다반향초님의 이글루

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            Today's Headlines

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1. The won-dollar exchange rate has continued its upward swing for 4 days in a row. Meanwhile,oil prices have taken a plunge of more than $6 a barrel since Friday, and touched their lowest level in five months on Wednesday.

* upward swing : 상승세
* take a plunge: 급락하다
 -nosedive, plummet

2. North Korea is reportedly reassembling nuclear facilities at Yongbyon in protest against the United States' delay in removing the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

*list of state sponsors of terrorism: 테러 지원국 명단

3. According to the UN World Food Program, an increasing number of North Koreans are now foraging for wild foods. North Korea is _expected to become a recipient of half a billion dollars' worth of UN emergency food aid.

* forage for : (주로 먹을 것을 찾아) 돌아 다니다, 헤매다
* recipient: 수령인, 수혜자

4. Declining birth rates have brought the population of elementary school children to its lowest-ever since the Education Ministry began collecting annual statistics in 1962.

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            Today's News Articles

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#1 Controversial Aso may replace Fukuda as Japan’s PM

Following Yasuo Fukuda’s sudden resignation as Japan’s prime minister, half of the ruling party’s branches are supporting former foreign minister Taro Aso, who has already run for leadership four times. Aso has not yet formally announced his candidacy for the September 22 vote, when party branches and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's lawmakers will choose a new leader. Aso supports higher government spending to prop up the economy, which some fear will reverse Japan’s work on cutting its massive public debt. Additionally, there is speculation that Aso’s hawkish policies will bring in other candidates to stall his campaign for leadership. Analysts say that there is a good chance the new leader will call a snap general election in order to make the most of any jump in public ratings after the unpopular Fukuda.

*prop something up
~를 지지하다, 지원하다
-to support it or help it to survive
e.g.) Investments in the U.S. money market have propped up the American dollar.

*stall someone/something
막다, 지연시키다, 시간을 벌다
-prevent sb. from doing sth.

*snap election/decision/judgement/etc…
조기 선거
-early election

*make the most of something
~를 십분 활용하다, 최대한 이용하다

#2 Suicide rates among U.S. teens remain alarmingly high

Although the teen suicide rates in the U.S. have taken a slight dip, they still remain higher than expected in a disturbing trend that has continued since 2004. Some experts have suggested that public health warnings in 2003 and 2004 about the use of anti-depressant medication may be correlated with the rise in teen suicides. In late 2004, the FDA ordered pharmaceutical companies to put black box warnings on anti-depressant medications’ labels, saying that the drugs could increase teens’ suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Prescriptions of anti-depressants and diagnoses of depression dropped soon after. A psychiatry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago noted that the continuing rise is not just a coincidence, saying, “What's important is this shows us that the 2004 data wasn't just some blip on the radar.”

*take a slight dip
약간 떨어지다, 소폭 감소하다
참고) take a dip 수영하다

*anti-depressant
항 우울제의

*be correlated with
~와 상관관계가 있다, 상호 연관성이 있다

*black box warning
매우 강력한 경고 문구
(주로 심한 부작용 등을 적어놓은 것)
=black label warning

*a blip on the radar
레이더 화면 위에 나타나는 작고 깜박거리는 점,
--> 무시해도 될 만한 사소한 일, 크게 걱정하지 않아도 되는 일

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               Today's closing tip

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Please don't dog-ear this book.
-책장 접지마