30/12/2014

[Bodies Recovered From Missing AirAsia ] - [VOA - Voice of America English News]

12/30/2014

Bodies Recovered From Missing AirAsia

Indonesian officials have recovered bodies from the sea near the wreckage of an AirAsia passenger jet. The
airplane crashed during a storm on Sunday.
Indonesian television showed rescue helicopters pulling bodies from the Java Sea, in waters about 160 kilometers
from Borneo Island. The first images of the bodies showed they were not wearing protective life jackets.
Rescue workers had recovered only about one fourth of the passengers and crew at nightfall. They found the
bodies soon after discovering the wreckage. It included what appeared to be an orange life jacket, a red and white
emergency door, and other objects.
Searches from the air also showed what appeared to be a very large object under the surface of the water. It is
believed to be the main body of the airplane.
Late Tuesday, AirAsia confirmed that the wreckage was its lost plane. The passenger jet disappeared on
Sunday about halfway through what was supposed to be a two-hour flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to
Singapore.
The head of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, said he is, in his words, absolutely devastated at the news. Earlier he
said on Twitter that his heart is filled with sadness for all the families involved. He added that, words cannot
express how sorry I am.
Putin's critic received suspended sentence
A court in Russia has found political activist Alexei Navalny guilty of defrauding a French company of at least
$500,000.
The court sentenced the 38-year-old lawyer to a suspended prison sentence of three-and-one-half years. Russian
government lawyers had sought a sentence of 10 years. Navalnys brother Oleg was also found guilty. He
received the same sentence, but was ordered to jail.
VOA reporter Daniel Schearf said that outside the court, some people were likening the jailing of Oleg Navalny to
a tactic used by the former Soviet Union. The goal was to attack the family instead of making a hero of the
person Soviet officials wanted to silence.
The court was first supposed to announce judgment on January 15, but moved up the date without explanation. A
Facebook page created to organize a protest on that day had attracted tens of thousands of supporters.
Alexei Navalny left the courthouse after the judgment was announced. He urged his supporters to continue their
protests. He had been under house arrest since February for taking part in a protest not approved by the
government.
He led huge demonstrations against Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2011 and 2012. Navalny was found
guilty of financial wrongdoing in July 2013 in an unconnected case and sentenced to five years in prison. But his
sentence was suspended several months later.
That same year, he finished in second place in Moscows mayoral elections.
UN urged Myanmar to give citizenship to Rohingya minority
The United Nations General Assembly has passed a resolution urging Myanmar to give citizenship and equal
rights to the countrys Rohingya minority.
The General Assembly expressed what it called serious concern about Myanmars treatment of the minority
group. Many Rohingya are Muslim.
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30/12/2014

[Bodies Recovered From Missing AirAsia ] - [VOA - Voice of America English News]

About 140,000 Rohingya live in dirty, overcrowded camps in Rakhine state. As many as 280 people have died
there in religious unrest since June of 2012.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, does not recognize the existence of the Rohingya ethnicity. Instead,
government officials and many local people say there are illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
The U.N. resolution urged Myanmar to give Rohingya what it called full citizenship. It also asked that they be
permitted to identify themselves as Rohingya. Currently, the government demands that they be called Bangali.
The U.N. urged Myanmar to provide Rohingya with equal access to services -- and to let them return to their
communities with government protection.
This report was based on stories from VOAs News Division. Jeri Watson wrote this newscast for VOA Learning
English. George Grow was the editor.
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Words in This Story

defrauding v. tricking or cheating someone in order to get money; using fraud in order to get money from a
person or organization
tactic n. an action or method that is planned and used to achieve a particular goal
silence n. a lack of sound or noise
Now its your turn to use these Words in this Story. In the comments section, write a sentence using one of
these words and we will provide feedback on your use of vocabulary and grammar.

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