluminum, it is roughly three feet (one meter) square. Avia-tion researchers now believe that the panel was part of an aircraft flown by Amelia Earhart. If so, it may help to solve the mystery of what hap-pened to the famous American pilot 77 years ago.

Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1937) was a pioneer in aviation. As a young woman she worked as a nurse during the First World War (1914 – 1918). Earhart had her first flying lesson in 1921. Soon afterwards she bought her own aircraft, or biplane. She then set a world record by be-coming the first woman to fly to a height of 14,000 feet meters (4,270).

In 1928, Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic

Ocean. She set several other re-cords. These included the first solo flight across the Pacific. Then, in 1937, Earhart set out to fly the 29,000 miles (46,670 kilometers) all the way around the world.

Amelia Earhart’s plane (Purdue University Library)

She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, set off from the U.S. In ad-vance they worked out where they would land and refuel. They stopped in several places in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and South East Asia. Therefore, the final part of their journey would be over the Pacific Ocean.

One of their last stops was to be Howland Island. The island is very small and Earhart and Noonan did not have modern navigation equipment. Several American ships were near the island waiting for their plane to land. Yet Earhart and Noonan never arrived. One of their last radio signals was a report say-ing that the weather was cloudy. They also said that they were hav-ing difficulty in locating, or finding, the island.

American ships searched for the plane. Other signals were received. These were very faint and believed to be a hoax. About two weeks later the search for Earhart and Noonan was called off. Most people thought that their plane had run out of fuel and crashed into the sea. However, some suspected that the Japanese had captured them.

Several years later, some bones and parts of shoes were found on Gardner Island. Today, this island is called Nikumaroro. It is an uninhab-ited coral atoll. Nobody knows what happened to the bones. Now Niku-maroro is part of an island nation called Kiribati. The atoll is about 300 miles (485 kilometers) from Howland Island.

In 2010, a group of people visit-ing Nikumaroro found the remains of a pocketknife and what may have been a jar of face cream. They won-dered if these items belonged to a castaway. If so, it might mean that Earhart or Noonan, or both of them, had survived. If they were castaways on the atoll, they probably died from a lack of drinking water and food.

Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan

The researchers have recently discovered that, before the round-the-world flight, Earhart’s plane was modified. A large fuel tank was added. Some of the plane’s cabin windows were covered with alumi-num panels. The researchers think that the piece of metal found in 1991 is one of these panels.

The researchers suspect that Ear-hart landed her plane on a reef near


Nikumaroro. The plane was running out of fuel and she thought that the atoll was close to Howland Island. She and her navigator returned to the plane every so often to send emergency signals. Then, after a few days, the plane was swept off the reef by the waves.

The researchers will travel to Ni-kumaroro next year. They plan to use a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV), or mini submarine, to look for the re-mains of Earhart’s plane.

RARE MUSK DEER

A rare musk deer has been sighted in Afghanistan. It was spotted by members of an American wildlife organization. Called the Kashmir musk deer, it has not been seen in the country for over 60 years. This type of deer used to be found in Af-ghanistan, Pakistan and India. The males of some types of musk deer, such as the one seen in Afghanistan, have two sharp tusk-like teeth.

There are seven species of musk deer. They live in the mountainous areas of Asia, especially parts of Siberia and the Himalayas. Their back, or hind, legs are longer than their front legs. The deer are about 24 inches (61 centimeters) tall at the shoulder. The animals can move quickly up steep slopes and over rocky ground. Unlike other types of deer, they do not have antlers.

Musk deer are herbivores, or plant-eaters. They feed on grass-es, leaves, shrubs, twigs, and some kinds of moss. The animals often remain hidden. They are most ac-tive during the night, or at dusk and dawn. In summer musk deer live high in the mountains. Then, during the colder winter months, they re-turn to lower levels.

Musk deer tusks look like fangs. The tusks are enlarged, or elongated, upper teeth. They are used as weap-ons during the mating season. At this time males compete with one another to mate with the females. The females give birth to a single fawn, or baby.

Siberian musk deer (J. Goodrich)

Most musk deer species are en-dangered. This is mainly because of hunting. Poachers, or people who unlawfully kill wild animals, hunt the deer for their musk gland. Only males have these glands. The musk gland contains a waxy substance. It’s likely that secretions from these glands are used to attract females.

Since ancient times the substance from musk glands has been used in the making of perfume, or scent. Musk makes the smell of a perfume last much longer. Some people be-lieve that it is also useful as a type of medicine. Killing musk deer for their glands was made illegal over 30 years ago. Yet this has not stopped the poachers. Nowadays, these scent glands can be more valuable than gold. Some illegal traders sell the musk for as much as $45,000 per 2.2 pounds (kilogram).

The Kashmir musk deer were seen in the northeast part of Afghanistan. The wildlife experts reported five sightings. A male was spotted on its own three times. This was probably the same animal. An adult female was seen with a young deer. Another

female was sighted. However, the ex-perts were not sure if this was the same female. They said that the deer were very difficult to see. This meant that it was not possible to take photographs.

The wildlife experts say that a plan needs to be made to make sure that this species survives. Where the animals were seen will have to be protected. People who live in the area will also have to be taught how to look after these rare animals.

SPACEPLANE CRASH

On October 31, an experimental spaceplane was on a test flight. The flight was above a desert, in the state of California, in the U.S. The spaceplane, called SpaceShipTwo, was taken to a height of 45,000 feet (13,700 meters) by another aircraft, or “mothership”. It was then re-leased. About 11 seconds later the spaceplane broke apart and crashed.

WhiteKnightTwo carrying SpaceShipTwo

A company called Virgin Ga-lactic designed and built the space-plane and its mothership. Anoth-er similar spaceplane is under construction. The mothership is called WhiteKnightTwo.

Sir Richard Branson is Virgin Galactic’s boss. He is a wealthy businessman from Britain. Virgin Galactic is often called a “space tourism” company. The company plans to use SpaceShipTwo to take “space tourists” to the edge of space.


When passenger flights begin, WhiteKnightTwo will take the space-plane to a height of 11 miles (17.6 kilometers). SpaceShipTwo has been designed to carry six paying passen-gers and two pilots. WhiteKnightT-wo looks like two planes that are joined by one of their wings.

SpaceShipTwo

Once WhiteKnightTwo gets to the correct height, SpaceShipTwo will be released. After this, the spaceplane’s own rocket engine is to be switched on. SpaceShipTwo will then go straight up in the air at a speed of about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) per hour.

The spaceplane will keep going upwards until it is 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth. This is where the atmosphere ends and space begins. Passengers will be able to look out of windows on each side, as well as one above them. From this height they will be able to see the curvature of the Earth and the dark color of space. They will also be able to float in zero gravity. This period of weightless-ness will last for about five min-utes before SpaceShipTwo begins its descent.

During the last part of its flight, SpaceShipTwo has been designed to act like a glider. Its engine will not be used. The spaceplane will glide back to the place from where WhiteKnightTwo took off. The whole trip is expected to take about two and a half hours.

Passenger flights were supposed to start last year. There have been many delays. This is because the spaceplane’s design has had to be altered. Space tourists who want to travel on SpaceShipTwo will have to do some safety training before the trip. They will also have to pass a medical exam. This is to make sure that they are healthy enough to take the flight. Virgin Galactic claims that it has already sold hundreds of tickets. Each ticket costs about $200,000.

However, the crash of the space-plane means that passenger flights are now unlikely to take place for a long time. Some people believe that Virgin Galactic may have to close down. Sir Richard Branson admits that the crash will further delay the start of the flights. Yet he insists that they will go ahead.

Experts are now investigating the crash. One pilot died. The oth-er was badly injured. He managed to get out of the plane and open his parachute. SpaceShipTwo had successfully completed many other test flights. It had yet to go up to the edge of space. On this test flight it was using a new type of fuel. At first, people thought that the fuel had exploded. However, the fuel tanks and engine were found intact in the desert. So this was not the reason for the accident. The experts say that their investigation may take more than 12 months.

BORDER CROSSING ATTACK

On November 2, a bomb exploded in Pakistan. The explosion hap-pened close to the well-known Wah-ga border crossing. For many years, this was the only border cross-ing between Pakistan and India.

A special ceremony is held at the border gate every day. It takes place at five o’clock in the evening. The bomb exploded soon after the ceremony ended.

India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were once all part of a large British colony known as “India”. The Brit-ish ruled this part of the world for over 300 years. After the end of the Second World War (1939 – 1945) the government of Britain decided that it could not control India any longer. There had been an increas-ing number of demonstrations in the colony. Those who took part in the protests said that the British should leave. They wanted India to be an independent nation.

Ceremony at the Wahga border crossing

In 1947, the British government agreed that the colony would be split into two separate countries. India was the largest, where most people were Hindu. The other, Pakistan, had a Muslim majority. At that time Pakistan also included an area called East Pakistan. This part of Pakistan became a separate nation in 1971. Its name then changed to Bangladesh. Since independence, Pakistan and India have been rivals. The two coun-tries have frequent disagreements.

The person who decided where the borders between Pakistan and India would be was a British law-yer. His name was Sir Cyril Rad-cliffe. He had a difficult job. Many Muslims lived in places that became India and many Hindus lived in the


This map shows countries to which news stories refer in this issue. Visit www.newsademic.com for more detailed world maps.

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new Pakistan. The border, which be-came known as the Radcliffe Line, also went through places where many Sikhs lived.

The set up of these borders be-came known as “Partition” or the “Partition of India”. About 14 mil-lion Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims de-cided to move from one side of the new border to the other. This was one of the largest mass migrations in human history. There were many riots. Muslims attacked Hindus and Sikhs. Hindus attacked Mus-lims. Tens of thousands of people were killed.

The Radcliffe Line, or border, went through the middle of Wahga. (In India it is called Wagah.) Then, Wahga was a small village. Today, the eastern part of the town is in In-dia. The western half is in Pakistan.

The daily ceremony at Wahga be-gan in 1959. It starts with a parade by

soldiers on both sides. The gates are opened and the flags of Pakistan and India are lowered. The flags are then folded, the soldiers quickly shake hands and the gates are closed again. The soldiers wear elaborate uniforms and headdress. Hundreds of people watch the ceremony from both sides of the border. Many are tourists from other countries.

Pakistani officials believe that a suicide bomber set off the explo-sion. The bomb exploded about 1,970 feet (600 meters) away from the border crossing. Here, there are many shops and restaurants. At least 60 people died. Over 100 were in-jured. The explosion did not affect the Indian side of the border.

Soon after the explosion an Is-lamic militant group called Tehr-ik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed that it organized the attack. This organization is based in a region

in the northwest of Pakistan. The TTP wants to set up a separate state. Within this state everybody would have to follow very strict Islamic laws. The TTP has organized shoot-ings and suicide bombings in other parts of Pakistan. In recent months the Pakistani army has been attack-ing TTP bases in the northwest of the country.

STUDENT DEATHS’ PROTESTS

On November 7, a senior govern-ment official made an announce-ment in Mexico. He said that three members of a criminal gang had been arrested. They had made a con-fession. The gang members said that 43 students, who were kidnapped six weeks ago, were all dead.

Since the students disappeared there have been many street


demonstrations in Mexico. The protesters accused the government and police chiefs of not doing enough to find the students. After the announcement there were large demonstrations in Mexico City, the country’s capital. One group of pro-testers tried to break down the doors of the National Palace. Some threw firebombs. Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico’s president, uses this build-ing for special occasions.

Slogan written in support of the 43 students

For many years Mexico has had serious problems with criminal gangs. Known as cartels, they make large amounts of money by smug-gling illegal drugs into the U.S. and other countries. There are at least eight large drug cartels in Mexico. Each operates in a separate part of the country.

The gangs get most of their ille-gal drugs from countries in South America. Large amounts of these drugs are grown or produced in Colombia and Peru. They include cocaine, heroin and cannabis. After arriving in Mexico, many drugs are smuggled into the U.S. The gangs use trucks, boats and secret tunnels under the border. The drug gangs of-ten fight against each other.

Officials estimate that around 70,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s “drug wars” since 2006. Elected officials in different Mexi-can states who try to stop the cartels are in danger. This is because the

gangs threaten to kill them. Abduc-tions, or kidnappings, are a frequent crime. Gangs kidnap members of wealthy families and demand mon-ey, or a ransom, for their return.

In 2006, the president of Mexico sent thousands of soldiers to some parts of the country. The soldiers’ job was to help the police arrest drug cartel members. However, many people in Mexico believe that some police officers and government offi-cials are dishonest. They claim that these people help the gangs in return for money, or bribes.

The 43 students all attended a teacher training college in the south of the country. At the end of September they decided to hold a demonstration in the nearby city of Iguala. They wanted to protest about the way teachers are employed in Mexico. The police stopped the students’ buses before they arrived in the city. It seems the police then handed the students over to a local drug gang. After this they were nev-er seen again.

The wife of the mayor of Iguala was going to make a speech on the day the students planned their pro-test. Soon after the students disap-peared the mayor and his wife left the city. Iguala’s police chief also disappeared. Nobody knew where they had gone. Four weeks later the mayor and his wife were found hid-ing in a house in Mexico City. Both were arrested. The police chief is still missing.

Many people suspect that the mayor did not want the students to interrupt his wife’s speech. They think that the mayor, the police chief and many other police officers were accepting money from the drug gang.

The mayor asked the police to stop the students. After stopping the students’ buses, the police handed

them over to the gang. The gang forced the students into a large truck and drove them away. Yet, as the truck was so crowded, several stu-dents died from a lack of air. When the gang found out what happened they decided to murder all the stu-dents to hide the crime. Their bodies were then burned.

More protests are now expected in Mexico. Those taking part say that the government must do more to stop criminal gangs. They also want all dishonest officials and corrupt police officers to be put in prison.

U.S. MIDTERM ELECTIONS

On November 4, many Americans voted in the midterm elections. These elections are for all members of the House of Representatives, and about one-third of the Senate.

The Capitol Building, in Washington DC, where members of the House and the Senate meet

The two main political groups in the U.S. are the Democratic Party (Democrats) and the Repub-lican Party (Republicans). Barack Obama, the country’s president, is a member of the Democratic Party. While Democrats and Republicans agree about many things, they nor-mally disagree about government spending and taxes. Most Demo-crats want to increase government spending and for people, especially the wealthy, to pay higher taxes.


Republicans believe in less govern-ment spending and lower taxes.

The American Congress (or parliament) has two chambers or “houses”. The lower house is called the House of Representatives, or the “House”. The upper house is called the Senate. The House has 435 elected members. There are 100 members of the Senate. These peo-ple are called senators.

House of Representatives’ chamber

These elections are called “mid-terms” because they are held mid-way between presidential elections. Mr. Obama was first elected as the American president in 2008. Two years ago he was reelected for an-other four years. So these midterms took place in the middle of Mr. Obama’s second term as president.

All the seats in the House of Rep-resentatives are contested every two years. The U.S. has 50 states. The number of members each state elects to the House depends on how many people live in the state. California is the largest state by population. It elects 53 people to the House of Rep-resentatives. Yet states such as Alas-ka, Montana and Wyoming, where far fewer people live, elect only one.

The Senate is different. Its mem-bers are elected for a six-year pe-riod. Not everyone in the Senate is elected at the same time. Therefore, every two years about one-third of the seats in the Senate are contested. Each state, even if it has a small pop-ulation, has two elected senators.

Both the Democrats and the Re-publicans want to have control of the House and the Senate. To do this they need to have more than half of the elected members in each cham-ber. This is known as a majority. When Mr. Obama won the presiden-tial election in 2008, the Democrats did well. They got majorities in both chambers. At the 2010 midterm elections the Republicans won back control of the House. However, the Democrats kept their majority in the Senate.

Fewer people vote in the mid-term elections. The number of peo-ple who vote in elections is known as the “turnout”. In years when there is a presidential election, the turnout is usually between 50-60%. In the midterms, it’s normally around 40%. The midterms are of-ten described as a referendum on the president and the president’s party. Therefore, when presidents are popular their parties do well in mid-terms. If they are unpopular they do badly.

In recent years the American economy has only improved by a small amount. Unemployment, or the number of people without jobs, is still high. Many people think that this is the government’s fault. Mr. Obama is frequently criticized. Some claim that America is now a less powerful country.

In the elections the Republicans increased the size of their majority in the House. They also took control of the Senate. So the Republicans now control both houses of Con-gress. Therefore, if they disagree with them, Republicans can block Mr. Obama’s new laws. This means that Mr. Obama may find it difficult to govern the country, in the way he wants, during the last two years of his presidency.

OPTICAL BED NET

Szabolcs Márka works at a univer-sity in the U.S. He is an astrophys-icist, or scientist who studies how stars and planets are formed. Mr. Márka has come up with a new idea, or invention. Called an optical bed net, he hopes that it will reduce the number of people who get malaria.

Mosquito

Malaria is common only in trop-ical and subtropical countries. It’s caused by a parasite called Plas-modium. Also known as the ma-laria parasite, Plasmodium lives in the blood. You can’t catch malaria from touching someone who has the disease. It is spread by a species of mosquito, which sucks human blood for food. Plasmodium will enter the body of a mosquito if it bites a person who has the parasite in their blood. If this mosquito then bites another person, the malaria parasite can be passed on.

People who suffer from malar-ia can become very ill. Symptoms include headaches, sickness, pain in the joints, and feeling both very hot and very cold. The disease can be fatal. It’s thought that as many as 200 million people get malaria ev-ery year. Most live in sub-Saharan Africa (or countries south of the Sa-hara desert). About 600,000 of these people die from the disease. Most are African children.

Preventing mosquito bites is the best way to avoid malaria. This


includes sleeping under nets, wear-ing clothes that cover the skin, and using mosquito repellent. This is a pesticide, or mixture of chemicals, that keeps mosquitoes away. If someone does get malaria, there are treatments that can help.

The optical bed net makes use of infrared light. The light that hu-mans can see is known as visible light. We cannot see infrared light. It is just beyond red in the visible spectrum, or band of colors. Even though we cannot see infrared light, we can sometimes feel it as heat on our skin.

Mr. Márka was doing some ex-periments with mosquitoes. He was trying to find out if infrared dam-ages the insects’ nervous systems. Mr. Márka put some mosquitoes in a large tank with an infrared light beam. He noticed that the insects stayed away from the beam and would not cross it. It was then that he had an idea of using infrared to keep mosquitoes away.

Recently, Mr. Márka received a grant, or payment, of $1 million to develop his invention. The money came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr. Gates is one of the richest people in the world. He and a friend started the Micro-soft Company in 1975.

In 2008, Mr. Gates stepped down as Microsoft’s boss. He wanted to spend more time working for the charitable foundation he set up with his wife. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives large amounts of money to help to find cures for diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. It also helps to reduce pover-ty. When wealthy people give mon-ey for good causes in this way it is called philanthropy.

Mr. Márka has made several ex-perimental devices. One is placed

high above a bed. It produces a cone-shaped infrared light beam. This acts like a barrier. The person sleeping in the bed is protected from mosquito bites. Other devices fit above doorways and windows. These “light curtains” stop mos-quitoes coming into the room. Mr. Márka plans to visit Tanzania next year to test his optical bed nets and infrared curtains.

TROOPSHIP CENTENARY

Around 70,000 people visited the Australian port city of Albany on November 1. The number of visitors more than doubled the city’s popu-lation. They came to take part in a special anniversary ceremony. It was organized to mark the centenary of the first troopships that sailed from Australia on November 1, 1914. Many of the soldiers (from Australia and New Zealand) who traveled on these ships never returned.

Anzacs leaving Albany, 1914 (City of Albany)

The First World War began on July 28, 1914. It ended four years later on November 11, 1918. At the start of the war Russia, France and Britain were on one side. Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were on the other. After the war began the Ottoman Empire joined Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Ottoman Empire was centered on modern-day Turkey. Soldiers from places that were part of the British Empire 100 years ago also fought in

the war. They came from Canada, South Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand.

Soon after the war began in Eu-rope thousands of young men in Australia and New Zealand volun-teered to join the army. Later, the soldiers from Australia and New Zealand were named “Anzac”. This stands for Australian and New Zea-land Army Corps.

ANZAC Peace Park, in Albany

On November 1, 1914, a convoy of 38 troopships left Albany. There were 27,000 soldiers on board: 19,000 Australians and 8,000 New Zealanders. Warships from Austra-lia, New Zealand and Japan sailed with the troopships. In the following months and years many more troop-ship convoys sailed from Albany. In the First World War, Japan support-ed Russia, France and Britain.

The army commanders on the first convoy thought that they were going to Europe. However, the lead-ers of the British army worried that the winter in northern European would be too cold for the Austra-lians. Instead, the soldiers were tak-en to Egypt. Then, in 1915, along-side thousands of British and French soldiers, they attacked Gallipoli, in Turkey. This was the first major bat-tle of the war in which Anzac forces took part.

The plan was for the troops to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula. Then, they would advance and cap-ture Constantinople (now called


Istanbul), the largest Ottoman city. The plan was not a success. The first attack failed. Yet the fighting against the Turkish army in Gallip-oli carried on for 260 days. Around 8,700 Australian and 2,700 New Zealand soldiers were killed. Many thousands more were badly injured. Eventually, military commanders stopped the attacks. All the troops were withdrawn. After Gallipo-li, the Anzac soldiers were sent to fight in the Middle East, France and Belgium.

Eight warships took part in the ceremony in Albany. Five were from Australia, two from New Zea-land and one from Japan. Hundreds of soldiers from Australia and New Zealand marched through the city. They were joined by crew members from each of the warships. Thou-sands of people lined the streets. Tony Abbott, the prime minister of Australia, and New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, made speeches.

As part of the remembrance ceremony the two prime ministers placed wreaths at the ANZAC Peace Park. This peace park was opened in 2010. It was built as a memorial to all soldiers who left Albany for the First World War battlefields of Eu-rope and the Middle East. It is also a memorial to the Australian sol-diers who died in other more recent wars.

CATALONIA VOTE

An unofficial vote was held in Cata-lonia on November 9. People living in this part of Spain were able to take part in an independence referendum. A referendum is a vote in which all adults can take part. Mariano Ra-joy, Spain’s prime minister, criti-cized the vote. He and many other

politicians said that the referendum was unlawful.

Catalonia is in the northeast of Spain. Around 300 years ago it was a separate nation. Today, Catalonia is one of Spain’s 17 regions. How-ever, Catalans (or the people who come from Catalonia) have their own language, traditions, flag and a regional parliament. Barcelona is the biggest city in Catalonia and the second largest in Spain.

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Spain’s population is about 47 million. Of these roughly 7.6 mil-lion live in Catalonia. Even though Catalonia is a region of Spain, many Catalans think that it should be a sep-arate, or independent, country. Oth-ers want Catalonia to have more au-tonomy. This means that the Catalan parliament would make more of the decisions that affect Catalonia. Cur-rently, the most important decisions are made by the Spanish parliament in Madrid, Spain’s capital city.

For the last five years Spain has had serious financial difficulties. There have been problems with some of the country’s banks. Many companies have had to close down, or reduce their workforce. The num-ber of unemployed people, or those without jobs, is very high. Younger people are worst affected. Many have gone, or are thinking of going, to other European countries to find work. These problems are expected to continue for several more years.

Catalonia is one of the wealthiest regions of Spain. However, many Catalans complain that the Spanish government takes too much of the money made by Catalonia. This, they claim, is then used to help Spain’s less wealthy regions. About 16% of Spain’s population live in Catalonia. Yet around 30% of all Spain’s exports come from the re-gion. Exports are items that are sold to other countries.

As well as having its own re-gional parliament, Catalonia also has a president. Last year the re-gion’s president, Artur Mas, said that he wanted a referendum on independence for Catalonia to be held in 2014. People like Mr. Mas, who want independence, are known as “separatists”.

Over the last few months there have been many legal arguments. A senior Spanish court ruled that a ref-erendum would be unlawful. It said that Spain’s constitution, or rules by which the country is governed, did not allow regions to hold indepen-dence votes. Mr. Mas appealed. This meant that the court had to check that its decision was correct. Again the court ruled that an independence vote in Catalonia would be illegal.

Catalan leader, Artur Mas, voting in Catalonia’s unofficial independence referendum

Mr. Mas then decided to hold an unofficial vote. No government workers would be involved. Around 40,000 people volunteered to orga-nize the referendum. Some set up


places where people could vote. Others collected and counted all the ballot papers, or voting slips. On the ballot paper were two questions. One asked if Catalonia should be a separate state. The other asked if that state should be an independent country. The organizers claimed that about 2.2 million people voted. Around 5.4 million people are eli-gible to vote in Catalonia. Roughly 80% of those who took part voted “yes” to both questions.

Most people in other parts of Spain do not want Catalonia to break away. Many said that the unofficial referendum did not mean anything. It was likely, they argued, that only separatists would vote. Past surveys, or polls, show that around 80% of Catalans want a referendum on in-dependence. About 50% of them would vote for Catalonia to be a separate nation.

FROG DISCOVERY

Researchers in the U.S. have con-firmed that they have discovered a new species of frog. Surprisingly, it was found close to New York City. The new amphibian has been named the Atlantic Coast leopard frog. The researchers first suspected it was a new species from the noise the male frog makes.

There are nearly 4,800 species of frogs in the world. They are found on every continent except Antarc-tica. Most frogs live in places with warmer tropical climates. Some live in water, others on land and several species are found in trees. Frogs are carnivores, or meat-eat-ers. They mainly feed on insects. Some frogs also eat tiny fish and some small animals, such as spiders and earthworms.

The smallest frogs are only 0.35 inches (nine millimeters) in length. These tiny frogs live in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The largest frog spe-cies is called the Goliath frog. These frogs, which live in western Africa, can be over 12 inches (30 centime-ters) long.

Toads are a type of frog. Frogs usually have longer back legs and skin that is smooth and moist. Most toads have shorter legs and drier skin. Many toads have wart-like bumps on their bodies. The majority of frogs are found near water where-as most toads live farther away.

Atlantic Coast leopard frog (Matthew Schlesinger)

Many frog species lay their eggs in water. Large numbers of their eggs are called frogspawn. Tadpoles hatch from the eggs. These then gradually change into frogs. Not all frogs start life as tadpoles. Some are born as frogs. These types of frogs are known as “direct developers”. They usually live on mountains or in other places far away from water. Scientists who study frogs, other types of amphibians and reptiles are called herpetologists.

Two other species of leopard frog live on the eastern side of the U.S. One is called the northern leop-ard frog and the other the southern leopard frog. Their name comes from the leopard-like spots on their skin.

Many types of male frogs make noises. They do this to attract fe-males. Some herpetologists describe

these noises as “singing”. One re-searcher was trying to work out why southern leopard frogs seemed to have disappeared on Long Island. The western part of this island is an area of New York City. Someone told him that the frogs could be found on Staten Island. This island is not far from the city. The researcher decid-ed to go to Staten Island to look for the frogs.

Fortunately, he went on a spring day when the weather was getting warmer. Male frogs start to sing at this time of year. The researcher listened to the sound the frogs were making. The amphibians looked just like southern leopard frogs. Yet the researcher was sure that they were making a different noise.

The researcher caught some of the frogs. He then sent them to a scientist he knew. This person is a biologist. She was able to compare the genes of the frog with genes of other types of leopard frog. She was surprised to find they were different. This meant the researcher had dis-covered a new species.

The Atlantic Coast leopard frog is about 3.5 inches (90 millime-ters) long. It lives in marshland and grassy areas. Further studies have shown that these frogs live in other parts of the U.S. near the Atlantic Coast.

Newsademic.comEditor: Rebecca Watson

American Editor: Chris Tarn

Acknowledgements:News story photographs by gettyimages

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© Newsademic 2014


ISSUE 236 GLOSSARY PUZZLE

INSTRUCTIONS: Complete the crossword. The answers are highlighted in orange in the news stories. There are 25 words highlighted and you need 20 of them to complete the crossword. Once you have solved the crossword go to the word search on the next page

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5 Noun (Plural) Long, sharp teeth used to inject poison 6 Noun (Plural) Regulations that requires people to remain

indoors at certain times, typically at night 9 Noun (Plural) Flowers and leaves arranged in a circular

shape, often used as a sign of respect and remembrance for people who have died

12 Adjective Describes a person who no longer has a person or family member who they are close to because of their death

15 Adjective Likely to cause arguments 17 Noun To do with flying or aircraft 18 Noun The amount by which something is curved or bent 19 Noun (Plural) Criminal acts of capturing people and taking

them away 20 Noun The right of a person, group or region to act without

consulting another person or official body

DOWN

1 Noun An explorer or person who is the first to do something

2 Adjective Open, honest and genuine; not deceitful 3 Adjective Entitled or fit to be chosen 4 Noun A discussion during which people can say what they

think about a subject 7 Noun (Plural) Substances that are released from a gland

or cell 8 Noun Large device, system, piece of equipment, or art

exhibit 10 Adjective Describes a complex design 11 Noun An inactive state 13 Verb Scattered 14 Noun A person who has been shipwrecked but reached a

land or an island where nobody lives 16 Noun A boundary that divides or keeps things apart


ISSUE 236GLOSSARY PUZZLE CONTINUED

INSTRUCTIONS: Find 19 of the 20 crossword answers in the word search. Words can go vertically, horizontally, diagonally and back to front. After finding the 19 words write down the 20th (or missing) word under the puzzle.

C A S T A W A Y A L S M G U P B B S

O U G N L V I J G U E W M Z A E X N

N O R C I M S C U R F E W S R C C O

T W O V F N O I T A I V A E T Q E I

R H J J A P D Y Z E O K A P I D O T

O I D E S T N Q M V L V A K T W C C

V G W L B H U Z T O E I M O I Z C U

E M Q F R X S R S D N X G E O N H D

R R P G C G J I E S I O W I N L W B

S H E P N O N R T U I S T Q B H W A

I Z B A Y C V A C E T Q P U U L G T

A K F X E G L R J A A L X E A V E U

L R P R K L U I T G P E P R R X W S

U M E L A B O R A T E T S G P S L R

R Z T T W R E A T H E S D A Q J E P

L O I M N T U U T B W D E B A T E D

S O L L S E C R E T I O N S I K U P

N O I T A N R E B I H G R U K E R O

MISSING WORD ANSWER =

ISSUE 235 A

NSW

ERS

R E S T O R A T I O N G L E D D S T

Y E C N A T I R E H N I M L E M B N

D C V I K W D B I I G Y U H S L J A

E N X O B C E I L L Z Z S E T A E C

C E D M L V S T S N Y R W K S L M I

I T F J Z U S C E P E X X J I L D F

P S T C Q I T L A T U Z Q A G E Y I

H I K E H U R I A F C T U M O G V N

E S L W N D I W O O F G E Q L A A G

R R A Y N D T N M N H O D D O T V I

E E V B B U O B T J A N L D C I A S

D P B O G A I R K O O R T D E O L L

L L R W S N J L S D L R Y U G N A I

T J L Q A H U E Z E S E T S J S N B

B S J T U H V L V W D D R N F I C N

S X I K C L C I T S U O C A Z E H Z

D O G M I L P R K L O S E B N E E M

N A I D I R E M T X V N D B G T S Z

If you wish to earn additional Demics log in to www.newsademic.com, go to the Prize Competitions area and submit the missing word. Puzzle entries must be submitted by 10 pm on November 26, 2014 (GMT/UTC).*

C A P S I Z E D

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