Caring cat
On June 19, puppy Noland snuggles up to its nursing mother, cat Lurleen, in Cleveland, Ohio. Lurleen is caring for four newborn kittens and is now also nursing Noland, an orphaned pit bull puppy. — AP
Great achievers
Japan recognises pioneers
Tokyo — American jazz legend Cecil Taylor was among three winners of an annual Japanese award for global achievement.
The Inamori Foundation on June 21 awarded this year’s Kyoto Prize to the 84-year-old veteran jazz pianist from New York, who opened new possibilities in jazz with his distinctive music.
Fellow New Yorker and award recipient Robert Dennard, 80, invented the basic structure for computer dynamic random access memory (RAM), contributing to boosting data storage capacity and cost reduction. The other recipient was Masatoshi Nei, 82, an evolutionary biologist at Pennsylvania State University. — AP
Cool school
Astronaut teaches kids from space
Beijing — A Chinese astronaut orbiting more than 300 kilometres above the Earth’s surface delivered a video class to children across the country on June 20. State television showed the live broadcast.
Wearing a blue spacesuit, Wang Yaping, the second Chinese woman in space, demonstrated how a variety of objects — from a bubble of water to a spinning toy — behave in zero gravity. Wang’s class — delivered from China’s orbiting space module Tiangong-1 — was shown in classrooms across China. — AFP
Political party
Aung San Suu Kyi waves to supporters as she leaves the National League for Democracy party headquarters after attending her 68th birthday celebration in Yangon, Myanmar on June 19. — Reuters
Deadly disease
Polio kills Indian boy
New Delhi — An 11-year-old boy died of polio in India, reports said on June 23, posing a setback for the country’s eradication programme.
The boy, who was detected as polio positive at the beginning of June, died at a hospital in Latur in the western state of Maharashtra on June 22. India has been running a massive polio eradication programme involving governments and UN bodies with more than 170 million children under the age of 5 vaccinated annually. — DPA
Powerful protest
Thousands march in Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur — About 20,000 Malaysian opposition supporters gathered in the capital on June 22, demanding the resignation of the country’s Election Commission in the wake of contentious polls.
The opposition claims bias by the commission cost them a historic win against Malaysia’s 56-year-old ruling coalition. The rally in central Kuala Lumpur was the 15th since the May 5 elections, in which the Barisan Nasional (National Front) clung to power. — AFP
Terrible tenants
Wild animals found in flat
Singapore — More than 30 wild animals, some of them endangered, were seized from a flat in Singapore in the city’s largest such haul of banned wildlife in more than a decade.
The owner, who kept the animals in a public housing apartment, could be jailed for two years and fined up to $500,000 (9 million baht), officials said on June 18.
The 32 animals included primates and pythons. There were also three black-tailed prairie dogs, several types of tortoise, five ornate horned frogs, an iguana and a gecko. — AFP
EASY NEWS FOR M1-3
Jumbo invader
Elephant kills young girl
Kathmandu — An elephant attacked a 12-year-old girl. It happened in Kathmandu, Nepal. Police reported the news on June 18. The elephant broke into the girl’s house. The other family members managed to flee, but the girl was killed. — AFP
Exercises
1. Which of the following is NOT true, according to story about the animals found in a Singapore flat?
a. More than 30 wild animals were seized from an apartment.
b. The animals were worth 9 million baht.
c. The owner could be jailed for two years.
2. How old is Robert Dennard?
3. Where was Doukoure N’Faly arrested for smuggling rhinoceros horns?
Vocabulary
- snuggle (v): to get into a warm comfortable position, especially close to somebody
evolutionary (adj): connected with gradual development and change
orbit (v): to move in a curved path around a much larger object, especially a planet, star, etc.
eradication (n): the act of destroying or getting rid of something completely, especially something bad
contentious (adj): likely to cause disagreement between people
coalition (n): government formed by two or more political parties working together
gecko (n): a small lizard that lives in warm countries
