トルコの首相
穏健な政治家の場所はない
アーメット・ダブトグルはEUとトルコの移民政策の立役者だが、解雇された。(2)

Signs that Mr Davutoglu was fighting for his political life emerged last Friday when AK’s executive body stripped him of the right to appoint provincial party officials. Over the weekend, an anonymous blogger believed to be a member of Mr Erdogan’s inner circle suggested that the prime minister had reached his expiry date. Mr Davutoglu, the blogger alleged on a website named “The Pelican Brief”, had crossed his boss by criticising the arrests of academics and journalists and by declining to drum up support for Mr Erdogan’s executive presidency—and by giving an interview to The Economist last year. 

The Pelican Brief：『ペリカン文書』は、ジョン・グリシャムの同名原作小説をもとに1993年、アメリカで製作されたリーガル・サスペンスである。日本でのロードショーは1994年4月。
crossed his boss：You had better not cross your boss. 上司を怒らせない方がいいよ

On May 5th, a day after the two men met in Mr Erdogan’s 1,100-room palace, AK’s executive council gathered to settle the prime minister’s fate. It was not clear at press time whether he would resign immediately. But in the coming weeks, AK is expected to hold an extraordinary congress to elect Mr Davutoglu’s successor as party leader. Likely candidates include Binali Yildirim, the transport minister, and Berat Albayrak, the energy minister (who also happens to be Mr Erdogan’s son-in-law). 

at press time：印刷時には
extraordinary：臨時の

The bookish Mr Davutoglu, a former foreign minister, may have quietly sparred with Mr Erdogan on occasion, but generally tried to play down divisions. His ouster suggests there is no tolerance left for opposition to the president inside his party. It also reveals the price that Mr Erdogan is willing to pay to pursue his agenda. Within hours of his meeting with the prime minister, the Turkish lira plummeted by almost 4% against the dollar, the biggest such drop since 2008. Fears spread that the EU, which had found in Mr Davutoglu a sensible interlocutor and a channel to bypass his abrasive boss, would lose its appetite for engaging with Turkey. 

bookish：本好きの
sparred：口論する 
generally ：たいてい
play down：軽視する
division：分裂
ouster：追放・放逐
sensible：思慮深い
abrasive：耳障りな・イラつく
lose one's appetite： 食欲［食べる気］をなくす、食べる気がしない、食欲がうせる［なくなる・減退する］、食が細る

Mr Erdogan appears not to care. No groundwork has been laid for Mr Davutoglu’s departure. To many AK supporters, who saw their prime minister propel the party to a thumping win in elections last autumn, his abrupt ouster seems puzzling. Ozer Sencar, the chairman of Metropoll, a polling company, said it shows Mr Erdogan wants a referendum on his executive presidency this year: “(Mr Davutoglu) presented an obstacle. He had to go.” 

groundwork：準備・根回し
thumping win：とても大きな勝利
propel ：駆り立てる

ダブトグルの追放によって、エルドアンは彼の体制を固めようとしているが、彼の全体主義的な行動をEUはよく思っていない。そうは言ってもトルコは難民の対応の中核であり、中東の紛争の中心的な存在でもある。そのため、EUはエルドアンを無視できない。エルドアンはそのことをよくわかっていて、外交政策においては絶対的な自信を持っている。

Our crony-capitalism index
The party winds down
Across the world, politically connected tycoons are feeling the squeeze
May 7th 2016 | From the print edition

wind down：段階的に縮小する
tycoon：大物
squeeze：圧迫・苦境

縁故資本主義目録
その集団は段階的に縮小する。
世界中で政界にコネのある大物が息詰まってきている。

TWO YEARS ago The Economist constructed an index of crony capitalism. It was designed to test whether the world was experiencing a new era of “robber barons”—a global re-run of America’s gilded age in the late 19th century. Depressingly, the exercise suggested that since globalisation had taken off in the 1990s, there had been a surge in billionaire wealth in industries that often involve cosy relations with the government, such as casinos, oil and construction. Over two decades, crony fortunes had leapt relative to global GDP and as a share of total billionaire wealth. 

robber baron：泥棒男爵とは、19世紀のアメリカ合衆国で蘇った、寡占もしくは不公正な商習慣の追求の直接の結果として、それぞれの産業を支配して莫大な私財を蓄えた実業家と銀行家を指した、軽蔑的な意味合いの用語。
gilded age：Gilded Age 《the 〜》金ピカ［金めっき］時代◆19世紀後半の、南北戦争が終結して人口が増加し、経済が史上最も高い成長率を記録した時代。◆【語源】マーク・トウェインとチャールズ・ダドリー・ワーナーの1873年の小説「金ピカ時代（The Gilded Age）」から。
Depressingly：気が滅入るほど
cosy relation：馴れ合いの関係
relative to ：に関連して・に対して



It may seem that this new golden era of crony capitalism is coming to a shabby end. In London Vijay Mallya, a ponytailed Indian tycoon, is fighting deportation back to India as the authorities there rake over his collapsed empire. Last year in Sao Paulo, executives at Odebrecht, Brazil’s largest construction firm, were arrested and flown to a court in Curitiba, a southern Brazilian city, that is investigating corrupt deals with Petrobras, the state-controlled oil firm. The scandal, which involves politicians from several parties, including the ruling Workers’ Party, is adding to pressure on Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, who is facing impeachment on unrelated charges. 

shabby end：お粗末な結末
deportation：国外退去
rake over ：思い起こさせる

A Malaysian investment fund, 1MDB, that is answerable to the prime minister, is the subject of a global fraud probe. Supporters of Rodrigo Duterte, the front-runner to win the presidential election in the Philippines on May 9th, hope he will open up a feudal political system that has allowed cronyism to flourish. In China bosses of private and state-owned firms are now routinely interrogated as part of Xi Jinping’s purge of “tigers” (a purge that has left Mr Xi’s family well alone). Worldwide, tycoons’ offshore financial cartwheels have been revealed through the Panama papers. 

answerable：説明責任がある
fraud probe：不正行為の調査
feudal：封建的な
interrogated：尋問する
let well alone： 〔余計なことをせずに〕その［現状の］ままにしておく、現状でよしとしておく


水曜日。今日はこれまで。縁故資本主義はいつの時代でもつきまとっている。一番有名なのはロシアだろう。中国もその類がいっぱいある。こうしたことは決してなくならない。

昨日は研修資料を１日勉強していた。オバマケアが実態を把握しにくかった。今日は水曜日の海野塾がある。半分はその準備だ。準備というよりかは自分の勉強なのかもしれない。では又明日。

For now, STAR remains a tool rather than a truly autonomous agent. But such autonomy is probably not far away. Dr Kim hopes, for example, that a souped-up version will soon be able to remove an appendix without any assistance from doctors. 

souped-up：性能が向上した
appendix ：盲腸

STAR’s existence does, though, highlight two questions being raised more and more in what is an increasingly robotised society. These are: “will people trust robots with their lives?” and, “who is liable if something goes wrong?” 

liable：責任がある

The answer to the first will probably depend on the level of supervision the machines are subject to. It would not take much, for example, to turn airliners into drones, but passengers are reassured by the presence of a flight crew, so this is unlikely to happen soon. The same will probably be true of surgical robots, however good they become. In answer to the second, the lawyers are already circling. Intuitive Surgical, a maker of surgical robots based in Sunnyvale, California, has been on the receiving end of lawsuits alleging (which the firm denies) that surgeons were inadequately trained to use its machines or that the robots were defective. Machines may get the better of humans in the operating theatre, but the courtroom will also determine how fast they spread. 

reassured：安心して
circling：旋回する
defective：欠陥のある

ロボットを使う医療はその技術だけでなく、問題が起きた時の責任の所在も問題がある。そのためにそうした技術の進歩は削ぎされるかもしれない。事故が起こった時の対応ができないからだ。

Turkey’s prime minister
No room for moderates
Ahmet Davutoglu, architect of the EU-Turkey migrant deal, is forced out
May 7th 2016 | ISTANBUL | From the print edition

トルコの首相
穏健な政治家の場所はない
アーメット・ダブトグルはEUとトルコの移民政策の立役者だが、解雇された。

FOR Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, May 4th began on a good note. In the morning the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, endorsed a proposal to lift visa restrictions for Turks travelling to the bloc’s Schengen zone as of June. For Mr Davutoglu, who had made visa-free travel a key condition for enlisting Turkish help in stemming illegal migration to Europe, the relief was short-lived. By the evening, it was clear the prime minister was out of a job. 

enlisting：協力を求める
stemming：取り除く
relief：安堵




The man who pulled the carpet from under his feet was the same one who appointed him less than two years ago: Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Tensions between the increasingly authoritarian Mr Erdogan and his prime minister have simmered for months. The two disagreed over the future of peace talks with Kurdish insurgents, and over Mr Erdogan’s plans to change the constitution to give the presidency executive powers, cementing his grip on government and his own Justice and Development (AK) party. 

simmered：爆発寸前である

They also clashed over the management of the economy, and Mr Erdogan’s crackdown on critics. (Its latest victims, two journalists, were sentenced to two years in jail last week for republishing a drawing from Charlie Hebdo, a French weekly, featuring a weeping Prophet Muhammad.) Mr Erdogan has accused his prime minister of stealing the spotlight. “During my time as prime minister it was announced that Schengen travel would come into force in October 2016,” he said recently, referring to the visa talks. “I cannot understand why bringing it forward by four months is presented as a triumph.” 

weeping：泣いている
エルドアンの人気がああるのでそう言っている。

火曜日。今日はこれまで。ダブトグルの失脚で、エルドアンはますますその意を強くして、一党独裁政権を強化していく。西側諸国の彼への批判は報道の自由を制約していることだ。それとクルドに対する迫害もある。背後にはISILへの暗黙の支援もある。こうしたトルコの情勢は相当不透明だ。

昨日は気が狂うほどの忙しさだった。昼は内藤さんとの会食、それ以外は国薬との契約書の翻訳と内容に吟味だった。結局終わらなかった。今日は１日、研修資料の作成のためと思っていたが、そうはいきそうにない。この翻訳とレビュー、課題の洗い出しは２時頃までかかりそうだ。そのあとは研修資料の作成がある。今週は木曜日まで本は書けそうにない。ではまた明日。というか、やっと昨日の仕事が終わったということだ。今１時過ぎだ。一時半には寝よう。

Robotic surgery
Who wields the knife?
A machine carries out an operation almost unaided
May 7th 2016 | From the print edition

ロボットによる手術
誰がナイフを使うのか？
機械がほとんど人の助けなしで手術を行う。

THEY don’t drink, they don’t get tired and they don’t go on strike. To hospital managers, the idea of robots operating on patients without human intervention is an attractive one. To patients, though, the crucial question is, “are they better than human surgeons?” Surgery is messy and complicated. A routine operation can become life-threatening in minutes. 

surgeon：外科医
messy：複雑で扱いにくい
life-threatening：生命を脅かす
in minutes：数分で




Such considerations have meant that the role of robots in operating theatres has been limited until now to being little more than motorised, precision tools for surgeons to deploy—a far cry from the smart surgical pods and “med-bays” of science fiction. But a paper published this week in Science Translational Medicine, by Peter Kim of the Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC, and his colleagues, brings the idea of real robot surgeons, operating under only the lightest of human supervision, a step closer. Though not yet let loose on people, it has successfully stitched up the intestines of piglets. 

operating theatres：手術室
motorised：動力化する
deploy：活用する
far cry from：から程遠い
pod：容器
 let loose on：自由にやってのける
intestines of piglets：子豚の腸
med-bays：A Med-Bay, assumedly short for Medical Bay, is a bed or gurney-shaped device that humans can use to remedy any ailments or problems related to their health.
aliment：栄養
wrinkle：しわ
intact：そのままで

To build their robodoc, dubbed the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR), Dr Kim and his team fitted a robotic arm with an articulated suturing tool and a force sensor to detect the tension in the surgical thread during the operation. They equipped the arm with cameras that could create a three-dimensional image, to guide it as it deployed the tool, and also a thermal-imaging device to help distinguish between similar-looking tissues. A computer program written by the team controlled the arm. This had a repertoire of stitches, knots and manoeuvres that permitted it to plan and carry out a procedure, known as anastomosis, which involves sewing together two parts of a bodily tube. 

dubbed：という名をつける
Tissue：(動植物の細胞から構成される)組織
suturing：縫合する
detect：見つける
tension：ピンと張ること
surgical thread ：外科用の糸
thermal imaging device： 赤外線画像装置
repertoire：レパートリー
manoeuvres：操作
anastomosis：〔血管などの〕吻合（術）

No pig in a poke
Before each of the trial operations, the team anaesthetised a piglet and opened its abdomen to expose part of its small intestine. They then severed this and highlighted pertinent areas with fluorescent dye, to help guide the arm. Under a surgeon’s supervision, STAR sewed the piglet’s gut together again. In the four operations reported in the paper it carried out about 60% of the procedure without human intervention, and the rest with only minor adjustments to its stitches. Since the team submitted their results for publication, however, they say STAR has successfully completed the entire process unaided. 

pig in a poke： 《a 〜》〈米俗〉だまされて［自分の目で確かめずに］買った物、実体の分からない怪しげな物◆【語源】buy a pig in a pokeという表現から
anaesthetise：麻酔をかける
abdomen：腹腔・腹部
severed ：切断する
pertinent ：適切な
fluorescent：蛍光性の
gut：内臓・腸

Comparing STAR’s work with that of experienced surgeons operating both with and without the assistance of existing robotic tools, Dr Kim and his colleagues reckoned STAR’s stitches were more evenly spaced and the sutured gut less leaky. None of the pigs suffered complications. 

suturing：縫合する
evenly：均等に・ムラなく
space：一定の間隔で行う
leaky：漏れる
complication：合併症

STAR did, it is true, take much longer than a human surgeon would to create the suture. It averaged 50 minutes for the operation, whereas a person would take about eight. But that will surely get faster. And even if STAR never quite matches a human being at work for speed, the better final product it seems to deliver would, if translated into regular clinical practice, reduce readmission rates. 

if tanslated onto：になれば・に変われば
regular clinical practice：通常の臨床診療
readmission rate：再入院率

月曜日。今日はこれまで。ロボットによる手術が進化してきている。吻合の時間は人よりもかかるが、その手術は正確だ。豚をテストにした手術後の合併症もない。全自動ロボットによる手術もそう遠い将来のことではなさそうだ。すごいことだ。

昨日は昼過ぎまでは研修資料のレビュー。夜は勝部さんの授賞式。今日の昼はインタートレードの内藤さんと友人のMiとの会食。仕事のチャンスができた。午後は国薬の提案書の翻訳。まだ終わらない。もう１０時間もやっている。中国語と英語が違う。日本語の訳している。今日のブログはやっとアップできるが、まだ、仕事のほうが終わっていない。最近は超多忙だ。水曜日の資料がまだできていない。やばいなあ。では多々明日。

Bailing out Greece
The threat of Grexit never really went away
Brinkmanship over emergency loans resumes again
May 4th 2016 | Online extra

ギリシャの救済
ギリシャのユーロ圏離脱の恐れは現実的になくなってはいない。
緊急貸し出しへの瀬戸際政策が再び浮上してきている。

THE tagline of the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2”, which was released in March, is “People change. Greeks don’t.” Whether any euro-zone finance ministers have seen the film, let alone detected any resemblance to their ongoing talks with the Greek government over its third bail-out, is unknown. But the renewed bickering about whether Greece is keeping to its end of the bargain, complete with threats of a snap election if its creditors don’t give more ground, has the air of a duff sequel.

tagline：標語
let alone：言うまでもなく
bickering：言い争う
keeping to its end of the bargain：一方の当事者として責任を果たす
snap election： 〔突然の議会解散によって実施される〕総選挙
give more ground：より譲歩する
air of a duff sequel：価値のない続編の様子



Greece badly needs the next dollop of the €86 billion ($99 billion) bail-out creditors promised it last summer, in exchange for promises of austerity and reform. But it will not get the money until the creditors complete a review of its progress, which has been dragging on since November. The government has scraped together enough cash (by raiding independent public agencies) to pay salaries and pensions in May, perhaps even in June. But by July 20th, when a bond worth more than €2 billion matures, the country once again faces default and perhaps a forced exit from the euro zone. The threat of Grexit is not exactly back; it never really went away.

dollop：ひとさじ・少量
dragging on：ダラダラと長引く
scrape together cash： 現金［資金］をかき集める
raiding：を手入れする

With a referendum on Britain’s EU membership in June and a possible flare-up of the refugee crisis as summer approaches, the last thing Europe needs is another Greek drama. The European Commission is thus in a mood for compromise. It emphasises that negotiations are “99%’’ complete. But the other creditor, the IMF, is less forgiving. With tax arrears in Greece rising and reforms constantly delayed, the fund has little faith that the programme’s target of a 3.5% primary budget surplus by 2018 can be achieved. It wants Greece to make a contingency plan to raise more money or cut spending further before it approves the next instalment of the bail-out.

arrears：滞納金
little faith that：あまり信用しない
instalment：複数の連続する構成要素の一つ分［1回分］

In April a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers, intended to approve Greece’s fiscal plans along with the pending disbursement, was cancelled at the last minute. Although negotiators had more or less agreed on a package of €5.4 billion (3% of Greek GDP) in austerity measures, they hit a deadlock over an extra €3.6 billion in contingency measures to be adopted if the primary surplus does not reach 3.5%. The Europeans seem content to have a woolly plan B, but Christine Lagarde, head of the fund, says it will “have to be legislated upfront, have to be credible, and have to be triggered with a degree of automaticity”. Greece’s finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, says this is constitutionally impossible.

contend to：喜んで〜する
woolly：はっきりしない
automaticity：自動性

In fact the biggest constraints are political, not legal. The contingency package would probably involve further cuts to pensions, a direct assault on the base of the ruling Syriza party. Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, faces a revolt by 53 of his own MPs, led by Mr Tsakalotos. Greece’s main opposition party, New Democracy, now leads in the polls and has called for snap elections. It says it will vote neither for the €5.4 billion austerity package (because it is too tax-heavy and reform-light) nor for additional contingency measures.

revolt：反乱・反逆

The meeting of euro-zone finance ministers has been rescheduled for May 9th. Before that, negotiators on both sides will need to agree on the contingency plan. If they do so, the deal will have to be approved by the Greek parliament by May 24th, when the next finance ministers’ meeting takes place. If Mr Tsipras strikes a deal but cannot get it through parliament, a new election is likely. And several euro-zone governments must get parliamentary approval to sign off on any disbursement of bail-out funds. The potential pitfalls, in other words, are legion.

strikes a deal：合意する
pitfall：隠れた危険・落とし穴
legion：大衆

The irony is that the IMF, for all its current intransigence, is the more forgiving of Greece’s creditors. It wants to reduce the primary-surplus target to 1.5% and to write off some of Greece’s debt. Such concessions are politically indigestible for euro-zone governments, especially Germany’s. The most likely solution, as always, is a fudge: an agreement that gives creditors just enough confidence to release the next slug of cash, without putting Greece’s finances on a sustainable footing or resolving the most heated disputes.

intransigence：強硬姿勢
indigestible：受け入れ難い
fudge：その場しのぎの解決
slug of：少量の
footing：基盤・足場

Deal or no deal, election or not, the economy is struggling. Banks are still zombies; many structural reforms (such as to the judiciary, labour and product markets) have been put off; and private investors continue to give Greece a wide berth. Yet other euro members do not want to talk about debt relief. Greeks are not the only ones, it seems, who do not change.

judiciary：司法制度
give a wide berth to： 〜から離れている、〜に近寄らない［近づかない・関わらない］◆【直訳】〜に広い操船余地（berth）を与える◆操船余地とは、船と船がぶつからないようにするためにあけておく余地（間隔）のこと。

日曜日。今日はこれまで。ギリシャの救済はできそうにない。EUは金を出し、議論をするだけで、結局何もできない。ギリシャは言うだけで結局何もしない。結局どこかで、Grexitになるだろう。最初から分かっていたことだ。日本人だったら、そうはしない。なぜG7で日本政府はそのことを言いだsないのだろうか。

昨日は海野塾があって、懇親会もあった。終わり頃になって、永井さんと松島さんが懇親会に参加した。ありがたいことだ。その後１時間半ウォーキングをした。今日は午前は来週の海野塾の資料レビューがあり、夜は勝部さんの祝賀パーティがある。今日は忙しい。ではまた明日。 

Mr Kim presumably hopes the congress will mark a formal consolidation of his own power. When he took over many outside analysts assumed he would merely be the Kim front for a ruling clique of more experienced thugs. In fact, he has ruthlessly purged the senior ranks of the party and army, even executing his uncle by marriage, Jang Song Taek, the regime’s main interlocutor with China. The congress may rubber-stamp his installation of loyalists in senior party positions. More of them are likely to be civilians rather than the generals who kept his father in power. It may also enshrine Mr Kim’s own ideas in party doctrine. This could involve a switch from his father’s songun, or “military first”, doctrine to his own “byungjin line”, of pursuing nuclear weapons and economic development in tandem. 

presumably：おそらく
consolidation：強化すること
thug：悪党
clique：徒党
ruthlessly：容赦なく
uncle by marriage：義理の叔父
interlocutor：対話者
rubber-stamp：深く考えずに判を押す
installation：任命
enshrine：述べられている
 in tandem：縦一列になって・と歩調を合わせて

The power of wishful thinking
If this happens, optimists believe the congress may prove a turning-point. It is early enough in his rule for Mr Kim not to have to take responsibility for the regime’s many failures. He can, however, claim credit for its nuclear prowess. Having proved that North Korea matches the description he had written into the preamble to its constitution in 2012, as a “nuclear state and a militarily powerful state that is indomitable”, he can turn his attention to feeding his people and easing their poverty. And that would imply patching up relations with China, North Korea’s only ally and main economic lifeline, which after the North’s most recent transgressions has seemed more serious about enforcing sanctions. 

prowess：卓越した技量
claim credit for：功績を強調する
preamble ：序文
indomitable：不屈の
patch up：応急処置をする
transgression：違反・犯罪



destruction：破滅行為
appetite：欲求
aggresion：攻撃的行動
defiance：挑戦的な態度
provocation：挑発
torpedo：魚雷
corbette：高速小型護衛艦
shell：砲撃する
leap day：うるう年

Peninsula of provocation: A timeline of clashes between North and South Korea 

It would also mean extending olive branches to other countries, particularly South Korea, which in February withdrew from the joint industrial complex at Kaesong, just north of the border. That marked the end of the South’s “sunshine” policy aimed at changing North Korea through engagement. Now Mr Kim himself may slowly let the sun in, adopting the market-oriented reforms and opening to the outside world that catapulted China to prosperity, and which its leaders have long urged on North Korea. 

extending olive branches：和平を申し出る
let the sun in：その太陽政策を認める
catapulted ：飛び出す

It would make sense. In a reformed North Korea, Mr Kim would have more resources to buy the loyalty of those around him, and he might sleep easier. China has shown that economic development can be achieved without the party losing power. Since both China and the West fear his regime’s collapse into bloody chaos as much as its nuclear bellicosity, he would find willing helpers. Yet it is hard to see grounds for optimism in Mr Kim’s rule so far. He has shown no concern about antagonising the rest of the world, has promoted hardliners and has pursued the potential for nuclear warfare even more obsessively than his father. The congress may be less a turning-point than a dead end, saying to the world: this is North Korea today; live with it. 

bellicosity：好戦的性質
shown no concern：に少しの心配の色を見せない
antagonising：敵に回す
obsessively：執拗に・とりつかれたように
dead end：袋小路・手詰まり
 live with it：我慢する

土曜日。今まで北朝鮮は世界を相手に好戦的は行動をしてきた。国内においては数多くの側近を粛清してきた。今回の大会では人材の多くを将軍ではなく、民間人を採用している。この国は核開発と経済発展に力を入れようとしている。今あたらめて、そうした国家の方向を転換しようとしているが、果たして世界が受け入れるだろうか。中国も今のような核開発の現状を認めないだろう。今のままであれば、北朝鮮もあと２、３年の寿命だろう。資源を提供している中国次第だが。

昨日は資料整理がほとんどだった。夕方から本が書けた。今日は１日海野塾だ。一週間で一番楽しい時だ。ではまた明日。

Metal prices
Apr 30th 2016 | From the print edition

金属価格



The Economist’s metals index has fallen by 46% from its peak in 2011, largely because of slowing demand in China. Supply disruptions caused occasional spikes: nickel prices rose in the first half of 2014 after Indonesia banned metal-ore exports and zinc prices jumped in 2015 after mine closures. Metals prices have rallied in the past few months, however, thanks to a weaker dollar and a credit surge in China. The price of iron ore, a steel-making ingredient, has jumped by 70% since December. The value of tin has increased because Indonesia, the world’s second-biggest producer, introduced regulations to halt illegal trade that also curbed exports; recent flooding has also restricted access to mining areas.

dsiruption：混乱
occasional spike：時折発生する急騰
rallied：回復する
credit surge：信用の拡大
ingredient：材料
tin：スズ

こんなに下落すればどこの商社も赤字になるのは当然だ。ロシアのような資源国はもっと打撃が大きいはずだ。

Once in a lifetime
Convening a rare congress, all North Korea’s ruling party has to celebrate is its own survival
Apr 30th 2016 | From the print edition

一生に一度
滅多にない会議を開催し、北朝鮮の与党はその存続のために式典を行わなければならない。

THE last time North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, the KWP, held a national congress was in October 1980, when its present leader, Kim Jong Un, was not even born. The meeting’s main purpose was to formalise the party’s graduation from a traditional Marxist-Leninist dictatorship to a dynastic one. Mr Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, was crowned as dauphin to his own father, Kim Il Sung, the country’s founding leader. The eldest Kim died in 1994 but, even in death, remains the country’s “eternal president”. Meanwhile party doctrine largely ditched Marx, Lenin and the rest in favour of Kim Il Sung’s own ideology of juche, or self-reliance (real meaning: distrust, confront and rob foreigners). Kim Jong Il ruled until his death in December 2011 without feeling the need ever to convene a party congress. Yet his son is preparing to preside over one, starting on May 6th. In the world’s most closed political system, it is not easy to work out why.  

graduation：卒業
dauphin：ドーファン〘1349—1830年のフランスの皇太子の称号〙.
ditched：との関係をたつ
rest：支え
jute philosophy： チュチェ（主体）思想◆「人民が革命と建設の主体である」という金日成の指導の基本理念より
self-reliance ：自立
confront：対決する
rob：襲撃する
preside：とり仕切る





Precedent is no explanation. In 1980 five-yearly congresses were decreed. But a 35-year gap has opened since. The calendar imposes no more pressure on Kim Jong Un than it did on his father. Moreover, it will be embarrassing not to welcome foreign bigwigs. In 1980 177 delegates came from 118 countries, including Robert Mugabe, then Zimbabwe’s prime minister; the president of Guinea, Sekou Toure; and a Chinese delegation led by the late Li Xiannian, one of an “immortal” first generation of revolutionary leaders. The upcoming congress, it seems, will be a North Koreans-only affair. Kim Jong Un’s continuation of his father’s pursuit of a nuclear arsenal and the missiles to deliver it—most recently the claimed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile on April 23rd—has isolated their country even further. An offer this week to halt nuclear testing in exchange for an end to annual American-South Korean military exercises was swiftly dismissed. The congress will highlight the flip side of juche. North Korea really is on its own. 

Precedent：先例・慣例
decreed：法令で定める
embarrassing：困惑させる
bigwig：有力者
immortal：不滅の
dismissed：退ける
flip side：裏面・B面 
on its own：勝手に

Nor does the KWP have much to celebrate other than the claimed “success” (at best partial, say foreign experts) of its four nuclear tests, two of them under this third-generation Kim, with the most recent in January. A fifth seems imminent. Mr Kim has not yet inflicted on his people the kind of famine that killed hundreds of thousands under his father in the late 1990s. But just this month the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation produced a chilling report on persistent food shortages. It estimated that 10.5m people—two-fifths of the population—were undernourished and that 2.4m pregnant or breast-feeding women and children under five were at risk of malnutrition. Over three-quarters of North Koreans, it concluded, remain “food insecure”. 

claimed：主張する
imminent：今にも起こりそうな
inflicted：もたらす
chilling：ぞっとする
undernourished：栄養不良の
malnutrition：栄養失調

Yet on top of all its other woes North Korea has been enduring a “70-day campaign of loyalty”, a propaganda countdown to the congress’s opening. Clearly Mr Kim thinks it important. Indeed, some scholars of North Korea, such as Hajime Izumi of Tokyo International University, think nothing has mattered more for him. They believe that flaunting strength through nuclear and missile tests is aimed at laying the groundwork for a self-congratulatory congress—never mind the disastrous impact such chest-thumping has on the country’s foreign relations. 

on top of all：さらにその上
Nothing matters more to me than： 私にとって何よりも大切なのは〜である
flaunting：誇示する
laying the groundwork：土台を作る・根回しをする
chest-thumping：威勢のいい・見栄を張る

金曜日。今日はこれまで。資源の下落はこの数年ひどい状況だった。そうしたことで、原油だけでなくこうした金属の資源国とか勝者は大打撃を受けてきた。半値ぐらいの下落だった。さて、北朝鮮だが相変わらずのやんちゃぶりだ。３５年ぶりの党大会を開催する一方で、人工の５分の２の一千万人が栄養失調だ。今回は外国の要人は招待しないようだ。

昨日は資料の整理で１日を終わってしまった。今日の昼は人事の三城さんとの会食がある。午前は研修資料の勉強がある。うまくいけば午後からは本が書ける。ではまた明日。