2019年经济学人 一周要闻 特斯拉新车遇乌龙 诺华收购TMC 李世石退役

 

The Brazilian real fell to a new low against the dollar, after Brazil’s finance minister said he was “not worried” about a strong greenback. The slide prompted a brief intervention¹ by the central bank to prop² up the currency. The country’s current-account deficit³ has risen sharply this year, and interest rates have tumbled.

巴西雷亚尔兑美元汇率跌至新低，此前巴西财长表示，他“不担心”美元走强。这一下跌促使央行进行了短暂干预，以支撑雷亚尔汇率。该国的经常项目赤字今年急剧上升，利率也大幅下降。

Google reportedly fired four employees who had been active in organising protests at the company and had apparently⁴ tried to gain access to private internal documents. The tech giant pioneered an office culture that mixes politics with work, which it may now regret. Vociferous⁵ staff have pressed management to drop an ai contract for the Pentagon and have walked out over sexual harassment⁶ and a search-engine project for the Chinese government. Their latest gripe is Google’s work for immigration enforcement. Google has told employees to tone it down and reduced staff meetings to one a month.

据报道，谷歌解雇了四名积极组织抗议活动的员工，他们显然试图获取私人内部文件。这家科技巨头开创了一种将政治与工作融合在一起的办公室文化，现在它可能后悔了。高声呼吁的员工向管理层施压，要求其放弃与五角大楼(Pentagon)签订的人工智能合同，并就性骚扰和中国政府的一个搜索引擎项目提出抗议。他们最近抱怨的是谷歌在移民执法方面的工作。谷歌告诉员工要低调行事，并将员工会议减少至每月一次。

In an effort to boost profits and its feeble share price, Telefónica announced a plan to hive off its operations in Spanish-speaking Latin America and focus on its core markets in Spain, Brazil, Germany and Britain, where it brands itself as O2. The telecoms group also wants to expand its business in the internet of things and cloud computing⁷.

为了提振利润和疲软的股价，西班牙电信宣布了一项计划，将剥离其在讲西班牙语的拉丁美洲的业务，并将重点放在西班牙、巴西、德国和英国的核心市场上，并将名牌命名为O2。这家电信集团还希望扩大其在物联网和云计算领域的业务。

On the lookout⁸ for new superdrugs that will replenish⁹ its portfolio¹⁰, Novartis offered to buy The Medicines Company for $9.7bn. TMC’s crown jewel is inclisiran, a treatment that has been found to be highly effective in drug trials at reducing “bad” cholesterol¹¹, and which a patient needs to inject only twice a year.

为了寻找新型超级药物充实其投资组合，诺华提出以97亿美元收购The Medicines Company。TMC的镇店之宝是inclisiran，一种在药物试验中被发现在降低“坏”胆固醇方面非常有效的治疗方法，病人一年只需要注射两次。

America’s Federal Aviation Administration said it alone would inspect the 737 max before it is returned to service, relieving Boeing of the exercise and signalling that it will sign off each jet individually. That could potentially extend the time frame that Boeing has in mind for resuming deliveries of the grounded aircraft to airlines.

美国联邦航空管理局(Federal Aviation Administration，简称FAA)表示，在737 max飞机恢复使用前，它将单独对其进行检查，此举将使波音公司从演习中解脱出来，并发出信号，表示它将单独对每架飞机进行检查。这可能会延长波音公司恢复向航空公司交付停飞飞机的时间。

Tesla’s share price struggled to recover from the drubbing it took after an unforeseen event at the launch of its new Cybertruck, which has been described as a cross between a futuristic car from “Blade Runner” and a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The vehicle’s supposedly armoured-glass windows shattered when a steel ball was hurled¹² at them during a demonstration¹³. “Maybe that was a little too hard,” said a startled Elon Musk¹⁴, Tesla’s boss.

特斯拉(Tesla)新推出的赛博卡车(Cybertruck)在发布时发生了一件意料之外的事情，导致该公司股价遭受重创，此后该公司股价一直难以从打击中恢复过来。赛博卡车被形容为《银翼杀手》(Blade Runner)中未来汽车与《海绵宝宝》(SpongeBob SquarePants)角色的混合体。在一次展示活动中，一颗钢球砸向汽车上的装甲玻璃后，玻璃碎了一地。特斯拉的老板埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)得知后震惊地表示:“或许砸的太用力了。”

Lee Sedol, a Go champion, who in 2016 lost a celebrated¹⁵ match against AlphaGo, an artificial-intelligence program, announced his retirement¹⁶. ai programs now compete in tournaments. Mr Lee reflected: “Even if I become number one, there is an entity¹⁷ that cannot be defeated.”

围棋冠军李世石(Lee Sedol)宣布退役。2016年，他在与人工智能程序AlphaGo的著名比赛中失利。人工智能程序现在可以参加锦标赛。李世石反思称:“即使我成为第一，也有一个不可战胜的实体。”

1 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

2 prop   

vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山

参考例句：

• A worker put a prop against the wall of the tunnel to keep it from falling.一名工人用东西支撑住隧道壁好使它不会倒塌。
• The government does not intend to prop up declining industries.政府无意扶持不景气的企业。

3 deficit   

n.亏空，亏损；赤字，逆差

参考例句：

• The directors have reported a deficit of 2.5 million dollars.董事们报告赤字为250万美元。
• We have a great deficit this year.我们今年有很大亏损。

4 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

5 vociferous   

adj.喧哗的，大叫大嚷的

参考例句：

• They are holding a vociferous debate.他们在吵吵嚷嚷地辩论。
• He was a vociferous opponent of Conservatism.他高声反对保守主义。

6 harassment   

n.骚扰，扰乱，烦恼，烦乱

参考例句：

• She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
• The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。

7 computing   

n.计算

参考例句：

• to work in computing 从事信息处理
• Back in the dark ages of computing, in about 1980, they started a software company. 早在计算机尚未普及的时代（约1980年），他们就创办了软件公司。

8 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

9 replenish   

vt.补充；(把…)装满；(再)填满

参考例句：

• I always replenish my food supply before it is depleted.我总是在我的食物吃完之前加以补充。
• We have to import an extra 4 million tons of wheat to replenish our reserves.我们不得不额外进口四百万吨小麦以补充我们的储备。

10 portfolio   

n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位

参考例句：

• He remembered her because she was carrying a large portfolio.他因为她带着一个大公文包而记住了她。
• He resigned his portfolio.他辞去了大臣职务。

11 cholesterol   

n.（U）胆固醇

参考例句：

• There is cholesterol in the cell of body.人体细胞里有胆固醇。
• They are determining the serum-protein and cholesterol levels.他们正在测定血清蛋白和胆固醇的浓度。

12 hurled   

v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂

参考例句：

• He hurled a brick through the window. 他往窗户里扔了块砖。
• The strong wind hurled down bits of the roof. 大风把屋顶的瓦片刮了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

14 musk   

n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫

参考例句：

• Musk is used for perfume and stimulant.麝香可以用作香料和兴奋剂。
• She scented her clothes with musk.她用麝香使衣服充满了香味。

15 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

16 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

17 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。