CNN news 2013-02-27 加文本

cnn news 2013-02-27

Hi, welcome to a new week of cnn student news. I'm Carl Azuz. Fris up today, a little history in the making, four of these famous frist were heading over to South Korea. As of today, that country has a brand new leader, Park Geun-hye is 61 years old, she won the presidential election last December and by now you probably guess why her win is historic.

Park is South Korea's first female president, but it's not the first time she's been connected to the South Korean presidency. In fact, her experience around this job started when she was younger than all of you.

Well the world may not know much about South Korea's first female president. The life of Park Geun-hye and her family fill her nation's history books. Born into politics, her father Park Chung-hee was described by some as the country's first dictator. He seized power when the military took control of the government in 1961. Park was just nine years old then, her father would rule South Korea with an iron fist for the next 18 years, overseeing huge economic growth as well as human rights abuses. Personal tragedy hit Park Geun-hye while she was studying in overseas in 1974. Back in Seoul, her mother was shot by someone loyal to North Korea, the bullet was intended for Park's father. The failed assassination attempt drastically changed the course of Park Geun-hye's life. Her dreams of being a professor was set aside, she had act as South Korea's first lady, putting the nation's interest above her own. Five years later, there was another assassination attempt on her father, this time it was successful, his intelligence chief shot him in a dinner party saying he wanted South Korea to become a free democracy. It was two decades later that Park Geun-hye decided to return to the public spotlight and launch her own political career. And then last December, as head of the Conservative Party, the 61-year-old, who never married and doesn't have children was elected president with an overwhelming majority.

One of her major challenges as the president will be dealing with North Korea. She met the late Kim Jong-il in 2002 in an attempt to end the bad blood between the two family. Park Geun-hye says she wants to resume talks with North Korea and restart the aid program on the conditions that North Korea abandons its nuclear weapons program. But after its third nuclear test, analysts believe North Korea leader Kim Jong Un clearly isn't interested.

Heading to Japan for our next story. Engineers there getting rid of an old hotel in Tokyo.

But not like that, they're trying a different demolition approach, say hello to the incredible shrinking building. This hotel is 40 stories tall and the engineers are taking it away one story at a time. May not look like much on the outside but check out what's happening on the inside. The crews go floor by floor using temporary jacks, those hold up the higher floors while the workers take out beams, support columns and debris, then the jacks lower what's left and the crew moves on, why do it this way? It's a lot quieter than a standard demolition which keeps the neighbours happy. And new chance of an implosion damaging other buildings. It's also more expensive and it takes longer, in this case, and estimated six or seven months.