CNN 2011-11-07

 We will take it away. Thanks to those students, thanks to all of you for spending part of your Thursday with CNN Student News. I'm Carl Azuz. And first up today, we are heading to France. That's where Predisent Obama and other world leaders are spending the next couple days there at a meeting of the G20. This is a group that represents diffent economies from around the globe. Originally, the G20 members were planning to talk about a deal that the European Union had reached that would help the nation of Greece with its debt crisis. But the G20 had to scramble¹ and hold an emergency meeting after Greece's prime minister announced Tuesday he wants citizens to vote on whether or not they want the European bailout.So there are some questions for those leaders to address. You might have some questions too. What is the G20? How did it start? Who's in it? We're going to bring in Michael Homes to fill in some blanks for us. 

 

The G's really started back in 1975, when you had six countries get together. That was the G6, and there you had the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Japan and Italy. And they were the first. They were the six. And they got together actually to talk about what was then the oil crisis that was going on and to have a bit of a confab about it. And then from there, it became an annual thing.They thought why not continue this on? They found it worthwhile. The next year they added Canada, so became the G7. And then a little bit later on, Russia came along and was admitted. And there you ahve G8. The groups have always attracted critics, and in many cases, as we've seen in the past, violence as well, protesters from trades unions to environmentalists and * as well. A lot of the more extreme protesters blame the members of the G8 for pretty much all the world's ills, from debt and poverty in Africa, all the way through the global warming.And they show up pretty much to make *and say that it is an * group an elite² group that actually far from solving some of the world's problems is causing a lot of the world's problems. Another critism the G8 has faced is that it's not really representative of the world's great economies. There are those who say you got Canada in the G8.But at the same time, you don't have India. You don't have China. The cause partly of that criticism we saw in 1999, the formation of G20. They added in another 11 countries, and to be more inclusive like Australia. And 11 and 8 equals 19. What's the 20? The European Union. They came along for the ride as well. 

 

Untied³ Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to be at the G20 meeting today. Yesterday, he was in Libya. Ban and the current president of the U.N. General Assembly met with representatives from Libya's National Transitional Council.This is the group that's running Libya's government, now that the country's civil war is over. The fighting hasn't completely stopped. Different militias⁴ who fought against former leader Moammar Gadhafi's troops are now facing off against each other. Some of these militais are rivals. Some don't trust other, settling those disputes is a top priority for Libya's new leaders. 

 

Today's shout out goes out to Ms. Westgard's geography class from Dilworth Glyndon Felton Junior High in Dilworth Minnesota. What is the currect cost of a first class U.S. postage stamp? You know what to do.Is it 27 cents, 35 cents, 44 cents or 50 cents? You got three seconds, go.Right now a first class stamp will cost you 44 cents. That's your answers and that's your shout out.

 

Stamps are one way the U.S. Postal⁵ Service makes money. But since fewer people are using the government service, it's ended up in some pretty bad financial shap. Yesterday a group of lawmakers released a plan aimed at saving the Postal Service. It would close some post offices, cancel Saturday mail delivery and let the Postal Service buy out thousands of empoyees, meaning they'd give them some money to leave their jobs.These ideas come up before. People have gotten angry at the idea of their local post offices closing. And postal worker unions don't like the buyout idea. Congress also have to pass the plan. That could be a long way off. 

 

It's been five days since a massive snowstorm hit the northestern United States. Thousands of people still don't have power. Utlity companies are rushing to get things running again, but some folks are getting frustrated⁶.

 

Cold. Our food went bad. * power went bakc on for a few minutes and then it like the transformer box blew. We want our home back and to be able to stay in our house and let our kids play there. 

1 scramble   

v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料

参考例句：

• He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
• It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。

2 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

3 untied   

松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决

参考例句：

• Once untied, we common people are able to conquer nature, too. 只要团结起来，我们老百姓也能移山倒海。
• He untied the ropes. 他解开了绳子。

4 militias   

n.民兵组织，民兵( militia的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The troops will not attempt to disarm the warring militias. 部队并不打算解除战斗中的民兵武装。 来自辞典例句
• The neighborhood was a battleground for Shiite and Sunni militias. 那里曾是什叶派和逊尼派武装分子的战场。 来自互联网

5 postal   

adj.邮政的，邮局的

参考例句：

• A postal network now covers the whole country.邮路遍及全国。
• Remember to use postal code.勿忘使用邮政编码。

6 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》