France toughens up in fishing dispute with Britain By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-29 15:00 French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal has announced a list of retaliatory measures, preparing France for a potential trade dispute with Britain following the conflicts between the fishermen of the two countries, French local media reported on Thursday. A joint news release from the French Ministry of the Sea and the Secretariat for European Affairs quoted by newspaper Le Figaro explained the measures taken. From Nov 2, British fishing vessels will be banned to dock in designated ports. This involves six French ports in Hauts-de-France, Normandy and Brittany. French Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday, during a visit to Brittany that his country was "always open to talks, morning, noon and night", so long as Britain "honors its commitments". Britain has restricted access for French fishing boats in its territorial waters, including those around the Channel islands of Jersey and Guernsey off the French coast, which are self-governing but have British protection for defense and foreign affairs. Months of increasing tension have now resulted in two British boats being fined by French maritime police during checks on Wednesday, and threats of stronger action and disruption to trade unless progress is made. "I stand by the fact we pursued dialogue until now, we got half of the fishing licenses today, but that's not enough and not acceptable," Europe minister Clement Beaune told CNews TV. "So now, we need to speak the language of strength since that seems to be the only thing this British government understands." Further measures may include "systematic customs and sanitary checks on products brought to France and a ban on landing seafood", said a government spokesman, with Beaune adding that extra checks could be extended to "other merchandise". This is understood to mean a potential go-slow at customs checks for vehicles crossing to the United Kingdom, and reducing electricity supplies, with the UK getting much of its power from France. Despite the industry's small contribution to the British economy, the issue of fishing and control of territorial waters was elevated to great symbolic significance during the 2016 Brexit referendum, which the Leave side fought on the "taking back control" slogan and in subsequent negotiations. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, its contribution to the UK economy in 2019 was 0.02 percent, worth around 437 million pounds ($600 million), compared to the 126 billion pounds brought in by the financial services sector. UK authorities called France's threats "disappointing and disproportionate, and not what we would expect from a close ally and partner". Despite having been such a crucial chip in the Brexit poker game, leaders of the British fishing industry warned earlier this year that its treatment in the withdrawal agreement reached at the end of 2020 would resul...

Games terminology platform is available in eight languages By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-28 15:00 The latest version of an online terminology platform for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games has been made available to the public as a tool offering explanations of jargon associated with the events, the Ministry of Education said at a news conference on Wednesday, Oct 27. The platform contains about 132,000 words and phrases along with their definitions, application examples and sources in eight languages－Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, German and Spanish. The platform's website is owgt.blcu.edu.cn Anyone can access the platform by internet and mobile phone application and search, edit and review terms. On a mobile phone, they can even search by voice and photo recognition, the ministry said. At the conference, the Beijing organizing committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games also released Terms of Olympic Winter Sports, a dictionary that selected about 3,000 core terms from the platform for quick learning. Liu Heping, professor of translation study from the Beijing Language and Culture University, which organized both the platform and the dictionary, said they will be the world's first multilingual winter sports term tool kits to feature eight languages. "The 2022 Games offer a chance for us to retain sports language heritage, so we discussed, collected and added new content to the glossary," said Liu, one of the compilers. Taking curling as an example, Liu and her team members have identified terms related to the sport, including "brushing", "slide", "lead" and "icemaking" and have provided explanations of each. In 2017, the ministry, the committee and the State Language Commission launched a language service action plan that included the compilation of the terms. In addition, the China National Committee for Terminology in Science and Technology helped the university with the platform and dictionary compilations. In 2018 and 2019, the committee released the platform's first and second editions, both of which contained fewer words and phrases than the latest version. Over the past few years, the committee's staff members and volunteers of the Games have been using the platform and updating terms on it. This article is reprinted from China Daily. If there is a copyright, please inform us in time, we will delete it right the first time.

Row between Turkey and the West gets worse By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-27 17:00 The Turkish lira fell fast in early Monday trading after Ankara set wheels in motion to expel 10 Western diplomats in a row over the detention of businessman Osman Kavala. The slide took the lira to a record low against the United States' dollar and followed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announcing on Saturday he was ordering the expulsion of ambassadors from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the US. The nations had called for the release pending trial of businessman Osman Kavala, who had been detained without trial for four years. The news service Al Jazeera said there was no immediate sign of Turkey's foreign ministry acting on the order to expel the diplomats. The agency said the row amounts to the deepest rift between Turkey and the West in Erdogan's 19 years in power. Al Jazeera said Erdogan's foes claimed the lira was in trouble before the expulsions and that he engineered the row to distract attention from his handling of the economy. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition, the CHP, said on Twitter Erdogan was "rapidly dragging the country to a precipice". "The reason for these moves is not to protect national interests but to create artificial reasons for the ruining of the economy," he wrote. Tim Ash, a veteran emerging-market watcher from BlueBay Asset Management, told Al Jazeera: "I worry… for Turkish financial markets …The lira will inevitably come under extreme selling pressure." Ash said the nation's central bank is discouraged from hiking interest rates, "so the only defense will be spending foreign exchange reserves the (bank) does not have". The lira hit record lows last week, before the expulsions were ordered, after the central bank cut its policy rate by 200 basis points, despite rising inflation. The BBC said Erdogan's declaration that the 10 ambassadors were "persona non grata" followed a joint statement from them calling for Kavala's immediate release. The Council of Europe, the European Union's human rights watchdog, had also told Turkey to release Kavala pending a trial, as had the European Court of Human Rights. Erdogan, however, said the ambassadors, seven of whom are from fellow NATO nations, "cannot dare to come to the Turkish foreign ministry and give orders". "I gave the necessary order to our foreign minister and said what must be done," Turkish media quoted Erdogan as saying. "These 10 ambassadors must be declared persona non grata at once." Norway's foreign ministry responded by telling the Reuters news agency its envoy had "not done anything that warrants an expulsion". Kavala, who denies any wrongdoing, has been charged in connection with a failed military coup in 2016, The Guardian newspaper said, and in connection with the 2013 Gezi park protests. The Guardian said relations between Turkey and Europe will hit an all-time low if Er...

Latin America prepare for tourism revival By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-26 17:00 Countries across Latin America are ramping up efforts to open up their borders to tourists and revive economies hit by the pandemic. Chile and Argentina are among the countries that are moving in this direction ahead of their summer season. Colombia and Costa Rica are already welcoming international visitors. "With Argentina beginning to increase the number of international arrivals and allowing vaccinated foreigners back into the country in November, we expect to see an increase of traffic to Argentina," said Peter Cerda, regional vice-president for the Americas at the International Air Transport Association, or IATA. Chile, which has been enforcing some of the most restrictive border control measures in the region, will begin easing up next month. The Chilean Association of Tourism Companies said the partial elimination of entry barriers to foreigners, from Nov 1, marks a vital step for the reactivation of the tourism industry. "There are still several aspects to be defined, resolved and delimited, together with government authorities, in order to facilitate as much as possible the entry of foreign tourists to Chile," said Lorena Arriagada, secretary-general of the Chilean Association of Tourism Companies. As the southern nation prepares to once again receive international tourists, domestic tourism is booming despite the strict measures. In Brazil, unlike other countries in South America, the country never closed to international arrivals, according to the Backpacker website. But despite tourism getting back on track across swathes of Latin America, many challenges for the industry remain. "For the month of August, demand to, from and within Latin America was still 42 percent below 2019 figures, with capacity 37.7 percent below 2019 levels," Cerda said. IATA is urging governments to lift travel restrictions for fully vaccinated travelers. "Also, where possible, we need harmonization of the required health credentials for travel, vaccine acceptance," Cerda said. "Recovery is a joint effort". Figures released by IATA indicate that most of the rebound in Latin American tourism during the past months is associated with the Brazilian, Mexican and Colombian markets. "Given the constant reactivation that has been reported in the domestic and international movement of passengers, and the progress in the vaccination process in Colombia, there has been progressive development for the sector," said Paula Cortes, executive president at the Colombian Association of Travel and Tourism. International travelers are not required to produce negative COVID-19 tests or vaccination certificates before traveling to Colombia. In neighboring Panama, the country on Oct 1 launched a vaccine tourism campaign, aiming to attract tourists with the offer of a shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Also in Central America, Costa Rica is another destination showing strong signs ...

The Belt and the Road Initiative gives a boost to tourism By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-25 17:00 The Belt and the Road Initiative has boosted the tourism sector of countries involved in the Belt and the Road over the past few years, according to a report released on Wednesday, Oct 20. In 2013, the number of inbound tourists to countries along the Belt and the Road was 431 million person-times, while the number reached 598 million in 2019, 1.39 times more compared to that of 2013 with an annual average growth rate of over 5 percent, said the Report on Development of Tourism Cooperation along Belt and Road, which was released during a conference on "World Tourism Alliance 2021 Research Results" in Beijing. The initiative has also boosted outbound tourism. The number of outbound tourists from the countries along the route of the Belt and the Road reached 367 million person-times in 2013. And from then to 2019, that number rose by 1.4 times, with a yearly increase rate of 6.1 percent. The report said that in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced countries to conduct lockdowns, with inflow restricted, flights curbed and international tourism dropping by 74 percent. But the communication modes of tourism cooperation have been altered, with large numbers of online communications, cloud exhibitions and online training being developed, the report said. Also, at the conference, the World Tourism Alliance released a book containing 50 cases of how tourism was boosting rural revitalization in China, to share with the world its stories and experiences of developing tourism in the rural areas. Liu Shijun, secretary-general of the World Tourism Alliance, suggested some proposals in developing the tourism sector to boost rural rejuvenation during his speech at the conference. These include: to a build rural governance mechanism characterized by "pursuing collaboration, participation and common interests", and give play to the role of diversified entities; to explore the excellent rural culture and aesthetic value, and create a new scenario for integrated culture and tourism and to adhere to low-carbon, green, ecological and environmental concepts, and stick to the path of green development. Moreover, creating an excellent environment to attract talents, and thus accumulate inner driving force for rural revitalization is also important, he said. The conference also announced that the World Tourism Museum will introduced an online exhibition for the first time. Situated in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, the museum will become the world's first comprehensive museum themed by tourism once completed. By now, the museum has collected 411 pieces (sets) of objects, which include tourism related cultural relics and collections from China, Germany, France, Japan, Italy and other 21 countries. The collections also cover historical documents in Chinese, English, Japanese, French and other 4 languages from 1820 to 2020. This article is reprinted from ...

China's space progress brings benefits to us all By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-22 14:00 Last week, three Chinese astronauts successfully reached the country's space station for a 6 month mission to prepare it for full operation. It will be the country's longest-ever manned space operation, and another jewel in the crown for the nation's rapidly-advancing program. An open invitation for international cooperation has been issued, in the hope that China's space station will facilitate broader collaboration between nations as it progresses towards full utility. The launch of the station will round off what have been a spectacular few years for the country's space endeavors, rapidly promoting China alongside the United States as a world leader in space exploration, as well as the technological research gains that naturally come from such resource-intensive risk-taking. China's achievements in space have snowballed in the last year-and-a-half. In June 2020, the final Beidou satellite was successfully launched, offering a network of satellites for global navigation akin to the US-owned GPS and Europe's Galileo networks. The network is set to bring greater coverage to the surrounding Asia region, which makes up roughly 50 percent of the world's population, potentially benefiting billions of people. Just one month later, China launched an unmanned probe to Mars, in its first-ever attempt to reach out to another planet. The red planet has remained the focus of the country's efforts in later missions, as China became the second country to successfully land a robotic rover on the planet's surface. Such activities bring the prospect of a Chinese manned mission to Mars ever closer, providing the possibility that Mandarin may be the first human language spoken on Mars. In the more immediate future, however, the goal is to bring Martian rock samples back to Earth for analysis, by 2028. This is a complex procedure and one in which the European Space Agency and NASA are also working in tandem to achieve, with an estimated deadline of 2031. China's lunar operations have also become world-leading, sending unprecedented missions to the dark side of the moon, an area about which precious little is known. In December 2020, the Chang'e-5 probe landed on the moon's surface, collecting lunar material important in aiding international understanding of its origins. The rapid rate at which China is ticking off previously unheard of technical feats in space stresses just how important such ambitions are for boosting economic gain, as well as sharpening the cutting edge of frontier industries. The long game is being played, where an established knowledge of space is significant for our progression in the 21st century. A major disruptor to space industries on the horizon is the prospect of miniature satellites, weighing less than 100 kilograms. Light and cheap enough to be accessible for a wide range of corporations or even private individuals, it i...

Chinese, Japanese share view on importance of ties By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-21 14:00 Public sentiment of Chinese and Japanese people toward Beijing-Tokyo relations remains generally stable compared with last year, with the public seeing bilateral ties as important to regional peace and development, according to an annual survey released on Wednesday, Oct 20. More than 70 percent of Chinese people regard the relationship as "important or comparatively important" in the 17th China-Japan Public Opinion Poll. Results of the poll were released by China International Publishing Group and Japanese think tank Genron NPO. Similarly, 66.4 percent of Japanese respondents shared the same view as their Chinese counterparts. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, public perceptions of each side have been stable. More than 60 percent of surveyed Chinese people said their impression of Japan had no obvious change compared with 2020, as more than half of Japanese respondents kept the same views they had last year toward China. According to the poll, the top reasons of surveyed Chinese people who hold a positive view toward Japan are that "Japanese products have good quality" and "Japanese society enjoys a higher level of civilization". Their Japanese counterparts are fond of Chinese history, culture and food, and enjoy a lot of people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. Gao Anming, vice-president and editor-in-chief of China International Publishing Group, said cooperation between China and Japan in the past decades has served the interests of the two sides and the two peoples, which is vital for regional and global peace and development. As next year marks the 50th anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic ties, talks between the two countries' leaders earlier this month mapped out a new perspective for the development of bilateral ties, Gao said, citing phone calls between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Oct 8. In the phone conversation with Kishida, Xi called on the two countries to strengthen exchanges in coordination in economic policies, and jointly uphold a trade and investment environment that is open and fair in order to develop higher-quality win-win cooperation by taking advantage of each other's strengths for mutual benefits. However, history and territorial issues continue to have a lingering negative impact. The poll showed 62.4 percent of Chinese respondents and 56.7 percent of Japanese respondents list territorial disputes as an obstacle in bilateral relations. Uncertainty in China-US ties is also a main force in creating negative feelings between Chinese and Japanese people. Yasushi Kudo, president of Genron NPO, said the pandemic has disrupted face-to-face public-level exchanges of the two countries, though many online events had been held. But he said people from both countries are expecting more exchanges and cooperation in future. Gao said opport...

EU considers legal, financial and political action over Poland law dispute By Target Language Translation Services | Updated: 2021-10-20 14:00 The European Commission is thinking about legal action and withholding funds in response to a ruling from a court in Poland that rejected key parts of European Union law. Initiating a heated debate in the European Parliament on Tuesday, Oct 19, Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, said Poland was "calling into question the foundations of the European Union "and that action must be taken to protect the bloc's common values, reported Reuters news agency. "It is a direct challenge to the unity of the European legal order," she said. In response, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused the bloc of overstepping its competences, reported the Agence France-Presse. He said: "It is unacceptable to talk about financial penalties ... I will not have EU politicians blackmail Poland." Morawiecki insisted that Poland's place was in the EU, but that EU law derived from its treaties only applied in specified areas, said Reuters. "EU competencies have clear boundaries, we must not remain silent when those boundaries are breached. So we are saying yes to European universalism, but we say no to European centralism," he said. Poland's Constitutional Court ruled on Oct 7 that the country's laws had primacy over those of the EU, pushing the country's relationship with Brussels into crisis. "We cannot and we will not allow our common values to be put at risk," said Von der Leyen. "The European Commission is, at the moment, carefully assessing this judgment. But I can already tell you: I am deeply concerned." Legal, financial and political options were being considered, she said. The BBC said Morawiecki rejected "the language of threats" and accused the EU of overstepping its powers. The Financial Times said the EU is under pressure from some member states, including France and Germany, to harden its stance against Poland. The paper noted that Morawiecki insisted in his speech that European integration had been a "civilizational and strategic choice" for his country, and that his government was part of the "pro-European majority in Poland". It said Morawiecki told lawmakers: "If the institutions created in the (EU) treaties exceed their powers, member states have to have a tool to respond. The EU is a great achievement of the states in Europe. It is a powerful economic, political and social alliance. It is the strongest, most developed international organization in history. But the EU is not a state." Prior to speaking in the Parliament, in a letter to EU leaders, Morawiecki accused the bloc of "starving" and "punishing" his country by withholding billions of euros in pandemic recovery funds over the row, reported the Daily Mail newspaper. He warned that the bloc risked becoming "deprived of democratic control" if it did not protect the sovereignty of member states, the paper said. "If we do not stop this ph...