NEWS

THE "WOMAN TAX"

Some months ago, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that, on average, products for girls and women cost 7% more than similar products for men. This is called the “Gender Tax” or the “Woman Tax”. Also, looking at almost 800 products from more than 90 brands in NYC, the study has found that this injustice happens 42% of the time.

Even children’s items are more expensive for girls than for boys. For example, a scooter for girls costs $13 to $25 more than a scooter for boys. This happens to a lot of products, following the girls as they grow older.

Focusing on the type of products women pay more for, the study said that the personal care products are the ones women pay the most for (about 13% more than men). The surprising thing is that they looked at pharmacies and other stores from around New York and found that the “Woman Tax” was there in all of them.

Finally, there’s a table where you can see some of the times women pay more than men for some products:

So, in conclusion, the study found that women are paying thousands of dollars more over the course of their lives for buying similar products as men.

EXAMPLES:

      

PERSONAL OPINION:

In my opinion, that’s something definitely not good. Why women have to pay more for something that is practically the same thing as men? I don’t think it’s a huge difference to produce something blue or to produce something pink, so it’s quite stupid to make women pay more for the same thing but different colour.

NEW WORDS:

Aim: Dirigit a...
Razor: Màquina d'afeitar
Burden: Càrrega

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/12066820/New-Gender-Tax-study-shows-women-are-charged-more-for-being-woman.html

NEWS

TERRORIST ATTACKS IN PARIS

A state of emergency has been declared across France after attacks in Paris that killed at least 128 people. Also, 200 people were injured, 90 of them seriously. Eight assailants had died, seven of them had killed themselves with explosive belts at various locations and one had been shot dead by police. President François Holland said was an "act of war" organized by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

France was on high alert for attacks because of a video that the ISIL group released on Saturday saying that they would attack France if France continued bombing of its fighters in the Middle East. They literally said “As long as you keep bombing you will not live in peace. You will even fear travelling to the market".

Yesterday, at night, the attacks began. The deadliest attack was on the Bataclan, a popular concert hall where group Eagles of Death Metal was performing. Four gunmen armed with explosive belts killed at least 80 young people who were attending to a rock concert at the Bataclan music hall. Luckily, dozens of survivors were rescued and the attackers were killed at the site. About 40 more people were killed in five other attacks in the Paris region. 14 of them were killed while they were at the restaurant Le Petit Cambodge by a gunman who opened fire with a Kalashnikov. There were five more locations in close proximity where shootings took place around the same time and killed more people, like bars or restaurants.

One of them happened near the Stade de France in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis, where the France-Germany friendly soccer match was being played. The President Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching it when the attacks occurred. The explosions were audible on television during the live broadcast. Police helicopters circled the stadium and Holland left to the interior ministry to deal with the situation. The match continued until the end, but people found out what was going on in the streets of Paris. At the end of the match, everyone got on the pitch for security reasons. 

This morning, France has woken up with security all across the capital, with about 1500 soldiers deployed in Paris. Also, all public transportation services have been cancelled. Residents in Paris were asked to stay indoors for precaution.

Barack Obama (USA), David Cameron (GB) and Angela Merkel (Germany) were all very shocked by the events in Paris and offered France their help. The leaders of other countries also gave their condolences for the French people in general. Also, the people around the world has sent support and their condolences to France and the French people using hashtags like #prayforparis, #jesuisparis and others through social media.

PERSONAL OPINION:

What happened in Paris was a terrible thing. It died a lot of innocent people. I just wanted to say that maybe we are giving a lot of attention to France because it’s “an important country” because these type of things (terrorist attacks) happens EVERYDAY around the world, specially in Syria. Also, in the same week that happened the terrorist attacks in France, it happened the same type of attacks in Beirut and in other countries. But France captured all the attention. All lives mean the same, have the same value; or it is better a French person that any other? The skin color or the religion didn’t make us different (or less important).

With this, I don’t want to say that what happened in Paris it’s not important. Of course it is! And it was a horrible thing. I just want to say that we are very hypocrite if we thing that what happened in France it’s more important than what happens to the other countries around the world that we consider “inferior” than us. A life is a life. And all lifes are equal.


 NEW WORDS:

- Gunman: persona armada
- Manhunt: cacera / recerca 
- Flank: flanquejar (estar al costat o rodejar a una persona o objecte)


Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/reports-shooting-restaurant-central-paris-151113211237312.html

NEWS

THE BLUE WHALE SUICIDE CHALLENGE

This news is about a new challenge that makes the person who is playing commit suicide after 50 days. This challenge is known as the Blue Whale, and it is quite famous in Russia. It is believed to be an online social media group, in which there is an administrator that gives daily challenges to the members. In total, there are 50 (one each day) and they consist of watching extreme horror movies, getting up at unusual hours, self-harming… They gradually get more and more extreme, until the last challenge is to commit suicide.

One of the reasons teenagers follow this type of challenges is peer pressure. Sometimes friends incite to make dangerous things, but kids have to know how and when to say “no”. Parents have an important role in teaching their kids than they can still be accepted even if they don’t do exactly what the other friends do.

The photo Yulia Konstantinova posted on her Instagram account
before commitig suicide along with her friend Veronika Volkova

As it was said before, the Blue Whale is quite famous in Russia and there have been about 130 suicides of children between November 2015 and April 2016, which can be related to this challenge. It is not proved, but there exist multiple bonds between almost all these teenagers, for example, most of them were members of the same internet groups and lived in good and happy families. Among these suicides, it stands out the case of two teenagers, Yulia Konstantinova and Veronika Volkova, 15 and 16 respectively, who jumped from a roof of a 14-floor building. Yulia, before committing suicide, posted a picture of a blue whale in her Instagram.

PERSONAL OPINION:

When I read this news, the first thing it came to my mind was: “Who can be so sick and macabre to create this challenge?”. Because, behind all these challenges there has to be a person (or more than one) creating them. Encouraging people to commit suicide, especially when they are going through a bad period in their lives is really mean. We should try to help depressed people to overcome it and be happy. Of course, at the end we are free, and a person can choose to kill him or herself, but I don’t think we should encourage them doing it. Instead, we have to help them overcome their problems.

NEW WORDS:

Sway: influenciar, influir
Chilling: esgarrifós, esfereïdor
Peer: col·lega, amic
Goad: incitar, provocar


Link: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3003805/blue-whale-suicide-game-online-victims/

NEWS

ASYLUM DENIED

This news is about two boys who asked for asylum in the US, but they were refused. One of them had been threatened by some gang members; they said they were going to kill him. In front of this situation, the boy decided to leave his home and go to the United States. When he and another boy were at the US border, they explained their situations to the officials, but they didn’t seem to care that much and told them to wait outside. They waited all day long, until one lawyer who was crossing the border with another client saw them and help them.

The worst of all is that this is not an isolated case, but the number of cases is increasing, especially since Trump became the president of the United States. In theory, the law says that if someone arrives at the border asking for asylum, CBP agents have to send the person to a specialist to examine his or her situation, but this is not always like that. More and more, US agents are illegally denying entrance to people asking for asylum.

Even though these prohibitions are increasing, they are not only a result of Trump’s policy, but they were there before he came to power. The writer of that news says that this is a serious problem and that the government has to do something about it. They have to investigate and punish the agents who have behaved illegally.

PERSONAL OPINION:

This news shows the violation of one human right: the right to have asylum. As it says, everybody has the right to have asylum in cases of danger, no matter where they come from. Of course, I am against what these US agents are doing to people who ask for asylum. Imagine you're in their situation; That in your country you have been threatened with death and then when you ask for asylum they deny it. But what upsets me the most is why the US agents do not let Mexican people pass it because of racist reasons. Unfortunately, there are a lot of racist people in the USA (and in the world too), as it shows the fact that Trump is the president. I hope one day we get over racism, which is one of the main reason why most of the human rights are not coming into effect right now.

NEW WORDS:

Flee: escapar
Entrenched: refractari, retrògrad 
Seeker: persona que busca alguna cosa

Link: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/05/03/us-turning-away-asylum-seekers-mexican-border

NEWS

30 YEARS LIVING AS A SLAVE

This is not really news; it’s actually a story of a woman, called Guadalupe Pérez Castillo, who was enslaved for about 30 years of her life. Her story is the following one: she was born in Las Agujas, a small town of Mexico. Her family was poor, and she used to help her family’s economy selling fruit in the town’s market. One day, a woman came to visit Guadalupe’s house, and offered her to work with her as a babysitter. In exchange, the woman will pay her, send her to a good school and send money to her family. For Guadalupe, that was a really good offer, so she accepted it (at that time, she was 10 years old).

But things didn’t turn out to be so perfect. Guadalupe quickly understood that the woman would not pay her, and she also had to do all the housework and care for the children. But that wasn’t the worse: she had to sleep on the floor, she could only eat scraps, and they even hit her for no apparent reason. Obviously, she tried several times to scape, but she didn’t succeed in any of attempts. The woman and her husband also threatened her that they would kill her if she continues trying to escape, so she stopped doing it. She finally escape when she was 40, taking advantage of a moment where the family was gone because they were all at the hospital (because their son had had an accident).

Guadalupe Pérez had to stand 30 years of forced labor, beatings, sexual abuse, lack of food…All these made her dump and now she has some mental problems. She is extremely shy, always looks down when she’s talking to somebody, among other things. She doesn’t know how to live in freedom, because she has lived 30 years as a slave. Now she’s visiting a therapist, who’s trying to teach her how to be free, how to make her own decisions, manage her money…


PERSONAL OPINION:

As now we are working on a project of human rights, I found interesting to choose this article. It’s shameful that in 2017 we still have to deal with slavery. So now we are able to travel to the moon, for example, but we don’t know how to stop slavery? I think the problem are the governments, that they are not interested in eliminate slavery. Maybe governments will not resolve the entire problem, because for example, in the case of Guadalupe Pérez would have been difficult to know that that girl was being enslaved. Therefore, maybe the solution is to make efforts to improve the life of the poor people, so that anyone won’t be as desperate to become a slave. I know it’s easy to say but difficult to do, but I have hope in a better world!

NEW WORDS:

Attorney: advocat
Self-assured: segur d'un mateix
Stretched: escàs, insuficient
Elated: eufòrica, entusiasmada 


Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/27/world/freedom-project-30-years-a-slave/index.HTML

YOUR-SAYS

MANDATORY HAIR REMOVAL?

Some days ago, I was having lunch with my family while looking at the TV. Nothing special. A program called “Cámbiame” (“Change me, in English) was being shown in the TV. Basically, this TV show is about people who want to change their appearance; there are three stylists who can decide whether they want to change that person or not. If a person has been chosen, then one stylist changes his or her style. 

Frankly, I wasn’t even paying attention to it, until I heard a comment made by one of the stylists, which said to a girl that “It’s not possible for a woman to have hair on her arms”. Then I started paying attention to the program, especially to the girl, who was a cute young teenager. I had to make an effort to see her “hairy arm”; yes, she had some hairs, but it wasn’t that bad. At the end the stylist ended up removing her hair (what a surprise!).

What happened in that program made me think about the pressure women receive to remove their body hair. Of course, everybody can do what they want, and now more and more women are deciding to stop removing their hair, simply because they don’t want to do it anymore. But people keep looking at women who don’t remove their body hair in a bad way. And I ask myself: why? Does affect anybody if a woman decides to have hair in their body? Is your live worse because of that? Of course not, and I think society has to stop putting so many pressure on girls (and boys too).

 Also, returning to what I was saying at the beginning, about the comment done by one stylist of the program “Cámbiame”, it really made my angry. Of course, even though I accept people who decide not to remove their body hair (that’s the normal thing to do, in my opinion; everybody can do what they want with their lives if it doesn’t affect anybody else), I understand that maybe there are people who don’t like women with body hair. As well as someone doesn’t like people with tattoos, there can be people who don’t like someone with body hair; no problem. This is one thing, and the other one is to say that “It’s not possible for a woman to have hair on her arms”. Excuse me? It’s perfect for a woman to have hair on her arms, or to have blue hair, or to do whatever she wants with her body. I found this commentary totally sexist. Women are free to decide what they want to do with her body, and don’t being judged for it. Well, not just women, everybody.

YOUR-SAYS

FIRST GAY KISS IN DISNEY?

Disney has made a huge progress by showing a gay kiss on a cartoon for the first time. I wanted to talk about it because I think it’s a big improvement in the normalization of the LGBT community. Also, since in the project we are working on in this term is about “Love and relationships”, I think this fact is related to it.

The gay kiss was shown in a cartoon called “Star vs. the Forces of Evil”. In the scene, you can see some gay and lesbian couples kissing, among heterosexual couples. Also, some days ago the director of the remake of the “Beauty and the Beast” film said it would be a gay storyline in it. So yes, Disney is modernising itself (it was about time!). 

Unlike some people’s opinion that gay love shouldn’t be shown in films destined for kids, I think if kids are old enough to see a kiss between a woman and a men, they are old enough also to see a kiss between two people of the same gender. There’s not so much difference, isn’t it?

Besides, there are people who maintain than showing love between two persons of the same gender will “influence” kids, and make them gay or lesbian too. I think I’ve never seen such a ridiculous argument before. Sexual orientation it’s not something you can choose, like you see a gay couple and you say “Oh, I want to be like them” and you become gay. No, it doesn’t work like this. It’s something you feel inside, and seeing a gay kiss in the television will not influence you to change your sexual orientation.

In this picture you can see some gay couples
kissing each other.

So I think showing all types of love in the television, cinema, Internet or wherever will only be positive for normalizing it. In that way, if kids see that a relationship between two persons of the same gender is something completely normal, in some years there will not be persons afraid of saying they are homosexual, there will be no bullying to the people who are gay or lesbian and people will see a kiss in the street between two persons of the same gender as something completely normal and acceptable. Let’s teach kids tolerance and respect!