Week 2--South Korea ferry disaster

South Korea indicts captain, 14 crew over ferry disaster

Fri, May 16, 2014

AP, SEOUL

Prosecutors indicted the captain of sunken South Korean ferry the Sewol and three crew members on homicide charges yesterday, alleging that they failed to carry out their duties to protect passengers in need.

Less serious indictments were issued against the 11 other crew members responsible for navigating the vessel when it tipped over on April 16, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing.

Captain Lee Joon-seok and the other homicide defendants — a first mate, a second mate and the chief engineer — could face the death penalty if convicted, the South Korean Supreme Court said, although no one has been executed in the country since 1997.

The 11 other defendants were indicted for alleged negligence and abandoning passengers in need when the ship sank, prosecutors said.

The indictment was filed yesterday in Gwangju District Court and a trial date will be decided in a few days, according to a court official who requested anonymity due to department rules. The official said all 15 defendants are expected to be tried together.

The 15 indicted crew members were among the first group of people rescued when the Sewol began listing badly and all were arrested last month.

Lee initially told passengers to stay in their cabins and took about 30 minutes to issue an evacuation order, but it is not known if his message was ever conveyed. In a video taken by South Korean coast guard staff, he was seen escaping the ferry in his underwear to a rescue boat while many passengers were still onboard.

After his arrest last month, Lee said he withheld the evacuation order because rescuers had yet to arrive and he feared for the passengers’ safety in the cold water.

The head of the ferry’s owner, Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd, and four other company employees have also been arrested. Authorities suspect improper stowage and overloading of cargo may have contributed to the disaster.

Rescuers have so far retrieve 284 bodies and 20 others are listed as missing. Only 172 people, including 22 of the ship’s 29 crew, survived. Most of the victims were students from a high school near Seoul. Family members of the missing are still camping out at a port waiting for news.

Underwater searches for the bodies have been hampered by strong currents and bad weather, with one civilian diver dying after falling unconscious in a search.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2014/05/16/2003590495

Structure of the Lead：

   WHO-Prosecutors.the captain of sunken South Korean ferry.three crew members

   WHEN-yesterday

   WHAT-Prosecutors indicted the captain of sunken South Korean ferry the Sewol and three crew members on homicide charges yesterday

   WHY- alleging that they failed to carry out their duties to protect passengers in need.

Keywords：

   1.Prosecutor檢方

   2.homicide殺人罪 

   3.allege宣稱 

   4.navigate駕駛

   5.vessel船 

   6.  execute將.....處死

7. negligence疏忽  

  8.file提起(訴訟等)

  9.anonymity匿名

10.evacuation疏散

11. withheld 扣留

12.stowage裝載

13.cargo貨物

14. retrieve收回

15.hamper阻礙

16.civilian 平民的

Week1-Sunflower movement

Sunflower leaders to form new activist organization

Mon, May 19, 2014
By Chris Wang  /  Staff reporter

Sunflower movement leaders Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) yesterday announced the establishment of a new social activist group, Taiwan March (島國前進), saying the group would focus on the “unfinished business” of the three-week-long movement’s goal of promoting “direct democracy.”

“It seemed to us that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] have not learned a thing [from the Sunflower movement] and they still refuse to listen to the public,” Chen told a press conference.

Having vowed to keep safeguarding Taiwan’s democracy after the Sunflower movement withdrew from the Legislative Yuan on April 10 — which they occupied to protest against what they described as the opaque negotiation of the cross-strait service trade agreement — Chen said the government has not changed.

“In the past month, the government has insisted on its own version of a statute to monitor cross-strait agreements, tried to push through the statute on the free economic pilot zones and launched a counter-offensive against the campaign to recall KMT lawmakers,” Chen said.

“What’s worse, the Ma administration began its judicial persecution against the protesters after they pulled out of the legislature,” added Chen, who is a student at National Tsing Hua University.

The group’s name, Taiwan March, indicates the group’s determination to keep marching forward and to highlight the month the Sunflower movement rose up.

The group’s founders include Academia Sinica associate research fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and Shih Hsin University assistant professor Frida Tsai (蔡培慧), as well as students and citizens.

The group’s goal is to “drive Taiwanese politics with social forces,” said Lin, a National Taiwan University graduate student.

However, he reiterated that the group would not establish a new political party, nor would it recommend candidates in future elections.

The group’s first task, Lin said, would be promoting the lowering of the threshold of the Referendum Act (公民投票法), known as a “bird cage” act, among a wide range of issues.

Taiwan March is soon to launch a petition drive across the nation to gather in six months the required number of signatures to pass the first stage, Lin said.

Next up is the free-trade issue, with a comprehensive discussion about how Taiwan should position itself in the free-trade system, which the group does not oppose, Lin said, to safeguard people’s wellbeing and the national interests at the same time.

On other issues, such as the cross-strait service trade pact and the statute governing the economic pilot zones, Lin said that the group would collaborate with other social groups, including Democracy Kuroshio (民主黑潮), Democracy Tautin (民主鬥陣), the Black Island Nation Youth Front (黑色島國青年聯盟) and the Appendectomy Project (割闌尾計畫).

The founding of Taiwan March and separate efforts by various groups should not be interpreted as “division of the core leadership of the Sunflower movement,” Lin said.

“It’s just that each group shared the same goal, but decided to tackle different issues with various approaches,” he said.

Lin also denied that the group had any connection with the Taiwan Citizen Union (公民組合), a political group initiated by former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄).

 

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/05/19/2003590698

Structure of the Lead：

 WHO- Sunflower movement leaders Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷)

 WHEN-yesterday

WHAT- announced the establishment of a new social activist group, Taiwan March (島國前進)

 WHY- goal of promoting “direct democracy.”

Keywords：

1.Chinese Nationalist Party 國民黨

2. press conference記者會

3.opaque不透明的    

4. judicial 司法的

5. persecution 迫害

6.reiterate重申  

7.threshold門檻

 8.  petition 請求  

9. tackle解決