Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Lost in Libya's Turmoil: Workers from the Third World

Lost in Libya's Turmoil: Workers from the Third World


By Abigail Hauslohner / Benghazi Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011

TIME MAGAZINE


Foreign workers wait in queues in Benghazi, Libya, on Saturday, Feb. 26, hoping to evacuate the country.

Grammar- Tenses

Aziz has no passport, no money and a lot of anxiety. He spent months making his way illegally northeast from West Africa, bypassing other conflicts, to get away from his own war-torn nation of Liberia and find something better in oil-rich Libya. "I was looking for survival," he says of the long desert journey from Sudan. For a year, he found it, earning a meager wage as a car washer in the town of Kish. Now, waiting in line at Shehada Jazeera School in the Libyan port city of Benghazi, he's running for his life all over again.

The Libyan revolution 1. ___________( just enter) only its second week of turmoil. But tens of thousands of expatriates 2. __________( already flee) the country — spilling over the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, out of Tripoli on chartered evacuation flights and into the port at Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, which is now under rebel control.

In late February, foreign embassies 3. __________(scramble) to evacuate their nationals as fighting rocked the capital and other cities along the country's coast. On Feb. 25, a U.S.-chartered ferry 4. _________(evacuate) more than 300 people, including 167 Americans, from Tripoli to Malta. British military aircraft evacuated 150 oil workers from the Libyan desert on Feb. 26, and the embassy 5. ______(charter) other aircraft from the capital. China says it has so far evacuated 12,000 Chinese workers out of some 33,000 believed to be working in the country.

On Saturday, Feb. 26, in Benghazi, a lone British diplomat 6. ________(scan) the lines of Chinese and Bangladeshi workers who  7. __________( queue) in a cold Mediterranean drizzle, amid the overpowering stench of raw sewage, to board two Greek cruise ships that  8. __________(dock) overnight to evacuate more people. Sent by the British embassy in Tripoli, the diplomat said he  9. __________(scour) the city for British citizens who still needed help. Finding none at the port, he got back into his car and drove off. Later, the ships departed, carrying only the Chinese workers; the hundreds of Bangladeshis who 10. ________(wait) for hours were left behind, many of them in tears.

Indeed, for those holding passports from the developing world, the situation is increasingly grim. Thousands of workers from South Asia and West Africa are stranded here, many without passports or any cash and with nowhere else to go. Crowding the floors of buildings inside the port are Indians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Thais and Filipinos. Most, like the Bangladeshis, 11. _________(abandon) by their construction companies. Their Turkish and Chinese managers have escaped without them, and their home countries are too poor, unorganized or anarchic to lend a hand. "We spoke to the Turkish consulate, and they said they would only take the Turkish people," says Idris Shebany, 42, a Libyan businessman turned volunteer who has set up camp at the port to help the foreign refugees, with a sigh. "The others 12. ________(be) no ambassadors, no consuls," says another volunteer, Hayan Salaama, as he shakes his head.

In the absence of a functioning government or international aid organizations, it is Libyan volunteers like Shebany and Salaama — many of them businessmen and doctors in the opposition-held port city — who  13. _________(take) on the difficult task of helping the foreign workers who have been left behind make their escape from chaos. They 14. __________(set) up a makeshift clinic and gathered blankets and mattresses, and they are churning out three meals a day for the foreign workers crowding abandoned offices and storage rooms. One man who normally sells women's clothes  15. __________(pick) up an AK-47 to guard the camp.

Shebany says that roughly 5,000 to 6,000 new foreigners have been arriving every day, many of them packed into buses or trucks. Most so far — Chinese, Turks, Americans and Europeans — have gotten out, the Chinese abandoning an entire battery of cars and trucks in their wake. A muddy field at one end of the port, where people making a quick exit had recently been camped, is scattered with shoes and discarded clothing.

On Saturday morning, 800 Filipinos and 400 Indians arrived from the desert towns of Jalu and al-Kufrah, Shebany says. But it's impossible to get an exact head count. "After an hour, it could be 2,000 to 3,000. We don't have a list, and at any minute, more buses could arrive." He tried asking the Egyptians if they could take any of the foreign nationals over the border. Their response was no.

VOCABULARY

Find the correct word from the passage for each of the following meanings given below.

1.  looking or sounding very serious.     ________________

 2. situation in which groups of people or organizations are involves in serious disagreements ot arguments.     __________________

3. an attempt, by a large number of people, to change the government of a country, especially by violent actions.   ______________

4.  a state of great anxiety or confusion.     ____________

5.  a person who fights against the government of the country.    __________

6. to move people from a place of danger to a safe place.   ____________

7.  a person whose job is to represent his or her country in a foreign country. _____________

8.  to leave somebody in a place from which they have no way of leaving.   _____________

9.  a situation in a country or organization in which there is no government, order or control.      ______________

10. the building where a consul works. A consul is  a government official who is the representative of his country in a foreign city.     _____________


ANSWERS-Grammar- 1. has just entered    2. has already fled   3. scrambled     4. evacuated

5. chartered   6. scanned   7. were queuing   8. had docked   9. was scouring

10. had waited    11. have been abandoned   12. have   13. have taken

14. have set   15. has picked

Vocabulary- 1. grim   2. conflicts   3. revolution   4. turmoil   5. rebel   6. evacuated    7. diplomat    8. stranded   9. anarchic   10.consulate

Blade Runner from Readers' Digest

Blade Runner


Oscar Pistorius is forcing the world to rethink what it means to be disabled



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The view from high in the athletics stadium shows tiny figures moving on an orange track; the Italian voice-over welcomes TV viewers to the 2007 Golden Gala meeting in Rome. Suddenly the screen fills with a close-up of two strange, curved, shiny objects. Blades. They are South African paraplegic sprinter Oscar Pistorius's "legs". The visual effect is startling. The viewer is left in no doubt that these carbon-fibre artificial limbs are the main event at this gathering. The blades seem like alien energy sources; as menacing as unsheathed scimitars. The sense of otherworldliness grows when one sees that the other athletes have normal legs.

Nonetheless, the rational mind informs us that these are artificial pegs that cannot match a complex and dynamic interaction of sinew, blood vessel and muscle. The idea is strengthened when the starter says "On your marks", and Pistorius is ungainly as he crouches in his lane. The gun sounds and he thrusts forward; but he's slower than the rest of the field, taking shorter strides, looking unbalanced. He's in an outside lane of the staggered start of the 400-metre event and soon all his rivals have caught and passed him. It's no contest and sympathy wells in the onlooker.

Then something happens. Pistorius seems to steady himself, push out his chest, gather all bodily power into his solar plexus and ram it down into his hips and thighs, defying fate and spurning pity. And he takes off. It is amazing to watch. "Blade Runner" starts overtaking runners down the stretch, one by one, then hurls himself at the finishing line. Second. Achieving silver at a European Golden League athletics meeting is a notable achievement for anyone, let alone a disabled runner. The video of the race - titled The Fastest Thing on No Legs - fast became a YouTube favourite. Everyone was agog.

Well, not quite everyone. Some able-bodied athletes didn't like the look of those blades from behind. And international athletics officials were worried. How can a man with no legs run as fast as top able-bodied athletes? What would happen if this guy won a major race, an Olympic medal?

Legalistic minds started whirring and honed in on the weapons of "crime" - those gleaming blades, officially known as Ossur Cheetahs. Biokinetic testing was ordered, and the artificial legs were deemed to give Oscar Pistorius an advantage. He was banned from running against people with no physical disability. The irony had a black humour to it.

Oscar Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius in Johannesburg in 1986 and attended Constantia Kloof Primary School. He was, by all accounts, a normal, happy child, if anything more cheerful and exuberant than most. The fact that he'd been born without fibula bones and had his legs amputated below the knees at the age of 11 months seemed to have had little adverse effect on his sunny personality. He handled the curiosity and childish cruelty of his peers with remarkable equanimity.

An anecdote told by his grandmother illustrates the child's upbeat attitude. When the nine-year-old was fitted with new prosthetics, with toes on them for the first time, he arrived to visit her, leaning from the car window, waving the legs in the air and yelling ''Look at my toes.'' But even as a boy, steely determination was evident. In an interview, father Henke said he always knew his son could succeed in anything he put his mind to. When he reached his teens, Pistorius chose to become a boarder at Pretoria Boys High School, about 50 kilometres from home. He took to sports in a big way, acknowledging no barrier to participation. He tried everything, but it was the rough and tumble of rugby that he enjoyed most, and the game played a fateful role. In 2003, he tore ligaments in his left knee during a game and was sent to the University of Pretoria's High Performance Centre for rehabilitation with coach Ampie Louw. The exercises included sprints, and his therapist immediately spotted singular speed.

After just six months of athletics training, Pistorius was deemed competitive enough to travel to a United States paraplegic athletics meeting. There he caused a sensation by beating 11-times world champion sprinter, Brian Frasure, in the 200-metres event. Three months later, in September 2004, Pistorius won a gold medal and broke a world record in Athens at the Paralympic Games.

World championship medals were a formality, and these days Pistorius is in a class of his own in paraplegic sprinting. The 400-metres is his best event, but he also dominates in the 200-metres and 100-metres. But he's quick to point out that 95 percent of his racing to date has been against able-bodied athletes. In 2005, he dared to line up in the South African open athletics championships - and finished sixth in the final. In the 2007 renewal he won the silver medal.

International competition in open company was the obvious next step, which is how that fateful televised race in Rome came about. On the back of that, he ran in another top meeting in Sheffield, England, where he finished last. He has no excuses, just points out that the field included the top four able-bodied 400-metre runners in the world currently, including Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner. The race was "a great stepping stone" and "the sort of challenge I want". He'll be better, faster, next time. But there might not be a next time.

When it became clear that Oscar Pistorius's ultimate target was to compete in the Olympic Games, alarm bells rang.

Concern was voiced that his blades actually propelled him faster than flesh-and-blood legs would. Athletes who'd spent years preparing to win an Olympic medal started imagining the "snick, snick, snick" sound of Pistorius's Cheetahs was actually a giant pair of scissors snipping away at their dreams. Officials feared recriminations - and lawsuits. Arguments against Pistorius's participation in open company are that he doesn't have calf muscles, which tire markedly towards the end of a long sprint. Also, it is difficult to equate the length of Cheetahs to a human leg and they could give a longer stride than a normal leg. And then there is the perceived "spring effect". The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ordered scientific testing of Pistorius and his blades. This was done in Germany in late 2007, and shortly thereafter the IAAF said all paraplegic runners could no longer participate in its able-bodied events.

The culprits - the Cheetahs - are manufactured by Icelandic firm Ossur, which has been in the prosthetics business for more than 30 years. They are very different from modern "walking" legs that have mechanical joints and microprocessors to operate them. These carbon-fibre swoops are simple and graceful, like a cat's back legs, and withstand enormous tensions. Pistorius helped Ossur's technicians refine the blades to their present excellence - destroying prototypes along the way - and they are now used by all the world's leading disabled runners. Pretoria University's High Performance Sports Centre is a riot of activity and sound during orientation week. This is where Oscar Pistorius has chosen to be interviewed; a place where he's comfortable. It's where his athletic potential was discovered and where he now trains.

He smiles at the youthful throng and murmurs approvingly of the hordes of pretty girls. In the coffee shop he orders tuna mayonnaise on brown bread - not much mayo, no chips, training for the Olympics.

In this setting, Pistorius looks like just another student, not someone at the centre of an international athletics rumpus. There's no hint of a limp, or the artificial legs in his faded jeans, as he saunters down the concourse. He's a celebrity here; people hail him with a star-struck look in their eyes. Young women go out of their way to say hello and get noticed. But the casual look, the polite and friendly demeanour, belie a very determined man on a serious mission.

Pistorius has just returned from Europe where he met lawyers and media representatives. These people will be critical to his challenge to the IAAF's ban on him competing in open athletics events. He has lodged an appeal against the IAAF ruling with the international Court of Arbitration for Sport and is being backed by Brian Frasure, the American athlete whose world record he broke. They fly the flag for all paraplegic athletes around the world now affected by the ban. Key to the appeal is a conviction that the IAAF's testing was scientifically flawed and that evidence from more comprehensive biokinetic measurements shows that the blades confer no advantage. On Pistorius's side are leading American biokineticists Hugh Herr, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Robert Gailey, of the University of Miami. But so far the views of these scientists have failed to sway the IAAF.

The appeal court date was set for April 28-30, 2008. Regardless of the outcome (not known at the time of going to print) Pistorius has accepted that the slow turning of justice's wheels means he will probably not have enough time to qualify for this year's Beijing Olympics. The last chance to qualify for the South African Olympic team was mid-April. Even then there is the small matter of him running a time fast enough to gain automatic entry to the Games. At present his best 400-metre time is 46.3 seconds and Olympic qualifying is 45.5 seconds. He is confident he can go that low - but probably not without the open competition from which he is currently barred. Now the appeal has become about winning the right to compete at the London Olympics in 2012.

In the meantime, the first goal is the Paralympic Games in Beijing in August - for which he is training like a demon. "It's going to be huge," he observes, counting off gold medals - and world records - in 100, 200 and 400 metres as the target.

Ampie Louw is an archetypal athletics coach. He could be a character from a South African Chariots of Fire with his grounded Afrikaner sensibilities. In his 30 years of training athletes, he's seldom seen a born champion like Pistorius. ''He doesn't settle for second best and has a total will to win.'' Then there's Pistorius's determination, and his maturity. ''I met him when he was 17, but he was already a grown-up,''

Louw muses. A typical training day sees Pistorius rising at 6am or 7am, after eight or nine hours of sleep at his Pretoria home. He has breakfast (which is approved by his nutritionist) and then heads for the High Performance Centre - a 15-minute journey on his Honda CBR superbike. Gym work, principally strength training, lasts until 11am. Then there are "commitments" - like media interviews and meetings with sponsors and clients. There is a long list of sponsors to cater for - from Chevron Oil, Nike and Oakley to Nedbank, Volvo, Nashua and others.

There are frequent consultations with Team Oscar - agent, physiotherapist, dietician, biokineticist, strength trainer, psychologist . . . Actual running only starts at 3.30pm: hours of track work aimed at improving speed and stamina. At 6pm it's back to the gym for half an hour of cycling to ''warm down'' and burn off lingering calories in the system. Keeping weight off is as important as eating enough to fuel the training.

Then he relaxes for a couple of hours. Or goes jolling. Coach Ampie Louw told Wired magazine that the biggest obstacle in the way of Pistorius's ambitions was his hectic social life. A wide circle of friends - from Springbok rugby player Pierre Spies to varsity nerds - doesn't preclude him from finding time for his family, with whom he has always been close. His father Henke, who once ran a family business, now lives in St Francis. His mother, Sheila, died six years ago from an allergic reaction to medication.

Pistorius credits much of his positive life philosophy to the influence of his parents. His father taught him that whatever he did he should do to the best of his ability, while his mother instilled in him an abiding belief in that very ability. ''There is nothing an able-bodied person can do that I can't do,'' he says with offhand certainty. His father still provides support, and Pistorius says he draws strength from his memory of his mother's wisdom in every race he runs.

Then there are his siblings, older brother Carl, 23, and Aimée, 18. The trio share a strong bond. "We are completely one in all the things that count in life," Carl confirms. For his part, Carl says his brother is not so much a best friend as his "shadow". "If there is one person who has always got my back it's my boet." Pistorius was a "hooligan" of a younger brother. "And nothing much has changed," laughs Carl, but adds: "He also has a deep side; massive compassion for people."

Among Carl's abiding memories of their childhood is when he and Pistorius - eight and six at the time - undertook a marathon swim across a lake near the family's holiday home in the former Eastern Transvaal to test out homemade flippers their father had fashioned for the younger Pistorius boy. It was an endurance feat that astonished even the youngsters. He also recalls hilarious moments in which Oscar's artificial legs played a key part in pranks played on unwitting strangers. ''Oscar was always my equal physically. He never sat down, he always came to the party.''

If you want a glimpse of the "fire" that powers the Oscar Pistorius engine, try asking him if he has considered reducing the efficacy of his blades to satisfy the athletics authorities. The response is instantaneous, with a hint of irritation: ''I'm already at a disadvantage. Why should I put myself at more of a disadvantage?'' Retreat is a last resort.

It has been said that Oscar Pistorius is forcing the world to rethink what it means to be disabled. He's not about to let up on that now.

The Olympic 400-metre qualifying time of 45.5 seconds would be a personal best for Pistorius, but it would probably only get him into the second round of heats at the Games, nowhere near a final, where the winner will clock around 43 seconds. So is the "Blade Runner" any real threat to potential medalists?

Rules are rules and have an inalienable purpose - to ensure fair contest. Nonetheless, it's hard not to wonder whether letting a young man show his worth, his bravery, on the world's greatest athletic stage wouldn't inspire more ordinary people, and better reflect the ethos of true sportsmanship, than all the fair contests in the world


It's time to make time for friends by Lee Wei Ling

I have always tried to live as spartan a life as possible. My room, my attire, my food and drinks are such that if I need to pay my own bills inclusive of rent, I could comfortably live on $2,000 a month. Since I live with my father, I spend even less. Some would call me frugal; others, less friendly, would call me stingy.

Since my secondary school days, I have always been economical about my time. It was 10 years ago that I first read Rudyard Kipling's poem If in its entirety. My mother used to chide me for being so intense about not wasting time. But as Kipling put it: 'If you can fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,/ Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,/ And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!'

My mother told me my father would often quote these lines. So for appointments or meetings or functions, he would calculate the precise travelling time he would require and leave home so as to arrive at his destination at the exact time, and not a second earlier.

Coming back to Kipling's poem, while I have no desire to own the Earth or everything in it - and I most certainly have no wish to be a man - I still try to 'fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds' run'. But I do so in different ways now than I used to, for I have grown older.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, when I did research, I would key in the data myself, write the program for the statistical analysis, do the analysis, then, using the results of the analysis, write up the article. All that took a lot of time.

So as to fill the minute with 'sixty seconds' run', I had a plank of wood firmly attached to the handle bar of my stationary bike. With the keyboard resting on the plank, I would do my work while pedalling away furiously.

I have friends, and I don't forget them. I would certainly help any of my friends if they need my help, and I know they would help me if I needed help.

In my two years at Raffles Institution (RI), I made only a handful of friends. Forty years later, we are still close friends, though we sometimes don't meet up for a few years. Some people may find this strange. The answer is simple: We are all in different professions.

X is a vice-principal, Y is an analyst in the petroleum industry, and Z and S were administrators who have retired early though they are only 56. None among them, besides me, is a doctor.

In daily life, we interact most often with those with whom we work. So some of my closest friends are in the same profession as I am - medicine.

My staff at the National Neuroscience Institute are thus also among my friends. Indeed, a more precise term for them would be 'comrades', for we share the same aspiration, which is to help our patients. I also like the fact that 'comrade' carries a socialist egalitarian implication.

The last time my RI friends and I met was in 2009 when I was hospitalised. We tried to arrange another meeting earlier this year, but it was postponed twice. I was happy when we finally did manage to meet up.

Age has treated my friends very kindly; they do not look 56 years old. I have been less fortunate in that respect, but I have no right to complain. I escaped death by a hair's breadth a few times. I am not sure why, but I have mellowed as a result. I now actually actively invite friends to visit me, rather than say, 'I'm too busy, carry on without me'.

So I had a great time catching up with my RI friends and talking about our dreams for our future. On the spur of the moment, I wanted to show them a particular photograph that was perched on my bookshelf.

At the top of the shelf, I have a few pictures, including a replica of a painting by Sir John Everett Millais showing two nuns digging a grave in a graveyard in a rural area with poplar and other varieties of trees in the background. There is also a Liuligongfang, a special glass statue of a lotus leaf with a lotus pod. It is understated yet elegant. My mother had given it to me.

As I was reaching for the photograph I wanted, I toppled the glass lotus leaf. A corner of the leaf broke off. I cursed, 'Dammit', picked up the glass lotus, and placed it back on the shelf. Then carefully, I picked up all fragments of glass on the floor.

For a few minutes, I was somewhat despondent, for the glass lotus was not only aesthetically pleasing, but it also had great sentimental value. Then I reminded myself that detachment from worldly things is part of Buddhist philosophy. Anyway, unless one goes right up to the ornament and stares at it, the defect would not be obvious.

My old classmates were sitting outside in my sitting room. I took the photo I wanted to show them, and told them what had happened. I used the Chinese phrase, nadeqi, fangdexia, which means if you can pick something up, you should be prepared to let it go without any feeling of regret or sorrow. That is similar to the Buddhist teaching of detachment.

I have not attained that state yet, but perhaps I am closer to it than before. As I told my old friends, much as I valued the glass lotus, their presence and our friendship far outweighed the loss.

My mother, if she had been still alive, would certainly have approved of how I reacted. Friends are indeed more precious than even beautiful objects.

The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Earthquake in Japan: Monster Tsunami

Mar 12, 2011 , STRAITS TIMES


JAPAN TSUNAMI


Monster Tsunami

Hundreds killed after major quake triggered tsunami in Japan

By Kwan Weng Kin, Japan Correspondent

GRAMMAR- Past Tense and Past Perfect tense


TOKYO: A massive tsunami unleashed by the most powerful earthquake on record to hit Japan caused widespread damage across the nation's Pacific coast yesterday, killing hundreds and injuring an untold number.

The wall of water - reports said it was as high as 10m in some parts – 1. _______(toss) large ships around like rubber dinghies, 2. _______(drag) vehicles as if they were toys, and destroyed buildings across a wide area.

The tsunami washed tonnes of debris several kilometres inland and placed large swathes of coastal cities underwater, 3. _______(rip) up highways and downing phone lines. In one episode, the Kyoto news agency said the 4. _______(churn) waves washed away a boat with 100 people aboard.

Late last night, reports began 5. _______(emerge) that a passenger train 6. ______(go) missing in a coastal area. There was no information on the number of people aboard.

Police in the coastal city of Sendai reported finding more than 200 bodies, and 7. ______(dispatch) about dead or missing people continued to trickle in late into the night.

But rescue efforts are just getting under way, and it is likely the final death toll and full extent of devastation will only be known in the coming days.

The magnitude 8.9 quake 8. ________(occur) about 128km off Japan's north-east coast, and triggered tsunami warnings across much of the Pacific Ocean, including as far away as South America.

But as the hours ticked by, that threat 9. ________(recede), with many countries which 10. _______(brace) themselves for inundation reporting that only small waves reached their shores.

Nevertheless, the fear of a repeat of the 2004 tsunami disaster sent thousands in South-east Asia, including Indonesia and the Philippines, 10. _______(rush) inland and towards higher ground.

By late last night, the tsunami, travelling at the speed of a jet aircraft, 12. _______(reach) Hawaii, but was much smaller than feared - waves reached about 30 cm in height - bringing relief to an edgy populace that had endured a night with the sound of warning sirens blaring.

The authorities on the west coast of the United States and elsewhere, however, were still steeling themselves for impact. The waves are projected to make landfall there early this morning.

Japan's Pacific coast fared much worse. As many in the country watched in horror on live TV - an unlikely spectacle made possible by the practice of networks here to switch to quake programming whenever a major one hits - a rolling wall of brackish water gobbled up boats, cars, farmland and highways near the Natori River.

Live pictures also showed the runway at Sendai airport being turned into a river, and another gathering storm offshore heading towards the stricken city.

'I 13. ______(never see) anything like this,' Mr Ken Hoshi, a local government official in Ishinomaki, a port city in Miyagi prefecture where Sendai is located, told Agence-France Presse.

Similar scenes unfolded at dozens of cities and villages along the coast.

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Naoto Kan acknowledged that widespread damage 14. ________(cause) by the tsunami.

Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano told the Associated Press: 'Our initial assessment indicates that there 15. _________(already be) enormous damage.

'We will make maximum relief effort based on that assessment.'

“Offers of help in dealing with the disaster are already pouring in, with Singapore, China and Russia among those offering expertise,” said an official.

In a statement last night, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: 'We are in touch with the relevant Japanese authorities to work out their specific needs.'

US President Barack Obama offered his country's help. The United Nations and European Union also made similar offers.

In contrast to the devastation wrought by the tsunami, the earthquake and as many as 20 aftershocks which followed caused comparatively little damage.

In the immediate aftermath of the temblors, scattered reports of damage surfaced - several fires broke out, and there were reports of houses and other structures collapsing in Ibaraki and other prefectures north of Tokyo, as well as several injuries from falling debris.

There were numerous flight disruptions after airports 16. ____(close), stranding thousands of travellers. But most - except the one at Sendai - were shut down as a precaution, and by early evening many, including Narita, were slowly resuming operations.

The most alarming incident concerned a nuclear power plant whose cooling system developed a fault.

Several such plants near the epicentre of the quake 17. ________(shut down) successfully as a precaution, but the Fukushima No. 1 plant in Onahama city, 270km north-east of Tokyo, developed problems.

Although no leaks were detected, a state of emergency 18. _______(declare), and residents living within a 3km radius of the plant 19. ______(tell) to evacuate.

In Tokyo, the most serious incident appeared to be the collapse of the roof in a hall where a graduation ceremony 20. ________(hold), injuring students.

VOCABULARY

Widespread panic, however, gripped millions, who left their offices and rushed out onto the streets in search of safety.

Trains also ground to a 1. ________, stranding thousands of commuters.

Many homes were left without power and water in the greater Tokyo area.

The 2. ________ caused lifts to automatically stop moving all across the capital, forcing many companies to call it a day earlier than usual.

Earthquakes in Japan, which sits within the so-called Pacific 'Ring of 3. _______', are fairly commonplace, although the vast majority are weak tremors.

Still, the country is well-drilled in responding to quakes, and strict building codes and other steps have made it widely regarded as possibly the nation best 4. ________for natural disasters of this sort.

But the damage this time to Japan's economic infrastructure is likely to derail the country's nascent economic recovery.

Huge amounts of 5. _______ needed for the reconstruction of quake-hit areas are likely to add to Japan's already soaring public debt, which is close to 200 per cent of its gross domestic product.

'This is certainly the worst thing that can happen in Japan at the worst time,' Mr Nouriel Roubini, the economist who predicted the global financial crisis, told Bloomberg Television.

'There will be fiscal stimulus to reconstruct but Japan already has a budget deficit of close to 10 per cent' of gross domestic product and an ageing population.


ANSWERS- Grammar- 1.tossed 2 dragged 3 ripping 4 churning 5 emergency 6 had gone 7 dispatches 8 occurred 9 receded 10 had braced 11 rushing 12 had reached 13 have never seen 14 had been caused 15 has already been 16. Were closed 17 were shut down 18 was declared 19 were told 20 were being held

Vocabulary – 1. Halt 2 vibrations 3 Fire 4 prepared 5 money

Amid Sendai's Devastation, a Father Seeks His Daughter

Amid Sendai's Devastation, a Father Seeks His Daughter



The Earthquake in Japan

By HANNAH BEECH / SENDAI Sunday, Mar. 13, 2011 , TIMES MAGAZINE ONLINE

Bowlegged and rheumy-eyed, 76-year-old farmer Masahira Kasamatsu barreled down the sodden path. His pants were rolled above his knees and his shoeless feet were covered with inky mud deposited by the tsunami that had swept across northeastern Japan three days earlier, killing thousands upon thousands of people. "I'm looking for my daughter," he said, barely breaking his stride as we negotiated fallen electricity poles and mangled cars. "Her name is Yoko Oosato. Have you seen her?"

Kasamatsu's daughter 1. __________(work) for 30 years at the airport in Sendai, the largest city in the devastated region. After a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, the worst in Japan's history, 2. ________(strike) on March 11, the coastal airport 3. ________(deluge) by a 10-m-high wave of water that churned up debris and mud several kilometers inland. Hundreds of upturned cars, airplanes and trucks littered the waterlogged landscape.

For three days, Kasamatsu, whose coastal home 4. __________(flood) by the tsunami, called his daughter's cell phone to no avail. He 5. _______(listen) to the death rolls on the radio. He did not hear her name. Finally, Kasamatsu and his wife, Emiko, climbed into their car and drove toward the airport. The roads were barely passable; petrol ran out. The couple spent the night in their unheated car before he abandoned the vehicle and began desperately wading through water and mud to get to the airport.

"I know there are so many people that are dead," he said, as we entered the terminal building, passing 6-m-high piles of cars and uprooted pines. A pair of 6. _______(discard) sandals sat neatly in front of the domestic terminal. "I know that my daughter may be just one more person among so many dead. But my 7. ______(deep) hope is that she is alive. That 8. ______(be) my only prayer at this moment."

Across northern Japan, invocations 9. ______(utter)by family members who still had no idea whether their loved ones were alive or dead. Tens of thousands of people were still unaccounted for, and radio stations 10. _________(labour) relayed information about centenarians looking for their relatives or dead children identified by their birthmarks. Cell-phone networks were down in much of the region, and vast lakes formed by the tsunami rendered roads 11. ______(pass).

With food, water and gas 12. ______(run) low, lines of people snaked through towns in stretches of several kilometers, waiting patiently for whatever sustenance could be found, even as temperatures 13. ______(dip) toward freezing. Adding to the distress, nuclear reactors in Fukushima prefecture were in danger of suffering meltdowns as a result of the quake and tsunami, 14. _______(send) radioactive material into air already bursting with tragedy. On Sunday, Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan called the triple whammy of earthquake, tsunami and possible nuclear fallout the country's "worst crisis" since World War II.



In Miyagi prefecture, a group of students from the Civil Aviation College floated in an inflatable yellow raft across what was dry land just three days before. Some 170 students and airplane-maintenance employees 15. _______(watch) the tsunami roll in from the roof of a school building, where they 16. ________(decamp) after the earthquake triggered a tsunami alert that was broadcast on loudspeakers, radios and TVs. "The tsunami came toward us so slowly that it was hard to understand what 17. _______(approach)," recalled Satoshi Tsuchira, 24. "But then it came and kept on coming and I wondered if it would ever end."

A 10-m-high wave of water 18. _______(maroon) their building and sent a churning mass of vehicles, planes and houses swirling past them. The students kept their eyes on a solitary man who clung to the top of a bobbing truck for a night and 19. ______(gasp) as the receding waters pulled dozens of cars out to sea. Those stranded on the roof had only one box of energy cookies for every four individuals. Rationing began, and a cold rain continued. On a nearby road, a forlorn piano lay on its side, along with an office stripped of its wall. After more than 24 hours, the fire department arrived to rescue the trapped students. As they ferried some of their belongings from their dorm to high ground, the prospect of a radioactive cloud possibly making its way toward them was too much to comprehend. "We have suffered through an earthquake and a tsunami," said Koutaro Nousou. "Our college is underwater. I can't deal with another disaster. It's just too much."

As the students gathered up their things to take to an unheated evacuation center where they would sleep two to one blanket, Masahira Kasamatsu 20. ________(make) his way to the Sendai airport. Entering the terminal, he climbed up a suspended escalator that wobbled under his weight and quietly approached a man in a gray jacket who looked like he was in charge. His name was Kenichi Numata. After suffering through the earthquake, Numata immediately headed to the designated high ground — in his case the airport — as he 21. ______(teach) in the tsunami drills conducted up and down coastal Japan. Numata had watched from the airport as dozens of people 22. _______(succumb) in the surrounding water. He now knew that his house 23. _______(wash) away. "Everything is gone," he said, with a sweep of his hand. "It's all gone."

But there was little time to process this loss. Numata 24. ________(designate) as one of the section leaders organizing the 1,600 people initially stranded at the Sendai airport. They 25. _________(complete) cut off, with no cell-phone access or information about what 26. ________(befall) the rest of the region. "What is your daughter's name, again?" he asked Kasamatsu. The farmer slowly repeated her name and stared into the middle distance. Numata and others conferred. "Yoko Oosato, is it," Numata said. "Why, she went home just a little while ago." It took a moment for Kasamatsu to process the news. He nodded slowly. "She's O.K.," he repeated, as if to convince himself. "She's O.K."

We drove Kasamatsu through the floodwaters back to his wife, who was waiting beside their car, 27. ______(mangle) vehicles and 28. ______(twist) buildings all around. As we approached, she dove into her car to offer me an armful of oranges and apples in gratitude for 29. _______(drive) her husband back from the airport. Only as she gathered up the fruit did their eyes meet. "And Yoko?" she asked her husband. "She's O.K.," Kasamatsu replied. "She's O.K." There were no hugs or overwhelming expressions of elation. Their daughter 29. _________(spare). But devastation was still all around.

ANSWERS- 1. Had worked 2. Struck 3. Was deluged 4. Had been flooded 5. Listened 6. Discarded 7. Deepest 8 is 9 were being uttered 10 laboriously 11 impassable 12 running 13 dipped 14 sending
15. had watched 16 had decamped 17. Was approaching 18 marooned 19 gasped 20 was making 21 had been taught 22 succumbed 23 had washed away 24 had been designated 25 had been completely 26 had befallen 27 mangled 28 twisted 29 having driven 30 had been spared

The Earthquake in Japan, March 2011

The Earthquake in Japan
After a Disaster, What Defines a Country's Resilience?



By DR. SHERI FINK Wednesday, Mar. 16, 2011 . TIME MAGAZINE

Japan, March 15, 2011.

GRAMMAR- perfect tenses, present, past

The unfolding crisis in Japan is marked by uncertainty, but seasoned emergency responders have a clear mission: to promote resilience in survivors. Resilience, in this sense, is a metaphor for the quality of an elastic object that springs back into shape after being deformed. Resilient people and communities are those that recover readily from trauma.

In the acute phase of a disaster, fostering resilience has more to do with social than psychological assistance. Not long ago, it was common to find therapists rushing to a disaster zone, 1. _________(engage) survivors in a discussion about the trauma they had just experienced, and sometimes indiscriminately dispensing sedatives. So-called "critical incident stress debriefing," which still has its adherents, 2. ________(fall) out of vogue. It's "been found to be ineffective," says Dr. Leslie Snider, a psychiatrist and senior technical adviser for the War Trauma Foundation in the Netherlands.

Research and experience 3. _______(lead) experts to focus instead on promoting social interventions that decrease stress and restore a sense of control, safety and normality whenever possible. That includes ensuring that survivors 4. ________(be) social support and access to information about the emergency. It also means arming people with practical knowledge about how to help themselves and those around them, a sort of emotional first aid that anyone can offer to a neighbor, friend or loved one. Helping others "is good for the people 5. ________(help) as well as the people providing that help," says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "The more people know what they're supposed to do and what they can expect, the more capable they will be in responding to a disaster."

By the measure of self-help, the Japanese 6. _______( already show) great signs of resilience, which benefits from good disaster 7. ________(prepare). The government is working with private companies such as supermarkets to increase food aid to disaster survivors. Hundreds of disaster medical teams 8. _________(deploy), and many localities are drawing upon pre-existing agreements to aid each other in times of need. Many regular citizens 9. _________( also step) forward to assist, including offering private buildings to shelter the displaced.

With an estimated 15,000 people still missing, 10. ________(reunite) family members with surviving relatives as quickly as possible, and 11. ________(bring) those without families into social networks, is also important for recovery, particularly among children. " 12. ______(be) a buffering adult who's protective, who's reassuring and is confident, can help children get through the most traumatic situations relatively unscathed," Redlener says.

The United Nations estimates that about half a million people have moved to evacuation centers in Japan, almost half of them from areas around nuclear plants. Aid workers from the nonprofit organization Save the Children USA have set up a play area in one center in Sendai and are planning for more. "The most simple interventions really change lives," says Deb Barry, global director for child protection at the organization.

Save the Children 13. ______(train) disaster-affected volunteers to staff these "child friendly spaces" in emergencies. The idea is to give children a safe place to be kids. Barry says she 14. _______(see) "children who just literally don't speak, who are really afraid of things, even the sound of a truck going by because it reminds them of an earthquake. All the sudden, [they] get this confidence back where they can really express themselves."

Quickly 15. _______(restart) school may be an even stronger way to promote resilience in children. "In Japan, children's lives are very structured," Barry says. "We're already getting a sense children want to be back in school."

Cultural insights like that are important for responders from overseas. The Japanese government 16. ______( officially accept) assistance from 14 countries, and hundreds of international relief and search and rescue workers have already arrived. In particular, acts of mourning and recovery often draw on specific religious and spiritual practices and beliefs; in Japan, naming and identifying those who have died will be particularly important. When it comes to offering counseling, Japanese nationals are the best ones to provide it, says Yukie Osa, a professor of sociology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo and board chair of the Association for Aid and Relief, Japan. "It will be difficult for foreigners," she says. "The culture will be very different."

Osa, whose organization 17. ________(assist) survivors in Japan after having provided emergency relief around the world, including in war-ravaged Afghanistan and after the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, says Japanese people are used to giving overseas disaster aid, not getting it. "It's our first time to be helped," she says, but with such a vast area of devastation, ongoing displacement, harsh weather, and some places yet to be reached, the help is welcome. "I think people are ready to receive foreign assistance." She adds: "It's not only the goods, but also the people that are a help."

A recent newscast showed Pakistani residents of Japan 18. _________(cook) boiled rice for displaced people in a school. "The Pakistani person interviewed said, 'Since we were helped by Japanese people five years ago when the earthquake hit [Pakistan], now it is our turn to help Japanese people,'" Osa says. A child eating food in the gymnasium said that the curry was spicy, but delicious. "She 19. _______(smile)," Osa says. "It was a very touching scene."

Psychiatrist Snider says that profound events lead not only to losses, but also to unexpected gains, including new knowledge and skills. "Our lives are all about how we make meaning of events," she says. "How we pull the thread of our life's story through a very tragic or significant event is particularly important, because [the event] 20. __________(become) a part of that life story." Promoting resilience, she said, is about helping survivors search for and find their own meaning.

Dr. Fink is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, author of War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival, and a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She has worked with humanitarian aid organizations in more than a half dozen emergencies in the U.S. and overseas.


ANSWERS -Grammar- 1 engaging 2 has fallen 3 have led 4 have 5 being helped 6 have already shown 7 preparedness 8 have been deployed 9 have also stepped 10 reuniting 11 bringing 12 having 13 trains 14 has seen 15 restarting 16 has officially accepted 17 is assisting 18 cooking 19 was smiling 20 becomes