Navy drone makes history with refueling maneuver

By Jamie Crawford, National Security Producer
Updated 1029 GMT (1829 HKT) April 23, 2015

Washington (CNN)The latest version of unmanned naval aerial combat vehicles achieved another first on Wednesday when it conducted its first aerial refueling test, the Navy announced.
While flying off the coast of Maryland and Virginia, the X-47B, an unmanned vehicle designed to eventually operate off naval aircraft carriers, successfully connected to an Omega K-707 refueling tanker and received more than 4,000 pounds of fuel, the Navy said in a press release.

"What we accomplished today demonstrates a significant, groundbreaking step forward for the Navy," Capt. Beau Duarte, the manager for the Navy's Unmanned Carrier Aviation program, said in the release. "The ability to autonomously transfer and receive fuel in flight will increase the range and flexibility of future unmanned aircraft platforms, ultimately extending carrier power projection."

This is the latest in a series of firsts for the remotely piloted plane that the Navy hopes to develop into a battle-ready aircraft that can operate safely alongside its manned counterparts aboard aircraft carriers.

In 2013, an X-47B became the first unmanned aircraft to take off and land from an aircraft carrier, although all other aircraft were removed from the deck before the test flight. Last year, it became the first such aircraft to take off and land alongside a manned plane, an F/A-18 Hornet on the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

It was not known going into the test whether the aircraft would be able to effectively maneuver its probe used to take in fuel with the tanker's drogue, also called the basket, in the same way a pilot would be able to position their aircraft in a refueling operation.


"In manned platforms, aerial refueling is a challenging maneuver because of the precision required by the pilot to engage the basket," Duarte said. "Adding an autonomous functionality creates another layer of complexity."


A part of the Navy's Unmanned-Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike system, the X-47B will eventually be developed into follow on aircraft the Navy hopes to deploy into operation in 2020 or beyond.


http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/22/politics/navy-aircraft-makes-history/index.html



Structure of the Lead：

WHO- the latest version of unmanned naval aerial combat vehicles
WHEN- on Wednesday
WHAT- it conducted its first aerial refueling test
WHY- not given
WHERE- the coast of Maryland and Virginia
HOW- not given

Keywords：
1. drone- 無人駕駛飛機；嗡嗡聲
2. refuel- 補給燃料
3. maneuver- 演習
4. unmanned- 無人駕駛的
5. naval- 軍艦的；海軍的
6. aerial- 航空的
7. combat- 戰鬥
8. tanker- 油槽
9. groundbreaking- 開創性的
10. aviation- 軍用飛機
11. autonomously- 自律地
12. deck- 甲板；層
13. drogue- 風向指示筒；浮標

At climate talks, a few letters that almost sank the deal

A pact to slow global warming was reached Saturday. We’re providing insights and analysis.

December 14, 2015
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

PARIS — In the 11th hour before the landmark climate deal was approved on Saturday, a few letters threatened to derail years of calculated negotiations and two weeks of intense diplomacy — those that made “should” into “shall.”

Those two words may seem disarmingly similar, but on the international stage, they are worlds apart in terms of the diplomatic meaning they carry. The legally binding “shall” stopped the United States cold when it showed up on Saturday in what was to be the final draft of the historic pact.

Throughout the process, the longer and less binding “should” was a deliberate part of the international agreement, put there to establish that the richest countries, including the United States, felt obligated to pony up money to help poor countries adapt to climate change and make the transition to sustainable energy systems. “Shall” meant something altogether different, American officials said.

When “shall” was spotted in the document on Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry called his French counterpart and made it clear that unless a switch was made, France could not count on American support for the agreement.

“I said: ‘We cannot do this and we will not do this. And either it changes, or President Obama and the United States will not be able to support this agreement,’ ” Mr. Kerry told reporters after delegates had accepted the deal by consensus Saturday night, amid cheering and the celebratory stamping of feet.

In the world of diplomatic negotiations, seeking a culprit or trying to ferret out ill intention from another party could have spelled doom for an effort that the French and the Americans were equally eager to see succeed.

With talks already running past their Friday deadline, the French conceded the change of wording had simply been “a mistake.” By humbling the “shall” to the status of a typo, it could swiftly be “fixed” and replaced by the more benign “should.”

The fix made, within hours, the 31-page text was presented and adopted. The French had succeeded; the Americans were appeased.

“It was a genuine – it was a mistake,” Mr. Kerry, a seasoned diplomat, said with finality. “I am convinced.”

— MELISSA EDDY


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/climate/2015-paris-climate-talks


Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Secretary of State John Kerry of America
WHEN- In the 11th hour before the landmark climate deal
WHAT- American officials refused to support for the agreement
WHY- those "should" were changed to be "shall" which is tougher
WHERE- in Paris
HOW- by wrong typing

Keywords：
1. derail- 阻礙；出軌
2. calculated- 預先計畫的
3. intense- 緊張的；重大的
4. diplomacy- 策略；外交手腕
5. disarmingly- 消除敵意的
6. binding- 必須遵守的
7. deliberate- 謹慎的
8. obligate- 強制
9. pony- 借助；付清
10. sustainable- 可承受的
11. consensus- 一致
12. culprit- 罪犯；起因
13. ferret- 查獲
14. doom- 判決
15. conceded- 讓步
16. benign- 仁慈的
17. appease- 安撫

The Martian: Matt Damon gets spaced out in Ridley Scott's isolation thriller

The first trailer for the Alien-director’s new space adventure has a Nasa astronaut stranded on Mars with only his wits … and a potato

Monday 8 June 2015 15.19 BST
By Henry Barnes

Out there in space, fiddling with his gizmos and worrying his spuds, is Matt Damon.

He’s adrift in the service of The Martian, Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Andy Weir’s best-selling science fiction novel. Damon stars as Nasa astronaut Mark Watney. Stranded on Mars after a dust storm, Watney must survive the four years until the next crew arrives in a pod designed to last a month. He’ll have to grow his own crops and hand tool a means of making contact with ground control. In his own words he’ll need to “science the shit out of this” to stay alive.

The Martian rides in the slip stream of Gravity and Interstellar with Weir, a space nut with a background in computer science, grounding cosmic fantasy in reality. He’s apparently designed software to plot the trajectory of a successful flight to Mars and says he’s proud that the plot is “science-lead”. Great news for anyone who found Interstellar’s quantum physics bookshelf banjo finale a bit woolly.

The Martian’s supporting cast is a doozy, with Jessica Chastain, Michael Peña and Kate Mara signing up as the crew of Damon’s ship, Ares 3. Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jeff Daniels play the suits on the ground.

A promotional video for the film has Damon as Watney touring the ship and introducing the crew. The tone is not dissimilar to the opening of Alien – establishing the relationships between workmates before letting chaos loose.

The storm closes in. The crew is divided. Watney is missing, presumed dead. He gets to planting and tinkering to save himself from Mars. “Help is only 140 million miles away,” runs the tagline. Scott, who helped to invent the space isolation horror, knows how to make solitude scary. We think The Martian could be stellar. What about you?


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/08/the-martian-matt-damon-ridley-scott


Structure of the Lead：
WHO- Matt Damon, as Watney in The Martian
WHEN- not given
WHAT- Watney is trying to save himself from Mars
WHY- a storm happened and made him presumed dead on Mars
WHERE- on Mars
HOW- by planting crops and tinkering to do everything

Keywords：
1. stranded- 處於困境的
2. fiddle- 擺弄；虛度光陰
3. gizmos- 小玩意兒
4. spuds- 小鋤頭；馬鈴薯
5. adrift- 漫無目的的
6. pod- （太空船的）分離艙
7. interstellar- 星際的
8. cosmic- 宇宙的
9. trajectory- 軌道
10. quantum- 量子
11. finale- 終曲；尾聲
12. woolly- 模糊的；毛茸茸的
13. doozy- 極好的東西
14. chaos- 混沌
15. presume- 假定
16. tinker- 笨拙的做事
17. solitude- 人煙罕至的地方
18. stellar- 傑出的；主要的

Aylan Kurdi's dad: "Nobody's doing anything"

September 2, 2016, 8:43 AM

BERLIN -- The father of a 3-year-old boy whose lifeless body photographed on a Turkish beach drew the world’s attention to the plight of refugees says little has changed in the year since.

Abdullah Kurdi, a Syrian who now lives in Iraq, lost not only 3-year-old Aylan but also son Galip, 5, and wife Rihan, 35, one year ago Friday.

Kurdi was quoted by Germany’s Bild newspaper as saying this week that he’s glad the photo of his son’s body was published to “make clear to people what is happening” but he’s upset that more hasn’t been done for refugees since.

“Politicians said after the death of my family: never again!” he said. “Everyone allegedly wanted to do something after the photos that had so moved them. But what is happening now? The dying goes on and nobody’s doing anything.”

Kurdi urged others contemplating the journey that he undertook with his family to rethink their plans.

“I’d like to say to the refugees in the refugee camps that they shouldn’t make this journey,” he said. “The danger is too great. It’s not worth it.”

But as CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reported on Wednesday, they are still coming. By the middle of this week alone, around 10,000 migrants had been rescued off the coast of Libya -- many escaping war and poverty in Africa.  

Abdullah Kurdi’s sister, Tima Kurdi, posted this week on her Facebook page that “we must never forget the price for freedom.”

“Please keep (Aylan) and all those who died for the chance of freedom from the shackles of war in our daily prayers,” she wrote.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/aylan-kurdi-migrant-refugee-crisis-dying-goes-on-year-after-syrian-boy-beach/

Structure of the Lead:
WHO- Abdullah Kurdi
WHEN- not given
WHAT- urged other refugees rethinking their plan about dangerous journey
WHY- his son was dead on a sea shore on the journey and was photographed, which shocked many people around the world
WHERE- not given
HOW- not given

Keywords:
1. lifeless- 無生命的
2. contemplate- 深思
3. undertake- 保證/承擔
4. correspondent- 一致的/通訊記者
5. migrant- 移民
6. shackle- 枷鎖

Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud dead

November 20, 2015 
By Greg Botelho, Margot Haddad and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

Paris, France (CNN)The ringleader behind the Paris attacks is dead, killed during a dramatic raid that shook a neighborhood and collapsed an entire floor of an apartment building. But French authorities say their work is far from finished.

Six days after a coordinated string of shootings and bombings killed 129 people in the French capital, at least one suspect is still on the run. A series of raids in Belgium and a search of a home on the outskirts of Paris on Thursday were the latest signs of investigators' efforts to piece together -- and take down -- the network of terrorists behind the attacks before they can strike again.

And authorities say the threat from ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the attacks and threatened more worldwide, remains real.

"We just now have to be ready for anything, any kind of an attack. ... Although we know that the mastermind of the attacks of Paris has been killed, the risk is still very high," Paris Deputy Mayor Patrick Klugman told CNN's "Erin Burnett: OutFront" on Thursday.

French officials said the raid Wednesday at an apartment building in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis was a significant step. On Thursday, they confirmed they'd identified the body of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the Paris attacks, found in the rubble of the apartment.

Official sources in France have also identified a woman who blew herself up during the raid: 26-year-old Hasna Ait Boulahcen, a relative of Abaaoud.

Investigators haven't revealed much about the suicide bomber. Friends of her family in their hometown of Aulnay-sous-Bois, on the northeastern outskirts of Paris, said she had lived there until recently. Residents in the area told CNN authorities had taken her mother and brother into custody. And the Paris prosecutor's office told CNN that police were searching the mother's home.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Abaaoud "played a decisive role" in the Paris attacks and played a part in four of six terror attacks foiled since spring, with one alleged jihadist claiming Abaaoud had trained him personally.

Wednesday wasn't the first time authorities had tried to take Abaaoud down. Western intelligence agencies reportedly tried to target Abaaoud in the months prior to the Paris attacks, without success.

A key question now: Are other top ISIS operatives who may have worked with Abaaoud on the Paris plot still on the loose?

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/19/world/paris-attacks/index.html

Structure of the Lead:
WHO- Abdelhamid Abaaoud
WHEN- not given
WHAT- a ringleader of Paris terrior attacks was dead
WHY- he was the mastermind of the Paris terrior attacks
WHERE- at an apartment building in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis
HOW- the apartment collapsed and he died

Keywords:
1. raid- 突襲
2. coordinate- 使一致
3. outskirts- 郊區
4. mastermind- 策畫者
5. suburb- 郊區
6. ringleader- 頭目/元凶
7. rubble- 瓦礫
8. custody- 監禁
9. prosecutor- 起訴人
10. allege- 宣稱

Malala Yousafzai recounts moment she was shot in the head by Taliban

By Ben Bryant

10:24 am BST 13 Oct 2013

Malala Yousafzai has recounted the moment she was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen.

Yousafzai, who was nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, said that she could not remember the exact moment she was shot but that her friends and classmates had helped her piece together what had happened.

She told The Andrew Marr Show: "Our streets and our roads, on the roadside there are a lot of men all around, just a few women in burkas covering their faces.

"But on that day there was no one except two or three men. The two or three men were the Taliban.

"Those two boys stopped the van and told the driver that we want to see our sister at the back. One was talking to the driver and one came at the back.

"The one who came at the back, he was young, he was not old. He had a gun here [gestures to hip]

"He was that much near to me as you are. Then He said, 'Who is Malala?' All the girls were terrified. Some of the girls think he might be a journalist. They were not expecting, because we never thought it would happen

"When he said who is Malala all the girls looked at me because you don't know what is happening.

"My friend told me, 'You just squeezed my hand, you just forced my hand.'"

"Then she said he shot you. He fired three bullets.

Yousafzai described her hometown in the Swat valley in Pakistan as a "paradise" until the Taliban arrived

She said: "The Talibanisation started in 2004 and then it was developing day by day.

"It started just by talking about Islam and its teaching.

"But then later on when we used to have the summons they were saying that the girls should not go to school. They were against the going of the girls to market. They were against the women's rights

"They were killing people for just tiny issues."

She added: "I spoke for education and it means that I'm speaking against the Taliban because speaking for education means you are speaking against the Taliban because they are against education.

"My father says that education is neither eastern nor western. Education is for everyone. The people of Pakistan have supported me."

Yousafzai added that she felt Pakistan has been broadly supportive of her crusade for women's education.

She said: "On the day when I was shot, and on the next day, people raised the banners of I am Malala. They did not say I am the Taliban. They support me and they are encouraging me to move forward and continue my campaign for girls' education."

She also said that the Taliban had sullied Islam by linking it to terrorism.

She said: "The name of Islam and the name of Taliban [ ...] has been misused and abused by the Taliban. It does not mean that all Pakistani and all Muslims are the terrorists. Only the small group of people is terrorists."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/10375633/Malala-Yousafzai-recounts-moment-she-was-shot-in-the-head-by-Taliban.html

Structure of the Lead:

WHO-Malala Yousafzai

WHEN-2013

WHAT-She recounts the moment when she was shot by Taliban

WHY-She spoke for education and it means that she was speaking against the Taliban

WHERE-not given

HOW-not given

Keywords:

1. recount: 詳述

2. assassination: 暗殺

3. burkas: 布爾卡 (穆斯林女性的衣服)

4. squeeze: 此為緊握，另有擠壓之意

5. summons: 傳票

6. crusade: 聖戰

7. sully: 玷汙

8. misuse: 誤用