Category: yoshikih

Summary

IOC (International Olympics Comittee) approved the plan that indoor track events of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 moved from Tokyo to Izu for cost-cutting. The UCI (International Cycling Union) had first resisited the plan because it was thought that farness from Tokyo would decrease the Olympics experience. However, according to IOC, the experience will be guaranteed, as athletes can choose to stay in the main Athlete village in Tokyo or a satellite village in Izu. The IOC and local authorities have worked to develop sports including cycling locally and Tokyo organizing comittee CEO said that the move was the optimal choise for the future development of sports in Japan.

Opinion

This issue is one of very controvercial problems in Japan recently. Which aspect is more important, cost or better Olympics experience? As to the National Stadium, it was proved that Japanese people put more importance on cost and the construction plan has been started with a clean slate. The move of indoor cycling can also be evidence that Japan and the IOC stressed the importance of cost-cutting. In my opinion, cost is very important aspect for the future. I have heard that a past host country had suffered from financial difficulties after holding Olympics. It is not always true that the Olympics bring financial wealth to host countries. For avoiding future difficulties, we host counstry must be careful about cost. Moreover, the move will have good effect to Izu and other local areas as well as the host city, Tokyo. Therefore I support the plan.

Summary

According to a report, the cost for new drugs for cancer in United Kingdom is very low compared with many other well-off countries such as Australia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, and Sweden. While prices of drugs in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland are the highest, United Kingdom, Greece, Spain and Portugal pay the least on average. Any discounts for prices of drugs remain secret so Sabine Vogler, who is the author of the report, said that there were some risks for some countries to overpay for drugs. He insisted that the discounts should be more transparent and countries be able to see if they are overpaying. David Watson, who is a director of pricing at the pharmaceutical industry in British, said that United Kingdom was getting a fair deal about medicines pricing.

Opinion

I have never thought that I may have overpaid for drugs or medicines so this article was very interesting for me. According to the article, the official list of prices of drugs are freely available, but discounts are secret and as a result, prices of drugs are different among high-income countries. In my opinion, we should have free competitive market and so if there are some points which prevent the market being free and fair by being kept secret, we should get rid of that points. Studying world history, I have felt that United Kingdom have been very wise to do business historically. This article did not say the reason why United Kingdom pay less for drugs, but this fact strengthen that feeling of mine. However, from this view, I cannot explain why Greece, Spain, Portugal are also like United Kingdom. I would like to study more about this problem.

Summary

My article was about the NASA’s plan to accept applications to be astronauts and to go to Mars. People applying for it need to be United States citizens and to be pretty smart and accomplished such as pilots. In addition to these, they will have to pass the physical test.

 

Opinion

Firstly we asked each other in the group if we want to go to Mars in the class. Some said that they want to go to Mars to meet aliens. That was interesting idea for me because I do not believe in existence of alien. In my opinion, I do not want to go there with some costs and stay in Earth to keep myself safe. Not believing in aliens, I am afraid I do not have any reason to leave from space. On the other hand, a student in other group said that he wants to go to Mars and to see aurora. He told me that you can see it on north hemisphere of Mars. I found it interesting that there were many reasons to dreaming the journey to Mars.

Secondly we discuss what we human beings need to do to go to Mars. I think we have to develop our technology like that enabling us to breathe more easily. Mr. Brewster told us that most important thing for us in space is protection from radiation. It is very difficult to protect people from radiation by heavy metal and to make rockets lighter at the same time. In Earth, we hardly feel the danger of radiation from space thanks to ozone layer. I understood that there were a lot of difficulties we human beings have to overcome to go to Mars.

 

P.S.

I have a trivial question. I was told that NASA stood for North America Space Agency. I had assumed that NASA was the institution of United States, but I think North America means it includes not only United States but also Canada (maybe and Mexico). Isn’t NASA the institution of only United States?

In my opinion, it is not a problem to eat meat because killing other animals is very natural action for living things on earth to survive, especially for meat-eating creatures. A lot of living things on earth kill other creatures to take nourishment which is essential to live. There is no reason why only human beings must not kill and eat other animals to survive. However, things are quite different as to our using leather. From the reason written above, we cannot justify using leather. This is because our using leather does not necessarily need to survive. It is just luxury. We human beings should not kill other creatures only to satisfy our desire. Then, watching  Mr. Andras Forgacs’s TED talk, we can find one of the possible ways to handle this situation. Leather products can be made by biofabrication without injuring animals such as cows or alligator. Human beings can produce leather by scientific process without depriving living things of their lives. This is an ideal way we can respect animal rights and satisfy our wants at the same time. However, this scientific process may be able to bring problems. The more scientific technique develops, the more advanced things human beings can produce. If human beings are able to create living things thanks to development of science technology in the future, an ethical problem will arise, “What is the definition of the living things?” I doubt we can tell what is living thing and what is not when we produce lives by science technology. Are natural animals  genuine and are man-made animals not? The problem is that it is thought that our killing living things is guilty and using our product is not. Indeed it is an ethical problem for us to kill animals, but why can we say that killing animals we produce is not guilty? Using artificial leather can bring such an ethical problem. I cannot imagine how we can solve the problem, but I can say that we human beings cannot get anything without any sacrifice. If we human beings think genuinely that we should not sacrifice any other creatures, we have no choice but to conclude that we should not use any leather products. (369 words)

summary

In this article, it is written about the educational problem in India – discrimination against lower caste. Children from Dalit, which is thought to be the lowest caste, are chased away from classroom even if the commission in charge of the Right to Education Act make them enroll in government school. This story tells that providing access alone is insufficient. Efforts to keep Dalit children in school and provide proper education should be made.

Now this educational problem may be resolved. On May 19, India joined the World Educational Forum in South Korea. The forum aims to “ensure equitable and inclusive quality education.” This presents an important for India to work for educational discrimination in the country.

 

opinion

I have had no trouble having education in schools in my life, but reading this article, I was aware again that it is not good to take it for granted. Actually, in India, many Dalit children are discriminated in their school. In my opinion, good education ensure good future and, on the contrary, bad education will make it worse because educated children will compose the society in the future. Good education is not only children’s profit but also social request. However, they cannot do anything to get proper education because of their youth. So we grown-ups should make efforts to provide equal education to children.

I think that this educational problem is not just an affair of other country. Recently, educational gap because of wealth inequality has been one of the big social issues in Japan. This is not due to social position like India, but many children in Japan also lose their chance to get proper education because of their poverty. Also in Japan, any efforts to get rid of the educational inequality should be made.

summary

Hundreds of people marched protesting the event that a white police officer pointed his gun at a black 15-year-old girl. In a video showing the event, the police officer swore at black youths, pointed his gun at others, pulled the girl by her arm, and pinned her to the ground with his knees. The black’s march advocated that their skin color was not a crime. The protesters demanded that he should be dismissed and the girl thought that his getting fired was not enough. However, he was called to the sight to make uninvited people leave a swimming pool and there were a number of comments that he had no other way to protect people.

comment

The problem is whether or not the police officer would have done the same thing as the article described if the girl had not been black. As mentioned above, if there were no other way that the police officer had to protect general citizens, the girl’s skin color had nothing to do with the event. However, judging from that the march actually happened and there were a number of protests, it seemed that many African Americans in the United States have increased a sense of distrust  to the police, especially the white police. It is sad to me that problems about people’s skin color in United States have not been yet resolved completely since its foundation.

In last class, we discussed Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Liberia. According to the article, The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that Liberia was now free from Ebola virus. Liberia was the country where the most people died of Ebola, but WHO confirmed that 42 days, which is twice the maximum incubation period, had passed since the last death was confirmed. Though Liberia conquered Ebola through a collective effort, it is said that the outbreak will have a long-term impact on the weak economy of Liberia. In addition to this, Guinea and Sierra Leone, which is the country next to Liberia, now continue to fight the outbreak of Ebola. We can say that travelling around South Africa is still dangerous.

I am so interested in the outbreak of Ebola because I have the Infectious Disease Surveillance Center, which is the only place that can study Ebola in Japan, in my city. When the outbreak happened, I felt as if it were my own affairs. In discussing, I wondered why the outbreak suddenly happened even if Ebola had not been a big problem for a long time. A student in my group said that viruses seemed to change its nature slightly and to affect human beings. However, we could not know the actual cause of the outbreak.