week5-神鬼獵人

The Revenant Was The Best Directed Movie Of 2015, The Oscars Got It Right

Honestly, it couldn’t have gone to anyone else. This year the Academy Award for Best Director went to Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu for his exemplary work on The Revenant. It was a crowded field and anyone could have won, but at the end of the day the award once again went to Iñárritu. As incredibly easy as it would be to say that we didn’t see this coming, that simply would not be the case.

We really cannot say that we are surprised to hear that Alejandro Iñárritu won this year’s Oscar for Best Director. The Revenant strikes an absolutely perfect balance between technical complexity and beautiful simplicity. We can heap as much praise as we want upon the performances of men like Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, but at the end of the day the most pivotal factor in the creation of a movie as raw and brutal as The Revenant is Alejandro Iñárritu. He’s the man who guides those who create the beautiful cinematography, and he’s the man who directs the perfectly acted scenes.

Honestly, just look at this brief moment from The Revenant to get the smallest understanding as to why Alejandro Iñárritu completely deserves the award for his historical epic this year:

Alejandro Iñárritu’s win makes an unreasonable amount of sense. While The Revenant tells an incredibly simple story, it does so in in equally incredibly complex manner. The job falls on Iñárritu to ensure that actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy deliver believable yet nuanced performances while still maintaining the integrity of a true story. In the beautiful creation of The Revenant, Iñárritu utilized numerous techniques from his previous Oscar win Birdman that became his trademark style. However, unlike Birdman, the techniques he used took place not in a small, contained studio, but outside in a world that notoriously fought back against the production of this film.

I’ve said it before: the fact that a movie was difficult to make doesn’t make it worthy of an Oscar, but a director’s ability to hold everything together and create a work of art as wholly beautiful as The Revenant most certainly is deserving of Oscar recognition.

Of course, that’s the beautiful thing about the world of film: it really isn’t a black and white affair. Who do you think deserved to win this year’s Best Direct Oscar? Let us know what you think in the comments and keep the conversation going!

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Revenant-Was-Best-Directed-Movie-2015-Oscars-Got-It-Right-115217.html

week4-台南地震

Tainan ends search for quake victims

Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) at 4:20pm yesterday announced that the search-and-rescue operation at the Weiguan Jinlong complex in Tainan, which collapsed in an earthquake on Feb. 6, has come to an end, after the body of the last missing resident was found.

According to Central Emergency Operations Center statistics, the death toll from the magnitude 6.4 earthquake yesterday rose to a total of 116, of which 114 occurred at the Weiguan Jinlong complex, with one person who lived near the complex still missing.

The last body, which was recovered at 3:57pm yesterday, was the building’s management committee chairman, Hsieh Chen-Yu (謝鎮宇), who lived in building G, Lai said.

Tainan Deputy Mayor Tseng Hsu-cheng (曾旭正) said the only person still missing after the earthquake is a woman surnamed Lin (林), who lived near the Weiguan Jinlong complex and had a habit of going out to exercise early every morning. Lin’s family has been unable to contact her since the earthquake.

The use of heavy equipment to break up and clear away rubble from the site was authorized in the hope of rescuing everyone as soon as possible, Lai said, adding that experience gained from the recovery work could be used as a reference by the National Fire Administration when considering rescue procedures in the future.

If rescue workers can use heavy equipment to retrieve bodies intact from the rubble, it means that such equipment could also be used to accelerate the search for survivors in sections that search-and-rescue personnel would not be able to reach by themselves, he said.

Even though heavy equipment was ready for use 36 hours after the earthquake, authorities were required to follow regulations and could only allow their use 62 hours after the event, which created a dilemma, Lai said.

The Construction and Planning Administration said it would expand a two-year-old-building examination project, increasing the number of buildings that are to receive subsidies of NT$8,000 for surveys and improvements this year from 500 to 2,000.

Priority is to be given to buildings in the six special municipalities and southern counties, with an emphasis to be placed on ensuring the structural safety of buildings, the administration said, adding that applications for the subsidy might begin as soon as next month.

The project, which is to examine the ability of private buildings to resist earthquakes and provide a subsidy for improvement measures, was planned in July last year, administration Director Hsu Wen-lung (許文龍) said, adding that because of the earthquake, the agency has decided to expand its scale to 2,000 buildings.

Preliminary evaluations are to include checking for cracks on buildings’ beams and pillars and peeling on exterior walls, Hsu said.

Due to southern residents’ concerns about the structural safety of buildings they live in after the earthquake, the administration is to subsidize buildings in southern Taiwan first, he added.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/02/14/2003639340

Structure of the Lead：

      WHO-Tainan Mayor William Lai

      WHEN-  yesterday 

      WHAT-  the search-and-rescue operation at the Weiguan Jinlong complex in Tainan,  has come to an end, after the body of the last missing resident was found.

      WHY-not given

      WHERE-  at the Weiguan Jinlong complex in Tainan

      HOW-not given

Keywords：

1.announce 宣布

2.rescue救援

3.earthquake地震

4.resident居民

5.victim受害者

6.collapse使倒塌

7.equipment設備

8.recover找到

9.structural結構的

10.examination審查

week3-北韓氫爆

N Korea claim of hydrogen bomb test condemned 

North Korea yesterday said it successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen nuclear device, claiming a significant advance in its strike capability and setting off alarm bells in Japan and South Korea.

The test, the fourth time the state has exploded a nuclear device, was ordered by young leader Kim Jong-un and successfully conducted at 10am, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

“Let the world look up to the strong, self-reliant nuclear-armed state,” Kim wrote in what North Korean state TV displayed as a handwritten note.

The reported nuclear test drew condemnation abroad.

While a fourth nuclear test had been long expected, the claim that it was a hydrogen device, much more powerful than an atomic bomb, came as a surprise, as did the timing.

However, South Korean intelligence officials and several analysts questioned whether yesterday’s explosion was indeed a full-fledged test of a hydrogen device.

The device had a yield of about 6 kilotonnes, according to a South Korean lawmaker on the parliamentary intelligence committee — about the same size as the North’s last test, which was equivalent to 6 to 7 kilotonnes of TNT.

“Given the scale, it is hard to believe this is a real hydrogen bomb,” said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defense and Security Forum and a policy adviser to the South Korean navy.

“They could have tested some middle stage kind [of device] between an A-bomb and H-bomb, but unless they come up with any clear evidence, it is difficult to trust their claim,” he said.

Joe Cirincione, a nuclear expert who is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security organization, said North Korea might have mixed a hydrogen isotope in a normal atomic fission bomb.

“Because it is, in fact, hydrogen, they could claim it is a hydrogen bomb,” he said. “But it is not a true fusion bomb capable of the massive multi-megaton yields these bombs produce.”

The US Geological Survey reported a magnitude 5.1 earthquake that South Korea said was 49km from the Punggye-ri site where the North has conducted nuclear tests in the past.

The claim of miniaturizing, which would allow the device to be adapted as a weapon and placed on a missile, would also pose a new threat to the US, Japan and South Korea.

However, the North’s previous miniaturization claims have not been independently verified.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tokyo would make a firm response to North Korea’s challenge against nuclear non-proliferation.

South Korea said it would take all possible measures, including possible UN sanctions, to ensure Pyongyang paid the price after its fourth nuclear test.

“The government must now work closely with the international community to ensure that North Korea pays the commensurate price for the latest nuclear test,” South Korean President Park Geun-hye said in a statement.

“We must respond decisively through measures such as strong international sanctions,” she said.

The EU said that the test, if confirmed, would be a grave violation of international obligations.

NATO condemned the test, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was “extremely worried” and China urged the North to honor its commitment to denuclearization.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/01/07/2003636607

Structure of the Lead：

      WHO-North Korea

      WHEN-  yesterday 

      WHAT-  it successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen nuclear devic

      WHY-not given

      WHERE- not given

      HOW-not given

Keywords：

1.claim聲稱
2.hydrogen氫氣
3.bomb轟炸
4.nuclear核武器的
5.atomic原子的
6.conduct實施
7.mninaturize使小型化
8.commensurate相當的
9.sanction制裁
10.obligation義務

week2-深圳廢土場崩塌

Man found alive in Shenzhen landslide

A migrant worker was pulled out alive yesterday after he was buried for more than 60 hours in a massive landslide that swept through part of a major manufacturing city in southern China.

Shenzhen Emergency Response Office official Rao Liangzhong said that the man, Tian Zeming (田澤明), was rescued at about dawn yesterday. He said Tian was from Chongqing in southwestern China.

“The survivor had a very feeble voice and pulse when he was found alive buried under debris, and now he is undergoing further checks,” Wang Yiguo (王以國) told a news conference in Shenzhen, according to a transcript posted by the district government that covers the area.

State broadcaster CCTV reported that Tian later underwent surgery for a broken hand and on his foot, which had been wedged against a door panel. It said he had been trying to get out of his room when the building collapsed, and the door panel created a space for him to survive.

When they found him, Tian told rescuers his name and that there was another person buried near him, according to the transcript. Another neurosurgeon, Dai Limeng (戴黎萌), told the news conference that he had gone into the rubble and confirmed that the second person had not survived.

More than 70 people are still missing from the landslide that happened on Sunday when a mountain of construction waste material and mud collapsed and flowed into an industrial park in Shenzhen.

The Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources has said a steep mountain of dirt, cement chunks and other construction waste had been piled up against a 100m-high hill over the past two years.

Heavy rain saturated the soil, making it unstable, and ultimately causing it to collapse with massive force in and around an industrial park.

State media reported that the New Guangming District Government identified problems with the mountain of soil months earlier.

The Legal Evening News said a district government report in January found that the dump had received 1 million cubic meters of waste and warned of a “catastrophe.”

Under pressure from the media, officials allowed about 30 journalists, mostly from foreign outlets, to approach an edge of the disaster area. Flanked by police officers, reporters could observe military posts with computers and disease control stations set up for the rescue workers.

Shenzhen is a major manufacturing center, making everything from cellphones to cars, and it attracts workers from all parts of China.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2015/12/24/2003635558

Structure of the Lead：

      WHO-  A migrant worker

      WHEN-  yesterday 

      WHAT- A migrant worker was pulled out alive yesterday after he was buried for more than 60 hours in a massive landslide

      WHY-not given

      WHERE- a major manufacturing city in southern China

      HOW-not given

Keywords：

1.alive活著的
2.landslide山崩
3.pull out度過難關
4.bury埋葬
5.rescue營救
6.collapse使倒塌
7.survivor生還者
8.catastrophe大災難
9.govervent政府
10.manufacturing製造業