Week 3 - China confirms identities of 36 stampede deaths

China confirms identities of 36 stampede deaths

Chinese authorities confirmed the identities of the 36 people who died in a stampede on New Year’s Eve in Shanghai as the metropolis of 23 million engaged in citywide safety checks.

More than two-thirds of the fatalities were female, according to a statement on the city government’s official microblog.

The youngest was a 12-year-old boy.

Victims included students of Fudan University, East China Normal University and East China University of Political Science, Xinhua news agency reported, citing unidentified people.

The incident has dealt “a heavy blow” to Shanghai’s image, state media Chinanews.com said in a commentary on New Year’s Day.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) ordered an investigation and told local governments to prioritize safety as the nation prepares for mass celebrations for the Lunar New Year next month.

Local authorities started emergency safety inspections across Shanghai on New Year’s Day, according to a statement on the city government’s Web site on Saturday.

The metropolis canceled several New Year’s events including a light show and concert as it deployed resources to public areas where crowds are expected, it said.

The disaster was Shanghai’s deadliest since a highrise apartment building fire in 2010 that left 58 people dead.

Inadequate surveillance and shoddy construction standards were the cause of that inferno, according to then-mayor Han Zheng (韓正), who has since been promoted to the city’s highest-ranking Communist Party official.

In Hong Kong, on New Year’s Eve, 1993, 20 people, mostly teenagers, died and 71 were injured in a stampede in the Lan Kwai Fong entertainment district, the South China Morning Post reported.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2015/01/05/2003608522

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Chinese authorities, the victims

WHEN- Dec 31, 2014

WHAT- China confirms identities of 36 stampede deaths

WHY- 36 people were stampeded to deaths on New Year’s Eve in Shanghai

WHERE – Shanghai

HOW- Were stampeded to deaths

Keywords：

01. confirmed：證實(v.)

02. stampede：踩踏(n.),(v.)

03. fatalities：死亡(n.)

04. microblog：微博(n.)

05. prioritize：分優先順序(v.)

06. inspection：檢查(n.)

07. Inadequate：不足的(a.)

08. surveillance：監控系統(n.)

09. shoddy：劣質的(a.)

10. inferno：地獄、火海(n.)

Week 2 - Pakistani terrorist attack

Taliban kill 132 at school in Pakistan

ATROCITY:The victims were mostly schoolchildren, in the deadliest terror attack in the country since at least 2007, in what Islamabad has called ‘a decisive moment’

Taliban militants killed dozens of children in an attack on an army-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan, that has left 132 people dead so far, the country’s deadliest terrorist attack since at least 2007.

Two attackers were holding 40 teachers and 20 students hostage, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province Minister of Information Mushtaq Ghani said by telephone before a military source announced that a nine-hour Pakistani Army operation to retake the school was complete

All nine attackers were reportedly killed, the source said.

Four attackers blew themselves up and another was shot dead by soldiers, he said.

The strike is the worst since the army began an offensive against Taliban insurgents near the Afghan border earlier this year.

The military is expected to want to hit back hard as the Taliban looks for more so-called “soft targets,” such as shopping centers and restaurants affiliated with the armed forces, according to Omar Hamid, head of Asia-Pacific country risk at IHS Inc.

“A lot of the kids that go to this school would have parents in the army who are taking part in the operation,” Hamid said by telephone from London. “It’s an attempt to bring the conflict into the homes of the military, especially in Peshawar.”

The dead included 123 male students, as well as nine staff members, including a female teacher, Peshawar government spokesman Feroze Shah said by telephone.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Express Tribune, citing Taliban spokesman Mohammed Khorasani.

The attack was in retaliation for the military’s operation in North Waziristan and Khyber tribal agency, it said.

“This is a decisive moment in the fight against terrorism,” Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told reporters in televised remarks from Peshawar. “The people of Pakistan should unite in this fight. Our resolve will not be weakened by these attacks.”

Terrorism has killed more than 50,000 people in Pakistan since 2001 and complicated efforts to revive South Asia’s second-biggest economy.

Yesterday’s strike is the deadliest on a school since a 2004 assault by Islamic militants in Russia, according to Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore.

About 350 people died then in Beslan, North Ossetia, half of them children.

It also came a day after a self-proclaimed Islamic cleric from Iran held 17 hostages at a Sydney cafe for 16 hours. He died along with two hostages.

“Due to the momentum of events in Syria and Iraq, the number of groups in Pakistan have become more galvanized,” Gunaratna said. “You can see a trend toward hostage-taking and barricade-type situations. It’s a very serious situation.”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/12/17/2003606919

.Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Taliban militants, army-run school students and teachers

WHEN- Wed, Dec 16, 2014

WHAT- Taliban kill 132 at school in Pakistan

WHY- The attack was in retaliation for the military’s operation in North Waziristan and Khyber tribal agency.
WHERE – Peshawar Pakistan

HOW- holding 40 teachers and 20 students as hostage and shot them to dead.

Keywords：

1. Taliban：塔利班

2. Peshawar：白沙瓦

3. hostage：人質

4. blow up：引爆

5. insurgents：叛亂份子

6. retaliation：報復

7. self-proclaimed：自詡為

8. hostage-taking：挾持人質

Week 1 - Mexico Missing students

Missing students spark more protests in Mexico

AFP, MEXICO CITY

About 3,000 people took to the streets of downtown Mexico City on Friday, three months after the disappearance and likely massacre of 43 students.

The students went missing on Sept. 26, in an apparent kidnapping and suspected massacre by a police-backed gang that sparked nationwide protests and caused a crisis for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

The latest marches were led by parents and other relatives and friends of the missing, including students from their teacher training college in Guerrero State.

“We want them alive,” protesters chanted, walking behind gigantic portraits of the missing students and a huge Mexican flag, whose red and green colors were replaced by black.

“What does Ayotzinapa want?” protest leaders called out, referring to the name of the students’ school.

“Justice. Justice,” the crowd responded.

If all of the students are confirmed dead, it would rank among the worst mass murders in a drug war that has killed more than an estimated 80,000 people and left about 22,000 others missing since 2006 in Mexico.

Authorities say the aspiring teachers vanished after corrupt police officers attacked their buses in the city of Iguala, allegedly under orders from Iguala’s mayor and his wife in a night of terror that left six other people dead.

The police allegedly then delivered the young men to members of the Guerreros Unidos drug gang, who told investigators that they took them in two trucks to a landfill, killed them, burned their bodies and dumped the remains in a river.

Only one of the students has been identified so far from charred remains.

On Wednesday last week, the students’ parents protested under heavy rains in front of the Los Pinos presidential residence and office.

In a sign of the violence that continues to reign in Guerrero State, the body of a priest was recently found with a bullet wound to the head.

Gregorio Lopez Gorostieta was discovered in the Tierra Caliente region two months after another priest’s body was found.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2014/12/28/2003607806

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Guerrero State College’s students and their parents, relatives and other protests

WHEN- Sun, Dec 28, 2014

WHAT-Those missing students’ parents and relatives took to the streets for the missing studends

WHY- To protest the police and authority
WHERE - Downtown Mexico City

HOW- Took to the streets

Keywords：

1. massacre：大屠殺

2. police-backed gang：有警察靠山的幫派

3. portraits：畫像

4. aspiring：有抱負的

5. corrupt：腐敗的

6. allegedly：據稱

7. landfill：垃圾掩埋場

8. charred remains：焦黑的遺體

9. priest：牧師

Week 7 - Keywords： Canada's parliament attacked

Canada's parliament attacked, soldier fatally shot nearby

BY RANDALL PALMER AND DAVID LJUNGGREN

OTTAWA Wed Oct 22, 2014 7:38pm EDT

(Reuters) - A gunman attacked Canada's parliament on Wednesday, with gunfire erupting near where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was speaking, and a soldier was fatally shot at a nearby war memorial, stunning the Canadian capital.

The gunman in the parliament building was shot dead, and Harper was safely removed in incidents that may have been linked to Islamic militants.

Witness accounts indicated the man who shot dead the soldier guarding the National War Memorial in central Ottawa, went on to attack the parliament building minutes later. Canadian police said however they could not "at this point" confirm it was the same person.

The shootings followed an attack on two soldiers in Quebec on Monday carried out by a convert to Islam. Two U.S. officials said U.S. agencies had been advised the dead gunman in Wednesday's shootings was also a Canadian convert to Islam.

Witnesses said a flurry of shots were fired after a gunman entered the parliament building, pursued by police.

The assault took place very near the room where Harper was meeting with members of his Conservative party, a government minister said.

"PM (Harper) was addressing caucus, then a huge boom, followed by rat-a-tat shots. We all scattered. It was clearly right outside our caucus door," Treasury Board Minister Tony Clement told Reuters.

The incident, shocking in Canada's normally tranquil capital, began shortly before 10 a.m. ET and was not over late in the afternoon. Parliament and buildings in downtown remained on emergency lockdown at 6 p.m.

Canadian police were investigating a man named as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau as a possible suspect in the shootings, a source familiar with the matter said. U.S. government sources said the suspect was born Michael Joseph Hall but later changed his legal family name to Zehaf-Bibeau.

Security in Ottawa came under criticism after the gunman was able to run through the unlocked front door of the main parliament building. Police said an operation was under way to make parliament safe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/22/us-canada-attacks-shooting-idUSKCN0IB1PY20141022

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- a Canada soldier, congressmen, a gunman

WHEN- Wed Oct 22, 2014

WHAT- a Canada soldier was shot to dead by a gunman, the gunman then ran to the parliament attacked Canada's parliament.

WHY- not even know, but the gunman seems to a Canadian convert to Islam.

WHERE- Canada parliament

HOW- shooting

Keywords：

1. parliament：議會、國會

2. National War Memorial：戰爭紀念館

3. Islamic militants：伊斯蘭武裝份子

4. guarding：守衛 (v.)

5. convert：皈依、轉而信奉（指宗教）

6. assault：突擊 (n.)

7. caucus：預備會議 (n.)

Week 6 - Meeting Western Jihadists of ISIS

Meeting Western Jihadists of ISIS

By Atika Shubert and Bharati Naik ,CNN
September 2, 2014, 12:03 am TWN

Before we begin our interview with two foreign fighters in Syria, our camera captures them both adjusting the scarves masking their faces. One of them carefully positions an AK-47 between them.

We have interviewed them before, but telling which masked militant is which isn't easy. With unintended comedy they reintroduce themselves by their jihadi names: Abu Bakr and Abu Anwar. They say they are in Northern Syria, at what appears to be an Internet cafe.

We began reaching out to jihadi fighters in Syria online about a year ago. Abu Bakr was open to talking with us and he gradually agreed to bring other fighters to do an on-camera interview. A process made tougher as they change locations every couple of months.

Abu Bakr won't tell us where he is from, but Abu Anwar is British. “I'm from the South of England. I grew up in a middle class family. Life was easy back home. I had a life. I had a car. But the thing is: You cannot practice Islam back home.” He told us, “We see all around us evil. We see pedophiles. We see homosexuality. We see crime. We see rape. And we can't do anything about it because we are obeying by the laws of the kuffar.”

Initially, both fighters came to Syria to join the rebel alliance against the regime of Bashar al Assad. But they now believe that establishing an Islamic caliphate is more important.

When we asked Abu Anwar what message he had for friends back home it was a call to join the fight: “Leave the lands of infidelity and leave for the lands of Islam. We have an Islamic state in Raqa. Alhamdulillah now in Iraq. And I ask all my Muslim friends to make hijrah to these Islamic states.”

In all our conversations, both are unfailingly polite. They patiently answer our questions, determined for us to see their point of view: For them, America is an immoral country at war with Muslims.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/the-china-post/special-to-the-china-post/2014/09/02/416281/Meeting-Western.htm

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Western Jihadists of ISIS

WHEN- September 2, 2014

WHAT- Two reporter interview two foreign fighters in Syria

WHY- They want to know about ISIS and jihadi.

WHERE- Not give

HOW- By camera

Keywords：

1. scarves masking ：面紗

2. unintended：意外

3. British：英國人

4. pedophiles：戀童僻者

5. homosexuality：同性戀.

6. alliance：反叛聯盟

7. regime：政權

8. caliphate：哈里發

Week 5 - Nigeria girls kidnapped

Outrage grows two weeks after Nigeria girls kidnapped

RETURN OUR DAUGHTERS:A group called Women for Peace and Justice has organized a march to demand that more resources be committed to securing the girls’ release

AFP, KANO, Nigeria

Protesters were to hold a “million-woman march” in the Nigerian capital yesterday over the government’s failure to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists two weeks ago.

Angry Nigerian parents lashed out at the government on Tuesday as a local leader claimed the hostages had been sold as wives abroad.

“May God curse every one of those who has failed to free our girls,” said Enoch Mark, whose daughter and two nieces were among the more than 100 students abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in the Chibok area of the northeastern state of Borno.

The attack was one of the most shocking in Boko Haram’s five-year uprising, which has claimed thousands of lives across northern and central Nigeria.

The outrage that followed the mass abduction has been compounded by disputes over how many girls were seized and criticism of the military’s search-and-rescue effort.

Borno officials have said 129 girls were kidnapped when gunmen stormed the school after sundown on April 14 and forced the students — who are between 12 and 17 years old — onto a convoy of trucks. Officials said 52 have since escaped.

Locals, including the school principal, have rejected those numbers, insisting that 230 students were snatched and that 187 are still being held hostage.

Mark said that his wife has hardly slept since the attack, lying awake at night “thinking about our daughter.”

An organization called Women for Peace and Justice has called for a “million-woman protest march” in the capital, Abuja, yesterday to demand that more resources be committed to securing the girls’ release.

Pogo Bitrus, leader of a Chibok elders group, said that locals had been tracking the movements of the hostages with the help of “various sources” across the northeast.

“From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian border towns our abducted girls were taken ... into Chad and Cameroon,” he said.

The girls were then sold as brides to Islamist fighters for 2,000 naira (US$12) each, Bitrus added.

There was however no independent confirmation of his report and the Nigerian ministry of defense did not immediately answer calls seeking comment.

Some of the students who escaped have said the hostages were taken to Borno’s Sambisa Forest area, where Boko Haram has well-fortified camps.

Locals have scoured the bushlands of the remote region, pooling money to buy fuel for motorcycles and cars to conduct their own rescue effort, saying they have no confidence in the military’s search.

Dozens of Borno women clad in black staged a protest on Tuesday in front of Nigeria’s parliament.

The placard-carrying women rolled on the ground wailing and crying for help to rescue their daughters.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2014/05/01/2003589329

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Nigeria girls

WHEN- April 14, 2014

WHAT- million-women go on the demo in the Nigerian capital.

WHY- the government unable to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists

WHERE- Nigeria

HOW- go on the demo

Keywords：

1. lashed out：怒斥

2. hostages：人質

3. abduction：綁架

4. compounded：加劇

5. seized：查獲

6. stormed：衝進

7. confirmation：確認

8. parliament：議會

9. placard：標語牌

10. wailing：大哭