Week 4 - Israel Gaza Conflic

Israel, Palestinians begin new talks to solve Gaza conflict

Reuters, GAZA and JERUSALEM

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators yesterday resumed indirect talks mediated by Egypt and aimed at ending a month-old Gaza war, Egyptian state news agency MENA said, after a new 72-hour truce between the warring sides appeared to be holding.

The Israeli military said one rocket was launched toward Tel Aviv before the ceasefire began at 9pm on Sunday and may have landed in the sea. Hamas said it fired the missile.

A senior Israeli official said on Sunday that Israeli negotiators, who left Cairo on Friday last week hours before a previous three-day ceasefire expired, would return to Egypt to resume the talks only if the new truce held.

Hamas is demanding an end to Israeli and Egyptian blockades of the Gaza Strip and the opening of a seaport in the enclave, a project Israel says should be dealt with only in any future talks on a permanent peace deal with the Palestinians.

A month of fighting between Hamas and Jerusalem has killed 1,938 Palestinians and 67 Israelis, while devastating wide tracts of the densely populated strip. Gaza hospital officials say the Palestinian death toll has been mainly civilian since the July 8 launch of Israel’s military campaign to quell Hamas’ rocket fire, with the heavy civilian losses and destruction of thousands of homes drawing international condemnation.

Israel has lost 64 soldiers and three civilians.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said the new talks would be “the last chance” for a deal. Israeli representatives are not meeting face-to-face with the Palestinian delegation because it includes Hamas, which Jerusalem regards as a terrorist organization.

Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz said in a radio interview yesterday that disarming Gaza militants was crucial to sustain a long-term truce and he hoped this could be done by diplomacy rather than force.

“If there will not be a diplomatic solution, I am convinced that sooner or later we will have to opt for a military solution of taking temporary control of Gaza to demilitarize it again,” he told Israel Radio.

In Gaza, shops began to open and traffic was normal as some displaced families returned to the homes they fled during Israeli attacks, expressing hopes that this truce would last after a series of failed ceasefires.

“God knows if it is permanent,” Abu Salama, a resident of Gaza’s Shejaia District, said as he and his family headed home on a donkey cart. “A truce, no truce — it is becoming like Tom and Jerry. We want a solution.”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/08/12/2003597220

Who:Israeli and Palestinian
When:yesterday
What::aimed at ending a month-old Gaza war.Why: Egyptian state news agency MENA said, after a new 72-hour truce between the warring sides appeared to be holding.

Key Words:
1. negotiator 談判
2. aim at 針對
3. truce 休戰
4. ceasefire 停火
5. blockades 封鎖
6. diplomatic 外交
7. demilitarize 非軍事化
8. campaign 運動

Week 3 - University of California Santa Barbara Elliot Rodger

Santa Barbara Rampage Killer Identified as the Son of Hunger Games' Assistant Director

BY MICHAEL FLEEMAN

 

UPDATED 05/24/2014 at 09:05 PM EDT 

•ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED05/24/2014 02:45PM

The man suspected of killing six people in a rampage near the University of California, Santa Barbara, before also dying of a gunshot wound was identified as Elliot Rodger, the son of an assistant director on The Hunger Games, according to a family attorney. 

"The Rodger family offers our deepest compassion and sympathies to the families involved in this terrible tragedy," the family said in a statement issued through their lawyer, Alan Shifman. "We are experiencing the most inconceivable pain and our hearts go out to everyone involved." 
According to Sheriff Bill Brown, Rodger stabbed three males in his apartment before taking to the streets in a BMW, fatally shooting two female university students in front of a sorority and a third male student inside a deli. Rodger also hit two bicyclists with his car and seriously injured others with gunfire before the BMW came to a crashing halt. 
After a shootout with deputies, the 22-year-old was found dead with a gunshot to the head, apparently self-inflicted. 
Parents Voiced Concern
"There was an incident probably a year and a half ago where he was – he fell from a balcony at a party or was thrown off of it," says Shifman. "I think he was probably a victim, from my understanding, of bullying throughout his life. ... I'm sure that had played a role in the terrible consequences from last night." 
His parents had become concerned about him in recent weeks and had reported Rodger's disturbing YouTube videos to police, says Shifman, who represents Rodger's father, Peter Rodger, a second unit director on the 2012 blockbuster. Peter Rodger also wrote and directed Oh My God, a 2009 documentary in which celebrities including Hugh Jackman and Seal ponder the question, "What is God?" 
Contacted by Police on April 30
The deputies found Rodger "shy" and "timid" as the man spoke of his personal problems, telling them he had difficulties with his social life and wasn't planning to return to school next year, says Brown. 
Rodger's final video was posted to YouTube hours before the rampage, promising "retribution" against women, whom he blamed for his "loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires." In the six-minute clip, he sits in his car and complains women had left him a frustrated 22-year-old virgin. 
"Girls gave their affection and sex and love to other men, but never to me," Rodger states. 
"It's an injustice ... I'm the perfect guy, and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman." 

Rodger had struggled to make friends, the family's lawyer tells ABC. 
Elliot Rodger was a student at Santa Barbara City College, living in an apartment near the University of California campus. At the request of concerned relatives, deputies made a "welfare call" on him April 30 but "determined he did not meet the criteria for an involuntary mental health hold," Sheriff Brown told a news conference Saturday evening. 
http://www.people.com/article/elliott-rodger-santa-barbara-gunman-hunger-games-assistant-director-son

who:Elliot Rodger
when: not given
where:near the University of California, Santa Barbara
why:The man suspected of killing six people in a rampage
what:killing six people
how: not given

Key Words :
1. suspected 嫌疑2.  assistant director 副導演3. attorney 律師
4. statement 聲明
5. inconceivable 不可思議
6. deli 熟食店
7. rampage 亂鬧
8. virgin 處女
9. injustice 不公平