Week two - Syrian civil war

  Life and death in Syria

The war in Syria has raged for five years and claimed the lives of more than a quarter of a million people. Millions have fled the conflict, but nearly 18 million people still live in the war-torn country.

  The United Nations estimates that 17.9 million people still live in Syria — down from 24.5 million before the war broke out. More than 6 million of them are classed as internally displaced after being forced to flee their homes to look for somewhere safer to live.

  Most provinces have seen a sharp decline in population and many of those that remain have fled the cities to seek shelter in the countryside.

  Life goes on as normal in many parts of the capital, Damascus, but elsewhere millions struggle to get by. The UN says 13.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with 4.5 million of those in hard-to-reach and besieged areas like Deir al-Zour.have killed many civilians.

  Five years of war has all but destroyed Syria's economy,  Syrian families face a daily struggle to make ends meet. Nearly 70% of the population are living in extreme poverty, unable to secure basic food and non-food items.

  That struggle is made worse by the state of the farming industry in Syria. Once one of the country's biggest sectors, its production and distribution have been badly affected by the conflict and many regions now have high levels of food insecurity.

  Food has increasingly been used as a weapon, with aid often diverted onto black markets or into government-approved areas. Reports of people starving to death have emerged from besieged areas like Eastern Ghouta, a rebel stronghold on the outskirts of Damascus.  With food production limited and food aid unreliable, getting hold of the essentials can be both difficult and extremely expensive in many areas of the country.

Bread, for example, is a key staple across the Arab world. Before the war, Syria's government subsidised it and other essential food items as part of the country's welfare system in return, it hoped, for the support of its people. But after losing control of vast areas that produce wheat, those subsidies were reduced by the government and the price of bread has rocketed.

Even for those that have survived, the outlook remains bleak. As families have fled Syria for safer shores, the number of school-age children in the country has dwindled — there are a million fewer now than there were in 2010. And of those that are still there, more than 40% are no longer going to school.

Syria's education system has been shattered by the war, with one in four schools having been damaged or destroyed, used as a shelter, or converted into a military building. Even if the schools were intact, many would be unable to open, with almost one quarter of the country's teaching personnel — some 52,500 teachers — no longer in their posts.

URL：http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-841ebc3a-1be9-493b-8800-2c04890e8fc9


Structure of the Lead：
ＷＨＯ：Analysis population, food and educating in Syria.
ＷＨＥＮ：2011 until now.
ＷＨＡＴ：Syrian civil war continued struggle.
ＷＨＹ：Not given.
ＷＨＥＲＥ：Syria
ＨＯＷ：Most of them wrestle with death every day.

Week one - emoji

  Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is emoji 

  For the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph: emjio, officially called the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, though you may know it by other names. There were other strong contenders from a range of fields, outlined below, but emoji was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015.

  Emojis (the plural can be either emoji or emojis) have been around since the late 1990s, but 2015 saw their use, and use of the word emoji, increase hugely. This year Oxford University Press have partnered with leading mobile technology business SwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and emoji was chosen because it was the most used emoji globally in 2015.
  An emoji is ‘a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication’; the term emoji is a loanword from Japanese, and comes from e ‘picture’ + moji ‘letter, character’. The similarity to the English word emoticon has helped its memorability and rise in use, though the resemblance is actually entirely coincidental: emoticon (a facial expression composed of keyboard characters, such as ;), rather than a stylized image) comes from the English words emotion and icon.
  Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens – instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers. Even Hillary Clinton solicited feedback in the form of emojis, and emoji has had notable use from celebrities and brands alongside everyone else – and even appeared as the caption to the Vine which apparently kicked off the popularity of the term on fleek, which appears on our WOTY shortlist.
  Now that we’re all used to emojis being a shorthand method of communicating our thoughts, emotions, and responses.

URL：http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/11/word-of-the-year-2015-emoji/

Structure of the Lead：
ＷＨＯ：The new Oxford Dictionaries Word of 2015
ＷＨＥＮ：2015
ＷＨＡＴ：It's the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph.
ＷＨＹ：Emojis have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers.
ＷＨＥＲＥ：Not given
ＨＯＷ：Most of celebrity use it common.