Week 4 : Malaysia airplane MH17

Netherlands mourns 154 citizens in plane crash

Sat, Jul 19, 2014 AFP, SCHIPHOL, Netherlands

Distraught and sobbing relatives poured into Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, as the nation reeled from the news that 154 of its citizens were aboard a Malaysian plane believed to have been shot down in Ukraine.

Bewildered family members of those traveling on the ill-fated jet were whisked away into a restaurant on the upper deck of the airport, shielded from massing journalists. They then boarded buses headed for an unknown destination.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur disappeared from radar screens before crashing, with 298 people on board in eastern Ukraine.

Pro-Russian separatists in the region and officials in Kiev blamed each other for the crash, after the plane was apparently hit by a surface-to-air missile.

Red, white and blue Dutch flags were lowered to half-mast inside the country and at embassies around the world.

“I am deeply saddened by this horrible news,” King Willem-Alexander said in a statement.

“Our thoughts go to the families, friends and colleagues of the victims, and to those who do not know yet if one of their loved ones was on board the plane,” he said.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was “deeply shocked” by the catastrophe.

Malaysia Airlines vice president Huib Gorter told a press briefing at Schiphol that a plane would take victims’ relatives to Ukraine to visit the crash site if they wished to make the trip.

Many were stunned by the news their family and friends were on the Malaysian airliner which went down just four months after a flight from the same carrier disappeared over the Indian Ocean with 239 people on board.

“This can’t be true,” Alicia de Boer said in a Facebook comment as it emerged her friend, Cor Pan, a young Dutchman, had been on the flight.

In a chilling post just before he boarded the flight, Pan posted an image of the doomed flight with the comment: “If it should disappear, this is what it looks like.”

Cor Pan, who appeared to be going on a beach holiday to Malaysia, posted the photo as a joking reference to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.

Comments by Pan’s friends on Facebook suggested that he was on the MH17. Late on Thursday his picture had been shared more than 10,000 times on the social media site.

The crash resulted in the second-biggest loss of Dutch lives in an airplane disaster, after a 1977 crash of two Boeing 747 jumbo jets on the Canary Island of Tenerife that killed 238 Dutch nationals.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2014/07/19/2003595479

Structure of the Lead:

WHO- 154 Dutch.
WHEN-Not given
WHAT- were dead
WHY-A Malaysian plane which they took on believed to have been shot down
WHERE- in Ukraine
HOW-Not given

Keywords:


1. distraught 心痛的
2.sob 哭泣
3.mourn 哀悼
4. embassy 大使館
5.chilling 令人恐懼的

Week 3 : Nuclear power plant referendum

FAPA urges referendum on nuclear power plant

Sun, Apr 27, 2014  By William Lowther

The Washington-based Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) is calling for an immediate moratorium on the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the association called on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to hold a referendum “at the earliest possible time” on the future of the plant. It also asked that a clause in the Referendum Act (公民投票法) be dropped.

The statement expressed strong support for former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), who is now on a hunger strike in protest over the plant’s continued construction.

“As concerned Taiwanese-Americans, we care deeply about Taiwan and its future as a free and democratic nation,” the statement said. “Lin has vowed to fast to the end if the government does not agree to halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.”

Under normal circumstances, a referendum stopping the plant would easily pass, it added.

However, Taiwan’s “archaic” referendum law — which requires 50 percent of eligible voters to participate for a referendum result to be valid — is unreasonably high and “impossible to reach,” it added.

“Not a single referendum in the US would pass if these rules were applied,” it added.

According to the Washington-based lobby group, which promotes Taiwanese interests to the US government, a “heated debate has been raging” for more than 20 years over the desirability of the plant located 42km from Taipei.

The association said bad management has led to major delays and construction cost overruns.

While the plant is now in its 15th year of construction, other countries have built similar plants in about four years, the association said.

It said that the plant is similar to the one damaged in the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster in Japan; located on a seismic fault and close to the sea where it could be struck by a tsunami.

“In the case of a disaster, a major metropolitan area of nearly 7 million people would have to be evacuated, an impossible task,” the association said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/04/27/2003589007

 Structure of the Lead：

   WHO- The Washington-based Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA)

   WHEN-on Thursday

   WHAT- is calling for an immediate moratorium on the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City. 

 WHY- The plant is similar to the one damaged in the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster in Japan

   WHERE-not given

   HOW-not given

Keywords：

1.urge 督促

2.halt  停止

3.moratorium 暫停

4.valid 有效的

5.overrun 氾濫

6. seismic fault 地震斷層

7.evacuate 疏散