This Week in the News (28th January - 3rd February)
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Six killed, eight wounded in Quebec mosque shooting
Six people died and eight were wounded after shots were fired at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec, Canada, during the evening prayers on Sunday night. According to an eyewitness, the shooter shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”) as he opened fire, a detail which at the time supported the initial hypothesis of the Canadian authorities that this was a terrorist attack. Two suspects were arrested by the Quebec police immediately after the shooting, one at the scene and another in a neighbouring area. However, it was later revealed that the main suspect, a Canadian university student, was an admirer of Donald Trump and the far right. This directs public concerns away from terrorism and more towards islamophobia. The shooting comes one day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to US President Donald Trump’s immigration ban in a tweet expressing the willingness of the Canadians to welcome those “fleeing prosecution, terror & war”.
For more information about this topic, access http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38793071
©REUTERS
shooting = Schießerei
to fire shots = Schüsse abgeben
prayers = Gebete
eyewitness = Augenzeuge
to open fire = losschießen
authorities = Behörden
suspects = Verdächtige
to arrest = verhaften
at the scene = am Tatort
immigration ban = Einwanderungsverbot
willingness = Bereitschaft
to flee = fliehen
prosecution = Verfolgung
Massive protests in Romania
©Cristian Vasile
Social unrest started in Romania as the Government prepared to pass an emergency ordinance which would make changes to the penal code, as well as pardon certain categories of inmates, supposedly in order to improve the living conditions in the country’s prisons. However, it is believed that the true reason behind this proposed action is a hope of the ruling party to thus be able to release numerous politicians from within its circles, as well as to prevent the imprisonment of a number of its members accused of corruption and other criminal offences. A large protest took place on Sunday, when tens of thousands of people gathered in Romania’s main cities to demonstrate against the emergency ordinance. The demands of the protesters have not been answered to, as on Tuesday night the Romanian Government issued the emergency ordinance that had caused the unrest. In response to this action by the country’s executive power, further, increasingly bigger protests took place in the entire country, as well as abroad, and they are expected to continue until the ordinance is abrogated. On Wednesday, in the capital Bucharest alone, 150,000 marched towards the seat of government chanting against the ruling party. It has been reported that these are the largest protests to take place in the country since the 1989 revolution which brought about the fall of communism.
Read more about the protests and the emergency ordinance at the following link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38836322
unrest = Unruhen
emergency ordinance = Noterlass
penal code = Strafgesetzbuch
to pardon = begnadigen
certain = bestimmt
inmates = Insassen
supposedly = angeblich
prisons = Gefängnisse
ruling party = Regierungspartei
to release = (hier) entlassen
imprisonment = Haftstrafe
criminal offences = Straftaten
demands = Ansprüche
to abrogate = aufheben
to chant = skandieren
to bring about = verursachen
ECONOMY
Deutsche Bank fined for money laundering
©Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg
British and American regulators claim that Deutsche Bank illegally moved $10 billion out of Russia through shares which had been bought and sold by its branches in Moscow, London and New York between 2011 and 2015. The bank will now have to pay a fine of $630 and hire an external monitor to observe its compliance measures.
More on this topic at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38805085
to fine = mit einer Geldstrafe belegen
money laundering = Geldwäsche
regulators = Aufsichtsbehörde
shares = Aktien
branches = Niederlassungen
fine = Strafe
monitor = Beobachter
to observe = beobachten
compliance = Regelkonformität
SCIENCE
NASA Day of Remembrance and 50 years since the Apollo 1 fire
©space.com
Every year on 31st January, the American space agency NASA holds its Day of Remembrance dedicated to the seventeen American astronauts who lost their lives on its three tragic missions in 1967, 1986 and 2003. On Tuesday, NASA organised a ceremony in which the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger of Columbia were commemorated. This year also marked fifty years since the Apollo 1 fire which killed astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Robert Chaffee during a ground test on 26th January 1967.
More information about NASA’s Day of Remembrance at http://www.techtimes.com/articles/194554/20170127/remembering-apollo-i-challenger-and-columbia-nasa-to-hold-day-of-remembrance-2017-on-jan-31.htm
space agency = Raumfahrtagentur
day of remembrance = Gedenktag
astronauts = Raumfahrer
ceremony = (hier) Andacht
crews = Besatzungen
to commemorate = gedenken
SPORT
Dream final at the Australian Open
On Sunday, tennis fans from all around the world enjoyed an exciting final at the Australian Open in Melbourne, where two legends of the sport, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal battled for the first Grand Slam title on this year’s circuit. At the end of five sets, the 35-year-old Swiss champion secured his fifth win at the Australian Open and his eighteenth Grand Slam title, thus consolidating his advantage in the ranking with the most successful tennis players of all time.
©AFP
exciting = spannend
to battle = kämpfen
tennis circuit = Tenniszirkus
sets = (hier) Sätze
to consolidate = festigen
ranking = Rangfolge
More about Federer’s victory at the following link: http://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/38787436
Successful weekend for German winter sport
©Matthias Schrader
It has been an outstanding end of the week for the German teams competing in numerous winter sports. At the Luge World Championships, which took place in Igls, Austria, the German relay team obtained the gold medal. This is yet another world title in a series starting in 2008, the year this category was introduced at the luge championships. At the same sporting event, Germany dominated in the doubles luge event with gold, silver and bronze, while another world title was won by Tatjana Hüfner. At the ski jumping individual event in Willingen, Andreas Wellinger obtained his second world cup victory, while Johannes Lochner and Joshua Bluhm won two gold medals at the bobsleigh world cup competitions in Königsee. Another success story was written by Eric Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek in the Nordic combined triple in Seefeld, who obtained the gold and silver medals after an intense race against each other. Among the other podium results achieved by the German athletes last weekend are the second places obtained by Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis in the same event and by the pair Aljona Savchenko – Bruno Massot at the European Figure Skating Championships, as well as the bronze medals won by the German ski jumping team in Willingen and by alpine skier Stefan Luitz in the giant slalom race in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
outstanding = hervorragend
luge = Rennrodeln
series = Folge
race = Rennen
to achieve = erzielen
Favourites confirm at the 2017 European Figure Skating Championships
©AFP
The city of Ostrava, located in the East of the Czech Republic, hosted this year’s edition of the European Figure Skating Championships between 25th and 29th January. The surprises were few, as the favourites confirmed their skill and experience to win another European medal. For Javier Fernandez, the champion in the men’s category, it was the 5th European title, while in the women’s event Evgenia Medvedeva obtained a second consecutive gold medal in the continental competition. The events in Ostrava also saw the return of Italian European and World champion Carolina Kostner, who had been banned from figure skating in 2015 for having lied in a doping scandal. She won silver, in this way obtaining her 10th European medal. In the pairs’ and ice dance categories, the titles were taken by the French Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron and by the Russian Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov.
skill = (hier) Können
experience = Erfahrung
consecutive = in Folge
return = Rückkehr