Joseph Schooling is Singapore's first Olympic champion
13 Aug 2016
RIO DE
JANEIRO: Joseph Schooling on Saturday (Aug 13) won Singapore's
first-ever Olympic gold medal after winning the 100m butterfly event at
Rio 2016.
The
21-year-old Singaporean touched the wall in 50.39s, nearly one second
ahead of an extraordinary joint-silver finish of 51.14s shared by
American great Michael Phelps, South Africa's Chad le Clos and Hungarian
Laszlo Cseh.
Schooling's
time smashed the Olympic Games record of 50.58s, clocked by Phelps at
Beijing 2008. This is the first time at Rio 2016 that Phelps, who won
the 100m butterfly at the past three Olympics, has been beaten.
This is also the first ever gold medal by a Southeast Asian male swimmer.
"It feels
great, it kinds of feels surreal right now, it's crazy," said Schooling
after the race. "I really can't describe how this moment feels. All the
adrenaline is running through my veins right now. It's a dream come
true."
"I'm really
honoured and privileged to swim alongside some of these great names,
people who changed the face of our sport," he added.
"I can't really tell you how grateful I am to have this chance to swim in an Olympic final and to represent our country."
"I'm just ecstatic. I need it to sink in."
"I WENT FOR IT"
Singapore's
chef de mission Low Teo Ping told Channel NewsAsia: "When Joseph's lane
showed 'No.1', that was it. One can't describe the ecstasy. It's all for
Singapore."
"We are a
small and young nation and with three other guys chasing him down while
clocking the same time, it speaks volumes of what Jo has done for
Singapore," he added.
"I think the
world was expecting some of the other swimmers to be there, for example
for Phelps to win his 23rd gold. But here we have this boy from
Singapore who really disappointed them, and we are all ecstatic."
"We are all ecstatic," repeated Mr Low.
Reflecting on
his race, Schooling said: "I went for it and I didn't look back. I had
some doubts. Everyone has doubts. It's all about how you turn those
doubts into positive moments. And I'm really glad that I could do that."
"I'm going to
have to pinch myself to see that I'm alive," said Colin Schooling, who
watched his son make history from a viewing party in Singapore.
"Singapore, he did what you all wanted and he did it in style," he added, visibly overwhelmed with pride.
He said a
world record could be next. "The most important thing is to be an
ambassador for all our children in Singapore that gives them hope that
they also can do it. There's nothing special about him, just a boy who
is interested in the sport."
Also celebrating Schooling's success was his mother, May Schooling, who said she had "no doubt that this day would come".
Mrs Schooling
thanked those who supported him - including the Singapore Swimming
Association, family friends, the Singapore Sports Institute and the
Defence Ministry for allowing him to defer his National Service, so he
could continue training for the Games.
"We were
screaming,” said Mrs Schooling. “But I think it also shows that if we
give Singaporeans the chance to pursue (their goals) and train properly,
we can reach the top of the world. He has proven it - you can do it."
Schooling was the fastest semi-finallist a day earlier and had also won his heat on Friday, pipping Phelps in the process.
The 100m
freestyle and 200m butterfly were Schooling's other events but he
withdrew from the latter and missed out on the finals for the former.
The
Singaporean's groundbreaking Olympic feat follows his bronze at the 2015
World Championships, which was also a first-ever podium finish for his
nation.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/joseph-schooling-is/3037512.html
Structure of the Lead:
WHO-Joseph Schooling
WHERE-Rio
WHEN-Saturday (Aug 13)
WHAT-won Singapore's first-ever Olympic gold medal
WHY-not given
HOW-not given
2017年3月21日 星期二
2017年1月10日 星期二
Leonardo DiCaprio Oscar Speech
March 6, 2016
By Jonathan Franks
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio finally won his well-deserved Oscar last Sunday — pleasing millions of fans and critics around the world.
For decades, the 41-year-old actor has been able to shock and surprise his fans with one impressive performance on the big screen after another.
Whether as a supporting actor (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?) or a leading star (The Aviator, Romeo & Juliet,The Great Gatsby, etc.) Leonardo DiCaprio has never hesitated to deliver his best work regardless of the director placed in the driver’s seat.
When he took the stage last Sunday to accept his first Oscar, the many-times-nominated actor was able to make every single second count — presenting what could arguably be viewed as one of the most impressive acceptance speeches of all time.
Unlike so many of the other speeches presented during the same ceremony, not a single note of the iconic “Your Time is Up” ceremony music played during Leonardo DiCaprio’s speech. Why? The Revenant actor mastered his time so beautifully by presenting a well-developed, well-rehearsed speech that flowed as smoothly as a well-written poem or heartwarming song… even though his memorable speech did go over the allotted 45-second time limit.
If you pay close attention to the actual acceptance speech itself, it is almost as if Leonardo DiCaprio follows a specific formula from start to finish that allowed him to hit all of the necessary points and highlights without sounding rushed or leaving any important stone untouched.
He started by paying his respects to the Academy, his fellow nominees, family and friends, as well as his supporting co-star Tom Hardy — all of which are major highlights that are also presented in many other memorable Oscar acceptance speeches.
“Thank you all so very much. Thank you to the Academy. Thank you to all of you in this room. I have to congratulate the other incredible nominees this year. The Revenant was the product of the tireless efforts of an unbelievable cast and crew. First off, to my brother in this endeavor, Mr. Tom Hardy. Tom, your talent on screen can only be surpassed by your friendship off screen … thank you for creating a transcendent cinematic experience. Thank you to everybody at Fox and New Regency … my entire team. I have to thank everyone from the very onset of my career … To my parents; none of this would be possible without you. And to my friends, I love you dearly; you know who you are.”
Perhaps addressing his friends with the blanket statement “I love you dearly, you know who you are” is one of the most efficient ways of saying thanks to friends, colleagues, and even close acquaintances. There have been so many other actors and actresses on the Oscar stage that apparently tried to name off each of their friends individually during their relatively short period of time.
During this year’s broadcast, an added feature of listing the names that the winners wanted to thank on the screen was apparently supposed to relieve some of that burden – making it possible for the award winners to keep their speeches short without risking the overtime music. However, that on-screen list did not stop quite a few of the winners that simply wanted to share those names on stage regardless of the words running across the TV screen at the time.
Leonardo DiCaprio did not even bother doing that – something that he very easily could have done. With the vast list of A-list actors, actresses and directors that he has worked with over the years, that particular “Thank You” list may have easily caused the new Oscar winner to exceed his allotted time before he got a chance to present the rest of his well-crafted message.
Once the expressions of gratitude were out of the way, Leonardo shifted the focus of his speech towards the film and the cause that he wanted to promote: climate change awareness. Instead of focusing on both separately — a feat which would have taken much more time to accomplish, Leonardo beautifully delivered a notable speech interwoven with references to both at the same time.
“Making The Revenant was about man’s relationship to the natural world. A world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating. We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you so very much.”
Chances are that this will not be the last acceptance speech that Leonardo DiCaprio gives on the Oscar stage. Now that the Academy has awarded the longtime actor with the “Best Actor” recognition once, his chances of being nominated (and even selected as a winner) again in the future are pretty high. Perhaps Leonardo DiCaprio will become the next Daniel-Day Lewis or Meryl Streep – turning each performance into an Oscar-winning performance with a “King Midas” touch of golden cinema.
However, if it was the last time that Leonardo DiCaprio will win an Oscar, he definitely made his mark with his nearly perfect acceptance speech.
Paris Climate Deal Passes Milestone as 20 More Nations Sign On
SEPT. 21, 2016
By CORAL DAVENPORT
UNITED NATIONS — More than 20 world leaders tendered legal documents on Wednesday, formally binding their governments to the Paris climate accord at a General Assembly ceremony here and all but ensuring that the agreement will go into force by the end of the year.
The specifics of each country’s plans, though, are voluntary. There are no sanctions for failing to control pollution or to put economic polices into practice, or for submitting unambitious pledges.
The legally binding portion of the Paris accord does little more than require governments to continue to convene at high-profile global climate summit meetings, make public pledges to tackle global warming at home and submit those plans to be published on a United Nations website.
The ultimate importance of the climate accord will be determined by its members.
“If enough countries start implementing the Paris agreement, historians will see this as a watershed moment,” said Erik Solheim, director of the United Nations environment program. “But if we don’t implement it, this will just be bringing a bunch of politicians together around a piece of paper.”
In total, 60 countries representing 48 percent of global planet-warming emissions have now legally bound themselves to the Paris accord. The deal goes into legal force when at least 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions sign on. At Wednesday’s ceremony, leaders of countries representing at least an additional 12 percent of global emissions pledged to submit their legal documents by the end of this year. If they follow through, the pact will take effect.
“What once seemed impossible now appears inevitable,” said Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, who will step down from his position at the end of the year.
Some of the plans that were already submitted, such as those of the United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse polluter, have hard targets backed up with detailed policy pledges. The Obama administration promised that by 2025, aggressive regulations designed to shut down coal-fired power plants will cut the nation’s emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels.
Even that plan stands in legal limbo. Twenty-seven states have sued the administration to stop it, and the Supreme Court has halted it until the suit is resolved.
Other plans are less aggressive and less detailed. India, the world’s third-largest polluter, would essentially allow its emissions to triple by 2030 — an improvement, Indian officials say, from the sevenfold increase in emissions without any action. Exactly how India can carry out that plan, which includes a significant increase in solar power, is not clear. India’s climate strategy does include references to Gandhi and yoga.
The more detailed plan put forth by China, the world’s largest polluter, calls for Chinese emissions to drop — but only after 2030 — and for China to put a national cap-and-trade system in place starting in 2017. But China has also been plagued by questions about its own emissions data.
“Obviously, ratifying Paris quickly is better than doing it slowly,” said Christoffer Ringnes Klyve, director of climate and environment programs at Future in Our Hands, a Norwegian advocacy group. “But there are lots of problems with the Paris agreement, and lots of problems with the countries that are ratifying it not having the faintest idea how they’re going to achieve the goals.”
Lacking emissions-reduction targets and sanctions, the Paris accord relies heavily on global peer pressure and public scrutiny — including many more events like Wednesday’s. A regular series of global conclaves will spotlight countries that follow through on ambitious emissions cuts and publicly name those that don’t.
Countries will be legally bound to attend summit meetings where they must give progress reports on their commitments. After 2025, countries must draw up more stringent emissions reduction plans, although the Paris pact does not say how much more stringent those plans should be.
“If I’m Singapore and I see China’s doing it, that leads me to do it,” said Jonathan Pershing, the American climate envoy. “If I’m a Latin American country and I see Mexico’s doing it, I’ll do it too.”
But that strategy does not account for leaders who do not care about global opinion. Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has called climate change a hoax and vowed to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement if he is elected. Once the deal has entered into force, all countries will be legally bound to it for four years. But a Trump administration could refuse to attend summit meetings or submit plans or progress reports, with no consequences beyond lacerating speeches at United Nations podiums.
That attitude appears to be shared by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the world’s fourth-largest climate polluter. Russia put forth a plan that is essentially business as usual, requiring no new domestic policies.
At the next major United Nations climate change summit meeting in November in Marrakesh, Morocco, diplomats hope to create an independent body to monitor and verify countries’ pollution levels — and to use public scrutiny to push countries to reduce their emissions. If each nation’s pollution levels are publicly reported on a website that showcases apples-to-apples comparisons of progress, governments will be more inclined to act, diplomats reason.
But several countries, including China and India, are expected to push for a more lenient system that is reliant on self-reporting.
“There is an expectation that people will report their emissions. But how does that happen?” said Jo Tyndall, the climate change envoy of New Zealand, who played a central role in brokering the Paris agreement. “What’s the process for review? Who will review?”
In Marrakesh, countries will also take up the thorny question of money: Under the Paris deal, rich countries voluntarily pledged to spend $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to climate change and develop new clean energy technologies. There is already resistance in several countries, particularly the United States. Peer pressure may be enough to persuade countries to sign on to a global deal, but diplomats fear it may not be enough to open their wallets.
SEPT. 21, 2016
By CORAL DAVENPORT
UNITED NATIONS — More than 20 world leaders tendered legal documents on Wednesday, formally binding their governments to the Paris climate accord at a General Assembly ceremony here and all but ensuring that the agreement will go into force by the end of the year.
The specifics of each country’s plans, though, are voluntary. There are no sanctions for failing to control pollution or to put economic polices into practice, or for submitting unambitious pledges.
The legally binding portion of the Paris accord does little more than require governments to continue to convene at high-profile global climate summit meetings, make public pledges to tackle global warming at home and submit those plans to be published on a United Nations website.
The ultimate importance of the climate accord will be determined by its members.
“If enough countries start implementing the Paris agreement, historians will see this as a watershed moment,” said Erik Solheim, director of the United Nations environment program. “But if we don’t implement it, this will just be bringing a bunch of politicians together around a piece of paper.”
In total, 60 countries representing 48 percent of global planet-warming emissions have now legally bound themselves to the Paris accord. The deal goes into legal force when at least 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions sign on. At Wednesday’s ceremony, leaders of countries representing at least an additional 12 percent of global emissions pledged to submit their legal documents by the end of this year. If they follow through, the pact will take effect.
“What once seemed impossible now appears inevitable,” said Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, who will step down from his position at the end of the year.
Some of the plans that were already submitted, such as those of the United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse polluter, have hard targets backed up with detailed policy pledges. The Obama administration promised that by 2025, aggressive regulations designed to shut down coal-fired power plants will cut the nation’s emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels.
Even that plan stands in legal limbo. Twenty-seven states have sued the administration to stop it, and the Supreme Court has halted it until the suit is resolved.
Other plans are less aggressive and less detailed. India, the world’s third-largest polluter, would essentially allow its emissions to triple by 2030 — an improvement, Indian officials say, from the sevenfold increase in emissions without any action. Exactly how India can carry out that plan, which includes a significant increase in solar power, is not clear. India’s climate strategy does include references to Gandhi and yoga.
The more detailed plan put forth by China, the world’s largest polluter, calls for Chinese emissions to drop — but only after 2030 — and for China to put a national cap-and-trade system in place starting in 2017. But China has also been plagued by questions about its own emissions data.
“Obviously, ratifying Paris quickly is better than doing it slowly,” said Christoffer Ringnes Klyve, director of climate and environment programs at Future in Our Hands, a Norwegian advocacy group. “But there are lots of problems with the Paris agreement, and lots of problems with the countries that are ratifying it not having the faintest idea how they’re going to achieve the goals.”
Lacking emissions-reduction targets and sanctions, the Paris accord relies heavily on global peer pressure and public scrutiny — including many more events like Wednesday’s. A regular series of global conclaves will spotlight countries that follow through on ambitious emissions cuts and publicly name those that don’t.
Countries will be legally bound to attend summit meetings where they must give progress reports on their commitments. After 2025, countries must draw up more stringent emissions reduction plans, although the Paris pact does not say how much more stringent those plans should be.
“If I’m Singapore and I see China’s doing it, that leads me to do it,” said Jonathan Pershing, the American climate envoy. “If I’m a Latin American country and I see Mexico’s doing it, I’ll do it too.”
But that strategy does not account for leaders who do not care about global opinion. Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has called climate change a hoax and vowed to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement if he is elected. Once the deal has entered into force, all countries will be legally bound to it for four years. But a Trump administration could refuse to attend summit meetings or submit plans or progress reports, with no consequences beyond lacerating speeches at United Nations podiums.
That attitude appears to be shared by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the world’s fourth-largest climate polluter. Russia put forth a plan that is essentially business as usual, requiring no new domestic policies.
At the next major United Nations climate change summit meeting in November in Marrakesh, Morocco, diplomats hope to create an independent body to monitor and verify countries’ pollution levels — and to use public scrutiny to push countries to reduce their emissions. If each nation’s pollution levels are publicly reported on a website that showcases apples-to-apples comparisons of progress, governments will be more inclined to act, diplomats reason.
But several countries, including China and India, are expected to push for a more lenient system that is reliant on self-reporting.
“There is an expectation that people will report their emissions. But how does that happen?” said Jo Tyndall, the climate change envoy of New Zealand, who played a central role in brokering the Paris agreement. “What’s the process for review? Who will review?”
In Marrakesh, countries will also take up the thorny question of money: Under the Paris deal, rich countries voluntarily pledged to spend $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to climate change and develop new clean energy technologies. There is already resistance in several countries, particularly the United States. Peer pressure may be enough to persuade countries to sign on to a global deal, but diplomats fear it may not be enough to open their wallets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/world/americas/climate-change-paris-agreement-united-nations-ban-ki-moon.html?_r=0
SpaceX－Rocket Landing
April 8, 2016
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer
In a dramatic feat of engineering prowess, the private spaceflight company SpaceX successfully landed a reusable Falcon 9 rocket booster today — the second such landing for the company, and the first successful touchdown on a ship.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT) today (April 8) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It carried SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo spacecraft, which is now on its way to the International Space Station, carrying crew supplies, station hardware and science experiments. SpaceX streamed live video of the historic rocket landing during the launch, a feat that capped a smooth cargo launch for NASA
After separating from Dragon a few minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's first stage performed several flyback engine burns, then eventually lowered itself vertically onto a SpaceX drone ship that was stationed off the Florida coast.
This was the fifth attempt in 15 months by SpaceX to land one of its rocket boosters on a drone ship; in each of the previous four tries, the rocket reached the ship successfully, but failed to stick the landing. During today's landing, SpaceX staff members crowded around the company's control room, and let out a roar of applause when the rocket booster touched down.
SpaceX has made one successful landing of a Falcon 9 booster in December 2015 — but that was on a landing pad on solid ground, at Cape Canaveral.
Today's launch kicked off SpaceX's eighth attempted cargo run for NASA, as part of the agency's Commercial Resupply (CRS) program. This is the first time SpaceX has launched a Dragon cargo vehicle for NASA since June 2015, when one of the company's Falcon 9 rockets exploded shortly after liftoff, destroying the cargo capsule in the process.
The rocket booster touched down on a robotic drone ship called "Of Course I Still Love You." It is one of two robotic drone ships used by SpaceX for its rocket landing attempts, the second of which is named "Just Read the Instructions." The ship titles honor legendary sci-fi author Iain M. Banks; both are names of sentient, planet-sized Culture starships that first appear in Banks' "The Player of Games," according to Tor.com.
SpaceX recently upgraded its Falcon 9 rocket, and today's flight was also the first time a Dragon cargo craft has been atop one of the updated booster. (The company has already flown the new rocket several times, without the Dragon vehicle.) In a media briefing yesterday (April 7), Hans Koenigsmann, VP for flight reliability at SpaceX, said the previous version of the Falcon "was the 1.1 version," while this upgraded rocket is version 1.2. Koenigsmann said the biggest changes were made to the rocket's strut system. (The June 2015 failure was later attributed to a faulty strut in the Falcon 9's upper stage.)
"There's minor changes on the nuts-and-bolts level, but that is basically all the changes that we did," Koenigsmann said.
The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at the space station on Sunday (April 10). Astronauts on board the station are set to grab the spacecraft with the station's robotic arm at about 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT). Coverage of the event will begin at 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT). An Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft is already docked to the station, and this will be the first time two American commercial cargo vehicles will be at the station at the same time.
At the news briefing yesterday, Kirk Shireman, the ISS program manager for NASA, mentioned that two features of the Dragon spacecraft are particularly useful to the station: Its ability to return to Earth, and its unpressurized exterior storage compartment (that is, its trunk).
Stored in the trunk of the Dragon craft is the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), which is packed up like a parachute but can be made to expand to more than five times its compressed volume. Assuming everything goes to plan, BEAM will be attached to the Tranquility Node of the station, and will become the first expandable habitat occupied by humans in space. Bigelow Aerospace has already tested two other expandable habitats in orbit, without human occupants.
The second beneficial feature for NASA is that Dragon can return to Earth without burning up in the atmosphere. This Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth on May 11 carrying, among other things, science samples from the One-Year Mission, in which NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko stayed aboard the station from March 2015 until March of this year.
Koenigsmann also confirmed that SpaceX is aiming to increase its total number of yearly launches.
"It is true we have to pick up the pace, and we will pick up the pace," he said, adding that the next scheduled launch for the company will come near the end of April, with another set for the beginning of May.
"So the time between the missions will get shorter and shorter. It is something we've seen with the 1.1 version, too — when you phase an upgrade in, you need a little bit of time between the launches, and then after a while you pick up the pace," Koenigsmann said. "And we hope we're going to be able to launch basically every other week by the end of the year."
Refugee
The photographer who broke the internet's heart
March 31, 2015
Thousands online have shared an image of a Syrian child with her hands raised in surrender - but what is the story behind it?
Those sharing
it were moved by the fear in the child's eyes, as she seems to staring
into the barrel of a gun. It wasn't a gun, of course, but a camera, and
the moment was captured for all to see. But who took the picture and
what is the story behind it? BBC Trending have tracked down the original
photographer - Osman Sağırlı - and asked him how the image came to be.
It began to go
viral Tuesday last week, when it was tweeted by Nadia Abu Shaban, a
photojournalist based in Gaza. The image quickly spread across the
social network. "I'm actually weeping", "unbelievably sad", and
"humanity failed", the comments read. The original post has been
retweeted more than 11,000 times. On Friday the image was shared on
Reddit, prompting another outpouring of emotion. It's received more than
5,000 upvotes, and 1,600 comments.
Accusations
that the photo was fake, or staged, soon followed on both networks. Many
on Twitter asked who had taken the photo, and why it had been posted
without credit. Abu Shaban confirmed she had not taken the photo
herself, but could not explain who had. On Imgur, an image sharing
website, one user traced the photograph back to a newspaper clipping,
claiming it was real, but taken "around 2012", and that the child was
actually a boy. The post also named a Turkish photojournalist, Osman
Sağırlı, as the man who took the picture.
BBC Trending
spoke to Sağırlı - now working in Tanzania - to confirm the origins of
the picture. The child is in fact not a boy, but a four-year-old girl,
Hudea. The image was taken at the Atmeh refugee camp in Syria, in
December last year. She travelled to the camp - near the Turkish border -
with her mother and two siblings. It is some 150 km from their home in
Hama.
"I was using a
telephoto lens, and she thought it was a weapon," says Sağırlı. "İ
realised she was terrified after I took it, and looked at the picture,
because she bit her lips and raised her hands. Normally kids run away,
hide their faces or smile when they see a camera." He says he finds
pictures of children in the camps particularly revealing. "You know
there are displaced people in the camps. It makes more sense to see what
they have suffered not through adults, but through children. It is the
children who reflect the feelings with their innocence."
The image was
first published in the Türkiye newspaper in January, where Sağırlı has
worked for 25 years, covering war and natural disasters outside the
country. It was widely shared by Turkish speaking social media users at
the time. But it took a few months before it went viral in the
English-speaking world, finding an audience in the West over the last
week.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32121732
Paris Attacks
Abaaoud: Profile Of Man Behind Paris Attacks
Monday, November 16, 2015
Abaaoud
- described as "ready to climb the ranks" of IS - was filmed grinning
and loading a pile of bloodied bodies onto a truck.
The 27-year-old was thought to be from the Molenbeek area of Brussels,
also home to other members of the terror cell that carried out the
massacre.
He is reported to have had links to thwarted attacks on a Paris-bound
train - when two US soldiers and a civilian overpowered a gunman - and a
separate plot to attack a church.
He is also believed to have organised and financed a terror cell in the Belgian city of Verviers.
Two of his suspected accomplices were killed in a counter-terrorism raid
in the city in January, after which he boasted of being able to easily
escape and travel to Syria.
Abaaoud, who also used the name Abu Omar al Baljiki, was of Moroccan origin.
In February, Islamic State's online magazine, Dabiq, carried an
interview with an Islamist with that name who said he had
traveled through Europe to organise attacks and procure weapons.
He said he wanted to "terrorise the crusaders waging war against the Muslims".
Abaaoud claimed a police officer had stopped him and let him go in the
wake of the Verviers raid - even after his image had been released in
the media.
He said in the interview: "I was even stopped by an officer who
contemplated me so as to compare me to the picture, but he let me go, as
he did not see the resemblance! ...
"All this proves that a Muslim should not fear the bloated image of the crusader intelligence.
"My name and picture were all over the news yet I was able to stay in
their homeland, plan operations against them, and leave safely [to
Syria] when doing so became necessary."
Abaaoud was also named in various media last year as the elder brother
of 13-year-old Younes Abaaoud, who left Belgium to become a child
fighter in Syria.
It is thought Abaaoud, who was once a student at one of Brussels' most
prestigious high schools, Saint Pierre d'Uccle, encouraged his sibling
to join him in the war-ravaged country.
"All my life, I have seen the blood of Muslims flow," he said in a video made public last year.
"I pray that Allah will break the backs of those who oppose him, his
soldiers and his admirers, and that he will exterminate them."
Independent journalists Etienne Huver and Guillaume Lhotellier, working
on the Turkish-Syrian border, last year obtained photos and a video of
him with his friends loading a truck with blooded corpses.
A smiling Abaaoud tells the camera: "Before we towed jet skis,
motorcycles, quad bikes, big trailers filled with gifts for vacation in
Morocco.
"Now, thank God, following God's path, we're towing apostates, infidels who are fighting us."
Huver told Associated Press that Abaaoud was giving orders and seemed to be a "charismatic guy who's going up in the world".
"You can see a combatant who's ready to climb the ranks," said the journalist.
http://news.sky.com/story/abaaoud-profile-of-man-behind-paris-attacks-10339387
White Helmets
'White Helmets' bring civilian aid to Syria's conflict
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Medical Correspondent
May 27, 2015
Turkey (CNN)In the last five years, life expectancy has dropped by nearly 20 years in Syria. It is an astonishing figure.
And the reason
is not because of deadly infectious diseases or lack of clean water,
although those are problems there as well. Instead, it has to do
primarily with rusty old barrels that are packed with explosives and
hurtled out of helicopters onto large neighborhoods. These barrels often
contain nails, wire, glass and anything else that can brutally maim and
destroy a human body.
The images are awful to imagine, and even worse to see.
According to
the Syrian Civil Defense, barrel bombs, as they are called, are now the
greatest killer of civilians in many parts of Syria.
Every time one
of these barrels strikes, it is the seismological equivalent of a 7.6
magnitude earthquake, and it happens around 50 times a day. While I
spoke to James Le Mesurier in Southern Turkey last night, he received
word that three more barrel bombs had fallen in just the past few hours.
He also told me that when this happens, there is no one for the average
citizen to call. "You can't dial 911. You can't dial the fire service.
You can't call the local police department. They don't exist."
Over time, it
was ordinary men who started to respond to the explosions, fires and
attacks. Barbers, bakers, students and electricians, to name a few --
consistently showed up to help in any way they could. In many of these
areas, it was the same people who kept running into each other while
conducting rescues. Most had bought helmets that were white, instead of
colored, simply because they were cheaper. And, according to James, it
was the local media who first asked "who are all those guys with the
white helmets?" It was the birth of a humanitarian organization that
three years later has saved 18,000 lives, and recently been nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize.
There are now
around 2,600 White Helmets, including 56 women who joined over the last
several months. In some of Syria's more conservative communities, women
trapped in the rubble cannot be rescued by a man no matter how dire the
situation. For them, the women of the White Helmets satisfy an unmet
need.
Obama says Syria war unlikely to end during his presidency
Over the last
few days, I have had a chance to sit down and talk to 25 of the White
Helmets to try and better understand their lives, their motivations and
their future. We were in Southern Turkey, not too far from the border
with Syria, where the White Helmets were going through a sophisticated
training exercise. I was invited to tag along. On our first day, the men
all sat in a circle with me, and just started gushing their stories. It
was almost cathartic for them, maybe even therapeutic.
Every single one of them raised their hands when asked if they had personally saved a life.
Ibrahim
Armanazi, age 28, worked as a barber. He saved a 17-year-old woman with a
head injury after a bombing near a local bakery. Abdul Kader Suleyman,
32, is a farmer who saved a 7-month-old girl after two thermobaric
missiles hit the town of Darkoush. Mohammed Ata Rashwani, 44, previously
worked as a hospital administrator. He rushed to the scene of a missile
attack, and "rescued a man whose entire lower half was buried." It was
only later that he added something I will never forget. Mohammed joined
the White Helmets five days after his son was killed doing the very same
job.
Ahmad Rahhal
worked as a policeman, and at age 27 moved up the ranks quickly to
detective. He told the story of two other White Helmets, who had died
after being "double tapped." This is a particularly malicious act that
occurs when a helicopter carries two barrel bombs. After dropping the
first one, the helicopter circles in the sky waiting for the first
responders to arrive. Once a big enough crowd has gathered, they drop
the second bomb.
It is different level of savagery.
Ahmad survived that double tap, and was able to also rescue three young girls, who are alive and well.
Ahmad, like
all the other White Helmets, is doing his part to turn around the
plummeting life expectancy in Syria. And, for him, it is even more
personal than that. He is getting married next week, and will be
starting a family of his own. When he shared that news, the entire group
of hardened White Helmets broke out into spontaneous applause, hooting
and hollering.
Despite all
they have seen and endured, the men and women who wear the white helmets
believe Syria and its citizens can be saved. They have a palpable
optimism about the future -- and, they want to share it with everyone.
Syrians look
for survivors amid the rubble of a building targeted by a missile in the
al-Mashhad neighborhood of Aleppo on January 7, 2013.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/21/health/white-helmets-profile/index.html
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