American sniper

Things we can learn from “American Sniper”:

You know the movie, right? It has not only been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar; it could wind up selling more tickets than the other seven nominees combined. Plus, it’s triggered a left-right controversy that makes the old dust-up over “Duck Dynasty” seem like a tiny cultural blip.

“American Sniper” tells the story of Chris Kyle, a real-life Iraq war veteran and sharpshooter. The film is certainly powerful, and it celebrates our Iraq veterans. But it also eulogizes the killing of Iraq insurgents, including children, and critics feel it ought to be put in the context of an invasion that didn't need to happen in the first place.

There’s been less conversation about the final scene in the movie, which shows the hero walking through his family home, where the kids are romping. He’s carrying a handgun, which he points at his wife Taya, playfully telling her to “drop them drawers.” Taya says she can see he’s finally getting over his war traumas and back to his old fun-loving self.

This is, by virtually any standard, insane behavior. Mike Huckabee, a big “American Sniper” fan, recently published a book called “God, Guns, Grits and Gravy,” which is so wildly opposed to any weapon regulation that Huckabee opens his chapter on modern education by complaining that public schools are anti-gun. Yet he also presents a list of universally accepted gun safety rules, many of which boil down to don’t point it at anybody as a joke.

“Yeah, but if you want to complain about the casual treatment of guns in movies, you don’t have to look very hard on any Friday night,” said Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Murphy hasn't seen the movie, but he’s one of Congress’s leading advocates of gun-control regulation. It’s not the world’s most rewarding job. In recent years, his colleagues have not only refused to pass an extremely modest bill on background checks, they’ve failed to ban the sale of guns to people on the terrorism watch list.

“American Sniper” is on one, supremely obvious level, a celebration of gun culture. But it’s also a cautionary tale. The real Chris Kyle was shot to death while the script was being written. He had volunteered to help a troubled veteran, Eddie Ray Routh, who had a history of violent behavior and was an apparent victim of post-traumatic stress. Kyle felt the best way to get him to relax was to take him to a shooting range. While they were there, Routh turned his gun on Kyle, and one of Kyle’s friends, killing them both.

“American Sniper” could actually be seen, at least in the final scene, as a good-gun, bad-gun message. The real Chris Kyle did enjoy walking around the house, twirling a pistol. His wife said that as the clouds lifted after his Iraq service, he would playfully point a gun at the television and pretend to shoot down the bad guys.

When it was all over, some legislators in both parties wore “I’m Poncho” badges in solidarity with Nevárez, who was assigned a security detail after he and his family received threats.

The leader of Open Carry Tarrant County, Kory Watkins, then posted another video in which he claimed that the resistant lawmakers were forgetting their duty was “to protect the Constitution. And let me remind you: Going against the Constitution is treason. And treason is punishable by death.”

Meanwhile, in the Texas Capitol, enthusiasm for watering down the gun laws seems to be dwindling. That could qualify as a happy ending.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Chris Kyle, a real-life Iraq war veteran and sharpshooter

WHEN- in Iraq war
WHAT- nominated for the Best Picture Oscar

WHERE- American

HOW- not given

Key words:

nominated 提名

controversy 爭議

sharpshooter 狙擊手

regulation 調整

advocates 主張

enthusiasm 熱情

dwindling 萎縮

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/gail-collins-american-sniper-moral.html?_r=0

Weekly 3 - New Year's Eve stampede kills 36 people

New Year's Eve stampede kills 36 on Shanghai waterfront

A stampede killed at least 36 people during New Year's Eve celebrations in Shanghai, authorities said, but police denied reports it was caused by people rushing to pick up fake money thrown from a building overlooking the city's famous waterfront.

The government in China's gleaming business capital said large crowds started to stampede on Chen Yi Square (陳毅廣場), in the riverside area known as the Bund (外灘), just before midnight.

The cause of the crush has still to be confirmed, though state media and some witnesses have said it was at least partly triggered when people rushed to pick up coupons that looked like bank notes.

A man named Wu, who brought one of the 47 injured to hospital for treatment, said the fake money had been thrown down from a bar above the street as part of the celebrations.

But Shanghai police said on their official microblog (微博) that while closed-circuit television footage did show some bills had been thrown from a bar in a building overlooking the Bund, which a small number of people picked up, this did not cause the crush.

"This incident happened after the stampede," police said in a brief statement, without saying what the real cause was.

Another witness, who gave his family name as Wei, said there had been a problem away from the area where the fake bills were thrown, with people trying to get on to a raised platform overlooking the river.

Xinhua news agency said that people had been trampled on after falling down on the steps up to the platform.

"We were caught in the middle and saw some girls falling while screaming. Then people started to fall down, row by row," a witness surnamed Yin told Xinhua.

Some Chinese media outlets carried criticism of the authorities for lack of adequate policing and planning.

Police officer Cai Lixin said they did not have a large presence on the Bund as there were no formal New Year events planned, Caixin magazine (財新雜誌) said.

Foreign media were forbidden from attending a police press conference, underscoring government sensitivity about any critical coverage of disasters.

State media said many of the dead and injured were students, and 28 of the dead were women.

Authorities had shown some concern about crowd control in the days leading up to New Year's Eve. They recently canceled an annual 3D laser show on the Bund, which last year attracted as many as 300,000 people.

On New Year's Eve, Beijing also canceled a countdown event in the central business district, Chinese media said, due to police fears about overcrowding.

President Xi Jinping has asked the Shanghai government to get to the bottom of the incident as soon as possible, and ordered governments across the country to ensure a similar disaster could not happen again, state television said.

The Shanghai government said on its official microblog that an inquiry had begun, and that all other New Year events had been canceled.

In 2004, 37 people died in a stampede in northern Beijing, on a bridge at a scenic spot, during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- 36 Chinese people

WHEN- the New Year’s Eve in 2014

WHAT- 36 people dead by Stampeded

WHY- Stampede

WHERE- Shanghai waterfront in northern Beijing

HOW- not given

Key words:

Stampede 踩踏

Gleaming 閃閃發光的

Cosmopolitan 國際化

Conference 會議

Sensitivity 靈敏度

Inquiry 查詢

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/01/us-china-stampede-idUSKBN0K916W20150101

Weekly2-Taliban killed 132 children

At least 132 students and nine staff members were killed on Tuesday when Taliban gunmen broke into a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and opened fire, witnesses said, in the bloodiest massacre the country has seen for years.

More than eight hours after militants slipped into the heavily guarded compound through a back entrance, the army declared the operation to flush them out over, and said that all nine insurgents had been killed.

The attack on a military-run high school attended by more than 1,100 people, many of them children of army personnel, struck at the heart of Pakistan's military establishment, an assault certain to enrage the country's powerful army.

Wounded children taken to nearby hospitals told Reuters most victims died when gunmen, suicide vests strapped to their bodies, entered the compound and opened fire indiscriminately on boys, girls and their teachers.

The Taliban, waging war against Pakistan in order to topple the government and set up an Islamic state(伊斯蘭國家), immediately claimed responsibility.

SUICIDE BOMBERS

The Taliban said the gunmen had been equipped with suicide vests and at least three explosions were heard inside the high school at the height of the massacre.

Outside, as helicopters(直昇機) rumbled overhead, police struggled to hold back distraught parents who were trying to break past a security cordon and get into the school.

Officials said 121 pupils and three staff members were wounded. A local hospital said the dead and injured were aged from 10 to 20 years old.

A Reuther's correspondent visiting the city's major Combined Military Hospital(聯合軍隊醫院) said its corridors were lined with dead students, their green-and-yellow school uniform ties peeping out of the white body bags.

The gunmen, who several students said communicated with each other in a foreign language, possibly Arabic, managed to slip past the school's tight security because at least some of them were wearing Pakistani military uniforms, some witnesses said.

VIOLENCE

The Pakistani Taliban have vowed to step up attacks in response to a major army operation against the insurgents in the tribal areas.

But despite the crackdown this year, the military has long been accused of being too lenient toward Islamist militants who critics say are used to carry out the army's bidding in places like Kashmir and Afghanistan.

The military denies the accusations.

So far the Taliban have targeted mainly security forces, military bases and airports, but attacks on civilian targets with no logistical significance are relatively rare.

In September, 2013, however, dozens of people, including many children, were killed in an attack on a church, also in Peshawar in Pakistan's northwest.

The assault on a school where officers' children studied could push the armed forces into a more drastic response.

In India, Pakistan's long-time rival, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his shock. The Afghan Taliban, which are separate to the Pakistani Taliban, put out a statement condemning the attack as "against the basics of Islam."

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousa
fzai, joint winner of this year's Nobel peace prize for education campaign work and survivor of a Taliban attack in 2012, said she was devastated.

"I am heartbroken by this senseless and cold-blooded act of terror in Peshawar that is unfolding before us," Malala, who now lives in central England, said in a statement.

WHO-

WHEN-

WHAT-

WHY-

WHERE-

HOW-

Key words:

Massacre 大屠殺

Militants 武裝份子

Insurgents 叛亂份子

Assault 突擊

Indiscriminately 亂

Distraught 發狂的

Correspondent 記者

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/16/us-pakistan-school-idUSKBN0JU0JO20141216

Weekly1-Mexico missing students

 Mexico's attorney general says he can prove what happened to 43 students who disappeared in the southern state of Guerrero in September.

Jesus Murillo Karam said his team had interviewed 99 people including members of the criminal gang whom he alleges murdered the students.

Correspondents say it is the first time he has declared all the students dead.

Parents reacted angrily, saying that without proof, they would continue to believe their children were alive.

Mr Murillo Karam insisted that the students were killed by the gang and their bodies burnt at a rubbish dump - an explanation which relatives of the disappeared have rejected.

He said his team had 39 confessions from police and from members of the gang.

The remains of only one student have been identified so far after badly burnt bones were sent to a laboratory in Austria for DNA analysis.

The laboratory said it was impossible to identify any others because of the bad condition of the remains.

Key witness

Mr Murillo said his information was based on 386 declarations from interviewees, 16 police raids and two reconstructions.

He said a key witness was Felipe Rodriguez Salgado, otherwise known as "El Cepillo", a member of the criminal gang who is alleged to have taken part in the kidnapping, murder and disappearance of the students.

"The evidence allows us to determine that the students were kidnapped, killed, burned and thrown in the river," said Mr Murillo.

He said evidence of gas, diesel and burnt rocks and steel from the inside of tyres at the scene proved this had taken place.

Relatives say there is still not enough proof to declare the students dead

He also said forensic research showed the fire would have been hot enough to burn all 43 bodies - a view which has been disputed by Mexican scientists.

Relatives of the disappeared have been sceptical about government explanations over what happened.

At an emotional news conference on Tuesday, parents accused the government of trying to end the investigation.

"We don't believe anything of what they say," said Carmen Cruz, whose 19-year-old son Jorge is one of the disappeared students.

"We are not going to allow this case to be closed."

The lawyer representing the families, Vidulfo Rosales, presented a 10-point argument explaining why they believe the investigation should continue.

Families say there has been a lack of conclusive forensic results.

Mr Rosales said that several key suspects were still at large and that, if detained, they could shed new light on the official version of events.

On Monday, relatives of the students led a huge march in Mexico City demanding government action and concrete proof of what had happened.

They maintain that the military based in Iguala would have known about the arrival of the students in the town and what happened to them.

They have campaigned to gain access to inspect army barracks where they allege students might have been taken.

But at his press conference, Mr Murillo said "there was not a shred of evidence" that the army were involved.

Alexander Mora is the only student to have been identified so far, after his remains were taken for DNA tests at a forensic centre in Austria.

He was in his first year of studies at the rural teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, a college with a tradition of left-wing political activism.

Alexander Mora was part of a group of students who travelled to the nearby town Iguala on 26 September and, as part of a protest, commandeered a number of buses.

On their way back to their college the students were intercepted by police allegedly on the orders of the local mayor.

The attorney general has argued the police handed the students over to a criminal drug gang who mistook them for a rival group and executed them.

Key words:

Allege 斷言

Correspondent 記者

Rubbish dump 垃圾場

Confession 自白

Declaration 聲明

Reconstruction 重建

Forensic 法庭的

Dispute 爭議

Skeptical 懷疑的

Concrete 具體

Campaigned 競選

Barracks 軍營

Commandeered 徵募

Intercepted 截獲

source:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31013491