Plane crashes into river, killing dozens

FATAL FLIGHT:It was TransAsia Airways’ second plane crash in less than a year. Aviation authorities have ordered special inspections of all ATR 72-type aircraft

By Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

A TransAsia Airways (復興航空) airplane flying from Taipei to Kinmen crashed into the Keelung River yesterday, killing at least 25 people, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said.

Flight GE235 took off from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) at 10:52am, said the agency, which confirmed that it received a “Mayday” signal from the plane’s pilots at 10:53:35am.

Air traffic control personnel tried raising the pilots, but to no avail. Weather data provided by the control tower showed that visibility was 10km when the plane, an ATR 72-600, departed from Songshan airport.

The weather was quite stable, the CAA said.

The Aviation Safety Council, which is in charge of investigating the cause of the accident, said that it had found the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — also known as the “black boxes” — and would soon start decoding the data.

The data are critical in identifying the cause of the air crash.

The plane was carrying 58 people on board: 53 passengers and five cabin crew members.

Thirty-one of the passengers are Chinese tourists, and 27 are Taiwanese. The plane was jointly piloted by 42-year-old Liao Chien-tsung (廖建宗) and 45-year-old Liu Tse-chung (劉自忠), with 4,914 hours and 6,922 hours of flying experience respectively.

Hong Bing-chung (洪炳衷), the copilot, served as an observer during flight as he was training to operate ATR 72-600 aircraft.

Both Liao and Liu are experienced in flying ATR 72-type aircraft, with their flying hours topping 3,400 and 6,500 respectively.

The accident yesterday is TransAsia’s second crash within a year’s time. One of the airline’s ATR 72-500 aircraft crashed on July 23 last year at a village near Magong Airport in Penghu County, killing 48 people and injuring 10 people on board.

TransAsia management bowed and apologized to the victims and their families.

CEO Peter Chen (陳欣德) said that seven of the Taiwanese passengers purchased their tickets at Songshan airport’s check-in counters and only left their ID numbers, adding that the company was still trying to reach the families of the seven passengers.

Ten of the Taiwanese passengers are from Kinmen, he said.

Chen said the Chinese passengers were traveling with the Kaohsiung-based travel agencies Flying Tours (飛揚旅行社) and Sweet Tour (德運旅行社), in cooperation with agencies in Xiamen, China.

TransAsia has asked the travel agencies to help contact the families of the victims, Chen said.

Chen said the company would not speculate on the cause of the air crash, and would fully cooperate with the authorities in the investigation.

The company confirmed that the airplane’s No. 1 engine was replaced with a new one provided by the manufacturer, Pratt & Whitney Canada, when the plane first landed in Macau on its way to Taiwan. The No. 1 engine had only been in operation for 800 hours, the company said.

Chen said the ATR 72-600 aircraft were purchased to replace the company’s ATR 72-500 airplanes as part of its move to upgrade its fleet.

Yu Yi-shi (喻宜式), deputy director of the CAA’s flight standards division, said that Uni Air (立榮航空) has 12 ATR 72-600 planes, while TransAsia has six ATR 72-500s and four ATR 72-600s.

He said that all of the nation’s ATR 72-type airplanes will undergo special inspection in the next two days.

“Because the accident happened with TransAsia’s airplanes, the airline is given one night to complete all the examinations before their aircraft could be cleared to take off on Feb. 5, including engines, propellers. Uni, on the other hand, must finish the same process before Feb. 6,” Yu said.

Information from both the CAA and TransAsia showed that the airline received the aircraft on April 14 last year, with the last maintenance being done on Jan. 26.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) responded shortly after the crash to address possible fuel leakage.

EPA Department of Environmental Monitoring and Information Management Director-General Chu Yu-chi (朱雨其) said his agency had deployed four survey sites along the section of the river between Nanhu Bridge (南湖大橋) and Minquan Bridge (民權大橋), where the accident took place, to monitor water quality within a 5km stretch along the Keelung River every two hours.

The EPA has also requested help from the Taipei City and New Taipei City governments to deploy two fuel locks under the Rainbow (彩虹橋) and Chengmei (成美橋) bridges to contain possible leakage and driftage, Department of Water Quality senior specialist Wei Wen-yi (魏文儀) said.

Additional reporting by Sean Lin

URL:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2015/02/05/2003610844/1

WHO-TransAsia Airways
WHEN- 4 February 2015
WHAT- PLANE CRASH
WHY-
WHERE- TAIWAN ,TAIPEI,Keelung River
HOW-

Keywords:

French hunt for two after attack on magazine

HIGH ALERT:Authorities have detained seven people over the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ attacks, as police warned that the two main suspects are ‘armed and dangerous’

AP, PARIS

With tensions high across Paris, authorities yesterday hunted for two heavily armed brothers they feared would strike again after the methodical killing of 12 people at a satirical newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Mohammed.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the possibility of a new attack “is our main concern” and announced several overnight arrests as the country began a day of national mourning.

The most senior security official abandoned a top-level meeting after just 10 minutes to rush to a shooting on the city’s southern edge that killed a policewoman. The shooter remained at large and it was not immediately clear if her death was linked to Wednesday’s deadly attack on the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo, where two police were among the 12 dead.

Valls said the two suspects still at large in the Charlie Hebdo slayings — Cherif Kouachi, 32, and his 34-year-old brother Said Kouachi — were known to intelligence services and preventing them from carrying out another attack “is our main concern.”

Police swarmed a gas station in the northern Aisne region, where the two men were reportedly spotted early yesterday, and helicopters hovered above the site.

Valls told RTL radio several people had been arrested overnight; a security official put the total at seven, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. A third suspect in the Charlie Hebdo killings has already turned himself in.

Fears have run high in Europe that jihadists trained in warfare abroad would stage attacks at home. The French suspect in a deadly attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium last year had returned from fighting with extremists in Syria; and the man who rampaged in southern France in 2012, killing three soldiers and four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse, received paramilitary training in Pakistan.

“France has been struck directly in the heart of its capital, in a place where the spirit of liberty — and thus of resistance — breathed freely,” French President Francois Hollande said yesterday.

The attack on Wednesday took place midway between France’s Bastille and the city’s enormous Republique plaza.

At noon yesterday, the Paris metro came to a standstill and people gathered in homage near Notre Dame cathedral fell silent to honor the victims.

One of the Charlie Hebdo suspects, Cherif Kouachi, was convicted of terrorism in 2008 for being involved in a network sending radical fighters to Iraq. He and his brother, Said, should be considered “armed and dangerous,” French police said in a bulletin, appealing for witnesses after a fruitless search in the city of Reims, in French Champagne country.

A third man, Mourad Hamyd, 18, surrendered at an eastern police station after learning his name was linked to the attacks in the news, the Paris prosecutor spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said. She did not specify his relationship to the Kouachi brothers.

France raised its terror alert system to the maximum and bolstered security with more than 800 extra soldiers guarding media offices, places of worship, transport and other sensitive areas.

Fears arose that the deadly attack would ignite a backlash against France’s large and diverse Muslim community.

A mosque in the city of Le Mans, 200km southwest of Paris, was hit overnight with training grenades and gunfire, local prosecutor Philippe Varin said.

No one was in the building at the time and no one was injure

URL: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2015/01/09/2003608801

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-Cabu,Cayat,Charb,Honoré,Tignous,Wolinski

WHEN-From 11:30  on 7 January to 18:35  on 9 January 2015

WHAT- Mass shooting

WHY-terrorist attacks

WHERE-French,Paris,the Charlie Hebdo offices

HOW-At the Charlie Hebdo offices; a satirical magazine facility. Two gunmen, identified as Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, entered the building and fatally shot eight employees, two police officers, and two others, and injured eleven other people. The perpetrators fled the scene following the shooting. The primary motive behind the shooting is said to be the Charlie Hebdo cartoons making fun of numerous Islamic leaders. The shooting received widespread condemnation internationally and a National Day of Mourning was held in France on 8 January.

Keywords:

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’

Bloomberg

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.”

The prime minister and Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Sharif both flew to the site of the attack yesterday, according to news reports.

The US embassy condemned the attack.

Television images showed armored vehicles rolling into the area near the school building as soldiers leaped out of vans. Mothers were shown running toward the gate of the school and crying inside the hospital.

Pakistan’s benchmark KSE100 Index fell 2.6 percent, the most in four months. Oil and Gas Development Co., the nation’s biggest explorer, fell by the limit of 5 percent, the most in three years.

Pakistan’s military started a ground offensive in June to flush out militants from North Waziristan, a tribal region on the Afghan border the US has called the “epicenter” of terrorism.

That came after successive Taliban attacks on a Pakistan International Airlines Corp flight and Karachi’s international airport.

After the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, North Waziristan became a safe haven for foreign militants like Uzbeks and Turks who fought alongside the fallen Taliban regime.

In 2007, militant groups in the area united to form the Tehrik-e- Taliban Pakistan, which went on an offensive toward Islamabad.

Additional reporting by Reuters

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

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-

WHEN-

WHAT-

WHY-

WHERE-

HOW-

Keywords:

Ting Hsin’s Wei Ying-chun indicted

Staff writer, with CNA

Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) executive Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) was indicted yesterday on charges of fraud, forgery and food-related regulatory violations for his role in an oil adulteration scandal that erupted last year. Wei, former chairman of Cheng I Food Co (正義股份), Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業) and Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業), faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted.

Also indicted was former Wei Chuan general manager Chang Chiao-hua (張教華) and former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat general manager Chang Mei-feng (常梅峰), as well as 10 other Wei Chuan employees.

Ting Hsin Oil and Fat, which made cooking oils marketed under the Wei Chuan brand, was found in November last year to have used adulterated oils obtained from Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co (大統長基) in its finished products.

Chang Chi used cottonseed oil and other cheap oils in its more expensive grapeseed and olive oils, and, in some cases, used copper chlorophyllin to make the substitutes look more like olive oil.

According to the indictment, Ting Hsin Oil and Fat manufactured 65 olive oil and grapeseed oil products for Wei Chuan using oils supplied by Chang Chi between 2007 and last year, generating more than NT$792 million (US$26 million) in revenue.

Prosecutors allege that Wei and Chang were aware that they were buying adulterated oils from Chang Chi because they were informed by their quality-control department that Chang Chi’s oils were problematic, but insisted that the supplier’s products continue to be purchased.

Wei and Chang have denied the charges.

Wei has been detained by prosecutors since Oct. 17 over his involvement in a more recent edible oil scandal.

In the latest case, Ting Hsin Oil and Fat and Cheng I, another company previously led by Wei, was found to have used oils meant for animal feed in lard-based cooking oil products. The oils were also used by Wei Chuan in its food products.

Wei resigned from his posts as chairman of Wei Chuan, Ting Hsin Oil and Fat, and Cheng I — all subsidiaries of the Wei family-owned Ting Hsin International Group — on Oct. 9 following the more recent food scare.

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webside:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/10/22/2003602623

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-

WHEN-

WHAT-

WHY-

WHERE-

HOW-

Keywords:

Abducted girls married off: Boko Haram(week 5)

Abducted girls married off: Boko Haram

AFP, KANO, Nigeria

Boko Haram has claimed that the 219 schoolgirls it kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year have converted to Islam and been married off, according to a new video obtained by Agence France-Presse on Friday.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau also denied claims by Nigeria’s government that it had agreed to a ceasefire and apparently ruled out future talks.

In addition, Shekau said the militants were holding a German national, who was kidnapped in Adamawa state in northeastern Nigeria in July.

The schoolgirls were kidnapped from the remote northeast town of Chibok in Borno state in April, raising global awareness about the group whose five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has claimed an estimated 13,000 lives.

The new video comes after a surprise announcement by the Nigerian military and presidency on Oct. 17 that a deal had been reached with the militants to end hostilities and return the children.

There was immediate skepticism about both claims. Previous ceasefires have proved fruitless and there is little trust in the influence of the purported Boko Haram envoy, Danladi Ahmadu.

Violence — and fresh kidnappings — have continued unabated since the announcement, including a triple bombing of a bus station in the northern city of Gombe on Friday that killed at least eight people.

Nigeria’s government maintains that talks are ongoing in the capital of Chad, Ndjamena.

However, Shekau, speaking in Hausa, dressed in military fatigues and boots with a black turban, and flanked by 15 armed fighters, said: “We have not made a ceasefire with anyone.”

“We did not negotiate with anyone... It’s a lie. It’s a lie. We will not negotiate. What is our business with negotiation? Allah said we should not,” he added.

He also said he did not know Danladi.

There was no indication of when or where the video was shot, but it was obtained through the same channels as previous communications from the group.

In it, Shekau mentions the Chibok girls for the first time since a video obtained on May 5, when more than 100 were shown in a rural location dressed in hijabs and reciting verses from the Koran.

Then, the militant leader said many of the girls had converted to Islam, but in the latest, he indicated that all of those held had become Muslims.

“Don’t you know the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam? They have now memorized two chapters of the Koran,” he said.

Shekau previously threatened to sell the girls as slave brides and also suggested he would be prepared to release them in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners.

In the latest message, he said while laughing: “We have married them off. They are in their marital homes.”

Human Rights Watch said in a report published this week that Boko Haram was holding upwards of 500 women and young girls, and that forced marriage was commonplace in the militant camps.

One former hostage said she saw some of the Chibok girls forced to cook and clean for other women and girls who had been chosen for “special treatment because of their beauty.”

Shekau’s claim in the video that they were “holding your German hostage” is the first claim of responsibility for the abduction, which happened on July 16.

The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in Berlin it did not want to comment.

Gunmen kidnapped the foreigner, who was said to be a teacher at a government technical training center in Gombi, about 100km from the Adamawa state capital, Yola.

Suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram, which has repeatedly attacked schools teaching a so-called Western curriculum, as well as teachers and students.

The UN high commissioner for refugees on Friday said that worsening Boko Haram violence in northeastern Nigeria and cross-border attacks inside Cameroon had heightened fear, and made it increasingly difficult to relocate refugees.

“Cameroonian civilians are living in a state of terror due to frequent insurgent attacks,” a statement said.

webside:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2014/11/02/2003603510/2

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-219 schoolgirls in Nigeria

WHEN-On the night of 14–15 April 2014

WHAT-the schoolgirl be kidnapped by terrorist

WHY-the terrorist thought that girl shouid't go to school

WHERE- Nigeria Chibok in Borno State

HOW-

Keywords:

1. converted 轉換

2. estimated 預計

3.skepticism懷疑論

4.envoy使者

5.unabated不減

6.turban穆斯林的頭巾

7.flanked兩側

8.reciting verses朗誦

9.abduction綁架

10.relocate搬遷

11.insurgent叛亂

12. verses詩,韻文,詩句

‘Ice Bucket’ gives ALS group boost

Staff writer, with CNA

The Ice Bucket Challenge that recently spread from the US to Taiwan has raised large sums of money for local amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients within a short period of time, with many attributing the campaign’s success to the power of viral marketing.

Between last Sunday and Thursday, the Taiwan Motor Neuron Disease Association received a total of NT$13 million (US$433,091) in donations, it said.

That is about 43 percent of the about NT$30 million that the association typically receives in donations over an entire year, association head Liu Yen-chu (劉延鉅) said.

Liu said the association will use the money to provide better long-term care for people with ALS — also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — and improve the financial conditions of the patients’ families.

The Ice Bucket Challenge went viral on social media in the middle of the year, and from July 29 to Sunday last week, the US-based ALS Association received US$53.3 million in donations, it has said.

Many Taiwanese public figures have taken on the task, which involves pouring ice water over the head or donating money — or both — and challenged more to participate.

Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders deputy chief executive Yang Yung-Shiang (楊永祥) said the challenge has raised public awareness of rare disorders in the nation and has been a big encouragement for people working in that sector.

Local academic institutions lack funding to study rare diseases, said Liu Ho-chien (劉和謙), CEO of the Spinal Cord Injury Foundation and former secretary-general of the Taiwan Spinocerebellar Ataxia Association.

There are 201 diseases classified as rare in the nation, 70 percent of which are not treatable, Yang said.

While the National Health Insurance Administration covers some of these patients’ medical needs, other costs, such as for care and assistance, are still a huge burden for the patients’ families, he added.

Liu and Yang urged the public to continue donating to and helping raise awareness of patients with rare disorders, and not allow the Ice Bucket Challenge to be just another Internet fad.

webside:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/08/24/2003598151

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients

WHEN-

WHAT-

WHY-Raised money to ALS patients and let the participate realize feeling of an ALS patients .

WHERE-over the world

HOW-

Keywords:

1. 

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Shooting victim’s father lashes out at NRA

Shooting victim’s father lashes out at NRA

AFP and Reuters, SANTA BARBARA, California

A man whose son was among six people killed in a stabbing and shooting rampage in California blamed politicians and the gun lobby on Saturday, asking in an emotional and at times angry speech: “When will this insanity stop?”

Richard Martinez paid tribute to his son who was killed on Friday night when a gunman, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, opened fire in the town of Isla Vista near the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara.

“My son’s name was Christopher Ross Martinez, he was 20 years old and he died last night,” Martinez told reporters, his face contorted with despair and rage.

“Our family has a message for every parent out there: You don’t think it’ll happen to your child until it does,” he said, reading from a statement prepared by the family.

“Chris was a really great kid, ask anyone who knew him. His death has left our family lost and broken,” Martinez said.

His voice shaking with emotion, Martinez rounded on politicians and the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA).

“Why did Chris die? Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA,” Martinez said, raising his voice.

“They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’s right to live? When will this insanity stop? When will enough people say stop this madness? We don’t have to live like this,” he said.

“Too many have died. We should say to ourselves: ‘Not one more,’” he said.

Rodger, the son of a Hollywood director, stabbed three people to death in his apartment before gunning down three more people in Isla Vista.

He stalked Isla Vista in his car and on foot, firing on bystanders in a killing spree that ended when he killed himself after a shootout with sheriff’s deputies, police said.

At least 13 people were wounded, eight of whom were shot.

Authorities found three legally purchased semiautomatic guns, two Sig Sauers and a Glock, and more than 400 rounds of unspent ammunition in his car.

In a YouTube video a young man believed by police to be Rodger bitterly complained of loneliness and rejection by women and outlines his plan to kill those he believed spurned him.

“It’s obviously the work of a madman,” Sheriff Bill Brown told a news conference, adding that Rodger had been seen by a variety of healthcare professionals and that it was “very, very apparent he was severely mentally disturbed.”

Witnesses reported seeing someone driving a black BMW through the streets and shooting at people in the beachside community, which is home to many college students.

The Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on Saturday night said that six people were still being treated in its trauma unit as a result of the incident.

Brown said his department had been in contact with Rodger three times prior to the killings, including once after a family member asked them to check on his welfare last month.

Deputies who interviewed Rodger found him to be polite and courteous and took no further action, Brown said.

“He expressed to deputies he was having difficulties with his social life and would probably not be returning to school within the next year,” Brown said, adding that Rodger was not thought to have met the criteria to be held involuntarily.

A crowd of about 5,000 people met at the university campus for a vigil on Saturday, filling Isla Verde’s narrow streets before converging in silence on a local park.

webside:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/05/26/2003591242

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-Elliot Rodger

WHEN-May 23, 2014

WHAT-killing people

WHY-beacause of emotional problem

WHERE-Isla Vista,California

HOW-Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured 13 others then committing suicide

Keywords:

1. rampage橫衝直撞/暴怒

2.tribute貢獻/明證

3.contorted扭曲的/彎曲的

4.craven雕刻的

5.stalked有莖的

6.bystanders旁觀者/局外人

7.spree狂飲作樂/放縱的行為

8.deputies代理的

9.semiautomatic半自動的

10.ammunition彈藥

11.spurned唾棄/藐視

12.welfare福利

13. criteria標準/準則