08/11/2006 - 08/12/2006

Western business practices causing mental illness in japan

The rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say.

Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from “high anxiety� and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.

Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors. Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations.

brits in florida

The mix of sun, fun and the English tongue has led tens of thousands of British people to settle in Florida. But when the novelty wears off, many find themselves isolated, trapped and in fear of falling ill.

Government defends language teaching reforms

The study of languages in schools is going through a period of "transition" after a sharp fall in the number of pupils choosing French and German, the government said today. However, the schools minister, Jim Knight, defended the government's decision to make languages optional at GCSE.

"Chinese fever" constantly warms up

The Chinese language has constantly been warming up among overseas people, according to the latest statistics.

More than 30 million overseas people in the world have been learning Chinese language by various means up to now, according to new information from the 5th International Conference on Chinese Language Pedagogy held recently at Fudan University.

Japan's language market edges up

Japan's foreign-language learning sector saw earnings rise by 0.9% in the 2005 financial year to $5.5bn, according to data gathered by the Yano Research Institute. The moderate growth was mainly due to the expansion of English conversation classes for pre-schoolers and primary school children. This market was estimated to be worth $822m. There was also slight growth in the adult foreign--language teaching sector, which was estimated to be worth $2.3bn. Language schools have expanded their business to include early-morning classes, online teaching as well as Chinese-, Korean- and French-language tuition.

Cyrillic to Triumph from EU Rostrum

Cyrillic will become the third official alphabet in the European Union (EU) after Bulgaria's entry. The other two alphabets, which are currently in use in the union, are the Latin and Greek ones, International Herald Tribune reported.

If Bulgaria joins the zone of countries using the euro on January 1, 2007, as scheduled, Cyrillic alphabet may appear on euro banknotes by 2010, the newspaper added.

word of the day: piebald

piebald \PY-bald\, adjective:
1. Having spots and patches of black and white, or other colors; mottled.
2. Mixed; composed of incongruous parts.

She remembered the piebald hair of a convicted woman, with brown roots growing through the crude bleach. -- Jan Dalley, Diana Mosley

The Reverend Joseph A. Burgess drives a station wagon whose make surely could be determined, but the car is so dilapidated--the ornamentation gone and the paint thin and piebald, as if sandblasted--that the vehicle has achieved a perfectly generic identity. -- Richard Todd, "Faith, Fear, and Farming", Civilization, June 2000