Week2 - Myanmar jade mine

Nearly 100 bodies have been pulled from a landslide near a jade mine in Myanmar's northern Kachin State, local officials said, and hopes are dwindling that any of the estimated 100 people still missing will be found alive.

Mines and dump sites for debris in Myanmar are rife with hazards and landslides are not uncommon, though rarely this deadly.The landslide happened in the early hours of Saturday in Hpakant, an area that produces some of the world's highest-quality jade.

As of 4:00pm yesterday local time, 97 bodies had been pulled from the landslide, according to Tin Swe Myint, head of the Hpakant Township Administration Department.

"We just don't know how many people exactly were buried since we don't have any data on people living there," he said.That number was expected to rise, but it remains unclear exactly how many people may be buried.

"It was just a slum with these ... workers living in makeshift tents. Nobody knows for sure how many and where they had come from."

Workers, many of them migrants from other parts of the country, toil long hours for little pay searching for precious jade stones.An official with the Hpakant Township Fire Brigade who asked not to be named said an estimated 100 people were still missing.

The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said many of the miners were sleeping in huts when the landslide occurred.

The landslide occurred at around 3:00am (local time) when many miners were sleeping, according to Ko Sai, a miner who was sleeping at a nearby camp.

It was unclear what triggered the landslide in the remote and mountainous region that is almost entirely off limits to foreigners.

"We just heard a loud noise sounding like thunder and saw that the huge mountain collapsed and a huge wave of rubble was moving and sprawling on a wide area," Ko Sai said.

"It was just like a nightmare."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-22/at-least-90-dead-in-jade-mine-landslide-in-myanmar/6962122

Structure of the Lead

      WHO-  miners and people living there

      WHEN- The landslide occurred at around 3:00am (local time) when many miners were sleeping

      WHAT-   landslide 

      WHY- It was unclear what triggered the landslide

      WHERE-  Myanmar

      HOW - 97 bodies had been pulled from the landslide,

keywords 

1.dwindle 縮小

2.debris 瓦礫

3.slum 貧民窟

4.makeshift tents 臨時搭建帳篷

5.toil 辛勞

6.rubble 瓦礫

7.sprawling 蔓延

Week one - Russian Plane Crash

Russian Airliner Crashes in Egypt, Killing 224

A Russian charter flight ferrying 224 passengers and crew to St. Petersburg from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, crashed soon after taking off early Saturday, killing everyone onboard, officials in Egypt andRussia said.

The plane, an 18-year-old Airbus A321-200, disappeared from radar screens about 25 minutes after it took off, according to official accounts. Hossam Kamal, the Egyptian transportation minister, denied that anything abnormal had happened before the plane disappeared. Earlier news reports in Egypt, citing officials, said the pilot had radioed that he was having technical difficulties and wanted to make an emergency landing.

Continue reading the main story

“Communications between the pilot and the tower were very normal — no distress signals occurred,” Mr. Kamal said at a news conference broadcast nationally. The pilot did not request to change his route to make an emergency landing, he said, emphasizing that “all was normal; the plane disappeared suddenly off the radar without any prior warning.”

The Egyptian government sent military crews and 50 ambulances to the crash site in an area called Hasana, a mountainous region about 46 miles south of El-Arish, the main city in the part of the Sinai Peninsula where the crash occurred. The ambulances began taking the 129 bodies recovered to military helicopters, senior officials said. All 224 people onboard the plane died, the Russian Embassy in Cairo said in a brief statement on Twitter.

Hours after the crash, a branch of the Islamic State operating in Sinai claimed responsibility. There has been no indication that the branch has the kind of weapons needed to bring down a plane from a high altitude. The other possibility would be a bomb planted or carried onboard. There has been a violent insurgency in Sinai against the Egyptian government for several years.

Egyptian and Russian officials did not immediately confirm the cause of the crash. The plane had apparently been trying to land at the airport at El-Arish, in northern Sinai, when it crashed, spreading mangled wreckage over a wide area of desert.

Maxim Sokolov, the Russian transportation minister, issued a statement rejecting reports that the plane had been the target of a terrorist attack.

“This information cannot be considered credible,” Mr. Sokolov said. “We are in a close contact with our Egyptian colleagues, with the aviation authorities of this country. At the moment, they have no information that would confirm such fabrications.”

Air France and Lufthansa said Saturday that they would avoid flying over the Sinai Peninsula as a precaution until further notice. Lufthansa said this would involve rerouting flights to six destinations.

The plane was flying at 31,000 feet when it suddenly began to descend. The general range of the shoulder-fired missiles, commonly known as Manpads, that have been used against Egyptian military helicopters in the region is much lower, around 20,000 feet.

Russian officials emphasized that determining the cause of the crash would require a technical analysis of the flight recorders and other work. Investigators from both Russia and France will assist.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4173245752697175740#editor/target=post;postID=5577390935676380945

key words 

1.distress 災禍 ;痛苦

2.indication 跡象

3.bring down 擊落

4.plant 安置

5.insurgency 暴動

6.mangle 使..殘缺不全

7.fabrication 虛構的謊言

8.reroute 變更旅程

Structure of the Lead：

      WHO - official accounts. Hossam Kama ,Mr. Kamal , Mr. Sokolov 

      WHEN - NOT given

      WHAT - Russia airliner crashes in Egypt, killing 224 

      WHY - not given

      WHERE -  Hasana, a mountainous region about 46 miles south of El-Arish

      HOW -he plane had apparently been trying to land at the airport at El-Arish, in northern Sinai, when it crashed, spreading mangled wreckage over a wide area of desert.

Week 6 - Hungarian reporter

Hungarian nationalist TV camera operator filmed kicking refugee children

A camera operator for a Hungarian nationalist television channel closely linked to the country’s far-right Jobbik party has been filmed kicking two refugee children and tripping up a man at the border hotspot of Rőszke on Tuesday. 

Petra László of N1TV was filming a group of refugees running away from police officers, when a man carrying a child in his arms ran in front of her. László stuck her leg out in front of the man, causing him to fall on the child he was carrying. He turned back and remonstrated with László, who continued filming.

A 20-second video of the scene was posted on Twitter by Stephan Richter, a reporter for the German television channel RTL and soon went viral, leading to the creation of a Facebook group “The Petra László Wall of Shame”.

Hungary’s leading news website Index had also caught László kicking a young girl and boy. 

N1TV said László had been dismissed due to “unacceptable behaviour”. The channel’s editor in chief Szabolcs Kisberk said in a statement posted on the station’s website: “The camerawoman’s employment has today been terminated with immediate effect, the case is now closed for us.”

As well as speeches made by the Jobbik leader Gábor Vona, the channel’s website also contains articles with such headlines as “migrants have swarmed all over the shops” and “Guantanamo = Hungary?”

Hundreds of angry comments appeared on the Facebook group set up to condemn László’s actions on Tuesday evening. 

Opposition parties Együtt-PM and the Democratic Coalition have said that they will initiate charges of violence against a member of the community, which is punishable by up to five years in prison, against László.

keywords

1. Hungarian 匈牙利的

2.nationalist 民主主義者

3.trip up 絆倒

4.stick out 伸出

5.remonstrate 表示抗議

6.go viral 像病毒般蔓延

7.dismiss 解雇

8.terminate 中止

9.Coalition 聯合

10.initiate 發起

Structure of the Lead

      WHO-   Hungarian nationalist TV camera operator, László

      WHEN-on Tuesday

      WHAT-  László has been filmed kicking two refugee children and tripping up a man 

      WHY- Not given

      WHERE- at the border hotspot of Rőszke

      HOW -Opposition parties  will  initiate charges of violence against a member of the community against László.

Week 5 - Mars Rover

Mars 'mystery solved': has Nasa found water flowing on the Red Planet?

The water appears to exist in the form of “thin layers of wet soil", rather than pools of standing water, Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, one of the scientists who made the finding using new imaging techniques said.

The discovery of liquid water means Mars is “not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past”, Jim Green, Nasa’s director of planetary science said.

Crucially, it “suggests that it would be possible for there to be life today on Mars”, John Grunsfeld, Nasa's science mission chief, said.

Water is essential to life as we know it on Earth – and on Earth, wherever there is water there is also life, the scientists said.

However, it is not yet known whether the briny water discovered on Mars may be too salty to support terrestrial life forms.

Although microbes do exist in salty habitats on the Atacama Desert in South America, the most likely location for microbes on Mars would be in fresh water that scientists believe might exist deeper beneath the surface of the planet, scientists suggested.

Dr McEwen said he believed that “the possibility of life in the interior of Mars has always been very high” and it was “very likely” that there was life in the form of microbes “somewhere in the crust of Mars”.

Dr Grunsfeld said the briny water discovered on Mars could also be “useful to future travellers”, not only for hydration but potentially even for growing crops in “inflatable greenhouses”.

Nasa has already said it wants to put men on Mars and Dr Grunsfeld said he hoped Nasa would be able to do so “in the near future”. Any Mars mission by Nasa would cost tens of billions of dollars.

Michael Meyer, lead scientist for Nasa’s Mars Exploration Program said: “Now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet. It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.”

Structure of the Lead

      WHO-  Michael Meyer, scientists,John Grunsfeld,Dr Grunsfeld

      WHEN- not given 

      WHAT- found water flowing on the red planet

      WHY- water is essential to our life 

      WHERE- on the Mars

      HOW - the more we learn how life could be on the Mars, the more resources to support life in the future

keywords

1.planetary 行星的;漂泊的

2.briny 鹽水的;海水的

3.terrestrial 地球上的人;地球上;陸地上

4.microbe 微生物:細菌來源

5.crust 外殼

5.hydration 水合

6.inflatable 膨脹的

Week 4 - New Horizons

Kepler 452b: Hot and heavy - but could humans live on distant planet dubbed 'Earth 2'?

DESPITE taking millions of years to reach exoplanet Kepler 452-b, do scientists believe humans could survive of Earth's distant "bigger, older cousin"?.

By JON AUSTIN

PUBLISHED: 14:16, Wed, Jul 29, 2015 | UPDATED: 15:23, Wed, Jul 29, 2015

Kepler project scientists, who use the telescope of the same name to track down Earth-like planets - estimate 452-b is 60 per cent bigger and probably weighs five times as much as our own planet.

The five times bigger mass would make Kepler 452-b's gravitational pull at least twice as strong as on Earth - something humans would find very difficult to deal with, as possible space explorers would feel twice as heavy.

According to NASA scientists who unveiled the discovery of the planet last week, if humans ever reached Kepler 452-b we would eventually evolve into much stockier beings because of this force.

Jon Jenkins, of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said: "It might be quite challenging at first.”

But the NASA experts also pointed out there were people on Earth who still functioned, albeit sluggishly, despite being twice or more their required body mass.

John Grunsfield, a former astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said humans could cope as firefighters, soldiers and backpackers often carry heavy loads, which mimick the effect of stronger gravity.

He said: "If we were there, we’d get stronger. 

“Our bones would actually get stronger. It would be like a workout every day.

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

However, different gravity aside, Kepler-452b should look quite familiar as it orbits a star at about the same distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun.

Mr Jenkins added: "It would feel a lot like home, from the standpoint of the sunshine that you would experience. 

Structure of the Lead

      WHO-  Kepler project scientists, Jon Jenkins, NASA scientists ,Mr Jenkins

      WHEN-  Not given

      WHAT-  452-b is 60 per cent bigger and probably weighs five times as much as our own planet.

      WHY-  Because the force human beings will become stockier

      WHERE-  Kepler 452-b

      HOW - Not given 

keywords

1.  unveil  公開

2. stockier 結實的

3. albeit    雖然;僅管

4.sluggishly 緩慢地

5.administrator 管理者

6.mimick 模仿

7.functioned 起作用的 

8.orbit 軌道

9.standpoint 立場;觀點

week 3 - Same-sex marriage legal anywhere in the United States

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declared Friday that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States.

Gay and lesbian couples already could marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The court’s 5-4 ruling means the remaining 14 states, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage.

Gay rights supporters cheered, danced and wept outside the court when the decision was announced.

The outcome is the  culmination of two decades of Supreme Court litigation over marriage, and gay rights generally.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, just as he did in the court’s previous three major gay rights cases dating back to 1996. It came on the anniversary of two of those earlier decisions.

“No union is more profound than marriage,” Kennedy wrote, joined by the court’s four more liberal justices.

The stories of the people asking for the right to marry “reveal that they seek not to denigrate marriage but rather to live their lives, or honor their spouses’ memory, joined by its bond,” Kennedy said.

The four dissenting justices each filed a separate opinion explaining their views, but they agreed that states and their voters should have been left with the power to decide who can marry.

“This court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissent. Roberts read a summary of his dissent from the bench, the first time he has done so in nearly 10 years as chief justice.

“If you are among the many Americans – of whatever sexual orientation – who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision,” Roberts said. “But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”

Justice Antonin Scalia said he is not concerned so much about same-sex marriage, but about “this court’s threat to American democracy.” Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas also dissented.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/same-sex-marriage-legal-anywhere-in-the-united-states-supreme-court-rules

Structure of the Lead

      WHO-  same-sex couples 

      WHEN- not given 

      WHAT- same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States.

      WHY-  people asked for the right to marry 

      WHERE- Washington

      HOW - the Supreme Court declared the right to  the same-sex couples 

keywords

1. enforce                  強調
2. Supreme Court    最高法院
3. culmination         極點;最高點
4. litigation                訴訟;起訴
5. profound              深切的;深奧的
6. denigrate               汙衊;毀謗;詆毀
7. spouse                   配偶
8. dissent                  不同意的;有不同意見的
9.chief                      主要的

Week 2 - throat cut

Taiwan rocked by 'cold-blooded murder' of eight-year-old girl in primary school bathroom

• Monday 1 June 2015

Schools in the Taiwanese capital Taipei are to review their security measures after the brutal murder of an eight-year-old girl sent shockwaves across the state.

The island’s Central News Agency reported that the second-grade student, identified only by her surname Liu, has died in hospital of her wounds a day after she was attacked by an intruder at Wenhua Elementary School.

Police said an attacker broke into the school and found the girl on her own in a bathroom, where he cut her throat twice with a knife.

Liu was found unconscious on the floor and taken to hospital,CNA reported. She underwent surgery and briefly regained a heartbeat, but died on Saturday morning.

The attack made front pages across Taiwan on Saturday, and according to the South China Morning Post prompted a press conference from Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je.(柯文哲)

Mr Ko said a task force was going to be set up to review school security, the SCMP reported, as well as establishing a system to monitor “potentially dangerous people”.

Police told CNA that a suspect, identified as 29-year-old Kung Chung-an(龔重安), was apprehended a short time after the attack.

Kung received a bail hearing on Saturday morning, CNA reported, at which prosecutors requested he be detained until he can be brought to trial.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/taiwan-rocked-by-cold-blooded-murder-of-eight-year-old-girl-in-primary-school-bathroom-10287495.html

      WHAT    - the eight-year-old girl who had throat cut dies in hospital

      WHY      -  not given

      WHERE - not given

      HOW      -  an attacker broke into the school and found the girl on her own in a bathroom, where he cut her throat twice with a knife.

1. shockwaves   在...中引起巨大衝擊
2.  undergo        接受
3. apprehend      逮捕
4. prosecutor     追訴者
5. detain            扣留
6. bail hearing   保釋聆訊
7. be brought to trial  出庭受審