4 . Scotland is a country in Great Britain, to the north of England. Scotland has nearly 800 islands, but people only live on some of them. About five million people live in Scotland, which is 8.5% of the UK population. Most people live in the south of the country, in and around the cities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and Dundee.

In Scotland, most people speak English and Scots and a minority speak Scottish Gaelic, an old Celtic language which is very different from English. Scots is spoken by young and old people and sometimes people mix Scots and English. Some words in Scots are the same as in English and some are different.

The most popular sport in Scotland is football and famous teams include Celtic and Rangers, from Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city. Another popular game, golf, was invented in Scotland in the Middle Ages. You can go skiing in winter at Scotland’s five mountain ski fields and any time of the year at snow sports centers around the country.

When people think of Scottish food, they often think of haggis, a type of sausage made from parts of a sheep. However, Scotland is also known for its variety of seafood and beef.

Blue is a colour which is often connected with Scotland. The Scottish flag is blue with a white X-shaped cross called the Saint Andrew’s cross. St Andrew is the Patron Saint(守护神) of Scotland. Everywhere you go in Scotland, you will see tartan(苏格兰格子呢), kilts and bagpipes. Also, look out for the national animal, the unicorn, and the thistle, the national flower of Scotland.

7 . When photographer Birte Kaufmann was on a trip with friends in the Irish countryside, she met Irish Travellers. How could she dig deeper into their culture, Kaufmann wondered. She made plans to photograph them.

A nomadic (流浪的) group, the Travellers have lived on the margins (边缘) of mainstream Irish society for centuries. Efforts have been made to bring the community into mainstream culture by settling ( 安置) them into government housing and enforcing school attendance. But even living among “settled people”, they face ongoing unfair treatment.

To get access to the community, Kaufmann first asked for help from human rights groups, but failed. Then she decided to do it the hard way. On her next trip to Ireland, she simply went to the community. 

A young woman came up, speaking poor English. Kaufmann decided to lay her cards on the table. “I told her that I knew who they are and was interested in how they live,” Kaufmann says.

“The woman was totally surprised, but finally her family invited me for a cup of tea. I asked them if I could stay with them,” Kaufmann says. “They laughed, as if to say, ‘Yeah, right.’”

One of the family members — a young mother who took a particular shine to Kaufmann — began teaching her Gammon, their unwritten language. “She tried to teach me words to say if the men are being rude,” she says. “She tried to make me feel more comfortable.”

The men gradually accepted Kaufmann and allowed her to photograph them. She was able to photograph them as an observer of their everyday lives — lives, she says, that are filled with a lot of free time. As Ireland becomes less agrarian (农业的), the Travellers’ work as horse traders, farm laborers, etc. has become more scarce (稀少的).

“On the one hand life was so sad and boring because everything their lives depended on wasn’t there anymore. On the other hand there was this freedom — they live their lives in their own way,” Kaufmann says.

9 . COVID-19 shutdowns forced people out of work and pushed tens of millions into poverty worldwide. Governments tried hard to provide aid. It was easy in a small country, but difficult for a country with large population and vast rural areas.     1     Doing a detailed, nationwide, house-to-house survey takes people time and money. Luckily, satellites can see poverty from space.

Researchers have been finding ways to identify areas of wealth and poverty in satellite images. Through some satellite data and aerial images of one town or another, you can sort of tell whether it’s wealthy or not. Wealthier homes tend to have metal roofs while poor homes tend to have thatched roofs. Wealthier neighborhoods have paved roads and bigger plots of lands, more spaced out.     2     The researchers trained artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize these patterns.

    3     The researchers put AI to work studying patterns of mobile phone use in those regions. Rich people will make just more phone calls than poor people. They also might make more expensive international calls. They might use more mobile data because they have smartphones.     4    

The researchers use the system to identify about 60,000 people to receive benefits. The advantage of the satellite imagery and phone data approach is that it’s extremely fast and very convenient.     5     In shocks like climate disasters where there’s no time or way to get detailed information on the ground, satellites mobile phones and AI could help deliver aid quickly to people in need.

10 .     1    

During the wartime, military technologies developed quickly. Air raids (空袭) had an extremely destructive impact on wildlife populations as they contributed to the destruction of habitats. Apart from the bombs dropped during air raids, aircraft were also a significant source of air pollution. The most devastating environmental impact of the war was caused by the atomic bombs used by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bombs destroyed the natural wildlife in the area in seconds. A significant number of fish and land animals died.

·The Vietnam War

    2    . During the war, the Vietnamese hid in the forests which led to the Americans using chemical agents to clear them. The chemical agents quickly destroyed the trees’ leaves. One of the main chemicals was Agent Orange. Apart from affecting the environment it caused congenital (先天性的) disabilities among the Vietnamese.     3    . Years after the trees were sprayed, many animals and plants were unable to regenerate.

·The Rwandan Genocide

One of the major impacts of the Rwandan Genocide was the massive loss of life. It has been estimated that more than 800,000 people died.     4    . Large numbers of trees were cut down to provide wood used by the refugees (难民) as they fled from their homes. The war also reduced the population of wildlife within Rwanda’s borders.

·The Gulf War

During the Gulf War, one of the main participants, the Iraqi military, used the scorched earth policy that dramatically affected the land in Kuwait.     5    . This brought great disasters to sea animals.