Still Alice

Julianne Moore won an Academy Award for her heart-wrenching performance in "Still Alice," in which she plays a linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

Much has been written about her characterization of a woman struggling with the disease. But there's another reason the performance hits home for millions of Americans, whether they are grappling with Alzheimer's or not. The late Richard Glatzer, who co-directed the film with Wash Westmoreland, named it: "Still Alice," he said, is actually a film about "the real unsung heroes: caregivers."

As the audience journeys with Alice and her family from diagnosis to acceptance and adaptation, we watch her husband and three children struggle to make sense of the changes in Alice. They each adjust in their own way, testing and transforming elements of their relationships. And we see what happens when care becomes -- or doesn't become -- a central feature of these relationships.

The changes in these relationships -- between husband and wife, and mother and child -- yield some of the most provocative, brutal and poignant moments of the film. The care giving relationship is never simple, but the "presence of being" it requires always offers an opportunity for raw honesty and transformation -- both for the individuals involved and the relationship itself. And, in the film, family members grow to become a crucial, if imperfect, circle of care.

This story is familiar to more and more Americans, young and old. Like so many families, Alice's did not have a plan to address such an unexpected diagnosis and must scramble to create makeshift solutions while navigating their own in-the-moment reactions.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/20/opinion/poo-oscars-caregivers/index.html

Structure of the lead:

  Who- Julianne Moore

  When- not given

  What- won an Academy Award for her heart-wrenching performance in "Still Alice," in which she plays a linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

  Why- not given

  Where- not given

  How- not given

Keywords:

1.     linguistics 語言學

2.     Alzheimer's disease 阿茲海默症

3.     diagnosis 診斷

4.     poignant 憂愁

Zika virus

Concerns are growing over the mosquito-borne illness known as Zika virus, which has been spreading through Central and South America and is believed to be linked to a surge in serious birth defects in Brazil.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a travel advisory urging pregnant women to avoid travel to more than 30 countries and territories, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean, where Zika virus is present. Because of the possible link to birth defects, pregnant women who must travel to affected areas should talk to their doctor or other health care provider first and strictly follow steps to avoid mosquito bites during the trip, the CDC said.

The virus reached Mexico in November and Puerto Rico in December, and the CDC has confirmed more than 50 cases of Zika in the U.S., all but one in travelers who recently returned from trips to Latin America. In one case, a person who caught it abroad transmitted it to their partner through sex.

Health officials in Brazil say they've found strong evidence that Zika has been linked to a sudden rise in the number of babies being born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly, which often results in mental retardation.

Brazil's government reports more than 4,000 babies have been born with microcephaly since the Zika outbreak began there, up from fewer than 150 in 2014.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/zika-virus-what-you-need-to-know/

Structure of the lead:

  Who- pregnant women

  When- not given

  What- Zika virus might cause babies being born with abnormally small heads

  Why- not given

  Where- Brazil

  How- not given

Keywords:

1.      mosquito-borne 蚊子傳播

2.      advisory 諮詢

3.      abnormally 異常

4.      microcephaly 小頭畸形

5.      retardation 發育遲緩

Japan,Korea comfort women

On a winding country road, shadowed by South Korea's mountainous countryside, sits a strange building, jutting awkwardly from the cottages and tomato farms around it.

A sweeping arched portico looks down sternly on the narrow lane, from where you can glimpse the striking statues and memorials inside. There's a gravel car park, bigger than the building's nine elderly residents would normally warrant, and leaflets at the door in English, Japanese and Korean.

Because, despite the game shows blaring from the living room television, this isn't your typical retirement home. It's a living museum, known as the House of Sharing, and its statues and plaques tell the story of its residents' unusual lives - as "comfort women" for Japan's wartime army.

The youngest resident is now 84, but as young women during World War II, all say they were forced to work as sex slaves in Japan's military brothels.

Yi Ok-seon is a frail old lady with a walking frame who has difficulty speaking. But her eyes, when you meet them, are still sharp.

She says she was 15 when a Korean and a Japanese man forcibly took her to north-west China, then under Japanese control. She had been begging her parents to send her to school for years, but with a dozen children to feed, they couldn't afford it. At the time she was taken, Ok-seon was working away from the family home.

Once in China, she says she was forced into sexual slavery for three years, in "comfort stations" set up by the Japanese military to service its troops.

"I felt really violated, being tricked and taken like that as a young teenager," she says. "It was like a slaughter house there - not for animals, but for humans. Outrageous things were done."

She shows me old scars on her arms and legs - from being stabbed, she says. A volunteer at the house tells me later that she sustained other injuries from that time, preventing her from bearing her own children.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22680705

Structure of the lead:

  Who- The youngest resident, Yi Ok-seon

  When- not given

  What- forced to work as sex slaves in Japan's military brothels

  Why- not given

  Where- South Korea's mountainous countryside

  How- not given

Keywords:

1.      forcibly 強制

2.      wartime army 戰時軍隊

3.      slaughter house 屠宰場

4.      scars 傷疤

5.      stab 刺

Myanmar jade mine

Myanmar landslide: 90 dead at Kachin jade mine

 

 

BANGKOK — It was known locally as Plastic Village, a sprawling encampment made from tarps and scraps of trash and inhabited by workers who scavenged for jade in the rugged hills of northern Myanmar.

Rescue workers on Monday continued to dig through the remnants of the encampment after a landslide over the weekend buried it along with at least 120 people.

The landslide was Myanmar’s worst jade mining disaster in recent years, highlighting the primitive conditions of an industry that is highly lucrative but notorious for its secrecy and hazardous working conditions.

By Monday, about 120 bodies had been found since the landslide struck in the dead of night early Saturday, according to U Naw Land, the secretary of the Kachin National Social Development Foundation, a charitable organization that helped organize the rescue and recovery efforts.

Another community leader involved in the rescue operation, U Dohtoi, said the number of bodies recovered had overwhelmed the hospital morgue in Hpakant, a commercial hub of the jade mining industry a half-hour drive away.

Kachin State, a mountainous area of northern Myanmar, is home to the world’s most valuable jade, the green rock prized for its luster, especially in China, where most of it ends up. The area is convulsed by fighting between troops from the central government and ethnic Kachin rebels, who are seeking more autonomy as well as income from jade, timber and other natural resources in the state.

The jade mines, off limits to outsiders and often controlled by shadowy companies with links to the heroin and methamphetamine trades, produce mountains of waste that are deposited by the truckload at dumping sites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/world/asia/myanmar-landslide-jade-mine.html?_r=0

Structure of the lead:

  Who- 120 bodies

  When- by Monday

  What- Myanmar landslide

  Why- highlighting the primitive conditions of an industry that is highly lucrative but notorious for its secrecy and hazardous working conditions.

  Where- northern Myanmar

  How- not given

Keywords:

1.     encampment 紮營

2.     tarp 柏油帆布

3.     scavenge 清除

4.     lucrative 有利可圖

Russian plane crash

Russian plane crash: What we know

 

 

The Airbus A321, operated by the Russian airline Kogalymavia, took off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport at 05:58 (03:58 GMT) on 31 October.

At 06:14 Egyptian time (04:14 GMT), the plane failed to make scheduled contact with air traffic control based in Larnaca, Cyprus.

The plane disappeared from radar screens six minutes later while flying over central Sinai. Egyptian authorities said no SOS calls were received by air traffic controllers.

Russia's Interfax news agency cited a source in Cairo as saying "uncharacteristic" sounds were picked up by the cockpit voice recorder before the plane disappeared from radar screens. "The recordings suggest that an emergency situation occurred on board unexpectedly and took the crew by surprise," the source said.

Data released by the flight tracking website Flightradar24 showed that just before the radar signal was lost, the aircraft reached an altitude of more than 33,000ft (10,060m), and then started to descend with a vertical speed of about 6,000ft a minute. The plane's forward speed meanwhile dropped to around 170km/h (105mph), slower than the speed necessary to continue safe flight.

Egyptian military aircraft subsequently located the wreckage of the plane in the Hasana area, 95km (59 miles) south of the Mediterranean coastal town of el-Arish.

Russian officials said the wreckage was scattered across a 20 sq km (7.7-sq mile) area, meaning that the plane broke up in mid-air before falling to earth.

Russia said on 17 November that a "terror act" was responsible for the crash and that "traces of foreign explosives" were found on debris of the Airbus.

UK security service investigators say they suspect someone with access to the aircraft's baggage compartment inserted an explosive device inside or on top of the luggage just before the plane took off.

A US official told AP on 4 November that US intelligence agencies also had preliminary evidence that suggested a bomb planted by the local affiliate of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) brought down the plane.

Militants from that affiliate, known as Sinai Province, said they brought down the plane shortly after it crashed, with a spokesman claiming this was "in response to Russian air strikes that killed hundreds of Muslims on Syrian land". But he did not provide evidence, asserting: "We are not obliged to disclose the mechanism of its demise."

Egyptian officials have said it is too early to draw conclusions on the cause. Both of the plane's "black boxes" have been recovered as part of the investigation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34687990

Structure of the lead:

  Who- 224 people on board

  When- on 31 October

  What- a Russian passenger plane that was brought down by a bomb

  Why- not given

  Where- Russian

  How- not given

Keywords:

1.      uncharacteristic 異常

2.      cockpit 座艙

3.      scattered 零落

4.      inserted 插入

5.      preliminary 初步

6.      jihadist 聖戰