A little Island

今年最後の英語！See you next year!で終了。英語の勉強というか娯楽と感じているから続けられていると思う。来年も土曜の朝のお楽しみにします！

1) What better way to spend Christmas than eating fried chicken and strawberry shortcake? While it may not be exactly traditional from a Westerner’s point of view, that’s the way they do it in Japan, especially if the chicken is from good ol’ American fast food restaurant, Kentucky Fried Chicken. With it being tradition to eat KFC on Christmas, it’s no wonder that KFC Japan’s sales between December 23 and 25 are calculated to be over 6 billion yen.

2)   The New Year holiday exodus from Tokyo and other cities began on Friday, with vacationers crowding train stations, airports and expressways.

Travel agents and airlines said about 880,000 people are estimated to depart and return to Japan by plane between Friday and Jan 3. Travel agents said the most popular destinations this year are Hawaii, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Cebu in the Philippines.

3)   Yamato Transport Co, Japan’s largest package delivery company, plans to open a new distribution facility with labor-saving technology near Tokyo early next year, its chief executive says.

The move comes amid widening labor shortage and a surge in parcel volumes because of the country’s growing use of e-commerce retailers such as Amazon.com Inc.

The Bank of Japan’s quarterly survey on Friday showed Japanese companies were faced with the most severe staff shortages since 1992.

“It’s especially difficult to find workers in big cities. The labor shortage got more severe in December,” Yamato Transport CEO Yutaka Nagao said in an interview.

4)   Authorities are trying to crack down on “shirotaku” taxis, the relatively cheap but illegal and potentially dangerous services that have grown in popularity among tourists from overseas.

Many of these unlicensed taxis are found in and around tourist destinations and airports across Japan.

Tourists can easily book shirotaku through apps on their smartphones in Chinese and other languages..

5)  U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday made light of climate change science as an Arctic chill settled on much of the central and northeastern United States and Canada, forcing people indoors, stranding motorists with dead car batteries and complicating firefighting duties.

“In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record,” Trump tweeted from his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, where he is on holiday vacation.

“Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”

6)   Japanese authorities on Thursday indicted the North Korean captain of a boat that drifted to its coast on charges of stealing a generator, appliances and other equipment from an uninhabited island, officials and media reports said.

The captain and his nine crewmembers on the dilapidated boat were rescued near a tiny island off of Hokkaido, northern Japan, in late November. Japanese police said they arrested the captain and two crewmembers earlier this month on suspicion they stole a generator and appliances from a barn on the island.

7)  A report by a British research firm predicts a growing dominance of Asian nations in the global economy in 15 years, with China becoming the world’s largest economy.

 

The Centre for Economics and Business Research on Tuesday released a report on the global economic outlook for the next 15 years.

 

The report says that by 2032, China is likely to overtake the United States in the size of gross domestic product. At present, the US is the largest economy while China is ranked second.

8)   Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has said she plans to start mass production of surveillance drones as Chinese military jets become more active in the region.

 

Tsai unveiled the plan in a year-end news conference at a military facility on Friday.

 

Tsai pointed to the recent surge in Chinese jets flying around the island. She said China’s ambition to expand militarily in East Asia is becoming more apparent.

9)  The South Korean Navy started a 2-day maritime drill around the Takeshima Islands in the Sea of Japan on Thursday.

 

Japan lodged a strong protest, as it claims territorial sovereignty over the islands.

10)    A decision by Japan to deploy a U.S. missile defense system will damage Moscow’s relations with Tokyo and is a breach by Washington of a landmark arms control treaty, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

Japan formally decided this month it would expand its ballistic missile defense system with U.S.-made ground-based Aegis radar stations and interceptors in response to a growing threat from North Korean rockets.

Dec 29th, 2017

カメラが無事復活していた。フロリダも14度で寒いそうだ。

1)   Six of 10 North Korean “fishermen” rescued from a tiny wooden boat drifting off northern Japan will be deported back to their country, an immigration official told AFP Tuesday.

Three of the crew have been arrested on suspicion of theft after they reportedly admitted to “taking out” electronic products from a remote Japanese island where they landed briefly to take refuge.

One of the men is still in hospital, reportedly suffering from a stomach illness, said Tanaka.

2)   A metal-framed window fell from a U.S. military helicopter onto a school sports field near a U.S. Marine Corps air base on Okinawa on Wednesday, the Marines said, the latest in a series of accidents that have fanned safety concerns on Japan’s southern island.

3)   Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions shrank 0.2% in fiscal 2016 from the previous year to 1.32 billion tons, declining for the third consecutive year, Environment Ministry data showed Tuesday.

The latest figure for the year until March 2017 is 4.6% below fiscal 2005 levels. Japan has already met its goal of a 3.8% cut by fiscal 2020 set in its COP19 commitment,

The fall in greenhouse gas emissions was mainly attributable to the increased use of solar and wind energy resources, with renewables growing about 50% from the previous year.

4)   A 33-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of committing an indecent act after he kissed a woman who was sleeping on a train in September.

According to police, the incident occurred at around 2 p.m. in the afternoon aboard a train heading to Kansai Airport from Kyobashi Station in Osaka, Sankei Shimbun reported.

5)   Toshiba has settled legal disputes with U.S. production partner Western Digital, both firms said Wednesday, clearing the way for the embattled Japanese conglomerate’s multi-billion-dollar sale of its prized chip business.

Toshiba has been on the ropes after the disastrous acquisition of U.S. nuclear energy firm Westinghouse, which racked up billions of dollars in losses before being placed under bankruptcy protection.

6)   For the first time, a Japanese high court has ordered the operator of a nuclear plant not to restart a reactor.

The Hiroshima High Court issued the injunction on Wednesday. It ordered Shikoku Electric Power Company not to restart the No. 3 reactor at its Ikata plant in Ehime Prefecture. It’s currently offline for regular inspections.

7)   Members of the International Olympic Committee have enjoyed food from areas of northeast Japan that were hit by the massive earthquake and tsunami 6 years ago.

The head of the IOC coordination commission for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, John Coates, and other officials attended a dinner in Tokyo on Tuesday.

They are making the visit to see how the Japanese capital is preparing for the Games. The recovery from the 2011 disaster will be a key theme for the events.

Food from the 3 prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima was used for dishes and snacks. The diners also sampled sake from these regions.

8)   Japan’s government has revised its basic space policy so the country can take part in an international manned exploratory mission to the Moon.

The government held a meeting of its Strategic Headquarters for Space Development on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe chaired the meeting, and Science and Technology Policy Minister Masaji Matsuyama also attended.

The panel decided to start discussions next year on how Japan can contribute its technological expertise to the lunar probe.

9)   Japan’s leading construction equipment firm plans to develop a new automatic control system for its machines to offset a labor shortage.

Komatsu officials say the artificial intelligence-controlled machinery will be developed in cooperation with US chip company Nvidia.

The AI would be capable of recognizing people and obstacles in images captured by cameras installed on hydraulic excavators and avoid possible accidents.

AI would also judge the optimum amount of soil to load on a truck.

Komatsu hopes to have construction sites be unmanned in the future.

10)   Analysts are predicting that business sentiment at large Japanese manufacturing firms will show a 5th straight quarterly improvement in a forthcoming Bank of Japan report.

Fifteen private-sector institutions have come up with their projections for the BOJ Tankan report to be issued on Friday, covering about 11,000 businesses in Japan.

The quarterly survey measures how executives feel about the economy. The Tankan index represents the difference in the percentage of companies that say business is good and those that say it’s bad. A positive reading means more companies are optimistic.

11)   US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has indicated a potential shift of policy, saying that the US is ready to begin talks with North Korea without pre-conditions.

The US has been demanding Pyongyang change its stance and give up its nuclear program before coming to the table. But Tillerson now says that is just not “realistic.”

Tillerson made wide-ranging remarks about the issue at a foreign policy forum in Washington.

He said “I don’t think it’s realistic to say we are only going to talk if you come to the table ready to give up your program.”

12)   US President Donald Trump has called for tougher immigration rules after a man from Bangladesh was detained for allegedly setting off an explosion in New York.

Trump said in a statement on Monday, “As I have been saying since I first announced my candidacy for President, America must fix its lax immigration system.”

Trump said the current system allows far too many dangerous, inadequately vetted people to access the United States.

13)   The man arrested for exploding a pipe bomb in New York may have been affected by online extremist propaganda.

The Monday morning blast in an underground passage connecting the Port Authority bus terminal and the Times Square subway station wounded 3 people.

Police detained 27-year-old Akayed Ullah from Bangladesh at the site on suspicion of setting off a pipe bomb strapped to his body.

Ullah is thought to be a lone perpetrator identifying with the Islamic State militant group.

無事スカイプは直ったけど今度はカメラの調子が悪いと言うことで今日は音声のみ。東京オリンピックのマスコットはどれがいい？と聞かれて私はウ案が好きだけどと言ったら今の所生徒さんはウの人が多いらしい。家人はア案がいいそうだが。
1) Japanese schoolchildren will help determine the mascot for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Organizers of the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics on Wednesday unveiled three sets of designs for the Games’ mascots. The schoolchildren will review the shortlisted designs with their classes casting a single vote in favor of one of the three sets.

2) Bank of Japan board member Takako Masai on Wednesday advocated sticking with ultra-easy monetary policy due to uncertainty over how fast inflation will rise, while warning that the central bank should remain on guard against the possible side-effects.
Despite a strengthening economy, Masai conceded that it was taking longer than expected to eradicate Japan’s sticky deflationary mindset, or public perceptions that prices won’t rise ahead.

3) Japan is considering having 10 consecutive days off from April 27 to May 6 in 2019 to coincide with Crown Prince Naruhito’s succession to the throne on May 1, government sources said Wednesday.
April 29 and May 3-6 are already assigned as national holidays in 2019, following the weekend of April 27 and 28. If May 1 is designated as a national holiday, April 30 and May 2 would become public holidays. Japanese holiday law stipulates that a weekday sandwiched by national holidays automatically becomes a public holiday.

4) Bitcoin hit a fresh record of $14,000 Thursday as investors piled in, triggering a warning the cryptocurrency was “like a charging train with no brakes” which would inevitably slip back.
It touched a new a high of $14,400 in Asian trade before slipping back to $13,900, according to Bloomberg News.

5) Big companies are stepping up their plans in case Britain crashes out of the European Union without a deal as Prime Minister Theresa May struggles to get talks back on track after a major setback.
Britain is aiming to agree with the EU on Dec. 14 to move the Brexit talks on to the second phase. This would focus on trade and a two-year transition deal to smooth the departure after March 2019. But the timetable has been thrown into doubt after discussions broke down in Brussels on Monday.

6) Arabs and Muslims across the Middle East on Wednesday condemned the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as an incendiary move in a volatile region and Palestinians said Washington was ditching its leading role as a peace mediator.
The European Union and United Nations also voiced alarm at U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and its repercussions for any chances of reviving Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

7) The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that owners of televisions in Japan are legally required to sign up with public broadcaster NHK and pay a subscription fee, dismissing a claim that the fee collection system violates the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Constitution.
The ruling that the fee collection is constitutional was handed down in a lawsuit filed by the broadcaster against a Tokyo man who persistently failed to respond to NHK’s requests from September 2011 for a contract. He owned a TV from March 2006.

8) A lone monkey apparently traveling north has appeared in central Tokyo, roving through an area with high-rise apartment buildings.
The monkey was spotted in a residential area in Minato Ward on Thursday.
Police received a number of reports from residents that they saw a monkey. No wild monkeys are known to live in the area.

9) An association of major social networking service providers in Japan has urged member firms to ban messages soliciting suicide on their sites.
The move follows serial murders near Tokyo, in which a suspect is believed to have lured his victims with suicidal posts on Twitter.
The association comprising 17 firms, including Twitter and LINE, made the appeal on Wednesday. It was originally established to prevent children from becoming victims of social media.

10) Police in Tottori Prefecture will file papers with prosecutors next week on the alleged assault by former sumo grand champion Harumafuji.
They say they are recommending that the wrestler be indicted.
They say Harumafuji admitted to striking fellow wrestler Takanoiwa with his hand and a karaoke remote control device in October.
11) Japan’s Defense Ministry is set to request funds in the next fiscal year to study a plan to equip fighter aircraft with long-range cruise missiles.
The ministry is looking into the Norwegian-made Joint Strike Missile, which has a range of more than 300 kilometers, and the US-made JASSM-ER, with a range of over 900 kilometers.

12) The Japan Atomic Energy Agency has presented a detailed plan for decommissioning its prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor over 30 years.
The government decided last year to scrap the Monju reactor in Fukui Prefecture, central Japan, after a series of accidents and other safety problems.

北と南の国の話が多かったな…

1)   Police in northern Japan have found eight men near a boat at a seaside marina who said they were from North Korea, and appear to be fishermen whose vessel ran into trouble, rather than defectors, a police official said on Friday.

2)   Mitsubishi Materials Corp., a maker of components used in autos, aircraft and electricity generation, has become the latest among major Japanese companies to report faked quality data.

Executives of the company bowed before reporters in apology Friday as they reported on falsified data by some subsidiaries.

3)   A local Japanese politician has been criticised by lawmakers for trying to bring her baby to a council session.

Yuka Ogata said she wanted to show how difficult it is for women to juggle careers and raise children.

Kumamoto municipal assembly officials said she had violated assembly rules as visitors and observers are forbidden from the floor.

After a lengthy discussion, Ms Ogata left the child with a friend and the session started 40 minutes late.

The council says it will discuss her case and ways to support lawmakers with young children.

4)   A local Japanese politician has been criticised by lawmakers for trying to bring her baby to a council session.

Yuka Ogata said she wanted to show how difficult it is for women to juggle careers and raise children.

Kumamoto municipal assembly officials said she had violated assembly rules as visitors and observers are forbidden from the floor.

After a lengthy discussion, Ms Ogata left the child with a friend and the session started 40 minutes late.

The council says it will discuss her case and ways to support lawmakers with young children.

5)   San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee signed a document Wednesday formalizing the city’s acceptance of a statue that symbolizes Korean and other Asian women forced into wartime brothels for the Japanese military, city officials said, prompting the mayor of its sister-city Osaka to decide on dissolution of their affiliation.

6)   An employee of the British Embassy in Jordan has become an online sensation after his appointment as… chief mouser.

The embassy adopted a cat from an animal shelter last month, and named him Lawrence of Abdoun.

The name is a reference to Thomas Edward Lawrence, a British officer who helped the Arabs fight the Ottoman Empire during World War One… and who came to be known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Abdoun is the neighborhood Amman where the British Embassy is located.

Photos of the fluffy black-and-white “chief mouser” have attracted huge attention on Twitter. He gained more than 4,500 followers in just one month, surpassing the British ambassador’s own account.

7)   Japanese pro tennis player Kei Nishikori has spoken of his renewed resolve to return to competition in his first interview after sustaining an injury in August.

Nishikori had his right wrist dislocated while practicing serves. The injury forced him to skip all remaining tournaments in the season. His world ranking fell to the 22nd, from the 9th prior to the injury. He ended the season out of the top 10 for the first time in 3 years.

8)   Chinese researchers have released 2 captive-bred pandas of different sex into the wild at one time. It’s the first such experiment.

The 2 were transported from a wilderness training facility and let loose in a nature reserve on Thursday. Both have collar trackers for monitoring.

The release is part of a program begun in 2006 by the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda based in the inland province of Sichuan.

The center hopes the program will have greater chances of succeeding if the captive-bred pandas form a pair and breed in the wild.

9)   Dozens of Indian Army soldiers have set a world record by riding a single motorcycle for 12-hundred meters.

The challenge took place at an air force station in Bengaluru, southern India.

Participants hopped on the moving motorcycle while clinging to each other.

The bike ultimately carried 58 soldiers and slowly drove the 12-hundred meter distance. The previous record of 56 soldiers was set by another unit 4 years ago.

10)   North Korea has replaced dozens of guards and fortified a section of its border with South Korea following the dramatic defection of one of its soldiers last week, a report said Friday.

レッスン普通に受けたら、予約してなかった。多分また忘れてるから開けておいたよ。だって。^^  最近そんなんばっかだな。私。（ためいき） 相撲の事件とザマの事件とThanks giving由来の話。

1)   Illuminated by the light of the moon that drifts in and out of the clouds, wild boars swaggering down a shopping avenue of a desolate town here are captured on camera.

The entire population of the town of Futaba, which co-hosts the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, is currently living elsewhere. Almost all of Futaba remains designated a “difficult-to-return zone” more than six and a half years after the nuclear disaster.

The streetscape of the area that is a no-entry zone at night remains as it was when the disaster occurred.

2)   When Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, met with President Xi Jinping of China on the sidelines of a regional summit meeting in Vietnam over the weekend, the pair shook hands and posed for a photo. Xi, who had looked more dour in previous meetings, flashed a grin.

It was a sign, the Japanese news media suggested, of warming relations between the two longtime adversaries.

3)   A 27-year-old American tourist has been arrested for scrawling graffiti on the wall at a construction site in Tokyo’s Shibuya area, police said Thursday.

A police officer on patrol apprehended the man who was drunk at the time.

4)   The grisly beheading of nine young people lured by a suspected serial killer after tweeting suicidal thoughts has sparked debate about the use of social media in Japan, which has one of the world’s highest suicide rates.

5)   The Japanese city of Osaka is seeking support for its bid to host the 2025 World Expo.

6)   Wednesday marks 40 years since a Japanese schoolgirl was abducted by North Korean agents.

Megumi Yokota was 13 years old when she was taken while walking home from school in Niigata City, on the Sea of Japan coast, on November 15th, 1977.

7)   The leaders of Germany and France pledged support for the Paris climate accord on Wednesday at a UN conference to discuss climate change.

8)   Canada’s defense minister is calling for more women to take part in UN peacekeeping operations.

Harjit Sajjan chairs the UN Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial Conference in Vancouver, Canada, which opened on Tuesday.

9)   US President Donald Trump has cited big business deals achieved as well as strengthened ties with regional leaders as the tremendously successful results of his extensive Asian tour.

 

トランプさん来日とザマの事件について。先週はPCのwifiの調子が悪くてお休みしたので2週間ぶり。

1)   Highly touted Japanese pitcher-outfielder Shohei Otani announced on Saturday he wants to move to Major League Baseball next season.

“The other day I met with team officials and stated my intentions,” Otani said at a press conference. “My request was met with warm words of support so I hope to do my best in America from next year on.”

2)   The co-chairs of the TPP ministerial meeting have announced that a new deal was reached by the members during 4 days of talks in Da Nang, Vietnam.

Japan’s Economic Revitalization Minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, and Vietnam’s Industry and Trade Minister, Tran Tuan Anh, explained the new agreement to reporters on Sunday.

They said that, in the new pact, 20 items will be suspended to accommodate the US’s withdrawal from the deal.

3)   A test-run of a hydrogen fuel-cell powered train has been revealed to the media in Germany. It will be the first train of its kind to be put into commercial operation.

The preview was held at a factory in the northern city of Salzgitter on Friday. French train maker Alstom has been developing the eco-friendly locomotive.

It runs on electricity generated by hydrogen that reacts with oxygen in the air. It emits no exhaust, such as carbon dioxide.

4)   Officials at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo say the baby panda born in June is growing up healthily.

The zoo held a news conference on Friday; one day after Xiang Xiang marked 150 days after her birth.

The officials say the female cub now weighs 9.9 kilograms, and that she is walking around the room and climbing on a 70 centimeter tall log.

The zoo plans to put her on public display with her mother in mid-December.

5)   Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in the city of Da Nang on Friday evening on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam.

At the beginning of their talks, Putin congratulated Abe on his coalition’s win in the Lower House election last month. Putin said the victory will help with the cooperation plan the 2 leaders had agreed on. He also said he’s happy with the development of bilateral ties, pointing out that political dialogue and economic cooperation between the 2 countries are brisk.