Latest News Clips 2012.06.01

1.      NATO to endorse Afghan exit plan, seeks routes out

China Post   May 21, 2012

Doug Mills/The New York Times

CHICAGO-- NATO leaders will endorse plans to hand over combat command in Afghanistan by mid-2013 on Monday and seek practical progress in opening routes to bring an international army of more than 130,000 back home from an unpopular, resource-draining war.

The strategy for a gradual exit from Afghanistan is aimed at holding together the multinational force and maintaining security in spite of France's decision to withdraw its troops earlier than scheduled.

At a summit in Chicago, leaders of the 28-nation alliance will endorse plans for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to hand over command of all combat missions to Afghan forces by the middle of 2013 and for the withdrawal of most of the 130,000 foreign troops by the end of 2014.

NATO : North Atlantic Treaty Organization 北大西洋公約組織

endorse: 贊同、背書
combat : 戰鬥
drain: 流出、流乾、耗盡
gradual :逐漸的
withdraw :退出、撤回
troop(s):軍隊
summit : 頂峰: 高峰會
 Afghan forces: 阿富汗軍隊

2.      For Healthy Eating, Bitter Is Better

A food developer urges resisting sweet lures and braving taste shocks, new cuisines and despised dishes

The Wall Street Journal   May 25, 2012

As someone who develops new food products, I've been a professional taster for 16 years. I love my job, but I'm constantly frustrated by the unwillingness of most Americans to try foods that challenge their palates.

Getty Images

It can take five to 10 attempts before you reach the point where you don't reject a new food outright.

The tongue is a unique muscle. The best way to exercise it, if you want to make the most difference to your waistline, is not to flex or fatigue it, but to stretch it. Expanding our repertoire of foods isn't just about exploration and new pleasures. It's also the first step toward eating a broader, healthier diet.

We are born loving sweetness, so we heap sugar into our lattes and drown our Chinese food in sweet sauces. But constantly indulging our craving for sweetness has an insidious effect. With each new overly sweet food that we consume, whether it is high in calories or not, we dull our palates to other tastes and flavors, especially those of nutritious fruits and vegetables.

 bitter : 苦的
urge: 督促, 極力主張
lure: 誘餌(n),  引誘(vt)
cuisine: 美食
despise: 看不起、鄙視
frustrate: 沮喪
palate: 味覺
taste:味道, 品嘗
attempt: 嘗試(n), 企圖(vt)
tongue :舌
waistline:腰圍
flex: 使(肌肉)收縮
fatigue: 疲勞(n),使疲勞(vt)
repertoire :曲目
drown :淹沒
insidious : 陰險的,有害的
indulge:沉迷於
crave: 渴望
dull: 平淡乏味的(adj), 使遲鈍(vt)
flavor:味道, 調味

Latest News Clips 2012.05.25

   1.      When ‘Younger’ Skin Is Not a Blessing

The New York Times    May 16, 2012

GROWING up, Eileen Wolter, now 40 and a blogger about stay-at-home motherhood in Summit, N.J., was one of those rare teenagers without complexion concerns. “I had really good skin,” she said. “And I just used Ivory bar soap.”

But in recent years, that skin has gone from picture-perfect to problematic. “I’ve got uneven skin that’s also oily with constant blackheads and cystic acne bumps on my chin,” Ms. Wolter said. And her once-simple regimen now involves a complicated product list: face brush, acne cover-up, face mask, cortisone shots and prescription acne gel, as well as cleansers and lotions to treat both acne and aging.

Ms. Wolter isn’t the only grown-up who feels as if she’s going on 16. More adult women are getting pimples than ever before, according to a study presented in March at the American Academy of Dermatology annual meeting. Today, clinical acne afflicts the complexions of 45 percent of women ages 21 to 30, 26 percent of women ages 31 to 40, and 12 percent of women ages 41 to 50, according to the study, conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Ms. Wolter said she first noticed her breakouts at age 31, “right when I moved cross-country and in with a boyfriend, lost the job and friends I’d had for years, and let my eating habits go awry.”

2.      China Plans Talks With Japan, Korea on Free-Trade Area

Bloomberg    May 13, 2012

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea agreed to start negotiations this year on a free-trade accord between three of Asia’s four biggest economies.

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and South Korea President Lee Myung Bak met in Beijing yesterday as their trade ministers signed an investment agreement described as the “first legal document on trilateral cooperation in the economic field.”

The establishment of a free-trade pact will unleash the economic vitality of the region and give a strong boost to economic integration in East Asia, Wen said yesterday, according to a pool report. China has proposed coastal Shandong province as its base for a regional economic cooperation zone, Wen said, with Japan and South Korea to nominate appropriate locations of their own.

3.      Germany isolated over euro crisis plan at G8 meeting in Camp David

Guardian   2012.05.19

Barack Obama and David Cameron want German chancellor Angela Merkel to set out a clear path forward for Europe

Barack Obama and David Cameron have clashed with the German chancellor Angela Merkel at the G8 summit in Camp David, demanding she set out a clear path for Europe to emerge from its current crisis.

The German leader resisted pressure for fresh measures that would include looser monetary policy for the European Central Bank, enabling quantitative easing similar to that deployed by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.

Obama and Cameron discussed their joint position at a G8 summit in Camp David during a 7am meeting held on a treadmill, possibly the first UK-US bilateral to be conducted in a gym.

With pressure growing for world leaders to come up with a decisive plan for solving the crisis, it emerged the Germans were resisting the inclusion of details in the final communiqué about the best course of action for the eurozone.

谢孟媛英文發音

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODQzMjUxMTI=.html

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODQzMzE0NjA=.html

Latest news clips 2012.05.18

   1.      JPMorgan loss: Ghost of the credit crisis

CNN     May11, 2012

  

(CNN) – JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon shocked Wall Street just after the market closed Thursday with news that the company had lost $2 billion since April 1 on trades in credit default swaps.

Sound familiar? It should. Credit default swaps based on housing mortgages created the tinder that was ignited by rising home defaults to create the conflagration of the 2008 financial crisis.

Trading in derivatives such as credit default swaps were designed to hedge against risk. But as we know, banks and other market players used these tools to create products that seemed to take the danger out of risky bets and reaped huge rewards - right up until the moment they didn’t. Banks and other businesses were stuck on the wrong side of the trade, trapped with a mountain of debt they couldn’t pay.

Speaking on a Thursday conference call – which the Financial Times’ Alphaville called “the most excruciating bank conference call we’ve ever heard”
                                             極痛苦的 難忍受的
 – Dimon said JPMorgan's losses stemmed from trades designed to hedge
                                                          起源於, 由...而造成[
 against risk, but those trades went awry due to "errors," "sloppiness" and "bad
                                                   出錯、出問題                              散漫、馬虎; 凌亂    
 judgment." It doesn’t help that, just a month ago, Dimon decried the build-up 
                                                                                               decry 譴責
of credit default swaps at JPMorgan’s London office, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, as a “tempest in a teapot.”

                                            暴風雨               察壺    

2.  Why aren't more students doing sandwich courses?

    Guardian    2012.04.30

There's no substitute for hands-on experience. Photograph: Andrew 
                   替代品
Brookes/Corbis

A year in industry puts theory into practice and prepares students for the workplace – yet sandwich courses are in decline

                                                                                     下降               

Nowadays everyone is scrambling for work placements. Even unpaid 
                                        scramble 爭奪, 搶奪      佈置
internships are oversubscribed. Meanwhile employers say recent graduates 
實習醫師的地位
are lacking work skills. Why then, are sandwich courses in decline?

Sandwich degrees – vocational courses where students spend a year working within their industry – are meant to introduce you to the world of work and complement university learning. Sounds good, right? Yet despite the advantages of sandwich degrees, there has been a steady fall in the numbers 
                                                                                       穩固的
enrolling on such courses.

 登記
………….

But why don't more universities offer placement years – and in a broader range of courses? Employers' reluctance to spend time supervising students is 
                                         不情願、勉強                              監督; 管理
partly to blame, says Warwick University professor Kate Purcell, an expert in 
              責備
the graduate labour market.

"Work placements are very difficult for universities to set up and they're expensive for to run – departments have to arrange visits by academics, and 
                                                                                                     大學生
mentoring, to ensure students are having a rewarding experience."

  顧問導師指導
………..

But it's not just a handy nugget to add to the CV. My industry placement has 
                方便的、手邊的   珍品、金塊
been about experience and discovery, empiricism and experimentation. This 
                                                                 經驗主義            實驗
year has given me confidence, memories, direction and assurance – and being paid has helped too. When I finally return to university for my final year I will no longer be a student, I'll be a scientist.

 

3.  Resource-Rich Canada Looks to China for Growth

The Wall Street Journal   May 13, 2012

Reuters

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, center, inspects a guard of honour 
                                                                                   審查、視查
with China's Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing in February.

VANCOUVER—For almost a century, Canada's economy has been firmly 
                                                                                                                  穩固地
tethered to its much larger southern neighbor. Now, Canadian officials and 
 拴
executives also are betting their future on China.

For almost two centuries, the U.S. has been Canada's most important trading partner. Now China is gaining ground. Video and reporting by WSJ's Chip 
                                     抬頭、前進
Cummins.

Canada's economic reliance on the U.S. has ebbed for decades amid 
                                                                            ebb 衰退, 衰落
sporadic efforts to diversify. But weak demand from a prolonged economic 
  零星分散的             多樣化                                             拖延的
downturn south of the border has accelerated the move, sending Canadian 
                                                        加速
companies looking for new markets.

Climbing oil production in the U.S. is upending American demand for Canadian hydrocarbons. That has spooked Ottawa, suddenly worried about finding buyers for its own growing crude exports, almost all of which now flows to the U.S.

The shift is sharpest here in Western Canada, rich in resources and closer to China. Last year for the first time ever, British Columbia sent more exports to the Pacific Rim than to the U.S. Chinese investors have beat out U.S. investors in Canada's oil patch every year since 2009, pumping $12.8 billion into companies and projects since then, according to Dealogic. British Columbia and the federal government have embarked on a massive push, spending billions of dollars, to retool the country's infrastructure to facilitate more trade with Asia.

On a national level, Canadian officials say they expect America will always be Canada's biggest trading partner. Last year, the U.S. accounted for 67.7% of Canadian trade, measured by the value of exports and imports. That is down from 80.8% 10 years ago. Asia's share of Canadian trade stood at 15%, up from about 9.5% a decade ago. China's share alone came in at 7.2% last year.

Latest news clips 012.05.11

1.      Voter Anger Sweeps Europe

The Wall Street Journal   May 06, 2012

PARIS—French voters elected Socialist Party candidate François Hollande as president Sunday, choosing a national leader who has pledged to shift the burden of economic hardship onto the rich and to resolve the protracted euro sovereign-debt crisis by softening the current prescription of austerity.

With his victory over conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in the second and final round of voting, Mr. Hollande—France's first Socialist president in 17 years—won a mandate to challenge German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has imposed spending cuts as the main remedy to repair the public finances of heavily indebted European countries.

Mr. Hollande's first steps will have big implications. Both recession and unemployment are spreading across the 17-country monetary union, fueling doubts among voters, politicians and economists about the wisdom of slashing public spending in a downturn, which Ms. Merkel and others say is necessary to restore confidence in euro-zone public finances.

The growing malaise was also reflected Sunday in Greece, where voters delivered a stinging rejection of the two incumbent parties, with many people casting ballots for smaller, far-left and far-right parties.

2.  The Trust Molecule

The Wall Street Journal   April 27, 2012

Why are some of us caring and some of us cruel, some generous and some greedy? Paul J. Zakon the new science of morality— and how it could be used to create a more virtuous society.

Why are some people trustworthy, while others lie, cheat and steal? Part of the answer may reside in a hormone called oxytocin. Claremont Graduate University's Paul Zak talks with WSJ's Gary Rosen about how a "vampire wedding" helped him understand how this chemical works to control trust, empathy and virtue.

Could a single molecule—one chemical substance—lie at the very center of our moral lives?

Research that I have done over the past decade suggests that a chemical messenger called oxytocin accounts for why some people give freely of themselves and others are coldhearted louts, why some people cheat and steal and others you can trust with your life, why some husbands are more faithful than others, and why women tend to be nicer and more generous than men. In our blood and in the brain, oxytocin appears to be the chemical elixir that creates bonds of trust not just in our intimate relationships but also in our business dealings, in politics and in society at large.

To trigger this "moral molecule," all you have to do is give someone a sign of trust. When one person extends himself to another in a trusting way—by, say, giving money—the person being trusted experiences a surge in oxytocin that makes her less likely to hold back and less likely to cheat. Which is another way of saying that the feeling of being trusted makes a person more…trustworthy. Which, over time, makes other people more inclined to trust, which in turn…

3.  Samsung Heirs Stage a Korean Soap Opera

New York Times   April 24, 2012

SEOUL — Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of the largest South Korean business conglomerate, Samsung, and the country’s richest man, is not known for being talkative. Partly because of his reticence, what few public remarks he makes are studied by his reverential employees with the same zeal that devout Christians might apply when parsing biblical quotations.

These days, however, Mr. Lee, 70 — perhaps the country’s most exalted business leader — is displaying a wholly different side, allowing himself to be caught up in a spectacular, all-too-public squabble with his elder brother and a sister over the fortune amassed by their father, the late Samsung founder, Lee Byung-chull.

On Monday, the elder brother, Lee Maeng-hee, called his younger brother “childish” and “greedy.” On Tuesday, the Samsung chairman said of his brother: “He says with his own mouth that he is the eldest son of our family, but no one in our family, including myself, regards him as such. In fact, I have never seen him showing up for the family ritual for our father’s anniversary.”

That is about the worst thing one can say publicly about a son, particularly the eldest son, of a Korean family in this Confucian society, where the annual rite for deceased ancestors is considered to be the most sacred duty of children.

“These guys are better than Korean soap operas,” Tom Coyner, a management consultant based in Seoul who is the author of “Doing Business in Korea,” said of the gossip the family feud has inspired.