week-7

Gunman Panics Ottawa, Killing Soldier in Spree at Capital

OTTAWA — The heart of the Canadian capital was thrown into panic and placed in lockdown on Wednesday after a gunman armed with a rifle or shotgun fatally wounded a corporal guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier at the National War Memorial, entered the nearby Parliament building and fired multiple times before he was shot and killed.

It was the second deadly assault on a uniformed member of Canada’s armed forces in three days. The Ottawa attack heightened fears that Canada, a strong ally of the United States in its campaign against the Islamic State militant group convulsing the Middle East, had been targeted in a reprisal, either as part of an organized plot or a lone-wolf assault by a radicalized Canadian.

Law enforcement authorities in Washington said their Canadian counterparts had identified the assailant as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who had changed his name from Michael Joseph Hall, and said he had been a convert to Islam. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said he had a criminal history of offenses that included robbery and drug possession.

Downtown Ottawa, ordinarily bustling on a workday, was both shut down and traumatized as police officers rushed to secure the Parliament building, move occupants to safety and hunt for what they initially said could be two or three assailants. The lockdown at Parliament dragged into the evening, when armed officers began herding people who had been confined all day into city buses, but the emergency was not lifted.

At a news conference, the Ottawa Police Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police declined to specify how many more gunmen, if any, they might be seeking, adding to the foreboding in the city, where anxiety ran so high that a National Hockey League game was postponed. The police told reporters that the situation was “dynamic and unfolding.”

The soldier died at a hospital, and the gunman was killed inside the Parliament building, Chief Charles Bordeleau of the Ottawa police said. The soldier was identified as Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a member of the army reserves from Hamilton, Ontario. Chief Bordeleau said two people, whom he did not name, were injured, although not seriously.

Structure of the Lead：

   who-unknown soldier 

   When-OCT. 22, 2014

   What-Canada parliament shooting

   Why-Not given

   How-Not given

 Key Words:

  conference會議

  militant 激進份子

  counterpart對應

  assailant攻擊的

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/world/americas/canada-parliament-gunfire.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A14%22%7D

week 6- ISIS

Sunnis in Iraq Often See Their Government as the Bigger Threat

BAGHDAD — A group of Iraqi Sunni refugees had found shelter in an abandoned school, two families to a room, after fleeing fighters from theIslamic State in Iraq and Syria. They were gathered in the school’s courtyard last week when the Iraqi Air Force bombed them.

The bombing, in Alam District near Tikrit, may well have been a mistake. But some of the survivors believe adamantly that the pilot had to know he was bombing civilians, landing the airstrike “in the middle of all the people,” said Nimr Ghalib, whose wife, three children, sister and nephew were among at least 38 people killed, according to witnesses interviewed last week, as well as human rights workers who detailed the attack on Wednesday.

The attack fit a pattern of often indiscriminate shelling and airstrikes on Sunni areas by the armed forces of the Shiite-led Iraqi government. The strikes have added to a long and bitter list of Sunni grievances, leading many to view the government’s leaders as an enemy — and some to regard the government as an even greater threat than the Sunni extremists in ISIS.

Overcoming that mistrust is a fundamental challenge facing the new Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, as it tries to win Sunni Iraqis over to its side in a fight against the Sunni extremists. And it is a prerequisite of President Obama’s new plan to fight the militant group.

Mr. Abadi’s admirers, including American officials, have insisted that he is an intrinsically more inclusive leader than his predecessor, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whom many Sunnis accused of using the government, the security forces and the cover of law to serve narrow Shiite interests and subjugate the Sunni minority.

Many Sunni political leaders have begun responding positively to Mr. Abadi’s outreach, including plans to bring Sunni Arabs into new national guard military units, fighting ISIS under the direction of their provincial governors and with paychecks and pensions from the Iraqi government.

But the prime minister faces a far more daunting challenge outside the halls of power, in Sunni neighborhoods and provinces pummeled by years of war and shaped by a legacy of mistrust that stretches back to the sectarian political order that rose during the American occupation of Iraq.

It will be a “mammoth task” to stitch the country back together and assuage Sunni fears, said Dlawer Ala’Aldeen, president of the Middle East Research Institute, a think tank in Erbil in Kurdistan.

“Sunnis are deeply fragmented, and winning the trust of those in Baghdad is not enough to win the hearts and minds of those under ISIS occupation,” he said.

“With the violations of the constitution, with the burning of all these bridges, with the lack of focus on nation building, it finally made Iraqfail,” he continued. “To repair a failed state is a near-impossible task.”

As the price of their support, Sunni leaders have demanded that the government curb the Iranian-backed Shiite militias that have been deployed to Sunni areas, and seek the release of Sunni men imprisoned by the hundreds under vague charges during the previous government. They also claim that Sunni areas do not receive their fair share of the country’s wealth, and demand more autonomy, as the Kurds have.

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“We are looking for a measure of good will,” said Sheikh Ahmed al-Shauki, a former army commander during Saddam Hussein’s rule and now a representative of the Independence Armed Group, a Sunni insurgent movement based in Anbar Province.

“We hope the government doesn’t ignore us, because it will tear Iraq apart.”

But in its war against ISIS, the conduct of the government seems to have only cauterized the divisions.

As ISIS seized vast sections of territory this summer, as Iraqi soldiers fled or were routed, the government increasingly turned to Shiite militias to counter the threat.

Iraq’s Sunnis vividly recall how militias linked to the governing Shiite parties staged attacks against Sunnis during the worst years of the sectarian conflict last decade, often in cooperation with Iraq’s military and police forces, or while wearing their uniforms.

Mr. Maliki was criticized for his inability or unwillingness to dismantle the groups, hardening Sunni mistrust of the government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/world/middleeast/sunni-mistrust-is-major-hurdle-for-new-iraqi-leaders.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

   WHO-  Iraqi Sunni 

   WHEN-SEPT. 10, 2014

   WHAT- as Iraqi soldiers fled or were routed, the government increasingly turned to Shiite militias to counter the threat.

   WHY-not  given

   WHERE-BAGHDAD

   HOW-not given

Keywords：

   1.refugee 難民

   2.survivor生還者

   3.indiscriminate無差別的

   4.autonomy自治權

    5.province 省

week5-Ferguson Michael Brown Darren Wilson Missouri

Fatal Encounter in Ferguson Took Less Than 90 Seconds, Police Communications Reveal

FERGUSON, Mo. — Audio of police radio communications and video from surveillance cameras at the Ferguson Police Department offer new details from the day that Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot dead by a white police officer in August.

As the region waits tensely for a grand jury to decide whether to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, in the shooting, the new disclosures gave yet another glimpse of the complicated and unusually abundant information that the jurors may be sifting through.

The audio and video were published on Friday by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The police radio communications, including remarks by Officer Wilson, reveal that the encounter with Mr. Brown on Aug. 9 was brief — less than 90 seconds from start to finish. Though the time was short, questions remain about the encounter: Were Mr. Brown’s hands raised in the air in a motion of surrender when he was shot, as some witnesses have said? Was Officer Wilson punched and scratched in a struggle with Mr. Brown, as he has told the authorities? Did Officer Wilson view Mr. Brown as a suspect in a theft that had just occurred at a store?

The newly published audio, which the newspaper said it obtained through the state’s public records law, makes it clear that Officer Wilson was aware that other officers were investigating a “stealing in progress” that had been reported at a local market before he came across Mr. Brown and a friend on Canfield Drive. But the radio dispatches do not clarify whether Officer Wilson, who had initially warned the two friends not to walk in the street, suspected Mr. Brown at that point in connection with the theft.

“Put me on Canfield with two,” Officer Wilson told a dispatcher at 12:02 p.m., moments before the shooting. “And send me another car.” Not long after the shooting, officials released video from the market, showing Mr. Brown pushing a store clerk and taking cigarillos a short time before his fatal confrontation with Officer Wilson.

The videotapes, according to the newspaper, came from later in the afternoon of Aug. 9 and show Officer Wilson walking out of the police department to go to the hospital and returning later. The video images do not reveal injuries on Officer Wilson, but they do not show his face clearly or close up.

On Saturday, lawyers for Mr. Brown’s family said the videotapes contradicted reports of the officer’s injuries. “Information was leaked from within the police department that Wilson was severely beaten and suffered an orbital eye socket ‘blowout,’ indicating that Michael Brown somehow deserved to die,” a statement from the lawyers said. “From the video released today it would appear the initial descriptions of his injuries were exaggerated.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/us/ferguson-shooting-michael-brown-darren-wilson.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A18%22%7D

   WHO-black teenager

   WHEN-NOV. 15, 2014

   WHAT-an unarmed black teenager, was shot dead by a white police officer

   WHY-not given

   WHERE- Ferguson

   HOW-not given

                           Keywords：

   1. indict控告

   2.witness證人

   3.descriptions描述 

   4.exaggerated誇大

    5.suspected有嫌疑的