131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆116: 德国总统的烦恼

Letter From Berlin

July 19
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

German President Horst Koehler has to decide whether or not to dissolve parliament by the end of this week. Surprisingly, however, that is not the main political story in Germany these days. The new "Left Party" is on the march. And the country's politicians don't seem to know what to do about it.

German President Horst Koehler(n.):德国总统霍斯特·克勒
dissolve parliament(VO p.):解散议会
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder(n.):德国总理格哈特·施罗德
Left Party(=post-Communist Party of Democratic Socialism)(n.):
左翼党(前民主社会主义共党)
on the march(adv.):行军中 发展中

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

One wonders exactly how much coffee and cake German President Horst Koehler has put away in the last three weeks. Not, of course, for an over-abundance of free time, but rather, because the guy has an important decision to make. And it's a decision that, by its very nature, almost requires Koehler to spend massive amounts of time meeting with, interrogating and otherwise kibitzing with experts on the German constitution. By the end of this week, Koehler--a man who occupies a position in the German political constellation that is normally free from much influence--must decide whether the German elections can be held in September or not.  

人们很想知道，在过去的三周内，德国总统克勒究竟享用了多少咖啡和蛋糕。错了，当然没有，在这段极其充裕的空闲时间内，他得去做出一个很重要的决定。这个决定，从其实质上来看，几乎耗费了总统大量的时间，去接见以及询问通晓德国宪法的专家，并让他们以不同的方式出谋划策。本周末，克勒--这个司职于德国政局中那个通常不受到影响的位置上的人，必须决定是否将德国大选提前到九月举行。

put away(v.p.):吃掉 喝掉 etc.
over-abundance(n.):过分充裕
massive(adj.):大量的
interrogate(v.):询问
kibitz(v.):出主意 谈论 闲谈
political constellation(p.):政局

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

And yet, despite the import of Koehler's impending verdict, there's a feeling in Germany of the calm before the proverbial storm. And the storm is not how the German President will decide on Thursday or Friday. After all, bets are that Koehler will accept the artificially constructed no confidence vote against the government of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder early this month and will dissolve parliament. It's a decision that 75 percent of Germans hope will come.  

impending(adj.):迫在眉睫的
verdict(n.):决定 裁决 结论
proverbial(adj.):众所周知的 公认的
after all(adv.):毕竟
bet(n.):赌注
artificially(adv.):人为地
constructed(adj.):造成的 构成的
no confidence vote(also vote of no confidence):不信任投票
由此得知信任投票应该表达为vote of confidence/confidence vote

德国总理施罗德由于在今年五月一次重要选举中落败，故寄希望于不信任投票的通过来解散议会，提早举行大选。7月1日，施罗德成功争取到议会的不信任投票。

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆117:伦敦遭遇新问题：地铁司机怕怕了~~  
  
New problem for London: Scared tube drivers

If they refuse to work, system could shut down, union official warns

9:12 a.m. ET July 22, 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hundreds of London Underground drivers could refuse to work if there are more attacks on the rail network, a union official warned on Friday.
Bobby Law, spokesman for the Rail, Maritime and Transport union told Sky news: “We have had drivers that had been refusing to work yesterday because they had concerns about their own safety.

rail network(n.):轨道交通网络
Bobby Law(n.):鲍比·洛（人名）
spokesman for the Rail, Maritime and Transport union:
英国铁路海运联盟的发言人
concern(n.):关心 关注

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Law added: “Should any incidents happen on the underground system, the whole system should be shut down.”
He said the union had written to all its members telling them they had every right to refuse to work if they felt their safety was jeopardized.

Law added: “Should any incidents happen on the underground system, the whole system should be shut down.”
那位发言人补充道：“假如地铁系统中再次发生任何事故，整个系统将会被关闭。”（也就是说地铁工作人员可能将会停工）
shut down(v.):关闭
jeopardize(v.):危害 处于危险之中

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Law’s remarks came after police shot dead a man at a south London underground station on Friday as they hunted for bombers who struck London’s transport network on Thursday.
The attacks at Thursday lunchtime caused chaos but killed no one, in an apparently failed bid to repeat suicide bombings, which killed dozens of people two weeks earlier.

remark(n.):评论 发言
shoot(v.):射击 (shot是过去式)
transport(n.):运输
chaos(n.):混乱 (注意这个词的发音)
dozens of:许多的

伦敦7月21日发生了第二次自杀式爆炸袭击，至今1人受伤。

仅仅相隔2周前的爆炸导致了56人死亡。

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆118:联想公司可能被允许在台湾发展业务

Taiwan allows China's Lenovo to form unit

Move seen significant step in starting commercial ties

10:45 a.m. ET July 22, 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Taiwan will allow computer maker Lenovo Ltd. to become the first mainland Chinese company to establish a subsidiary on the island in a significant step forward in commercial ties between the two rivals.

Lenovo Ltd.:联想集团有限公司
mainland(n.):大陆
subsidiary(n.):子公司
commercial(adj.):商业的
tie(n.):关系
rival(n.):竞争者 对手

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. Business relations resumed in the early 1990s when Taiwanese companies were given the green light to invest in the mainland, but Chinese companies are still barred from making direct investments on the island because of the Taiwan government's fears of expanding Chinese economic influence.

split(v.):分裂
amid(prep.):在...中
civil war(n.):内战(就是指解放战争或称第三次国内革命战争)
resume(v.):恢复 重新开始

中国(大陆)与台湾在1949年的解放战争中分裂。九十年代初，台湾公司在大陆的投资被亮了绿灯，这标志着商业贸易关系的恢复，但是由于惧怕中国经济的影响力在台膨胀，大陆公司在台的投资仍被台湾当局禁止。

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

On Friday, the Taiwanese government body in charge of relations with China said it had "agreed in principle" to allow Lenovo to take control of International Business Machines Corp.'s personal computer business in Taiwan. The decision followed Lenovo's January acquisition of IBM's PC unit, a move that made it the world's third-largest computer manufacturer.

in charge of:掌管 负责
in principle:原则上 大体上
take control of:管理 控制 掌管  
International Business Machines Corp.(即IBM公司):
国际商业机器公司
acquisition(n.):收购 获得
manufacturer(n.):制造商

周五，台湾当局负责台海关系的部门表示，原则上允许联想集团对IBM公司个人电脑业务的管理。该决定是联想于1月成功收购IBM个人电脑业务的结果，这次收购使联想成为世界上第三大电脑制造商。

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Mainland Affairs Council said its approval now only needed the assent of the investment and commerce departments at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. It declined to say when that might happen.

Mainland Affairs Council:台湾行政院大陆委员会
approval(n.):赞成 批准
assent(n.):赞成
the Ministry of Economic Affairs:经济部

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆119:“发现者号”具有历史意义的发射整装待发

All systems go for historic shuttle launch

No sign of fuel-gauge glitch; picture perfect weather for liftoff

9:10 a.m. ET July 26, 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Seven astronauts have fastened their seatbelts and Discovery's hatch has been closed in preparation for NASA's first shuttle launch in more than two years.

astronaut(n.):宇航员
fasten(v.):系紧
seatbelt(n.):安全带
Discovery(n.):发现者号
hatch(n.):舱
NASA(n.):美国航天航空局
shuttle(n.):航天飞机
launch(n.):发射

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Discovery is due to lift off at 10:39 a.m. ET Tuesday, beginning a 12-day mission to resupply the international space station and test safety procedures that were developed in the wake of the shuttle Columbia's catastrophic breakup in February 2003.

lift off(v.):发射
international space station:国际空间站
in the wake of:尾随
Columbia(n.):哥伦比亚号
catastrophic(adj.):灾难性的
breakup(n.):解体

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Prospects for a trouble-free liftoff brightened in the morning, with picture-perfect weather and no sign of the fuel-gauge glitch that stopped Discovery's first countdown 13 days earlier.

picture-perfect(adj.):怡人的 风景如画的
fuel-gauge(n.):燃油表
glitch(n.):小故障
countdown(n.):倒数计时

131yangzi

天天学英语☆120:世界正在面临同一个威胁  

The world faces one threat  

7/27/2005 11:21:00 AM GMT  

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

With recent attacks on London and then Egypt, in which dozens of innocent civilians lost their lives, it seems that the world is facing one threat, the threat of “terrorism”, it is not coming from certain religion or race, nor is it targeting certain religion or race.
An Arab country has been attacked same way a Western country was.

attack(n.) on:对..的攻击
Egypt(n.):埃及
dozens of:许多
terrorism(n.):恐怖主义

近来在伦敦，尔后又在埃及发生的恐怖袭击，使许多无辜平民失去了生命，似乎这个世界都在面临同一个威胁———恐怖主义的威胁，这不是单纯的来自某一宗教或某一种族，也不只针对某一宗教或是种族。
如同一个西方国家遭袭那样，一个阿拉伯国家也以同样的方式被袭击了。

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Just as London attacks, the victims of Sharm al-Sheikh bombings were innocent people of various nationalities and different religions.  
Arabic newspapers unequivocally condemned both attacks, and called for a united response to combat "terrorism".  

Sharm al-Sheikh(n.):沙姆沙伊赫(埃及红海度假胜地)
nationality(n.):国籍
unequivocally(adv.):不含糊地 明确地
condemn(v.):谴责 声讨
combat(v.):抗争 斗争
terrorism(n.):恐怖主义

正如伦敦遭受到的袭击那样，在沙姆沙伊赫爆炸袭击中的受害者仍是有着不同国籍和不同宗教信仰的无辜群众。
阿拉伯报纸毫不含糊地谴责了这两次袭击，并呼吁人们团结起来抗击恐怖主义。

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Theirs is not just a war against the Egyptian economy and government, it is a war against the entire Egyptian people, as it is against all the people of Britain, of Spain, of Lebanon, of Iraq, of Indonesia, of the U.S. --of everywhere. The terrorist is at war with the entire world," the Saudi-based newspaper added.

Egyptian(adj.):埃及的
Lebanon(n.):黎巴嫩
at war with:与..作战

“他们发起的不仅是一场针对埃及经济和政府的战争，更是一场针对全埃及人民的战争，他们也同样将矛头指向了全 英国，西班牙，黎巴嫩，伊拉克，印度尼西亚，美利坚以及全世界人民。恐怖主义是在与整个世界作斗争。”

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆121:警方开始盘问伦敦爆炸案嫌疑犯

Police quiz London bomb suspects

Saturday, July 30, 2005 Posted: 1250 GMT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Police are questioning four men they suspect tried to launch bomb attacks on the London transport system, looking for possible links to a wider network that authorities fear could strike again.
The men are suspects in the failed attacks on July 21, which came two weeks after four bombers, all British Muslims, killed themselves and 52 other passengers in blasts on three Underground trains and a bus in London.
Three of the men were arrested Friday in London and Rome without a shot being fired. Police in London now have 48 hours to question the two men seized there before they need apply for further extensions.  

authority(n.):权威 权威人士
suspect(n.):嫌疑犯
Muslim(n.):穆斯林
arrest(v.):逮捕
extension(n.):延长(询问时间)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The suspect arrested in Rome will face a judiciary proceeding on Saturday, according to authorities at the facility where he is being detained.  
Police warned against complacency though, saying a "very real" threat remains and the British public "must be watchful and alert."  
Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch, read a statement confirming four men were arrested Friday, three of them in London and one in Rome, but did not identify them as suspected bombers.

judiciary(adj.):司法的
facility(n.)特定)场所
complacency(n.):自信 安心
watchful(adj.):警惕的
alert(adj.):提防的
Peter Clarke(n.):彼得·克拉克
Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch(n.):
伦敦警察厅反恐分部
identify(v.):确认

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

British authorities have refused to describe the men's possible ties to the attempted bombings, saying it could prejudice their right to a fair trial.
Clarke said one of the men arrested in London identified himself to police as Ibrahim Said-Muktar, whom police had previously named as the suspect who planted a backpack bomb on a double-decker bus in Hackney, East London, on July 21.

prejudice(v.):损害
trial(n.):审讯
Ibrahim Said-Muktar(n.):穆克塔尔·赛义德·易卜拉欣
backpack(n.):背包
Hackney(n.):海克尼(伦敦东区)

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆122:五角大楼密谋从伊大规模削减军队规模  

Drawing Down Iraq

Drastic troop cuts are in the Pentagon's secret plans.

Aug.1 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Donald Rumsfeld doesn't like long-term occupations. He's always made that clear. After U.S. forces took Baghdad, the Defense secretary had plans to reduce the U.S. presence in Iraq to 40,000 troops by the fall of 2003. Then the insurgency struck.
Now Rumsfeld is quietly moving toward his original goal—three years late. The Pentagon has developed a detailed plan in recent months to scale down the U.S. troop presence in Iraq to about 80,000 by mid-2006 and down to 40,000 to 60,000 troops by the end of that year, according to two Pentagon officials involved in the planning who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of their work. Their account squares with a British memo leaked in mid-July.  

Donald Rumsfeld(n.):唐纳德·拉姆斯非尔德（美国国防部长）
long-term(adj.):长期的
Baghdad(n.):巴格达
presence(n.):驻军(军事)
insurgency(n.):叛乱 暴乱  
original(adj.):最初的 原先的
the Pentagon(n.):五角大楼（是美国最高军事机构的所在地）
scale down:按比例减少
sensitive(adj.):敏感的
square with:与……相符
memo(n.):备忘录 信息备忘
leaked(adj.):泄露的

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Gen. George Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, hinted at those numbers last week. Casey told reporters that the United States will be "still able to take some fairly substantial reductions" if Iraq can keep to the timeline set out in the U.S. sponsored interim constitution, which calls for elections for a permanent Iraqi government by Dec. 15, 2005. After that, U.S. officials believe, the main task of the U.S. occupation will have been completed.

Gen. George Casey(n.):乔治·凯西将军
* Gen.=General
commander(n.):司令官
hint(v.):暗示
substantial(adj.):实质上的
timeline(n.):时间线
interim(adj.):临时的
constitution(n.):宪法
call for:要求
election(n.):选举
permanent(adj.):永久的

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

U.S. officials denied that Casey's remarks represented any change in policy. But earlier this year the Pentagon had been mum on a withdrawal timetable, in part so as not to encourage the insurgents. Now the conditions for U.S. withdrawal no longer include a defeated insurgency, Pentagon sources say. The new administration mantra is that the insurgency can be beaten only politically, by the success of Iraq's new government.

deny(v.):否认
be mum on:对……沉默
source(n.):消息灵通人士
administration mantra:政府所唱颂的论调等

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆124:基地组织二号人物将伦敦袭击原因归咎于布莱尔
  
Al-Qaida No. 2 blames Blair for London bombs

"He will bring more of that, God willing"
　　　　　al-Zawahri says in video

9:09 a.m. ET Aug. 4 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

In a videotape broadcast Thursday, Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said British Prime Minister Tony Blair was to blame for the London bombings and that Blair's support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq would incite further attacks.  
“Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring more of that, God willing,” al-Zawahri said in the tape, which was broadcasted on the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

videotape(n.):录象带
broadcast(n.):播放 广播
Al-Qaida(n.):基地组织
[also Al-Qaeda (organization)]  
Ayman al-Zawahri(n.):艾曼·扎瓦赫里
(本·拉登副手，基地组织二号人物)
be to blame:理应受到谴责，担负责任
eg, 1) who's to blame? 谁应受到谴责？
2) He was not to blame for the accident.
这场事故不是他的责任。/不应由他担负这场事故的责任。
U.S.-led(adj.):美国为首的
同样地，NATO-led:北约为首的  
incite(v.):激起 煽动
pan-Arab(adj.):泛阿拉伯的 中东的
satellite(n.):卫星 人造卫星
Al-Jazeera(n.):半岛电视台(位于卡塔尔)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Hasn't Sheik Osama bin Laden told you that you will not dream of security before there is security in Palestine and before all the infidel armies withdraw from the land of Muhammed?” al-Zawahri asked, referring to the leader of the al-Qaida network.  
“Our message is clear: you will not be safe until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and wealth and stop supporting the corrupt rulers,” he said.  

Sheik Osama bin Laden:本·拉登全名
dream of:梦见 (+doing sth/sth)
eg, Have you dreamed of your the deceased father last night?
昨晚你梦见了已故的父亲了吗?
infidel(adj.):异端的 异教徒的 不信仰宗教的
Muhammed(n.):穆罕默德
corrupt(adj.):腐败的

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

On at least nine previous occasions since 1998, an al-Zawahri
statement has preceded an attack. The interval between the statement and the attack varied from one day to 10 weeks.  
The July 7 London bombings came after al-Zawahri, in a June 17  
statement, disparaged the U.S. concept of reform in the Middle East and said armed jihad was the only way to bring change in the Arab world.  
In London, Blair's Downing Street office declined to comment on the broadcast.

previous(adj.):先前的 早先的
occasion(n.)重要的)事件 时机 场合
precede(v.):在..之前
interval(n.):间隔
disparage(v.):藐视 诋毁
jihad(n.):圣战
Downing Street(n.):唐宁街
(可以用来代指英国首相或是英国政府)
*Downing Street No.10 or No.10 Downing Street:
唐宁街10号,英国首相官邸

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆125:俄罗斯被困潜艇成功获救,7名船员全部生还

Rescued submariners return to Russia

Vessel with 7 sailors aboard was freed by British unmanned submersible

8:37 a.m. ET Aug. 7 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Seven people on a submarine trapped for nearly three days under the Pacific Ocean were rescued Sunday after a British remote-controlled vehicle cut away undersea cables that had snarled their vessel, allowing it to surface.
The seven, whose oxygen supplies had been dwindling, appeared to be in satisfactory condition when they emerged, naval spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said. They were examined in the clinic of a naval ship, then transferred to a larger vessel to return to the mainland.

submarine(n.):潜艇
trapped(adj.):被困住的  
the Pacific Ocean:太平洋
rescue(v.):营救
remote-controlled(adj.):远程遥控的
cable(n.):电缆 缆（这里指渔网缆线）
snarl(v.):缠结
vessel(n.):船 器皿
oxygen(n.):氧气
dwindle(v.):减少
satisfactory(adj.):令人满意的
emerge(v.):浮出水面
Capt. Igor Dygalo:狄加罗上校（俄罗斯海军发言人）
transfer(v.):转移

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

About five hours after their rescue, six of them were brought to a hospital on the mainland for examination, waving to relatives as they went in; the seventh was kept aboard a hospital ship for unspecified reasons.
The mini-sub's commander, Lt. Vyacheslav Milashevsky, was pale and appeared overwhelmed when he got off the ship that brought the men to shore. But he told journalists he was “fine” before climbing into a mini-van to take him to the hospital.
His wife, Yelena, earlier said she was overjoyed when she learned the crew had been rescued.

wave(v.):挥手示意
unspecified(adj.):为详细说明的
mini-sub(n.):迷你潜艇 小潜艇
commander(n.):指挥官
Lt. Vyacheslav Milashevsky:某海军上尉
overwhelmed(adj.):不堪重负的
journalist(n.):新闻记者
overjoyed(adj.):满心欢喜的

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The sub surfaced at 4:26 p.m. local time Sunday, some three days after becoming entangled in 600 feet of water off the Pacific Coast on Thursday and after a series of failed attempts to drag it closer to shore or haul it closer to the surface. It was carrying six sailors and a representative of the company that manufactured it.

surface(v.):浮出来
entangled(adj.):被缠住的
a series of:一系列的
attempt(n.):尝试

drag(v.):拖
*部分关于动词drag的词组
drag one't feet/heels:故意拖拉(做某事)
drag sb down:使某人不愉快或感到虚弱
drag sb down to sth:使地位等下降
drag sth out of sb:强迫某人说某事

haul(v.):用力拉
representative(adj.):具代表性的
manufacture(v.):制造

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆126:美国发现号成功返航  

Discovery lands safely after 14 days in space

"We're happy to be back," commander Collins says

9:35 a.m. ET Aug. 9 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The most exhaustive test flight in the space shuttle fleet's 24-year history ended Tuesday with the shuttle Discovery's predawn touchdown in California.
After 14 days and 5.8 million miles in space, Discovery landed safely at 8:11:22 a.m. ET at Edwards Air Force Base. "Discovery is home," the NASA TV commentator said.

exhaustive(adj.):全面的 彻底的
space shuttle fleet:太空飞船 太空梭
Discovery(n.):发现号
predawn(adj.):黎明前的
touchdown(n.):着陆 降落
ET(n.):美国东部时间
Edwards Air Force Base:爱德华兹空军基地
NASA:美国航天航空局 美国宇航局
commentator(n.):讲解员 评论员

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Congratulations on a truly spectacular test flight," astronaut Ken Ham at Mission Control radioed to the crew as the shuttle stopped on the runway. "Welcome home, friends."
"We're happy to be back," replied commander Eileen Collins, who piloted the shuttle to its landing. "We congratulate the whole team on a job well done," she said.

Mission Control:任务控制中心
commander(n.):指挥官
Eileen Collins艾琳·柯林斯

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

With Discovery safely back on the ground, the mission was hailed as a success — even though a chunk of foam insulation broke off from the external fuel tank after launch, leading NASA to suspend future shuttle flights, and even though two protruding bits of filler material had to be plucked off Discovery's belly during a spacewalk. In both cases, the problems resulted in no harm to the shuttle or its crew.
“I hope this shows people that we’re coming back,” NASA spaceflight chief Bill Readdy said from Cape Canaveral following touchdown. “We've got some more work to do. We know what we need to do and we'll do it.”

hail(v.):喝彩 欢呼
a chunk of:一块
foam insulation:泡沫绝缘材料
external(adj.):外部的
fuel tank(n.):燃料水槽
protruding(adj.):凸出的
filler material:这里指两条隔热片之间的填料
pluck off:摘掉
Cape Canaveral:卡纳维尔角

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆127:英航罢工导致上万旅客滞留希思罗机场

70,000 Stranded at Heathrow Over Labor Spat  

Aug 12, 8:45 AM EDT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

At least 70,000 travelers were left stranded Friday as British Airways canceled all flights to and from Heathrow Airport after a wildcat strike among catering staff spread to baggage handlers and other ground crew.
Staff handed out food and water to hundreds of tired and frustrated passengers, many of whom had spent the night on airport benches and floors. Travelers stood in long, slow-moving lines in an attempt to get on alternate flights.

stranded(adj.):滞留的 进退两难的
British Airways:英航
Heathrow Airport:希思罗机场
wildcat strike:自发式罢工
catering staff:餐饮人员
baggage(n.):行李
ground crew:地勤人员
frustrated(adj.):受挫的
passenger(n.):旅客
bench(n.):长凳
alternate(adj.):预备的 轮流的

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"We're trying to get on any flight to Germany," said Helge Kreckel from Frankfurt. "We don't care where or which airline, just any flight. Then we can take the train to Frankfurt. We're not leaving this line until we get it."
With almost 100 BA aircraft and 1,000 pilots and cabin crew out of position around the world because of the strike, Heathrow management warned that disruption at the world's busiest international airport could last for days.

Helge Kreckel:一位被滞留的旅客的名字
Frankfurt:法兰克福(德国城市)
BA=British Airways
disruption(n.):中断

这次突如其来的罢工行动，是由于美国航空用餐供应公司——“盖特美食公司”解雇希思罗机场800名员工引起的。这一决定立即引起了被解雇员工的强烈抗议，同时也获得了英国航空公司员工的同情。英航决定取消进出希思罗机场的航班，要求美国“盖特公司”恢复被解雇英籍员工的工作。  

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Problems for British Airways' flights started Thursday after baggage handlers and other ground staff walked out in support of employees who were fired by the airline's caterer after going on strike. The caterer, Gate Gourmet, said they were trying to resolve the dispute.
Qantas and Sri Lankan Airlines, which use BA ground staff, also canceled their flights from Heathrow on Friday.

caterer:这里指美国一空用餐供应公司
go on strike:罢工
Gate Gourmet:盖特美食公司
dispute(n.):争议 抵抗
Qantas Airlines:澳洲航空
Sri Lankan Airlines:斯里兰卡航空

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆128:一塞浦路斯客机坠毁于希腊，121人全部遇难  

121 killed as Cypriot airliner crashes in Greece

Pilots reportedly unconscious, possibly because of a lack of oxygen in cabin

9:45 a.m. ET Aug. 14 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A Cypriot airliner carrying 121 people crashed north of Athens on Sunday, killing everyone on board, Greece's fire chief said. Reports said the pilots were unconscious when the plane went down, possibly because of a lack of oxygen in the cabin due to decompression.
“The fire is still burning and there are no survivors,” said fire chief Christos Smetis.

Cypriot airliner:塞浦路斯客机
Athens(n.):雅典
on board:在机上的
fire chief:消防总长
unconscious(adj.):无意识的
oxygen(n.):氧气
cabin(n.):机舱
decompression(n.):减压 解压
survivor(n.):幸存者

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Helios Airways flight HCY 522 was headed from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens International Airport when it crashed at 12:20 p.m. near the coastal town of Grammatiko, about 25 miles north of the Greek capital, leaving flaming debris and luggage strewn across a ravine and surrounding hills.

be headed from:此处指从。。起飞
Larnaca(n.):拉纳卡
Cyprus(n.):塞浦路斯
Athens International Airport:雅典国际机场
Grammatiko(n.):镇名
debris(n.):碎片 残骸
strewn(strewn的原形是strew，此处分词作定语):撒满的 散播的
ravine(n.):峡谷 溪谷

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Boeing 737, with 115 passengers and six crew members aboard, was due to fly onto Prague, Czech Republic, after stopping in Athens.
The cause of the crash was unclear, but first indications were that there was a technical problem — possibly decompression or lack of oxygen in the cabin — and not terrorism.

Boeing 737:波音737
Prague(n.):布拉格（捷克首都）
Czech Republic:捷克共和国
passenger(n.):乘客
crew members:机组工作人员
terrorism(n.):恐怖主义

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆129:日本北部遭遇七点二级地震

Northern Japan jolted by 7.2-magnitude quake

At least 45 people injured; two small tsunamis reported

4:45 a.m. ET Aug. 16 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A powerful magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on Tuesday, injuring at least 45 people, causing power outages and snarling transportation. Skyscrapers shook as far away as Tokyo, 185 miles to the south, when the tremor struck at 11:46 a.m.  
Public broadcaster NHK said at least 22 of the 45 who were injured were hurt when the ceiling at an indoor swimming pool collapsed in Sendai, an industrial city of about one million.

magnitude(n.):震级
power outage:停电
outage是个可数名词
The power is off/gone.都可以表示停电
snarling(ppl.):混乱的
transportation(n.):交通运输
skyscraper(n.):摩天大搂 高楼大厦
tremor(n.):地震
NHK(Nippon Hoso Kyokai):日本放送协会 日本广播电台
[=Japan Broadcasting Corporation]
ceiling(n.):天花板
collapse(v.):倒塌
Sendai(n.):仙台市

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“There was a tremendous boom... People were screaming and headed toward the exit. It shook a lot... A lot of people were crying,” a young woman who was at the pool told NHK.
Others in the quake zone were hurt by falling rocks and tumbling roof tiles. Several aftershocks followed the initial quake, the largest with a magnitude of 4.5, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

tremendous(adj.):巨大的 极大的
boom(n.):隆隆声
scream(v.):尖叫
head toward:朝。。方向奔去
tumbling(ppl.):倒塌的
aftershock(n.):余震
initial(adj.):起初的 最先的
Japan Meteorological Agency:日本气象厅

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The quake was centered 12 miles below the ocean floor about 50 miles off the coast of Miyagi in northeastern Japan, the Meteorological Agency said.
Two tsunamis that were originally forecast to be 20 inches in height hit the coast with 4-inch waves; officials expected little damage. Tsunami waves are often barely noticeable in the ocean but can rise to great heights once they arrive at shore.

ocean floor:海底
Miyagi(n.):宫崎市
tsunami(n.):海啸
forecast(v.):预报 预测
barely(adv.):仅仅
noticeable(adj.):值得注意的 显而易见的
height(n.):高度 海拔

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆130:美军战舰于约旦遭火箭弹袭击

Attackers Fire Missiles at U.S. Navy Ship  

Aug 19 9:49 AM EDT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Attackers fired at least three rockets from Jordan early Friday, with one narrowly missing a docked U.S. Navy ship and killing a Jordanian soldier. It was the most serious militant attack on the Navy since the USS Cole was bombed in 2000.

Jordan(n.):约旦
docked(adj.):停泊的 靠码头的
U.S. Navy ship:美国海军战舰
Jordanian(adj.):约旦的
militant(adj.):战斗性的 激进的
USS Cole:美国科尔号战舰
美国海军战舰科尔号2000年10月在海湾被炸

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Another rocket fell close to a nearby airport in neighboring Israel, officials said. Jordanian and Israeli authorities said militants fired the Katyusha rockets from a warehouse in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.

neighboring(adj.):接壤的 邻近的
Israeli(adj.):以色列的
authority(n.):权威人士
Katyusha rocket:卡秋莎火箭
warehouse(n.):仓库
Red Sea:红海
port of Aqaba:亚喀巴港(红海沿岸重要港口)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A group linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility in an Internet statement. The statement purportedly from the Abdullah Azzam Brigades could not immediately be verified.
The soldier died in an ambulance taking him to hospital, while another unidentified Jordanian also was wounded, the official said.

al-Qaida(al-Qaeda)(n.):基地组织
claim responsibility...:声称负责
statement(n.):声明  
purportedly(adv.):据称
Abdullah Azzam Brigades:阿卜杜拉-阿扎姆旅
verify(v.):核实 查证
ambulance(n.):救护车
unidentified(adj.):未鉴定的 未识别的

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆131:加沙定居点清除行动接近尾声

Israelis emptying final Gaza settlement

Historic withdrawal nears completion

Monday, August 22, 2005 Posted: 0720 GMT  
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Israeli security forces began entering Netzarim--the final Jewish settlement left in Gaza--Monday morning as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pullout from the Palestinian territory entered its final stage, an Israel Defense Forces representative said.

Netzarim(n.):内扎雷穆
Jewish settlement:犹太人定居点
Gaza(n.):加沙
Prime Minister:此处指以色列总理
Ariel Sharon:阿里埃勒·沙龙
pullout(n.):撤退
Palestinian(adj.):巴勒斯坦的
territory(n.):领土
Israel Defense Forces:以色列国防军
representative(n.):代表

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Netzarim, in the heart of Gaza, is the 21st settlement to be evacuated. The process of removing the settlers was expected to be completed before the day was out.
Settlers in Netzarim have said they would leave without a struggle. That appeared to be the case as workers, ahead of the withdrawal, were taking down a menorah from the roof of the settlement's synagogue.

evacuate(v.):撤离 疏散
process(n.):过程
settler(n.):定居者
menorah(n.):犹太宗教仪式所用的烛台之一种 犹太烛台
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah
synagogue(n.):犹太教堂 犹太教会堂
(犹太教从事宗教仪式和其它活动的场所)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Israel on Sunday evacuated three Gaza settlements without "a single violent incident," military officials said.
Some settlers did launch symbolic protests.

Israel(n.):以色列
violent(adj.):暴力的
military(adj.):军事的
launch(v.):发起
symbolic(adj.):象征性的
protest(n.):抗议

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆132:伊拉克宪法草案决议前景不甚乐观

Iraqi Pessimistic of Constitution Deal  

Aug 23, 8:14 AM EDT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The head of the committee drafting Iraq's constitution said Tuesday that three days are not enough to win over the Sunni Arabs, and the document they rejected may ultimately have to be approved by parliament as is and submitted to the people in a referendum.

committee(n.):委员会
drafting(n.):起草
constitution(n.):宪法
the committee drafting Iraq's constitution:
伊拉克宪法起草委员会
Sunni Arab:逊尼派阿拉伯人
document(n.):文件 档案
reject(v.):拒绝 驳回
ultimately(adv.):最终地
parliament(n.):议会
submit to(v.):使顺从
referendum(n.):公民投票

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Iraqi leaders completed a draft Monday night and submitted it to parliament, but with only minutes to go before a midnight deadline, they delayed a vote to give them time to convince Sunni Arab negotiators to accept it.
At a news conference, drafting committee chairman Humam Hammoudi acknowledged that three days would probably be too short to win over Sunnis, who objected to wording on federalism, Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, the description of Iraq as an Islamic - but not Arab - country, and other parts of the document.

deadline(n.):最终期限 截止时间
delay(v.):拖延 延迟
convince(v.):使确认
news conference:新闻发布会
Humam Hammoudi:胡曼·哈穆迪(伊宪法起草委员会主席)
acknowledge(v.):承认
object(v.):反对
*object to sth/doing sth 反对某物/做某事
federalism(n.):联邦制
Saddam Hussein:萨达姆·侯赛因
Baath Party:复兴党
description(n.):描述

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Asked how to break the impasse, Hammoudi said "the Iraqi people will rule" and suggested that the elected parliament could debate the issues and take a decision. Shiites and Kurds, who accepted the agreement, dominate the assembly.

impasse(n.):僵局
rule(v.):裁决 支配
debate(v.):争论 辩论
Shiite(n.):什叶派
Kurd(n.):库尔德人
dominate(v.):占优势 控制
assembly(n.):议会

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆133:德国宪法法院为提前大选扫清最后障碍

German court gives vote go-ahead

Thursday, August 25, 2005 Posted: 0946 GMT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Germany's highest court has ruled that early elections can go ahead as planned on September 18, rejecting complaints against the early vote from two lawmakers.
The Federal Constitutional Court's decision removed the final obstacle to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's drive to hold elections a year ahead of schedule. Campaigning is already in full swing.

highest court:最高法院
September(n.):九月
complaint(n.):抱怨
lawmaker(n.):联邦议院议员 立法者  
the Federal Constitutional Court:德国联邦宪法法院
obstacle(n.):障碍
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder:施罗德(德国总理)
campaign(n.):竞选活动
Campaigning is already in full swing.
竞选活动已经是进行得如火如荼。
in full swing(adv.)某活动)全面展开 活跃
eg,The work was in full swing when we arrived.
当我们到达的时候这项工作已经全面展开。

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"It was like deciding between the plague and cholera, between a government crisis and new elections" that were constitutionally uncomfortable, Hassemer added.


plague(n.):瘟疫
cholera(n.):霍乱
It was like deciding between the plague and cholera..
这就如同在瘟疫与霍乱之间作出抉择。。
crisis(n.):危机
constitutionally(adv.):宪法上地 法治地
Hassemer(n.):哈瑟默(联邦宪法法院副院长)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Struggling with 11.5 percent unemployment, Schroeder is seeking a new mandate for his reforms that have angered many of his own supporters. Polls currently indicate conservative Angela Merkel, who is promising tougher reforms, is headed toward becoming the country's first woman chancellor.

struggle with:与..作斗争
unemployment(n.):失业 失业人数
mandate(n.)选民对议会等的)授权
poll(n.):民意调查
currently(adv.):当前
conservative(n.):保守党成员
Angela Merkel:安格拉·默尔克

2005年5月，联合执政的社民党和绿党在德国人口最多的北威州议会选举中失败，引发德政局发生重大变化。施罗德总理表示希提前举行原定于明年9月的联邦议院选举，其他各党均表示接受。7月21日，克勒总统宣布解散联邦议院并于9月18日举行大选。社民党已确定施罗德担任总理候选人。主要反对党基民盟和基社盟（合称联盟党）推举基民盟主席默克尔（女）为总理候选人。
目前距9月18日大选仅有不到一个月时间，现在执政的红绿联盟支持率远低于反对党，德国很有可能在今秋发生政府更迭。

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆134:日本反对党--民主党支持率上升

Poll: Opposition gains in Japan

Sunday, August 28, 2005 Posted: 0329 GMT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Japan's main opposition party is narrowing the gap with the ruling Liberal Democrats ahead of the September 11 general election, an opinion poll published on Sunday showed.

opposition party:反对党
narrow(v.):缩小
gap(n.):差距
Liberal Democrats:日本自民党成员
general election:大选
opinion poll:民意调查

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Asked who they would vote for in the proportional representation (PR) section of the election, 24 percent of respondents said they would support the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and 16 percent would back the opposition Democratic Party, the daily Asahi Shimbun said.

proportional representation政党)比例代表制
比例代表制，相对于多数制，是三权分立体制中议会选举中分配议席的两种方法之一。比例代表制以每一参选组别所得选票占全部票数目的百分比分配议席。
respondent(n.):回答者
the Liberal Democratic Party:自民党
back(v.):支持
Democratic Party:民主党
Asahi Shimbun:朝日新闻
(a national leading newspaper in Japan~)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The findings of the poll, carried out on August 25 and 26, compared with 29 percent backing for the LDP and 13 percent for the Democrats, in the previous survey on August 22 and 23, the newspaper said.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called the snap election after his postal privatization bills failed to pass the Upper House of parliament earlier this month.

finding(n.):调查结果
compared with:与。。相比较
此句中逻辑主语为the findings，与compare呈被动关系
previous(adj.):之前的
survey(n.):调查
Prime Minister:首相
Junichiro Koizumi:小泉什么狼来着
snap(adj.):突然的
postal privatization bill:邮政民营化法案
日参院否决邮政民营化法案导致小泉决定提前大选
the Upper House of parliament:议会上议院
*下议院:the Lower House

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆135:泽国梦魇---飓风引发的伤亡仍在继续

"Nightmare"worsens: more flooding, and death

Death toll expected to be in the hundreds

Updated: 9:01 a.m. ET Aug. 31, 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━


Hellish scenes of death, damage, and chaos wracked the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday as overwhelmed authorities tried to rescue the living and count the dead amid the destruction left by powerful Hurricane Katrina.

hellish(adj.):地狱般的
scene(n.):景象
chaos(n.):混乱
wrack(v.):摧毁 破坏
U.S. Gulf Coast:美国墨西哥湾沿岸地区
overwhelmed(adj.):不知所措的 不安的
authority(n.):权威人士
rescue(v.):营救
amid(prep.):在。。其中的
destruction(n.):破坏
Hurricane Katrina:“卡特里娜”飓风

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

New Orleans was filled with water after an initial attempt to stop a leaking levee failed, while police fought a losing battle to stop widespread looting in the stricken city.

New Orleans:新奥尔良市
be filled with:充满
initial(adj.):起初的
attempt(n.):尝试
leaking(adj.):泄漏的
levee(n.):大堤 防洪堤
fought(v.):fight的过去式
widespread(adj.):广泛的 大规模的
looting(n.):劫掠
stricken(adj.):遭殃的

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Officials said it was simply too early to estimate a death toll. In Mississippi, officials confirmed that at least 100 people had died in the killer storm and said the death toll was almost certain to go much higher.

official(n.):官方人员
estimate(v.):估计
death toll:死亡人数
Mississippi(n.):密西西比州(受灾最严重的一洲)
confirm(v.):确定

131yangzi

☆天天学英语☆136:“空城”新奥尔良市面临黯淡前景

New Orleans faces bleak future

City will encounter extraordinary problems in rebuilding

Updated: 7:45 a.m. ET Sept.1 2005
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

First they have to pump the flooded city dry, and that will take a minimum of 30 days. Then they will have to flush the drinking water system, making sure they don't recycle the contaminants. Figure another month for that.

pump(v.):（用泵）抽水
minimum(n.):最小值
flush(v.):冲洗
recycle(v.):重复利用 再循环
contaminant(n.):污染物
首先他们得抽干城里的洪水，这至少要花30天时间。然后得考虑用一个月冲洗饮水系统，保证不让污物再循环。

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The electricians will have to watch out for snakes in the water, wild animals and feral dogs. It will be a good idea to wear hip boots and take care of cuts and scrapes before the toxic slush turns them into festering sores. The power grid might be up in a few weeks, but many months will elapse before everybody's lights come back on.

electrician(n.):电工
watch out(p.v.):提防
feral(adj.):野生的 未驯服的
hip boot:防水长靴
(a type of boot typically worn by river fishermen)
cuts and scrapes:割伤刮伤
slush(n.):烂泥
festering(adj.):溃烂的
sore(n.):伤口
power grid:电力网络
elapse(v.):流逝

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Kaufman and other experts from around the country agreed yesterday that there will be no quick fix for New Orleans. But they acknowledged that even their sobering estimates for final "recovery" may be too optimistic, for nothing in their own personal and professional experience could compare with the abuse that Hurricane Katrina heaped upon the stricken city.

New Orleans:新奥尔良市
acknowledge(v.):承认
sobering(ppl.):冷静的
optimistic(adj.):乐观的
professional(adj.):专业的
Hurricane Katrina:“卡特里娜”飓风
heap upon(p.v.):堆积
stricken(adj.):遭殃的