Friday, 19 April 2013

Boston bombs suspect 'in custody'

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22228151

Summary: After a resident of Franklin Street, Watertown, came out from his home after the lockdown was lifted, he noticed blood near the boat.Upon opening the top of the boat and finding a man covered in blood, he immediately informed the police.

Shortly after, bomb-squad vans and ambulances surrounded the house, while helicopters buzzed overhead.Police said they exchanged gunfire with the suspect for about an hour before moving in and seizing him.The authorities said they also tossed flash-bang grenades into the boat to disorient the fugitive.

A crowd gathered near the scene cheered as the suspect was taken into custody. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a college student, had fled on foot following a gun battle that left 200 spent rounds and a car chase in which he and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, hurled explosives at police, authorities said.

Opinion: I feel that the bomber is very cruel and heartless. To achieve their own targets, they decide to kill and injure so many innocent people. These people did nothing wrong, but yet they decided to bomb them. I hope that these incidents will never happen again.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Boston Marathon bombing: FBI reveals pressure cooker clues by Zhi Gang ^_^

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22177669

Summary: Bombs that targeted the Boston Marathon on Monday may be contained in a pressure-cooker device. The Boston explosions contained metal shards, nails and other types of shrapnel, designed to cause maximum injury. Doctors treating the wound say their injuries had shards causing a number of victims have had their limbs amputated. Police have asked the public to send in any videos or photographs they may have from the day. The London Marathon which is the next major international marathon which would go ahead on Sunday will have well-rehearsed sucurity.

Opinions: In my opinion, a similar act of evil was performed in the United States previously. While the investigation carries on, I hope that the US government will stop to think on the results of these dire consequences caused by terrorist attacks, deadly shootings. The government should have a control over the uses of guns and other dangerous objects which might harm others. It is really terrible seeing so many reports around the US either by deadly shooting by a gunner or a terrorist attack which cause so many lives lost. I suggest that US should put a stop to all these before anything goes extremely awry.

Saturday, 13 April 2013

John Kerry visits China to press Beijing over N Korea by ZhiGang o-o

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/world/asia/kerry-in-china-seeking-help-on-north-korea.html?ref=nuclearprogram&_r=0


Summary: Threatened with nuclear war, America is now looking to China to help diffuse the this crisis. US and China may be rivals, but John Kerry carries the message to China's leaders they have more trust from North Korea than anyone and they must use it. Its clear that John Kerry believes the solution to this crisis may lie in China. BeiJing says that what the North Korea dictator, Kim Jong Un, really wants is a simple phone call to Kim Jong Un from the US president could end this crisis.

My Opinions: In my opinion, North Korea has a long history of playing this particular play. They have something they need or want from America. So they make a big fuss, raising the stakes by making threats or more potently, reactivating their nuclear reactor to produce nuclear fuel for more nuclear weapons. While ignoring the threats are easy enough when the situation is approached maturely, the only way to get them to turn off the reactor is to offer peace treaties or if there is no choice, a war would certainly break out.

Friday, 12 April 2013

Teachers blame poor parenting for increased chaos in the classrooms. By JunTian

Summary: A survey with more than 800 teachers by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers revealed a rise in the number of pupils with emotional, behavioral or mental health issues over the past five years, leading to deteriorating standards of discipline in schools and colleges. These teachers came to a conclusion that the cause of these disturbing trend is because parents these days are not strict, and they allow their children to behave anyway they like. More than ninety percent of the teachers had faced such students, with a huge number of them even had been attacked both verbally, physically, or even on cyber network platforms. Unions are now finding solution to the problem.

Opinion: I feel that students now are really lacking discipline and their behavior are ridiculous. They have no respect for others at all, including teachers. They treat their teachers like their enemies, and keep finding ways to attack them be it verbally, physically, or even on cyber network platforms. Teachers are suffering these pains that they certainly do not deserve. I hope there will be a solution soon to protect the teachers and also a punishments layout for these students that are rude to the teachers.

Saturday, 6 April 2013

Teenager Sells App To Yahoo.- JunTian


Summary: 17-years-old Nick D'Aloisio, from Wimbledon, south London, created the app, Summly – which provides bite-sized summaries of content from news and other sites, and now joins an elite group of teenagers who have become internet millionaires. After selling his company to Yahoo at £18m, 90% in cash and 10% in Yahoo shares, he was invited to move over to the headquarters of Yahoo. However, he declined it as he wanted to continue studying and taking his A levels. He hopes that eventually he can make it to Oxford University.

Opinion: I feel that it is shocking how these teens are so creative and smart. They are able to produce apps that are so well liked. They are all truly geniuses with great potentials. However, as a teenager, Nick is very clear about his duties, and chose to continue studying instead of joining the company straight away. 

The Prince and Pricess of Britain visits Singapore- JunTian


Summary: Last September, Prince William and his wife Kate made a trip to Singapore for a visit as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. They will also set off to visit other countries that were former colonies of Great Britain. In Singapore, they visited the Singapore Botanic Garden where they saw the orchid which was named after the prince’s mother, Princess Diana. Princes Diana was supposed to make the visit to view this flower, but unfortunately met with a fatal accident. Now, it was as if the prince had fulfilled her wish. The couple also saw another flower that was named after them.

Opinion: I feel that it is a great honour to have the Prince and Princess visiting our country. The royal family had ruled Britain for so long, and I feel that it is amazing. I wished I managed to catch a glimpse of them when they were here. If they make a trip here again, I hope to meet them.

Friday, 5 April 2013

global warming by demi tay

summary :
Greenhouses gases, such as carbon dioxide, trap heat in the atmosphere and regulate our climate. These gases exist naturally, but humans add more carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels for energy (coal, oil, and natural gas) and by clearing forests. gases act like a blanket. The thicker the blanket, the warmer our planet becomes.Due to deforestation ,many plants trees are being cut down and thus lesser and lesser trees can take in the harmful gases and produce good gases.As the world become more develop there would be more factories that produce harmful gases.

opinion:
In my opinion, i think that people should reduce using non-biodegradeble stuff such as plastics as it takes a long time to decompose and also release harmful gases that contribute to the global warming.we should also recycle paper and newspaper so as to be more environmental friendly.If every one contribute by doing a small part such as reduce using too much paper it can really make a lot of difference to the environment.

Next generation of social media 'exposing girls to sexual abuse' by demi tay

summary:

A new breed of social media websites is leaving young people open to cyber bullying, with anonymous users able to bombard others with sexually explicit messages and demands. people can then ask questions completely anonymously, some open to all, some directed to a specific profile.Browsing some of the sites for just a few minutes reveals a torrent of sexual demands, explicit questions and abusive threats to users whose photos suggest they are young teenage girls.Today, as part of the global One Billion Rising campaign to end violence against women and girls, the Government will debate making “personal, social and health education, including a zero tolerance approach to violence and abuse in relationships, a requirement in schools”.

opinion:
In my opinion, teenage girls should not expose their own private information such as their home address and the locations that they frequently go to.If they receive threats, sexual demand they should ignore it or even to some extend stop using the website.If they continue using the website they may see some comment that can cause them to go into depression and even cause them to suicide.

water shortage by demitay

summary :

Only 3% of the world’s water is fresh water, and two-thirds of that is tucked away in frozen glaciers or otherwise unavailable for our use.As a result,  1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year.Inadequate sanitation causes people to be expose to disease such as cholera and typhoid fever, and other water-borne illnesses.Rivers, lakes and aquifers are drying up or becoming too polluted to use. More than half the world’s wetlands have disappeared.By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages. Ecosystems around the world will suffer even more.water pollution has cause water shortage as pesticides and fertilizers that wash away from farms, untreated human wastewater, and industrial waste flow into the rivers sea causes it to be unsuitable for drinking.Many countries that produce large amounts of food—including India, China .They need  a large amount of water to produce a large amount of food to feed the large population.However ,they are close to reaching their water resource limits.The rapid population growth in the world has led to additional pressure on freshwater.


opinion:

in my opinion, i think that to reduce water shortage one of the method is to create an awareness in school.To allow the students to know the consequences of water shortage and learn how to conserve the water supply by organising an activity such as a camp allowing the student to feel how is it without any water supply .If they learn now how to conserve water supply now it is more likely it will turn into a habit.Thus, their generation will conserve water supply and thus water shortage would not occur.

overfishing by demitay

summary:

Overfishing occurs when more fish are caught than the population can replace through natural reproduction this will cause serious consequence.This will cause an imbalance life in the oceans and affecting coastal communities economically.More than 85 percent of the world's fisheries have been pushed to or beyond their biological limits and are in need of strict management plans to restore them. WWF works with stakeholder to sustain livelihoods and ensure food security.Current rules and regulations are not strong enough to limit fishing capacity to a sustainable level.Many governments still continue to subsidize their fleets, allowing unprofitable operations to subsist, and overfishing to occur.Today’s worldwide fishing fleet is estimated to be up to two and a half times the capacity needed to catch what we actually need.

opinion :

In my opinion , government of every country  should broadcast a message about overfishing to all the residents. To allow the residents to know the consequences of overfishing.This can create an awareness among people. Government should stop continuing to subsidise their fleets as this will cause more people to go to the sea to capture fishes.By having less subsides lesser people will go out into the sea to fish.Every countries should come together to reduce the increasing rate of overfishing.



Thursday, 4 April 2013

Social media 'exposes girls to sexual abuse' :by Ryan

Summary: Young people now is open to cyber bullying, with anonymous users able to bombard others with sexually explicit messages and demands from a new breed of social media. The popular social media allow to create profile and others can then ask questions completely anonymously which made them a hotbed for sexual pressure, bullying and abuse due to the anonymity provided by the sites. This site left us no choice to do about them but the only way to reduce all of this is by teaching the fundamental of this to the young ones

Opinion: In my opinion this is the lack of education to the young ones, if it was implemented to them since young the result of something like this would be lesser and people will not get hurt.

Teenager sells his app for $18 million by Ryan

Summary: he was like any normal other kid but had displayed abilities in technologies.A 17-year-old London schoolboy has sold his app company to the internet giant Yahoo for an estimated £18m. But he won't be moving to the company's California headquarters just yet as he wants to finish his A-levels. Nick D'Aloisio, he created the app Summly which provide bite sized summarised news content and other sites. He first was just tinkering with app for mobile as hobby. He got the idea when the same content keep appearing on the webpage so he produce an early app of Summly, it was than later people took interest and decided to invest in him. Later than it became a best app, but he decided to sell it to yahoo as he is still young to manage his own firm.

Opinion: In my opinion this teenager always have the abilities in technology and always is coincidently of doing something they came up with an idea that let them create this things. people like this should not waste their abilities and continue to work in the area as now technologies could earn lots of money in the world.

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior By Ryan

Summary: Chinese parents are stricter than western parents. They don't allow their child to do things that doesn't benefit in studies or other talented based activity to their child. In a study, 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." but roughly none of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. They believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." if a Chinese child in the mother opinion is bad they would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

Opinion: Chinese mother should let their child have some choices in what they want to do, everybody is born differently so if the child was to keep following what they had no interest in they won't end up being the best of everyone which mothers hope in. For western parent, their child was given too much of freedom so they can't be the best of what their parent want them to be. So to me I think the best way is to have a mix of western and Chinese parent concept so their child can be the best.

Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Dying alone becomes the norm in Japan by Ryan

Summary: Dying alone becomes the normal in Japan, as with an erosion of traditional Confucian values in Japan, fewer elderly are being cared for at home by relatives a fact  the government were also not fully prepared for. Japan which has the highest of proportion of retirees is unable to build enough nursing home fast enough so due to the lack of facilities the elderlies had  living alone in ill-equipped homes or suffering abuse in the care of resentful relatives. A professor estimated that by 2030 an estimated of 470,000 seniors will die alone in Japan unless more is done for them.In 2006, Japan’s government introduced a law to protect the elderly from abuse and provide support to caregivers.Businesses, charities and local governments are also innovating to help meet the needs of the elderly. All these initiatives are promoting more independent living among the elderly.

opinion: In my opinion I think the government should imply a law such that the elderly could be taken care of in one way or the another. the government should promote elderly and young to stay together so lesser of lone death that is unknown will be known

Concern over Singapore's 'instant-noodle generation' By Ryan

Summary: Children in Singapore now are getting more spoiled one in every seven families has a foreign maid to help them do their stuff. They don’t make their own bed, iron their school uniform and many more. From a survey conducted by Straits Times the result shows that most are dependent on their maid. Even though they are spoiled there’s also another side of them which is they’re hardworking in school.
Opinion: The children are hardworking in school doesn’t mean they could be spoiled as a reward. Having the children too spoiled is not a good things as they won’t be independent and will always rely on others for support.