[0728] TIME briefing excerpt

I originally write this kind of articles out of a thought that to broaden the view and mind of my Chinese blog’s readers in Taiwan, since most of them are too lazy to read in English thus will not read international news media like Reuters, TIME or Wall Street Journal, yet local news media are poor on international stories. They care only about local news, as a small country media should be, most newspapers have only 1 page of international coverage, not to mention the blood-lust news channels that only reports bizarre or so-called “soft” news.

So after some time point, I started to translate some interesting stuff I read on these international media, mostly TIME magazine, into Chinese, for my Chinese blog readers. So for what I am doing now is actually total redundant, since all people who visit this site could perfectly read through the paragraphs on those international media sites, having the articles excerpted again will hardly improve the views of my readers here. Not to mention that I might violate the copyright laws, haha.

But at last I decided I will still do a English version of such articles. Since having these stuff excerpted will let my readers know what kind of things interest me, and for what do I care about. So here is this weeks briefing excerpt, from 2007.7.16.’s TIME magazine:

[1]
Media Watch: Good Morning, Tehran

WATCH OUT, CNN? On July 2, Iran launched Press TV, an international satellite-news channel in English. The Station will present newscasts–with an Iranian spin, no doubt– and reports from its 26 correspondents in cities like Beirut and Gaza City as well as New York, Washington and London. Newcomers to the 24-hour English-language news market since 2005 include Russia Today, France 24 and al-Jazeera International.

[2]
Artifact: Gandhi’s Last Lament

THE MISSIVE Mohandas Gandhi’s final letter before his 1948 murder was to be auctioned off in London on July 3.

A NATIONAL TREASURE? After delicate negotiations, the document will instead be heading home to a national archive in India.

PLEA FOR UNITY The letter, written to an Indian newspaper, begs Indians to eschew religious violence and warns that the millions of Muslims who still called India home could “become aliens in their own land”– a concern as pressing now as it was six decades ago.

[3]
Lexicon

commute

DEFINITION
v: To reduce a criminal penalty

CONTEXT
Instead of going for a full-fledged pardon, President Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence, leaving the fines and criminal record intact but keeping him out of prison.

USAGE
Commutations often have qualifiers. Nixon reduced Jimmy Hoffa’s jail term in 1971, provided the Teamster didn’t run the union for 10 years.

pardon

DEFINITION
v: To completely forgive a crime

CONTEXT
Cliton notoriously issued 140 pardons on his last day in office, including one to tax evader Marc Rich–whose lawyer at the time just happened to be Scooter Libby.

USAGE
Bush’s father has given the fewest pardons since Franklin Pierce, but W. isn’t far behind, with 113 in two terms.

[4]
World Spotlight: Hamas’ Next Move

The photo op of Hamas leaders with a free and smiling Briton–BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, released after 114 days of Gaza captivity–is, among other things, a huge publicity coup for Hamas and its leaders, Ismail Haniyeh. It allows the embattled Haniyeh to show he can deliver positive results in his new role as the top authority in the Gaza Strip and to say, with some legitimacy, that he can bring stability back to Gaza’s lawless streets.

Johnston’s release was won through strong-arm tactics. A senior Hamas militant told TIME that Johnston’s kidnappers, the Army of Islam, were made an offer they couldn’t refuse: either they let the Briton go, or they would be hunted down and killed. The group, linked to the powerful Gaza Dogmush clan and its coterie of gunrunners and criminals, had its compound surrounded by 6000 Hamas gunmen in the 48 hours before Johnston’s release.

Freeing Johnston, say Palestinian analysts, may help pave the way toward the release of another Gaza hostage, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, because the Army of Islam is among the militant groups that helped kidnap Shalit a year ago. But he would probably be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, and Israeli officials must first overcome their aversion to dealing with Hamas, a group they still brand as “terrorists.”

One reporter who most likely will not be there to cover a possible Shalit release is Johnston, who plans on taking a much deserved “break” from Gaza. Says Johnston: “I literally dreamt many times of being free and always woke up back in that room. And now it really is over, and it really is indescribably food.”

by Tim McGirk

for reference:
chinese version of this article: [0728] 本週的 TIME 簡報