Mapped: Where is same sex marriage legal in the world?

By Raziye Akkoc

7:03AM BST 21 May 2015

It has been more than a decade since the first country legalised gay marriage and now Ireland is set to be the first nation to legalise it by referendum on Friday.


The Yes campaign is widely expected to win anywhere between 60 and 75 per cent of the vote, though some say the country's more conservative church going, elderly and rural communities could yet turn out in force for the No campaign.


In 2001, the Netherlands made gay marriage legal and went further in giving gay people opportunities previously denied by granting the right to adopt children.


The UK approved same sex marriage last year under the Coalition of Lib Dems and Conservatives.


Over the past twelve years, nearly 20 countries have legalised gay marriage and 37 states in the US have done so, as this map shows, using data from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).

According to the ILGA, Luxembourg, Finland and Slovenia were the most recent countries to approve gay marriage earlier this year. Although it has been approved, same sex marriage will be in force from March 2017 in Finland.

Anne-Marie Thus and Helene Faasen as well as three male couples were married in the first legal same sex marriage ceremony in the world on April 1, 2001 by Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam.

But it was Denmark who first approved civil partnerships in 1989 for gay couples.

In the US, 37 states have legalised gay marriage but the issue has returned to the forefront of American political debate. The Supreme Court justices began looking at whether gay marriage should be legal across the US, guaranteed by the Constitution.

In Mexico, gay marriage is legal in some parts including in Mexico City.

Despite there being a lot of movement towards more gay rights across the world, Stonewall said there was much more to be done to guarantee equality for gay people worldwide.

"We know that equal marriage in Britain is incredibly important to same-sex couples, their families, friends, congregations and communities. The same is no doubt true in Ireland.

"Equal marriage remains an important step toward full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, but there still remains much more to do to ensure full equality is achieved," a spokesman for the charity said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/11621812/Mapped-Where-is-same-sex-marriage-legal-in-the-world.html

Structure of the Lead:
WHO- Ireland
WHEN- Friday
WHAT- Ireland is set to be the first nation to legalise it by referendum
WHY- equal marriage remains an important step toward full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people
WHERE- Ireland
HOW- by referendum

Keywords:

1. referendum- 公民投票權；請示書

2. grant- 給予

3. coalition- 聯合政府

4. bisexual- 雙性戀的

5. intersex- 陰陽人

6. forefront- 最前線

7. congregation- 集合；會眾

AlphaGo beats Lee Sedol in third consecutive Go game

by Steven Borowiec
Saturday 12 March 2016 11.25 GMT


Google’s AlphaGo computer program has won a third and decisive encounter with a top-ranked player of the Chinese board game Go in a victory marking significant developments in artificial intelligence.

Lee Sedol, who is the world’s second best player of the strategy game, lost three games in a row in Seoul this week, with the latest AlphaGo victory on Saturday handing Google the best-of-five match.

“I’ve never played a game where I felt this amount of pressure, and I wasn’t able to overcome this pressure,” Lee said at a post-game press conference.

Go has simple rules, but is highly intuitive and complex in practice. Mastering it has been an exceptionally difficult task for even the world’s best IT designers.

“We came here to challenge Lee, to learn from him and see what AG was capable of,” said Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google’s artificial intelligence business, DeepMind, which created the program.

“AlphaGo controlled the momentum over more than four hours of gameplay, with Lee struggling to maintain territory against the program’s creative approach. Google DeepMind taught AlphaGo to recognise the optimal move in thousands of possible scenarios.”


AlphaGo’s dominance amounts to a significant, and much faster than previously expected, advance in artificial intelligence.


Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who was in Seoul to watch the third match, described Go as a beautiful game and said he was excited the company had been able to “instil that kind of beauty in our computers”.

Michael Redmond, one of the match’s commentators and a professional Go player, said some people initially doubted AlphaGo’s abilities. “After three matches and three straight victories, we are convinced,” he said.

AlphaGo won $1m in prize money, which Google DeepMind said would be donated to charities, including Unicef and Go organisations.

“AlphaGo controlled the game amazingly,” said Fan Hui, the European Go champion who was the first professional player to lose to the program when he played it in October.

Hui said the advances in artificial intelligence appeared to bode well for the future of the ancient game.

“We now have this new way of learning about Go. And look how many people are watching this now. More and more people are interested in Go now.”


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/12/alphago-beats-lee-sedol-in-third-consecutive-go-game

Structure of the Lead:

WHO- AlphaGo, Lee Sedol

WHEN- Saturday

WHAT- a top-ranked player of the Chinese board game Go in a victory marking significant developments in artificial intelligence

WHY- AlphaGo controlled the momentum over more than four hours of gameplay

WHERE- Seoul

HOW- Google DeepMind taught AlphaGo to recognise the optimal move in thousands of possible scenarios

Keywords:

1. decisive- 決定性的

2. intuitive- 直覺的

3. exceptionally- 格外的

4. momentum- 動力

5. optimal- 最佳的

6. instil- 使滲透

7. commentator- 解說員

8. bode- 預言

Phil Hogan: Brexit means 'new Ireland-UK relationship'

9 January 2017
From the section Northern Ireland

The Republic of Ireland's relationship with the UK will have to change in a post-Brexit Europe, Ireland's EU agriculture commissioner has said.

Phil Hogan said: "Our common interest with the UK in many areas has been a defining characteristic of our EU membership to date."

But this would now be an "enormous mistake" in Brexit negotiations.

Speaking in two national newspapers on Monday, Mr Hogan also said "Brexit is a mess and getting messier".

Writing in The Irish Times, he said: "There is a real risk that Ireland could allow our relationship with Europe to be defined by our relationship with the UK, which would be an enormous mistake in my view.

"Instead, we should have the confidence and direction to recognise that post-Brexit Ireland will need to have in place a wholly different set of relationships with our EU partners."

He also said the country needed to protect its trading ties with the UK and "manage how Brexit impacts on the island as a whole".

'Special case'

In the Irish Independent, he warned that if the UK leaves the EU single market then "a hard border" with Northern Ireland looked inevitable.

He said avoiding such a scenario centred on the EU treating the entire island as a special case and single unit.

The UK voted to leave the EU by 52% to 48% in June's referendum, though Northern Ireland voted to remain by a 56% majority.

Prime Minister Theresa May has said she intends to trigger the official process of leaving by the end of March, meaning the UK will be expected to have left by the summer of 2019, depending on the precise timetable agreed during the Brexit negotiations.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-38554049

Structure of the Lead:

WHO- Phil Hogan

WHEN- Monday

WHAT- He said something about the Brexit in the newspapers

WHY- not given

WHERE- not given

HOW- not given

Keywords:

1. commissioner- 長官

2. define- 規定；使明確

3. characteristic- 特性；特色；獨特的

4. wholly- 完全地

5. inevitable- 不可避免的

6. scenario- 事態；局面

7. referendum- 公民投票

White Helmets: Inside look at Syria's first responders

By CLARISSA WARD / CBS NEWS / March 16, 2015, 7:20 PM

INSIDE SYRIA -- Syria has incurred a devastating toll from its bloody civil war. Now in its fifth year, more than 215,000 have been killed; nearly 4 million have fled; and the United Nations says the life expectancy has dropped 20 years from 76 to 56. Yet in the face of this unrelenting brutality, heroes have emerged.

When the bombs rain down on Syria, it is the White Helmets who run in to help. These brave volunteers claw and saw their way through the rubble to save those buried beneath. One video shows them pulling a 2-week-old baby alive after it had spent 16 hours trapped under a flattened house.

At a training session in a neighboring country, the volunteers learned how to break through concrete and put out fires.

Ala'a, a 26-year-old from Aleppo, is one of more than 2,000 Syrians who have joined the group. He says he feels very proud to be helping.

"Everyone loves us in Syria," he said. "We deal with all the different groups."

It is dangerous work. The regime has dropped roughly 1,000 bombs on Aleppo in the last year alone -- most of them crudely made barrel bombs packed with explosives and shrapnel. Often planes circle back a short time later to drop a second bomb, targeting rescue workers.

Ala'a told us his friend was killed this way.

"He was just 200 yards ahead of us and then suddenly a second barrel bomb landed on his car," said Ala'a. "I felt desperate. World leaders are watching the Syrian people dying and they do nothing."

But the White Helmets are undeterred. Even in the most hopeless of situations, lives can be saved.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-helmets-inside-look-at-syrias-first-responders/

Structure of the Lead:

WHO- White Helmets

WHEN- During the time of Syria civil war

WHAT- They try hard to save those buried beneath

WHY- They feel very proud to be helping

WHERE- in Syria

HOW- They claw and saw their way through the rubble

Keywords:

1. incur- 遭受

2. devastating- 毀滅性的

3. toll- 損失；傷亡；通行費
4. unrelenting- 無情的
5. brutality- 暴虐行為
6. rubble- 瓦礫堆
7. concrete- 具體的；混凝土
8. regime- 政權
9. crudely- 粗糙地
10. barrel- 槍管；炮筒
11. shrapnel- 砲彈碎片；榴散彈
12. desperate- 絕望的
13. undeterred- 不受阻的

Navy drone makes history with refueling maneuver

By Jamie Crawford, National Security Producer
Updated 1029 GMT (1829 HKT) April 23, 2015

Washington (CNN)The latest version of unmanned naval aerial combat vehicles achieved another first on Wednesday when it conducted its first aerial refueling test, the Navy announced.
While flying off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, the X-47B, an unmanned vehicle designed to eventually operate off naval aircraft carriers, successfully connected to an Omega K-707 refueling tanker and received more than 4,000 pounds of fuel, the Navy said in a press release.

"What we accomplished today demonstrates a significant, groundbreaking step forward for the Navy," Capt. Beau Duarte, the manager for the Navy's Unmanned Carrier Aviation program, said in the release. "The ability to autonomously transfer and receive fuel in flight will increase the range and flexibility of future unmanned aircraft platforms, ultimately extending carrier power projection."

This is the latest in a series of firsts for the remotely piloted plane that the Navy hopes to develop into a battle-ready aircraft that can operate safely alongside its manned counterparts aboard aircraft carriers.

In 2013, an X-47B became the first unmanned aircraft to take off and land from an aircraft carrier, although all other aircraft were removed from the deck before the test flight. Last year, it became the first such aircraft to take off and land alongside a manned plane, an F/A-18 Hornet on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

It was not known going into the test whether the aircraft would be able to effectively maneuver its probe used to take in fuel with the tanker's drogue, also called the basket, in the same way a pilot would be able to position their aircraft in a refueling operation.


"In manned platforms, aerial refueling is a challenging maneuver because of the precision required by the pilot to engage the basket," Duarte said. "Adding an autonomous functionality creates another layer of complexity."


A part of the Navy's Unmanned-Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike system, the X-47B will eventually be developed into follow on aircraft the Navy hopes to deploy into operation in 2020 or beyond.


http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/22/politics/navy-aircraft-makes-history/index.html



Structure of the Lead：

WHO- the latest version of unmanned naval aerial combat vehicles
WHEN- on Wednesday
WHAT- it conducted its first aerial refueling test
WHY- not given
WHERE- the coast of Maryland and Virginia
HOW- not given

Keywords：
1. drone- 無人駕駛飛機；嗡嗡聲
2. refuel- 補給燃料
3. maneuver- 演習
4. unmanned- 無人駕駛的
5. naval- 軍艦的；海軍的
6. aerial- 航空的
7. combat- 戰鬥
8. tanker- 油槽
9. groundbreaking- 開創性的
10. aviation- 軍用飛機
11. autonomously- 自律地
12. deck- 甲板；層
13. drogue- 風向指示筒；浮標

At climate talks, a few letters that almost sank the deal

A pact to slow global warming was reached Saturday. We’re providing insights and analysis.

December 14, 2015
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

PARIS — In the 11th hour before the landmark climate deal was approved on Saturday, a few letters threatened to derail years of calculated negotiations and two weeks of intense diplomacy — those that made “should” into “shall.”

Those two words may seem disarmingly similar, but on the international stage, they are worlds apart in terms of the diplomatic meaning they carry. The legally binding “shall” stopped the United States cold when it showed up on Saturday in what was to be the final draft of the historic pact.

Throughout the process, the longer and less binding “should” was a deliberate part of the international agreement, put there to establish that the richest countries, including the United States, felt obligated to pony up money to help poor countries adapt to climate change and make the transition to sustainable energy systems. “Shall” meant something altogether different, American officials said.

When “shall” was spotted in the document on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry called his French counterpart and made it clear that unless a switch was made, France could not count on American support for the agreement.

“I said: ‘We cannot do this and we will not do this. And either it changes, or President Obama and the United States will not be able to support this agreement,’ ” Mr. Kerry told reporters after delegates had accepted the deal by consensus Saturday night, amid cheering and the celebratory stamping of feet.

In the world of diplomatic negotiations, seeking a culprit or trying to ferret out ill intention from another party could have spelled doom for an effort that the French and the Americans were equally eager to see succeed.

With talks already running past their Friday deadline, the French conceded the change of wording had simply been “a mistake.” By humbling the “shall” to the status of a typo, it could swiftly be “fixed” and replaced by the more benign “should.”

The fix made, within hours, the 31-page text was presented and adopted. The French had succeeded; the Americans were appeased.

“It was a genuine – it was a mistake,” Mr. Kerry, a seasoned diplomat, said with finality. “I am convinced.”

— MELISSA EDDY


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/climate/2015-paris-climate-talks


Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Secretary of State John Kerry of America
WHEN- In the 11th hour before the landmark climate deal
WHAT- American officials refused to support for the agreement
WHY- those "should" were changed to be "shall" which is tougher
WHERE- in Paris
HOW- by wrong typing

Keywords：
1. derail- 阻礙；出軌
2. calculated- 預先計畫的
3. intense- 緊張的；重大的
4. diplomacy- 策略；外交手腕
5. disarmingly- 消除敵意的
6. binding- 必須遵守的
7. deliberate- 謹慎的
8. obligate- 強制
9. pony- 借助；付清
10. sustainable- 可承受的
11. consensus- 一致
12. culprit- 罪犯；起因
13. ferret- 查獲
14. doom- 判決
15. conceded- 讓步
16. benign- 仁慈的
17. appease- 安撫

The Martian: Matt Damon gets spaced out in Ridley Scott's isolation thriller

The first trailer for the Alien-director’s new space adventure has a Nasa astronaut stranded on Mars with only his wits … and a potato

Monday 8 June 2015 15.19 BST
By Henry Barnes

Out there in space, fiddling with his gizmos and worrying his spuds, is Matt Damon.

He’s adrift in the service of The Martian, Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Andy Weir’s best-selling science fiction novel. Damon stars as Nasa astronaut Mark Watney. Stranded on Mars after a dust storm, Watney must survive the four years until the next crew arrives in a pod designed to last a month. He’ll have to grow his own crops and hand tool a means of making contact with ground control. In his own words he’ll need to “science the shit out of this” to stay alive.

The Martian rides in the slip stream of Gravity and Interstellar with Weir, a space nut with a background in computer science, grounding cosmic fantasy in reality. He’s apparently designed software to plot the trajectory of a successful flight to Mars and says he’s proud that the plot is “science-lead”. Great news for anyone who found Interstellar’s quantum physics bookshelf banjo finale a bit woolly.

The Martian’s supporting cast is a doozy, with Jessica Chastain, Michael Peña and Kate Mara signing up as the crew of Damon’s ship, Ares 3. Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jeff Daniels play the suits on the ground.

A promotional video for the film has Damon as Watney touring the ship and introducing the crew. The tone is not dissimilar to the opening of Alien – establishing the relationships between workmates before letting chaos loose.

The storm closes in. The crew is divided. Watney is missing, presumed dead. He gets to planting and tinkering to save himself from Mars. “Help is only 140 million miles away,” runs the tagline. Scott, who helped to invent the space isolation horror, knows how to make solitude scary. We think The Martian could be stellar. What about you?


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/08/the-martian-matt-damon-ridley-scott


Structure of the Lead：
WHO- Matt Damon, as Watney in The Martian
WHEN- not given
WHAT- Watney is trying to save himself from Mars
WHY- a storm happened and made him presumed dead on Mars
WHERE- on Mars
HOW- by planting crops and tinkering to do everything

Keywords：
1. stranded- 處於困境的
2. fiddle- 擺弄；虛度光陰
3. gizmos- 小玩意兒
4. spuds- 小鋤頭；馬鈴薯
5. adrift- 漫無目的的
6. pod- （太空船的）分離艙
7. interstellar- 星際的
8. cosmic- 宇宙的
9. trajectory- 軌道
10. quantum- 量子
11. finale- 終曲；尾聲
12. woolly- 模糊的；毛茸茸的
13. doozy- 極好的東西
14. chaos- 混沌
15. presume- 假定
16. tinker- 笨拙的做事
17. solitude- 人煙罕至的地方
18. stellar- 傑出的；主要的