月別: 2016年4月

金曜日だけど3連休なの英語。銀行が国を動かしているという話とマリファナとビールの比較。

1)   The Bank of Japan has decided to extend zero-interest-rate loans to financial institutions in quake-hit Kumamoto Prefecture.

The decision was made at the central bank’s policy meeting on Thursday.

The BOJ plans to set up a mechanism to supply 300 billion yen, or about 2.77 billion dollars, to local lenders in the southwestern prefecture.

2)   Japan’s ski competition governing body has suspended the membership of 2 teenage snowboarders for their use of marijuana. They used the banned drugs on their tours of the United States in December.

The Ski Association of Japan announced the boys’ punishment on Wednesday after deciding it at an emergency board meeting earlier in the day.

They are suspended indefinitely both as association members and contestants. Their status as athletes designated for training support has also been cancelled

3)   Japan has lodged a protest with Taiwan over a statement made by its president challenging Tokyo’s claim to waters in the Pacific. Ma Ying-jeou described Japan’s southernmost island as a rock around which it cannot claim an exclusive economic zone.

The Japan Coast Guard on Monday seized a Taiwanese fishing boat for illegally operating in exclusive economic waters off Okinotorishima island.

The ship’s captain was released after promising to pay a bond.

On Wednesday, fishermen and lawmakers protested outside the building in Taipei that houses the Interchange Association, Japan’s liaison office in Taiwan. Some threw eggs at the building.
4)    Dignitaries and celebrities joined Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko for the annual spring party at the Akasaka Imperial Gardens in Tokyo on Wednesday.

The imperial couple hosts the garden party every spring and autumn.

Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, Prince and Princess Akishino and other imperial family members also greeted guests as they toured the garden.

Among the visitors was astronaut Kimiya Yui, who spent nearly 5 months aboard the International Space Station last year.

5)   Officials of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency suspect that wrong data and errors in programming may be to blame for the failure of its astronomy satellite, Hitomi.

The officials say Hitomi apparently recognized it was rotating at around 4 AM on March 26th. They say this was not the case, but that the satellite likely applied force to stop the perceived rotation. They suspect the action caused the satellite to spin.
6)   The European Union plans to propose a study of the global eel trade at an international conservation conference in South Africa later this year. The survey will include Japan, the world’s largest consumer of eel.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, placed Japanese eel on its list of endangered species in 2014, following a 30-year drop in catch.

Conservation of dwindling eel resources will be one of the topics at the conference of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, to open in Johannesburg in September.

7)   Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has said the bank’s monetary easing measures coupled with
the negative interest rate are already having an impact.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, BOJ Governor Kuroda said: “I will examine risks to economic activity and prices, and if I think it’s necessary for achieving the inflation target, then I won’t hesitate to take additional easing measures in terms of three dimensions — quantity, quality and interest rate.”

今朝もまた大きな地震が熊本であった。しかも14日のよりも大きいとのことでこっちが本震なのだとか。あんなにたくさんの大きな地震があるなんてどれだけ怖いだろうか。

1)   Nine people are dead and more than 1,000 others were injured in the earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture in southwestern Japan on Thursday.

The magnitude 6.5 earthquake registered the highest level of intensity on the Japanese seismic scale.

Many buildings have been destroyed or damaged by the jolt and the numerous aftershocks that followed.

2)   A wild deer wandered into a residential district in central Japan, causing a chase for the animal.

Police in Shizuoka City received a report that the deer had been seen near a highway on Wednesday morning.

Police and others attempted to throw a net over the animal after it ran into a parking lot beside the road.

The animal was eventually caught in a forest next to a park when members of a local hunting group shot it with a tranquilizer gun.

The chase lasted more than 4 hours.

3)   Japan and Russia have agreed to hold talks between high-ranking officials on signing a peace treaty at the earliest timing possible, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s summit with President Vladimir Putin next month.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov met in Tokyo on Friday.

The peace treaty talks are aimed at finding a mutually acceptable solution for the issue of the Northern Territories. Russia controls the 4 islands. Japan claims them.
4)   Japanese police have issued a crackdown on a new criminal gang that has split from the country’s largest yakuza mob.

The National Police Agency told officers across Japan to get tougher with Funashii Yamaguchi-gumi members. The group last year split from the Yamaguchi-gumi.

The move follows Friday’s news that public safety officials in Hyogo Prefecture, where the new group is based, had designated it an organized crime syndicate.
5)   Struggling electronics maker Sharp will start selling a robot smartphone next month.

The product, RoBoHoN, is a smartphone in the form of a biped robot, about 20 centimeters tall and 400 grams in weight. It can walk and talk. It can be operated with a touch screen located on its back as well as by voice commands. A newly developed built-in laser projector can also project pictures and videos.

The smartphone will be priced at 198,000 yen, or about 1,800 dollars. Users have to pay monthly communication charges. Sharp plans to sell 5,000 robotic smartphones every month.

6)   Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 economies are soon to begin 2 days of talks in Washington on Thursday. Their agenda is expected to include shoring up the global economy and preventing tax avoidance.
7)   A New York Times editorial has encouraged President Barack Obama to put Hiroshima on his itinerary when he visits Japan next month.

週中くらいにスカイプで送ってくれたリンクの着物猫が可愛いかったのでありがとうと伝えたら、友達から教えてもらってすぐこれはMasagoが好きだろう！と思って送ってくれたそう。

今日のレッスンの最後に「仮定の話だけど」と言うので何だろうと思ったら、僕の隣人がなぜかすごく怒ってるんだよ。「俺はお前を殺してやる」と毎日言ってくるんだよ。あんまり毎日言われるからこっちも怖くなって「じゃあ、殺される前に殺してやる」と思い始めてるんだけどこれどう思うか？と聞かれた。仮定ってことはそれってアメリカは北朝鮮に今そう思っているって話？と聞くと「いや、ただ僕がそう思ってるだけなんだけどね」と言ってたけど、アメリカが北朝鮮そういうムードになりつつあるのはありうるなーと。

1)   Chubu Electric Power Company has shown to media a 22-meter-high tsunami defense barrier at its Hamaoka nuclear power station in central Japan.

2)   Researchers in Japan have detected relatively high levels of radioactive substances in sediment in multiple rivers running through Fukushima Prefecture.

3)   The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has compiled a plan to turn the village for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics into an eco-friendly residential and commercial area after the games.

4)   Japan’s governing coalition has drafted a bill calling for greater government efforts to raise public awareness of hate speech.

The Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito adopted the first draft on Thursday at a meeting of a taskforce on the problem in Japan. The team was set up by the parties.

The draft defines hate speech as inflammatory speech intended to incite hatred against people from certain ethnic groups, to exclude them from society.

It says hate speech often involves blatant language that threatens the lives, property or freedom of such minorities. It also says the government must take measures to end hate speech in Japan.

5)   Work has finally begun to freeze the soil around four damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Engineers are trying to reduce the buildup of contaminated water at the site.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, the owner of the plant, started the work on Thursday, after the Nuclear Regulation Authority gave the go-ahead. It took TEPCO about two years to install the system.

TEPCO says it will freeze soil in phases, first, on the downstream side of the reactors, using 1,000 of the 1,700 underground pipes. TEPCO says it will take about 45 days for the ice wall to generate effects.

6)   Japanese consumers can choose their electricity supplier from Friday as full deregulation of the power-retail market comes into effect.

Consumers had previously only been able to buy electricity from power companies in the regions where they live. The full deregulation ends the monopoly of the major utilities that continued for about 60 years.
7)   The Bank of Japan’s quarterly Tankan survey shows that business sentiment among Japanese major manufacturers worsened for the first time in two quarters.

The central bank surveyed roughly 11,000 companies across Japan from late February to March 31, and released the latest survey results on Friday.