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路透社新闻
【精彩回顾】》》》---今日心情:
--国羽涉嫌消极比赛故意输球引哗然
--叶诗文的光芒闪了谁的眼？
--叶诗文逆转夺冠破世界纪录 孙杨开创男子游泳奥运首枚金牌
1【Kofi Annan steps down from Syria role】联合国特使安南辞职称其工作无法完成
播放后点击【REPLAY】重播
TEXT:Kofi Annan is stepping down. The U.N.-Arab League mediator on Syria made the announcement on Thursday. KOFI ANNAN, U.N.-ARAB LEAGUE SPECIAL ENVOY, SAYING: "I do not intend to continue my mission when my mandate expires at the end of August." The former U.N. Secretary General expressed frustration over a job he characterized as 'impossible.' Violence in Syria -- most recently in Aleppo and now in the capital Damascus --- has spiraled over the past few months. Multiple trips to Damascus appeared to do little to halt the killing of civilians including children in several cities. Speaking to reporters in Switzerland, Annan did not hide his frustration. Kofi Annan, U.N.-Arab League Special Envoy, Saying: "At a time when we need, when the Syrian people desperately need action, there continues to be finger-pointing and name-calling in the Security Council." Following the announcement, France's ambassador Gerard Araud said divisions within the Security Council are beyond repair. GERARD ARAUD, FRENCH U.N. AMBASSADOR, SAYING: "Unfortunately the divisions of the council are very, very deep. I think it's irreconcilable on political terms. We will try to regroup the council at least around the humanitarian situation. We do hope that there couldn't be a division about the fact that we shouldn't help millions of Syrians who are suffering. I hope." The anti-Assad uprising -- now in its 17 month -- has claimed an estimated 18,000 lives. Deborah Gembara, Reuters.
参考译文:周四阿拉伯联盟调停人科菲安南在叙利亚宣布辞职。阿拉伯联盟的特使安南说：“我不打算继续我的任务到授权期满的八月底。”这名前联合国秘书长对这份工作表示失望并称其“不可能完成的”。在过去的几个月里叙利亚暴乱日渐升级，近来战场主要集中在阿勒颇，如今却扩散到首都大马士革。联合国多次赴大马士革的使命似乎没有起到实质性作用，并没有停止在多个城市对叙利亚贫民包括儿童在内的残杀。在瑞士记者会上，安南并没有掩饰自己的沮丧。阿拉伯联盟的特使安南说：“每次当我们需要，当叙利亚人民迫切需要采取行动时，安理会之间一直存在相互指责和谩骂。”安南宣布离职后，法国大使Gerard Araud称安理会之间的分歧是无法调和的。法国驻联合国大使Gerard Araud说：“不幸的是，委员会之间的分歧是根深蒂固的。我认为在政治层面是不可调和的。至少抱着人道主义的立场，我们将试图重组委员会。在挽救数百万受害的叙利人民上，我们没有尽忠职守，我希望大家都认同这一点。”这场反对阿萨德的起义持续了17个月之久，已经夺去了近18，000人的生命。
2【Syrian government tanks descend on Aleppo】叙利亚政府坦克开往阿勒颇
TEXT:Only bodies and crippled vehicles appear to remain on this street - and it's silent aside from the automatic gunfire in this amateur video. Here in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, rebel fighters claim to have seized three police stations on Wednesday while fighting the army for control of a strategically important district. But another video uploaded to a social media website appears to show trucks carrying tanks and other government reinforcements descending on the city, which has already sustained a brutal barrage of mortar fire. And in a small town outside of Aleppo - a room full of bodies. According to the narrator, they were six family members killed in random shelling. Reuters can't independently verify amateur videos uploaded to the internet. The battle for Aleppo -- dubbed the 'Mother of all battles' by the government -- has become a crucial test for both sides in the 17-month-old conflict. Neither Assad's forces nor the rebels can afford to lose if they hope to prevail in the wider struggle for Syria. Travis Brecher, Reuters
参考译文:在这段业余视频中，街道上只有死去的尸体和受损的车辆，除了自动枪发出的声音外到处一片寂静。这里是叙利亚北部城市阿勒颇，周三叛军声称已经占领了三个警察局，并与军方展开了激战试图控制一个战略重区。但另一个上传到一社交媒体网站的视频似乎显示运输坦克和其它政府援兵的卡车开进了该城市，这里已经遭到迫击炮残酷的袭击。在阿勒颇外的一小镇，满屋都是尸体。根据叙述者称，这一家六口死于乱炸中。路透社无法独立核实这些上传到互联网上视频的真实性。阿勒颇之战被政府军称为“战斗之母”，已经成为这场17个月之久的冲突中双方的决定之战。如果双方都希望在叙利亚争夺战中获得主导地位，他们在这场阿勒颇之战中都输不起。
3【London Orbit Tower provides Olympic view】伦敦轨道塔观看奥运
TEXT:Spiraling 115 meters, or over 370 feet in the air, London's Orbit Tower is providing a bird's eye view of the Olympic Games. The roller coaster-like structure has received mixed reviews, but visitors at the Olympic Park appreciated the observation deck. Chris Allan, visitor, saying: "Its really nice. It's bigger than I thought." Lee Cadwallader, visitor, saying: "The Orbit, it looks amazing, I'm going up there later. Lisa Hume, park visitor, saying: "Be good if it could be used afterwards like a climbing structure or a helter skelter type thing, to be re-used I think." It's now considered Britain's largest piece of public art. Created by sculptor Anish Kapoor and designer Cecil Balmond, the Orbit Tower will be a permanent fixture, serving as a symbol and reminder that London played host to the summer 2012 Olympic Games. Kilmeny Duchardt, Reuters.
参考译文:螺旋上升高度115米或370英尺，伦敦轨道塔给我们提供一个鸟瞰奥运的平台。人们对这个类似于过山车的建筑褒贬不一，但在奥林匹克公园的游客欣赏这座观景台。游客Chris Allan说：“它真的很不错，比我想象的更大。”游客Lee Cadwallader说：“这个轨道建筑看起来很迷人，以后我要上去看看。”公园的游客Lisa Hume说：“如果之后它能用来当做攀登建筑或类似于Helter Skelter类的东西，能够重新利用我想就很好。” 现在它被认为是英国最大的公共艺术建筑。这座由雕刻家Anish Kapoor和设计师Cecil Balmond设计的轨道塔将作为一个标志和记忆提醒人们伦敦举办2012年夏季奥运会而长期存在。
4【Obama says too many still jobless】奥巴马称失业现象仍然严峻
TEXT:U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed job gains in July but says more work need to be done to help the American workforce. On Friday the Labor Department reported a larger than expected gain of 163,000 non-farm jobs while the unemployment rate edged up to 8.3 percent. U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA SAYING: "Lets acknowledge , we still have too many folks out there that are looking for work. We've got more work to do on their behalf." A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 36 percent of registered voters believe Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a better plan for the economy, compared to 31 percent who had faith in Obama's policies. At campaign stop in Nevada, Romney took aim at Obama's record. U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MITT ROMNEY SAYING: "The effective unemployment rate is 8.3 percent. That's the longest period of time, 42 months, the longest period of time we have had unemployment above 8 percent in American history., since this thing has been recorded. This is a record of failure." Job growth is likely to stay in focus ahead of the November election as economists remain bearish -- given potential tightening in fiscal policy in the U.S., and the ongoing debt troubles in Europe. Deborah Lutterbeck, Reuters
参考译文:七月，美国总统奥巴马对就业增长表示欣慰，但称要帮助美国劳动力仍有很多工作要做。尽管失业率接近8.3%，但周五美国劳动部报道称其比预期超出了163,000个非农业工作岗位。美国总统奥巴马说：“我们必须承认，我们仍有很多人正在寻找工作。我们必须代表他们的利益做更多的工作。”根据最近一项Reuter/Ipsos民意调查显示，31%的选民对奥巴马政策有信心，相比之下36%的选民表示相信共和党候选人罗姆尼有一个更好的经济计划。在内华达结束的一竞选中，罗姆尼将矛头指向了奥巴马的记录。美国总统候选人罗姆尼说：“目前有效失业率达到8.3%。这是最长的时期，42个月，这是自从有这记录以来美国历史上失业率超过8%最长的一段时间。这是失败的记录。”考虑到美国潜在的财政紧缩政策以及继续遭受困扰的欧洲债务危机，经济学家保持并不乐观的态度，因此在11月大选前就业增长可能仍备受关注。
注：本节目每天选取各大外文网站最新热门视频，原滋原味。因视频来源于外文网，所以链接或缓冲时间有时可能会偏长，请耐心等待。如果对选材难易程度或安排方面有任何意见，欢迎留言讨论。
VOA常速新闻
【Afghanistan Struggles to Educate its Youth】
TEXT:Modern education is a challenge in Afghanistan. Educators are struggling with the aftermath of decades of war and differing political ideologies.
Education Ministry spokesman Amanullah Iman says it has taken 10 years to design and begin to implement a new curriculum. And a lot of challenges remain.
"The first problem is insecurity in southern provinces, 500 schools are closed there, and around 300,000 students are not going to school because they don't have access," he said. "The second priority is our professional teachers, because half of our teachers don't have proper professional training, and that is an important issue."
Iman says the ministry also has been rewriting the country's Islamic educational texts. In the past the Taliban, educated in Pakistan, had influenced the religious material.
"One of the big challenges has been Islamic studies, because many students studied in neighboring countries and when studying Islamic studies there they were against Afghanistan," he said. "So we have designed a new curriculum with our teachers and our Islamic scholars and in our national languages, we have focused more on love of country, and we hope to publish and introduce it soon."
Roughly 4.5 million books have yet to be published, due to a lack of money. Another five million books of the general curriculum are stuck on NATO supply trucks that were frozen in Pakistan for the last eight months.
Three million students around the country still don't have access to schools. And out of 16,000 schools, 7,000 are held outdoors or in tents because there are not enough buildings.
The Taliban continues to destroy schools in the south, and targets girls trying to get an education.
Arzu Omid of the group Women for Change says it is essential that girls get to school.
"If we want to bring about change in our lives, especially in the life of Afghan women, we need education," she said.
In Kabul, university students say the educational system is out of date and broken.
University student Hamid Aman says classes are crowded, and teachers unprepared.
"In schools these days you will see 70 to 80 students in a class, and the teacher can't teach that many students well," he said. "So, first you need to change the class size, then the teachers. In rural areas there are students graduating from high school who can't even read or write properly. Then those graduates are teaching the middle school children, so the students aren't learning anything."
The Taliban has fought against the new books, which focus on gender equality and globalization.
Ahmad Khalid Fahim of the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan says the new curriculum is key to a modern Afghanistan.
"A national curriculum that defines the Afghan identity, but of course in a global perspective," he said. "To tell it in short sentences: to produce a local Afghan with a global outlook."
Afghanistan's leaders know it is the children who must be able to fulfill their country's expectations.
VOA慢速新闻
【Project in DRC Aims to Increase Fertilizer Use】
TEXT:This is the VOA Special English Agriculture report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语农业报道。
North Kivu is a war-torn province that used to be called the breadbasket of the Congo. Now, some farmers are being trained to increase the productivity of their land with fertilizer.
北基伍省曾是刚果的产量区，如今却备受战争摧残。现在一些农民正在接受培训，学习用肥料来增加土地产量。
The International Fertility Development Center is supporting the project. The IFDC is a nonprofit group based in the United States.
国际生产力发展中心正在支持这个项目，该组织是一家总部在美国的非盈利组织。
The project includes planting trees. Trees help prevent the loss of soil through erosion. They also provide charcoal for fuel. And they provide fertilizer in the form of leaves. These get plowed into the soil.
项目包括种植树木，树木可以阻止侵蚀而产生的土壤流失，提供燃烧用的木炭，还以树叶的形式提供肥料，可以把树叶犁入土壤。
Other farmers are experimenting with chemical fertilizer. The farmers use a mixture of chemical and organic fertilizer. They also use improved seed. They say they have succeeded in growing three or four times as much maize, rice, beans and potatoes.
其他农民用化学肥料做实验，农民们使用化肥和有机肥的混合物，还使用改良过的种子。 他们称成功地收获了三四倍的玉米、大米、大豆和土豆。
The fertilizer costs around a dollar and thirty cents a kilo. But workers from the IFDC say if it triples a yield of potatoes, for example, it means twice the profit.
这种肥料价值1.3美元每千克，但国际生产力发展中心的工人说如果土豆的产量能翻三倍，这就意味着收益增了两倍。
Farmer Adrien Kangele says the new methods promoted by the group could be a solution to ethnic conflicts in the Kivu region. Fertilizer brings peace, he says, because more people can earn a living from the soil in this densely populated area.
农民Adrien Kangele说，该组织推广的这种方法可以解决基伍地区的种族冲突。他说，肥料带来和平，因为更多人能在这个人口密集的地区谋得口粮。
One of the trainers, Sandra Kavira Kawisse, says fertilizer can even save marriages. She says in one area, many of the men had left their wives and gone to work in the mines. Then their wives started using fertilizer and their yields of rice tripled. The IFDC has found that when the men work with the women, the harvests are nine tons a hectare compared with six tons when the women work alone.
培训者Sandra Kavira Kawisse说，肥料甚至可以拯救婚姻。她说在一个地区，许多男人离开妻子去矿场工作，他们的妻子用了化肥后大米产量就翻了三倍。国际生产力发展中心发现，当男人和女人一起工作时，产量为每公顷9吨，而女人单独工作时，产量为每公顷6吨。
Dutch scientist Henk Breman designed the fertilizer project. He says the Democratic Republic of Congo uses less chemical fertilizer per hectare than any other country. Mr. Breman suggests two reasons. One is a lack of government policy. The other is the influence of donors and international nongovernmental organizations that were against more intensive ways of farming.
德国科学家Henk Breman设计了这个肥料项目，他说刚果民主共和国每公顷使用的肥料比其他国家都要少。Breman解释了两个原因，一是缺少政府政策，另一个是捐赠者和国际非政府组织的影响，他们反对更集约化的农作方式。
HENK BREMAN: "There has been a period of about twenty years where donor support was dominated by policies that looked for other ways of developing agriculture than the intensive way elsewhere. I really accuse the donors and the international NGOs for part of the famine in Africa."
HENK BREMAN: “大约20年来，捐赠支持主要是寻找发展农业的其他方式，而不是集约式的方法。我真要指责捐赠者和国际非政府组织，非洲的饥荒要部分归咎于他们。”
Edwige Mungwana Kavor is a local agronomist who works for Mercy Corps, an NGO. She says she is not against adding chemical fertilizer to organic matter. But she says land can become dependent on chemical fertilizers and no longer produce without them. Also, the chemicals can pollute groundwater.
Edwige Mungwana Kavor是就职于非政府的美慈组织的一位地方农学家，她说自己不反对向有机肥料中添加化学肥料。不过她说，土地可能会依赖化学肥料，没有肥料就没有产出。而且化肥会污染地下水。
Henk Breman agrees farmers should mix it with organic fertilizer. But he says there is a much bigger risk from soil erosion in the Kivu region.
Henk Breman认为农民应该将有机肥料结合起来用，不过他说，基伍地区的土壤流失风险更大。
HENK BREMAN: "The soil nutrient balance of this region is the most negative in the world."
Henk Breman认为农民应该将有机肥料结合起来用，不过他说，基伍地区的土壤流失风险更大。
Farmers groups have welcomed a promise by the DRC government to end taxes on fertilizers. Those taxes are some of the highest in central Africa.
农民组织欢迎刚果民主共和国终结肥料税收的承诺，这些税收在中非地区是最高的。
词汇解析
1.mediator
n.调停者；调解人
He will appear in the role of mediator.
他将出演调停者。
I offered to act as mediator and tried to bring about a reconciliation between the two parties.
我主动充当调解人,促使双方和解。
传递者；中介物
2.mandate
n.(选民对选出的代表、议会等的)授权
The General Election gave him no such mandate.
大选并未授予他这种权力。
(上级官员对下级官员下达的)正式命令
vt.将(某地)委托某国管理；授权(某人)根据委托统治权(做某事)
3.expire
vi.期满, (期限)终止
When does your trade agreement with Japan expire?
你们同日本签订的贸易协定何时期满?
断气, 死亡
He expired at midnight.
他在午夜死去。
4.spiral
adj.螺旋形的
The production in this factory is spiral.
这个厂的产量呈盘旋上升。
n.螺旋(线)；螺旋式的上升(或下降)
vi.盘旋上升(或下降)
The falling leaf spiralled to the ground.
落叶盘旋着飘到了地上。
(物价等)不断急剧地上升(或下降)
Prices are still spiralling.
物价仍在急剧上涨。
5.irreconcilable
adj.(观点、目标或争议)不可调和的,不相容的
a seemingly irreconcilable conflict
一场似乎无法化解的冲突
These practices are irreconcilable with the law of the Church.
这种做法与教规是相悖的。
6.barrage
n.火力网；弹幕；<军>弹幕射击；阻拦射击；河上的堰坝
They built a barrage across the bay.
他们建造了一座橫贯海湾的拦海堤坝。
猛烈炮火,枪林弹雨
The fierce artillery barrage destroyed the most part of the city in a few minutes.
猛烈的炮火几分钟内便毁灭了这座城市的大部分地区。
7.dub
vt.给…起绰号; 把…称为
We dubbed him Fatty.
我们给他起了个绰号叫“胖子”。
配音; 复制
The film is dubbed.
这部影片是配音的。
8.edge up
慢慢向上边靠拢
Prices have been stable for a while, but they are beginning to edge up again now.
物价曾一度稳定, 但现在又开始慢慢上涨了。<军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军><军>
