ふむなる英語リーディング！で、TIMEによりますと・・・

Why Up to 90% of Asian Schoolchildren Are Nearsighted
（ TIME ）

Scientists say an epidemic of myopia, or nearsightedness, is sweeping
through Asian children, and is likely due to students’ spending too
much time indoors studying and not enough time outside in the sunlight.

It has long been thought that nearsightedness is mostly a hereditary
problem, but researchers led by Ian Morgan of Australian National
University say the data suggest that environment has a lot more to do
with it.

Reporting in the journal Lancet, the authors note that up to 90% of
young adults in major East Asian countries, including China, Taiwan,
Japan, Singapore and South Korea, are nearsighted. The overall rate of
myopia in the U.K., by contrast, is about 20% to 30%.

Particularly concerning is that about 10% to 20% of Asian
schoolchildren suffer from high myopia, which puts them at higher risk
of more serious vision problems, including blindness, in adulthood.
Morgan says the culprit is the massive pressure on Asian children to
succeed in school, which leads to too many hours hunched over books
indoors and not nearly enough exposure to natural sunlight. Indeed,
East Asian countries with high myopia rates are those that dominate
international rankings of educational performance, the study notes.

Myopia, which causes people to see clearly things that are near but not
those that are at a distance, is the result of elongation of the
eyeball, which leads to misalignment of light on the retina. Instead of
landing on the retina at the back of the eye, incoming light converges
at a point in front of the retina, leading to blurry images at a
distance. Animal studies show that during early development, if the eye
is not allowed to regulate its size to the proper length, then myopia
can occur.

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My Sister, My Surrogate: After Battling Cancer, One Woman Receives the
Ultimate Mother’s Day Gift
（ TIME ）

This is a Mother’s Day story, but it is really about sisters, about
how it took two of them to make one of them a mother. It is a story
about cancer and the shadow it cast over the lives of these women,
since Melissa Brown was 2 and her sister, Jessica, was a baby. It’s a
story, in part, about death. But ultimately, it’s about life -- two
new lives, to be exact -- and the unexpected roads that women sometimes
travel to motherhood.

Melissa, an attorney, and Jessica, a jeweler, grew up in Cape May,
N.J., sharing clothes and secrets. They’re best friends who talk on
the phone every day. When Melissa got engaged, Jessica was the first to
know. Melissa had just finished law school; her fiance, Steve Mohler,
was working as a software engineer for Lockheed Martin. It had been
five years since they met at the Lobster House in Cape May -- she had
waited tables, he’d bused them -- and they were planning a June 15,
2008, wedding, one year from the day Steve popped the question.

There were other things Melissa, now 30, and Jessica, 27, shared: the
specter of cancer, for one. Their mother, Gail, was diagnosed with
breast cancer in 1984 at the age of 30, when the girls were too young
to understand what it must have been like for her to undergo treatment,
including a bilateral mastectomy, as the parent of a baby and a
toddler. Her treatment -- from her initial Stage 3 diagnosis until
scans showed no signs of disease -- lasted three years. Melissa, who
was 5 by that time, remembers going to doctor’s appointments with her
mother. After the doctor finished injecting saline into her mother’s
breast-tissue expanders, readying them for implants, she’d use the
syringe to squirt water at Melissa and Jessica.

Gail was always open with her girls about the need to do breast
self-exams; after all, she’d found her cancer herself in the months
after Jessica’s birth. As soon as her daughters developed breasts --
it may have been around age 12 but certainly by age 13 -- Gail taught
them how to creep their fingers in spiraling circles around their
breasts, searching for anything that didn’t belong.

In early 2006, Gail discovered another lump. In a very rare occurrence
after both breasts had been removed, the cancer had returned. Chemo
cleared it up. But in Nov. 2007, it resurfaced. It would be Gail’s
third time fighting the disease, but she wasn’t feeling defeated. “I
did not let cancer prevent me from seeing my girls grow up,” she told
Melissa and Jessica. “I will not let it prevent me from watching you
both get married. I want to see grandchildren.”

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France Election: Socialist Hollande Defeats Sarkozy for Presidency
（ TIME ）

France was poised for major change Sunday night when Socialist
candidate Francois Hollande looked set to beat conservative incumbent
Nicolas Sarkozy in runoff balloting for France’s presidency. Initial
results revealed at 8 p.m. local time forecast Hollande beating Sarkozy
by a seemingly insurmountable score of 51.9% to 48.1%. When that result
is confirmed by the final tally, Hollande will become France’s first
Socialist President in 17 years -- lifted to power by a majority of
voters who embraced his calls for a greater emphasis on economic growth
and targeted social spending to counteract the austerity measures
implemented to help shrink France’s excessive debt. Yet in addition to
reflecting public desire for policy change, Hollande’s election will
also be interpreted as a personal rebuke to the unpopular and embattled
Sarkozy, who becomes France’s first single-term President in 31 years.

The announcement of Hollande’s projected win was greeted with an
eruption of cheers by elated supporters gathered around the country --
including a festive throng assembled outside the Socialist Party’s
Left Bank headquarters in Paris. Chants of “Francois President!” and
“We’ve won!” rang out to celebrate the news awaiting Hollande’s
televised victory speech from the south-central town of Tulle, which he
has represented as a regional official and national legislator since
the late 1980s. Socialist officials said they expected Hollande’s
comments to take up his campaign theme of unity to deal with the
financial crisis that France and Europe face in contrast to what he had
said was Sarkozy’s penchant for division. Less than 20 minutes after
the partial results were announced, Sarkozy addressed his supporters in
a Paris auditorium, telling them that he “assumed full responsibility
for this defeat.” He also wished Hollande luck in the “trials”
facing France’s top leader at a time of continental crisis.

Hollande has said he won’t allow Merkel’s actions in favor of Sarkozy
to undermine Franco-German relations. Indeed, given the importance of
that partnership in European affairs -- and his own determination to
renegotiate the treaty critical to the euro’s future despite the
Chancellor’s hostility -- Hollande is expected to make contacting
Merkel one of his first moves as President-elect.

Wooing the conservative Merkel away from the total-austerity remedies
she favors and toward a campaign to invest in economic growth won’t be
easy for a President Hollande who has no experience in national
government or international relations. But if he managed to overcome
what at one time looked like impossible odds to defeat Sarkozy, who
knows what else might be possible?

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Japan Shuts Off Final Nuclear Reactor
（ TIME ）

Thousands of Japanese marched to celebrate the switching off of the
last of their nation's 50 nuclear reactors Saturday, waving banners
shaped as giant fish that have become a potent anti-nuclear symbol.

Japan was without electricity from nuclear power for the first time in
four decades when the reactor at Tomari nuclear plant on the northern
island of Hokkaido went offline for mandatory routine maintenance.

After last year's March 11 quake and tsunami set off meltdowns at the
Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, no reactor halted for checkups has been
restarted amid public worries about the safety of nuclear technology.

"Today is a historic day," Masashi Ishikawa shouted to a crowd gathered
at a Tokyo park, some holding traditional "koinobori" carp-shaped
banners for Children's Day that have become a symbol of the anti-
nuclear movement.

"There are so many nuclear plants, but not a single one will be up and
running today, and that's because of our efforts," Ishikawa said.

The activists said it is fitting that the day Japan stopped nuclear
power coincides with Children's Day because of their concerns about
protecting children from radiation, which Fukushima Dai-ichi is still
spewing into the air and water.

The government has been eager to restart nuclear reactors, warning
about blackouts and rising carbon emissions as Japan is forced to turn
to oil and gas for energy.

Yoko Kataoka, a retired baker who was dancing to the music at the rally
waving a small paper carp, said she was happy the reactor was being
turned off.

"Let's leave an Earth where our children and grandchildren can all play
without worries," she said, wearing a shirt that had, "No thank you,
nukes," handwritten on the back.

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The 100 Most Influential People in the World
（ TIME ）

Xi Jinping

The past 20 years have been a golden age for China, a time when it
built shining cities, lifted millions out of poverty and strutted its
stuff as the new century's anointed superpower.

But the China that Xi Jinping, 58, will lead when -- if all goes to plan
-- he becomes China's President in the fall is also a fretful place.
In coming years, its economy will probably not grow at the pace that
Chinese have come to expect. And the extraordinary fall of Bo Xilai,
the Chongqing party secretary, has shattered the carapace of political
stability that the Communist Party has been at such pains to polish
since 1989.

Can Xi steer his nation to be less defensive abroad and less dependent
on a creaking economic model at home, all while maintaining party rule
and a confined political life? Some doubt it. Xi is the modern Chinese
establishment personified, the son of a colleague of Mao Zedong's and
the husband of Peng Liyuan, one of China's best- known singers. But
perhaps it is those who know China's structure best who will be able to
find the flexibility to cope with the changes that are surely coming.

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The Fall of Bo Xilai and the Future of Chinese Growth
（ TIME ）

The fall of Bo Xilai, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party
in the sprawling mid-Western city of Chongqing, is the stuff of
movies. A member of the party elite and supposed corruption fighter
who was seen to have brought order to a Blade Runner-esque sprawl with
a population the size of Belgium, Bo was not only poised to enter the
top rungs of the Politburo this year, he was the first Chinese
celebrity politician since Deng and Mao. In a country where the Party
likes to speak with one voice, and tall poppies are often cut down, he
stood out. He dressed well; he cultivated the media; he had his own
one page Comment and Analysis piece in the Financial Times.

But in March, he was abruptly dismissed as the Party head of Chongqing,
after his police chief, Wang Lijun, sought asylum in the U.S. consulate
in Chengdu, a city several hours northwest of Chongqing. Wang had
provided evidence of crimes allegedly involving Bo, according to
reports in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, including
murders carried out on his order. Wang also claimed that a dead British
businessman, Neil Heywood, who was said to be close to Bo’s wife Gu
Kailai, had been in a business dispute with her, and had been poisoned.
Rather than being a tough-but-honest politician fighting corruption in
China’s Wild West, a very different picture of Bo began to emerge --
one of a man who his critics say was an entitled “princeling” (his
father was Bo Yibo, a revolutionary general who had fought alongside
Chairman Mao), and who was corrupt himself; someone willing to torture,
frame, and even murder anyone who got in his way.

The story is titillating just as a thriller (indeed, a satirical email
circulating over the last few days in China laid out a movie treatment
of the story to be filmed by Miramax). But it’s even more compelling
when you begin to parse what it means politically and economically for
the Middle Kingdom, and for the world. Bo Xilai represented a very
particular kind of Chinese power, and a specific notion of how China
should grow. The “Chongqing model” was built on hyper-development,
particularly around real estate, and economic power was largely held by
the “state-owned enterprises” or SOEs. The city was growing at over
16% a year, but it was old-style growth, rife with vested interests of
the sort laid out in Ken Miller’s China Bubble cover story for TIME
last year, and with little regard for the environment, or, it seems,
rule of law.

It was exactly the kind of growth that Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has
said time and time again is “unsustainable.” Both he and president Hu
Jintao have led the reformist camp that wants to move China from a
capital intensive, growth at all costs model, to one that’s based on
slower and more inclusive growth and a more developed local market. The
problem is, as Miller laid out in his cover, that China’s development
machine has too many vested interests -- people like Bo and his
associates make a lot of money developing real estate (in China, it’s
often taken by force from peasants who get little for it). One high
level American businessman I spoke with in China last night remembers
Bo’s son, Bo Guagua, having “an endless supply of cash and lots of
fancy cars.” He also recalls Chinese acquaintances trying to do real
estate deals in Chongqing being threatened with their lives when terms
couldn’t be agreed upon.

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North Korea’s Rocket Fails, But More Fireworks Could Follow
（ TIME ）

North Korea’s satellite launch, planned as a celebration of the
centenary of the birth of its founding President, Kim Il Sung, failed
sometime shortly after 7:40 a.m. Friday when the first stage of the
Unha-3 rocket dropped to the Yellow Sea about 165 km west of Seoul.
After weeks of antagonism between North Korea and the U.S., South Korea
and Japan, who said the launch was the equivalent of a ballistic
missile test, the failure offered a moment of respite. “At no time
were the missile or the resultant debris a threat,” noted a statement
from the North American Aerospace Defense Command. In a rare admission,
North Korea’s state-run news service acknowledged the satellite
“failed to enter its preset orbit.” It said technicians were
investigating the cause.

But the ballistic bust does not mean that North Korean threat has
lessened significantly. The isolated authoritarian state still
possesses significant conventional artillery with which it could attack
Seoul, just 55 km south of the demilitarized zone that separates North
and South Korea. “I don’t think we should be taking great sigh of
relief that the test failed,” says Rory Medcalf, director of the
Sydney-based Lowy Institute’s international-security program. “I
don’t think the fundamental issue is about North Korea’s ability to
reach the U.S. From a regional perspective the fact is that North Korea
can wreak havoc on South Korea and do a lot harm to Japan. There the
insecurity is very much alive.”

The collapse of the leap-day deal and North Korea’s launch are a
political liability for President Obama, who entered office as an
advocate of talks with Pyongyang. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican
challenger in this fall’s presidential race, called the leap-day deal
“as naive as it was short-lived,” adding, “This incompetence from
the Obama Administration has emboldened the North Korean regime and
undermined the security of the United States and our allies.”

China helped steward the leap-day deal, and following North Korea’s
decision to pursue a satellite launch, it has urged calm on all sides
but avoids condemning the move. On Wednesday Chinese President Hu
Jintao congratulated Kim after he was named head of North Korea’s
ruling Workers’ Party, a sign that Beijing’s traditional alliance
with Pyongyang is a primary concern. China didn’t abandon North Korea
after its 2009 satellite launch, and it’s unlikely to do so now.

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Obama-Romney Starts with a Harsh Tone
（ TIME ）

The 2012 presidential general election has begun. It won't be pretty.

Tuesday marked Day One, in essence, of the contest between the two
virtually certain nominees, Republican Mitt Romney and President Barack
Obama. Rick Santorum's departure removed the last meaningful bump from
Romney's path to the GOP nomination. Romney and Obama wasted no time in
portraying the voters' choice in dire, sometimes starkly personal terms.

With Obama saddled with a still-ailing economy and a divisive health
care law, and Romney riding a wave of blistering TV ads, the fall
election is unlikely to dwell on "hope," "change" and other uplifting
themes from four years ago. Much of the nation's ire then was aimed at
departing President George W. Bush, and Obama had no extensive record
to defend.

The landscape is much different now. Americans face nearly seven months
of hard-hitting jabs and counterpunches between the two parties'
standard-bearers.

Obama, campaigning in Florida, said the choice this fall will be as
stark as in the 1964 contest between Lyndon Johnson and Barry
Goldwater, which resulted in one of the biggest Democratic landslides
ever. That election included dramatic and controversial moments, such
as Goldwater's defense of "extremism in the defense of liberty" and a
devastating TV ad suggesting a Goldwater presidency would lead to
nuclear war.

Obama didn't mention Romney by name. His top aides have shown less
restraint, however.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a statement after Santorum's
withdrawal: "It's no surprise that Mitt Romney finally was able to
grind down his opponents under an avalanche of negative ads. But
neither he nor his special interest allies will be able to buy the
presidency with their negative attacks. The more the American people
see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him."

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