week2 - World Cup.2014.Brazil.German

Brazilians cry and curse at World Cup humiliation

Thu, Jul 10, 2014
AFP, RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazilians cried, cursed their president and covered their faces in shame after their beloved team’s humiliating 7-1 thrashing by Germany in an unprecedented FIFA World Cup semi-final on Tuesday.

After the fifth goal hit the Brazil net well before halftime, hundreds of people left their expensive seats at the Estadio Mineirao in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

A section of the crowd chanted obscenities against the players and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who during the tournament had mostly enjoyed a reprieve from protests over the record US$11 billion the government spent to host the tournament.

The tears began to flow long before the final whistle, with the third Germany goal in the first half sending children and adults alike in the stadium and in public screenings across the continent-sized nation bawling.

As people streamed out of the venue, police reinforced security inside and around the stadium, but no incidents of violence were reported there.

Other supporters around the country shouted at their TV and abandoned public screenings as the Selecao suffered the biggest defeat of their 100-year history.

“Neymar must be vomiting at home watching this disaster. The horror,” said Marina Genova, 54, watching at a popular bar district in Sao Paulo, referring to Brazil’s injured striker.

Amid the deluge of goals, a downpour only added to the already gloomy mood of thousands of fans in canary-yellow jerseys at the FIFA Fan Fest on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach and two dozen supporters scuffled, forcing police to intervene.

In Sao Paulo, several buses were torched in a parking lot, but police could not confirm whether the attack was linked to the defeat.

Brazilians were already concerned about the team’s chances after Neymar broke a vertebra in the quarter-final victory over Colombia, but they never thought it would be this bad.

“This is a terrible match and Brazil without Neymar are terrible. I hate this match. It’s embarrassing to lose like this,” biology student Beth Araujo, 24, said. “The only good thing is I think it will affect President Dilma in the election, but all our politicians are even worse than the team.”

Rousseff said she was “very sad” and “sorry” about the result.

Brazil had hoped to exorcise the ghost of their 1950 defeat to Uruguay in the other World Cup that they hosted, a national trauma dubbed the “Maracanazo” because it was played in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana.

This time, TV commentators were talking of the “Mineirazo,” with the sports Web site globoesporte.com calling the defeat the “Shame of Shames.”

Yet 23-year-old photography student Jessica Santos took the massacre in stride, saying: “The cup is back in Brazil for the first time in 64 years so of course we’ll cheer until the end. If Brazil wins, we party, if Brazil loses, we still party. It would have been worse to lose to Argentina in the final.”

Others turned to social media jokes to ease the pain, posting photos of Rio’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue covering its face in shame, or replaced by a figure of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The insults against Rousseff, who is seeking re-election in October, showed that tensions remain following massive demonstrations that rocked the country last year when Brazilians demanded better healthcare and education.

Some among the public have voiced concerns that the nation’s failure to win the World Cup could spark more protests and clashes.

“It’s a disaster. It will be chaos. People will break everything. They’re going to be furious,” said Karina Marques, a 17-year-old soccer player who watched the game at a street screening in Rio attended by 30,000 people.

At a squatter camp of homes outside Brasilia, people turned off their televisions in disgust before the end.

In tears, Maria Jose Costa Almeida, 35, asked: “Why spend so much on stadiums, bring the cup to Brazil, to win nothing?”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/07/10/2003594754/1

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- Brazilian
WHEN-not given
WHAT-world cup
WHY- spending so much to host the game only to end in defeat
WHERE- not given
HOW- not given

Keywords：

1.          humiliating丟臉的

2.          thrashing 痛擊

3.          obscenity 可憎的事

4.          bawling 大喊

5.          venue 發生地點

6.          reinforce 增強

7.          vomit 嘔吐

8.          downpour 傾盆大雨

9.          scuffle 扭打

10.      intervene 介入

11.      vertebra 脊椎骨

12.      exorcise 驅除(惡魔)

13.      trauma 創傷

14.      clash 衝突

week1 - service pact

SERVICES PACT: TSU knocks cross-strait service trade agreement

Sun, Jun 23, 2013
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporter

The signing of a service trade agreement with China could affect issues on the legislature’s agenda during the extra session this week, after the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday vowed to block all proceedings in the remaining four days.

TSU legislative caucus whip Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) told a press conference that the trade pact would subject local businesses to fierce competition, bring in white-collar Chinese workers, and lead to an outflow of Taiwanese expertise and knowledge to China.

The service trade agreement is one of the follow-up agreements to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) which came into effect in July 2010.

Although there are more stringent restrictions on Chinese investments in certain industries covered by the service trade agreement, under WTO rules, those safeguards will have to be lifted after the end of the interim period of 10 years following the ECFA’s signing, Hsu said.

“From then on, Taiwan will be wide open to China” because limiting the number of China-funded firms, share holdings, scope of business activities and recruitment of Chinese employees would be considered a violation of the core principles of the WTO, Hsu said.

Under the agreement, China would open 80 service sectors to Taiwan, while Taiwan would open 64 sectors to China. The sectors include those related to commerce, telecommunications, construction, distribution, the environment, health, tourism, entertainment, culture, sports, transportation and finance.

The wide range of industries covered by the trade pact was not made public until the agreement was signed at 2pm on Friday in Shanghai.

Hsu said that financial conglomerates would benefit from the agreement because the pact would facilitate access to the Chinese banking, insurance and securities markets, but that will “come at the expense of the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises and workers in Taiwan.”

The TSU demanded that Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) present the pact before the legislature to discuss with lawmakers how it would affect the nation, and that the deal should take effect only after the legislature approves it.

The TSU will boycott the remaining days of the extra session scheduled for next month to force the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to agree to its demands, Hsu said.

During the session, the KMT had expected to pass an amendment to the Income Tax Act (所得稅法) to scrap the 8,500-point TAIEX threshold that automatically triggers the imposition of the tax on most individual investors. It also wants to pass a proposed referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) as well as clearing a number of other bills before the extra session ends on Thursday.

The KMT also considers the draft senior secondary education act (高級中等教育法) as urgent, considering the limited time left to prepare for the planned 12-year education scheme, set to begin in August next year.

Lawmakers across party lines on Friday called for a full and detailed examination of the signed service trade pact, with the opposition demanding that the legislature examine the deal thoroughly before deciding whether to allow it to go into effect.

KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) yesterday said his party was not opposed to a review of the agreement by the legislature, but did not consider it necessary that Jiang present it at a question-and-answer session with lawmakers.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/06/23/2003565441

Structure of the Lead：

WHO- the TSU
WHEN-not given
WHAT-service pact
WHY- small and medium-sized enterprises would expense

WHERE- not given
HOW- not given

Keywords：

1.legislature立法機關
2.session開會
3.caucus幹部會議
4.fierce兇猛的.殘酷的
5.expertise專門知識
6.stringent迫切的
7.restriction限制.約束
8.recruitment徵募新兵.補充
9.conglomerate聚集
10.enterprise事業
11.Chinese Nationalist Party中國國民黨
12.amendment改正.改善
13.trigger觸發.引起