PAINFUL MEMORY
On January 6, dancers dressed in national costumes of Vietnam and Cambodia perform at an event held in celebration of overthrowing military leader Pol Pot as well as in remembrance of about 1.7 million people who are believed to have died at the Killing Fields in Cambodia in the 1970s. — Reuters
CONTAMINATED FOOD
Snacks mixed with fox meat
Beijing — A Chinese meat snack manufacturer officially made an apology on January 2. Global retail giant Wal-Mart has recalled a popular meat snack and promised refunds to customers after finding that its Five Spice donkey meat products contained a substantial amount of fox meat.
The retailer said it would DNA-test all high risk meats from now on.
"We are deeply sorry for this whole affair," Wal-Mart's China president and CEO Greg Foran said.
Chinese shoppers paid 50 yuan (272 baht) for their donkey meat snack. — AFP
PRICE TREBLED
Tobacco taxes on the rise
London — A new study released on January 2 claimed that trebling tobacco tax globally would cut smoking by a third and prevent 200 million premature deaths in the next 85 years from lung cancer and other diseases.
Research reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine quoted scientists from the charity Cancer Research UK as claiming huge tax hikes on each cigarette would encourage people to quit smoking altogether, rather than switch to cheaper brands, and help stop young people from taking up the habit.
Tobacco kills around 6 million people a year, according to the World Health Organisation. — Reuters
STORM SURVIVAL
A helicopter from the nearby Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, on January 2 successfully rescues 52 passengers from the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which had been trapped in the Antarctic for a week. — AFP
FEWER FIRES
Flames on car found less
Paris — Authorities said on January 1 that they seemed to be making progress because only 1,067 vehicles were torched over the New Year period in France.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls described this as a remarkable drop from last year in what has become a turn-of-the-year tradition in poor areas. The number of cars torched during the New Year dropped by more than 10 percent, said Manuel.
Every year, the nights of December 31 and January 1 see hundreds of cars set ablaze across the country in an orgy of vandalism. — AFP
RISING TOLL
27 killed in crash
Mumbai — The death toll from a bus that collided with a truck and plunged into a 120-metre gorge in western India rose to 27.
Police officer Raghunath Yadav on January 2 explained that the bus lost control after it collided with a truck near Malshej Ghat, a tourist spot about 160 kilometres northeast of Mumbai. He initially reported that 11 people were killed, but the toll continued to rise as rescue workers pulled out more bodies. 10 people were injured. Seven of them were in serious condition. — AP
BALLOTS BURNED
Polling stations set ablaze
Dhaka — Thousands of protesters firebombed polling stations and stole ballot papers as deadly violence flared across Bangladesh during a walkover election boycotted by the opposition on January 5.
The polls were boycotted by the main opposition, marred by deadly violence and shunned by international observers as flawed. Election officials acknowledged that early turnout was low. With fewer than half of the 300 parliamentary seats being contested, the ruling Awami League was poised for a walkover victory.
Police said at least 11 people had been killed and more than 200 polling stations were set on fire. — AFP
EASY NEWS FOR M1-3
LAST SURVIVOR
Sailor survives shark attack
Taipei — A boat caught fire. It happened in the East China Sea in Taiwan on January 5. All five crew members left the boat. Four of them were missing. The only survivor was swimming in the sea. A shark attacked him. A coastguard team finally managed to rescue him. — AFP
Exercises
1. Who is Manuel Valls?
a. France’s Public Health Minister.
b. France’s Interior Minister.
c. France’s President.
2. Five Spice is the name of a fox meat product. True or false?
3. How old was the elephant that fell to its death?
Vocabulary
- overthrow (v): to remove a leader or a government from a position of power by force
treble (v): to become, or to make something, three times as much or as many
ablaze (adj): burning quickly and strongly
boycott (v): to refuse to buy, use or take part in something as a way of protesting
walkover (n): an easy victory in a game or competition
