news academic

19th April 2012British English edition

Issue Number 169

Newsademic.comThe informative easy to read introduction to world news

In this issue

Miners rescued in PeruMalawi’s new presidentTomb-Sweeping DayStrawberry-blonde mammothTsunami warning system activatedRube Goldberg competitionReplacing ambergrisMalaria parasite fearsGhost ship sunkUN monitors in SyriaEmperor penguin censusNew boss at SonyHunting cane toads‘Good health adds life to years’Feathered giantClever toilets?Rocket fails in North KoreaSummit of the AmericasKashmir avalancheGlossary Crossword and Wordsearch Puzzle

The Titanic leaving Southampton on its first voyage on 10th April 1912

At twenty minutes past two in the morn-ing on 15th April, a memorial service was held on a large cruise ship in the North Atlantic Ocean. The cruise ship had sailed to the place where, exactly 100 years ago, one of the most famous passenger liners in the world, sank. The ship was called the Titanic

At that time, the Titanic was the world’s largest passenger ship. It was operated by the White Star Line, a UK shipping company. The huge ship was designed to take passengers and cargo between the USA and the UK across the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Titanic, which took several years to complete, was built in Belfast. This city is in a part of the UK that is now calledNorthern Ireland.

The sinking of the Titanic on its first, or maiden, voyage has become known as one of the worst shipping disasters in history.

The ship’s huge engines were powered by steam. To make it, water in large boil-ers was heated by burning coal. Workers shovelled the coal into hot furnaces 24 hours a day. The ship therefore had to carry a huge amount of coal for the fur-naces. The steam also worked turbines, which made the electricity used for the lights on the ship.

The Titanic’s first voyage started at Southampton, in the UK, on 10th April. It sailed across the English Channel to Cher-bourg, in France. On 11th April, after pick-ing up extra passengers at Queenstown, (now called Cobh) in Ireland, the ship set sail for New York City, in the USA. There were just over 2,200 people on board. Of these about 885 were members of the crew.

Many of those who got on at Queen-stown were poorer people. They trav-elled ‘third-class’ in the ship’s lowest decks. There were about 710 third-class

R E M E M B E R I N G T H E T I T A N I C

LEVEL UP!

Use

ONLINE EXTRA

Newsademic.com

TO JOIN VISITWWW.NEWSADEMIC.COM

™

19th April 2012 Newsademic.com™ – British English edition page 2

passengers on board. Most were emigrating to the USA. Third-class included people from many differ-ent countries including China, Rus-sia, Italy and Syria

Around 325 people on the ship were travelling ‘first-class’. They were wealthy and could pay for cab-ins on the upper decks, which were like a luxury hotel. Travelling first-class was the American John Jacob Astor, one of the richest people in the world, and his young pregnant wife, Madeleine. J Bruce Ismay, the boss of the White Star Line, was also a first-class passenger.

NORTHATLANTIC

OCEAN

x

Greenland

CANADA UK

Sout

ham

pton

NewYork City

HalifaxQueenstown

Belfast

Che

rbou

rg

The Titanic’s first and final voyage

Second-class passengers num-bered about 285. Each of the classes kept to its own parts of the ship. The toilets were an example of the differ-ences among them. In first-class they were made of marble, in second, por-celain, and in third-class, of cast iron.

On 14th April, the Titanic’s wireless telegraph operators picked up warning messages from nearby ships about ice-bergs. These huge floating blocks of ice break off from ice sheets in north-ern Greenland. Today, ships use radar and satellites to avoid icebergs.

After hearing about the warnings from other ships, the captain of the Titanic turned the ship to the south. He told some members of the crew to look out for icebergs.

At about twenty minutes to midnight on 14th April one of the crew saw an iceberg ahead and shouted a warning. The ship turned. But it still struck part

of the iceberg that was underwater. This damaged some of the metal plates along the side of the ship below the wa-ter line. Immediately, seawater began to flood in.

By this time, most of the passen-gers had gone to bed. At first many did not know what had happened. But then the ship began to list, or lean over. The captain soon realised the Titanic was slowly sinking.

The wireless operators sent out messages asking for help. Unfor-tunately, the only wireless operator on the closest ship to the Titanic had gone to bed. Some of the Titanic’s of-ficers were ordered to start lowering the lifeboats, making sure women and children were the first to get in. However, the Titanic was not carry-ing enough lifeboats for everyone on the ship. And some of the lifeboats were launched before they were full.

The Titanic finally sank around two and a half hours after it hit the iceberg. Over 1,000 passengers and crew members were still on board. Many jumped into the sea wearing lifejackets. Most of these people died from the shock of the freezing water or from the cold soon afterwards.

It was four o’clock in the morn-ing before another ship arrived. By that time, apart from a very few, the only people still alive were those in the lifeboats. The survivors were taken to New York City.

The White Star Line arranged for ships from Halifax, in Canada, to go to the place where the Titanic sank. They found 328 bodies. About a third, mostly third-class passengers, were buried in the sea. The others, including the body of John Jacob Astor, were brought back to Halifax.

Madeleine Astor survived, as she was in one of the lifeboats. J Bruce Ismay also survived. He had managed to get into one of the last

lifeboats to leave the ship. Yet later, he was criticised for saving himself. The bodies of most of the people who died were never found.

Underwater photograph of the bow, or front, of the Titanic on the seabed

Most of the survivors were wom-en and children. All but one of the children in first- and second-class survived, although more of the chil-dren who travelled in third class died than were saved. Only 192 members of the ship’s crew survived.

The Titanic sank where the ocean is about 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) deep. After the disaster, it was dis-covered that in April 1912 there were more icebergs in this part of the Atlantic than there had been for 50 years. In 1985, the wreck was finally found on the seabed. It was in two parts, so the ship must have broken in half just before it sank.

As a result of the Titanic disaster, many shipping laws were changed. Ships now had to have enough life-boats to carry all those who sailed on them. New rules were also intro-duced so all large ships could both send and receive messages through-out the day and night.

Some of the people on board the memorial cruise were related to those who lost their lives in the acci-dent. A memorial service took place in the early hours of 15th April. The names of the 1,500 people who had died in the accident 100 years ago were read out and wreaths were thrown into the sea.


MINE RESCUE IN PERU

On 11th April nine miners in Peru who had been trapped inside a mine for six days were finally rescued. As they walked out, one by one, their families and friends greeted them. Ollanta Humala, the president of Peru, was also at the mine entrance to welcome the men.

Peru’s president, Ollanta Humala (centre) waves alongside the nine miners (wearing sunglasses)

The nine miners had been work-ing about 250 metres (800 feet) from the entrance to the copper mine. The shaft of the mine had been dug hori-zontally into the side of a hill. Six days earlier, while the miners were underground far from the entrance, part of the shaft collapsed. The rock fall blocked the way out and stopped fresh air from getting into the mine.

Peru is one of the world’s largest producers of zinc, copper, and sil-ver. Recently these metals have be-come more valuable. Many miners have therefore started to work ille-gally in old mines no longer used by Peru’s big mining companies. These illegal mines are known as ‘wildcat mines’. The one in which the min-ers were trapped was one of the in-creasing number of wildcat mines in the country.

It was several days before trained rescue workers from large min-ing companies arrived at the mine

entrance. Several came from Chile. These people had been part of the team that rescued 33 trapped miners in Chile in 2010. That rescue, which was from a much deeper mine, took 69 days.

Once the rescue workers had the right equipment, they worked day and night to clear the rocks blocking the mine. Fortunately, a long hose that led from deep inside the mine to the entrance was not damaged by the rock fall. Rescue workers used the hose to send liquid food, water, and oxygen to the trapped men. The miners, who were aged between 22 and 59, said they used their helmets as bowls to collect the food.

Once the rock fall had been cleared, it was possible to bring the miners out. Each was given a pair of dark glasses to protect his eyes from the sunlight. They waved a Peruvian flag. Soon afterwards, the nine men were taken to a hospital for medi-cal checks. All were found to be in good health.

The mine rescue has drawn at-tention to wildcat mines in Peru. As these mines are illegal, the miners work in dangerous conditions and there are few safety rules. Many people in Peru say wildcat mines should be more strictly controlled to stop accidents like this from hap-pening again.

MALAWI’S VICE PRESIDENT TAKES OVER

Joyce Banda was officially made president of Malawi on 7th April. Mrs Banda had been Malawi’s vice president. She took over several days after Bingu wa Mutharika, who had been the country’s leader since 2004, passed away.

Mr Mutharika died in hospi-tal after a heart attack. He was 78 years old. At first there was a delay in announcing what had happened. There was also a longer delay in announcing who would take over. Some worried that a ‘power strug-gle’ was about to take place. This is when two or more people claim to be in charge. It is not unknown for power struggles to lead to violence and even civil wars.

Malawi’s constitution – the rules by which the country is governed – says the vice president takes over if the country’s leader dies while he or she is still the president. Mrs Banda became vice president in the election in 2009, which Mr Mutharika won.

At the time, they were both mem-bers of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Yet last year the two had an argument. Mr Mutharika wanted his younger brother to be the DPP’s candidate for the next presidential

NEWSCAST

SUNBATHING CROCODILE — A hip-popotamus wallowing in some shallow water in a wildlife park in South Africa got a snappy sur-prise – and so did the delighted tourists visiting the park. A baby crocodile swimming in the wa-ter mistook the hippo for a tree trunk or rock. The small croco-dile climbed up on the hippo’s back to take a rest and lie in the sunshine. Onlookers said the hippo started to move off, but the baby reptile just stayed on its back for the ride. The crocodile finally climbed down and swam away after about 15 minutes, which had given visitors plenty of time to take photographs of the unusual couple.


election, which will be held in 2014. Mrs Banda disagreed.

Eventually Mrs Banda was ex-pelled from the DPP so she was no longer the party’s vice president. Yet she remained vice president of the country. Mrs Banda and Mr Mutha-rika refused to work together. Mrs Banda formed a new political group called the People’s Party. This was why some people worried about a power struggle. They thought sen-ior members of the DPP would not agree with someone from a differ-ent political party taking over. They suspected that these people wanted Mr Mutharika’s brother to be the new president.

Mr Mutharika was elected presi-dent in 2004 and re-elected in 2009. Last year, several demonstrations against him and his government took place in Lilongwe, the capi-tal, and in the cities of Blantyre and Karonga. The protesters complained that Mr Mutharika had become too autocratic. Food and fuel had also become very expensive.

Malawi’s new president, Joyce Banda

Some people even wanted Mr Mutharika to step down. The police and army used tear gas and rub-ber bullets against the protesters. It’s thought about 20 people were killed.. Several countries, including the UK and the USA, stopped giv-ing aid to Malawi because of Mr Mutharika’s actions and decisions.

Mrs Banda is Malawi’s first fe-male president. Within a few days of

taking over she fired, or sacked, the country’s chief of police, one of the senior ministers, and the boss of Ma-lawi’s television broadcasting com-pany. Most people think she did this because these people had opposed the idea of her becoming president.

Now Mrs Banda is speaking with some of the other countries that stopped working with and making donations to Malawi because of Mr Mutharika. She also declared an of-ficial period of mourning, or griev-ing, for the former president.

Mrs Banda will be president until the next election in 2014, when she is expected to stand for re-election.

QINGMING FESTIVAL

At the beginning of April each year, many people in China take part in a traditional ceremony known as the Qingming (or Ching Ming) festi-val, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day. This year the festival – both a happy and a sad day – took place on 4th April.

Qingming marks the beginning of spring in China. At this time of year the days in the northern hemi-sphere are getting longer and the weather warmer. It’s the time at which farmers traditionally begin preparing the fields to plant new crops. So people often try to spend the day of the festival outdoors. Many people enjoy flying colourful kites – sometimes even after it gets dark, when they put lanterns on the kites to light them up.

The day is one on which people commemorate their ancestors, or relatives who have died both a long time ago and more recently. This is important to many people in China. For some people, ancestor worship is a religious belief. They believe

their ancestors live on after dying and can influence what happens to their descendants. So they want to make sure their ancestors are happy and well looked-after.

For others, the festival is more a way of showing respect and remem-bering the people in their family who have died. Families gather to clean the graves of their ancestors and make their offerings. So Qing-ming is also a time when families get together.

Chinese cemetery during Qingming festival

Cemeteries, or graveyards, are very crowded on Tomb-Sweeping Day. People clean the gravestones and areas around their ancestors’ and relatives’ graves. Offerings of tea, food, and flowers are placed on the tombs. People burn sticks of incense and paper money as an offering to their ancestors. Often, they leave things on the graves that their relatives liked during their lifetimes.

In recent years, shops have be-gun to sell paper replicas, or cop-ies, of modern electronic devices, such as mobile phones and tablet computers, for the Qingming fes-tival. People buy these to burn at their ancestors’ graves. For some, it is a serious symbol of offering the ancestors things that are valuable today. For others, it’s a sort of fun family joke – a way of keeping the ancestors up-to-date with modern day technology.


An amazingly well preserved carcass, or body, of a woolly mammoth has been discovered in Si-beria, in northern Russia. The animal is estimated to have been around three years old when it died. The young mammoth, which is about 1.8 metres (six feet) long, appears to have been cut open, or butchered, by ancient human hunters.

Around 300,000 years ago thousands of mammoths lived in the northern parts of Russia, Eu-rope and North America. Adults were about the same size as mod-ern-day Indian elephants. Woolly mammoths evolved to withstand very cold temperatures. They had long curved tusks. It’s thought these were used for clearing snow from the ground to find the grasses and plants they fed on, as well as for fighting.

Around 10,000 years ago most woolly mammoths seem to have died out. This was about the time of the end of the last ice age. A smaller type of mam-moth is believed to have still existed on some is-lands north of Russia until about 3,500 years ago.

There are several ideas, or theories, about why the woolly mammoths became extinct. One is that they all died from a disease. Some think the plants on which the mammoths fed stopped growing be-cause of a sudden change in the climate. Others believe mammoths were hunted to extinction by humans.

Finding mammoth bones and tusks in places where they lived is not unusual. But discovering anything else, such as hair, skin, muscle or internal organs, is rare. This is because over time, these have decomposed, or rot-ted away.

In the far north of Russia, though, the ground has remained frozen ever since the mammoths disappeared. This means occasionally parts of mammoths are found other than bones and tusks, as the frozen ground has helped to preserve them.

In recent years, rising temperatures have caused many areas in northern Russia that were

once frozen for thousands of years to begin to thaw. This has led to an increasing number of woolly mammoth discoveries. In 2007, for exam-ple, an almost complete six-month-old baby fe-male mammoth was found.

Local hunters looking for mammoth tusks made the new discovery in a frozen cliff. It is

not yet known when the young mammoth died, but it must have been at least 10,000 years ago.

A French scientist who runs a group called the International Mammuthus Organisation ac-quired the carcass. This organi-sation was set up to find and

study the remains of woolly mammoths.The mammoth’s skin is almost complete. It

even still has much of its long hair, which is a reddish colour. Some people have joked that the three-year-old mammoth, which has been nick-named ‘Yuka’, was ‘a strawberry-blonde’.

The young mammoth had a broken leg and some serious wounds. These must have hap-pened just before it died. The scientists are not yet sure, but they think Yuka may have been cut open with some type of human-made tool. Many of the bones in the body were removed including the skull, ribs, backbone and pelvis. Some, but not

all, of them were found nearby.The scientists think the story

of Yuka’s death may have been something like this: Yuka was chased and wounded by preda-tors such as prehistoric lions. (Today lions in Africa are known to kill baby elephants.) While running away, Yuka fell and

broke a leg. A group of hunters then scared away the predators. They cut open the mammoth, took out much of the meat, fat and bones and then buried the carcass. It’s possible they intended to come back for the rest at a later time, but never did. Yuka therefore remained in the frozen ground for over 10,000 years before being found by the tusk hunters.

MAMMOTH DISCOVERY

Full-size model of woolly mammoth

Yuka, the newly discovered young mammoth (International Mammuthus Organisation)


TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEM

Tsunami warnings, or alerts, were broadcast after a large earthquake was recorded under part of the In-dian Ocean on 11th April. Everyone rushed to get away from coastal areas in the surrounding countries. This was because they all remem-ber the earthquake and tsunami that happened in about the same place at the end of 2004.

INDIATHAILAND

SRI LANKA

MALAYSIA

SINGAPORE

INDONESIA

SumatraINDIANOCEAN

There were two earthquakes on 11th April. The first had a magni-tude of 8.6. The second happened about two hours later. This was an ‘aftershock’. Its magnitude was 8.2.

The epicentre of the first was roughly 435 kilometres (270 miles) from the coast of Aceh, on the north-ern tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Its depth was around 22 kil-ometres (14 miles) under the seabed.

The earthquake was felt in many places around this part of the Indian Ocean including Singapore, Thai-land, Bangladesh, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.

In the disaster of 2004, about 170,000 people living in Aceh died. That undersea earthquake had a magnitude of 9.0 and was much closer to the coast than the ones on 11th April. Altogether it resulted in almost 230,000 deaths. It was there-fore one of the worst natural disas-ters in history.

Earthquakes are frequent in In-donesia. The country is close to a

place where two of the Earth’s tec-tonic plates meet. These huge plates make up the Earth’s crust. They move very, very slowly. They can slide underneath, bump into, or slide side-by-side along one another. The movement can build up huge pres-sure deep underground. The sud-den release of this pressure is what causes an earthquake.

Tsunamis can happen when an earthquake makes a large part of the seabed suddenly move up or down. This displaces a huge volume of seawater, which is what creates the tsunami. This type of earthquake is sometimes called a ‘thrust’ or ‘mega-thrust’.

A tsunami is a huge surge, or series of surges, of water. It can be many kilometres long. The front of the surge increases in height as it gets closer to the coast.

Soon after the tsunami alert was given out it was cancelled. This is because experts worked out that it was not a thrust earthquake but what is known as a ‘strike-slip’. In

strike–slip earthquakes the plates move horizontally against each other (from side to side) and not vertically (up and down). These types of earth-quakes create a lot of shaking, but, if they occur under the sea, do not dis-place a large amount of seawater.

The tsunami warning system was set up because of the 2004 disaster. As soon as a large under-sea earthquake is detected sirens go off. Buoys in the ocean measure the seawater level. SMS alerts and messages are sent automatically to smartphones and popular websites. In some places, tsunami shelters have been built that can hold hun-dreds of people. The quickest ways to higher ground, or escape routes, are well signposted.

Officials in Indonesia and several other countries said this was the first real test of the new tsunami warn-ing system. They were pleased with the way it worked. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the president of In-donesia, said the two strong earth-quakes had caused only a few cracks in some buildings and bridges, but there was little other damage.

RUBE GOLDBERG CONTEST

Machines are usually designed to make it easier, faster, or less work for us to do something. So why have machines, or devices, that make a simple task much more complicated just won first prize in an annual American competition and broken a world record?

The competition is called the Rube Goldberg Machine con-test. Teams from universities and schools in the USA enter the com-petition each year. The contest cel-ebrates the work of Rube Goldberg (1883 – 1970).

NEWSCAST

BLUE FINGERS — Officials at a com-pany in Sweden noticed some of its money was disappearing. They wanted to catch the thief, but did not want him or her to know they had realised what was happening. They asked the police to help. The police covered some banknotes with an invisible powder. Once it is on your hands, the powder turns blue when you wash them. The dye is not permanent, but is very hard to clean off completely. The company soon found the em-ployee with blue hands (and, of-ficials said, a blue nose where he had touched it). He later admitted to stealing Kr22,000 (£3,300).


Mr Goldberg began his career as an engineer. But soon afterwards he went to work for a newspaper as a cartoonist. As he was a trained engi-neer, he started to create drawings of strange mechanical devices, or con-traptions. The drawings were funny because they showed a ridiculously complicated way of doing some-thing quite simple.

One of the Rube Goldberg competition winners

For example, one drawing shows a contraption that automatically gets sand out of your shoes when walking on the beach. The first step is a small shovel on the toe of the shoe that picks up a tiny crab as you walk. Next the crab is flipped into a little bucket on the top of the shoe. The crab’s weight makes the bucket move downwards. This move-ment operates a series of rods that make some bellows work. The bel-lows blow the sand out of the shoe through an exhaust pipe at the back. Another example is a cartoon of a wearable shoe-polishing machine that has 14 different movements.

Mr Goldberg’s drawings are so well known in the USA that his name has become a way of describing something that is too complicated. People might describe something as being ‘very Rube Goldberg’.

Each year students are challenged to design a Rube Goldberg machine that does something very simple. Last year it was watering a plant. In other years the machines had to switch on a radio or turn off an alarm

clock. This year the machines had to inflate and then pop a balloon.

The team that came second de-signed a device that completed no fewer than 300 steps, or movements – also called tasks or modules – be-fore the balloon was popped. This was a world record.

Each step must cause the next one to work in a continuous proc-ess. The modules included lots of ‘proper’ mechanics such as pulleys and levers. But it also had several funny parts, such as oranges drop-ping through a squeezer, a pencil be-ing sharpened, and a golf ball being putted into a hole. They all led to a giant hand on a moving arm with a pointing finger. This swung down and popped the balloon.

The team that designed the record-breaking machine had 14 members. They spent around 5,000 hours of work designing and build-ing their machine. Next year’s com-petition is to design a machine to hammer in a nail.

AMBERGRIS REPLACEMENT

Researchers in Canada have an-nounced they have managed to make a substance that can be used in perfume-making. Importantly, they predict this substance can com-pletely and easily replace another one, known as ambergris.

Sperm whales produce ambergris in their intestines. When it is inside the whale, it is a thick greyish liquid. A whale produces ambergris to coat the sharp objects it swallows when feeding, such as shells. This covering of ambergris means the sharp objects do not injure or damage the whale’s intestines as they pass through.

Every so often sperm whales get rid of some of this ambergris

by regurgitating, or vomiting, it out through their mouths (a bit like a cat bringing up a furball). In the sea, ambergris floats and gradually hard-ens into waxy lumps.

Traditionally, ambergris was used as an ingredient in expensive perfumes. The lumps can be found washed up on some beaches, but they are quite rare.

In the past many sperm whales were hunted for their meat and blubber, a thick layer of fat under their skin. This could be turned into oil, which could be used in lamps and for making soap and candles. Another reason for hunting sperm whales was ambergris, which the hunters could sell for a lot of money.

Today all but a few countries have banned whale hunting. Per-fume makers are allowed to use only ambergris that’s been found washed up on beaches. This is sup-posed to stop people hunting sperm whales illegally for their ambergris. Most perfumes today are made with a synthetic, or a man-made, copy of the substance. This is because am-bergrisis so rare.

Sperm whales

Two plants produce a compound that can be used in perfumes in the same way as ambergris. These are the sage and fir plants. The prob-lem is, it’s very difficult to extract it from the plants. And often the yield, or amount that can be extracted, is very unpredictable. Occasionally


scientists can get a lot, but most of the time the yield is poor.

The Canadian researchers began by studying the fir plant’s genes. They found out which ones were im-portant in producing the compound. Genes carry coded information that decides the characteristics, or traits, of living things.

Lumps of ambergris

After the researchers found and extracted the right genes, they in-jected them into some yeast cells. The coded information in the genes instructed the yeast cells to make the same compound as the fir plants do. Over a short period of time the yeast cells produced a large amount of the compound.

This means it should now be pos-sible to create a good, inexpensive, and sustainable supply of an amber-gris-like substance for perfumes. The researchers’ discovery may even mean ambergris will no longer be used to make perfumes.

DRUG-RESISTANT MALARIA

Medical scientists are becoming very worried about the spread of malaria. This is because in some ar-eas, the most effective treatment for the disease is not working as well as it used to. The scientists believe the parasite that causes malaria is becoming resistant to the treatment.

Malaria is common only in tropi-cal and subtropical countries. It’s

caused by a parasite called Plasmo-dium that lives in the blood. You can’t catch malaria from someone who has it. Instead it can be spread from one person to another by mosquitoes.

People who suffer from malaria 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 as many as one million people die from malaria every year. Most live in sub-Saha-ran Africa (countries that are south of the Sahara desert).

Preventing mosquito bites is the best way to avoid malaria. This in-cludes sleeping under nets, wearing clothes that cover the skin, and us-ing mosquito repellent. If someone does catch malaria, there are treat-ments that can stop the symptoms.

Mosquito

There are four common types of Plasmodium parasite. Scientists say the most dangerous, or deadly, of the four now seems to be getting better at resisting the medicine or drug used to treat it. Resistance to something means not being affected by it.

In the past, a very effective drug called artemisinin would quickly get rid of the parasite from a person’s blood. Artemisinin comes from a plant. In 2006, scientists in Cambo-dia, in South East Asia, noticed ma-laria patients treated with artemisinin were not getting better so quickly. The drug was taking longer to get rid of the parasite. The parasite had

therefore found a way of ‘surviving’ the artemisinin treatment.

More recently, resistant parasites have been discovered in Thailand, close to the border with Myanmar (also called Burma), as well. So the resistant parasites seem to be spreading in South East Asia.

If the malaria parasites in sub-Sa-haran Africa also become resistant to artemisinin, many thousands more people could die of the disease. Sci-entists are now trying to find ways of getting rid of or fighting the re-sistant parasite before it can spread to other parts of the world.

GHOST SHIP SUNK

An American Coast Guard ship has deliberately sunk a rusty Japanese fishing boat. The ship had nobody onboard. The fishing boat was sunk, or scuttled, on 5th April, after it had drifted, with no lights and no pow-er, around 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) across the Pacific Ocean.

An unmanned boat adrift like this is often called a ghost ship. The ship drifted off into the ocean soon after an undersea earthquake struck the north east part of Japan just over one year ago. The powerful earthquake forced a large part of the seabed suddenly upwards. The violent shaking on land damaged buildings, roads, dams, and bridges. However, what caused the most damage was the tsunami, or huge surge of seawater, that followed.

In some places the tsunami reached ten kilometres (6.2 miles) inland. Thousands of buildings, es-pecially those mostly made of wood, were totally destroyed. The wave then dragged a lot of debris back out to sea. This included vehicles, small planes, damaged boats, large pieces of wooden buildings, and hundreds


of household items such as refrig-erators, beds, and clothing.

Scientists calculate the tsunami created around 25 million tonnes of debris. About five million tonnes was swept out to sea. Much of it has sunk. Yet ocean currents in the north-ern Pacific have been slowly pushing about two million tonnes of floating wreckage towards the coastlines of Canada and the USA. The ghost ship is the first large object to reach the other side of the Pacific.

Japanese ghost ship after it had been fired upon

A Canadian aircraft first spotted the Japanese fishing boat, called the Ryou-Un Maru (which means Fish-ing Luck), on 20th March. Then it was about 190 kilometres (120 miles) off the coast of Canada. By the beginning of April it had drifted north and was close to the coast of Alaska, part of the USA.

The American Coast Guard said the ghost ship had become a danger to other ships. Its owner in Japan did not want it back. The ship was al-ready due to be scrapped, or broken up, before the tsunami happened.

It was thought to be too dan-gerous for anyone to go on board the ghost ship. The American ship therefore fired a gun to sink it. The fishing boat contained a lot of diesel fuel. The Coast Guard and an envi-ronmental organisation decided that the safest thing to do was let the fuel dissipate and evaporate from the sea. A device was left in the water to record the pollution.

Much of the floating debris from the Japanese tsunami is expected to start arriving on the other side of the Pacific Ocean next year. Most of it is predicted to eventually become part of the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’. This is a large area of floating rubbish in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Currents in the Pacific create a huge circular motion. This gath-ers all this floating rubbish together. Most of the rubbish is broken-up plastic items that people have thrown away, or that have been washed into the sea.

UN MONITORS ARRIVE IN SYRIA

On 15th April the first of the United Nations (UN) monitors, or observ-ers, arrived in Damascus, the capital of Syria. On the previous day, the 15 members of the UN’s Security Council had all agreed in a vote to send the observers to Syria.

Damascus

TURKEY

JORDAN

LEBANON

SYRIA

IRAQ

SAUDIARABIA

ISRAEL

EGYPT

Demonstrations against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and his government first started just over one year ago. The protesters say they want to elect their leaders. They ac-cuse the president and his family of being corrupt and dishonest. Mr al-Assad and his father before him have controlled Syria for the last 40 years.

The protesters also complain about the police. They believe the

police have too much power and of-ten arrest people for no reason.

Soon after the protests started, the government sent soldiers and police armed with weapons to stop them. Mr al-Assad claims the people organising the protests are terrorists and members of criminal gangs. He insists ordinary citizens in Syria support him and his ministers and the way they govern the country.

The violence in Syria has been getting worse. The UN estimates that over the last 12 months as many as 9,000 people have been killed. Recently some soldiers have changed sides and joined the protesters. These soldiers have formed what they call the Free Syr-ian Army (FSA). Yet their weap-ons are much less powerful than those of the Syrian army. During the fighting many civilians have been killed.

At the end of February, the UN and the Arab League (AL) asked Kofi Annan to be their envoy to Syria. The AL is a group of 22 Arab countries. It includes Syria. Yet be-cause of what has been happening in the country Syria’s membership has been suspended.

Mr Annan, who is from Ghana, is a former secretary-general, or lead-er, of the United Nations (UN). He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. The UN and the AL hope Mr Annan will be able to get both sides in Syria to stop fighting.

Mr Annan has been holding talks with Mr al-Assad and those who oppose his government. Both sides eventually agreed to a ceasefire, or truce. This was supposed to start on 10th April. However, since that date there have been reports that gov-ernment troops have been shooting at people close to the border with Turkey. The city of Homs is also


thought to have been under attack by government forces.

Mr Annan’s peace plan was to get both sides to first agree to a truce. Then a team of UN monitors is to make sure that the opposing sides keep to the ceasefire. The first ob-server team had six members. But the number of UN monitors is expected to increase to around 250 within the next few months. Some people argue that even this number of observers is too small to cover the whole country.

Kofi Annan

Once all the fighting has stopped, the UN can send both medical and aid teams to help people affected by the violence. After this it is hoped that talks can be arranged between the two opposing groups so a peace-ful solution to Syria’s problems can be found.

PENGUIN SATELLITE CENSUS

Scientists from Australia, the USA, and the UK have used pictures from a satellite to work out how many Emperor penguins live in Antarc-tica. A population count like this is often called a census. Their results show there are almost twice as many Emperor penguins in Antarctica as was previously thought.

Emperor penguins are found only in Antarctica. Where they live the temperatures can be as cold as -50ºC (-58ºF). Adults grow to a height of 22 centimetres (48 inches).

Emperor penguins feed on tiny crus-taceans, called krill, in and around the cold waters of the Southern Ocean.

Large groups of penguins are called colonies. At breeding time male Emperor penguins in-cubate, or look after, the eggs through the winter months. During this time the females feed in the sea. Large colonies of male pen-guins gather in one place many kilometres from the sea. When it gets very cold they huddle tightly together to keep warm.

After the eggs hatch, the females return with food for the chicks. By this time the males have not eaten for over 100 days. Once the females have come back, the males then walk back to the sea to feed.

As the penguins gather together in large numbers in one place their excrement (or poo), known as gua-no, darkens the colour of the white snow. These dark guano patches can be seen in the satellite pictures. The pictures showed 44 dark patches, or penguin colonies, across Antarctica. They included seven colonies that were not known about before.

The scientists used the patches of guano to work out how many Em-peror penguins were in each colony. The estimated total was almost 600,000. This is nearly double the number of previous estimates.

The scientists say satellite tech-nology makes counting the number of penguins quite easy. This means a census could be done every year. This information would show if the Emperor penguin population is get-ting bigger, smaller, or staying about the same.

Recently, large amounts of sea ice have been melting in the Arctic around the North Pole. Most scien-tists agree this is because average

world temperatures have been rising in re-cent years. However, in the Antarctic, where the South Pole is, sci-entists are not yet sure if a similar thing is happening.

Melting ice in Ant-arctica could affect the number of penguins. This is because the krill they eat feed on algae, which grows un-

der the sea ice. So a penguin census could provide important informa-tion about melting ice. If the Emper-or penguin population goes down it may be because their food supply is decreasing. This could be a sign that the ice in Antarctica is melting.

SONY’S NEW BOSS

On 12th April Kazuo Hirai, the new boss of Sony Corporation, made an announcement in Tokyo, the capital of Japan. He said this year the com-pany would make losses of as much as ¥520 billion (£4 billion).

Sony is one of the world’s best-known electronics companies. The company was founded over 60 years ago, just after the end of the Second World War. Its first successful prod-uct was a type of radio. The name Sony was made up in the 1950s to encourage western, or non-Japanese, people to buy the products. The company says its name came from two sources: the Latin word ‘sonus’, which means ‘sound’; and the word ‘sonny’ which, in the USA at the time, was a friendly word for a boy.

Emperor penguins


One of Sony’s most famous prod-ucts was the Sony Walkman, which became very popular in the 1980s. It was the first music player, with lightweight headphones, that people could carry around with them. An estimated 220 million Sony Walk-mans were sold.

Sony’s new boss, Kazuo Hirai

Today Sony makes many things. These include laptop computers, televisions, cameras, medical equip-ment, mobile phones, music play-ers, and games. But more recently it has had to compete with many other successful consumer electronic companies such as Apple, from the USA, Samsung, from South Korea, and HTC, from China.

Some experts say Sony has a dis-advantage because the yen, Japan’s currency, is ‘stronger’ than the cur-rencies of the USA, South Korea, and China. It therefore costs Sony more to design and make its prod-ucts. Sony bosses have also been criticised for being slow to make important decisions and for taking too long to get new products into the shops. Some people think Sony tries to make too many things. They say it should choose a few products and then make them really well.

Mr Hirai also outlined, or ex-plained, his plans for changing the company so it starts to make money again. He says Sony will now focus on mobile devices, gaming con-soles, and cameras. He also plans for there to be more integration

among Sony’s smartphones, laptops and tablet computers.

The company is going to sack, or make redundant, 10,000 of its 168,000 employees. It’s expected most of these will be people who work in the part of the company that makes televisions. Sony is selling far fewer televisions than it needs to. Some people suspect the company will soon decide to stop making them.

Mr Hirai said making these changes will not be easy. But he is determined to make sure the compa-ny starts making a profit again. Mr Hirai insists Sony will continue to be one of the world’s best electronic companies.

CANE TOAD HUNT

Thousands of people in Australia have joined in a hunt for cane toads. Many Australians now think of the toads as their country’s ‘Public En-emy Number One’.

In Australia, cane toads are an in-vasive species. This means the toads are not native to the country. They mostly live in the north east area of Australia. Over the years they have been gradually spreading to other parts of the country and are now a serious problem.

Cane toads come from Central and South America. They are known to feed on cane beetles, a type of in-sect that badly damages sugar cane crops. In the 1930s farmers growing sugar cane in Australia were having problems with cane beetles. Some cane toads were brought to Australia to control the beetles. They were re-leased on sugar cane farms in north east Australia in 1935.

The decision was a bad mistake. Unfortunately, the cane toads didn’t eat only cane beetles, but many

other native creatures as well. As they increased in numbers the cane toads ate much of the food that many native animals feed on.

The food and climate in Australia were both good for cane toads. As they have no natural predators there, numbers have quickly multiplied. Female cane toads produce as many as 35,000 eggs twice each year. Adult toads can weigh as much as one kilogram (2.2 pounds).

Another problem is that cane toads produce a toxin, or poison, from glands on their skin. Other ani-mals can die from this toxin if they bite or try to eat a cane toad.

Scientists say whenever cane toads arrive in an area, local species are badly affected. Over time, they learn to avoid the toads and their numbers recover. Yet the toads are still a big problem and continue to spread across the country.

Cane toad

Recently, to try to reduce the cane toad population, the govern-ment has asked people to go out and search for them. Some towns made it into a competition to see who could catch the most. Those hunting the toads are asked to collect them in a bucket and hand them over to wildlife officials. The toads are then killed with a poisonous gas. The of-ficials say this is a less cruel way of getting rid of the toads than encour-aging people to kill them wherever they are found.


WORLD HEALTH DAY

Since 1950, 7th April every year has been marked as World Health Day. In recent years it has had a theme that highlights something to do with health. This year it was ‘Good health adds life to years’.

World Health Day marks the an-niversary of the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO’s headquar-ters are in Geneva, in Switzerland. It is a part of the United Nations (UN), which was set up after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The UN was founded to promote peaceful cooperation among countries and to prevent future wars.

At the time world leaders also thought it would be im-portant for part of the UN to be re-sponsible for everything to do with human health. Today the WHO ad-vises governments on healthcare. It leads projects and studies to improve people’s health in all parts of the world. For example, the WHO re-searches food safety, and vaccines to prevent the spread of certain diseases.

As healthcare improves in many countries (especially richer, or more developed, ones) people are living for much longer than their parents and grandparents did. One reason is that treatments for many illnesses and diseases have improved. Scien-tists are always learning more about the causes of diseases and how to treat them.

Another reason for people living longer is a better understanding of the importance of nutritious foods and healthy lifestyles, or behav-iours. For instance, today, in many

countries far fewer people smoke than they did 50 years ago.

This year’s World Health Day was about how people can begin healthy behaviours now that will improve their health when they be-come much older. The WHO says the greatest risk to older people’s health is ‘non-communicable dis-eases’. These are diseases that are non-infectious, or cannot be passed

from one person to another. Examples are asthma, cancer, diabe-tes, and heart disease.

The WHO says the younger people are when they adopt a healthy lifestyle, the better. Healthy habits, it says, greatly lower the chances of suffer-ing non-communicable diseases. For instance,

doing exercise and not eating too much food that is high in saturated fat can help to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Road safety was chosen as a re-cent World Health Day theme. An-other was mental health. This high-lighted how societies could be more inclusive of people with mental health disorders. In 2010 the theme was ‘Urbanization and health’. This was because most of the world’s population now lives in cities and towns. Urban areas can have their own health problems, such as those caused by overcrowding and home-lessness.

FEATHERED DINOSAUR

We’re used to seeing pictures of dinosaurs that show them as large reptiles, greenish grey in colour, and with scaly skin similar to that

of modern-day iguanas and other lizards. But recent discoveries mean palaeontologists – scientists who study dinosaur fossils – now think many of them were probably more colourful. And some had a covering of ‘fluffy’ feathers.

Today scientists are sure modern-day birds are related to dinosaurs. This was first suggested over 70 years ago because of the similarities between birds’ skeletons and the fos-silised skeletons of some dinosaurs.

Yutyrannus huali (Dr Brian Choo)

One group of dinosaurs that had bird-like skeletons was the therap-ods. The smallest therapods had very light, hollow bones. This is true of birds too. These dinosaurs walked on two feet and had small front arms. Scientists think birds are the descend-ants of the smallest therapods. One of the most famous larger therapods is the Tyrannosaurus rex, or T. rex.

Recently several new therapod fossils have been found in China. They come from a very large thera-pod that had feathers. Until now, the largest therapods known to have feathers would have been around 40 times lighter than the newly discov-ered dinosaur.

The therapod has been given the name Yutyrannus huali. This is a combination of Latin and Manda-rin (the language used in most of China). It means ‘beautiful feath-ered tyrant’. These dinosaurs lived around 125 million years ago, dur-ing the early Cretaceous Period.

World Heath Day poster


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

USA

UK

SYRIA

SWITZERLAND

SWEDEN

SOUTH AFRICA

RUSSIA

PERU

PAKISTAN

MALAWI

JAPAN

INDONESIA

INDIACUBA

COLOMBIA

CHINA

CAMBODIA

AUSTRALIA

ARGENTINA

FalklandIslands

(Malvinas)

NORTHKOREA

The dinosaur is estimated to have weighed around one and a half tonnes. It had 15 centimetre (six inch) long teeth and could run at a speed of about 32 kilometres (20 miles) per hour. Yutyrannus was a carnivore, or meat eater. It may have been an an-cestor of T. rex, which lived around 67 – 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

Because of its size, Yutyrannus was not able to fly. Its feathers were not like those of modern-day birds. Instead, scientists say, they were more like fuzzy filaments or strands. The scientists call these protofeath-ers. Proto comes from an Ancient Greek word that represents ‘first’ or ‘the earliest form of’.

The scientists are not sure why such a big dinosaur had feathers. One possibility is they helped the creature to keep warm. Another idea is that its feathers were colourful so

Yutyrannus used them to attract a possible mate, much like some birds do today.

CLEVER TOILET AWARD

One of the biggest health problems around the world is not having good sanitation or a reliable sup-ply of clean water. Researchers in the UK have been given an award to help them to find a solution to this problem.

Sanitation is the word that de-scribes the supply of clean water and a hygienic way of getting rid of hu-man waste. In parts of many poorer, or less developed, countries, a lack of sanitation is a problem. The World Health Organization (WHO) is the part of the United Nations (UN) that advises countries on health matters. It says seven out of every ten peo-

ple around the world who have poor sanitation live in rural areas.

Reducing the number of people in the world who do not have proper sanitation by 50% is one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These are targets, set sev-eral years ago, for improving things such as health and education in less wealthy countries. Each UN mem-ber country agreed to all the MDGs. There are eight of them.

The MDGs are supposed to be met by 2015. The WHO says the MDG to improve access to clean drinking water may be met. Yet if things don’t improve soon, around 2.7 billion people around the world still won’t


have proper sanitation – such as a ba-sic toilet – by 2015.

One organization that hopes to improve sanitation in poorer countries is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr Gates is the co-founder of the Microsoft Com-pany and one of the world’s rich-est people. He and his wife set up their Foundation in 2000. It has be-come the world’s biggest charitable organisation. It gives money to help to find cures for diseases such as ma-laria, improve healthcare, and reduce poverty in developing countries.

Last year the Foundation an-nounced a competition called the ‘re-inventing the toilet’ challenge. It asked scientists to design a toilet that could be used in a place where there was a poor or intermittent water supply.

The UK scientists believe they can use nanotechnology to do this. The Foundation has awarded them £63,000 (US$100,000) to continue their research. If their invention works, they will be given another £630,000 (US$1 million) to start making the toilets.

Nanotechnology is the science of working with things at the level of their molecules. Everything is made up of molecules, which are groups of atoms joined together. These can be seen only through powerful microscopes.

The scientists say by using nan-otechnology they should be able to create a filter for human waste. It will contain atoms of metal. These will react with the atoms in the hu-man waste. The reaction will extract, or take out, hydrogen. This can then be used to make fuel. The remain-ing waste will then be filtered again and purified to make clean drinking water. So the new toilet will not just recycle water but the chemical reac-tions will create energy too.

NORTH KOREAN ROCKET FAILS

On the morning of 13th April North Korea launched a rocket, which it said was designed to carry a satellite into space. However, after around 90 seconds, the rocket broke apart and fell back into the Yellow Sea, to the west of the country.

Other countries, including the USA and China, had warned North Korea not to launch its rocket. Japan and South Korea had threatened to shoot it down if it were to fly over their territory. These countries sus-pected the rocket launch was re-ally a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). These missiles are designed to carry a nu-clear weapon, or warhead, over very long distances.

Recently unveiled statues of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, capital of North Korea

Experts in the USA say that if this design of rocket were to be used as an ICBM it would have been able to travel around 9,660 kilometres (6,000 miles). This means if the rocket had worked the North Koreans would have managed to develop a nuclear warhead-carrying missile that could even reach parts of the USA.

North Korea is a very secretive nation. People living there may not leave the country without special permission and few visitors are allowed. Although North Korea spends large amounts of money on weapons and its huge army, many people outside Pyongyang, the capi-tal city, do not have enough to eat.

Since North Korea was founded, soon after the end of the Second World War in 1945, members of one family have ruled the country. The leaders are appointed, or chosen, and there are no elections.

The country’s founder and its first leader was Kim Il-sung. When he died in 1994 his son Kim Jong-il took over. Last December it was announced that 69-year-old Kim Jong-il had died of a heart attack. A few days later one of his sons, Kim Jong-un, was confirmed as North Korea’s new leader. Not very much is known about him and he is thought to be about 30 years old.

North Korea is often described as a hereditary dictatorship. Many believe North Koreans have been ‘brainwashed’, or persuaded to be-lieve their leaders are god-like and never do anything wrong.

In recent years North Korea has carried out two underground nu-clear tests. So the country is known to have developed nuclear weapons. When Kim Jong-il was in charge, North Korea agreed more than once to stop developing nuclear weapons in return for gifts of aid from other countries. The USA agreed to give North Korea this aid, such as large supplies of food and oil. But be-cause of the rocket launch, the USA announced it will no longer give any aid to North Korea.

Unusually, North Korean offi-cials had invited many news report-ers from other countries to see its


rocket. It’s thought this was meant to show the rest of the world it was a satellite launch and not a missile test. However, North Korea did strictly control where the reporters were allowed to go and to whom they were allowed to speak.

Most people say the failure of the rocket must be very embarrass-ing for North Korea. It was not until four hours later that a newsreader on the government-run North Korean television channel announced that the rocket had failed.

Kim Il-sung, the founder of the country, was born 100 years ago. The rocket launch was supposed to be part of the centenary celebrations of his birth. In the days after the failed rocket launch two large cer-emonies were held in the centre of Pyongyang. During the first one two huge statues of Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il were unveiled. The second was a large military parade after which Kim Jong-un made his first speech.

SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS

A large meeting, called the sixth Summit of the Americas, was held on 14th and 15th April, in Colom-bia. The meeting took place in Cartagena, a city on the country’s northern coast. Colombia’s presi-dent, Juan Manuel Santos, hosted the summit.

The leaders of about 30 nations from North, South, and Central America attended as well as those from Caribbean countries. These nations are all members of a group called the Organization of American States (OAS). This international or-ganisation is based in Washington DC, the capital of the USA. The only nation from this part of the world

that is not a member of the OAS is Cuba. It was expelled in 1962.

The leaders attending the summit took part in talks on Cuba’s mem-bership, how to stop drug gangs, and Argentina’s argument with the UK over the Falkland Islands.

Cuba’s leader is Raúl Castro. Four years ago he took over from his brother, Fidel Castro, who had led a revolution and taken control of Cuba in 1958. The Russian-led Soviet Union supported Cuba, which became a communist coun-try, under Fidel Castro’s leadership. At the time the USA and the com-munist Russian-led Soviet Union were enemies.

After Fidel Castro took over the USA put a trade embargo on Cuba. Even though Russia and the USA are now no longer enemies, the embargo has never been can-celled, or lifted. It means American companies are not allowed to sell goods to Cuba or buy anything from the country.

Now nearly all OAS members want Cuba to rejoin the organisa-tion. However, Barack Obama, the president of the USA, and Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Cana-da, said they could not agree to this.

When Fidel Castro first took over, some Cuban people who didn’t agree with his ideas left the coun-try. Many went to live in the USA. Later this year, an election will be held for the presidency of the USA. Most people believe one reason Mr Obama would not agree to Cuba be-ing readmitted to the OAS was be-cause it might lose him the support, or votes, of many Cuban Americans. Many people also think it’s unlikely that countries such as the USA and Canada will agree to Cuba rejoining until democratic elections are held in the country.

Much of the illegal drug cocaine is made in some South American countries. Powerful drug gangs, especially in Mexico, make large amounts of money by smuggling cocaine into the USA and other countries. Some leaders at the meet-ing argued that the only way to de-feat these violent drug gangs is to make the use of certain drugs, such as cocaine, legal. But not all agreed.

Summit of the Americas group photograph

Those attending the meeting also disagreed on a proposal made by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the president of Argentina. She wanted all the leaders to support her country’s claim to ownership, or sovereignty, of the Falkland Islands (known as the Malvinas in Argentina).

The Falkland Islands are in the South Atlantic Ocean 470 kilome-tres (290 miles) off the coast of Ar-gentina. Since 1833 they have been controlled by the UK. The Argen-tine government has always insisted the islands belong to Argentina. To-day, about 3,000 people live on the islands. Nearly all are descendants of people from the UK. In 1982 Argentina and the UK fought a ten-week war over the Falklands, in which 900 people died.

While many OAS countries sup-port Argentina’s claim of ownership of the Malvinas, Mr Obama says he remains neutral.

Usually, after these summits there is a joint declaration. This lists what has happened and what future


plans have been agreed on. Yet this time there was no declaration, as not everyone agreed on the main sub-jects discussed.

AVALANCHE IN KASHMIR

A huge avalanche of hundreds of tonnes of rocks and snow buried one of Pakistan’s military bases on 7th April. The base is near the Siachen Glacier, high up in the Himalayan Mountain Range. The glacier forms part of the disputed border between Pakistan and India. None of the 135 people at the base survived.

This part of Kashmir is often de-scribed as ‘the highest battlefield in the world’. Over the last 25 years, troops from India and Pakistan fre-quently fired at each other in the area around the Siachen Glacier. Both countries have thousands of soldiers in the area, even though no-body else lives there.

AFGHANISTA

N

CHINAPAKISTAN

INDIA

Pakistan-controlled Kashmir

India-controlledKashmir

Line of ControlSiachen Glacier

Some of the fighting has taken place in mountainous areas as high as 6,700 metres (22,000 feet). Here it gets very cold, and the soldiers often suffer altitude sickness, caused by a lack of oxygen in the air. In 2003, a ceasefire was arranged and there has been little or no fighting since then.

India was once a colony of the UK. In 1947 the areas that had been ruled by the British became two in-

dependent countries, India and Paki-stan. The borders were based roughly on the religions people followed in the different regions. Most people who live in Pakistan are Muslims. India’s population is mainly Hindu.

The region of Kashmir was di-vided between the two countries. The northern area became part of Pakistan. Almost 100% of people living there are Muslims. The south-ern part was given to India. Many Hindus live in this part, but there are also many Muslims. The dis-puted dividing line between the two parts of Kashmir is called the ‘Line of Control’.

India would like to make this line the official border between the In-dian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir. But Pakistan refuses.

Over the last 60 years the coun-tries have argued a lot over Kashmir, and have even gone to war. Many Muslims who live in the India-con-trolled area of Kashmir want it to become part of Pakistan. Currently

the two countries have agreed on a truce.

Soon after the avalanche, Pa-kistani military commanders used helicopters to take rescue workers and digging equipment to the area. But the base had been buried in snow and rocks up to 24 metres (80 feet) deep. Other countries, includ-ing India, the USA, and Germany, sent teams trained in avalanche res-cues. Yet military commanders in Pakistan said there was no chance of finding anyone alive.

Keeping troops and all their supplies in these high mountain areas cost the governments of both India and Pakistan a lot of money. Some people hope this terrible ac-cident will result in both govern-ments agreeing to demilitarise this area. This means both sides would remove all their military equipment and the soldiers would withdraw from the area.

On 8th April Asif Ali Zardari, the president of Pakistan, travelled to India. He met India’s prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. The last time a president of Pakistan visited India was seven years ago. During his trip, Mr Zardari visited an important Muslim shrine in the country.

NEWSCAST

INVISIBLE WATCH — A church in Russia has got in trouble for doc-toring, or altering, a photograph. The picture was of one of the church’s senior religious leaders sitting at a desk. Some people no-ticed a reflection of an expensive wristwatch on the shiny surface of the desk. But the leader wasn’t wearing a watch. His long black sleeve covered where it should have been. The church was later forced to make an apology. It ad-mitted it had used a computer pro-gram to extend the black sleeve in the picture so the watch was covered up. This may have been because this type of watch costs about £19,000 (US$30,000).

Newsademic.comEditor: Amber Goldie

Acknowledgements:News story photographs by gettyimages

For further details about Newsademic

and subscription prices visit

www.newsademic.com

SCHOOL SUBSCRIBERS MAY

PHOTOCOPY ANY PART OF THIS

NEWSPAPER FOR USE WITHIN

THEIR SCHOOL ONLY.

© Newsademic 2012


ISSUE 169 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

ACROSS 3 Adjective Describes a person or organisation that does not take

sides 6 Noun A substance formed by joining two chemical elements

together 8 Adjective Describes something that stops and starts and then

stops again, and is not constant 10 Verb To separate, break up, and spread out in different directions 11 Adjective Describes something taken on or inherited from the

previous generation 14 Adjective Describes help given with the intention of making

things better for people in need 17 Verb Forced or inserted a substance into something else, usually

with the use of a needle 18 Noun (Plural) Flowers and leaves arranged in a circular shape,

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

19 Noun An official representative, especially one sent by one government to another

20 Verb Forced to leave or move out

DOWN 1 Verb Showed or announced something for the first

time 2 Adjective Describes someone who runs a country or

company by taking all the decisions without consulting others

4 Verb To choose to start using a new way of doing things, such as technology or ideas

5 Noun The combination or joining together of parts so they all work together

7 Adjective Describes something that causes an argument or disagreement

9 Noun A person who rules in a cruel or unjust manner 12 Noun Scattered fragments of rock or wreckage 13 Noun (Plural) Enclosed chambers in which heat is

produced to generate steam, burn rubbish, or make iron and steel

15 Verb Got or obtained something so you now own it 16 Noun A device with a bag that, when squeezed with

two handles, blows out a stream of air


ISSUE 169GLOSSARY 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.

MISSING WORD ANSWER =

ISSUE 168 A

NSW

ERS

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 2nd May 2012 (GMT/UTC).*

C O N C E D E D

* Only applies to those who have purchased a Newsademic Individual or Family Subscription

Demics are tokens that Individual and Family Subscribers can earn. They are awarded for answering this Glossary Puzzle and/or the Daily News question – accessible by logged in users – correctly. Demics earned can be used by Family and Individual Subscribers in the Newsademic online store.

GET EXTRA DEMICS*

news academic

Documents

huge ship

large cruise ship

worlds largest passenger

thirdclass r e

firstclass passenger

richest people

thirdclass included

poorer people