万花筒 2011-10-24&10-26 沙特王储苏尔坦因病去世

 Right now, a plan is underway in Saudi Arabia to make sure that there is a prayer service that happens on Tuesday. This will happen at a mosque¹ in Riyadh. Mourners from across the country will be able to attend to pray for the late Crown Prince. This is much an accordance with the burial rituals that happened that proceeded with other Saudi leaders, including the late King Fahd, when he passed away in 2005. It's a very similar scenario², people came out to this mosque in Riyadh. And before they pledged their allegiance to the new king King Abdullah I, they prayed for the late King Fahd and afterwards expecting in a couple of days, there will be prayers, mass services for the late Crown Prince Sultan bin³ Abdul-Aziz, John. 

 

 

 

And the question now is who will become the next Crown Prince? The speculation⁴ and the expectation is, it will be Prince Nayef in his late 70s. And very conservative, that could have quite an impact on the kingdom. 

 

 

 

That's right, John. This is the key question right now. For a while now, people have known as this internal power struggle that's been going on in Saudi Arabia, the royal court, you have the King who seen as a progressive, who seen as a cautious reformer in Saudi Arabia, and then you have on the other side of that, the ideological⁵ spectrum⁶, across that divide, a prince Nayef. Prince Nayef has been the interior minister of Saudi Arabia since the 80s. He's very powerful. He seems to be very conservative. He's known to have ties with the clerical establishment, the religious police.

 

 

 

And somebody that progressive in Saudi Arabia really fear. Now while they would seem that Prince Nayef, histological next choice to be the next Crown Prince, that he is, as is now, his second deputy Premier⁷, the second deputy Prime Minister in Saudi Arabia, it's not yet clear if he will actually become the next Crown Prince. There is an allegiance council in Saudi Arabia, this is part of the royal court, just a few members of the royal family that the king set up in 2007 as part of his reform packages in Saudi Arabia. And it is up to this council to try to answer any succession questions in the years to come.

 

 

 

This was set up in part because so many of the leaders in Saudi Arabia are so old. Saudi King is said to be around 86, the Crown Prince was said, said to have been around 82. And Prince Nayef, who's the Interior Minister is thought to be around 76, 77. So this council was set up in order to try to choose in what would be considered, in Saudi standards, a little bit more of a populist democratic fashion, who the next monarch⁸ would be or the next Crown Prince would be. But this is all done in, very much in secret, not a lot known about the council who exactly the members are. And it's still unclear if Prince Nayef, even though many people think that he does want to be king one day and he does want to become Crown Prince, if he actually will get the nod to become the next Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and what that will mean for the country.

1 mosque   

n.清真寺

参考例句：

• The mosque is a activity site and culture center of Muslim religion.清真寺为穆斯林宗教活动场所和文化中心。
• Some years ago the clock in the tower of the mosque got out of order.几年前，清真寺钟楼里的大钟失灵了。

2 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

3 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

4 speculation   

n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机

参考例句：

• Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
• There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。

5 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

6 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

7 premier   

adj.首要的；n.总理，首相

参考例句：

• The Irish Premier is paying an official visit to Britain.爱尔兰总理正在对英国进行正式访问。
• He requested that the premier grant him an internview.他要求那位总理接见他一次。

8 monarch   

n.帝王，君主，最高统治者

参考例句：

• The monarch's role is purely ceremonial.君主纯粹是个礼仪职位。
• I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth.我觉得这个时候比世界上什么帝王都快乐。