The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl is a 2015 British biographical romantic drama film directed by Tom Hooper, based on the 2000 fictional novel of the same name by David Ebershoff and loosely inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. The film stars Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe, one of the first known recipients of sex change surgery, Alicia Vikander as Gerda Wegener, Matthias Schoenaerts as Hans Axgil, and Ben Whishaw as Henrik.

The film was screened in the main competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, and it was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was released in a limited release on 27 November 2015 by Focus Features in the United States. The film was released on 1 January 2016, in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures International.

The film received some criticism for its inaccurate portrayal of historical events, but Redmayne and Vikander's performances received widespread acclaim and nominations for all of the major acting awards. For her performance as Gerda, Vikander won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Danish_Girl_(film)

1.      biographical  (a) 傳記的

2.      recipients (n) 接受者

3.      Venice (n) 威尼斯

4.      portrayal (n) 肖像；描寫

5.      acclaim (n) 喝采

6.      nominations (n) 任命；指派

Zika virus, mosquito, Brazil

Zika fever is mainly spread via the bite of mosquitoes of the Aedestype. It can also be potentially spread by sex and blood transfusions. Infections in pregnant women may also infect the baby and have been linked to miscarriage and microcephaly. Diagnosis is by testing the blood, urine, or saliva for the presence of Zika virus RNA when the person is sick.

Prevention involves decreasing mosquitos’ bites in areas where the disease occurs. Efforts include the use of insect repellent, covering much of the body with clothing, mosquito nets, and getting rid of standing water where mosquitoes reproduce. There is no effective vaccine. Health officials recommended that women in areas affected by outbreaks consider putting off pregnancy due to the2015–16 Zika outbreak and those pregnant women not travel to areas where outbreaks were occurring. While there is no specific treatment, paracetamol (acetaminophen) may help with the symptoms. Admission to hospital is rarely necessary.

The virus that causes the disease was first isolated in 1947. The first documented outbreak among people occurred in 2007 in the Federated States of Micronesia. As of January 2016, the disease was occurring in twenty regions of the Americas. It is also known to occur in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Due to an outbreak which started in Brazil in 2015, the World Health Organization declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in February 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

1.      Via  (v) 通過

2.      Transfusions (v) 輸血

3.      miscarriage (v) 流產

4.      microcephaly (n) 小頭畸形

5.      Diagnosis (n) 診斷

6.      Urine (n) 尿

7.      Saliva (n) 唾液

8.      Repellent (n) 驅蚊

9.      Reproduce (v) 複製

10.  Vaccine (n) 疫苗

11.  paracetamol 撲熱息痛

12.  Acetaminophen對乙酰氨基酚

Japan Korea comfort women deal/agreement 

Japan and South Korea have reached an agreement over the long-standing issue of "comfort women," a term that describes sex slaves used by the Japanese military during World War II.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said his government will give 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) to a fund to help those who suffered.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said that as long as Tokyo sticks to its side of the deal, Seoul will consider the issue "irreversibly" resolved.

In addition, the two governments "will refrain from criticizing and blaming each other in the international society, including the United Nations," Yun said at a joint news conference Monday.

Kishida said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women."

Abe later stated himself: "I think we did our duty for the current generation by reaching this final and irreversible resolution before the end of the 70th year since the war."

1.      yen (n) 日元

2.      sticks to 堅持

3.      irreversibly (adv) 不可逆地

4.      refrain (v) 避免

5.      joint (a) 聯合

6.      anew (adv) 重新

7.      remorse (n) 悔恨

8.      incurable (a) 不可救藥的

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/28/asia/south-korea-japan-comfort-women/

Paris climate change conference

According to the organizing committee of the summit in Paris, the objective of the 2015 conference was to achieve, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, a binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world. Pope Francis published an encyclical called Laudato si'intended, in part, to influence the conference. The encyclical calls for action against climate change. The International Trade Union Confederation has called for the goal to be "zero carbon, zero poverty", and its general secretary Sharan Burrow has repeated that there are "no jobs on a dead planet".

In 1992, governments met in Rio de Janeiro and forged the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That agreement, still in force, bound governments to take action to avoid dangerous climate change, but did not specify what actions. Over the following five years, governments wrangled over what each should do, and what should be the role of developed countries versus poorer nations.

Those years of argument produced, in 1997, the Kyoto protocol. That pact required worldwide cuts in emissions of about 5%, compared with 1990 levels, by 2012, and each developed country was allotted a target on emissions reductions. But developing countries, including China, South Korea, Mexico and other rapidly emerging economies, were given no targets and allowed to increase their emissions at will.

1.      binding (a) 連結的

2.      encyclical (a) 傳閱的；通諭的

3.      wrangled (v) 爭吵

4.   protocol (n) 協議

5.      allotted (v) 分配

6.      at will (adv) 隨意地

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/02/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-paris-climate-summit-and-un-talks

Russian plane, crash, Egypt

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), 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.

1.      uncharacteristic (adj) 異常

2.      subsequently (adv) 後來

3.      wreckage (n) 殘骸；廢墟

4.      coastal (adj) 沿海

5.      scattered (adj) 零落；疏散

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