RIO OLYMPICS: Michael Phelps still No. 1 in the pool

Thu, Aug 11, 2016 AFP and Reuters, RIO DE JANEIRO

In an unforgettable display of Olympic power, Michael Phelps won two more finals to take his historic all-time record load to 21 golds and cement his legendary status.

Phelps beat Japan’s Masato Sakai by just 0.04 seconds to take the 200m butterfly and later anchored the US 4x200m freestyle relay team to victory. At 31 — the oldest individual Olympic swimming gold medalist ever — Phelps is still the master of the pool.

After claiming his 20th title in five Olympics — beating old rival Chad le Clos in the process — Phelps stood in the water striking a pose like a Roman emperor, soaking up the acclaim.

The 200m butterfly was his first world record in 2001 and he was determined to win back the Olympic title he lost to South Africa’s Le Clos in 2012.

However, Phelps said that was also the last time he would race it.

“That event is kind of like my bread and butter,” Phelps said. “There wasn’t a shot in hell I was losing that race and if I did, I was leaving everything in the pool.”

Even a late wardrobe malfunction could not stop Phelps from winning his 21st gold.

The most medaled Olympian of all time, now with an unprecedented collection of 25, tore his swim cap in half as he was putting it on just before the start of the freestyle relay.

Teammate Conor Dwyer swam the opening leg and then handed over his cap, turning it inside out to avoid any conflict with rival sponsors.

Phelps wears his own MP brand made by Italian company Aqua Sphere.

“I finished my leg and he tapped me on the shoulder when I was cheering Townley [Haas] on,” Dwyer told reporters. “I heard him say: ‘Diddy, look at my cap. I don’t have a cap.’ So I handed him mine.”

“We all have ... different sponsors, so I think he had to wear just an all-black cap, so we reversed it and put on,” Dwyer said. “We’ve seen that guy go through a lot of adversity, from winning gold medals without goggles, so I think a different cap won’t stop that guy from having a good split [time].”

Dwyer had handed over to Haas in the relay, who was then followed by Ryan Lochte before Phelps swam the anchor leg to victory.

In the butterfly final at the 2008 Beijing Games Phelps won gold despite swimming with water-filled goggles that left him having to count his strokes.

In other sports, the US are looking forward to a new era of gymnastics domination, with Simone Biles making a flying start to her bid for five Rio Olympic golds.

Biles helped the US women’s team to victory by eight points over Russia.

“It’s everything and more than I’d hoped it to be,” said the tiny 19-year-old Texan, who has set gymnastics alight with 10 world titles in the past three years.

As her Olympic odyssey got under way, another crumbled as defending tennis champion Serena Williams suffered a shock 6-4, 6-3 defeat to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina in the third round.

Williams, hampered by a shoulder injury, served five double faults in one game of the second set as her own bid to reach five gold medals ended.

The 34-year-old and her sister Venus were knocked out of the women’s doubles, the three-time champions’ first ever defeat together in Olympic competition.

“It was a great opportunity. It didn’t work out the way I wanted it to, but at least I was able to make it to Rio. That was one of my goals,” Serena said.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO: Michael Phelps

WHERE: RIO OLYMPICS

Keywords:

1.malfunction 失靈

2.unprecedented 史前無例的

3.rival 對手

來源:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2016/08/11/2003652884

Obama and Castro to meet in rare talks

Tue, Mar 22, 2016 AFP, HAVANA

US President Barack Obama was to hold rare talks with Cuban President Raul Castro yesterday in Havana, setting aside a more than half-century bitter standoff between the US and the communist nation.

The meeting in the Cuban capital’s Palace of the Revolution is only the third formal encounter between Obama and the brother of Fidel Castro, who handed over the presidency in 2008.

At stake is the historic shift to end the Cold War conflict, which has seen Washington try to bring Cuba to its knees through an economic embargo, while Havana, a close Soviet ally, became enemy territory.

Obama, who arrived on Sunday with his family, is the first US president to touch down on the island, barely an hour’s flight from Florida, in 88 years.

As Air Force One landed in Havana, Obama cheerfully began the landmark trip by tweeting in local slang: “Que bola Cuba?” — or “What’s up?”

Later he said that the last US president to visit, Calvin Coolidge in 1928, needed three days to make the trip by train and navy ship.

“This is a historic visit,” he remarked to staff at the freshly reopened US embassy in Havana.

The trip has been touted mostly for its huge symbolic value, and comes more than a year after Obama and Castro surprised the world in December 2014 by announcing that their countries would begin normalizing relations.

“The presence of a US president on the island for the first time since the 1959 revolution marks a transcendental change in relations between the US and Cuba,” said Michael Shifter, head of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.

However, some tough issues are up for discussion.

Although the embargo can only be lifted by the US Congress, where Republicans are far less keen on rapprochement, the Obama administration is chipping away at the edges of the sanctions.

For example, a trickle of US visitors over recent years is soon expected to turn into a flood with the lifting of an onerous requirement that they go to Cuba as part of pre-approved groups.

However, while pushing for an easing of the decades-long sanctions regime, the White House continues to press for greater human rights in a country where the Cuban Communist Party maintains its grip on every key institution and little dissent is tolerated.

Just hours before Obama’s arrival on Sunday, police in Havana arrested dozens of people from a banned group demanding greater human rights. Several had been freed by the end of the day and the rest were expected to be released shortly.

“I don’t think Obama’s visit will have an immediate impact on Cuban politics, much less on the near-term decisions of the regime,” Shifter said. “Full normalization will take a lot of time and will be a complex process. To advance, the US Congress needs to go further in lifting the embargo and Cuba needs to speed up its political and economic opening and improve its human rights.”

A heavy police presence was evident when Obama went on his first official event, a visit to the beautifully restored Havana Old Town late on Sunday. Plainclothes agents swarmed through the narrow streets and access to ordinary Cubans was all but impossible, leaving the neighborhood eerily empty.

“Maybe they let me come here because they think I’m a tourist with my backpack,” said civil engineer Ariel Hernandez, 42, who was trying to get a glimpse of the president.

Tomorrow, Obama is scheduled to meet with a few human rights activists. He is also to give a speech — the main set piece of his trip — that is to be carried live on Cuban television, an unprecedented concession from the authorities.

He is to round off the trip by attending a baseball game between the Cuban national team and Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays.

Although meant to be a celebration of shared love for the game, the occasion is also to highlight yet another cause of tension: the talent drain of Cuban stars attracted by the lure of the big-money US circuit.

In another major piece of Latin American business, US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is traveling with Obama, was yesterday due to meet separately with representatives of the Colombian government and the Marxist FARC rebels, according to a Colombian negotiator.

They have been negotiating in Cuba since 2012 to end their more than 50-year war. Both sides have acknowledged that a deadline of tomorrow they had set themselves will pass without the signing of a final accord

Structure of the Lead：

WHO: Obama and Castro

WHERE: Havana

Keywords:

1.standoff 僵局

2.communist 共產主義者

3.embargo禁運

4.normalizing 狀況恢復正常

來源:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/03/22/2003642188/1

Google’s AlphaGo beats masters at their game again

Google’s AlphGo beats masters at their game again

Sat, Jan 07, 2017 By Chen Cheng-chien, Cheng Wei-chih and Jonathan Chin  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

DeepMind Technologies’ AlphaGo was the brains behind the go player that won 60 consecutive games in one week in online battles against the world’s top-ranked players, Taiwanese developer Aja Huang (黃士傑) of the Google unit confirmed on Wednesday.

Using the pseudonym “Master,” AlphaGo played its first online game on Dec. 29 and defeated some of the world’s top players, including China’s Ke Jie (柯潔) — ranked the world’s No. 1 in the Whole History Rating system — Nie Weiping (聶衛平) and Chen Yaoye (陳耀燁); Japan’s Yuta Iyama; and South Korea’s Park Junghwan and Cho Hanseung.

Before DeepMind’s revelation, Master’s unconventional strategy, fast reaction and seemingly improbable winning streak had led to speculation that the player was not human.

Yu Bin (俞斌), head coach of China’s national go team, told Xinhua news agency that no human player could make a move almost every five seconds.

“It is highly possible that it is the latest version of an AI [artificial intelligence] player,” he was quoted as saying.

After claiming its 59th win on Wednesday, Master wrote a message on the platform that read: “I am AlphaGo’s Dr Huang.”

“We’ve been hard at work improving AlphaGo, and over the past few days we’ve played some unofficial online games at fast time controls with our new prototype version, to check that it’s working as well as we hoped. We thank everyone who played our accounts Magister (P) and Master (P) on the Tygem and FoxGo servers,” DeepMind cofounder and chief executive Demis Hassabis tweeted on Wednesday.

Huang, a professor of computer science at National Taiwan Normal University, was in 2012 employed by the London-based company that was later acquired by Google, and played a key role in AlphaGo’s development team.

According to the Chinese online media outlet The Observer, Master initially registered as a South Korean go player, in an apparent homage to the fact that AlphaGo was certified by the South Korean national go academy as a 9th dan player in January last year after defeating Lee Sedol, a South Korean player with a 9th dan rank, in four games.

Chou Chun-hsun (周俊勳), a professional and the first Taiwanese to play against Master, said he was routed in little more than 40 minutes and had to concede the game.

“Master’s strategy defied conventional rules of playing the game, and I knew then that what made those moves was not human. Though the game was a crushing loss, I had a lot of fun losing and I learned some very interesting things from it. I look forward to playing it again,” he added.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO: Alpha Go

WHERE: Online 

Keywords: 

1.consecutive 連續的

2.pseudonym 筆名

3.prototype 原型 

來源:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2017/01/07/2003662681

The Guardian view on the Nobel peace prize: give it to Syria’s White Helmets

Wednesday 5 October 2016 19.33 BST

When a bomb comes crashing down on a building, leaving devastation in its wake, they rush towards the site instead of towards shelters. With their bare hands, they search for people in the rubble. They try to pull out survivors who are shocked and wounded, tormented by fear and, not least, the knowledge that civilians long ago stopped being collateral damage, and are precisely the target in this war. These rescuers are Syria’s White Helmets, a group of 3,000 local volunteers. Once tailors or carpenters or students or engineers, they are now dedicated to saving lives when fighter jets and helicopters drop barrel bombs, cluster explosives, phosphorus bombs and chlorine shells on neighbourhoods or hospitals. As the Nobel committee prepares to announce this year’s peace prize, the White Helmets deserve attention.

The White Helmets leader: ‘We can anticipate the scale of destruction based on the sound of the plane’

Read more

In Syria’s maelstrom of horrors, it is hard to find anything that points to respect for basic humanitarian principles or even human dignity. The Assad regime has unleashed untold levels of violence on the Syrian population and is being actively assisted by Russia’s military intervention as well as by Iranian-connected ground forces. Jihadi groups have grown, often filling voids left by less well-armed and well-resourced moderates. Civilians are trapped in the middle. In Aleppo, 300,000 people are exposed to a relentless barrage of airstrikes. The Syrian government and Russia now seem intent on crushing Aleppo, the opposition’s last stronghold, before a new American president takes office. Diplomacy has entirely collapsed, with acrimonious exchanges in the UN replacing attempts at a ceasefire.

This is the backdrop against which the White Helmets operate – a western-funded Syrian search-and-rescue organisation whose members put their lives at great risk to save civilians, receiving only a monthly stipend of $150. Danger is made worse by the fact those who bomb routinely resort to double-tap strikes, with fighter jets dropping ordnance and then returning to target rescue teams.

These volunteers know all too well that great power politics, alongside a tyrant’s brutal policies, have brought Syria to the abyss. They entertain no illusions that genuine measures will be taken swiftly to end massacres on a scale unprecedented in decades. The White Helmets do what they can, locally. It’s the very least the west can do to back them. No one should be surprised that Bashar al-Assad has compared these humanitarian activists to terrorists: that’s what he calls anyone who opposes him.

What the White Helmets accomplish may seem like a drop in the ocean, but what they represent is immense: resilience and bravery in the face of barbarism. They are a constant reminder that those targeted by Russia and the Assad regime’s massive bombing campaign in Aleppo are civilians, not terrorists. And they show that individual acts of courage can go a long way to fight indifference. They also embody a spirit of civic resistance – upholding some of the ideals of the peaceful, popular uprising of 2011 and exemplifying courage and solidarity in the face of state-sponsored terror. The international community has utterly failed Syrians, by failing to protect them from mass atrocities. No Nobel peace prize can erase that. But because symbols can be powerful, the White Helmets should be recognised with this award.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO: White Helmets

WHERE: Syria

Keywords:

1. devastation 毀滅性的

2. rubble 瓦礫堆,碎石

3. tormented 折磨,痛苦

4. precisely 精確地,準確地

5. barrel 桶

來源:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/05/the-guardian-view-on-the-nobel-peace-prize-give-it-to-syrias-white-helmets

BREXIT: British PM resigns after UK vote to leave EU

BREXIT: British PM resigns after UK vote to leave EU

Sat, Jun 25, 2016Reuters and AP, LONDON

Britain has voted to leave the EU, forcing the resignation of British Prime Minister David Cameron and dealing the biggest blow to the European project of greater unity since World War II.

There was euphoria among Britain’s eurosceptic forces, claiming a victory over the political establishment, big business and foreign leaders, including US President Barack Obama, who had urged Britain to remain.

“Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom,” said Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party. “This will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people ... Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day.”

Global financial markets plunged as results from Thursday’s referendum showed a near 52-48 percent split for leaving.

The pound fell more than 10 percent against the US dollar to levels last seen in 1985, its biggest one-day fall in history, and European shares plummeted more than 8 percent, headed for their biggest ever one-day percentage fall.

Cameron, who lost his gamble betting the nation’s future on an outcome he predicted would be catastrophic, said he would step down as prime minister by October.

Speaking to assembled reporters outside 10 Downing Street in London yesterday, he said he would stay on for as long as was necessary for stability’s sake, but that he could not be the one to lead Britain out of Europe.

“I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers the country to its next destination,” he said.

Brexit was a rare, but fateful miscalculation for a politician who has a reputation for thriving under pressure and astutely judging political risks.

“I think he’s actually been pretty stunned by the strength of the ‘leave’ cause,” Cameron biographer James Hanning told reporters several days ahead of the referendum. “The golden rule is: Never hold a referendum unless you’re confident of winning it, and I think he thought that the moderate voices would prevail by some distance.”

“The British people have made a decision to take a separate path,” Cameron said yesterday morning.

Quitting the EU could cost Britain access to the EU’s trade barrier-free single market.

The UK itself could break apart, with leaders in Scotland — where nearly two-thirds of voters wanted to stay in the EU — calling for a new vote on independence.

The EU for its part is expected to be economically and politically damaged, facing the departure not only of its most free-market proponent, but also a member with a UN Security Council veto and powerful army. In one go, the bloc will lose about one-sixth of its economic output.

Leaders in France and the Netherlands demanded their own referendums to leave.

The vote will initiate at least two years of divorce proceedings with the EU, the first exit by any member state.

Cameron said it would be up to his successor to formally start the exit process.

Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson, a former London mayor who became the most recognizable face of the “leave” camp, is now widely tipped to seek the top job.

European politicians reacted with shock.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO: David Cameron

WHERE: LONDON

Keywords:

1. euphoria  狂喜,亢奮

2. plummeted  暴跌

3. catastrophic 災難性的

4. Brexit 退出歐盟的縮寫

5. proponent 宣導者

來源:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/06/25/2003649410來源:

SpaceX to reattempt landing rocket on ocean barge

Sun, Jan 10, 2016 Reuters,CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida

Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX is to attempt to land its next Falcon 9 rocket on a barge in the Pacific Ocean, seeking another milestone a month after landing a booster on the ground in a spaceflight first, the company said on Friday.

The Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a NASA ocean-monitoring satellite, is slated to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sunday next week.

About two minutes after liftoff, the first stage of the rocket is expected to separate, flip around, fire engines to slow its fall, deploy landing legs and attempt to touch down on a floating landing pad in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX has tried ocean landings twice without success, but officials are optimistic after the company last month safely returned a Falcon 9 booster to a landing pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Accomplishing an ocean landing would give the California-based SpaceX flexibility to recover its boosters from a wider variety of space missions.

The firm, owned and operated by Musk, wants to refurbish and refly its rockets, potentially slashing launch costs.

Similar efforts are underway by fellow technology titan Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, as well as industry stalwart United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

For now, SpaceX is focusing on reusing just the first stage of its Falcon rockets, which sell for about US$61 million, the company’s Web site shows.

Of that, only about US$200,000 is for fuel, Musk said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco last month.

“With reusable rockets, we can reduce the cost of access to space by probably two orders of magnitude,” or a factor of 100, Musk said at the conference.

The company eventually wants to return the rocket’s second stage for reuse in future launches as well.

The rocket slated to launch NASA’s Jason-3 satellite is an older version of the rocket that flew last month and does not have the power to attempt a touchdown on land, SpaceX said.

The booster that landed on Dec. 21 is to be test-fired in Florida, but probably not reflown, Musk told reporters after the landing. He said the company likely would attempt relaunch of another recovered rocket this year.

SpaceX has more than 60 missions on its schedule, worth about US$8 billion.

Structure of the Lead：

WHO: Unknown

WHERE:  Pacific Ocean

Keywords：

1.entrepreneur 企業者,創業者

2.satellite 人造衛星

3.blast 炸毀,爆破

4.slashing 大幅削減

5.stalwart 忠實的,忠臣的

6.geophysical 地球科學

7.magnitude 重大,巨大

來源:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/01/10/2003636889

Taiwan heats up climate change conference

   Sun, Dec 20, 2015 - Page 12 By Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter in Paris

Taiwan’s government representatives may not have been allowed to participate in the negotiation process at the Paris Climate Change Conference, but civic society organizations made their presence felt.

A number of committed climate activists from Taiwan, along with environmental groups and researchers, represented the nation at the 21st UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP 21), which took place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

Because Taiwan is not a member of the UN, activists had to use other means to garner international support in order to gain entrance.

“We represent young people in Taiwan who are concerned about global warming and its effects,” said William Cheng (程泫尹) who spoke on behalf of an environmental organization from Canada.

Cheng’s organization is classified as part of the “Youngo” (Young People’s Organizations) — non-state entities given observer status.

Other non-state entity groupings include “Engo” (Environmental Organizations), “Tungo” (Trade Union Organizations) and“IPO” (Indigenous Peoples Organizations), among others.

Lindsey Wu, an environmental activist from Taiwan, who fell under the “Engo” category, has participated in climate change meetings in the past.

“It has been very difficult for someone from Taiwan to attend these UN climate forums because the Taiwanese government is excluded from the process, and this also precludes effective participation by us NGOs,” she said.

Wu added that at times, it was frustrating to see many small Third World nations entering COP 21 venues and engaging in climate negotiation.

“It’s like the world has invited everyone to a big party, but when mentioning that we are from Taiwan, the door is slammed shut to keep us out in the cold.”

Wu believes Taiwan should forge stronger bonds with its Pacific allies such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands — all who were well-represented at the COP meetings.

Ghazali Ohorella, an executive of Pacific Island Youth Network, said: “Taiwan is part of the global community, and they are suffering from the effects of global warming, just like other nations; Taiwan and its NGO representatives should be allowed to participate as an equal member in the COP 21 process.”

Instead, Taiwan’s government was only allowed to send a delegation of 50 people headed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Paris. However, they tried to make the most out of the circumstances. On Dec. 10, a press conference was held at the Representative Office of Taiwan to discuss future goals such as gaining observer status at upcoming COP 21 events.

In addition, the government delegation has co-sponsored programs and seminar talks at venues of the official COP 21 site.

While smaller NGOs fought tooth and nail to participate at COP 21, larger organizations, by contrast, filled up most of the booths at COP 21’s NGO halls; they included the Tzu Chi Foundation, the Tang Prize Foundation and Delta Electronics Inc.

Structure of the Lead：

WHERE: Paris

WHO: Taiwan’s government 

Keywords：

1.entities 實體

2.category 種類

3.forums 論壇,討論會

4.precludes 排除,防止

5.venues 會場

6.delegation 代表團

來源:http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2015/12/20/2003635208