An “ambassador” is a person who represents one country—in another one.
For instance, Canada has ambassadors in many countries around the world. They are high ranking diplomats who represent their country. They typically work from offices called embassies.
The U.S. has many ambassadors stationed around the world, representing the United States.
The U.S. has an embassy in Libya, in Northern Africa.
Libya has been in the news this year because it was part of the Arab Spring, in which some countries’ people protested against corrupt governments.
On Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three embassy staff were killed.
Facts are still emerging about the incident—about why it happened and what the U.S. reaction to it will be.
According to reports from sources such as Reuters news agency, the four Americans were attacked by people who are angry because a small group of filmmakers in the U.S. produced a film that they say insults the Prophet Mohammad. Another report, from news agency CNN, suggests the attack was led by forces linked to al-Qaeda.
There have also been other attacks on U.S. embassies in other countries including Egypt and Tunisia. The presidents of those countries have denounced the attackers. They say the attackers are a small group of “extremists”—people who have an extreme and violent reaction. They have also asked the U.S. “to act against the film’s makers,” according to Reuters.
U.S. president Barack Obama called the attacks “outrageous” and has beefed up security at U.S. embassies around the world. The National Post newspaper reports that 50 U.S. marines have been sent to Libya to help secure the embassy there.
This is a breaking story. Many more facts will emerge about these events over the coming days.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
If the reason for the attack was the film, why do you think four people from the U.S. embassy (who had nothing to do with the film) were attacked?
Reading Prompt: Reading Unfamiliar Words
This article contains many challenging and potentially unfamiliar words such as: ambassador, embassy, corrupt, diplomats, prophet, denounced and extremists.
When you were reading this article, how did you decode and find out the meaning of these words? What clues and strategies did you use to solve them?
Junior and Intermediate
Prdict the meaning of and rapidly solve unfamiliar words using different types of cues, including: semantic (meaning), syntactic (language structure), and graphophonic (phonological and graphic) (OME, Reading: 3.2).
Grammar Feature: Adjectives
President Obama referred to this situation as “outrageous.” What other adjectives can you use to describe this attack?
