Latest News Clips 2013.04.29

1.      WHO: H7N9 virus 'one of the most lethal so far' CNN    April 26, 2013

Hong Kong (CNN) -- On the same day yet another death was reported in China's bird flu outbreak, the World Health Organization warned the H7N9 virus was one of the most lethal that doctors and medical investigators had faced in recent years.

"This is an unusually dangerous virus for humans," Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health, security and the environment told a news conference in Beijing Wednesday.

"We think this virus is more easily transmitted from poultry to humans than H5N1," he added, referring to the bird flu outbreak between 2004 and 2007 that claimed 332 lives.

"This is definitely one of the most lethal influenza viruses that we have seen so far."

As investigations continue into the possible sources of infection, Fukuda warned that authorities were still struggling to understand the virus. The WHO said China must brace for continued infections.

Fukuda's warning came as Taiwanese health authorities said they've confirmed the first human case of H7N9 in Taiwan -- one they said was imported from China.

A 53-year-old Taiwanese man who worked in eastern China was confirmed to have H7N9 on Wednesday, the Taiwanese Centers for Disease Control said. His condition was described to be severe.

He had been traveling back and forth regularly between China's Jingsu province and Taiwan, health officials said.

"According to the case, he had not been exposed to birds and poultry during his stay in Suzhou (in Jingsu province) and had not consumed undercooked poultry or eggs," the Taiwanese CDC said.

2.      Zao Wou-ki: Painting beyond words (1920-2013) CNN   April 12, 2013

Editor's note: Julia Grimes is a Ph.D. candidate in Chinese modern and contemporary art history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her dissertation examines the early artistic career of Zao Wou-ki.

(CNN) -- The Chinese-French painter Zao Wou-ki once told me that painting expresses the thoughts we struggle to put into words. Faced with this challenge, "It's easier to learn English!" he joked, his wit shining through, even though Alzheimer's disease had already begun its slow, relentless onslaught on his mind.

Zao, widely regarded as one of the foremost Chinese contemporary painters of the 20th century, passed away at his home in Switzerland on Tuesday at the age of 93.

Born in Beijing in 1920, he formed part of the second generation of Chinese artists to turn westward in their search for inspiration. Encouraged by the French-educated Chinese artist Lin Fengmian, his teacher at the prestigious Hangzhou National College of Art (today the China Academy of Art), he relocated to Paris in 1948. Although he did not know it at the time, the move would be permanent, due in part to the rapidly changing political situation in China.

Apart from brief trips abroad, Zao would remain in France until the year before his death, one of the few Chinese artists from his generation to emigrate to Europe. Embraced by France, he was elected to the prestigious Academie des Beaux Arts society in 2002 and received the Legion of Honor in 2006 from then-president Jacques Chirac.

For Zao and his contemporaries, Paris represented the source of modern art. Living there meant direct access to the paintings that he had until then only encountered as black-and-white reproductions in art magazines. An oil painter by vocation, he immersed himself in the riches that surrounded him -- heading directly to the Louvre on the very day he arrived in the city.

Meanwhile, with the assistance of his friend and mentor, noted poet and painter Henri Michaux, and blessed with the warm charm and wit that would impress me decades later, Zao cultivated an extensive circle of fellow artists and cultural figures. In just a few years, he established himself as an integral member of the postwar French art world.

3.      If Syria Is Using Sarin, Obama Must Act

The Bloomberg   2013.04.25

Well, Bashar, now you’ve done it. We’ve seen that killing tens of thousands of your fellow Syrians with conventional weapons is more or less acceptable to the civilized world, as evidenced by the fact that the civilized world hasn’t stopped you from killing tens of thousands of your fellow Syrians with conventional weapons.

But now, if U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is to be believed -- and Hagel isn’t a man looking for excuses to get entangled in theMiddle East -- you have apparently used chemical weapons (the nerve agent sarin, to be specific) on civilians.

If you recall, President Barack Obama drew a “red line” for you: no use of chemical weapons in your brutal attempt to put down the uprising against your regime. Any use of such weapons (even any “moving around” of such weapons) would “change my calculus,” Obama said, “change my equation.” In other words, welcome to the day in which the calculus might just be changing.

Hagel, speaking to reporters in Abu Dhabi, said that U.S. intelligence has come to believe -- like the Israelis, the French and the Britishbefore them -- that President Bashar al- Assad’s regime seems to have used sarin “on a small scale.”

I spoke with Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who said that he thinks the Obama administration is hesitant to face the truth that the Assad regime has already used these sorts of weapons. “Clearly the administration doesn’t want to see this,” he said. “We have lost the confidence of the Arab League and the Syrian opposition because of our inaction.” Rogers said he was convinced at least a month ago that Syria had used a small quantity of chemical weapons against civilians.

Before we get to the meaning and potential consequences of this horrifying news, a brief primer on sarin, which was invented in Nazi-eraGermany for use as a pesticide, and which was most famously used in the Tokyo subway attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in 1995 and against Kurdish Iraqis during Saddam Hussein’s genocide campaign.

Convulsions, Death

Exposure to sarin gas, even in small doses, will cause victims to experience vomiting, diarrhea, an increased heart rate, eye pain and drooling. In larger amounts, the exposure can cause convulsions, paralysis, breathing difficulty and, within a short time, death. Sarin stops the body from controlling muscle and gland functions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and this causes muscles to twitch and breathing to become faster and irregular. Eventually, the body is overwhelmed, and breathing stops. On a single day in 1988, in a single town, Saddam’s forces killed some 5,000 Iraqi Kurds using a combination of mustard gas, sarin, VX and tabun.

Assad has committed many terrible crimes against his people, but if these latest reports are confirmed, he will have entered into the pantheon of the modern era’s worst war criminals, just as Saddam did in 1988. Back then, Saddam was considered an ally by the U.S. (he was in the midst of a war with Iran). So, to the everlasting shame of President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. did nothing to stop his genocide.

4.      The Beauty Market Resists Recession

The New York Times    2013.04.26

LONDON — If you’re of a sensitive disposition, turn away now. Today we’re looking at the phenomenon of fish pedicures.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, these are treatments increasingly available at beauty salons in which clients voluntarily plunge their feet into tanks of tiny fish to have them nibble off the dead skin.

The procedure may be at the yucky end of the eternal quest for youth and beauty, but it has caught on in Europe in recent years, thanks to celebrity endorsements and media coverage.

Now, France’s environmental safety agency, Anses, has issued a warning that, while being chewed by fish might be good for your feet, it could also be bad for your health.

There was a potential risk of contamination from the transmission of human or fish pathogens, according to a report this week, although the agency acknowledged it had no documented cases of infection.

Noting that the treatment, banned in a number of U.S. states but offered by several hundred spas in France, was largely unregulated, it called for more studies to determine the health risks.

The French report focused on the toothless garra rufa, the fish of choice in a procedure imported from Asia. The use of other toothed varieties potentially posed an even greater threat, the agency warned.

The boom in the fishy foot fad appears to provide further evidence that, in a period of much-publicized belt-tightening, European consumers are not prepared to scrimp on their beauty treatments.

In an article this week on the growing popularity of Botox and dermal filler treatments, Fergus Walsh, the BBC’s medical correspondent, said, “The cosmetic procedures industry is booming,”
which, he continued, “in the teeth of a recession it is all the more astonishing.”

Latest News Clips 2012.09.20

1.   China Irks Japan With Patrol-Ship Incursion

The Wall Street Journal      September 14, 2012

Associated Press

A Chinese surveillance ship, front, and a Japan Coast Guard vessel near the disputed islands Friday morning.

Tensions between Japan and China escalated Friday when an unusually large group of Chinese patrol ships entered Japanese territorial waters for a few hours near disputed islands in the East China Sea, as Beijing tried to assert its sovereignty.

The provocative action came days after Tokyo announced plans to purchase three of the contested islands it controls from a Japanese private owner to keep them out of the hands of nationalist Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, who had intended to use the territory to further inflame the situation.

A Chinese surveillance ship, front, and a Japan Coast Guard vessel near the disputed islands Friday morning.

While Tokyo's move was intended to calm Beijing, it instead drew an angry response from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, prompting Beijing to say it planned to send marine surveillance vessels toward the islands.

China's foreign ministry said the ships entered the waters Friday to conduct maritime surveillance and that Beijing was carrying out a mission of "law enforcement over its maritime rights." Japan's coast guard said the ships had all left the area after seven hours, without incident.

2.      Anti-American Protests Flare Beyond the Mideast

The New York Times    September 14, 2012

Anti-American rage that began this week over a video insult to Islam spread to nearly 20 countries across the Middle East and beyond on Friday, with violent and sometimes deadly protests that convulsed the birthplaces of the Arab Spring revolutions, breached two more United States Embassies and targeted diplomatic properties of Germany and Britain.

The broadening of the protests appeared to reflect a pent-up resentment of Western powers in general, and defied pleas for restraint from world leaders, including the new Islamist president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, whose country was the instigator of the demonstrations that erupted three days earlier on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The anger stretched from North Africa to South Asia and Indonesia and in some cases was surprisingly destructive. In Tunis, an American-run school that was untouched during the revolution nearly two years ago was completely ransacked. In eastern Afghanistan, protesters burned an effigy of President Obama, who had made an outreach to Muslims a thematic pillar of his first year in office.

The State Department confirmed that protesters had penetrated the perimeters of the American Embassies in the Tunisian and Sudanese capitals, and said that 65 embassies or consulates around the world had issued emergency messages about threats of violence, and that those facilities in Islamic countries were curtailing diplomatic activity. The Pentagon said it sent Marines to protect embassies in Yemen and Sudan.

The wave of unrest not only increased concern in the West but raised new questions about political instability in Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle East countries where newfound freedoms, once suppressed by autocratic leaders, have given way to an absence of authority. The protests also seemed to highlight the unintended consequences of America’s support of movements to overthrow those autocrats, which have empowered Islamist groups that remain implacably hostile to the West.

3.      Kate and William take legal action against Closer over topless photos

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge seek injunction to force all copies of magazine to be pulled, and launch criminal action

guardian.co.uk,  17 September 2012

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit Tuvanipupu Island on their tour of the Far East. The couple are seeking an injunction and punitive fines at a criminal court hearing in Paris. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are to launch a criminal action in France over topless pictures taken of Kate taken while they were on holiday.

The move comes as they also seek an injunction to force Closer magazine, which published the photographs of the duchess, to withdraw all copies from sale and remove them from its website.

They will ask a judge to make the gagging order under threat of punitive fines at a civil hearing on Monday afternoon at the tribunal de grande instance in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris.

Lawyers for the couple, who will not be at the hearing, will demand that Closer stop "all publication" of the images and that the magazine is removed from kiosks and newsagents. The couple will ask for a fine of €100,000 (£81,000) to be imposed for failure to comply with pulling the magazine and the same amount for failure to remove the pictures from "any electronic and especially digital means of communication". A further €100,000 fine is being demanded for the distribution of the photographs to other publications.

If the magazine drags its feet, the royal couple will seek a punitive fine of €10,000 to be imposed for every day it fails to comply with the order.

In a separate case, they were launching a criminal action, said St James's Palace, over the "taking of photographs of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge whilst on holiday and the publication of these photos in breach of their privacy".

Closer  :八卦雜誌《Closer》
toless picture:上空照
injunction:禁止令
criminal :刑事上的
punitive fines : 懲罰性的罰款
withdraw : 取回
gag : 禁止言論
巴黎大事法院(tribunal de grande instance) 
kiosk:報攤
impose:徵(稅); 加(負擔等)於
comply :遵守,順從
breach: 違反,破壞 (n,vt)

Latest news clips 2012.06.22

1.      Mexico elections: failure of drugs war leaves nation at the crossroads

On 1 July, Mexicans will vote in vital presidential elections. But the issue no candidate dares to address is the cartel violence tearing the nation apart. Diplomats say the time has come to challenge drug policy – but can they get the US to agree?

23 June 2012

Two policemen pass an anti-violence sculpture based on one made by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon, in Mexico City. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

One after another, Mexico's presidential candidates sat in silence amid the grand setting of Chapúltepec Castle while, across the room, the leader of the country's movement of victims of drug war violence – a poet – chastised them.

"The 60,000 dead, the more than 20,000 who've disappeared, the hundreds of thousands of people displaced, wounded and hunted, the tens of thousands of widows and orphans that this stupid war against drugs is costing us, do not exist for you and your parties," Javier Sicilia accused. "For you, the national emergency does not exist." One after the other, the candidates promised action and showed concern, then they left. It was time to get back to the real business of running for president.

The meeting with Sicilia last month was unavoidable, given the moral weight of the movement he represents, but it was also the only time in the entire three-month campaign when the undisputed issue of the day was the drug war ravaging Mexico.

Polls show that most Mexicans consider security, along with the economy, to be the two biggest issues facing their country, but neither has featured particularly heavily. "Everybody asks me where the security issue is. Why the candidates don't talk about the economy. The elephant in the room is President Felipe Calderón's record, and that is hardly talked about," says pollster Jorge Buendía. In Ciudad Juárez, which has just lost its title as the world's most dangerous city, now ranked second, the chronicler of the violence, journalist Julián Cardona, says: "To look at the candidates speak, you would think they were talking about another country."

2.      Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis separate after 14 years

Announcement by Depp's publicist that couple have 'amicably separated' follows months of rumours

Guardian    20 June 2012

Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, pictured at the Academy Awards in 2008. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Johnny Depp has separated from his partner of 14 years, French singer and actor Vanessa Paradis, a representative of the actor said on Tuesday.

"Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis have amicably separated. Please respect their privacy and, more importantly, the privacy of their children," Depp's publicist said in a statement.

The announcement follows widespread reports earlier this year that the couple's relationship was on the rocks, although Depp denied rumours in May of a split.

Depp, 49, began dating Paradis, 39, in 1998, following the end of his relationship with supermodel Kate Moss. The couple appeared together in Roman Polanski's film The Ninth Gate.

Depp and Paradis have two children, Lily-Rose, 13, and Jack, 9, and set up homes in France, Los Angeles, and on a private island in the Caribbean.

The couple never married, although Depp has been married once before, to Lori Anne Allison between 1983 and 1985, and had a high-profile relationship with actor Winona Ryder in the early 1990s.

Depp rose to fame in the 1980s in the Fox television series 21 Jump Street, leading to films including Donnie Brasco, Chocolat, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and numerous collaborations with the director Tim Burton.

Latest news clips 2012.06.22

1.   Armstrong to Face Doping Charges

The Wall Street Journal   June 13, 2012

The U.S. agency that polices drug use in sports has informed Lance Armstrong that it intends to bring formal doping charges against him, in an action that could ultimately cost the retired cycling champion all seven of his Tour de France titles.

In a 15-page letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, told Mr. Armstrong and others that it spoke with "numerous riders, team personnel and others" who "will testify based on personal knowledge" of Mr. Armstrong's alleged doping.

The letter, which paints a picture of a wide-ranging conspiracy by a succession of the country's top cycling teams over a period of years, comes just months after federal prosecutors closed a two-year investigation into Mr. Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service-sponsored cycling team without bringing charges.

As a result of the USADA action, triathlon authorities suspended Mr. Armstrong from competing. The athlete, who focused on the sport after retiring from cycling in 2011, can't compete in triathlons until the charges are resolved.

In a statement, Mr. Armstrong said, "I have been notified that USADA, an organization largely funded by taxpayer dollars but governed only by self-written rules, intends to again dredge up discredited allegations dating back more than 16 years to prevent me from competing as a triathlete and try and strip me of the seven Tour de France victories I earned."

Mr. Armstrong added, "I have never doped."

2.  Greece's super-rich maintain lavish lifestyles and low profiles

      Guardian    June 13, 2012

Since the outbreak of the Greek crisis, the country's moneyed class has been notable mainly by its absence

Locals fear the island of Spetses is at risk of becoming a 'club for the rich'. Photograph: THE TRAVEL LIBRARY / Rex Feature

Nearly three years into their country's worst crisis in modern times, life goes on as normal for Greece's super-rich. As the sun sets, oligarchs, shipowners, singers and media stars gather at the Poseidonion hotel on the island of Spetses opposite the little bay. They tuck into a menu that includes pasticcio laced with foie gras. Among them is a middle-aged man in a T-shirt proclaiming: "More is less".

Three days before Greeks cast their ballots in a make-or-break election, their country could not be more divided. Here there is no talk of the pain of crisis – the only topic of conversation elsewhere in Greek society. The destitution and despair of Athens is a world away – and for many quite clearly it is best kept that way.

Greek shipowners, who have gained from their profits being tax-free and who control at least 15% of the world's merchant freight, have also remained low-key. With their wealth offshore and highly secretive, the estimated 900 families who run the sector have the largest fleet in the world. As Athens' biggest foreign currency earner after tourism, the industry remitted more than $175bn (£112bn) to the country in untaxed earnings over the past decade. Greece's debt currently stands at €280bn.

An estimated €8bn flowed out of the Greek banking system in May as speculation over the country's possible exit from the Eurozone mounted. Another €4bn was reported to have been withdrawn in the last two weeks – on top of an estimated €20bn since the start of the crisis in late 2009. Stories of rich Greeks sending their wives and best friends on "shopping missions" to remove secret hoards kept in banks in Switzerland and Cyprus are legion.