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Sudan (officially the Republic of Sudan) is a country in northeastern Africa. It is the largest country in the African continent and, as a member of the Arab League, also the largest country in the Arab World and tenth largest in the world by area. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea(厄立 特里亚) and Ethiopia to the east, Kenya and Uganda to the southeast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African
T 3. So far 44 people have died of suffocation. F 4. According to the doctors, all the survivors have
regained their consciousness now. F 5. The driver has been arrested for investigation. T 6. The smuggling destination is estimated to be
Questions & Answers
1. Which countries co-host NATO’s 60th anniversary?
France and Germany
2. How did the leaders meet each other?
US President Barack Obama joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other heads of state on the German side of the Rhine River for a symbolic walk across a bridge leading into France. The leaders were joined halfway by French President Nicolas Sarkozy coming from the French side.
Background Knowledge
People smuggling is a term which is used to describe transportation of people across international borders to a non-official entry point of a destination country for a variety of reasons. Typically those being transported may not have adequate formal travel documents or prior approval to enter the destination country.
In the Southwest United States, a "coyote“(山狗) is a person paid to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border between Mexico and the United States. Snakeheads are smugglers from China who smuggle people into the United States and other Western countries.
Human trafficking differs from people smuggling. A people smuggler will facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is usually free.
Republic to the southwest, Chad(乍得) to
west and Libya to the northwest.
Warm-up
Two foreign aid workers have been _k_id_n_a_p_p_e_d_by gunmen in_D__a_rf_u_r_. Sudanese state media said_t_h_e_k_i_d_n_ap_p_e_r_s_w__e_re__d_e_m_a_n_d_i_n_g_a__ra_n_s_o_m__f_or _t_h_e_ir_r_e_l_ea_s_e_. The aid workers have been identified as a _C_a_n_a_d_i_a_n_and a _F_r_e_n_c_h_national. The French Foreign Ministry says its _e_m__b_a_s_sy__in Khartoum was in contact with their agency __A_id_e__M_é_d_ic_a_le__I_n_te_m__a_ti_o_n_a_le_and the__lo_c_a_l _ _a_u_th_o_r_it_ie_s_. The aid group has been operating in Darfur since__2_0_0_4___. Sudan exiled __1_3____ international agencies after _i_n_te_r_n_a_ti_o_n_a_l _a_rr_e_s_t_ __w_a_rr_a_n_t_against President al-Bashir last month for _a_l_le_g_e_d__w_a_r_c_r_im__es___.
Iran.
Background Knowledge
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called "the (North) Atlantic Alliance", is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, and the organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War stimulated the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Is may, famously stated the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion - doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent(威慑) and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure from 1966. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization started building better links with former potential enemies to the east, which peaked with several former Warsaw Pact states joining the alliance in 1999 and 2004. On April 1, 2009, membership was enlarged to 28 with the entrance of Albania and Croatia. Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, NATO has attempted to refocus itself to new challenges and has deployed troops to Afghanistan as well as trainers to Iraq.The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending, with the United States alone accounting for about half the total military spending of the world and the United Kingdom and France accounting for a further 10%.