Myanmar, jade mine,landslide, Hpakant,2015

Myanmar jade mine landslide kills around 100

About 100 people have been killed in a landslide as they picked through mountains of waste rubble in a remote mining area of northern Myanmar searching for precious jade, state media has reported.

Those killed were thought to have been mainly itinerant miners, who make a living scavenging through mountains of waste rubble dumped by mechanical diggers used by mining firms at the centre of a secretive multibillion-dollar industry in the restive Kachin state.

Saturday’s massive landslide crushed dozens of shanty huts clustered on the barren landscape and which were home to an unconfirmed number of people.

The disaster happened at about 3.30am local time (9pm GMT) and lasted just a couple of minutes, according to Zaw Moe Htet, a local gems trader whose village overlooks the devastated area in the Hpakant mining area.

Video footage of the area shot on Saturday shows men carrying several bodies slung in blankets watched by a crowd of local people in a dusty plain near the village of Sai Tung.

Nilar Myint, an official from the local administrative authorities in Hpakant, said rescue teams have so far found 97 people killed in the landslide.

Myanmar is the source of virtually all of the world’s finest jadeite, a translucent green stone that is prized above almost all other materials in neighbouring China.

In an October report, advocacy group Global Witness estimated that the value of jade produced in 2014 alone was $31bn (£20.4bn), the equivalent of nearly half the country’s GDP.

But that figure is about 10 times the official $3.4bn sales of the precious stone last year, in an industry that has long been shrouded in secrecy with much of the best jade thought to be smuggled directly to China.

Local people in Hpakant complain of a litany of abuses associated with the mining industry, including the frequency of accidents and land confiscations.

The area has been turned into a moonscape of environmental destruction as huge diggers gouge the earth looking for jade.

Twelve Night-Adopt,don't Abandom

Film: Twelve Nights [Chinese/ 十二夜]

Director: Raye

Producer: Giddens Ko 九把刀, Sophia Sui 隋棠

Cinematographer: ZHOU Yi-hsien 周宜賢

Performers: Dogs at an unnamed shelter in Taiwan

Breeds featured: Taiwan dogs, Shiba Inu, German Shepherd, Basset Hound

Production information: Atom Cinema, 2013 (Taiwan)

A documentary about what dogs experience at a high-kill shelter in Taiwan

Twelve nights is a made in Taiwan documentary about dogs who are taken into a government-run shelter. New dogs taken in only have 12 days in which to get adopted before they die of disease or are destroyed.

“Twelve Nights,” shot almost entirely inside a government-run animal shelter in southern Taiwan, follows the fate of several stray dogs, starting from their initial capture on the streets. After 12 days in the shelter, the animals are destroyed, have died of disease, or, if they are lucky, end up in the arms of a new owner.

Although the problem of street dogs isn’t a fresh one in Taiwan, the movie has attracted a throng of animal lovers. As of the beginning of this week, “Twelve Nights” had pulled in more 30 million New Taiwan dollars (US$1 million) since its release on Nov. 29, according to the film’s distributor, a considerable amount for a documentary in Taiwan.

The film opens with a black-and-white puppy named Jumpy prancing happily in a well-manicured neighborhood and other harmless-looking dogs wandering the streets.

The scene quickly changes. Animals — including a kitten and a basket full of puppies — are jerked and tossed around by workers as they are taken to the shelter.

… A new documentary about the plight of animals in Taiwan’s shelters has sparked a public discussion about the treatment of stray dogs and cats on the island, prompting the government to amend its policies.

The film shows many dogs entering the shelter looking healthy but later falling ill or dying due to the rampant transmission of canine distemper and other diseases inside the facility. – wall street journal

The purpose of the film, (the director Raye) said, is to influence policy makers with more effective solutions on reducing the stray-animal population, including adoption, laws requiring pet owners to implant microchips in their pets for ID purposes, and neutering or spaying animals. –wall street journal

“Animal shelters are helping to solve a difficult problem that our society has long neglected. They are not the documentary’s target of criticism,” (Producer, Giddens Ko) said. “Our criticism is aimed at the people who have created this problem: The pet owners who abandoned these animals.” – Taipei Times

Vocabulary

documentary 紀錄
amend 修改
microchips 微芯片
rampant 猖獗
distributor 經銷商
manicure 修指甲
toss 折騰
jerk 混蛋
harmless-looking 看起來無害的


Source
http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2013/12/13/film-triggers-debate-on-plight-of-taiwans-homeless-dogs/

http://weliveinaflat.com/blog/twelve-nights-movie/

Volkswagen Chief Warns on Existential Threat of Cheating Scandal

Volkswagen Chief Warns on Existential Threat of Cheating Scandal

Volkswagen AG’s designated Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch warned managers that the diesel-emissions scandal could pose “an existence-threatening crisis for the company,” as it pleaded for public trust with full-page ads in national newspapers.

The German car maker faces a Wednesday deadline to present a plan to fix some 2.8 million vehicles in its home market. Poetsch told managers last week he was certain the Wolfs burg, Germany-based car maker will overcome the crisis with enough effort, according to Welt am Sonntag newspaper. 

Volkswagen and German industry have been rocked by charges, first made by U.S. regulators on Sept. 18, that the car maker had used software to hoodwink regulators about the true emissions of its diesel cars for years. As owners of 11 million affected cars across the globe, regulators and investors await answers, the crisis has wiped out almost 30 billion euros ($34 billion) of the company’s value.

As Volkswagen’s new chief executive officer, Matthias Mueller, vows to repair the damage, the car maker undertook a media campaign that included a full-page meaculpa advertisement published in major German newspapers to mark the 25th anniversary of the country’s reunification.

Instead of lauding a quarter century of German unity, the company used fine print on a broad white field to say it would dispense with celebratory expressions, instead assuring the public that it will resolve the crisis.

“We just want to say one thing: We will do everything to win back your trust,” the car maker said in the ad Sunday.

Merkel Statement

After mostly remaining silent on the cheating scandal, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday called the disclosure by Germany’s largest car maker “a dramatic event” and said Volkswagen must clarify the affair swiftly. She ruled out a longer-term impact on the country’s industry.

“I believe that the reputation of German industry, the trust in Germany as a business location, hasn’t been so shaken that we won’t continue to be seen as a good business location,” Merkel told Deutschlandfunk radio in an interview.

An internal investigation has already yielded several engineers who admitted to installing the fraudulent software in 2008 for EA 189 diesel-motor models, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday. The decision for the regulatory work-around came as project engineers determined there was no way to meet both emissions standards and cost controls, a jam that threatened to bring the marquee project to a halt, Bild said.

The result was a so-called defeat device that disengaged emissions controls when an auto wasn’t being tested, breaching emissions rules and prompting a raft of government investigations and lawsuits since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited the violations last month.

新增說明文字

Vocabulary

hoodwink 蒙蔽
emission 排放
executive 行政人員
reunification 重新統一
disclosure 洩漏
swiftly 如飛
diesel 柴油機
disengage 解開
breach 突破口
prompt 提示