Week 3 : 丹麥女孩

Einar Wegener would kill himself in the spring. He had chosen a date – May 1, 1930 – after a year spent in torment. The cause of his suffering was quite simple: he was sure he was a woman, born into the wrong body. Or perhaps it was more complicated: sometimes Wegener, whose life is soon to be portrayed on film by the Oscar-winning British actor Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl, felt he was two people in the same body, each fighting for supremacy. 

One was a Danish landscape painter, a steadfast man who, in his own words, “could withstand storms”. He was married to a woman whose strength and talent matched, or perhaps even surpassed, his own: Gerda Wegener, a successful Art Deco illustrator who produced portraits of fashionable women for magazines such as Vogue and La Vie Parisienne.

The other shared none of these qualities. Lili Elbe was, as she set down in letters and notes for an autobiography, a “thoughtless, flighty, very superficially-minded woman”, prone to fits of weeping and barely able to speak in front of powerful men. But despite her womanly defects, by February 1930 she was becoming too powerful for Wegener to resist. “I am finished,” he wrote at the time. “Lili has known this for a long time. That’s how matters stand. And consequently she rebels more vigorously every day.”

As it turned out, Wegener did not commit suicide on the appointed date. In February 1930 he was told of a doctor who might be able to help him – who did, in fact, perform a series of groundbreaking operations that allowed Einar to become Lili. But all the same, by September 1931, Elbe was dead, the victim of a misjudged surgery to transplant a womb into her body. (Ciclosporin, the drug that prevents the rejection of transplanted organs, was first used successfully in 1980, almost 50 years after Elbe's death.)

In the year before her death, Elbe had divorced Gerda, given up painting, and was embarking tentatively on a relationship with a French art dealer. “It is not with my brain, not with my eyes, not with my hands that I want to be creative, but with my heart and with my blood,” she wrote. “The fervent longing in my woman’s life is to become the mother of a child.”

According to her own telling, Wegener’s transition into Elbe began by chance, when one of her wife’s life models failed to turn up. The couple’s mutual friend, an actress named Anna Larsen, suggested that the slight Einar might step in instead. At first she resisted, but eventually she gave in to Gerda’s pleas. “I cannot deny, strange as it may sound, that I enjoyed myself in this disguise. I liked the feel of soft women’s clothing,” she wrote. “I felt very much at home in them from the first moment.” 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/04/14/the-tragic-true-story-behind-the-danish-girl/

Structure  of the Lead :

WHO : 

WHEN :

WHAT :

WHY :

WHERE :

HOW :

Keywords :

1. torment : (n.) 痛苦

2. portray : (v.) 描繪

3. supremacy : (n.) 至高無上的

4. steadfast : (a.) 堅定的
5. surpass : (v.) 勝過，優於

6. superficially : (adv.) 淺薄地

7. vigorously : (adv.) 精神旺盛地

8. tentatively : (adv.) 暫時地

9. disguise : (v.) 偽裝 

Week 2 : 泰王蒲美蓬駕崩

Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej has died aged 88, ending seven decades on the throne during which he became a unifying father figure and rare source of stability in a country that has weathered more than a dozen coups since he came to power in 1946 aged just 18.

A statement from the royal household bureau said Bhumibol, who was the world’s longest-reigning monarch, “passed away peacefully” at 3.52pm (8.52am BST) on Thursday at Siriraj hospital in Bangkok.

Thailand’s prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, dressed in a black suit, appeared on domestic television channels minutes after the announcement to say that the nation would observe a year-long mourning period.

Prayuth confirmed that Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn would ascend the throne, though in a later statement he said there would be a delay in appointing Vajiralongkorn as he had asked for time to mourn with the country.

All TV channels in Thailand, including foreign satellite stations such as the BBC and CNN, have been replaced with black and white royal broadcasts.

Bhumibol had been absent from public life for years. His death throws an already politically turbulent Thailand into a haze of uncertainty that is unprecedented in its modern history.

Most Thais have only known King Bhumibol on the throne and his influence has superseded that of bickering politicians since the closing days of the second world war.

As soon as the palace confirmed the news, the crowd outside Siriraj hospital let out a cry and mourners hugged each other. Some people were wearing yellow – the king’s colour – but many more wore pink, which was named years ago by royal astrologers as a colour beneficial for the monarch’s wellbeing. They had been chanting “long live the king” for much of the day.

Although Bhumibol had been ill for much of the past decade, some people were shocked on hearing he had died. Dozens of mourners who had spent much of the past week at the hospital on the west side of the Chao Phraya river made their way back to central Bangkok dazed and fatigued. “When we saw the news that he was ill, we just hoped it was fake news,” said a woman after stepping off the boat.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/13/thai-king-bhumibol-adulyadej-dies-after-70-year-reign

Structure  of the Lead :

WHO : 

WHEN :

WHAT :

WHY :

WHERE :

HOW :

Keywords :

1. unifying : (adj.) 統一的

2. reigning : (n.) 統治

3. monarch : (n.) 君主

4. satellite : (n.) 衛星

5. unprecedented : (adj.) 史無前例的

6. supersede : (v.) 取代

7. astrologer : (n.) 占星家

Week 1 : 菲國掃毒

Even the most adamant supporters of the war on drugs agree that it is failing. At a major UN summit on drug policy earlier this year, many member states argued forcefully for a more balanced and humane approach. But there’s one anti-drug crusader who refuses to face the facts. For the past six months Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines has waged one of the world’s most vicious counter-narcotics campaigns.

Duterte campaigned for president with a pledge to clean up the drug menace for good. Within days of winning the election he launched a scorched earth approach targeting anyone suspected of being involved in consuming or selling narcotics. During his inaugural address on 30 June, the one-time mayor of Davao city vowed to “slaughter these idiots for destroying my country”.

And kill them he has. The national police estimates that more than 6,000 people were assassinated by law enforcement, paramilitaries and vigilantes since 1 July 2016. The police say that at least 2,000 people were shot and killed by officers in “self defence” during anti-drug operations. Around 33 people are killed for every one person injured, making this the most deadly drug war ever. Another 38,000 people have reportedly been jailed, fuelling a crisis in the country’s overpopulated prisons.

The president exults in the bloodbath. He recently boasted of killing suspectsduring his time as mayor, saying in “Davao I used to do it personally”, suggesting that summary executions are tolerated at the very top.

The president claims to have “cleaned up the streets” of Davao during his roughly two decades in power, calling it one of the world’s safest cities. Although the city is certainly cleaner and features new legislation that improves crime reporting, claims of public safety are vastly overstated. Indeed, publicly available data on crime shows the city posted the highest rates of murder and second highest rates of rape in the country between 2010-2015.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/05/rodrigo-dutertes-drug-war-in-the-philippines-is-out-of-control-he-needs-to-be-stopped

Structure  of the Lead :

WHO : Duterte 

WHEN : 2017

WHAT : 

WHY :

WHERE :

HOW :

Keywords :

1. adamant : (adj.) 堅定不移的、固執的

2. crusader : (n.) 改革運動的鬥士

3. vicious : (adj.) 邪惡的、惡意的

4. menace : (n.) 威脅

5. narcotics : (n.) 毒品

6. inaugural : (adj.) 開始的

7. assassinate : (v.) 暗殺

8. paramilitary : (n.) 準軍事部隊

9. slaughter : (n.) 屠殺

10. legislation : (n.) 立法

Week Nine : 里約奧運

Even Michael Phelps couldn’t imagine an ending this good.

In his final race before retirement, the most decorated Olympian in history led the U.S. to victory in the 400-meter medley relay at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on Saturday.

Phelps finished a career that spanned five Olympics with 28 medals, 23 of them gold. No other athlete in any sport has more than nine gold medals.

Ryan Murphy (backstroke), Cody Miller (breaststroke) and Nathan Adrian (freestyle) joined Phelps on the relay that finished in 3 minutes 27.95 seconds. Phelps dove into the pool on the third leg as the U.S. tailed by .61 seconds. He touched the wall after his 100 meters of butterfly with the relay ahead by almost a half-second.

Phelps retired following the London Olympics -- disappointed with his performance and tired of the sport -- but returned 18 months later in search of a better ending to more than two decades in the pool.

The comeback produced more success than the 31-year-old expected. Phelps captured five gold medals and one silver at these Games, including his fourth consecutive Olympic gold in the 200-meter individual medley and another gold in the 200-meter butterfly.

Phelps looked like the same dominant swimmer who holds three individual world records and revolutionized the sport, only more at ease, comfortable with himself and able to enjoy the moment. At times during the last week, Phelps shook his head in disbelief at the stream of victories. He repeatedly laughed, kissed his son, Boomer, after races and shed tears during some medal ceremonies.

Phelps is more aware of his place in history, too. His feats in the pool inspired a generation of young swimmers. Some of his teammates on this edition of the U.S. Olympic swimming team grew up seeking his autograph or decorated their bedroom walls with his picture. Katie Ledecky, the 19-year-old sensation who won four gold medals at these Games, posed for a photograph with Phelps and got his autograph when she was 9.

The success in Rio de Janeiro fueled speculation that Phelps would relent on retirement once again and return for the Tokyo Olympics in four years. Ryan Lochte, his longtime rival and friend, repeatedly predicted during the past week. Phelps’ mother, Debbie, and fiancee, Nicole Johnson, both floated the possibility, too.

But Phelps has remained adamant that his days in the pool are finished.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-rio-2016-michael-phelps-ends-record-breaking-1471141061-htmlstory.html

Structure of the Lead：
WHO - Michael Phelps
WHEN - 2016
WHAT - Michael Phelps wins gold in final race of career
WHY - not given
WHERE - Rio Olympics
HOW - not given

Keywords：

1. medley : (n.) 混合

2. aquatics : (n.) 水上運動
3. span : (v.) 橫跨，跨越
4. consecutive : (adj.) 連續不斷的
5. revolutionize : (v.) 徹底改革
6. autograph : (n.) 親筆簽名
7. speculation : (n.) 思索
8. adamant : (a.) 堅定不移的

Week Eight : Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go appears to have done something its predecessors on Game Boy and Nintendo DS could not — attract a diverse fan base to the Pokemon universe.

A survey of 1,000 players of the enormously popular augmented reality game by mobile market research firm MFour shows that minorities and women are getting into Pokemon through the app.

Thirty-four percent of respondents said they had never played a Pokemon game before, but that number is higher among certain groups. For 49% of African-American respondents and 40% of Latino respondents, “Pokemon Go” is their first Pokemon game.

That’s compared with 32% of Caucasian respondents and 31% of Asian respondents.

About one-third of respondents were minorities. In general, race or ethnicity have no effect on who plays video games, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center report. 

Thanks to “Pokemon Go,” more women are getting into the franchise as well. Of the 500 female respondents, 47% said they had never played Pokemon before the new mobile game. Among male players, just 21% of respondents were playing Pokemon for the first time. 

Pokemon’s move to new demographics could be good news for Nintendo, which owns a 32% stake in Pokemon Co., which licenses the Pokemon franchise.

Pokemon Go draws an overwhelmingly millennial crowd, with 83% of respondents aged 18 to 34.

Those who play the game aren’t breaking the bank for in-app purchases. Only 26% of respondents have spent on extra “Pokemon Go” features, 62% of whom have dropped $10 or less.  

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-pokemon-demographics-20160718-snap-story.html

Structure of the Lead：

WHO - Pokemon Go
WHEN - not given

WHAT - Pokemon Go attracts diverse crowd of gamers
WHY - Pokemon Go appears to have done something its predecessors on Game Boy and Nintendo DS could notWHERE - not given

HOW - people play the augmented reality game

Keywords：

1. predecessor : (n.) 前輩
2. diverse : (adj.) 不同的

3. augmented : (adj.) 增加的，擴增的
4. ethnicity : (n.) 種族
5. franchise : (n.) 公民權
6. demographic : (adj.) 人口統計學的
7. overwhelmingly : (adv.) 壓倒地
8. millennial : (adj.) 美滿的

Week Seven : 白頭盔

When a bomb comes crashing down on a building, leaving devastation in its wake, they rush towards the site instead of towards shelters. With their bare hands, they search for people in the rubble. They try to pull out survivors who are shocked and wounded, tormented by fear and, not least, the knowledge that civilians long ago stopped being collateral damage, and are precisely the target in this war. These rescuers are Syria’s White Helmets, a group of 3,000 local volunteers. Once tailors or carpenters or students or engineers, they are now dedicated to saving lives when fighter jets and helicopters drop barrel bombs, cluster explosives, phosphorus bombs and chlorine shells on neighbourhoods or hospitals. As the Nobel committee prepares to announce this year’s peace prize, the White Helmets deserve attention.

In Syria’s maelstrom of horrors, it is hard to find anything that points to respect for basic humanitarian principles or even human dignity. The Assad regime has unleashed untold levels of violence on the Syrian population and is being actively assisted by Russia’s military intervention as well as by Iranian-connected ground forces. Jihadi groups have grown, often filling voids left by less well-armed and well-resourced moderates. Civilians are trapped in the middle. In Aleppo, 300,000 people are exposed to a relentless barrage of airstrikes. The Syrian government and Russia now seem intent on crushing Aleppo, the opposition’s last stronghold, before a new American president takes office. Diplomacy has entirely collapsed, with acrimonious exchanges in the UN replacing attempts at a ceasefire.

This is the backdrop against which the White Helmets operate – a western-funded Syrian search-and-rescue organisation whose members put their lives at great risk to save civilians, receiving only a monthly stipend of $150. Danger is made worse by the fact those who bomb routinely resort to double-tap strikes, with fighter jets dropping ordnance and then returning to target rescue teams.

These volunteers know all too well that great power politics, alongside a tyrant’s brutal policies, have brought Syria to the abyss. They entertain no illusions that genuine measures will be taken swiftly to end massacres on a scale unprecedented in decades. The White Helmets do what they can, locally. It’s the very least the west can do to back them. No one should be surprised that Bashar al-Assad has compared these humanitarian activists to terrorists: that’s what he calls anyone who opposes him.

What the White Helmets accomplish may seem like a drop in the ocean, but what they represent is immense: resilience and bravery in the face of barbarism. They are a constant reminder that those targeted by Russia and the Assad regime’s massive bombing campaign in Aleppo are civilians, not terrorists. And they show that individual acts of courage can go a long way to fight indifference. They also embody a spirit of civic resistance – upholding some of the ideals of the peaceful, popular uprising of 2011 and exemplifying courage and solidarity in the face of state-sponsored terror. The international community has utterly failed Syrians, by failing to protect them from mass atrocities. No Nobel peace prize can erase that. But because symbols can be powerful, the White Helmets should be recognised with this award.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/05/the-guardian-view-on-the-nobel-peace-prize-give-it-to-syrias-white-helmets

Structure of the Lead：
WHO - 
WHEN - 
WHAT - 
WHY - 
WHERE - 
HOW - 

Keywords：
1. 
2. 
3.
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 

9.

10.

Week Six : 熊本地震

A more powerful earthquake has rocked the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto in the middle of the night, a day after an earlier tremor killed nine people.

The magnitude-7.3 quake hit at a depth of 10km (six miles) at 01:25 on Saturday (15:25 GMT on Friday) in Kyushu region. At least three people died and hundreds were injured.

A village has been evacuated after a dam collapsed, media reports say.

A tsunami warning was issued, and lifted some 50 minutes later.

Japan is regularly hit by earthquakes but stringent building codes mean that they rarely cause significant damage.

This new earthquake in Kyushu was much bigger and hit a wider area than the one that struck Kumamoto on Thursday night, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo.

In one town near the coast, the city hall has been so badly damaged there are fears it could collapse. A hospital has been evacuated because it is no longer safe.

Thousands of people have fled on to the streets and into parks - where they are huddled under blankets looking dazed and afraid, our correspondent says.

But there are numerous reports of people trapped inside buildings, including at least 60 inside an old people's home.

Public broadcaster NHK says the dam collapsed in the Nishihara village.

Television pictures showed thousands of people filling streets and parks, looking dazed across the region.

NHK had warned of sea waves of up to 1m (3ft).

Japan's nuclear authority said the Sendai nuclear plant was not damaged.

The quake was originally assessed as magnitude 7.1 but revised upwards to 7.3 later.

Gavin Hayes, a research geophysicist with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Colorado, told the BBC that the latest earthquake would hamper the earlier rescue operation that was already under way.

He said more damage could be expected as the earthquake had been shallower and the fault-line had been much longer.

"The ground surface would have moved in the region of 4-5m. So, you are talking very intense shaking over quite a large area. And that's why we'll probably see a significant impact from this event."

The Associated Press news agency said guests at the Ark Hotel near the Kumamoto Castle, which was damaged, woke up and gathered in the lobby for safety.

Thursday's magnitude-6.2 quake caused shaking at some places as intense as the huge earthquake that hit the country in 2011, Japan's seismology office said.

That quake sparked a huge tsunami and nuclear meltdown at a power plant in Fukushima.

Most of those who died in Thursday's quake were in the town of Mashiki where an apartment building collapsed and many houses were damaged.

More than 1,000 people were injured.

Some 40,000 people had initially fled their homes, with many of those closest to the epicentre spending the night outside, as more than 130 aftershocks had hit the area.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36059487

Structure of the Lead：
WHO - 
WHEN - 
WHAT - 
WHY - 
WHERE - 
HOW - 

Keywords：
1. 
2. 
3.
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 

9.

10.