2017年1月10日 星期二

脫ㄛ

Brexit: What's happening now?

On 23 June 2016, the UK made a historic decision. It voted to leave the European Union (EU).
More than 33 million adults voted. Around 52% of them chose to leave the group of 28 countries, while 48% wanted to stay in it.
The UK has been a member of the EU for more than 40 years, so this was an extremely important moment.

Even though the vote happened more than 6 months ago, the UK is currently still a member of the EU.
Leaving the EU is a very significant change, which is why it hasn't happened overnight.
An official process for the UK to leave the EU has not started. Currently, the government is discussing how it might work.
So what has happened in the months since the vote?

What happened after the referendum?

Once the result of the vote was announced, the prime minister at the time David Cameron - who wanted the UK to stay in the EU - said he was going to resign.
So the UK needed a new prime minister before anything else could happen.
Theresa May took over the job the following month in July 2016.
Since then, the UK government has been talking about what sort of relationship it would like with the EU when it leaves.
This is the first time that a member of the EU has left since it was formed, so leaders say they are taking their time to make sure that the process runs smoothly.

What happens now?

The UK has not officially announced to the rest of the EU that it is leaving yet.
Prime Minister Theresa May wants to do this - and start the process to leave - by doing what is called triggering Article 50.
This is a way for the UK government to officially tell the EU that it no longer wants to be a member.




Article 50 is part of an agreement between members of the EU, called the Lisbon Treaty, which explains how a country should go about leaving the group.
If the prime minister triggers Article 50, this will start a two-year process, during which UK and EU leaders will discuss what their relationship would be like in future.
However, a big court case is taking place at the moment to decide if Theresa May is allowed to trigger Article 50, without parliament also agreeing to it.

What would happen if Article 50 is triggered?

If Article 50 is triggered, the UK will be left out from making big EU decisions.
However, it would still have to follow EU rules and agreements until it is officially no longer a member.
A two-year period of time would start during which the UK and the EU would need to come to an agreement about their future relationship.
There are many things that need to be discussed and agreed upon before the UK could officially leave the EU, including the following:
  • Business
The UK is currently part of something called the "single market" - an agreement designed to make it easier for countries in the EU to buy and sell ("trade") things with each other.
Leaders will need to decide how the UK will trade with members of the EU, once it is no longer a member of the group.
The US, for example, currently sells products into this single market, but it has slightly different rules - for example, it may have to pay extra charges.
So the EU needs to agree how the UK will buy and sell things with them too.
  • People
Around three million people from other EU countries currently live, work or study in the UK, and around two million British people live in other EU countries.
Leaders will need to decide whether these people will be able to stay where they are just as before, or if that will need to change.
Theresa May has said that she wants people from elsewhere in the EU who are living in the UK to be able to stay, and the same for people from the UK living in the EU.
The prime minister has also said the UK would like more control over immigrationif it leaves the EU.
Immigration is when people go to live or work in another country, so Theresa May wants to have more control over who can come to live and work here.
However, the EU says that if the UK wants to benefit from the single market, it might not be able to have as much control over its borders as it would like.
  • Laws
Countries in the EU share some laws between them.
At the moment, British laws and European laws are closely connected.
If the UK leaves, it will need to decide which bits of EU laws it wants to keep for its own laws, and which bits it doesn't.
Given how connected EU and British laws are, it could take a while to separate them.
The UK might have to keep some rules if it wants to have certain relationships with the EU after leaving.

Newsround page divider

These are just some of the areas that the UK and EU will need to discuss and agree on.
The process for the UK to leave the EU could take even longer than two years, if all of the other countries in the EU agree it can be extended.
How long the process takes depends on whether or not the UK and the EU are able to agree on how their relationship will work.
If Article 50 is triggered, the UK will not be able to come back into the EU unless all the other 27 countries in the group agree that it can.

 Structure of lead
 WHO-Britain
 WHEN-not given
 WHAT-the effect of Brexit
 WHY-not given
 WHERE-not given

Keywords
 trigger-引起
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IIIIIIIIIIIIIISIS

Chinese man detained for downloading 2 IS attack videos

January 10, 2017

Beijing: A Chinese citizen was detained for downloading and storing two videos of prisoners being decapitated by the Islamic State (IS) terror group, authorities said on Tuesday.
The man, surnamed Kang, was arrested by the Public Security Bureau of Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, following an administrative detention procedure that does not require any trial, Efe news reported.
Kang admitted his mistake, saying he downloaded the videos only out of curiosity and insisted he had not shared them with anyone else, the magazine reported citing police sources.
China’s First Anti Terrorism Law, in force since January 1, provides for administrative detention of between 10 and 15 days for people who produce, disseminate, or illegally possess material that advocates terrorism or extremism.
Kang’s is the first such detention for downloading videos with sensitive content, though another man was held for 15 days in the same city of Shijiazhuang in July 2016 for storing six videos containing terrorism-related material in his computer.
Human rights groups and the US government expressed their concern over this law fearing it might strengthen censorship and suppression in the communist regime.
Beijing has defended the law on the grounds that it is similar to those in other countries hit by terrorism, and stressed its aim was to reduce propaganda by violent groups in China after more than 100 of its citizens joined the ranks of Islamic State in recent years.
Structure of lead
 WHO-a Chinese citizen
 WHEN-not given
 WHAT-been detained
 WHY-download two ISIS video
 WHERE-Beijin
Keywords
detain-拘留
decapitate-斬首
detention-拘留
disseminate-散播
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2016年12月18日 星期日

SpaceX!!!!!!

Wow! SpaceX Lands Orbital Rocket Successfully in Historic First

Today's launch was the first for SpaceX since June 28, when a Falcon 9 broke apart less than three minutes after blasting off from Cape Canaveral, scuttling the seventh uncrewed cargo mission the company is flying to the International Space Station for NASA. (SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion deal to make at least 12 such flights with the Falcon 9 and its robotic Dragon capsule.)

The June failure was likely caused by a faulty steel strut in the Falcon 9 upper stage. Musk has said that, going forward, the company will test every one of the hundreds of such struts that go into each Falcon 9.

SpaceX has also been revamping the Falcon 9 since the accident, adjusting its stage-separation system and electronics, among other features, Musk said.

"I think it's a significantly improved rocket from the last one," he said on Dec. 15 during a talk at the annual winter meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Today's launch was originally scheduled for Sunday night (Dec. 20), but analyses showed that lifting off tonight provided a 10 percent better chance of landing success, Musk said.

The 11 satellites that launched aboard the Falcon 9 all deployed successfully, and will complete a 17-spacecraft Orbcomm network in low-Earth orbit.By  | 
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ㄅㄌ條約

Elon Musk is expected to urge Trump not to abandon the Paris climate agreement

The serial entrepreneur is a longtime fan of creating a carbon tax.

BY APRIL GLASER@APRILASER 
Elon Musk is joining President-elect Trump’s policy advisory council, despite his comments before the election that Trump “doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States."
Still, it’s probably in Musk’s favor to work with the incoming administration, especially as it starts to shape new policies that are dear to Musk’s heart, like regulations to bring self-driving cars to U.S. roadways and whether to abide by the 2015 Paris climate agreement or pull out, a threat Trump made on the campaign trail.
That doesn’t sit well with Musk, who will likely urge the Trump administration to remain a signatory on the international climate accord. Reps for Musk did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Shortly after Trump won the election, his team began sketching a plan to abandon the the Paris accord, reported Reuters. And Trump’s pick to head the EPA, Scott Pruitt, doesn’t think climate change science is real.
Musk, on the other hand, has long advocated for the U.S. to institute a gradual carbon tax, which he says is the only viable way to spur a transition from fossil fuels to more sustainable forms of energy.
Trump is unlikely to warm up to the idea of another tax — he’s promised to cut taxes across the board.
Even so, Musk might be able to persuade the president-elect not to renege on the Paris agreement, which already lacks strong mechanisms for enforcement.
Rex Tillerson, Trump’s pick for secretary of state and CEO of Exxon Mobil, also supported U.S. participation in the climate talks and endorsed the idea of a national carbon tax. Tillerson may also urge Trump not to leave the Paris deal.
Musk has a financial incentive for wanting the U.S. to start thinking progressively about transitioning from fossil fuel. Musk’s company Tesla acquired SolarCity, a leading U.S. firm building solar-powered energy systems, last month.
structure of lead
  WHO-Elon Musk
  WHEN-this week
  WHAT-some expected to urge Trump not to abandon the Paris climate agreement
  WHY-not given
  WHERE-not given

 Keywords
  1.advisory-顧問的
  2.council-議會
  3.abide-忍受
  4.signatory-簽約國
  5.accord-協約
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好奇號ㄛㄛㄛㄛㄛ

NASA’s Curiosity rover finds more evidence that Mars was once habitable

The robot is learning a lot from its mountain trek

by Loren Grush@lorengrush 
As NASA’s Curiosity rover makes its way up a layered mountain on Mars, the little bot is finding even more signs that the Red Planet was once a habitable place — potentially capable of hosting microbial life billions of years ago. The rover has been drilling as it climbs, and the samples it has uncovered reveal this region of the mountain to have a variety of minerals, chemistry, and textures. These diverse samples are helping scientists paint a picture of how ancient groundwater interacted with these rocks and changed over time.

Since water is such a key ingredient for life here on Earth, its past presence on Mars may mean that life once thrived there, too. “We’re finding different habitable environments as we go along,” Joy Crisp, a deputy project scientist for the Mars Science Laboratory at NASA, tells The Verge.
Curiosity landed on Mars four years ago in an area called Gale Crater, where it has discovered things like organic matter and an ancient streambed that have raised the possibility of Mars’ past habitability. Since then, the rover has traveled over nine miles and is currently climbing up a mountain in Gale Crater called Mount Sharp. The farther up Curiosity gets, the more diverse types of rocks it finds.
Specifically, Curiosity has found boron for the first time on this trip. It’s an element that’s never been found on Mars before, and its presence on the planet is exciting because it’s very water soluble. Typically, boron is found in places where water has evaporated, leaving the element behind. Even more tantalizing is that Curiosity has found this boron inside mineral “veins” on Mount Sharp. These veins are cracks in the Martian rocks that are filled with chemicals. It’s thought that these chemicals used to circulate inside ancient groundwater on Mars. When the groundwater eventually evaporated, the chemicals were leftover in the cracks.
As for the source of this groundwater, one idea that NASA has is that there used to be a lake at Gale Crater, and boron was trapped in the rocks underneath it. Eventually that lake disappeared on the Martian surface, but it didn’t totally go away. Instead it retreated underneath the rocks as groundwater. And that groundwater had the right chemistry that allowed it to extract the boron from the rocks and deposit it in these mineral veins.
If that’s true, that means this groundwater may have been particularly habitable at some point. Not only was it a liquid, but it was probably warm and not too acidic in order to dissolve the boron. So even regular bacteria could have permeated these waters. “It’s telling us this water is very interesting and has this dynamic chemistry,” Patrick Gasda, a post-doctoral student at Los Alamos National Laboratory, tells The Verge. Researchers also think that the groundwater reacted with the bedrock over time, changing the chemistry of both the water and the rock. And it’s these types of chemical reactions that support life here on Earth.
Of course, no direct signs of ancient life have been found just yet on Mars. But the evidence of this groundwater system potentially extends the period of time when Mars could have been habitable. And that increases the odds that life formed there.
As exciting as Curiosity’s findings have been, the rover’s trip up Mount Sharp may be stalled for a bit. Last week, NASA said it was having trouble extending Curiosity’s drill, so NASA put Curiosity’s trip on pause while engineers at the space agency try to figure out what’s wrong. In the meantime, Curiosity is “studying its surroundings and monitoring the environment” on Mount Sharp, but it won’t be going anywhere for now.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/14/13939840/nasa-curiosity-mars-rover-habitable-planet-gale-crater-mount-sharp

structure of lead
  WHO-Curiousity rover
  WHEN-this week
  WHAT-finds more evidence that Mars was once hebitable
  WHY-it found more signs
  WHERE-Mars

 Keywords
  1.rover-漫遊者
  2.layered-層
  3.habitable-適合居住的
  4.thrive-繁榮
  5.presence-存在
  6.permeate-充滿

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難民QQ

Hungarian journalist sacked for kicking refugees plans to sue one of them

A camera operator for a Hungarian nationalist television channel who was filmed kicking and tripping refugees has said she plans to sue one of them and Facebook.
Petra László apologised last month, saying “something snapped in me” when she kicked two refugee children and tripped up a man carrying a child at the border area of Röszke.
However, in an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, she has said she plans to take legal action against Facebook for allegedly refusing to remove threatening groups on the site and deleting groups that supported her.
László also said she plans to sue Osama Abdul Mohsen, one of the Syrian refugees she kicked, saying: “He changed his testimony because he initially blamed the police. My husband wants to prove my innocence. For him it is now a matter of honour.”
László was fired by N1TV after footage of the incident was posted on Twitter by Stephan Richter, a reporter for the German television channel RTL.
N1TV – which has links to the far-right Jobbik party – said László’s behaviour was unacceptable and her job had been terminated “with immediate effect”.
Last week, Hungarian prosecutors said a criminal case for breach of the peace had been opened against her.


The incident happened as hundreds of people broke through a police line at Röszke,close to the Hungarian-Serbian border, where thousands of migrants and refugees have been crossing every day for the last month.
László also said she wanted to move her family to Russia because she felt unsafe in Hungary. She said: “We consider Russia and we think that we will begin to learn Russian. For us it is important to leave Hungary. We will decide after the trial.”
Meanwhile, Mohsen and his family are beginning a new life in the Spanish city of Getafe, near Madrid, after a Spanish football academy offered to help him rebuild his life and restart his career as a football coach.
The Syrian had been a coach for al-Fotuwa, a first-division football team in Deir Ezzor, before the civil war forced his family to flee their hometown.
Structure of the Lead
  WHO-Petra László
  WHEN-last year
  WHAT-a reporter kick the refugees
  WHY-for fun
  WHERE-Röszke
Keywords
  1.snap-抓
  2.testimony-證言
  3.terminate-結束
  4.prosecutor-檢察官
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2016年12月3日 星期六

ㄈㄍㄎㄍ

Charlie Hebdo Office in Paris Attacked by Gunmen; 12 Killed


By INTI LANDAURO

PARIS—Masked gunmen stormed the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing a dozen people and decimating a newsroom that long took pride in defying the outrage—and death threats—stirred by its caricatures lampooning Islam.
The brutal rampage shocked a nation that has been living in dread of reprisal attacks since joining the fight against Islamist insurgents in Africa and the Middle East. The attack—by gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles—triggered an outpouring of public anger at home and expressions of solidarity from around the world.
French authorities late Wednesday identified three suspects, all Frenchmen: Said Kouachi, 34 years old; his brother Cherif Kouachi,32; and 18-year-old Hamid Mourad.
Police deployed a vast dragnet with hundreds of officers to conduct a manhunt, searching an apartment in the eastern French city of Reims.
Early on Thursday, officials said Mr. Mourad had turned himself into police at the eastern town of Charleville-Mézières and was in custody. Police also released photos of the brothers and issued an appeal for information on them.
It is unclear whether the gunmen acted alone or were part of a broader organization. But they appeared to have planned the attack and to have been motivated by radical Islamist beliefs.
French television showed footage of two men wearing balaclavas leaving Charlie Hebdo’s offices shouting in French: “We have avenged Prophet Muhammad. We have killed Charlie Hebdo.”
The gunmen also shouted “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” according to a witness cited by Paris prosecutor François Molins.
Structure of the Lead:
WHO-Charlie Hebdo Office
WHEN-2015/1/7
WHAT-Gun Shot
WHY-Caricatures Lampooning Islam
WHERE-France

 Keywords
1.satrical-好諷刺的
2.defy-蔑視
3.outrage-侮辱
4.dread-恐懼
5.solidarity-團結
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