原文：《国际先驱论坛报》4月26日《日本老龄化让一个村庄消亡》
译文：《参考消息》2006年04月27日第7版《老龄化让日本一村庄消亡》
aging of japan carries a village to extinction
by norimitsu onishi the new york times
wednesday, april 26, 2006
ogama, japan this mountain village on the west coast, withered[1] to eight aging residents, concluded recently that it could no longer go on. so, （1）after months of anguish, the villagers settled on a drastic solution: selling all of ogama to an industrial waste company from tokyo, which will turn it into a landfill[2].
with the proceeds[3], the villagers plan to pack up everything, including their family graves, and move in the next few years to yet uncertain destinations, most likely becoming the first community in japan to cease to exist voluntarily.
"there's no future for us here, zero." said kazuo miyasaka, 64, the village leader.
（2）on a hill overlooking a field of overgrown bushes, surrounded by the sounds of a running stream and a bush warbler, miyasaka pointed below with his right index finger. "i never imagined it would come to this," he said. "i mean, those all used to be rice fields."
ogama's decision, though extreme, points to a larger problem besetting[4] japan, which has one of the world's fastest- graying societies. as rural japan becomes increasingly depopulated, many villages and hamlets like ogama, along with their traditions and histories, risk vanishing.
japan is dotted with so many such communities that academics have coined a term - "villages that have reached their limits" - to describe those with populations that are more than half elderly. out of 140 villages in monzen, the municipality that includes ogama, 40 percent have fewer than 10 households, inhabited mostly by the elderly.
（3）rural japan has never recovered from its long recession. few rural areas have found economic alternatives to the huge public works projects. during his five years in office, prime minister junichiro koizumi has reduced public works spending that yielded money and jobs to local construction companies.
koizumi cut subsidies and tax redistribution to local governments, instead giving them the power to collect taxes directly. but rural officials argue that with a decreasing population and few businesses, there are few taxes to collect.
in keeping with a nationwide movement to combine financially squeezed[5] municipalities, monzen merged with nearby wajima city in february. fumiaki kaji, mayor of the merged municipality, said （4）recent changes amounted to a "simple logic of telling the countryside that it should die."
"our children haven't come back, so there's no further growth. we'll just keep getting older." said harue miyasaka, the village leader's wife and, at 61, ogama's youngest inhabitant.
"if young people came back, these villages could go on," kenichi taniguchi, 76, said. "but that's not happening. they're all dying out."
请试译文中划线部分：
notes（《现代英汉词典》）
[1]wither vt, vi
（1）（使）枯萎；凋谢
the flowers withered in the cold. 花在寒冷的天气里凋谢了。
（2）使…哑口无言
she withered him with a look. 她的一瞥使他无言以对。
[2]landfill n. 垃圾掩埋（法）
[3]proceeds n.（从事某种活动或售卖、筹款等所得的）收入，进款，收益
[4]beset vt. (beset, besetting)
（1）（后面常与by连用）困扰
beset by worries 忧虑重重
（2）包围着，围绕
the project was beset with difficulties.这项工程困难重重。
[5]squeeze vt, vi (squeezed, squeezing)
（1）（常与out连用）挤压；握紧；夹紧；压榨
don't squeeze the kitten, you will hurt it. 不要紧捏那小猫，你会伤害它的。
（2）挤，挤进；塞进
the children squeezed together to make room for me to sit down. 孩子们挤在一起以便腾出空来让我坐下。
（3）（常与out of连用）压出，挤出；榨取
to squeeze the juice out of a lemon 榨出柠檬汁
he squeezed an orange to get the juice out. 他挤压橘子以便榨出橘汁。
（4）使经济困难；引起财政困难
2006年04月27日参考消息6版《老龄化让日本一村庄消亡》全文如下：
【美国《国际先驱论坛报》4月26日报道】题：日本老龄化让一个村庄消亡(记者大西则光)
大釜这个位于日本西海岸的山村只剩下了8个老人。最近，这里的居民终于认识到，不能再这样生活下去了。（1）经过几个月的痛苦挣扎后，村民作出了一个重大决定：把整个大釜村卖给东京一家工业废弃物处理公司，这家公司会把这里变成垃圾填埋场。
村民们打算利用卖村庄换来的钱来打点行装、迁走祖坟，在今后几年里搬到某个未知的地方安家。这里很可能成为日本第一个主动消亡的村落。
64岁的村长宫坂三郎说：“我们在这里没有未来，没有一丁点儿的希望。”
（2）从一处小山包向下望去，是大片疯长的灌木丛，耳畔是小溪流淌的声音和灌木丛中小鸟的鸣叫。宫坂指着这片灌木说：“我从来没有想到我们这里会变成这个样子。过去这里是稻田。”
大釜村村民的决定虽然有些“极端”，但表明了困扰日本的一个相当严峻的问题，日本是世界上老龄化速度最快的地方之一。由于日本农村人口不断减少，许多像大釜这样的村庄连同它们的传统和历史面临着消失的危险。
日本到处都是像大釜这样的村庄，一些学者甚至创造了“达到极限的村落”这样的说法，来形容半数以上人口为老年人的村子。在门前市所管辖的140个村庄中，包括大釜村在内的40%的村庄居住着不到10户人，而且居民多是老年人。
（3）长期以来，一些日本农村一直没有摆脱衰败的命运。绝大多数农村地区在经济上依赖政府的大型公共工程项目。小泉纯一郎担任首相以来，政府减少了公共工程开支，这些工程为地方建筑公司提供了资金和就业机会。
小泉削减了对地方政府的补贴和重新分配的税款数额，授权地方政府直接征税。但是农村地区的官员说，由于农村人口的不断减少，再加上没有多少企业，根本征收不到多少税款。
日本各地出现了财政紧张的各市相互合并的风潮，今年2月，门前市也顺应这一潮流，与邻近的轮岛市合并。贺地文昭是合并后新市的市长，他说，（4）最近出现的变化很容易让人得出这样一个结论，那就是农村应该消亡。
大釜村村长的妻子宫坂春惠今年61岁，是这个村子最年轻的村民。她说：“孩子们没有回来，所以村子不会有什么发展。我们只会越来越老。”
76岁的溪口研一说：“如果年轻人回来，那么这些村子还可以继续存在下去。但是这种情况没有发生，所以这些村子正在逐渐消失。”