Week7 - Himalayas avalanche sweeps away climbers in Nepal

At least nine people have been killed and several are missing in Nepal after an avalanche hit climbers and guides at a camp on a Himalayan peak.

The bodies of a German and a Nepalese guide have been recovered from the slopes of Mount Manaslu, police say.

A further seven bodies have been sighted by rescue pilots. Spanish foreign ministry officials say one of the dead is a Spanish national.

The avalanche struck a base camp near the summit on Saturday, police said.

It is thought at least three other climbers are missing in the avalanche, but officials are trying to determine exactly how many people were in the climbing party.

At least five climbers were said by police officials to have survived and been rescued and flown to hospitals by rescue helicopters.

Four of the dead and three of the missing were French, the vice-president of the French mountain guides' union Christian Trommsdorff told the AFP news agency.

Two of those rescued were also French nationals, according to Mr Trommsdorff.

'Flood of snow'

Deteriorating weather conditions meant it was impossible to continue air searches of the mountain on Sunday, police official Basanta Bahadur Kuwar told the Associated Press.

The climbers were caught at 7,000m (22,960ft) as they were preparing to head toward the summit, which is 8,156m high.

"The avalanche hit camp three of the Manaslu peak... resulting in a flood of snow," said Laxmi Dhakal, head of the Nepalese home ministry's disaster response division.

Hundreds of foreign climbers head every year for the Himalayas in Nepal, which has eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest.

Manaslu, the eighth highest mountain in the world, is considered one of the most dangerous, with dozens of deaths in recent years.

The autumn climbing season began this month.

Source:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19691512

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-Boko Haram

WHEN-not given

WHAT-denies ceasefire deal and says 200 abducted girls married off

WHY-not given

HOW-in a video released

Week6 - China bans drug-using celebrities from the airwaves

Celebrities who have been caught using drugs or frequenting prostitutes have been banned from China's airwaves, according to state media, as a national crackdown on vice widens.

The order was issued to media outlets by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, China's media watchdog, according to the state-run China Daily.

It said that entertainers who broke the law would not be invited to appear on shows, and that their previous work should not be aired. The ruling applies to TV and radio shows, films and advertising across multiple platforms.

The ban would help "spread positive energy" and "create a positive environment" on media platforms, the watchdog said in its statement.

The announcement comes as China's government pushes ahead with a war on drugs, gambling and prostitution.

In February, police raided 2,000 establishments and detained more than 900 people in Dongguan, a southern Chinese city that had gained a reputation as "sin city" for its thriving sex industry.

And last month the Ministry of Public Security announced a new round of crackdowns on the production and sale of drugs in 108 cities, China Daily reported.

Celebrity busts

A number of celebrities have been caught up in the raids. In August, 32-year-old actor Jaycee Chan, the son of screen legend Jackie Chan, was arrested alongside 23-year-old Taiwanese actor Kai Ko in Beijing on drugs charges. Both tested positive for marijuana.

Singer Li Daimo was sentenced to nine months in jail for hosting a crystal meth party at his home, according to the China Daily, while screenwriter and novelist Chen Wanning, known as Ning Caishen, was detained for possessing and using methamphetamine.

In August, management agencies representing entertainers in Beijing signed an agreement with authorities banning drug use from the industry, and pledging to drop stars who broke the law.

News of the ban spread quickly on Chinese social media. On one unofficial poll on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, 84% of respondents supported the ban, while 16% were opposed.

"Artists have a broad influence. (Their behavior) will have a bad influence on juveniles, especially their fans. So I think this is great," wrote Weibo user @Xiaomanzu.

Others disagreed.

"Whether (they) can return to showbiz should depend on the market... Enforcing the ban is totally acting like a dictator," wrote @Miamia_wodexingxingkai.

Week5 - Boko Haram leader denies ceasefire deal, says 200 abducted girls married off

Boko Haram laughed off Nigeria's announcement of a ceasefire agreement, saying there is no such deal and schoolgirls abducted in April have been converted to Islam and married off.

Nigerian officials announced two weeks ago that they had struck a deal with the Islamist terror group.

The deal, the government said, included the release of more than 200 girls whose kidnapping at a boarding school in the nation's north stunned the world.

In a video released Saturday, the Islamist group's notorious leader fired off a series of denials.

"Don't you know the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam?" Abubakar Shekau said. "They have now memorized two chapters of the Quran."

Shekau slammed reports of their planned release.

"We married them off. They are in their marital homes," he said, chuckling.

The group's leader also denied knowing the negotiator with whom the government claimed it worked out a deal, saying he does not represent Boko Haram.

"We will not spare him and will slaughter him if we get him," he said of the negotiator.

It wasn't clear when the video was made.

Mike Omeri, a government spokesman, said these assertions contradict those made in the group's talks with the Nigerian government.

Omeri said the government will do everything possible to verify the claims made in the video.

"We've heard about the video, and we can say the road to peace is bumpy -- and you cannot expect otherwise," Omeri said. "Nigeria has been fighting a war, and wars don't end overnight."

Nigeria said officials met with Boko Haram in Chad twice during talks mediated by Chadian President Idriss Deby.

The ceasefire deal announced on October 17 followed a month of negotiations with representatives of the group, said Hassan Tukur, an aide to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.

After the deal was announced, the aide said final negotiations on the girls' release would be completed at a meeting a week later in Chad.

That day passed without any signs of the girls.

n the video, Shekau talked not of peace but of more violence -- promising more "war, striking and killing with gun."

This strategy appears to be playing out in parts of Nigeria, where Boko Haram fighters have continued deadly attacks on villages despite government claims of a ceasefire. More people have been abducted and scores killed in recent weeks, including one attack a day after the ceasefire that left eight dead.

Days later, the Islamist terror group abducted at least 60 young women and girls from Christian villages in northeast Nigeria.

Heavily armed fighters left 1,500 naira, or about $9, and kola nuts as a bride price for each of the women abducted, residents said.

For its part, Nigeria isn't backing down.

It is stepping up its military campaign against militants and criminals in some parts of the West African nation, Nigeria's defense ministry said Saturday.

The military said its airstrikes and ground operations have repelled attacks against civilians in Adamawa and Borno, two states in the northeast that have been strongholds and frequent targets for Boko Haram.

Officials are "studying" the latest video, even as the military continues to recognize the talks aimed at assuring the release of the kidnapped schoolgirls, the ministry said.

Boko Haram, whose name translates to "Western education is sin" in the Hausa language, is trying to impose strict Sharia law across Nigeria, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south. Like ISIS, it has ambitions for a caliphate, or religious state.

The group's attacks have intensified in recent years in an apparent show of defiance for the nation's military onslaught. Its ambitions appear to have expanded to the destruction of the government.

As part of its insurgency, it has bombed schools, churches and mosques, kidnapped women and children, and assassinated politicians and religious leaders alike.

Source:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/01/world/africa/nigeria-boko-haram-denies-deal/index.html?iref=storysearch

Structure of the Lead：

WHO-Boko Haram

WHEN-not given

WHAT-denies ceasefire deal and says 200 abducted girls married off

WHY-not given

HOW-in a video released

Keywords:

convert 轉換成

married off 嫁出去

fired off 發了

Quran 古蘭經

marital 婚姻的

chuckle 暗笑

negotiator 談判代表

slaughter 屠宰

assertions 斷言

bumpy 顛簸

aide 助手

abducted 綁架

naira 奈拉(錢幣單位)

kola nuts as a bride price 以可樂果作為禮物

back down 退縮

sin 罪

Hausa 豪薩語

caliphate  哈里發統治

intensified in 加劇...

defiance 藐視

onslaught 猛攻

insurgency 暴動

assassinate 暗殺