week1 福斯汽車

Volkswagen: The scandal explained

What is Volkswagen accused of?

It's been dubbed the "diesel dupe". In September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many VW cars being sold in America had a "defeat device" - or software - in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant has since admitted cheating emissions tests in the US.

VW has had a major push to sell diesel cars in the US, backed by a huge marketing campaign trumpeting its cars' low emissions. The EPA's findings cover 482,000 cars in the US only, including the VW-manufactured Audi A3, and the VW models Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat. But VW has admitted that about 11 million cars worldwide, including eight million in Europe, are fitted with the so-called "defeat device".

The company has also been accused by the EPA of modifying software on the 3 litre diesel engines fitted to some Porsche and Audi as well as VW models. VW has denied the claims, which affect at least 10,000 vehicles.

In November, VW said it had found "irregularities" in tests to measure carbon dioxide emissions levels that could affect about 800,000 cars in Europe - including petrol vehicles. However, in December it said that following investigations, it had established that this only affected about 36,000 of the cars it produces each year.

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This 'defeat device' sounds like a sophisticated piece of kit.

Full details of how it worked are sketchy, although the EPA has said that the engines had computer software that could sense test scenarios by monitoring speed, engine operation, air pressure and even the position of the steering wheel.

When the cars were operating under controlled laboratory conditions - which typically involve putting them on a stationary test rig - the device appears to have put the vehicle into a sort of safety mode in which the engine ran below normal power and performance. Once on the road, the engines switched out of this test mode.

The result? The engines emitted nitrogen oxide pollutants up to 40 times above what is allowed in the US.

What has been VW's response?

"We've totally screwed up," said VW America boss Michael Horn, while the group's chief executive at the time, Martin Winterkorn, said his company had "broken the trust of our customers and the public". Mr Winterkorn resigned as a direct result of the scandal and was replaced by Matthias Mueller, the former boss of Porsche.

"My most urgent task is to win back trust for the Volkswagen Group - by leaving no stone unturned," Mr Mueller said on taking up his new post.

VW has also launched an internal inquiry.

With VW recalling millions of cars worldwide from early next year, it has set aside €6.7bn (£4.8bn) to cover costs. That resulted in the company posting its first quarterly loss for 15 years of €2.5bn in late October.

But that's unlikely to be the end of the financial impact. The EPA has the power to fine a company up to $37,500 for each vehicle that breaches standards - a maximum fine of about $18bn.

The costs of possible legal action by car owners and shareholders "cannot be estimated at the current time", VW added.

How widespread are VW's problems?

What started in the US has spread to a growing number of countries. The UK, Italy, France, South Korea, Canada and, of course, Germany, have opened investigations. Throughout the world, politicians, regulators and environmental groups are questioning the legitimacy of VW's emissions testing.

VW will recall 8.5 million cars in Europe, including 2.4 million in Germany and 1.2 million in the UK, and 500,000 in the US as a result of the emissions scandal.

No wonder the carmaker's shares have fallen by about a third since the scandal broke.

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Will more heads roll?

It's still unclear who knew what and when, although VW must have had a chain of management command that approved fitting cheating devices to its engines, so further departures are likely.

Christian Klingler, a management board member and head of sales and marketing is leaving the company, although VW said this was part of long-term planned structural changes and was not related to recent events.

In 2014, in the US, regulators raised concerns about VW emissions levels, but these were dismissed by the company as "technical issues" and "unexpected" real-world conditions. If executives and managers wilfully misled officials (or their own VW superiors) it's difficult to see them surviving.

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Are other carmakers implicated?

That's for the various regulatory and government inquiries to determine. California's Air Resources Board is now looking into other manufacturers' testing results. Ford, BMW and Renault-Nissan have said they did not use "defeat devices", while other firms have either not commented or simply stated that they comply with the law.

The UK trade body for the car industry, the SMMT, said: "The EU operates a fundamentally different system to the US - with all European tests performed in strict conditions as required by EU law and witnessed by a government-appointed independent approval agency."

But it added: "The industry acknowledges that the current test method is outdated and is seeking agreement from the European Commission for a new emissions test that embraces new testing technologies and is more representative of on-road conditions."

That sounds like EU testing rules need tightening, too.

Environmental campaigners have long argued that emissions rules are being flouted. "Diesel cars in Europe operate with worse technology on average than the US," said Jos Dings, from the pressure group Transport & Environment. "Our latest report demonstrated that almost 90% of diesel vehicles didn't meet emission limits when they drive on the road. We are talking millions of vehicles."

Car analysts at the financial research firm Bernstein agree that European standards are not as strict as those in the US. However, the analysts said in a report that there was, therefore, "less need to cheat". So, if other European carmakers' results are suspect, Bernstein says the "consequences are likely to be a change in the test cycle rather than legal action and fines".

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It's all another blow for the diesel market.

Certainly is. Over the past decade and more, carmakers have poured a fortune into the production of diesel vehicles - with the support of many governments - believing that they are better for the environment. Latest scientific evidence suggests that's not the case, and there are even moves to limit diesel cars in some cities.

Diesel sales were already slowing, so the VW scandal came at a bad time. "The revelations are likely to lead to a sharp fall in demand for diesel engine cars," said Richard Gane, automotive expert at consultants Vendigital.

"In the US, the diesel car market currently represents around 1% of all new car sales and this is unlikely to increase in the short to medium term.

"However, in Europe the impact could be much more significant, leading to a large tranche of the market switching to petrol engine cars virtually overnight."

Who  Volkswagen

What  The German car giant has since admitted cheating emissions tests in the US.

When  September

Where  US and Germany

Why  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many VW cars being sold in America had a "defeat device" - or software - in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results.

Keywords

1 diesel 柴油機

2 trumpeting 鼓吹

3 modifying 修改

4 mode 模式

5 legitimacy 合法

6 breach 違反

7 campaigner 活動者

8 regulator 監管機構

9 fundamentally 從根本上地

10 tranche 一期款項；(收入或股票的)一份

week3-敘利亞難民

Migrant crisis: Drowned boy's father speaks of heartbreak

The father of a three-year-old Syrian boy found drowned on a beach in Turkey has told the BBC of the harrowing circumstances of his death.

Alan Kurdi's father Abdullah said that shortly after their boat left Turkey for the Greek island of Kos it was hit by waves and the captain swam off.

"I tried to catch my children and wife but there was no hope. One by one they died," Mr Kurdi said.

The family were among thousands fleeing Syria and seeking a new life abroad.

Images of Alan's body being recovered from a beach near Bodrum caused an outpouring of sympathy for the plight of those fleeing Syria's civil war and criticism of European governments for not doing enough to answer the crisis.

Thousands of migrants have died this year trying to reach Europe by sea.

"I tried to steer the boat but another high wave pushed the boat over. That is when it happened," Mr Kurdi said.

"My children were the most beautiful children in the world. Is there anybody in the world for whom their child is not the most precious thing?" Mr Kurdi said.

"My kids were amazing. They woke me every day to play with me. What is more beautiful than this? Everything is gone.

"I would love to sit next to the grave of my family now and relieve the pain I feel," he said.

Alan, his five-year-old brother Ghalib and mother Rehanna were among 12 Syrians who died after two boats capsized soon after setting off for Kos.

Turkish police have arrested four suspected traffickers over the deaths. The four men are all Syrian nationals aged between 30 and 41, according to the Turkish Dogan news agency.

Alan and the rest of the group his family was travelling with are believed to have been Syrians from the besieged town of Kobane who had fled to Turkey last year to escape advancing militants from the Islamic State (IS) group.

A Turkish hospital official told AFP news agency that the bodies of the family would be flown to Istanbul and then to Suruc on the Turkish border before reaching Kobane.

Abdullah's sister in Vancouver, Teema Kurdi, said she had wanted to bring him and his family to Canada but had first tried to sponsor another brother - an application that had failed.

Canada's department of citizenship and immigration confirmed that there was no record of an application for Abdullah Kurdi and his family.

Who  Alan Kurdi's father Abdullah 

What  He has told the BBC of the harrowing circumstances of his son's death.

When Not given

Where Not given

How Not given

Why The harrowing circumstances of his son's death

Keywords

1 harrow 傷痛；使痛苦

2 circumstance 命運；境遇

3 flee 逃離

4 outpouring 湧現(n.)

5 steer 操縱；掌舵

6 capsize 翻覆

7 trafficker 販子；做違法勾當者

8 besiege 圍攻；圍困

9 militant 激進份子

10 sponsor 資助

week2-天津爆炸

China explosions: What we know about what happened in Tianjin

Two massive explosions in the port of Tianjin, northern China, have killed more than a hundred people, left hundreds more injured and devastated large areas of the city.

Much of what took place, or is still happening now, is unclear - but here is what we do know.

How did the blasts happen?

They took place at a warehouse at the port which contained hazardous and flammable chemicals, including calcium carbide, sodium cyanide, potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate and sodium nitrate.

Officials insist it is not yet clear what triggered the blasts and say they are still investigating. Chinese media said that at least one member of staff from Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics, which owns the warehouse, has been arrested.

Before the explosions, several firefighters were already at the scene trying to control a blaze. There have been suggestions that water sprayed on some of the chemicals could have led to the blasts.

Calcium carbide, known to be at the site, reacts with water to create the highly explosive acetylene.

Chemical experts suggest an acetylene blast could then have detonated the other chemicals for a much larger blast.

How big were the explosions?

The China Earthquake Networks Centre said the initial explosion, in a city with a population of around 15 million, had a power equivalent to three tonnes of TNT detonating, while the second was the equivalent of 21 tonnes.

The second was so big that satellites orbiting Earth picked it up as well.

How bad is the devastation?

The explosion destroyed a significant amount of goods stored at and around the port, in the Binhai New District.

Large shipping containers were tossed into the air like matchsticks and were crumpled by the blasts.

A logistics park containing several thousand cars was incinerated by the fireball. Renault says some 1,500 of its cars were lost, while Hyundai said it had around 4,000 cars on the site - although it has not yet assessed the level of damage.

The blast wave rippled out several kilometres from the port into residential areas.

The impact rocked entire buildings, shattered windows and tore doors off their hinges.

More than 720 people were taken to hospital, of whom nearly 60 are either critically or seriously injured. Reuters reports that several thousand people living near the port have had to leave their homes, and are now staying in local schools.

How are the blasts being dealt with?

More than 1,000 firefighters were dispatched to the scene to contain the fires. On Monday, authorities said they were putting out one last area that was still burning, and the last of the toxic chemicals would be neutralised and disposed of by the end of the day.

More than 200 chemical and biological experts from the military were on site earlier.

President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have vowed to hold a thorough investigation and ensure "open and transparent information disclosure to the public".

China has also ordered a nationwide check on dangerous chemicals and explosives.

Is it safe?

About 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide was present at the site. It is soluble in water and, when dissolved or burned, it releases the highly poisonous gas hydrogen cyanide.

Authorities on Monday confirmed that three waste water discharge monitoring stations within the evacuated area saw excessive levels of cyanide, with one station recording a level 27.4 times the normal limit, reported People's Daily.

But authorities have insisted that the pollutants are contained and not at risk of spreading beyond the evacuated area.

What impact will this have on Tianjin port?

Tianjin is a significant industrial port near Beijing, and is a gateway for goods going in and out of the capital and China's industrial north. It is also a main trading hub for metals and steel.

The port remains partially open as the explosion was contained in one section.

But authorities have imposed stringent checks and movement in and out of the port has slowed down, which is likely to affect some industries, the Mysteel.com news portal reported.

Mining giant BHP Billiton saw some disruption to its port operations and shipments.

On Monday, carmaker Toyota said it was closing production lines at its factories near Tianjin until the end of Wednesday, while agricultural machinery maker John Deere said it suspended work indefinitely. Both saw some of their workers injured by the blasts.

Who- not given

What- two explorsions

When -not given

Where- Tianjin

Why- not given

How- It killed more than a hundred people, left hundreds more injured and devastated large areas of the city.

Keywords

1.devastated 毀壞的

2.flammable 易燃的

3.calcium carbonate 碳酸鈣

4.trigger 引起

5.blast 爆炸

6.acetylene 電石氣

7.matchstick 火柴

8.neutralize 中和

9.transparent 光明正大的

10.stringent 嚴格的

week4-Kepler452b

Kepler-452b: What It Would Be Like to Live On Earth's 'Cousin'

Kepler-452b may be Earth's close cousin, but living on the newfound world would still be an alien experience.

A group of pioneers magically transported to the surface of Kepler-452b — which is the closest thing to an "Earth twin" yet discovered, researchers announced yesterday (July 23) — would instantly realize they weren't on their home planet anymore. (And magic, or some sort of warp drive, must be invoked for such a journey, since Kepler-452b lies 1,400 light-years away.)

Kepler-452 is 60 percent wider than Earth and probably about five times more massive, so its surface gravity is considerably stronger than the pull people are used to here. Any hypothetical explorers would thus feel about twice as heavy on the alien world as they do on Earth, researchers said.

"It might be quite challenging at first," Jon Jenkins, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said during a news conference yesterday. Jenkins is data analysis lead for the space agency's Kepler spacecraft, which discovered Kepler-452b.

But visitors to the exoplanet would probably be able to meet that challenge, said former astronaut John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. After all, he said, firefighters and backpackers routinely carry heavy loads, mimicking (albeit temporarily) the effect of increased surface gravity.

"If we were there, we'd get stronger," Grunsfeld said. "Our bones would actually get stronger. It would be like a workout every day."

The high-gravity environment would probably lead to significant changes in the bodies of Kepler-452b colonists over longer time spans, he and Jenkins said.

"I suspect that, over time, we would adapt to the conditions, and perhaps become stockier over a long period of many generations," Jenkins said.

Other features of life on Kepler-452b would be more familiar. For example, the exoplanet orbits a solar-type star at about the same distance at which Earth circles the sun. 

"It would feel a lot like home, from the standpoint of the sunshine that you would experience," Jenkins said. Earth plants "would photosynthesize, just perfectly fine," he added.

Imagining other aspects of life on Kepler-452b requires much more speculation, since it's too far away to get a good look at. Researchers suspect that the planet is rocky, like Earth, but they don't know for sure. Kepler-452b probably has a thick atmosphere, liquid water and active volcanoes, but these are best guesses based on modeling work. 

Models also suggest that Kepler-452b might soon experience a runaway greenhouse effect, similar to the one that changed Venus from a potentially habitable world billions of years ago to the sweltering hothouse it is today, researchers said.

Kepler-452b's star is apparently older than the sun — 6 billion years, compared to 4.5 billion years. It's thus in a more energetic phase of its life cycle than the sun is; indeed, the star is about 10 percent larger and 20 percent brighter than Earth's sun. (That means the sunlight on Kepler-452b, while familiar to explorers from Earth, would not be exactly equivalent.)

The increased energy output of its sun might currently be causing Kepler-452b to heat up and lose its oceans — if the planet does indeed harbor oceans — to evaporation, subsequent breakup by ultraviolet light and atmospheric escape.

Such a scenario likely won't occur on Kepler-452b for another 500 million years or so, assuming estimates for the planet's size and the star's age are accurate, Jenkins said. (The stronger gravity of larger planets allows them to hang on to their surface water for longer periods of time in such situations than smaller worlds can.)

"But, you know, we don't know exactly," Jenkins said.

So he and other members of the discovery team helped devise an artist's concept that imagines how Kepler-452b would look if a runaway greenhouse effect were beginning to unfold.

The illustration shows "not oceans, but residual bodies of water that are highly concentrated in minerals after the oceans are largely gone, and you have lakes and pools and rivers left," Jenkins said. 

"It's a fascinating thing to think about, and I think it gives us an opportunity to take a pause and reflect on our own environment that we find ourselves in," he added. "We've been lucky and fortunate to live in a habitable zone for the last several billion years, and we'd like that to continue on."

Who - not mention

What - Kepler452b

When - not mention

Where - not mention

Why - Kepler452b may be Earth’s close cousin.

How - not mention

Keywords

1.warp 歪曲；偏差

2.invoke引起；喚起

3.hypothetical假定的

4.administrator管理人；行政官員

5.mimic呈現...的形象

6.orbit環繞(天體等)的軌道運行

7.speculation推測

8.subsequent隨後的；接著發生的

9.scenario事態；方案

10.illustration圖例；例證

week3-MERS

MERS Virus’s Path: One Man, Many South Korean Hospitals

SEOUL, South Korea — At first, doctors thought the 68-year-old man might have simple pneumonia. He coughed and wheezed his way through four hospitals before officials figured out, nine days later, that he had something far more serious and contagious.

Along the way, health officials said, the man infected dozens who then became potential carriers themselves and infected dozens more and counting.

The original diagnosis that missed what became South Korea’s first case of Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, was possibly caused by incomplete information from the patient about his travels. And the World Health Organization acknowledged that MERS was not an easy virus to identify early because its symptoms are similar to other respiratory infections, like a common cold. But it was especially problematic in South Korea because of peculiarities in the hospital system, health experts said Monday.

Patients jostle, cajole and name-drop to get referrals to the biggest hospitals, which they believe attract the best doctors. Family members and outside caregivers commingle with the sick in crowded emergency wards. They often stay with the patients in their rooms and do much of the nursing work — wiping sweat, emptying bedpans, changing sheets and exposing themselves to infections.

“Our crowded hospital environment is a weakness,” said Cho Sung-il, a professor of epidemiology in the Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University. “Chances of close contact are higher in a South Korean hospital emergency room, for example, where seats and beds are usually arranged close together.”

As of Tuesday morning, the South Korean authorities had confirmed at least 95 MERS cases and were monitoring more than 2,500 people under quarantine for symptoms. At least seven patients have died.

So many patients, including those in rural towns, seek medical care at large hospitals that securing a bed in a mega-hospital in Seoul, the capital, for a relative or friend has become a test of a person’s networking ability. Patients often visit small hospitals to get a referral to a bigger hospital.

The two hospitals where the vast majority of MERS cases have occurred were among the biggest in their cities.

“Many people want to check into famous hospitals, some even waiting in their emergency rooms until a bed gets available,” said Kim Woo-joo, head of the Korean Society of Infectious Diseases, who is leading the government’s epidemiological study of the MERS outbreak. “In big hospitals, we see bottlenecks. This is a very Korean thing, and I think this is not a good situation when we have a new contagious virus breaking out.”

In many ways South Korea is one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, where most of the population is connected to the Internet and nearly everyone has a smartphone. But within a matter of days, it has also become known for the largest caseload of MERS outside of Saudi Arabia, where the disease first emerged in 2012.

Researchers have traced MERS to a virus that is believed to have jumped from camels to humans. The virus can be spread by breathing the same air as an infected and coughing person in proximity. It causes high fevers and pneumonia-like symptoms, and there is no cure.

The hospital odyssey of the first infected patient, known as the index case, began after May 11, when he developed a fever and began coughing. He visited a clinic in his hometown Asan, south of Seoul, on May 12, 14 and 15. Perplexed doctors, not knowing he had even visited Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in early May, sent him to a bigger hospital, St. Mary’s, in Pyeongtaek, 37 miles south of Seoul.

With no improvement, he went to Seoul to seek better medical care, visiting a relatively small hospital there on May 17, when X-rays suggested pneumonia. The next day he was referred to the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, one of the largest in South Korea, where doctors suspected he had MERS, learned of his Middle East visit and isolated him. The correct diagnosis was confirmed on May 20.

Mr. Kim said the crowded conditions at St. Mary’s had been ideal for the virus to spread. So far, 37 St. Mary’s patients have been confirmed as having caught the virus — nearly 40 percent of the known total.

“It must have been a period when the virus was most active in him and he was coughing out a lot of virus droplets,” Mr. Kim said.

One of the St. Mary’s patients infected by the index case later checked into the emergency ward of the Samsung hospital in Seoul, infecting at least 35 people there. Nearly 700 people who were at the emergency ward have been quarantined.

There has been no sign of a panic among the wider public. But fears of the virus have led to the closings of nearly 2,000 kindergartens and schools and the cancellation of concerts and religious and social gatherings. Sales of face masks and hand sanitizer have soared. Baseball stadium attendance has plummeted.

In a sign of widening fear in Asia, the authorities in Hong Kong raised their three-stage response level on Monday from “alert” to “serious,” which means ports of entry will exert tighter arrival controls. The Hong Kong Center for Health Protection posted an advisory about the raised response on its website, urging people to “avoid unnecessary travel” to South Korea.

The W.H.O. appeared to be less concerned, saying that it was not advising special actions at ports and airports in South Korea or travel or trade restrictions, “given the lack of evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission in the community.”

Alison Clements-Hunt, a spokeswoman for the health organization, said that the virus pattern found in South Korea was in line with those monitored elsewhere. The testing on a virus sample in South Korea “shows nothing alarming in terms of mutations and change in what would be the transmissibility of the virus.”

Nonetheless, she said the organization was sending a team of experts to South Korea. She also said frequent visits to patients at hospitals in some Asian cultures were “something that may need to be looked at in the light of MERS.”

Some experts have faulted the South Korean government for the way it initially handled information on the outbreak. None of the hospitals where patients were infected had been alerted about the possibility of MERS.

“Doctors were diagnosing the patients without knowing anything about MERS,” said Jee Sun-ha, a professor of public health at Yonsei University in Seoul. “Once the authorities detected the first case, they should have taken more aggressive steps, revealing the names of the hospitals the patients had visited and trying as much as possible to localize the outbreak.”

It was only Sunday that the government revealed the names of all 24 hospitals the confirmed cases had visited — two and a half weeks after the first case was discovered. They have since added five more to the list.

The government said it had been reluctant to make the names public, fearing possible panic in the neighborhoods around the hospitals. After their names were released, some of the hospitals reported a plunge in the number of outpatients and even closed down temporarily.

But Choi Chang-woo, head of the civic group Citizens’ Solidarity for Safe Society, said that the government’s “monopoly on information,” which he said was rooted in South Korea’s authoritarian past, was partly to protect the business interests of big hospitals and keep people ignorant about mistakes.

“They haven’t learned from the Sewol disaster,” Mr. Choi said, referring to the hundreds of deaths in the sinking of the Sewol ferry in April last year, often attributed to the government’s fumbled rescue. “This is what you get when your government’s top priority is not the safety of the people.”

President Park Geun-hye’s weekly approval rating dropped six percentage points to 34 percent last week in the aftermath of the MERS outbreak, according to a survey released on Friday by Gallup Korea. On Monday, Ms. Park vowed an “all-out national response.”

Efforts included exploiting South Korea’s advanced cellphone network, tracing the signals of people who had defied quarantine in order to find them.

“Now the government is belatedly trying to mend the fence after the cow had already been stolen,” Mr. Choi said.

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.
Who- a 68-year-old man
What- cough and weeze
When- not given
Where- Seoul, South Korea
Why-At first, the doctor thought the man might have simple pneumonia, but after a few days, he had something serious and contagious.
How- officials found out that
Keywords
1. MERS 中東呼吸道症候群
2.pneumonia 肺炎
3.diagnosis 診斷
4.respiratory 與呼吸有關的
5.peculiarity 特質
6.commingle 混合;參雜
7.quarantine 隔離
8.referral 轉送
9.Saudi Arabia 沙烏地阿拉伯
10.fumbled 笨拙地

week-2翁山蘇姬

Aung San Suu Kyi, opposition leader in Myanmar, became an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression as a result of her 15 years under house arrest.

The 70-year-old spent much of her time between 1989 and 2010 in some form of detention because of her efforts to bring democracy to military-ruled Myanmar (Burma).

In 1991, a year after her National League for Democracy (NLD) won an overwhelming victory in an election the junta later nullified, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The committee chairman called her "an outstanding example of the power of the powerless".

She was sidelined for Myanmar's first elections in two decades on 7 November 2010 but released from house arrest six days later.

As the new government embarked on a process of reform, Aung San Suu Kyi - known to many as "The Lady" - and her party rejoined the political process.

On 1 April 2012 she stood for parliament in a by-election, arguing it was what her supporters wanted even if the country's reforms were "not irreversible".

She and her fellow NLD candidates won a landslide victory and weeks later the former political prisoner was sworn into parliament, a move unimaginable before the 2010 polls.

Barred from running

However, Ms Suu Kyi has since been frustrated with the pace of democratic development.

In November 2014, she warned that Myanmar had not made any real reforms in the past two years and warned that the US - which dropped most of its sanctions against the country in 2012 - had been "overly optimistic" in the past.

And in June, a vote in Myanmar's parliament failed to remove the army's veto over constitutional change. Ms Suu Kyi is also barred from running for president because her two sons hold British not Burmese passports - a ruling she says is unfair.

Although her party is popular, Ms Suu Kyi has come in for criticism since her election by some rights groups for what they say has been a failure to speak up for Myanmar's minority groups during a time of ethnic violence in parts of the country.

Political pedigree

Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, General Aung San.

He was assassinated during the transition period in July 1947, just six months before independence, when Ms Suu Kyi was only two.

In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Myanmar's ambassador in Delhi.

Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future husband, academic Michael Aris.

After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled in the UK to raise their two children, Alexander and Kim, but Myanmar was never far from her thoughts.

When she arrived back in Rangoon (Yangon) in 1988 - to look after her critically ill mother - Myanmar was in the midst of major political upheaval.

Thousands of students, office workers and monks took to the streets demanding democratic reform.

"I could not as my father's daughter remain indifferent to all that was going on," she said in a speech in Rangoon on 26 August 1988, and was propelled into leading the revolt against the then-dictator, General Ne Win.

Inspired by the non-violent campaigns of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King and India's Mahatma Gandhi, she organised rallies and travelled around the country, calling for peaceful democratic reform and free elections.

But the demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the army, who seized power in a coup on 18 September 1988. Ms Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest the following year.

The military government called national elections in May 1990 which Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD convincingly won - however, the junta refused to hand over control.

House arrest

Ms Suu Kyi remained under house arrest in Rangoon for six years, until she was released in July 1995.

She was again put under house arrest in September 2000, when she tried to travel to the city of Mandalay in defiance of travel restrictions.

She was released unconditionally in May 2002, but just over a year later she was put in prison following a clash between her supporters and a government-backed mob.

She was later allowed to return home - but again under effective house arrest.

During periods of confinement, Ms Suu Kyi busied herself studying and exercising. She meditated, worked on her French and Japanese language skills, and relaxed by playing Bach on the piano.

At times she was able to meet other NLD officials and selected diplomats.

But during her early years of detention she was often in solitary confinement. She was not allowed to see her two sons or her husband, who died of cancer in March 1999.

The military authorities offered to allow her to travel to the UK to see him when he was gravely ill, but she felt compelled to refuse for fear she would not be allowed back into the country.

Her last period of house arrest ended in November 2010 and her son Kim Aris was allowed to visit her for the first time in a decade.

When by-elections were held in April 2012, to fill seats vacated by politicians who had taken government posts, she and her party contested seats, despite reservations.

"Some are a little bit too optimistic about the situation," she said in an interview before the vote. "We are cautiously optimistic. We are at the beginning of a road."

She and the NLD won 43 of the 45 seats contested, in an emphatic statement of support. Weeks later, Ms Suu Kyi took the oath in parliament and became the leader of the opposition.

And the following May, she embarked on a visit outside Myanmar for the first time in 24 years, in a sign of apparent confidence that its new leaders would allow her to return.

Who -Aung San Suu Kyi

What  -She became an international symbol of peaceful resistance

When -Not mentioned

Where -Myanmar

Why -She had 15 years under arrest.

How -Not given

Keywords

1.resistance 抵抗運動;反抗
2.junta 軍政府
3.sideline 使退出
4.irreversible 不可逆轉的
5.sanction 制裁(n.)
6.defiance 蔑視
7.compel 強迫;使不得不
8.confinement 監禁
9.diplomat 外交官
10.embark on 踏上