After Cynthoia Brown, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of her rapist, here is the story of a young Sudanese girl, Noura Hussein, a child bride who murdered the man she was forced to marry after he abused her.  

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Noura Hussein is a 19-year old girl, currently on death-row after she killed the husband she had to marry at 16. Being impossible for her to accept the marriage she took shelter in her aunt’s house. However after three years she was tricked by her father into going back to her spouse, and that’s when her nightmare started.

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It was in April 2017 when Noura was deceived by her family to go back to her village and later handed over to the man she had been forced to marry. She was with him for only six days, and being unwilling to consummate the marriage, the young girl was brutally raped; this with the help of some of the relatives of her abuser, who held her down. "His brother and two cousins tried to reason with her, when she refused she was slapped and ordered into the room. One held her chest and head, the others held her legs," her lawyer Al-Imam told CNN. When her husband tried to have sex with her a second time the day after, she stabbed and killed him. Noura’s family, instead of defending her when she went to seek help, handed their daughter over to the police and disowned her.

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She was imprisoned in Omdurman, Sudan and the previous month a Sharia court, which follows Islamic religous law, found Noura guilty of murder and then sentenced to death by hanging. After the sentence, Hussein said: “It was a shocking moment when the judge convicted me with murder. I knew then that I [would] be executed, leaving my dreams unfulfilled.”

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Noura had dreams, she wanted to become a teacher, she was ambitious and was against the idea of not being able to study because she had to get married. Her dream was taken away by a society that doesn’t protect young girls from child marriage and rape.

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Many have condemned the decision taken by the Sudanese court, as it is cruel and inhumane since it regards a victim of rape. Noura is in fact not just phycally violated, but she was also mentally abused both by her family and her “husband” and this is actually a violation of Articles 14 (protection of children) and 15 (no marriage without free and full consent) of the constitution. Moreover the Sudanese constitution states that 'the ‘state shall protect women from injustice and promote gender equality’, and that ‘all persons are equal before the law and are entitled, without discrimination, to the equal protection of the law.’”

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What happened to Noura is sad and upsetting, but we can still save her from death by signing a petition by Amnesty International. It takes you only a few minutes to make a change.

Could the young people protesting for gun control in the U.S. be a turning point for a revolution led by us - the future generation? There’s no doubt that we will have to deal with the problems adults have created so far.

Just like what is happening now in the U.S., where the debate on Gun Control has become a hot topic after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were shot dead on Saint Valentine’s Day by 19 year-old Nikolas Cruz. The FBI had been alerted only recently that he “wanted to kill people”.

The survivors of the tragedy are mostly teens, people our age, who are now protesting against the laws on weapons that have caused approximately 142 mass shootings since 2013. On March 14 almost 2500 schools in the U.S. took part in a National School Walkout, which saw thousands of students united to call for change.

This made me start contemplating how the world could easily change for the better if for every major injustice that occurred in our country a protest by young people followed. However this doesn’t seem to happen here in Italy. Perhaps because many of us have simply lost faith in youths’ ability to improve society and thus passively accept the terrible and unfair things that happen all around us every day. But what I think is the biggest cause of this lack of activism among youth is the pressure and criticism we are exposed to in our daily lives. We get called the “Lost Generation” by the same people who raised us, and that is a kind of paradox.

If only we could have a little more faith in our potential we could really make a change in a world that doesn’t seem to have a bright future ahead. We should start taking action against Climate Change, Wars, Immigration, Government Corruption and many other issues that we will have to solve at a high price if we don’t start doing something now.

Let us be inspired by our American peers and let us not forget that our power is so underestimated because we ourselves are not aware of it.

The Wolfsburg-based car producer Volkswagen has recently been thrown in the eye of the storm due to their controversial running of tests on the emissions caused by their vehicles.

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The tests were carried out to prove that the diesel emissions from the German car firm weren’t harmful, nonetheless Volkswagen planned to hide the result of these tests from the public. The experiment had in fact allegedly involved forcing monkeys to breathe in the gases while watching cartoons, for several hours.

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In addition to the scandal of animal testing, the software used to record the levels of toxic gases was programmed so as to lower considerably the harmfulness of the emissions, therefore making the cars pass the test. Despite that, the levels registered are record-high and prove that such cars would extremely pollute the air while on the roads, where their diesel emissions are not rigged as they were in the lab.

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The tests were carried out in 2014 in Albuquerque, USA, and at the beginning the infamous firm had supposedly refused to pay for them since they gave unwelcome results. It is not clear whether these experiments were performed for Volkswagen only, but as of now the German car company is the only one to have confessed their responsibility.

These details were disclosed during a lawsuit against Volkswagen in the United States. However, but the popular car brand is not new to scandals of this type. In fact they had already been accused of declaring fake levels of toxic exhaust gases in order for their cars to be deemed safe.

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What appears interesting is how the most recent scandal, involving animal testing, has stirred a great controversy worldwide. It is in the public record that many popular brands use animals to test their products, but so far very few cases have caused such a big debate worldwide. It could be because Volkswagen is one of the most well-known companies of the world, or because the public wasn’t aware of the use of animals in the car-producing sector. Perhaps it seems reasonable to test cosmetics on animals, while the connection isn’t so obvious in Volkswagen’s sector.

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It could also be natural to wonder whether the tests were so controversial because the gases were actually harmful, or would the scandal have been so large had the gases been harmless?

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What is certain is that the general public is gaining knowledge of what happens behind the scenes of some of the biggest companies. It is becoming clearer that these organizations do not stop their race for profit despite being constantly at risk of being exposed.

Will this result in a mass boycotting of such a cruel industry or will this scandal be forgotten in just a matter of months?

Among the wide range of traditions inherited from Ancient Greece by modern society, the so-called “Olympic truce” is a phenomenon that has just reappeared and that fully captured the attention of the medias.

Back in the Ancient Greece, a truce was declared right before and after the Olympic games, so as to ensure that the host city would not get attacked and that the participants would be able to travel safely in order to take part in the event.

This kind of truce is not a new phenomenon, and the International Olympic Committee had already called upon the establishment of this tradition in 1998. Its importance was reminded several times through history, although never showing a remarkable result such as this year’s.

In fact, this year’s Winter Olympic Games will be hosted in Pyeonchang in South Korea, lasting from the 9th to the 25th February 2018, and the hosting country has decided to collaborate with its sworn enemy and war rival North Korea. As astonishing as this may appear, the North Korean government has allegedly suggested to cease the hostilities in occasion of this year’s Winter Games, which would be a significant step towards world peace.

What makes this proposal even more surprising is how the two Koreas agreed to participate in the opening ceremony under one united flag, therefore merging together. It is also expected that they will not play either country’s national anthem before competitions but will play instead the Korean folk song “Arirang” which is considered the unofficial anthem of the joined Korea.

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It wouldn’t be the first time for the two nations to march under a united flag, however a further demonstration of reconcilement has been raising some concerns. In fact, the North Korean government has supposedly asked to merge the female hockey team with the South Korean one, which would mean some South Korean athletes could lose their place in the Olympic team. Some people complain that this exclusion of some South Korean players would not be based on merit, since the North Korean team didn’t initially qualify for the Games.

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Although the sudden unification of the two Korean Olympic teams is an unexpected move, it is still a great demonstration of their goodwill and effort to maintain global peace. It would be natural to wonder whether this arrangement will be actually put in place and approved by the Olympic commission. Nonetheless there is a great chance that despite the final outcome, this will be remembered as an admirable proof that traditions dating back to the ancient world can revive and evidence of the repercussions of a simple sports competition, which can completely reverse the global scenario.

中国人的普通话普及度上升到73%，学习汉语的外国人也大幅增加。

对大家来说，世界上最难学的语言是阿拉伯语，日语，韩语和汉语。

拿汉语来说，如果一个人想学习汉语，可能88个星期（1.7年）以后才能达到一般水平。为什么汉语那么难学？汉语和英语不同，语法容易但是汉字和句子结构很难，所以需要很长时间的学习。中国人在小学也练习了很多。现在95% 的中国人能读写汉字。

学汉语有很多好处。第一，学习汉语很有用，去中国旅行，还能提高你的记忆力和注意力，这在学校很重要。第二，学习汉语或者一门新的语言可以带来一种看世界的新方式。如果你想了解中国和中国人，最好的方法是用汉语问问题。第三，学习汉语可以让人们的心和文明更近。特朗普（Trump）的外孙女Arabella唱中文歌，很多中国人都喜欢这个小女孩。一个美国留学生还把孔子的（Confucio）论语翻译成美国俚语!

2000年，中国人的普通话普及度是53%，现在提高到73%。美国有40万人在学习汉语，到2020年可能会达到一百万人。总的来说，学汉语越来越重要。

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Il cinese è una lingua difficile, ma anche interessante e davvero importante.

Il mandarino è parlato dal 73% della popolazione cinese, e si diffonde anche tra gli studenti stranieri

Secondo l’opinione comune, le lingue più difficili da studiare sono l’arabo, il giapponese, il coreano e il cinese.

Per quanto riguarda il cinese, occorrono almeno 88 settimane (1 anno e 10 mesi) di studio per poter raggiungere un livello adeguato.

Perché il cinese è così difficile da studiare? Il cinese e l’inglese sono molto diversi tra loro; la grammatica è molto semplice, ma i caratteri e la struttura delle frasi sono molto complesse, per questo ci vuole tanto tempo ad impararlo. I cinesi stessi si esercitano duramente fin dalle elementari, e ad oggi il 95% della popolazione riesce a scrivere e a leggere i caratteri.

Studiare il cinese ha molti vantaggi. Il primo è che il cinese è molto utile per viaggiare in Cina ma anche per migliorare la memoria e la capacità di concentrazione, tutte doti fondamentali a scuola. Il secondo è che studiare il cinese, o in generale una nuova lingua, può donare una nuova visione del mondo. Se si vuole comprendere la Cina (e i cinesi), porre loro delle domande in cinese è un ottimo metodo. Il terzo è che il cinese può avvicinare persone di culture diverse. La nipote di Trump, Arabella, è molto amata dai cinesi da quando ha cantato delle canzoni cinesi. Uno studente americano ha persino tradotto i detti di Confucio in slang americano!

Nel 2000 i cinesi che parlavano il cinese mandarino costituivano il 53% della popolazione; l’attuale dato è il 73%. In America ci sono 400.000 studenti di cinese, che nel 2020 potrebbero arrivare a un milione: studiare cinese diventa sempre più fondamentale.

Cyntoia Brown, who was forced into prostitution when she was only 16, has already been in Tennessee Prison for Women for more than a decade now, after she was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. However her case is all over the internet this month: on how children who are victims of sex trafficking and commit crimes are treated by the justice system in the U.S.

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Her story tells us a lot about her terrible background: she grew up in an abusive home. with a mother who drank whiskey every day while pregnant, causing Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder. "Her exposure to alcohol poisoning in utero left her with a damaged brain which caused her to experience the world through the mind of a 10-year-old child," states the habeas corpus proceedings. When Cytonia was 2 years old she was given up for adoption to Ellenette Brown, who provided a stable home, but that wasn’t enough to stop her from running away from home in 2004.

She then started living with a pimp called ‘’Cut Throat’’, who repeatedly raped and physically abused Brown while also forcing her into drugs and prostitution. She later testified: “He would explain to me that some people were born whores, and that I was one, and I was a slut, and nobody’d want me but him, and the best thing I could do was just learn to be a good whore.”

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It was in fact August 6, 2004 that a 43 year old man, called Johnny Allen, picked up 16 year old Cyntoia and drove her to his house. The two got into bed, as she told the police, after being shown his gun cabinet. When he reached under his bed she thought he was going to kill her, so she shot him with a gun from her purse. Before leaving Allen’s house she took two guns and his wallet.

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Her trial as an adult was two years later, in 2006, and the jury rejected her claim of self-defense, finding her guilty of first -degree murder and aggravated robbery. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, parole won’t be possible until she is at least 67.

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Today Cyntoia is 29, 13 years have passed since she was put in prison, where she is described as a model inmate who has also received an associate degree from Lipscomb University in 2015. Jeremy Faison, a Republican State Representative from Nashville, has visited Brown and described her as a really intelligent and kind person, who despite thinking that what Allen was doing to her was extremely unfair, feels regret for the crime she committed.

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Although many years have passed since her sentence, her case re- entered the spotlight after celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Rihanna launched the hashtag #FreeCyntoiaBrown on twitter, showing support to Brown’s cause .The public outrage is brewing attention and hopefully other children, victims of sex trafficking, will have better justice thanks to Cyntoia’s case.

Hollywood’s renowned reputation-based society has been inundated with a recent wave of sexual scandals. It seems that only now much unspoken abuse and harassment is surfacing after years of being immersed in the cinematographic industry’s silence.

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It all started at the beginning of October when famous Oscar winning movie producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexually harassing multiple women. Accusations towards him range from sexual harassment to rape, with more than 50 alleged victims so far, most having worked with Weinstein in the movie industry.  However it seems that there is a new accusation almost day, so the number continues to grow.

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These mounting allegations have brought the medias’ attention to the problem of sexual harassment in this field which, despite the constant spotlight, still holds many dark secrets.

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Weinstein’s case has constituted a turning point for Hollywood, as he was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences right after the scandal broke. As the Academy itself explained it, this symbolic gesture aims to “send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over”. Not only did he face the expulsion from that well-known organization, but he was also fired from his own company, showing that such behavior will not go unpunished.

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This peculiar case, which stirred a great movement of protest on social media, inspired many other sexual assault victims to speak up about Hollywood’s unhealthy atmosphere. One such example is Anthony Rapp, who claims that Kevin Spacey attempted to harass him when he was only 14 years old. Despite the two-time Oscar winner’s initial denial of the event, this accusation adds to the growing list of allegations against Spacey.

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While apologising to Rapp on Twitter and attempting to justify his behaviour by mentioning his intoxicated state at the time of the event, Spacey came out publicly as gay. This decision has been harshly criticised by many, as it is thought to be a way for diverting attention from the scandal. Many believe that Spacey chose the most inappropriate time for his confession, and some in the LGBTQ+ community even accused him of ruining the community’s reputation. Some perceived it as a way of using his sexuality to justify his actions, since all of his supposed victims are males.

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This further wave of criticism lead the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to revoke the Emmy award which Spacey should have received in November. As the Academy stated, this was to withdraw the actor’s honor after the recent charges of sexual abuse.

Furthermore, House of Cards, the series in which Spacey starred, has suspended production on its sixth season and the streaming network Netflix, which produces the show, has just announced it will cease working with him altogether and not release a film he had already starred in and produced, Gore.

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These are only two of the most recent and striking cases of sexual abuse in Hollywood which seem to have created a wide reaction on the world stage. Weinstein’s expulsion from the Academy and Spacey’s withdrawal of the Emmy awards are examples of Hollywood’s will to stop concealing the harassment that too often occurs in the movie industry and, most importantly, severely punishing it.

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The fact that many of the victims of such assaults gained the courage to expose their harassers shows that society is gradually becoming conscious of the magnitude of this issue. Another example of this growing phenomenon is the hashtag #MeToo used on Twitter by anyone who had suffered from sexual abuse in any form. This is not only a way to underline the recurrence of the issue, but also aims to encourage victims to denounce the harassment bysetting an exampleAs many victims attest, in fact, one of the reasons so many people don’t come forward in cases of sexual harassment is the fear of not being believed. But with so many women and men sharing their stories, there seems to be empowerment in numbers and therefore a spark of confidence which allows to stand up to the abuse.

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It is clear that the singular cases which have scandalized Hollywood are bound to have an immensely larger impact on society in general and, as proved by the established punishments, in the professional world as well.

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This is why many believe a big step has been made towards a more transparent and aware cinematographic industry, which arguably had been complicit in concealing this behaviour.

In the Philippines, a wave of violence is sweeping across the country. Since the new president Duterte Rodrigo was elected, eight months ago, the victim count in his drug war has reached more than seven thousand homicides. Western countries and Human Right organizations have denounced this massacre, and many are trying to prove the direct responsibility of the president. Duterte has a past of violence and crime, thus many claim he is the instigator of these killings.

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Duterte and his family come from the Philippine island of Mindanao, famous for its wide spread violence and crime. It is home to the Npa (the communist army) and many Muslim rebels, some directly connected to the Islamic State. Duterte, born on the 28th of march 1945 (he is now 71) grew in a rich and powerful family, the most important family in the town of Davao. His mother was a strict woman, while his father was close to president Marcos, dictator of the country. Rodrigo studied law, and often shows off by remembering the time he shot a fellow student, who was “being a bully”, in the leg. Duterte graduated that same year, and there were no consequences for his action. He then became an attorney for president Marcos, his role was punishing subversives in prison. Duterte was, for twenty-one years, mayor of the town of Davao, where he grew up, a city of one million inhabitants. His campaign was centred on bringing law and order, as Davao was the most violent city in the country. Many criminal gangs would kidnap important people, to obtain very high ransoms. Duterte managed to stop many of the kidnappings and became very popular in town. In 1996 he announced he was going to find a solution to defeat small criminality in town. A few days later, seven alleged junkies and pushers were murdered. The corpses were tied and left on the streets, with a sign tied to them, saying “salugòon sa katawhan”, people’s slave.

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Human Rights Watch, HRW, reported 814 homicides in Davao while Duterte was mayor. The victims were mostly young street robbers and pushers. The killings are attributed to an illegal and secret group of vigilants, called Dds, the Davao squadron of death. Targets were chosen from lists of criminals Duterte read publically or provided by local police. Duterte often said he would “clean up” the city. Each homicide had a reward, usually between five and 50thousand pesos ( between one hundred and one thousand dollars). The victim’s families were often told the kids were killed in gang fights. Yet Duterte still had the support of most of the population, especially the middle and high classes.

In 2013 on many social networks people asked Rodrigo to run for president of the Philippines. His answer was: “If I ever decide to become a candidate, I’d tell Philippines not to vote for me, because there will be bloodshed”. In spite of this, his love for power led him to give in and follow many people’s will. His campaign this time was centred on drugs, he called it the drug war. Drugs were never a major problem in the country, and the number of drug addicts is lower than the world average. The most common drug is methamphetamine, called shabu, used by poor workers to work longer hours. Thus the drug war is a war against the poor, the victims are mostly fathers, living in the scum, working for hours every day to feed their family. “Shabu junkies are living dead, useless for society” claims Duterte. Like Trump, Rodrigo Duterte appeared to the country as a populist leader, who could defend the peoples’ interests, as he was one of them.

His government is trying to desensitize people to death, by ignoring the drug war murders, and as a consequence also the middle and high class society are closing one eye, as they are not directly involved in the conflict. However the national commission responsible for the investigation of the drug war crimes has warned Duterte that if he cannot stop these homicides, he will have to face the International criminal court.

Duterte is very likely directly involved in the homicides. Leila De Lima, former minister of justice opened an inquest against Rodrigo. She is convinced he was involved, and supported the Dds, while he was mayor. Thus it is very likely he is also involved in this wave of violence, and he doesn’t seem to have any intention of stopping the drug war murders. How long will the world allow this massacre to go on for?

Statistics:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2016/08/philippines-death-toll-duterte-war-drugs-160825115400719.html

Police records show 5,882 people were killed across the country since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office on June 30. Of that number 2,041 drug suspects were killed during police operations from July 1 to December 6, while another 3,841 were killed by unknown gunmen from July 1 to November 30, according to a local website. Among the latest fatalities was a seven-year-old child on the island of Cebu, who was hit by a stray bullet on December 3, while unknown gunmen were chasing a teenage boy accused of selling drugs.  

*Based on other sources collected by Al Jazeera, there have been an estimated 5,946 deaths. The number does not include cases still to be reported by police or news outlets in the provinces after December 6.  

L'Europa è un paese senza limiti, senza un po' di pudore e buon senso: facebook censura la foto del Nettuno postata dalla scrittrice bolognese Elisa Barbari in quanto raffigurante un contenuto "sessualmente esplicito", i cittadini hanno dato il via alla campagna "Sì Nettuno, no censura". Il team di Facebook si è poi scusato: "eliminiamo moltissime immagini ogni giorno per violazione delle nostre norme pubblicitarie e in alcuni casi commettiamo degli errori". Il Dio greco, dopo 400 anni che protegge Bologna se l'è vista brutta ma ora è fuori pericolo.

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In Israele è stato dato il via al progetto di legge che consente alla magistratura di ordinare ai grandi social network, come facebook, la cancellazione di contenuti che incitano alla violenza e diffondono sentimenti di odio. Un post verrà cancellato nel caso in cui esso possa essere pericoloso per la sicurezza del cittadino, del popolo e dell'intero paese. Essendo l'Israele un paese in guerra, tutti i contenuti che possono evocare una di queste caratteristiche verranno eliminati. Le ONG sono allarmate in quanto questo grandissimo potere dato ai magistrati possa violare la libertà di espressione e d'informazione.

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La divulgazione di notizie, anche tramite facebook, non sempre è veritiera poiché non esiste un mediatore che verifichi tale veridicità: sta nascendo nel 2017 una rete di agenzie pubbliche in tutta l'Unione Europea che combatta le fake-news. Le figure più toccate da queste notizie bufale sono i politici che vorrebbero essere liberi di poter eliminare una notizia che reputano falsa senza dover passare attraverso avvocati e magistratura. Internet consente l'anonimato ed è una sorta di grande bacheca sulla quale chiunque può affiggere qualunque cosa, sta al buonsenso delle persone credere o no ad una notizia, mettere una censura perfino su ciò che si scrive sarebbe come violare il diritto di stampa.

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La Cina richiede alla Apple di oscurare su tutti i suoi dispositivi l'app del NY Times e il colosso americano si adegua alle norme di legge locale. La Cina non è di certo famosa per libertà e rispetto dei diritti, aveva già costruito l'immenso firewall contro il mondo occidentale per oscurare ai cittadini siti come la BBC e il NY Times che però era rimasto consultabile con l'app. Cupertino si piega a Pechino e i rapporti USA-Cina si incrinano sempre di più, Tim Cook sottomesso in quanto il 90% della produzione della Apple è proprio nel paese della censura.

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Al Consiglio di Sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite, per il saluto e il ringraziamento a Ban Ki Moon che si è ormai ritirato, la Russia si è fatta sentire non per porre la fine ad una guerra ma rifiutandosi di ringraziare il segretario dell'ONU per il lavoro svolto negli ultimi 10 anni in favore della difesa dei diritti dei gay. Ban Ki Moon «ha ascoltato ed assistito le donne, i giovani e i membri della comunità omosessuale» e  grazie a lui oggi «le loro voci sono più forti ed ascoltate sia alle Nazioni Unite sia nel mondo». La Russia si oppone a queste frasi e si impone per far sì che nei ringraziamenti al segretario la parola “omosessuali” venga sostituita con «individui vulnerabili e marginalizzati». Fa parte dell'ONU un paese che ha cercato insieme a Cina, Arabia Saudita e Iran di abolire i matrimoni omosessuali, che diffonde omofobia neofascista e che si ripromette di essere il paese in cui verranno costruiti i campi di sterminio per i Gay.