Sad scene
On March 28, police and helpers from the French Red Cross stand at the memorial plaque for the victims of the Germanwings A320 crash in Le Vernet, France. All 144 passengers and six crew members of Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 were killed in the crash on March 24. — EPA
Singapore mourns
Dead leader visited by many
Singapore — More than 330,000 people, equivalent to 10 percent of Singapore’s citizen population, have visited parliament to pay their respects to the late former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew ahead of his cremation, officials said on March 28.
The surge of mourners for the founding leader has been so great that the government had to temporarily suspend access by new mourners to parliament on March 27 for the sake of crowd safety.
Lee’s body had been lying in state in parliament’s main lobby since March 25 after he died on March 23 at the age of 91. — AFP
Militants killed
Army issues statement
Islamabad — Pakistan’s military said its soldiers killed at least 15 militants in a northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan. An army statement said three soldiers were wounded in a battle in the Tirrah valley of the Khyber region on March 28, adding that ground forces launched the attack after spotting a group of militants there.
The information could not be immediately corroborated, as Pakistan bars journalists from working in its tribal regions. Pakistan is trying to clear its tribal regions of militants, who use the mountainous area to launch attacks on security forces in both countries. — AP
Workers worried
Workers unload stacks of sugarcane in Sisola Khurd village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on March 24. Discontent against government policies in rural areas is growing less than a year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept into office. — Reuters
Home at last
Abducted tourists released
Prague — The Czech government said two Czech tourists who were abducted by gunmen two years ago as they were travelling on a bus through southwestern Pakistan have been released. Government spokesman Martin Ayer said the two women arrived in the Czech Republic on March 28. Ayer said a Turkish humanitarian organisation helped negotiate their release.
The women, Hana Humpalova and Antonie Chrastecka, were on the road from Iran to Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, when they were seized in March 2013. — AP
Fierce fighting
Syrian city under siege
Beirut — The al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front has taken control of most of the city of Idlib in north-western Syria after days of fierce fighting against government troops, a monitoring group reported on March 28.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the al-Nusra Front had seized in the past four days around 24 regime checkpoints and military outposts in the city, located near a highway linking the capital Damascus to the northern province of Aleppo.
The jihadist group has also captured most districts of Idlib, according to the Britain-based Observatory. — DPA
Bad business
Organ traffickers sentenced
Phnom Penh — A Cambodian court on March 27 sentenced three people to between 10 and 15 years jail for organ trafficking, after they persuaded poor Cambodians to sell their kidneys to wealthy compatriots undergoing dialysis procedures in Thailand.
Yem Azisah, 29, received a 15-year jail sentence after the Phnom Penh Municipal Court found her guilty of trafficking people with the purpose of organ removal. Her stepfather Phalla, 49, who has been released on bail, and her 22-year-old brother-in-law Pheng Sabay were sentenced to 10 years each as accomplices in the kidney trafficking, the judge said.
The court also ordered the trio to pay $7,000 (228,000 baht) to each of their victims. — AFP
EASY NEWS FOR M1-3
Lost at sea
Five drown in accident
Manila — Five people drowned when their boat capsized. It happened off the coast of Davao City in the southern Philippines. It happened on March 27. Five other people on the boat were rescued. — DPA
Exercises
1. How many people died in the Germanwings airline crash on March 24?
a. 144.
b. 320.
c. 150.
2. How much were the Cambodian organ traffickers ordered to pay each of their victims?
3. More than half the people in Singapore visited parliament to pay respects to Lee Kuan Yew. True or false?
Vocabulary
- discontent (n): a feeling of being unhappy because you are not satisfied with a particular situation
cremation (n): the act of burning a dead body as part of a funeral ceremony
bar (v): to prevent or forbid somebody from doing something
abduct (v): to take somebody away illegally, especially using force
organ (n): a part of the body that has a particular purpose, such as the heart, the brain, etc.
compatriot (n): a person who was born in or is a citizen of the same country as somebody else
dialysis (n): a process for separating substances from a liquid, especially for taking waste substances out of the blood of people with damaged kidneys
Idiom
lie in state: when the dead body of an important person is placed on view in a public place before being buried
