由于日本皇室已经40多年没有诞生过男性子孙，王位继承人的问题长久以来令他们头痛不已。自今年2月份，王妃秋筱宫纪子再孕的消息传出后，日本全国上下激动不已。目前，离王妃分娩的日子屈指可数，日本媒体更是紧锣密鼓，竞相猜测未来婴儿的性别。虽然宫内厅对此一直保持缄默，但媒体已纷纷断言纪子妃怀的是男胎。据悉，王妃将比预产期提早分娩，届时，医生为其实施剖腹产。

Japanese Princess Kiko, wife of Emperor Akihito's second son Prince Akishino, smiles as she leaves a general meeting of the Japanese Red Cross Society in Tokyo in this May 25, 2006 file photo.[Reuters] Japan's royal baby isn't due for weeks, but popular magazines, never shy about probing the secrets of the great and famous, have already decided that the imperial family is about to welcome its first male heir in over 40 years. Speculation over whether Princess Kiko, 39, the wife of the emperor's younger son, will give birth to a boy has simmered since an announcement in February that she was pregnant with her third child. But news last week that Kiko would probably give birth ahead of her late September due date through a Caesarean operation has prompted a spate of confident predictions by the tabloid media. "The birth of a boy!" trumpeted one headline in the weekly Shukan Post. Other magazines have run similar articles. No males have been born into the imperial family since Kiko's husband, Prince Akishino, in 1965 and the government had planned to introduce a bill to avert a succession crisis by revising a 1947 law to give women equal rights to inherit the throne. Kiko's pregnancy, however, prompted the government to put off the plan, which was bitterly opposed by conservatives keen to preserve a males-only tradition they say stretches back more than 2,000 years. The Imperial Household Agency, which handles royal affairs, is maintaining a frosty silence on the question of gender. "We don't know, and we would not comment about it if we did," a spokesman for the agency said. "The parents themselves say they don't want to know until the baby is born." But the mention of a Caesarean has many magazines speculating that special care is being taken to ensure the safe birth of a male heir, and royal watchers agree that the baby's gender may already be known. (Agencies)

Vocabulary:

Caesarean operation: 剖腹产手术，请看新闻热词Caesarean section: 剖腹产 tabloid: 小报 bill: 议案，法案 （英语点津陈蓓编辑）