studyman的压码日记(新人)

读报纸:
1.S. Korea raps Japan over sex slaves
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea rapped Japan's prime minister Saturday for disavowing his country's responsibility for using Asian women as sex slaves for Japanese troops in World War II.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had said Thursday that there was no proof that so-called "comfort women" were forced into sexual slavery during the war.

The remark triggered outrage throughout Asia.

Abe's statement is "aimed at glossing over the historical truth and our government expresses strong regret," said a statement from South Korea's Foreign Ministry.

The statement said the comment "made (us) doubt the sincerity" of Japan's repeated apologies for its wartime past.

"We once again urge responsible leaders of Japan to have a correct understanding of history," the ministry said.

Historians say that about 200,000 women, mostly from Korea and China, served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.

Many victims say they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.

Abe's statement contradicted evidence in Japanese documents, unearthed in 1992, that historians said showed that military authorities had a direct role in working with contractors to forcibly procure women for the brothels.

The remark also cast doubt on a 1993 Japanese government apology to the sex slaves.

Earlier, in Washington, South Korea's Foreign Minister Song Min-soon also criticized Abe, saying people who doubt that the Japanese Imperial Army forced Asian women into sexual slavery during the war had "better face the truth."

South Korea was a colony of Japan in 1910-45. Many South Koreans still harbor resentment toward Japan's occupation.

The two countries are now important trade partners, but their political relations have often been affected by rows stemming from the colonial rule

Bush arrives in storm-struck Southeast
AMERICUS, Georgia (CNN) -- President Bush arrived Saturday in storm-battered Enterprise, Alabama, where 10 people -- including eight high-schoolers -- were killed when tornadoes ripped through the town of 20,000.

The Enterprise visit is Bush's first stop in a daylong tour of two Southeastern cities that were among the hardest-hit by Thursday's tornado-packing storms.

In all, the storms killed 20 people: 10 in Alabama, nine in Georgia and a 7-year-old girl in Missouri.

Bush is scheduled to attend a morning briefing at the Enterprise Municipal Airport before touring the city's storm damage and later meeting with families. (Watch a tornado scream into Enterprise, Alabama )

According to the White House, the president is then scheduled to travel to Americus, Georgia, where Thursday's storms claimed two lives and shut down Sumter Regional Hospital as doctors cared for the storm's victims.

The president is slated to return to the White House at 5 p.m.

Bush's visit to Enterprise comes on the heels of a tour by Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, who declared a state of emergency for the area and ordered the National Guard to send troops, medics and roving security patrols to the southern portion of the state.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, too, has declared a state of emergency in six counties.

Although the White House has not announced Bush's exact itinerary, the president is expected to visit Enterprise High School, where eight 16- and 17-year-olds were killed while seeking shelter in the campus auditorium.

Thinking the Thursday tornado warnings constituted a standard drill, students were joking around in the auditorium as they waited out the storm. That is, until the school went black and glass from a skylight crashed to the ground. (Watch scenes of a school that's been "cut in half" )

"Everyone got really quiet -- we knew it was serious. No more than five seconds later, it was just like a big explosion and everything -- debris started hitting us," said Mitchell Mock, who was injured during the tornado.

Students were huddled in the building's interior, away from all windows, but no place was safe when the school took a direct hit from a tornado shortly after 1 p.m. The school's roof partially collapsed, trapping students in an avalanche of rubble.

"I had a wall fall on top of me, and the roof fell on top of us," student Brent Smith said. (Watch how one teen died saving a fellow student from a falling wall )

"There was just hundreds of kids coming down the hallway, and a lot of them were covered with blood," said Kim Lewis, Mitchell's mother.

Dylan Lewis was trapped under rubble after the twister passed. When he emerged, "there were no more people -- it was just cement and air-conditioning parts," he said.

His collarbone was broken, but Dylan and his brothers helped rescue others before going to the emergency room themselves.

Four juniors, two sophomores and two seniors were killed. The Enterprise School Board identified the dead as Michael J. Bowen, 16; Peter James Dunn II, 16; Andrew Joel Jackson, 16; Ryan Andrew Mohler, 17; Kathryn Madora Strunk, 16; Michael D. Tompkins, 17; Jamie Ann Vidensek, 17; and Alice Michelle Wilson, 16. (Audio Slide Show: Destruction at school)

Officials said the storms killed at least two others in Alabama, one of them in Enterprise and one in Wilcox County.

After delivering havoc to south Alabama, the storms moved into Georgia where nine people were killed -- six in Baker County, two in Americus and one in Taylor County -- spokesman Buzz Weiss of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency said.

In Americus, a tornado slammed into the Sumter Regional Hospital, shutting it down as health workers were treating victims coming in from the storm, Weiss said.

The patients, none of whom was killed, were transferred to other hospitals, Weiss said. (Full story)

The twister also destroyed the local headquarters of the Red Cross, its generators and three of its disaster trailers, an official said.

FEMA Director David Paulison said Friday that his agency was sending 14 teams to areas hit by the storms. Sheltering those who lost homes and taking care of families will be their primary mission, he said.

The FEMA teams will assess whether there is enough damage to warrant natural disaster declarations, Paulison said. (Where the storms hit)

President Bush said Friday that he will visit the storm-ravaged areas "with a heavy heart," according to The Associated Press. Bush said he would make the trip "knowing full well that I'll be seeing people whose lives were turned upside down by the tornadoes. I'll do my very best to comfort them."

Denmark braced for more violent protests
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Police searched homes in the Danish capital on Saturday for activists involved in street clashes that began when police evicted squatters from an abandoned building that has served as a center for anarchists, leftists and punk rockers.

Two nights of violence between police and youths protesting the eviction have turned parts of the Danish capital into a battlefield strewn with burning cars and shattered glass.

Two new demonstrations started Saturday afternoon, with hundreds of people marching peacefully toward Copenhagen's main square, Danish media reported.

As the smoke and tear gas cleared Saturday morning, police said 188 people were arrested overnight, bringing the total number of arrests to about 400 since the riots started on Thursday.

"In the last 10 years we haven't had riots like we've seen in the past two days," police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said. He said police performed house searches early Saturday in "many places" in Copenhagen to track down activists, but declined to give details.

Vandals covered Copenhagen's famed Little Mermaid statue with pink paint. It was not clear whether the riots were linked with the defacement of the statue, which in the past has been beheaded and doused in paint and been blown off her perch by vandals who used explosives.

Police said foreign activists from Sweden, Norway and Germany joined hundreds of Danish youth, hurling cobblestones at riot police and setting cars on fire. In a sign the Danish youth expected foreign help, the Web page of "Ungdomshuset," or the youth house, posted a warning in English that Danish police had increased border controls.

"This is a display of anger and rage after more than seven years of struggle to keep what is ours," Jan, a 22-year-old activist who said he has been coming to the building for the last 10 years, told The Associated Press by telephone. He declined to give his last name, saying that was the norm among the people frequenting the building.

The eviction had been planned since last year, when courts ordered the squatters to hand the building over to a Christian congregation that bought it six years ago.

The squatters refused to leave, saying the city had no right to sell the building, which has hosted concerts with performers like Australian Nick Cave and Icelandic singer Bjork. They have demanded another building for free as a replacement.

Authorities say it has also been a staging point for numerous left-wing demonstrations that turned violent in recent years.

The clashes were Denmark's worst since May 18, 1993, when police fired into a crowd of rioters protesting the outcome of a European Union referendum. Ten of the protesters were wounded.

Justice Minister Lene Espersen urged the protesters "to regain their composure."

Sympathy protests were held in Hamburg, northern Germany, and in Norway, Sweden and Finland.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he will reshuffle his Cabinet within two weeks and pursue criminal charges against political figures linked to extremists.

The move appears to be a sign of the government's resolve to restore stability during the U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad.

Al-Maliki also said during an interview at his Green Zone office that Iraq will work hard to ensure the success of a regional security conference.

The conference in Baghdad, tentatively set for next weekend, is expected to bring together all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, as well as the United States and Britain to find ways to ease Iraq's security crisis.

Iran has not announced whether it will attend, but Iraqi officials believe that Tehran will send a representative.

The United States has said it is unlikely to engage in direct talks with Iran and Syria during the conference. (Full story)

Nine members may lose posts
Al-Maliki has been under pressure from the the United States to bring order into his factious government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds since it took office last May. Rumors of Cabinet changes have surfaced before, only to disappear because of pressure from coalition members seeking to keep power.

Nevertheless, al-Maliki said there would be a Cabinet reshuffle "either this week or next."

After the changes are announced, al-Maliki said he would undertake a "change in the ministerial structure," presumably consolidating and streamlining the 39-member Cabinet.

The prime minister did not say how many Cabinet members would be replaced. But some officials said about nine would lose their jobs, including all six Cabinet members loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an al-Maliki ally.

Al-Sadr also controls 30 of the 275 parliament seats, and his support for al-Maliki has been responsible for the government's reluctance to crack down on the cleric's Mehdi Army militia, blamed for much of the Shiite-Sunni violence of the past year.

U.S. officials had been urging al-Maliki to cut his ties to al-Sadr and form a new alliance of mainstream Shiites, moderate Sunnis and Kurds. Al-Maliki had been stalling, presumably at the urging of the powerful Shiite clerical hierarchy that wants to maintain Shiite unity.

But pressure for change has mounted since President Bush in January ordered 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq despite widespread opposition in Congress and among the U.S. public -- weary of the nearly five-year-long war.

Last month U.S. and Iraqi troops arrested Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili, an al-Sadr ally, for allegedly diverting millions of dollars in government funds to the Mehdi Army and allowing death squads to use ambulances and government hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings.

During the interview, al-Maliki said other top officials would face prosecution for ties to insurgents, sectarian militias and death squads -- including members of parliament.

"There has been coordination between us and the Multinational Forces ... starting at the beginning of this year ... to determine who should be arrested and the reasons behind arresting them," he said.

Al-Maliki did not elaborate on the U.S.-Iraqi coordination but said Iraqi judicial authorities were reviewing case files to decide which to refer to an Iraqi investigative judge, who must decide whether there is enough evidence to order a trial.

Al-Maliki said he was encouraged by Iraqi public response to the new Baghdad security operation -- which has led to a sharp drop in violence in the capital.

That violence continued on Saturday, however. An Iraqi police commander was killed during series of assaults that left at least five Iraqi police officers dead, an official with the Interior Ministry said. And on Saturday evening, gunmen wearing Iraqi National police uniforms driving in three vehicles abducted three Iraqi police as they patrolled in al-Massbah neighborhood, an official with the Iraqi Interior Ministry told CNN. (Full story)

He also defended his government, saying it managed to "achieve a lot of harmony and stability" despite attacks by al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein loyalists.

Up to 100 may face charges
The prime minister did not say how many politicians and officials might be targeted for formal investigation, an Iraqi legal step that corresponds to a grand jury probe.

But five senior Iraqis -- two of them generals and three from Shiite and Sunni parties -- have told AP that up to 100 prominent figures could face legal proceedings.

The five spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the subject to the media. All five had direct knowledge of the case review.

U.S. officials have said privately that a number of prominent Iraqis were believed to have ties to armed groups.

One Shiite parliament member, Jamal Jaafar Mohammed, is believed to have fled to Iran after U.S. authorities learned that he was convicted by a Kuwaiti court in absentia and sentenced to death in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait.

Mohammed fled Kuwait for Iran before he could be arrested and returned after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. U.S. officials have alleged he was a conduit for Iranian weapons and supplies smuggled to Shiite militias.

U.S. military officials have expressed concern over alleged Iranian weapons shipments and financial support to Shiite parties allied with al-Maliki. The Shiite-led government hopes the upcoming regional conference will ease tensions between the U.S. and Shiite-dominated Iran -- and allay Washington's fears of Tehran's influence in Iraq.

The U.S. also hopes the conference will encourage Syria and other Arab countries -- most of them Sunni-led -- to increase their support for Iraqi's leadership, despite regional unease over the Shiite-led government's ties to Iran.

"In fact the importance of the upcoming conference lies in the fact that the Iraqi government has the ability to serve as a proper venue for solving conflicts," al-Maliki said.

"So we will exert the utmost effort to find solutions to all pending questions, either among regional countries themselves or between them and Iraq, or between them and powers such as the U.S. and Britain and the international community."

Indonesia landslides toll hits 40

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Rescuers searched for survivors Sunday after landslides killed at least 40 people on an eastern Indonesian island, with scores of people believed to be buried under the mud.

Authorities on Flores battled blocked roads to deliver emergency aid to affected districts and help dig for survivors, said Rustam Pakaya, the chief of the Health Department's Crisis Center in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.

"We have not been able to get heavy machinery to the villages, because landslides have also cut off the main road to the area," Pakaya said. "Many parts of the road also have collapsed."

He said downed telephone lines were also hindering the relief effort.

Lt. Col. Ginting Santoso, a police chief in the affected area on Flores island, told Metro TV that as of late Saturday 40 bodies had been recovered from two landslides, and that rescuers were searching for at least 29 other people believed to be buried.

Other agencies gave slightly different figures on the number of dead and missing, a common occurrence during natural disasters in Indonesia. The agencies rarely attempt to reconcile their figures.

State news agency Antara reported landslides in at least 15 other villages or districts, leaving some houses buried and vehicles damaged. It said roads were blocked in 20 places.

Instant noodles, canned fish, cooking oil and emergency tents were being distributed to some districts on the remote island, about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Jakarta, Antara reported.

Seasonal downpours cause dozens of deadly landslides and flash floods each year in Indonesia, a vast chain of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.

Last month, floods in Jakarta killed almost 100 people and paralyzed large sections of the city.

每天都好努力啊~~~

3.5
看电影跟读12册
textloud读报纸一册磁带文本
U.S. military probes Afghan deaths

POSTED: 9:25 a.m. EST, March 5, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The U.S. military on Monday confirmed it was investigating two incidents in Afghanistan in which its forces were reported to have been responsible for at least 17 civilian deaths.

Afghan officials, quoted by wires services, said a Sunday night airstrike in the town of Nijrab, north of Kabul, killed a family of nine, including several young children.

A coalition spokesman told CNN the airstrike, carried out by U.S. forces, targeted insurgents who had fired rockets on a U.S. military base in Nijrab, located in Kapisa province.

According to the spokesman, U.S. soldiers observed armed combatants -- believed to have fired on the base -- take cover in a compound and called in an airstrike on the building.

The U.S. military dropped two 1,000-pound bombs on the building, killing nine people, he added.

An investigation into the incident is underway, the spokesman said. He said it was not immediately clear if the nine killed were insurgents or civilians.

The U.S. military is also investigating another incident Sunday in which U.S. forces opened fire following a suicide car bomb attack on its forces near the southeastern city of Jalalabad.

Eight Afghan civilians were killed and 35 others wounded in the attack, but it was not clear if the casualties were caused by the initial explosion, by Taliban gunfire or return fire from troops in the convoy. No U.S. forces were seriously wounded in the incident.

"The American forces became emotional [after the car bombing] and opened fire on Afghans in the area because they feared another bomb attack," said Zmarai Bashiri, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Interior Ministry.

One witness hit in the shoulder by a bullet told The Associated Press that U.S. forces had opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians as they sped away.

"I saw them turning and firing in this direction, then turning and firing in that direction," 23-year-old Ahmed Najib said of the U.S. forces. "I even saw a farmer shot by the Americans."

But U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. David Accetta told CNN said it was "premature" to blame U.S. troops for the deaths.

Accetta said the convoy's attackers had displayed a "blatant disregard for human life" by attacking coalition forces in a populated area.

The incident sparked protests in the streets of Jalalabad. Many of the demonstrators called on American troops in Afghanistan to go home.

More than 45,000 U.S. and NATO troops are battling a resurgent Taliban and its al Qaeda allies across a wide swath of southern Afghanistan, more than five years after the terrorist network's September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

In a recent interview, Mullah Dadullah, the man in charge of the Taliban's day-to-day military operations, said his forces were poised for a spring offensive against NATO-led coalition troops.

The Taliban commander promised to get revenge against the Americans, and claimed to be in regular communication with wanted al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

天天练习都有新的进步和感觉，坚持下来，成功是属于耐力持久的人。

谢谢老师鼓励
3.6
再次看电影跟读12册
textloud阅读第2册磁带文本

Deadliest day for U.S. troops in a month
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- In the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Iraq in nearly a month, at least nine U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in two attacks north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, two suicide bombers struck a crowd of Shiite pilgrims Tuesday in Hilla, killing 47 people and wounding 117, police in the Shiite city south of Baghdad said.

There were no other immediate details on the suicide bombings.

Not since February 7 has the U.S. death toll been so high for U.S. troops, when 11 were killed in a Marine helicopter crash outside Baghdad, and four died in combat in Anbar province.

The deadliest attack Monday took place during combat operations in Salaheddin province, according to a military statement.

"Six Task Force Lightning soldiers died as a result of injuries sustained following an explosion near their vehicles," the statement said.

The blast wounded three other soldiers, who were taken to military hospitals.

In the second attack Monday, a bomb exploded near three soldiers serving with Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, killing them, the military said. One other soldier was wounded.

Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a spokesman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq, described Monday as "a very traumatic day" for U.S. troops in Iraq, according to The Associated Press.

"Our hearts and prayers are with the families right now in their time of loss, and our resolve is stronger to accomplish our mission here," Donnelly told AP.

The deaths brought to 3,177 the number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.

Killers target Shiite pilgrims
Scattered attacks in the nation Tuesday left dozens dead, authorities said. Many of the dead and wounded were Shiite pilgrims heading to the holy city of Karbala for Arbayeen, which marks the killing of Imam Hussein.

Arbayeen falls on Saturday, marking the end of a traditional 40-day mourning period following the anniversary of Imam Hussein's death, known as Ashura.

Gunmen attacked a pair of minibuses, killing two Shiite pilgrims en route to the commemoration and wounding six others in Latifiya, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Baghdad.

Shortly after the first attack, gunmen opened fire on a group of pilgrims walking in Latifiya, killing one and wounding three others.

Later, a roadside bomb blast killed five Iraqi police officers on patrol in eastern Baghdad's Aubaydi district.

Also, a roadside bomb exploded near a fuel tanker, killing two people and wounding four others on the Sarrafiya Bridge in northern Baghdad.

In addition, a car bomb killed four Shiite pilgrims and injured 14 others in Baghdad's Yarmouk district.

In Baghdad's southern Dora district, a car bomb killed two pilgrims and wounded 12 others.

A car bomb in western Baghdad's Qadssiya neighborhood killed one pilgrim and injured three others.

Gunmen attacked a minibus in the Mahdiya neighborhood of southern Baghdad, killing eight pilgrims.

Other developments

At least 26 people were arrested in operations in the Salaheddin province, including a local leader of a conservative Sunni organization and five of his aides, according to Iraqi officials. Also in the province, gunmen killed five Iraqi police who were driving to their jobs in Samarra, according to an official with the Tikrit police.


Chinese oil officials are scheduled to arrive in Baghdad on Tuesday to renegotiate an old contract to develop an oil field along a major pipeline in Kut, an oil ministry spokesman told CNN on Monday. The announcement came a week after Iraq's government agreed on a plan to open the country's oil industry to international investment.


On Monday, a suicide car bomber detonated explosives in a busy commercial district of Baghdad, killing 28 people and wounding 56 others, Baghdad police said.

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Jennifer Deaton contributed to this report.