Park Geun-hye

SEOUL, South Korea — The shadowy woman at the center of President Park Geun-hye’s worst political scandal apologized for her “wrongdoings” on Sunday. Hours later, Park fired her chief of staff and seven other presidential aides in an effort to regain public trust, a day after thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to call for her removal from office.

Choi Soon-sil, a longtime associate of Park widely seen here as a shamanlike adviser for the leader, returned to South Korea on Sunday from Europe, where she has been in hiding since the scandal erupted weeks ago. Choi’s lawyer, Lee Gyeong-jae, said she would present herself to prosecutors for questioning on her murky ties with Park, which are at the heart of the president’s troubles.

“She apologizes deeply for causing the people humiliation and despair,” Lee said of Choi in a news conference.

Lee said she also apologized for “her wrongdoings,” but he did not elaborate. Park has been accused of letting Choi, a private citizen with no security clearance or background in policymaking, advise on crucial state affairs. Choi, 60, has also been accused of using her influence with Park to plant her associates in the government, including the presidential office, and to coerce big businesses to donate millions of dollars each to the two foundations she controls.

On Sunday, Park carried out a major reshuffle of her presidential staff in recognition of “the graveness of the current situation,” her office said.

Those dismissed included Ahn Chong-bum, senior presidential secretary for policy coordination, who was accused of collaborating with Choi in pressuring businesses to donate to her foundations. Also fired were three lower-tier aides known as the three gatekeepers for their purported role in controlling who Park met with and what information reached her. All three are considered close to Choi.

Despite the reshuffling, Ms. Park did not replace her aides on foreign policy and national security.

Pressure has been mounting on her to overhaul her leadership style and government to regain some of her lost authority. On Sunday, her governing Saenuri Party asked her to form a new cabinet with opposition parties.

Ms. Park’s plummeting political fortunes were dramatized on Saturday when prosecutors raided the homes of a few presidential aides who are believed to be under Ms. Choi’s sway and areaccused of collaborating in influence-peddling. Prosecutors also appeared at the Blue House, Ms. Park’s presidential office and residence in Seoul, the capital, demanding that they be allowed to search aides’ offices there for criminal evidence.

The Blue House refused them entry, but the prosecutors returned on Sunday, pressing the same demand — a highly unusual move for prosecutors, who have long been accused of being servile political tools of the sitting president.

Also on Saturday, at a rally in downtown Seoul, thousands marched on the Blue House to chants of “Down with Park Geun-hye!” and “Impeach Park Geun-hye!” Shoving matches erupted when riot police officers blocked the marchers.

Organizers said 30,000 people had attended the demonstration, while the police estimated the crowd at 12,000.

South Koreans are proud of the global economic powerhouse they built from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War and the democracy they achieved after decades of brutal rule by military dictators. Those dictators included Ms. Park’s father, Park Chung-hee, who led the country from 1961 until his assassination in 1979.

Ms. Park’s scandal is seen as particularly inflammatory because it hurts that pride.

On Saturday, many demonstrators said they felt ashamed to be South Korean. Speaking to the crowd, Lee Jae-myeong, the mayor of Seongnam, a city just south of Seoul, said the president had humiliated the people by relying on a “shamanlike figure” to handle important state affairs, referring to Ms. Choi.

“We may be weak, we may be poor, but we have not lost our pride yet,” Mayor Lee said to cheers from the crowd. “President Park has lost her authority as president, and she must step down.”

Little had been known about Ms. Choi, except that she is the daughter of a minor religious cult leader and befriended Ms. Park in the 1970s, when Ms. Park’s father was still in power. Ms. Choi’s father, Choi Tae-min, who died in 1994 at the age of 82, had been accused of manipulating Ms. Park, though Ms. Park has defended him as a patriot and a mentor. Some critics believe that Ms. Choi has inherited her father’s Rasputin-like role in Ms. Park’s life.

Major political parties have so far refrained from calling for Ms. Park to step down. Her single five-year term ends in February 2018.

All recent South Korean presidents have ended their terms in ignominy, disgraced by scandals that often implicate their children as well. Many South Koreans had hoped that Ms. Park, the country’s first female president, who is unmarried and has no children, would be an exception.

Same Sex Maarrige

After five nights in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk, walked free Tuesday to a roar of cheers from thousands of supporters, but she and her lawyer would not say whether she would continue to defy court orders and try to block the licenses.

Outside the jail here, a planned demonstration by people who, like Ms. Davis, say that gay marriage violates their religious beliefs turned buoyant when she was released, the sense of triumph mixed with a dose of presidential politics.

She walked onstage to thunderous applause, the song 「Eye of the Tiger」 playing on loudspeakers, her hands held aloft by one of her lawyers, Mathew D. Staver, and Mike Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor. Another Republican presidential contender, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, was also in attendance but largely overshadowed.

Ms. Davis broke down in tears and spoke only briefly, not addressing the issues in her case.

「I just want to give God the glory,」 she told the crowd, some waving white crosses. 「His people have rallied, and you are a strong people. Just keep on pressing. Don』t let down. Because He is here.」

But her release came with a stern warning from Judge David L. Bunning of Federal District Court, who last Thursday sent her to jail and directed five of her deputies to issue licenses without her approval. In a two-page order on Tuesday, he wrote that he was setting her free because her office was 「fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples,」 but would respond to any further defiance.

「Defendant Davis shall not interfere in any way, directly or indirectly, with the efforts of her deputy clerks to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples,」 he wrote. 「If Defendant Davis should interfere in any way with their issuance, that will be considered a violation of this order and appropriate sanctions will be considered.」

Last week, one of Ms. Davis』s lawyers signaled in court that Ms. Davis would not consent to her office processing marriage licenses under existing guidelines. On Tuesday, reporters asked repeatedly if she would abide by the latest court order. Ms. Davis remained silent, and Mr. Staver said, 「She』s not going to violate her conscience.」

The central issue for Ms. Davis is that the licenses say they are issued by the Rowan County clerk, and she, as the clerk, will not authorize them. If that feature were eliminated, Mr. Staver said, she would not stand in the way of granting licenses. 「The court order did not resolve the underlying issue,」 he said.

He called once again on Gov. Steven L. Beshear, a Democrat in his final year in office, to change the wording of the licenses. Mr. Beshear has said he does not have that authority and will not intervene in 「a matter between her and the courts.」

The Legislature could change the law on marriage licenses to accommodate objections like Ms. Davis』s. But the governor has said he will not call a special legislative session this year, which he said would be a waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Staver says that licenses issued by Ms. Davis』s office without her approval are void, possibly signaling another legal fight. The Rowan County attorney and the state attorney general say they are valid.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Ms. Davis said her Apostolic Christian faith prevented her from approving such unions, so her office stopped issuing marriage licenses to any couples, same-sex or opposite-sex.

After Judge Bunning ruled last month that she must issue the licenses, a federal appeals court and then the Supreme Court declined to stay his order, pending her appeal. When she maintained her resistance, he held her in contempt and sent her to jail.

Her argument and incarceration have resonated deeply among Christian conservatives who say they fear an erosion of religious liberty, and transformed an obscure local official in a rural corner of Kentucky into a national symbol of unyielding resistance to same-sex marriage.

Of the two presidential contenders who attended the rally, it was Mr. Huckabee, making his second White House run, who grabbed the political spotlight. Before Ms. Davis appeared in front of the crowd, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Staver took the stage to tell the crowd, in unison, 「Kim Davis is free.」

When Mr. Cruz, who met with Ms. Davis, exited the Carter County Detention Center, a throng of journalists beckoned him toward their microphones, but an aide to Mr. Huckabee blocked the path of the senator, who appeared incredulous.

Soon after, Ms. Davis emerged, apparently wearing the same clothes she had worn in court Thursday. Mr. Huckabee stuck close by her side, along with Mr. Staver and her husband, Joe, as they approached the reporters and cameras. Ms. Davis remained silent, letting Mr. Staver and Mr. Huckabee do the talking.

Mr. Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, cast the dispute as a matter of religious freedom threatened by overreaching courts, while Mr. Cruz stood to the side, keeping an unusually low profile.

「If you have to put someone in jail, let me go,」 Mr. Huckabee told the cheering crowd. 「Every one of us will have to decide whether we want to keep this great country or whether we want to surrender and sacrifice it to tyranny.」

Ms. Davis said, 「Thank you all so much; I love you all so very much.」

This small town near the West Virginia border, population 4,200, swelled with people arriving for the rally, along with a smaller group supporting same-sex marriage, bringing traffic to a crawl. One entrepreneur offered parking spaces for $20 each.

Many demonstrators, few of them expecting that Ms. Davis would be released, brought lawn chairs. On one side, there were signs with Bible verses and one comparing the Supreme Court to the Islamic State, while a man with a megaphone urged people to repent. On the other, people waved signs saying 「God Loves!!!! Period!」

Linda Clark, 40, a same-sex marriage opponent from Olive Hill, Ky., said, 「We』re happy for God to raise an army for what the majority of people want.」

A number of other local officials in several states, including two other county clerks in Kentucky, have taken stances similar to that of Ms. Davis, though the litigation around her has gone furthest and drawn the most attention. Chris Jobe, the president of the Kentucky County Clerks Association, has said that half of the state』s 120 county clerks said they objected on religious grounds to issuing licenses to same-sex couples, though most of them have not said they will defy the courts.

「It』s time for all God-fearing Americans to take a stand for truth, just like Kim Davis,」 Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, said at the rally.

But Ria Mar, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the primary case against Ms. Davis, said in an email that the courts had spoken clearly. 「To the extent any other clerks are still refusing to follow the law and treat everyone equally, there is simply no basis for further delay,」 she said.

Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, a major gay rights group, said that her main concern was that Ms. Davis and others in her position could start to treat license applications differently. 「She might start issuing licenses to opposite-sex couples and making her deputies issue licenses to same-sex couples,」 Ms. Warbelow said.

For Republican presidential candidates, Ms. Davis』s situation has become a litmus test of commitment to religious freedom. Those who are relying on the support of social conservatives have ardently backed her cause. Others have expressed respect for her views while saying the law must be heeded.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have also criticized Ms. Davis』s jailing. Some have suggested finding alternative ways to avoid standoffs in cases where elected officials say they are being required to act against their religious beliefs; Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said Tuesday that Ms. Davis should be moved into a different role so that her religious freedom is protected while government continues to function. Carly Fiorina, former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, said last week that the rule of law should be paramount and that Ms. Davis might want to consider changing jobs.

Donald J. Trump did his best not to offend evangelical Christians who have been strong supporters of his candidacy. He called it a 「sticky situation」 and said he saw both sides of the issue, before adding that ultimately, 「we are a nation of laws」 and that someone in the clerk』s office must issue the licenses.

http://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20150909/cc09kentucky/zh-hant/

The UK’s EU Referendum

LONDON — Members of the Driscoll family tend not to fight. If they do, it is over whose turn it is to vacuum.

Leslie Driscoll, 55, sells hot cross buns in an English bakery in London and addresses her customers with “love” or “darling”; her husband, Peter, 54, works as a floor layer; their daughter, Louise, a 19-year-old with dyed blue hair, is a barista in a hip coffee shop.

But last week, the Driscolls fell out. Badly. They had an argument so big they did not speak to one another for days, Leslie Driscoll said. Shortly afterward, her husband went off in a huff to see friends up north, in Derby.

The source of the family drama: whether Britain should remain part of the European Union, a process often referred to as “Brexit.”

With only days to go until the referendum on membership in the bloc on Thursday, polls suggest that the country is deeply split along socioeconomic and regional lines, with many older and working-class voters in England favoring leaving, and younger and better-educated Britons, and a majority of those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, favoring staying.

As the consequences of the choice come into focus for voters, tensions are bubbling. In the case of the Driscoll family, they are boiling over.

“I completely disagree with her,” Louise Driscoll said on a recent afternoon, looking at her mother squarely in the face as they sat in a cafe. “We shouldn’t be leaving, like, an organization that has helped us more than we could ever help ourselves if we were to go it alone.”

Louise is the only one in her family who wants Britain to remain. Her parents and her 80-year-old grandfather want out.

“This is a little island,” her mother said matter-of-factly, lighting up a cigarette and letting the ash fall on her glittery sneakers. “We should look after our own first. Charity begins at home.”

“But we are all people!” Louise said. “We should help each other.”

“It don’t work that way, darling,” her mother replied, shaking her head. “If you’re born here, you pass as English. I don’t care whether you’re black, white, green or blue, or purple with pink spots on — you’re English.”

Those born abroad, Leslie Driscoll said, “have got their own governments, their own parliaments, whatever.”

Up and down the country, the debate over Europe is pitting husband against wife, children against parents, sisters against brothers, divisions unlikely to be healed easily after the referendum is decided.

The debate over Britain’s continued membership in Europe has touched on issues as varied as immigration, terrorism, the economy, London’s housing shortage and the fate of the National Health Service.

Some of these issues, like immigration, are directly related to the European Union. Others, like the shortage of affordable housing, have little to do with it.

Yet those distinctions are blurring. For many, the referendum is as much a chance to register displeasure with the country’s direction as it is an opportunity to reject or embrace Europe. The stance of some voters is being shaped by personal experience and anecdote.

There is, for example, a widespread perception that European citizens are flocking to Britain, especially from Eastern Europe, to take advantage of its social welfare system. But Britain’s welfare system is not as generous as those of many other European nations, and fewer than 7 percent of immigrants receive benefits.

Louise Driscoll voted for the Green Party in last year’s general election and was appalled that her mother, traditionally a Labour voter, had opted for the anti-Europe, anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party. (“Sorry, I know I’m a bit antiquated — can’t help it, love,” Leslie Driscoll replied, somewhat sheepishly, after her daughter uttered an expletive.)

Louise Driscoll said she understood the pressures that immigration placed on schools and hospitals. But leaving the EU worried her, she said, because it risked wrecking the economy and making it hard for young people to secure employment. It took her eight months to find work as a barista, she said.

“If I wanted to work abroad, it would be a lot easier if England was in the EU,” Louise said.

Her mother suggested that Louise move to New York, possibly unaware of the paradox that this would make her an immigrant herself.

In what sounded like a final plea, she said: “At the end of the day, the EU is going to affect my generation more than it will affect your generation. So shouldn’t it be down to us to decide whether or not to stay?”

Her mother fell silent and was thoughtful.

“I am 55 years of age,” she said slowly. “I know — I appreciate that in 50 years’ time, you’ll be here and I won’t, and you’ll have to put up with whatever’s happened.”

She paused.

“But I still want out,” she said. “Sorry.”

http://cn.nytstyle.com/international/20160622/britain-eu-referendum-families/en-us/?_ga=1.225379929.230442792.1483887339

Structure of the Lead：

     WHO- England

     WHEN- 2016.06.22

     WHAT- go or stay in E.U.

     WHY- Freedom

     WHERE- England

     HOW- Vote

Keywords:

1. majority 大部分

2. tension 緊張

3. cigarette 香菸

4. parliament 議會

5. division 分配

6. welfare 福利

7. barista 咖啡店店員

8. plea 懇求

9. thoughtful 貼心的

10. appreciate 感謝

White helmets

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Eyes watering, struggling to breathe, Abd al-Mouin, 22, dragged his nephews from a house reeking of noxious fumes, then briefly blacked out. Even fresh air, he recalled, was “burning my lungs.”

The chaos unfolded in the Syrian town of Sarmeen one night this spring, as walkie-talkies warned of helicopters flying from a nearby army base, a signal for residents to take cover. Soon, residents said, there were sounds of aircraft, a smell of bleach and gasping victims streaming to a clinic.

Two years after President Bashar Assad agreed to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, there is mounting evidence that his government is flouting international law to drop cheap, jerry-built chlorine bombs on insurgent-held areas. Lately, the pace of the bombardments in contested areas like Idlib province has picked up, rescue workers say, as government forces have faced new threats from insurgents.

Yet, the Assad government has so far evaded more formal scrutiny because of a thicket of political, legal and technical obstacles to assigning blame for the attacks — a situation that feels surreal to many Syrians under the bombs, who say it is patently clear the government drops them.Two years after President Bashar Assad agreed to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, there is mounting evidence that his government is flouting international law to drop cheap, jerry-built chlorine bombs on insurgent-held areas. Lately, the pace of the bombardments in contested areas like Idlib province has picked up, rescue workers say, as government forces have faced new threats from insurgents.

“People are so used to it, they know from the sound,” said Hatem Abu Marwan, 29, a rescue worker with the White Helmets civil defense organization, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice when asked to explain. “We know the sound of a helicopter that goes to a low height and drops a barrel. Nobody has aircraft except the regime.”

Prodded by the United States, the U.N. Security Council is discussing a draft resolution that would create a panel, reporting to the secretary-general, to determine which of the warring parties is responsible for using chlorine as a weapon, according to Council diplomats.

Syrian state media dismiss the allegations as propaganda, and the council remains divided and hamstrung. That leaves people like Abu Marwan, who has responded to nine suspected chlorine attacks, feeling abandoned.

“There is no law to defend us as human beings, this is what we understand from the Security Council,” said Abu Marwan, a law school graduate, weeping as he recalled holding a dying child in Sarmeen. “I didn't see in humanitarian law anything that says `except for Syrians.”'

In contrast to stronger toxins like nerve agents and mustard gas, chlorine is lethal only in highly concentrated doses and where medical treatment is not immediately available, making it more an instrument of terror than of mass slaughter. It is typically dropped in barrel bombs containing canisters that explode on impact, distributing clouds of gas over civilian populations, and is distinguishable by its characteristic odor.

So it falls under a kind of loophole. With many civilian uses, like purifying water or disinfecting hospitals, it is not banned under international law and thus was not on the list of chemicals Assad promised to destroy — though using chlorine as a weapon is forbidden.

The Security Council did condemn the use of chlorine as a weapon in Syria, in February. But with Russia, the Syrian government's most powerful ally, wielding a veto, there was no Council agreement to assign blame.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which monitors agreements on toxic arms, found that chlorine had been used “systematically and repeatedly” in three Syrian villages in 2014, and mentioned witness accounts of helicopter-borne chlorine bombs in its report. But it, too, lacked authorization to say who used them.

Alistair Hay, a toxicologist at the University of Leeds who has trained Syrians to collect environmental samples, called the attacks a “slap in the face” to the international chemical weapons convention that Syria had joined less than a year earlier. Syria signed under a Russian-American deal to avoid U.S. military strikes after sarin, a nerve agent, killed more than 1,000 people in insurgent-held areas near Damascus.

Frustrated with the Security Council's impasse over the issue, rescue workers and doctors are now working to bring evidence of chlorine gas attacks directly to the French, British and U.S. governments for testing. The aim is to give states a solid basis for action against the attacks, in the 

Security Council or through quieter diplomatic pressure, said James Le Mesurier, the British director of a nonprofit group, Mayday Rescue, which trains and equips the White Helmets, Syrian volunteers supported by the British, Danish and Dutch governments.

But investigators face difficulties. Chlorine dissipates quickly in the atmosphere and does not last in blood or urine, and residue stays in soil for just 48 hours, leaving little time to transport samples across borders. Also, Le Mesurier said, the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons differentiates evidence they collect themselves from evidence collected by rescue workers, categorizing the latter as circumstantial.

Three other Syrian doctors said the organization's rules resulted in valuable evidence they collected going unexamined.

One, who protects his identity with the nickname “Chemical Hazem” for his safety, said he reached one of the April 2014 attack sites, Tal Minnes, within hours, smelling bleach in the air. He smuggled samples from two victims to Turkey without waiting for border clearances. But he said the OPCW refused to accept an unexploded canister, which remains in Syria.

“The ultimate evidence of the regime's use of chemical weapons is gone,” he said, adding that no one seemed very interested in getting samples out of Syria. “We can't blame anyone who wants to follow the legal channels — but do any exist?”

http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20150507/c07syria/en-us/

Structure of the Lead：

     WHO- The Syrians

     WHEN- 2015.05.07

     WHAT- War

     WHY- ISIS

     WHERE- Syria

     HOW- 

Keywords:

1. chaos 混亂

2. aircraft 飛機

3. insurgents 叛亂者

4. allegation 指責

5. council 委員會

6. toxicologist 毒物學

7. dissipate 始逐漸消失

8. circumstantial 間接的

9. evidence 證據

10. regime 政府