Tag Archive for Interpreting an English Text

North Korean leader’s aunt defected to U.S. in ’98: report

Japan Times 2013/11/05

北朝鮮の主席は金日成(キム・イルソン)>金正日(キム・ジョンイル)>金 正恩(キム・ジョンウン)となっているわけですな。いや今までちゃんと名前を覚えようとしたことがなかったので...。雰囲気的には大企業の振りをしているが実は単なるファミリービジネスの同族会社(日本のトヨタetc...)、その国家版といったところでしょうか?正直このキム・ジョンウンのヘアースタイルが余りに突飛で凄いな~と、ブログに載せようと思ったのですが、でもやはりこんな醜い顔、自分のブログに載せたくない(´Д`)。とにかく、こんな子供が国を指揮しているなんてどんな国なんでしょう?

記事はキム・ジョンウンの叔母が秘密裏にアメリカに亡命していたというものです。

North Korean leader’s aunt defected1 to U.S. in ’98: report
AFP-JIJI NOV 5, 2013

SEOUL – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s aunt fled1 to the United States while looking after her nephew during his time at a Swiss boarding school in the 1990s, a report said Tuesday.

Ko Yong Suk, who effectively vanished in 1998, had in fact been granted U.S. political asylum1, South Korea’s JoongAng Daily said, citing a former senior intelligence official and a South Korean diplomat based in Bern at the time.

The newspaper said Ko, who will now be 56, and her husband had cosmetic surgery to conceal their identities and remain under the protection of the U.S. authorities.

Kim attended an international school in Bern from 1996-2001 and Ko was sent to care for him during his studies there.

Ko and her husband reportedly made their initial bid for asylum through the U.S. Embassy.

“The United States spirited away the couple without even informing us,” the unidentified intelligence official said.

They were first taken to a U.S. military base in Frankfurt and then flown to the United States.

Ko is the younger sister of Kim’s mother, Ko Yong Hui, who died from breast cancer in 2004, aged 51.

今日は英文のポイント一つだけ挙げておきます。

  • 「亡命(する)」という単語です。defectというと普通は名詞で「欠点、不具合」とかなるのですが、動詞には「亡命する、離脱する」という意味があります。自動詞ですので受け身にはなりません。この見出しは-edが付いているので一見受け身にとってしまいますが…単なる過去?普通、新聞見出しでは過去には現在形が使われます。この辺私も定かではありませんので、後で調べてみます。
    その他「亡命する」のはrefugee, flee, fly, exile oneself 「亡命」にはdefection, exile, asylum「亡命者」にはdefector, escapee, exile, fugitive, refugee などがあります。多分調べればもっとあります。嫌気が挿すかもしれませんが、これが英語です(゚Д゚)ノ ァィ。

 


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Abe weighing big picture on Yasukuni trip

Japantimes 2013/10/20
Japantimes 2013/10/21

私はOKだとは思いません。実際は彼こそがあのヘイトスピーチの先頭に立っている人物です。日本の恥ずかしさの象徴だと思います。前にも書きましたが、自民党議員の大半は世襲議員であり、その祖父達は戦争を煽った人間達です。その子孫が靖国を参拝するのは自分の祖先が犯した罪を自己肯定するためです。人間は弱い動物だから自己肯定をしないと自らを存在させられないのです。一度暴力や犯罪を犯した人間はそれを肯定するために、あるいは人からの暴力を恐れてやられる前に、と何度も暴力を繰り返します。彼らの靖国崇拝はその一つの例です。それから最近では安倍総理は統一教会の機関紙の表紙を華々しく飾っていたそうです。ヘイトスピーチの団体を含め、なんとなく関係が見えてきます。

本当は英文の解説をしたいのですが、どうも最近時間が足りていません。

Abe weighing big picture on Yasukuni trip
KYODO OCT 21, 2013

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will decide “from a broad perspective” whether to visit war-linked Yasukuni Shrine by the end of the year, the government’s top spokesman said Monday.

“The prime minister himself will decide from a broad perspective. That says it all,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference without elaborating. A day earlier, an aide in Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party hinted he would pay a visit by the end of December.

“The prime minister has said it was regrettable that he could not visit the shrine during his first term in office (between 2006 and 2007),” Suga said.

On Sunday, Koichi Hagiuda, a member of the Lower House serving as a special aide to Abe, the LDP’s chief, said he thinks Abe will visit the Shinto facility by the first anniversary of his Cabinet’s launch in December.

“Some people say he should visit the shrine sometime while he is prime minister, but a visit to the shrine should be made at least once a year,” he said.

The shrine served as the spiritual backbone of Japan’s war effort. It honors Class-A war criminals along with Japan’s war dead. Visits by prime ministers and Cabinet members frequently anger China and South Korea, which both tasted Japan’s aggression during the war.

For Yasukuni’s annual autumn festival, Abe refrained from visiting and instead sent a “masakaki” tree offering to avoid worsening strained ties with China and South Korea and take heed of his conservative support base.

But two of his Cabinet ministers paid a visit.


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Radiation estimates for No. 1 workers likely 20% too low: U.N.

Japantimes 2013/10/13
2013年10月13日東京で大きな原発反対デモが行われました。参加人数について朝日、東京新聞、主催者発表では4万人の規模です。警視庁からすると9500人だそうです。去年からそうですが、警察発表は実際の3分の1から5分の1になってしまうようです。で、もう一つの隠れた国家権力、国営放送(NHK)は相変わらず原発反対デモについて何も放送しないらしいです。「それはないでしょ、NHK!」(Jan Jan Blog)

去年の春の大飯原発再稼働反対デモが毎週行われたときもずっと、NHKを筆頭に読売、産経グループ等、真実・客観・公平を謳い文句にする大手マスメディアは「4万人規模のデモが行われている」という厳然たる事実を平気で見て見ぬ振りをしていました。(私は悔しくてBCCに報道してくれとメールを打ちましたよ。)これが日本の民主主義の真実です。本当にこの国は恥ずかしい国だと思います。とにかく大本営の意に従って「右向け右」。体質的に北朝鮮とまったく変わりがありません。アメリカでもヨーロッパでも知識のある人間はとっくに日本のその本性を知っていますね。日本の繁栄は日本国憲法とアメリカ経済に後押しされ得られただけの話です。正直言って民主主義の地盤もない、世界を渡る実力もない(英語も解らない)人間達が「憲法改正」だとか「アメリカに頼りたくない」と言ってもダメなのじゃないでしょうか?そういう人に限って本当の武力(腕力)に頼るしかなくなってしまう。

福島放射能汚染に関しても太平洋戦争の大本営発表と同じ事がなされているようです。体制側の不利は決して発表されない。で、国連からこんな指摘を受けるのです。これってちゃんとNHKや読売は報道したのかな?

Radiation estimates for No. 1 workers likely 20% too low: U.N.
KYODO OCT 13, 2013

NEW YORK – The radiation doses workers received in the initial phase of the Fukushima disaster may have underestimated by 20 percent, a report by a U.N. panel says.

The U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said in a summary report on its website that the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., known as Tepco, used tests that failed to take into account some types of radiation released by the three meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in March 2011.

The report said the committee analyzed the doses received by some 25,000 people working at the plant on or before October 2012, using data from Japan, Tepco and others to assess the amount of substances discharged during the crisis after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

It also noted that workers were tested for radioactive iodine absorbed by their thyroid glands after a significant delay, with no account taken of “the potential contribution from intakes of shorter-lived isotopes of iodine, in particular iodine 133,” which have a short half-life of 20 hours.

It said that “as a result, the assessed doses from internal exposure could have been underestimated by about 20 percent.”

Increased exposure to such iodine is linked to increase risk of cancer and thyroid disorders.

If the estimates of the U.N. committee are accurate, more Fukushima plant workers will be eligible for free health checks from the government and Tepco, which says about 2,000 workers whose thyroids got doses of 100 millisieverts or more qualify for cervical ultrasound inspection.

The committee also said that, for the 12 workers estimated to have received 2 to 12 gray of thyroid exposure from iodine-131 alone, “an increased risk of developing thyroid cancer and other thyroid disorders can be inferred.”

Higher cancer risk is expected for more than 160 additional workers who received over 100 millisieverts from external exposure, but the incidence is expected to be “indiscernible,” it said.

The committee said that although the doses received by residents near the plant are low, continued research is needed to identify the full scope and expression of the differences in effects, mechanisms and risk from exposure to ionizing radiation for children and for adults.


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Cna yuo raed it?

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拾い物です。「これを読めるか?」ということらしいです。皆さんどうでしょうか?どんなものなんでしょうか?他の人の感覚ってどうなのか分からないから。。。例えば世の女の子がイケメンという言葉を使うけど、その対象を見るとあまりに...ということが多すぎるので(ちょっと例が違う? 😆 )
正直言うと私はこれ簡単に読めるのです。Only some people can do.って書いてあるけど、本当かな?結構皆読めるような気がするのですけど。。。 :mrgreen:


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Anti-democratic secrecy bill

Japantimes 2013/09/09
「秘密保全法」という名前らしいです。名目上は国家公務員に適用、となっていますが法案の段階でいきなり範囲拡大されていてレポーターや情報を知る民間人にも適用されるらしいです。誰かが政治家の不正を暴くためにブログで告発したら刑務所行きになってしまうのでしょうか?まずは身内(公務員)及びメディアの言論統制を強化してから「国民の自由への意志」をどんどん弱体化させるつもりなのでしょう。
それから当然、原発関係での反対運動取り締まりも目算されているでしょう。原発に対するテロも前提とされているらしいですが、「まじそれ何?∑(゚Д゚)」という感じです。そんなもの今までこの日本で懸念されたことがあるのでしょうか?原発反対運動をするとテロの予備軍として逮捕されてしまうのでしょうか?政治家や役人は自分に未来が無いことを知っているので怖くてまた「お化け」を作り出したのでしょう。安倍総理をはじめとする自民党議員、そして下司な官僚達はまじで大日本帝国の再建をしたいようです。ヴィジョンを持てないのは自分たちが受験勉強ばかりで本当の勉強しなかったせいですよね。勉強が足りないがための暗闇の中で勝手にお化けを作り出して(注)、そのお化けに対して国を守るためと、自分達だけで通じる自警団的正義を国民に押し付けるわけです。
結局日本の政治は自民党の一党独裁に戻ってしまいました。国民がそれを選んだのです。国民はこういった政治家や役人達に統制・支配されるのを望んでいるのでしょうか?

注: 人間の視覚には「恒常視」という機能があり、何も無い中にも物を見ようとするのです。野生世界では咄嗟に捕食動物を判断しなければなりません。そのために備わった機能で、脳が「物をが有る」ということを前提に「物を見る」ので何も無い中にも物を見てしまうのです。試しに何も書いてないホワイトボードを見てみてください 😀 。

Anti-democratic secrecy bill
SEP 9, 2013

The Abe administration plans to submit to the Diet a bill designed to protect state secrets that the government deems vital to national security. The bill will enable the heads of administrative organizations to designate a wide range of information as “special secrets” and mete out up to 10 years’ imprisonment to national servants who leak such secrets as well as those who obtain the secrets, including reporters, through “conspiracy, instigation and agitation.” The bill obviously would undermine the people’s right to know what their government is doing by strongly limiting their access to information. The government should rewrite the bill to ensure that freedom of information and freedom of the press — two pillars of democracy — are fully upheld.

The government says that the bill is necessary to ensure the effective functioning of the planned National Security Council, which is being pushed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Under the bill, the heads of administrative bodies would designate as special secrets an extremely wide range of information in the areas of defense, diplomacy, counterintelligence and prevention of terrorism if they think the information merits special protection. The bill’s biggest flaw is that the officials would have discretionary power and that the bill has no internal mechanism — such as an in camera committee — to verify whether the designation is justifiable from the viewpoint of protecting the people’s right to know.

The defense minister would be able to designate almost all information related to defense and the Self-Defense Forces if he wishes so, including plans, estimates and studies related to operations of the SDF and improvement of the nation’s defense capabilities; types and quantities of weapons and ammunition; capabilities and ways of production and uses of weapons and ammunition in the development stage, and designs and capabilities of defense-related facilities.

The foreign minister would be able to designate as special secrets information concerning “negotiations” and scope of cooperation with foreign governments or international organizations in the field of security. This concept is so wide and vague that the foreign minister would be able to expand the scope of special secrets as desired and the government would be able to conduct secret security negotiations with foreign countries. Information related to guarding of nuclear power plants to prevent terrorist attacks could also be classified as special secrets.

Once information held by the government is designated as a special secret, the status would be maintained for five years and it could be readily renewed by the heads of administrative bodies.

The bill’s proposed punishment of up to 10 years’ imprisonment for national servants who leak special secrets is far harsher than the current punishment of up to one year’s imprisonment for national servants who violate the duty of confidentiality and up to five years’ imprisonment for SDF members who leak defense secrets. The fact that the bill allows for the punishing of reporters who try to investigate special secrets is extremely worrisome. It is unclear whether reporter who press national servants to discuss about special secrets would be regarded as “instigating” them to talk.

The bill carries a danger of expanding the scope of special secrets ad infinitum and could undermine the fundamental democratic principles of freedom of information and freedom of the press. Lawmakers and the public need to recognize the danger posed by the bill and act to protect democratic freedoms.


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