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