PHILADELPHIA—President Donald Trump sought to line up his party’s support Thursday behind an ambitious first-term agenda that includes a thorny health-care overhaul, tighter border security and a re-evaluation of U.S trade policy. In wide-ranging remarks about taxes, health care, trade, crime and manufacturing, among other policy topics, Mr. Trump used a retreat here for congressional Republicans to lay out his vision, saying that the country was at the “dawn of a new era of American independence.”
それにこのretreatは新形式のTOEICにも既出ですよね。パート5に出た方は一文なのでarrangements for the company retreatが「社員旅行」か「会合」が区別がつきませんが、パート4に出た方はa welcome dinner for the first night of the meetingとあったのでおそらく「会合」でしょう。
The death toll from the deadliest single car bombing in Baghdad since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has reached at least 292 people, Iraq’s health ministry said Thursday.
The attack by Islamic State, which also wounded more than 200 others, struck the Iraqi capital’s busiest commercial areas early Sunday as shoppers and diners crowded the streets following the daily dawn-to-dusk fasting that marks the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. On Monday, authorities said 151 people had been killed in the blast.
この記事ではthe daily dawn-to-dusk fasting that marks the Muslim holy month of Ramadanとラマダンを説明してくれています。 daily dawn-to-dusk fasting（毎日明け方から夕暮れまでの断食）という説明は簡潔で分かりやすいですね。英語学習辞書ではfast（断食する）が基本語ではないためか、do not eat or drinkのようになっています。
（ロングマン） Ram‧a‧dan [uncountable] the ninth month of the Muslim year, during which Muslims do not eat or drink anything during the day while it is light
（オックスフォード） Ramadan the 9th month of the Muslim year, when Muslims do not eat or drink between dawn and sunset
（マクミラン） Ramadan the ninth month of the Muslim year, when Muslims do not eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset
“In fact, Ramadan feels just like Christmas season to me. You get the perfect chance to attend family meals, and take pictures with your aunties and uncles,” 28-year-old Ramirez said.
Eid is supposed to be a time of happiness. When Muslims get together with their families to celebrate the end of fasting month, Ramadan. For many Iraqis in Al Majaz Camp, there is little to be happy about.
The fast is over. Now is the time for Muslims to celebrate with families, friends and food.
dawn-to-dusk fastingもdで始まる語でリズミカルにしていましたが、ラマダン明けのEidの説明でEid: Where fasting ends, feasting beginsとfast（断食）とfeast（ごちそう）を対照的に使ったものがありました。
Eid: Where fasting ends, feasting begins July 15, 2015 12:00 AM By Arthi Subramaniam / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Fried chicken, stuffed grape leaves, spicy fruit salads, couscous studded with meat and vegetables, savory and sweet rice dishes, barbecue ribs, fried plantains, rotisserie chicken, steak off the grill with vegetables, potato or pasta salad, stews made with lamb or beef, puddings made from chickpea flour or vermicelli and cookies are all part of an Eid al-Fitr feast. Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims, ends with Eid that begins with the sighting of the new moon, and is celebrated for three days. It’s forbidden to fast on Eid, which is on Friday, and friends and families congregate and celebrate with food all through the day. “After 30 days of fasting, it’s eat, eat, eat on Eid,” said Sadia Sabir, who was born in Pakistan and lives in Ross. “We celebrate the blessed month.”
Lee Kuan Yew’s Power of Forgiveness When it came to the sins of the past, the prime minister put the future of Singapore first. By JOHN CURTIS PERRY March 24, 2015 2:08 p.m. ET
Unlike the other newly independent nations that proliferated with the quick collapse of the European oceanic empires following World War II, Singapore embraced its colonial past instead of excoriating it. Lee was ready to forgive the many sins of colonial rule. In a symbolic gesture, instead of removing a prominent statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, an arch-imperialist founding father of the British colony, Lee kept him standing in the heart of the city. He elevated Raffles to a pantheon of other Singaporean makers of the nation, using the Englishman to help fashion an identity for a newly independent state.
As a non-Asian, Raffles stood as a neutral figure conveniently apart from Singapore’s Chinese, Malay and Tamil ethnic groups. Lee used him to personify the positive and upscale aura of British imperial tradition—its stability and dignity, its language and global connections. All of these were attractive to the potential foreign investors whom Lee fervently wanted to court. Furthermore, colonial paternalism formed part of that legacy, an authoritarianism that Lee and his colleagues found most suitable for the needs of their struggling new state.
Just as Lee forgave British colonial arrogance, so did he forgive Japanese World War II military brutality. Unlike China and Korea, Singapore nurtures no sense of grievance towards its former occupiers, despite the hardship and exceptional cruelty of the wartime Japanese presence. Arbitrary face-slapping and public urination were the least of it. The Japanese chose Chinese Singaporeans, three quarters of the population, for the worst treatment due their suspected loyalties to China. The occupiers singled out those who had soft hands and wore glasses—marks of the leadership class—for execution. Many thousands died.
Yet Singaporeans after the war, under Lee’s governance, set aside these bitter memories of the past for the better interests of the present. Recognizing and admiring the extraordinary rise of modern Japan and its rapid recovery from war and defeat, in his scramble to create jobs for Singaporeans, Lee turned to the Japanese for advice on shipbuilding and electronics, successfully luring Japanese investment to help Singapore create a job-rich manufacturing economy. Americans eventually joined in and now have invested twice as much in tiny Singapore as in all of China.
The lesson is clear. The U.S. “forgot Pearl Harbor” and soon began to build a significant mutually beneficial relationship with Japan. After centuries of animosity and conflict, another war between France and Germany is now virtually unthinkable. Both Koreas and China also could profit now from putting reason over emotion, laying aside past political grievances, horrendous as they might be, in favor of present economic realities and advantages.
Singapore notes Prime Minister Abe’s statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. The statement expresses profound grief and sincere condolences for those who perished during the War. It noted that Japan had repeatedly expressed the feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for its actions during the war. It stated that such position articulated by previous Japanese cabinets will remain unshakeable. Prime Minister Abe also said that Japan should squarely face the past, take the lessons of history deeply and make all efforts for peace and prosperity.
On 15 August 2015, His Majesty Emperor Akihito also expressed the need for Japan to reflect on “our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse over the last war”.
Singapore has not forgotten the horrors and suffering of World War II. Singapore’s position is that Japan should accept clear responsibility for the war. At the same time, it is equally important for all countries to build upon the statements of His Majesty Emperor Akihito, Prime Minister Abe and previous Japanese cabinets to seek further reconciliation and move forward. This will benefit our region and the world.
このようなシンガポールの態度をForgive but not forgetのようにまとめていることが多いですが、発展して活気のある暮らしを見ているとLiving well is the best revenge.という名句の方をYutaは思い起こしました。出典はよく覚えていませんが、NHKの「実践ビジネス英語」が「やさしいビジネス英語」だったころに紹介されていたものです。
Seventy years ago, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan: Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945; Nagasaki on Aug. 9. With searing heat and annihilating force, the nuclear blasts tore through factories, shops and homes in both cities. Huge portions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki vanished. Weighing many factors — including the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan 11 hours before the Nagasaki bombing — Japan surrendered. By Aug. 15, World War II was over. In the United States, the necessity of the bombings to end the war has been studied and argued for decades, but the acute and long-term effects of whole-body radiation exposure on the men, women and children beneath the mushroom clouds are little known and seldom mentioned. Without also accounting for this critical aspect of the bombings, discussions of the military, moral and existential issues surrounding Hiroshima and Nagasaki are incomplete. If we choose to take and defend actions that cause great harm to civilians during war, we must also scrutinize and wholly understand the impact of those actions.
原爆投下の後に原爆使用の非難が米国国内でもあったことをこのブログでも取り上げましたが、Southardさんも触れています。Henry L. Stimson以外にもKarl T. Comptonという物理学者が原爆投下の正当性を訴えた記事を書いていたんですね。
In 1946 and 1947, opposition to the bombings began appearing in U.S. media — including John Hersey's "Hiroshima," first published in the New Yorker, and a scathing essay by journalist Norman Cousins in the Saturday Review. U.S. government and military officials hurriedly strategized how to prevent what they considered "a distortion of history" that could damage postwar international relations and threaten U.S. nuclear development. Two articles by prominent government officials — the first by Karl T. Compton, a respected physicist who had helped develop the atomic bombs, and the second by former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson — offered intelligent and persuasive "behind the scenes" perspectives on the U.S. decision to use the bombs. These powerful justifications effectively quelled civic dissent and directed focus away from the ongoing suffering of the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
By the early 1950s, hibakusha cancer rates for adults and children soared, and many more hibakusha developed liver, endocrine, blood and skin diseases, and impairments of the central nervous system. Mortality rates remained high. Most commonly, survivors experienced violent dizzy spells and a profound depletion of energy. Fears about genetic effects of radiation exposure on their children haunted them for decades. Thirty years after the war, high rates of leukemia as well as stomach and colon cancer persisted. From the survivors' perspective, the atomic bomb had burned their bodies from the inside out.
As Japanese and U.S. scientists continue studying hibakusha, their children and grandchildren to try to comprehend the full impact of radiation exposure, can we come face to face with the terrorizing realities of nuclear weapons? We don't have to suppress our condemnation of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, mistreatment and killings of Allied POWs, and slaughter of civilians across Asia to do so. An expanded understanding of atomic bomb history that includes the human consequences of nuclear war will deepen our integrity as a nation and, one hopes, influence our nuclear weapons policies across the world.
ちなみに同時に取り上げているTo Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshimaという本は、数年前に出た本の改訂版といえるものです。広島と長崎で二重被爆にあった山口さんを取り上げ、タイタニックのキャメロン監督が映画化するとも言われていたものですが、ある人物の証言の信憑性が問題になったためリコールされていました。その問題を解決して再刊の運びとなったようです。
“To Hell and Back,” one may remember, appeared in an earlier form, in 2010, as “The Last Train From Hiroshima.” The publication of that book was suspended when the authenticity of one of Mr. Pellegrino’s sources—a man who claimed to have been on a plane accompanying the Enola Gay bomber on its Hiroshima mission—was called into question. That source and his assertions are gone from the new book. A foreword notes that he had indeed “tricked” the author, who later admitted his mistake.
この評者はどちらの本も原爆使用がやむを得なかった状況を考慮しないで描かれていると批判しています。
What is missing from both books is context. Neither author properly discusses the factors that went into the American decision to use the bomb. Nor do they venture an opinion on whether the bomb shortened the war. They focus on the ways the bomb affected civilians who had to cope with a catastrophe.
その後に続くのが、WSJが繰り返し論者を替えながら発表しているおなじみの内容です。
Were the bombs necessary to compel surrender? U.S. policy—laid down by Franklin Roosevelt, followed by Harry Truman and supported by most Americans—was uncompromising. The U.S. would accept only unconditional surrender, to be followed by military occupation.
In Japan, advocates of a last-ditch resistance could not promise victory but could guarantee heavy casualties for the invaders. The last battle of the war—Okinawa—made the point. Okinawa was a small island, and the U.S. possessed overwhelming ground, naval and air superiority. Even so, the battle raged from April 1 to June 21, 1945, with 92,000 Japanese troops fighting to the death and kamikaze planes inflicting significant damage on the offshore American fleet. U.S. casualties (killed and wounded) were approximately 45,000.
The experience made an impression in Washington. The Japanese home islands were next. Japan’s leaders made no secret of their plans to wage a dogged resistance that would mobilize the civilian population, right down to teenagers armed only with clubs and sticks; and the leaders clung to the fantasy of a negotiated peace brokered by the still-neutral Soviet Union. They rebuked their ambassador in Moscow for telling them that the Russians, who were moving troops to attack Japan in East Asia, would be of no help. American military planners focused on the southernmost Japanese home island of Kyushu as a first target, to be followed by an invasion of the island of Honshu and a final campaign across the Tokyo plain in 1946. Meeting with his military chiefs in Washington on June 18, 1945, President Truman expressed his hope of “preventing an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.” A month later, the first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert. Hiroshima and Nagasaki quickly followed.
Critics of the atomic bombings often assert that Japan was “ready to surrender.” Clearly this was not the case. Japan could still muster formidable military resources. It is unlikely that resistance would have ever gotten down to teenagers armed with clubs and sticks but probable that an amphibious invasion of Kyushu would have exacted a price reminiscent of Okinawa. That possibility was unthinkable to most Americans.
最後の最後で、現代の核兵器は当時と比べて一層強力になっているので、核兵器の恐ろしさを知るにはいい本だろうと締めていますが、半分以上は原爆投下の必要性を述べていました（汗） The nuclear weapons of today make the ones detonated in 1945 look like firecrackers, and more and more countries possess them or threaten to do so. The editors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists picture a doomsday clock at three minutes to midnight. The virtue of these books is their reminder of just how horrible nuclear weapons are.
Nuke Mapで現在の核兵器が首都圏を丸ごと破壊できる威力があることを知って、The nuclear weapons of today make the ones detonated in 1945 look like firecrackers（今日の核兵器は1945年に投下されたものを線香花火のようにしてしまっている）という表現に妙に納得してしまいました。日本でも戦争の立場は二極化しやすですが、米国でも同じような状況なんですね。
