Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Greece is having a crisis over its money and its leaders. Greece’s crisis is affecting other countries in Europe.
Over time, Greece has borrowed a lot of money–more than it can pay back.
The European Union (EU) is a partnership of 27 countries including Greece.
The EU countries have been working together to come up with a plan to help Greece repay the money it owes.
If Greece can’t figure out a solution for its problems, it may go bankrupt or be forced out of the European Union.
Canada has always done a lot of trading with the United States, the biggest buyer of the products and natural resources it sells.
But now companies in Canada are finding other countries to trade with, like India and China.
A new report written by experts at one of Canada’s biggest banks says that by the end of this decade — the year 2020 — Canada will only trade about 60 per cent of its goods with its neighbouring country, the United States. That’s down from 75 per cent right now.
The most recent country to be formed in the world is called the Republic of South Sudan. It was formed on July 9, 2011.
Before July, South Sudan was part of Sudan, a country in the north-east of Africa. (Sudan itself used to be part of Egypt, but became independent in 1956.)
South Sudan was formed following two civil wars, one in the 1970s and—following an 11-year ceasefire—another which began in the 80s. The southern part of Sudan demanded independence.
When the new country’s independence was declared, its citizens took to the streets of Juba, the capital, to celebrate.
Salva Kiir Mayardit (pictured here) is the president of the new country, which has 10 states.
The former leader of Libya is dead.
Moammar Gadhafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years, had been forced to step down from office when Libyans took to the streets in protest of his brutal dictatorship.
For months, he and his followers fought off the rebels. He maintained to the end that he was still Libya’s ruler.
Then, he disappeared. No one could find him.
All that ended Thursday, when rebel forces shot him to death in his hometown, Sirte.
Gadhafi’s reign over Libya was at times colourful and brutal.
He often acted like an arrogant celebrity, having meetings with dignitaries in an enormous white tent which he set up wherever he went including large cities like Paris and New York.
He had female bodyguards who wore camouflage and high-heels and carried machine guns.
Cougars are becoming a problem on Vancouver Island, BC.
Last September, four cougars were spotted prowling through Victoria (the capital of BC), on Vancouver Island.
Vancouver Island has a growing population of deer who look for food in city gardens and the cougars are following them into the city.
Cougars rarely attack humans, but in the cases where it has happened it is usually because the cougar is hurt or startled.
Dieter Gerhard is a long-time resident of Victoria. “We have a very fat cougar living on the property next door to us,” he said. The cougar is attracted to the deer who come to graze nearby.
There is a park in downtown Toronto called St. James Park.
This week it is filled with “campers.”
Colourful, domed vinyl tents crowd next to each other in the mud.
The campers are cold because there is no heat at night, there is no electricity, and winter is coming. But they persist.
Why are they there? They are camping in St. James Park in Toronto for the same reason they are camping in Zuccotti Park in New York, or outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England.
For the same reason people are camping in 80 other cities around the globe.
It is a protest.
If you turn yourself in to police and admit you were part of last year’s Stanley Cup riot, you could get a free manicure or pedicure.
Last June, there was a major riot in Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to Boston. Crowds swarmed the streets, smashing store windows and stealing things.
So many people were involved that the police are still trying to identify who did what.
Vancouver’s Eccotique Salons has an unusual promotion to help the police identify and arrest the rioters. They are offering a $50 “Calm Down And De-Stress Gift Certificate” to any rioter who gives himself up to police.
The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is heading for Toronto and 950 other cities around the world.
In September, a poster in Adbusters magazine called for people to gather in New York to protest against big companies that make a lot of profit.
Although the protest was rather vague and unfocussed, young people came – and they kept coming.
They met in the “financial district” in New York, NY. The financial district is where many big companies have their headquarters, and where many stockbrokers (people who trade stocks) work.
It’s where a lot of profit is made.
Wall Street is a famous street that defines New York’s financial district.
Steve Jobs changed forever the way the world views, and interacts with, technology.
Jobs passed away last week, at the age of 56, from cancer.
Jobs helped to invent many products including the Macintosh computer, the iPhone, the iPod and the iPad. Along with Steve Wozniak, he founded computer company Apple.
It may be difficult for young people, who may have never known computers and phones before Steve Jobs changed them, to understand the massive impact he made.
A 1984 video of Jobs unveiling a brand-new product called the Macintosh computer, gives some idea.
To us today, the technology seems horribly outdated, clunky and… can you believe it? the images on the tiny computer screen aren’t even in colour!
But listen to the audience in the video as Jobs walks over to a small bag and takes the computer out. It has a handle! It’s small enough to carry! It has graphics, not just text! The audience gasps, cheers and claps because no one has ever seen anything like it.
A Canadian-born scientist recently won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
The Nobel Prize in Medicine is one of five Nobel Prizes given out each year for achievement in various scientific fields.
This year, a very unusual situation occurred – one that required a special emergency meeting of the Nobel Prize committee.
When the Nobel Foundation announced that it was giving the award to three scientists: Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Canadian Ralph Steinman, it didn’t realize that Steinman had died from cancer three days earlier.
