week7Hong Kong, occupy central, Leung Chun-ying, (umbrella revolution)

The Occupy Central campaign has not backfired despite recent polls showing support for Beijing's reform framework, the movement's co-founder says.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post reviewing the impact of the 79 days of protest, Benny Tai Yiu-ting said that the campaign had, in fact, widened the support base of the pro-democracy camp.

"Occupy has achieved the goal of social awakening far more than was intended," Tai said.

"Occupy did not end with a loss - we have expanded the pro-democracy camp."

He said that the tough stance taken by Beijing towards Hong Kong could be "a strategic consideration" and he has not lost hope for genuine reform in the next few years.

Speaking a week after police cleared the Occupy base camp in Admiralty, Tai said he was aware that some polls had shown that public sentiment against Beijing's stringent reform framework handed down in August for the 2017 chief executive election - the decision that triggered the protests - had waned slightly.

"It is true that towards the end, more people became anti-Occupy because they found it went on too long. But they did not object to civil disobedience or universal suffrage," said Tai, who co-founded the movement which eventually deviated from his script as the leadership shifted to students and the protest was prolonged.

On the contrary, he said that a recent Chinese University poll showed that supporters of Occupy accounted for more than 30 per cent of respondents, which he said was "solid growth" from the lack of positive response to the article last year in which he floated the idea of Occupy.

"Those in power will have to face these new sentiments and the reality that governance is difficult. Either you give Hongkongers some sweeteners for the economy, or you keep on the suppression, but both have failed to pacify people. There's got to be a compromise."

He said he had "no choice" in starting the mass sit-in, which seems to have toughened Beijing's stance towards Hong Kong. "The aim of Occupy was twofold: to put pressure on Beijing through threatening to occupy the roads, and to do social awakening. The first one proved to fail after Beijing handed down the August decision. So we continued social awakening through the act of occupation."

He said politicians were now aware of the need to connect with young people if they are to survive. "Hong Kong's future democratic movement will no longer be a vertical structure - there are no top-down relations and parties can no longer be the leader."

He sees a horizontal network, developed during Occupy, where different groups - parties, civil groups, students, internet users and even artists - share a common set of objectives and work in their own spheres of influence.

"Occupy has made me release that I am not good at fighting in the streets. There were many times I felt I did not fit in," he said.

The law academic did not enjoy addressing the crowd in Admiralty, on nights when protesters were longing for emotional speeches from leaders.

"But I will not leave the democratic movement. I will focus on contributing ideas rather than occupying the streets," Tai said.

Nor will he run for election. He said he has been invited by pro-democracy parties to run in past elections. "If I was interested, I would have done it a long time ago," Tai said.

Structure of  The Lead:

who: the movement's co-founder

what: The Occupy Central campaign has not backfired

when: not given

why: The Occupy Central campaign

where: not given

how: recent polls showing support for Beijing's reform framework

Keywords:

1.Occupy Central campaign - 佔領中環活動

2.backfired - 事與願違

3.South China Morning Post- 中國南方早報

4.pro-democracy camp - 親民主派

5.tough stance - 強硬立場

6.waned - 減弱

7.disobedience - 抗命

8.suffrage - 選舉權9.deviated - 偏離10.suppression - 抑制11.pacify - 安撫12.sit-in - 靜坐

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1667605/hong-kongs-occupy-protests-did-not-end-loss-says-co-founder-benny-tai

week6-Scottish independence referendum

Legality of a referendum

There was debate as to whether the Scottish Parliament had the power to legislate for a referendum relating to the issue of Scottish independence, as the constitution is a reserved matter for the UK Parliament. 

The Scottish government insisted in 2010 that they could legislate for a referendum, as it would be an "advisory referendum on extending the powers of the Scottish Parliament", whose result would "have no legal effect on the Union". Lord Wallace, Advocate General for Scotland, said in January 2012 that holding a referendum concerning the constitution would be outside the legislative power of the Scottish Parliament and that private individuals could challenge a Scottish Parliament referendum bill.

The two governments signed the Edinburgh Agreement, which allowed for the temporary transfer of legal authority. In accordance with the Edinburgh Agreement, the UK government drafted an Order in Council granting the Scottish Parliament the necessary powers to hold, on or before 31 December 2014, an independence referendum. The draft Order was approved by resolutions of both Houses of Parliament, and the Order, titled The Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013, was approved by The Queen, following the advice of Her Ministers, at a meeting of the Privy Council on 12 February 2013. Under the powers temporarily transferred from Westminster under the section 30 Order, the Scottish Parliament adopted the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013, summoning the referendum, defining the question to be asked, giving the date on which the referendum was to be held, and establishing the rules governing the holding of the referendum. The Bill for the Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 14 November 2013 and received Royal Assent on 17 December 2013. Under section 36 of the Act, it came into force the day after Royal Assent.

Structure of  The Lead:

who: not given

what: a debate whether the Scottish Parliament had the power to legislate for a referendum relating to 
          the issue of Scottish independence

when: not given

why: the constitution is a reserved matter for the UK Parliament

where: Scottish Parliament

how: not given

Keywords:

1.referendum-公投

2.Scottish Parliament-蘇格蘭議會

3.advisory-諮詢

4.In accordance with-依據

5.draft-草案

6. Privy Council-樞密院

7.Royal Assent-禦準

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014

week5 - Ferguson, Michael Brown, Darren Wilson, Missouri

Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in August, has resigned from the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, his attorney, Neil Bruntrager, confirmed to CNN Saturday.

Wilson had been on paid administrative leave since the incident.The resignation came five days after a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson in the incident. The shooting of Brown, who was 18, sparked worldwide protests. The announcement Monday of no indictment triggered another round of demonstrations that continued through the week and into the weekend.

Wilson, 28, cited security fears in his letter of resignation, which was published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Wilson’s resignation letter read:

“I, Darren Wilson, hereby resign my commission as a police officer with the City of Ferguson effective immediately. I have been told that my continued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance that I cannot allow.

For obvious reasons, I wanted to wait until the grand jury made their decision before I officially made my decision to resign. It was my hope to continue in police work, but the safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community to heal. I would like to thank all of my supporters and fellow officers throughout this process.”

Wilson had been a member of the Ferguson Police Department for six years.

On Tuesday, Wilson told ABC News that Brown was the aggressor in the minutes before the shooting. In an account that generally mirrored his testimony before the grand jury, Wilson said Brown had attacked him while the officer sat in his car, then fled. Wilson said he chased after Brown until Brown turned back toward him, refusing Wilson’s commands to stop.

Wilson denied some witnesses’ claims that Brown had had his hands up when he was fatally shot. “That would be incorrect,” Wilson said.

As Brown approached, Wilson said, he warned Brown to stop. When he didn’t stop, Wilson fired his handgun.

“I had to. If I don’t, he will kill me if he gets to me,” Wilson said.

Brown, who had been hit, continued to come toward Wilson, the officer said. Wilson fired again and began backing away.

“He gets to about 8 or 10 feet, and as he does that he kind of starts to lean forward, like he’s going to tackle me. And I look down the barrel of my gun and I fired and what I saw was his head, and that’s where (the bullet) went.”

Wilson’s lawyer, Bruntrager, told CNN that Wilson had been in hiding since days after the shooting, when he received a phone call while mowing the grass at his house.

“He had to leave the grass literally halfway mowed and he had to go into hiding because there are death threats against him, there are bounties on his head,” he said.

Structure of  The Lead:

who: Darren Wilson , Neil Bruntrager

what: not given

when: Saturday

why: the police has resigned from the police department

where: Ferguson, Missouri

how: his attorney, Neil Bruntrager, confirmed to CNN 

Keywords:

1.administrative-行政

2.resignation-辭職

3.indictment-起訴書

4.paramount-最重要的

5.aggressor-侵略者

6.testimony-證詞

7.circumstance-環境

http://ktla.com/2014/11/29/ferguson-police-officer-darren-wilson-resigns-in-wake-of-michael-brown-shooting/

week4-Ice Bucket Challenge, ALS

The origins of the idea of dumping cold water on one's head to raise money for charity are unclear and have been attributed to multiple sources. The most commonly accepted origin credits Pete Frates, a Bostonian who was diagnosed with ALS in March 2012. Pat Quinn, a friend of Frates who was diagnosed with ALS in 2013, is also credited with creating the challenge.

From mid-2013 to early 2014, a challenge of unknown origin often called the "Cold Water Challenge" became popular on social media in areas of the Northern United States. The task usually involved the option of either donating money to cancer research or having to jump into cold water. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Ice Bucket Challenge was begun by professional golfers as means to support various pet charities.

One version of the challenge, which took place in Salem, Indiana as early as May 15, 2014, involved dousing participants with cold water and then donating to a charity, for example a local child diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. In another version, the Auckland Division of the Cancer Society of New Zealand was the beneficiary. As with similar challenges, it was usually filmed so footage can be shared online.

The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation popularized the "Cold Water Challenge" in early 2014 to raise funds as an unsanctioned spin-off of the polar plunge most widely used by Special Olympics as a fundraiser.

On May 20, 2014, the Washington Township, New Jersey fire department posted a video on YouTube participating in the "Cold Water Challenge" with fire hoses. Participating members of the department were subsequently punished for using fire department equipment without permission.

Structure of  The Lead:

who: Pete Frates  ,Pat Quinn

what:The origins of the idea of dumping cold water on one's head to raise money for charity are unclear and have been attributed to multiple sources. 

when: March 2012

why: Pete Frates and Pat Quinn were diagnosed with ALS.

where:not given

how: They credited with creating the challenge.

Keywords:

1.version-版本

2.douse-撲滅

3.footage-鏡頭

4.unsanctioned-未經批准的

5.spin-off-分拆

6.fundraiser-募捐

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Bucket_Challenge

Week 3-University of California, Santa Barbara, Elliot Rodger

Rodger's 107,000-word manifesto was titled "My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger". He e-mailed it to about a dozen people including his therapist, his parents and some of his other family members, former schoolteachers, and childhood friends.

In his last YouTube video, titled "Elliot Rodger's Retribution", he complained of being rejected by women and described details of his upcoming attack, also laying out his motivations and plans.^[1] Police said they were investigating the video. In the wake of the killings, the video was deleted from Rodger's account, but copies were repeatedly re-posted by other users. In the video, he says:

Well, this is my last video, it all has to come to this. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge against humanity, against all of you. For the last eight years of my life, ever since I hit puberty, I've been forced to endure an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires all because girls have never been attracted to me. Girls gave their affection, and sex and love to other men but never to me.

I'm 22 years old and I'm still a virgin. I've never even kissed a girl. I've been through college for two and a half years, more than that actually, and I'm still a virgin. It has been very torturous. College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. Within those years, I've had to rot in loneliness. It's not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It's an injustice, a crime, because... I don't know what you don't see in me. I'm the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman.

He wrote in "My Twisted World" that being of mixed race made him "different from the normal fully white kids". On one online forum, he said that he opposed interracial dating and made several racist posts regarding African American, Hispanic, South Asian, and East Asian peoples, stating that seeing men of these ethnic groups socializing with white women "makes you want to quit life". In one online post, Rodger wrote:

Full Asian men are disgustingly ugly and white girls would never go for you. You're just butthurt that you were born as an Asian piece of shit, so you lash out by linking these fake pictures. You even admit that you wish you were half white. You'll never be half-white and you'll never fulfill your dream of marrying a white woman. I suggest you jump off a bridge.

Further, in his manifesto, he wrote:

How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves.

In the manifesto, he outlined some of his plans:

On the day before the Day of Retribution, I will start the First Phase of my vengeance: Silently killing as many people as I can around Isla Vista by luring them into my apartment through some form of trickery.

The manifesto specifically mentions a "War on Women" as the second phase of his plan for "starving him of sex", in which he describes:

The Second Phase will take place on the Day of Retribution itself, just before the climactic massacre. ... My War on Women. ... I will attack the very girls who represent everything I hate in the female gender: The hottest sorority of UCSB.

In Rodger's self-proclaimed ideal world, he imagined that he would "quarantine all [women] in concentration camps. At these camps, the vast majority of the female population will be deliberately starved to death. That would be an efficient and fitting way to kill them all off... I would have an enormous tower built just for myself... and gleefully watch them all die."

In the manifesto, he also said that he planned to kill his half-brother and stepmother, but wasn't mentally prepared to kill his father.

Structure of  The Lead:

who: Rodger

what:Rodger's 107,000-word manifesto was titled "My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger". 

when: not given

why: not given

where:not given

how: He e-mailed it to about a dozen people including his therapist, his parents and some of his other family members, former schoolteachers, and childhood friends.

Keywords:

1.manifesto-宣言

2.Retribution-報應

3.lay out-鋪設

4.virgin-處女

5.torturous-折磨

6.rot-腐爛

7.obnoxious-厭惡

8.mixed race-混血

9.interracial-異族的

10.aristocracy-貴族

11.vengeance-復仇

12.climactic-高潮

13.massacre-大屠殺

14.sorority-聯誼會

15.quarantine-檢疫

16.concentration camp-集中營

17.stepmother-繼母

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings

week2-Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

A new phase of the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 began on Monday as the first of two ships began scouring the Indian Ocean.

The plane vanished from radar in March shortly after take-off and is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board.

After an exhaustive aerial survey, the search for the missing plane had a fourth-month hiatus while experts mapped the part of the ocean where the plane is believed to have crashed.

On Monday the GO Phoenix arrived in the new search area and began an underwater search. The Fugro Discovery is expected to arrive in the search area in mid-October. The ships will use sonar technology close to the sea floor to scour the Indian Ocean for signs of the missing plane, and will send submersible devices.

The joint agency coordination centre responsible for the search said new analysis undertaken had refined the scope of the search.

“Recent refinement to the analysis has given greater certainty about when the aircraft turned south into the Indian Ocean and has produced a better understanding of the parameters within which the satellite ground station was operating during the last flight of MH370,” it said in a statement.

The search has moved to a primarily underwater operation, which will involve searching previously uncharted depths of the Indian Ocean.

The mission is being undertaken by the Australian and Malaysian governments, which are sharing the costs of the renewed search.

Structure of  The Lead:

who: the first of two ships

what: the search of the missing airline began

when: Monday

why: Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was missing

where: the Indian Ocean

how: scour the ocean

Keywords:

1.scour-搜索

2.vanish-消失

3.radar-雷達

4.aerial-航空的

5.hiatus-間斷

6.sonar-聲納

7.submersible-能沉入水中的

8.centre-集中

9.refine-推論

10.parameter-決定因素

11.uncharted-未知的

12.undertake-進行

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/06/mh370-underwater-search-resumes-as-ships-scour-indian-ocean

Week1- Boston Marathon

By Associated Press October 24

BOSTON — Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are complaining for a third time about media leaks they say are jeopardizing his right to a fair trial.

In a court filing Friday, Tsarnaev’s lawyers cite a recent piece in Newsweek magazine containing statements from unnamed law enforcement sources. They say the article “casts the entire Tsarnaev family in an extremely negative light” and “suggests that others were somehow involved.”

Tsarnaev’s lawyers want U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. to hold a hearing and call supervising law enforcement officers to testify about their efforts to stop unauthorized communications with the news media.

O’Toole has rejected two earlier defense requests for a hearing, but he has instructed prosecutors to warn law enforcement against disclosing information about the case to the media. Prosecutors sent a letter to all law enforcement agencies involved, telling them of the judge’s concerns.

Tsarnaev’s trial is scheduled to begin in January. Prosecutors say Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, planted two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the April 15, 2013, marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 260. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died following a shootout with police three days after the bombings.

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges and could face the death penalty if convicted.

In a separate filing Friday, Tsarnaev’s lawyers said they do not believe they are required to file a list of defense witnesses before Tsarnaev’s trial. They said they are worried that once the defense witness names are turned over to prosecutors, the witnesses would decide not to testify, “given the virtual certainty that the FBI will descend on each of the non-expert witnesses to interview them.”

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-Lawyers
WHEN-not given
WHAT-lawyers are complaining for a third time about media.
WHY- they say are jeopardizing his right to a fair trial.
WHERE-not given
HOW-not given

keyword

1.leak-洩漏
2.jeopardize-損害
3.trial-審問
4. enforcement-執行

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/marathon-suspects-lawyers-again-cite-media-leaks/2014/10/24/3ce80be2-5bbf-11e4-9d6c-756a229d8b18_story.html