Saturday, June 8, 2013

Today’s class :regular past tense verbs

Xem Video của Sarah về cách dùng động từ quy tắc thì quá khứ nhé.

Reading News: Clegg pledges new regulation to tackle lobbying

Đọc Báo Tiếng Anh  | Nguồn : Daily Telegraph

Sau vụ bê bối gần đây của Quốc hội Anh , Phó thủ tướng Anh Nick Clegg thông báo Vận động hành lang sẽ được kiểm soát và các cử tri sẽ có nhiều quyền hơn để bãi nhiệm các nghị sĩ …

Sleaze _ tieng anh vui

The Daily Telegraph reports Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will announce lobbyists will be regulated and voters will get the power to sack their MPs after the latest sleaze scandal to hit Parliament.

VOCABULARY:

Sleaze :

You use sleaze to describe activities that you consider immoral, dishonest, or not respectable, especially in politics, business, journalism, or entertainment.

The latest, depressing sleaze revelations are only going to increase public cynicism about politics and parliament.

NEWS:

Cash for access: Clegg pledges new regulation to tackle lobbying

By Peter Dominiczak, Political Correspondent

Lobbyists will be regulated and voters will get the power to sack their MPs after the latest sleaze scandal to hit Parliament, Nick Clegg will say.

Cash for access: Clegg pledges new regulation to tackle lobbying

Following disclosures by The Telegraph about MPs and peers taking money from undercover reporters posing as lobbyists, the Deputy Prime Minister pledges to bring in laws to create a “cleaner, better politics”.

Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Clegg says the lobbying scandal has again shown that our “political system has long been crying out for head-to-toe reform”.

His comments came as a peer, Lord Laird, resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party. Two other peers were suspended by Labour after further cash-for-questions revelations.

The MP Patrick Mercer has already quit the Tory party following an investigation by The Telegraph and BBC’s Panorama that revealed he tabled parliamentary questions and motions and offered lobbyists a security pass to the Commons after being paid thousands of pounds.

Mr Clegg says the Government will now introduce laws to create a statutory register of lobbyists and give constituents the “powers of recall” to force a by-election if an MP engages in serious wrongdoing.

In 2010, before he took office, David Cameron identified lobbying as “the next big scandal waiting to happen” in British politics.

On taking office, the Coalition promised to create a statutory register of lobbyists, to ensure the industry was regulated. But after more than three years in office, the Government has yet to fulfil that pledge.

“I know that the absence of the register from last month’s Queen’s Speech raised some concerns,” Mr Clegg says. “So let me be clear: it will happen. The detail is being looked at thoroughly.”

Mr Clegg says he and Mr Cameron are “determined that the register should go ahead” as part of a broad package to clean up politics.

Despite Mr Clegg’s claim of a united position with the Conservatives, many Liberal Democrats blame Mr Cameron’s party for blocking action on lobbying. Lord Newby, a Lib Dem minister, said that the Conservatives and Labour had blocked the creation of a register.

“It’s totally depressing,” he said. “We haven’t met with universal support from other parties.”

Mr Clegg says the “overwhelming majority of lobbying activity is legitimate”. However, “greater transparency” is needed to stop people abusing the system, he says.

Mr Clegg also assures voters that the Government still intends to give them the power to remove MPs who break the law or Commons rules.

Voters are likely to be able to force a by-election if a petition wins the backing of about 10 per cent of constituents.

The Government has previously published a draft of a Bill it says would give voters the ability to sack MPs. But that draft has been dismissed as inadequate by many campaigners, including several MPs, who say party leaders would still have too much influence over a recall vote.

Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative MP for Richmond Park, said the promises of action were inadequate.

“The Government will bring in a version of recall that empowers party bosses not voters,” he said. “On every level, it’s a stitch up.”

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said he would be “astonished” if the Government did not introduce new legislation for a register of lobbyists by the 2015 election.

“We all want it to happen,” Mr Maude told the Sunday Politics programme on BBC One. “It will come into effect.”

While Mr Clegg praised The Daily Telegraph for disclosing the scandal, some politicians said the affair should lead to tougher rules on press regulation.

Lord Soley, a Labour peer, said yesterday there was a “Leveson agenda” behind the investigations into MPs and peers willing to accept money from lobbyists.

He told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend that he had warned his colleagues to “be alert” because the press was “trying to target” MPs and peers.

He said: “I’ve said it to both MPs and peers at times, 'Be very alert at the moment’ because there is a call for proper regulation of the press.

“That doesn’t justify anything that may or may not have happened but I recognise there is a Leveson agenda here.”

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Denise Herzing: Liệu chúng ta có thể nói chuyện với cá heo?


Có cách nào tốt hơn để nghiên cứu một con vật hơn trong môi trường sống tự nhiên của nó? Từ năm 1985, Denise Herzing đã dành thời gian mỗi mùa hè để quan sát cá heo sống hoang dã ở Bahamas trên biển Đại Tây Dương . Công việc cho phép Herzing để hiểu rõ hơn về cấu trúc xã hội, hành vi, giao tiếp của cá heo hiệu quả hơn là trong môi trường sống giới hạn của một bể cá hoặc cơ sở nghiên cứu.
Rõ ràng cá heo , với trí thông minh cao có thể giao tiếp với nhau , nhưng liệu có thể và bằng cách nào con người có thể hiểu ngôn ngữ và giao tiếp với chúng là một câu hỏi thú vị . Denise chia sẻ và thảo luận về khả năng đó trong Video tại TED.

Denise Herzing: Dolphin researcher




Denise Herzing has spent almost three decades researching and communicating with wild dolphins in their natural setting and on their own terms. The book "Dolphin Diaries" tells her remarkable story.






Today’s class | Compound words

A compound word is made when two words are joined to form a new word. Example “newspaper” from “news” and “paper” is compound word .
Learn lesson from Sarah in the video below about compound words.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Nghe Tonya Pinkins hát "My Funny Valentine"



"My Funny Valentine" là bài hát dòng nhạc Jazz được trình diễn lần đầu tiên vào năm 1937 bởi Mitzi Green. Sau khi thu âm bởi Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, and Miles Davis, bài hát trở nên phổ biến và có mặt ở hơn 1300 albums của hơn 600 nghệ sỹ .



Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Sir Edmund Hillary , the first climbers to ever reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Sir Edmund Hillary

5/29, 1953, nhà thám hiểm người New Zealand cùng người dẫn đường Tenzing Norgay  trở thành những người đầu tiên chinh phục đỉnh Everest .Xem Video về câu chuyện chinh phục này .

Vocabulary:

ascent [-nt] n. 

a movement upward

lên cao

summit ['sʌmɪt] n.

the top point of a mountain or hill

đỉnh

nonchalantly adv.

in an unconcerned manner  ( thờ ơ )

conquering ['kɑŋkərɪŋ /'kɒŋ-]

overcome by conquest ( chinh phục )

 

SCRIPT

Sixty years ago today, New Zealand explorer Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to ever reach the summit of Mount Everest. This feat may not seem so significant now, when upwards of 150 people may reach the top of the 29,000-foot mountain on the best climbing day. In fact the summit has become so overcrowded that officials are even debating installing a ladder for descents (to the horror of serious mountaineers). But in 1953, Hillary and Norgay’s ascent was a pretty big deal, you might say.

Xem thêm các bài viết về Lịch sử :

Monday, June 3, 2013

TEWS: Haven't slept a wink: 3 June 13

Zzzz... Neil had a crying child in his room and Feifei had a mosquito in hers. That's why neither of them has slept a wink.



Listen : http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/tae/tae_20130603-1200a.mp3


Popular Posts

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More

 
Design by Free WordPress Themes | Bloggerized by VN Bloggers - Blogger Themes