뉴스&스피킹(영자신문)
하루 10분이면 영어에 대한 두려움을 극복하고 누구나 유창하게 영어를 구사하실 수 있습니다.
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Who Is the Woman in Huawei Arrest? Like many top Chinese business leaders, Meng Wanzhou is little known even in her home country. She is the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, a huge telecommunications company. Meng had been widely expected to one day lead the company, which her father Ren Zhengfei created.
But Wednesday, Canadian officials announced they had arrested Meng at the request of American officials. Chinese officials have demanded her immediate release.
A person who knew about the incident told Reuters the arrest is linked to reported violations of American restrictions on Iran by Huawei.
Huawei said in a statement that it had been given little information “about the charges” against Meng. The company added that it was “not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng.”
Meng’s father worked as a civilian engineer with China’s People’s Liberation Army for almost 10 years. Ren helped build its communications network before he left the job in 1983.
Officials in some governments, especially the United States, have expressed concern that his company is close to the Chinese military and government. Huawei has repeatedly denied this.
Out of the public eye
The 74-year-old Ren founded the Chinese telecommunications company in 1988. Both he and 46-year-old Meng have led very private lives.
In a rare move last month, Ren let the French magazine Paris Match take pictures of his family. He was shown with his current wife, Yao Ling, and a younger daughter.
Huawei is a private company and describes itself as employee-owned. Although Ren owns only about 1.4 percent of the shares, employees say he has complete power within the company.
Huawei is the biggest telecommunications equipment maker in the world and the second largest wireless phone maker. It employs more than 180,000 people and last year had revenue of about $93 billion. The company’s yearly financial report says the earnings come in equal part from business inside and outside the country.
Started as secretary
Huawei’s website says Meng joined the company in 1993 and received a master’s degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1998.
She has held several positions within the company. These include director of the international accounting department, chief financial officer of Huawei Hong Kong and president of the accounting management department, the website said.
In her first media appearance before the Chinese press in 2013, Meng said she had first joined the company as a secretary “whose job was just to take calls.”
She also said she was married with a son and a daughter and that her husband did not work in the industry. Some reports had said she was married to a top Huawei official.
Meng’s importance at Huawei became apparent in 2011, when she was first named as a member of the board of directors. Company insiders describe her as able and hardworking.
Her brother, Meng Ping, works at Huawei as do their father’s younger brother and his current wife. None of them have high level positions like Meng Wanzhou, who also goes by the English name, Sabrina.
“The other family members are in (the) back office, Sabrina is CFO and sits on the board,” someone inside Huawei said. “So she is viewed as the boss’s most likely successor.”
Meng’s arrest raises questions about a 90-day truce on trade reached Saturday by the leaders of China and the United States.
I’m Mario Ritter.
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China Confirms Detaining Two Canadians China has confirmed that a second Canadian citizen has been detained since Canada’s arrest of a Chinese business official earlier this month.
Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang spoke to reporters in Beijing Thursday about the situation. Lu said that businessman Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig had been detained on Monday. Kovrig had been reported as missing earlier this week. Reports of Spavor’s disappearance began to show up on Wednesday.
Lu said the two Canadians’ are suspected of acts that harm state security and that their legal rights were being “safeguarded.”
He said Beijing security and state security officials in the city of Dandong, Liaoning Province had taken measures against Spavor and Kovrig.
Who are the Canadian businessmen?
Spavor is director of Paektu Cultural Exchange. It plans sports and educational exchanges with North Korea. He has met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Spavor also has been a translator for former National Basketball Association player Dennis Rodman during his visits to North Korea.
Before his detention, Spavor told Reuters news agency that he was working with North Korean officials and possible investors in Dandong.
Kovrig is the North East Asia senior advisor for the International Crisis Group. He served as a Canadian diplomat from 2003 to 2016.
The arrests of the two Canadians took place about one week after the arrest by Canada of a top official with Chinese technology company Huawei Technologies. Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver, Canada.
Canadian officials arrested Meng after the United States released a warrant for her arrest. She is accused of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Huawei official under house arrest
On Tuesday, a Canadian judge released Meng from jail after a bail payment of $10 million. However, she is to appear in court at a later date and is under house arrest.
Meng is chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, a company created by her father. It is one of the world’s biggest telecommunications companies.
U.S. officials accuse Meng of lying to banks about Huawei’s control of a company based in Hong Kong that reportedly sold products to Iran. Iran is currently under strong U.S. sanctions.
If tried and found guilty in the United States, Meng could face up to 30 years in prison.
After her arrest, China called for Meng’s immediate release.
Officials say that China has not linked Kovrig’s detention to Meng’s arrest in Canada. However, Canadian diplomatic experts have said it is likely that the two cases are linked.
China called the U.S. ambassador to make a formal protest over the issue.
The arrest comes at a sensitive time when the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is negotiating with China over trade.
I’m Mario Ritter, Jr.View -
Red, Yellow, Blue, Green: the Colors of Protests How can you command attention with so many colorful images around the world?
Some activists have learned that they can gain popularity by connecting their movements to a color like yellow, red, blue or green.
This month, French demonstrators wore “yellow vests” to block highways from Provence to Normandy. They rioted in Paris and left French President Emmanuel Macron struggling to meet their demands.
Why do they wear yellow vests?
All French drivers must carry a yellow vest in their cars in case they have car trouble. The drivers launched their protest against a proposed increase in fuel taxes wearing the vests.
To the protesters, the vests represent a troublesome government demand. So they used the vests to express their anger over high taxes and other financial difficulties.
The vests can be seen easily at night and at roadblocks around France. But they also made protesters easy targets for police during the riots.
Green abortion rights movement in Argentina
Across the Atlantic, demonstrators wore green handkerchiefs in the streets of some Argentine cities last August. They were calling for women to have the right to end their pregnancies as they choose.
The protests in the homeland of Pope Francis started as lawmakers in the Senate voted against a bill that would have permitted abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. If approved, the bill would have made Argentina only the fourth Latin American country to legalize abortion, after Cuba, Uruguay and Guyana.
Women’s groups across Latin America have said they will keep fighting for a right to abortion.
Umbrella movement in Hong Kong
In 2014, the yellow color was connected with pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. They became known as the Umbrella Movement.
The protesters used umbrellas as protection from pepper spray and tear gas. They wore yellow pieces of cloth and hung a yellow banner overlooking the city from Lion Rock to demand full voting rights.
The yellow color was borrowed from another of Asia’s pro-democracy protests in the 1980s. At that time, Filipinos wore yellow in an effort to drive out the country’s dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Green movement in Iran
In Iran, supporters of reformer Mir-Hossein Mousavi wore green to support his campaign against then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country’s clergy in 2009.
Green is a good color in Islamic tradition. Some link it to nature. Iranian poet Eqbal Mansourian told a crowd at a demonstration, “Make our lives green again, make it rain again, make us hope again.”
Security forces finally crushed the demonstrations. The violence ended with at least 80 people killed and 2,500 arrested. Many others were tortured in prison.
The saffron revolution in Myanmar
Buddhist clergy led protests against Myanmar’s military government in 2007. The dark brown color of their clothes gave the movement its name, the Saffron Revolution.
The protests started as the government raised fuel prices. They soon turned into a call for democracy. The Buddhist monks even visited the home of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi who was under house arrest at the time.
On September 24, over 100,000 Buddhist monks marched in Rangoon as demonstrations took place throughout Myanmar, also known as Burma. The military’s violent response led to worldwide condemnation.
Under international pressure, the military slowly approved a new constitution and held democratic elections. In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party won the majority of seats in national elections to take control of the government.
Yellow shirts vs. red shirts in Thailand
In neighboring Thailand, activists wore red shirts or yellow shirts to signal which of two opposing political groups they supported.
Yellow is the color connected with the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. On the 60th anniversary of the king’s rule, opponents of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra wore yellow calling for his removal from office.
In September 2006, Thailand’s military ousted Thaksin from office saying he had abused his power. Thaksin’s supporters reacted by wearing red shirts. In Thailand, red is one of the colors of the national flag representing the nation. The other colors are white for religion and blue for the monarchy.
Orange revolution in Ukraine
Orange was the campaign color of Ukraine’s pro-Western presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in 2004.
His supporters protested the victory of his pro-Russia opponent and took to the streets in what was called the Orange Revolution. After huge street demonstrations, officials ordered a new election that Yushchenko won. Russia blamed Western countries for supporting the protests.
Political disputes ended Yushchenko’s presidency in 2010 and led to the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Blue states and red states in the Untied States
The words “blue states” and “red states” gained new attention during the disputed 2000 U.S. presidential election.
American television networks used the colors of red and blue from the U.S. flag to identify the states voting for Texas Governor George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore.
The color red came to represent Republicans and blue, Democrats. The division between “red states” and “blue states” has expanded to clothing. Politicians and supporters from the two parties often avoid wearing colors connected to their opponents.
I’m Mario Ritter. I'm Caty Weaver.View -
Seoul Creates New Use for Waste South Korea’s capital, Seoul, has a problem with waste.
In April, the city had too much waste from man-made products, such as plastic and vinyl. The reason: recycling companies refused to collect them because it is no longer profitable.
As a result, unrecycled goods began piling up in Seoul’s neighborhoods. Talks between the companies and city officials finally ensured removal after about two weeks. But the bigger problem remains: what to do with all of the unrecycled waste.
Seoul officials are turning to upcycling to fix the problem. The term "upcycling" means using old or unwanted goods and materials to create valuable new products. An example would be making a mailbox from an aging computer tower.
Limits to recycling
The Seoul Upcycling Plaza, or SUP building is home to the process of collecting, separating and breaking down disposed products into reusable materials and “upcycled” goods. Thirty-five upcycling businesses were chosen in a competition to be housed there and begin the process.
SUP director Yoon Dayyoung admits there are limits to recycling. Not everything can be broken down and made into reusable materials, she said. So, upcycling is needed to add value to old, unwanted goods.
Seoul plans to recycle more than 70 percent of its plastics by the year 2030. To this aim, Yoon said, SUP’s materials bank will supply the materials for people to produce upcycled goods. “People can find more than 400 [kinds] of materials and…purchase it for their purpose,” she added.
New businesses
Most companies moving into the upcycling business make specialty products with the materials they collect. These include things like origami supplies made from used milk containers and dinner plates made from flattened wine bottles. Visitors can buy products or, if they choose, help to produce the upcycled goods.
A service center at SUP also repairs broken electronic devices with parts taken from machines that no longer work.
Is it enough?
Yet many of the “upcyclers” and suppliers make their products by hand and do not yet have enough workers to increase production. And some people are unhappy that the upcycled products cost more than they had expected.
A business called Touch4Good upcycles signs into handbags, wallets and other things. The owner, Park Mi-hyeon, says it is important to think about the process in the right way. She says that upcycling is more about making specialized goods than making large amounts of one thing, like a factory would.
Park has operated many upcycling projects since 2008 and now operates the city’s material research center for upcycling. She says most upcycling material must be separated by hand and that new products are also made by hand.
She said that the upcycling market in South Korea has a good chance of growing because there are more than 200 companies in business.
Stop the waste
But environmental experts suggest it is more important to reduce the amount of plastic being used than to develop upcycling. Around the world, only nine percent of plastic is actually recycled. One reason is that making new plastic costs less than recycling used plastic. And single-stream recycling has made the separation and cleaning of recyclable goods even more costly and difficult.
In Seoul, the American coffeehouse company Starbucks has replaced plastic strawswith paper ones. Other restaurants have also stopped using plastic straws and are asking people to bring their own straws. Still others have moved to such materials as metal straws.
Other eateries are asking people to bring reusable drink cups. And in supermarkets in Seoul, single-use plastic bags are banned.
In addition, the South Korean capital plans to decrease use of single-use products in the city government beginning in 2020.
I’m Alice Bryant.View -
Police Stop Tesla Vehicle with Driver Sleeping Inside Police in California say they were able to stop a Tesla vehicle that was speeding with the driver sleeping inside.
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) reported the Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system might have made it possible for officers to stop the vehicle.
The incident was described in a police report. It happened early in the morning on November 30.
The report said the CHP officers observed the Tesla Model S traveling at speeds up to 113 kilometers an hour on a road near San Francisco. The car was violating the speed limit for vehicles in the area.
When officers drove up next to the vehicle and looked inside, they saw that the driver appeared to be asleep in the driver’s seat. The report said the officers then drove behind the Tesla and turned on their car’s warning lights and siren in an attempt to get the driver to stop. But they said the driver did not wake up.
The officers knew that Tesla vehicles are equipped with a driver assistance system and thought the driver might have been using it at the time.
There are different levels of driver assistance systems. The technology is generally designed to electronically help drivers stay in a lane and keep a safe distance from other vehicles. The systems can also slow or stop a vehicle to avoid an accident or in case of an emergency.
The police report said the officers got an idea for how they might be able to stop the vehicle as the driver slept inside. They decided to move the police car directly in front of the speeding Tesla and gradually slow their car down.
The officers said that as the police vehicle slowed, the speeding vehicle also reduced its speed. Eventually, the Tesla came to a complete stop, the report said.
Officers were then able to wake the driver and they took him to a service station nearby. Police also drove away the Tesla. Its driver, a 45-year-old male, was given a test by officers to see whether he was driving while under the influence of alcohol. He failed the test, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, and sent to jail.
The report said the CHP could not confirm whether the Tesla’s driver assistance system was activated at the time of the incident. But it noted that considering the vehicle’s ability to slow and stop when the driver was asleep, “it appears the ‘driver assistance’ feature may have been active at the time.”
The report followed several highly publicized crashes involving Tesla vehicles equipped with driving assistance tools. Tesla says that owners of its vehicles are told that none of its driver assistance tools are meant to fully drive the car by itself.
One of the tools, Tesla’s Autopilot system, is designed to permit full self-driving capabilities. But the company says when using this tool, drivers should still keep their hands on the steering wheel and be ready to take control if the system fails to work.
Telsa chief Elon Musk reacted to the incident in a message on Twitter. He said the company was investigating to see what happened. He added that if Autopilot was being used at the time, the system was supposed to gradually slow and stop the vehicle “if there’s no driver input.”
A recent study found that driver assistance systems can fail to perform some actions in real-world test situations. The American Automobile Association, known as AAA, tested several vehicles equipped with the technology. It found that test vehicles repeatedly struggled on busy roads when dealing with common traffic situations.
I’m Bryan Lynn.View