英字新聞で読もう！で、NY Times によりますと・・・

There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters.

相互関係はない。男は女を愛し、女は子供を愛し、子供はハムスターを愛する。
（アリス・トーマス・エリス）


News is the first rough draft of history.

ニュースは歴史の最初の草稿である。
（ベンジャミン・ブラッドリー）

European Union Reform Moves Ahead
（ New York Times ）

A landmark agreement aimed at giving the European Union a global stature on par with major powers like the United States and China cleared its last major hurdle on Tuesday.

The president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klauswas, was the last European Union leader to approve the so-called Treaty of Lisbon, which will try to increase Europe’s clout on foreign policy issues and will streamline the organization’s decision-making. The treaty required ratification by all 27 member states.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・stature　身長、（到達した）名声、地位
・par　同等、同価値、パー（ゴルフの基準打数）
・approve　承認する、良いと認める


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

Now Clear Away the Rubble of the Wall
（ New York Times ）

The year 1989 was a turning point for Europe and for the world, a time when history went into high gear. This acceleration was
symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the velvet revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes were exiting the stage of history.

Those events, and their peaceful unfolding, were made possible by changes that began in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. We initiated them because they were overdue. We were responding to the demands of the people, who resented living without freedom, isolated from the rest of the world.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・totalitarian　全体主義（totalitarianism）の
・initiate　始める、起こす（initial：最初の、イニシャル）
・resent　憤る、憤慨する


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking
（ New York Times ）

“This is ridiculous! I’ve been doing things all day for you!”

Many in today’s pregnancy-flaunting, soccer-cheering, organic-snack-proffering generation of parents would never spank their children. We congratulate our toddlers for blowing their nose (“Good job!”), we friend our teenagers (literally and virtually), we spend hours teaching our elementary-school offspring how to understand their feelings. But, incongruously and with regularity, this is a generation that yells.

“I’ve worked with thousands of parents and I can tell you, without question, that screaming is the new spanking,” said Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions, which teaches parenting skills in classes, individual coaching sessions and an online course. “This is so the issue right now. As parents understand that it’s not socially acceptable to spank children, they are at a loss for what they can do. They resort to reminding, nagging, timeout, counting 1-2-3 and quickly realize that those strategies don’t work to change behavior. In the absence of tools that really work, they
feel frustrated and angry and raise their voice. They feel guilty afterward, and the whole cycle begins again.”


【 まずは準備運動 】

・proffer　差し出す、申し出る、提供する
・literally　文字通りに、逐語的に
・virtually　事実上、実質的には
・offspring　(人・動物の)子、子孫
・absence　不足、欠如、不在
・guilty　有罪の、罪の意識がある


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

支配することはやさしいが、統治することは難しい。
（ヨハン・ヴォルフガング・フォン・ゲーテ）


Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

宗教を庶民は真、賢者は偽、支配者は有用と見なす。
（ルキウス・アンナエウス・セネカ）

Bill to Increase Access to Contraception Is Dividing Filipinos
（ New York Times ）

Gina Judilla already had three children the first time she tried to terminate a pregnancy. “I jumped down the stairs, hoping that would cause a miscarriage,” she said. The fetus survived and is now an 8-year-old boy.

Three years later, pregnant again, she drank an herbal concoction that was supposed to induce abortion. That, too, failed.

What drove Ms. Judilla, a 37-year-old manicurist, to such extreme measures is a story of personal tribulation familiar to many Filipino women. She and her unemployed husband are very poor ― barely able to buy vitamins for their youngest child, let alone send more than two of their older children to school.

Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. Birth control and related health services have long been available to those who can afford to pay for them through the private medical system, but 70 percent of the population is too poor and depends on heavily subsidized care. In 1991, prime responsibility for delivering public health services shifted from the central government to the local authorities, who have broad discretion over which services are dispensed.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・terminate　終わらせる、終わる
・fetus　胎児
・herbal　草の、薬草の（herb：ハーブ）
・concoction　混成、調合
・induce　引き起こす、誘発する
・tribulation　苦難、試練


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

Salute All Cars, Kids. It’s a Rule in China.
（ New York Times ）

All the students at Luolang Elementary School, a yellow-and-orange concrete structure off a winding mountain road in southern China, know the key rules: Do not run in the halls. Take your seat before the bell rings. Raise your hand to ask a question.

And oh, yes: Salute every passing car on your way to and from school.

Education officials promoted the saluting edict to reduce traffic accidents and teach children courtesy. Critics, who have posted thousands of negative comments about the policy on China’s electronic bulletin boards, beg to differ. “This is just pitiful,” wrote one in a post last year. Only inept officials would burden children with such a requirement rather than install speed bumps, others insisted.

This is hardly the only nation where local bureaucrats sometimes run a bit too free. But in China, where many local officials are less than well trained and only the party can eject them from office, local governments’ dubious edicts are common enough that skewering them has become a favorite pastime of China’s Web users. Even the state-run media join in, although they rarely report who was behind the rules or suggest that they indicate a lack of competence to govern.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・wind　曲がる（発音は「ワインド」で、風のwindじゃありませんよ）
・pitiful　哀れをもよおす、かわいそうな（pity：哀れみ、同情）
・inept　不適切な、能力に欠ける
・eject　外に出す、追い出す
・skewer　串（に刺す）、攻撃する、批判する


● 解説ザブ〜ン！

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

政治とは、主義・主張の争いに仮装された利害関係の衝突。私益のために公務を運営すること。
（アンブローズ・ビアス）


The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder.

人間と野生動物が違うのは、人間は祈っておいて殺す。
（フリードリッヒ・デュレンマット）

Kenya’s Criminals Tap a Growth Industry: Kidnapping
（ New York Times ）

Little Emmanuel Aguer was one of the most recent victims.

A month ago, he was snatched on the way to his grandmother’s house. Four days later, after his middle-class family received calls asking for $70 or else ― calls the family was not sure were even genuine ― his uncle found his corpse stuffed in a sugar sack. His head had been bludgeoned and his eyes were gouged out.

Emmanuel was 6 years old.

“These people knew what they were doing,” said his uncle, Mariak Aguek. “What they did was so traumatizing, I can’t even express it.”

Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, is a teeming city of have-nots and
have-lots, so notorious for violent crime that it is often called “Nai-robbery.” But there is a new problem, or at least one that is causing new fear ― kidnapping, and several recent attacks have been on children and Western women.


【 まずは準備運動 】

・bludgeon　こん棒で打つ
・gouge　（丸のみで）彫る、（目玉を）えぐり出す
・notorious　悪名高い


● 解説ザブ〜ン！