英国新闻听力 黎巴嫩垃圾危机

People in Lebanon are angry. Why? Well, piles of uncollected rubbish have been left and rot on the streets of Beirut and else where since Lebanon’s largest landfill shut down last month. And daily protests have been taking place.

As far as I can see, people are getting angrier and angrier. What we are trying to do is to basically tell the government that we are willing to do our best to keep things under control and you have to work with us in order to avoid very, like terrible scenarios¹ which we don’t want to happen. We do not want violence. We do not want any of these things, whatsoever².

Well, after more than five hours of talks, the Cabinet decided³ to reject a list of tenders for waste management contracts saying they were too expensive and referring the problem to a ministerial committee. Can it be resolved?

A lot of people are using this protest to express their general frustration⁴. Really, there is no government in Lebanon. The country has been facing a political vacuum for a number of years. Parliamentary elections have been indefinitely postponed⁵. And therefore there has only been a caretaker Cabinet. There have been political divisions within the Cabinet between the two key political blocks in Lebanon, which means that most Cabinet meetings do not have a quorum⁶. And in addition, Lebanon has not had a President for more than a year. Unfortunately, even this populist movement is very fragmented. So all this is obviously having a very visible impact.

Now after a second day of heavy loses on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, China’s Central Bank cut interest rate to hold the dramatic slide in share prices. The collapse⁷ of Shanghai Stock Exchange is now close to being the worst in its history. Our correspondent in New York Michelle Fleury gave me this update.

It was another day of wild swings on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But by the end of the trading day, it actually finished down to a hundred points. So you are looking at swings of nearly four hundred points over the day, the biggest reversal people have seen since the financial crisis. All in all, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down over one percent.

Does anyone understand that, why the markets are down in China, up in Europe, down just a little bit in America at the end of trading?

Well, I think people have been caught by surprise here in the United States for a couple of reasons. There had been a lot of hope that China’s policy makers⁸ would take some kind of action that might help prop⁹ up the stock market.

黎巴嫩人愤怒了，为什么？因为自上个月黎巴嫩最大的垃圾填埋区关闭以来，贝鲁特等地街头堆满了未分拣的垃圾，直至腐烂。示威游行每天都在进行。

我觉得，黎巴嫩人的怒气会越来越大。我们正在努力劝谏政府，我们愿意尽最大的努力控制事态，为避免出现非常恶劣的场景，你们必须和我们合作，我们不希望看到这些场景，不希望存在暴力，无论如何也不愿意看到这些事件的发生。

经过5个多小时的讨论，内阁决定拒绝一系列废物管理招标，称合同太昂贵了，然后，内阁把问题转给了一个部长级委员会进行裁决。那么问题能够得到解决吗？

许多人通过抗议来表达他们对黎巴嫩整体的不满。说真的，黎巴嫩根本没有政府。多年来，这个国家面临着政治真空的局面。议会选举被无限期推迟。所以说只有一个看守政府存在。黎巴嫩内阁两大政治集团之间存在着政治纷争，这就意味着内阁的大多数会议都达不到法定人数。另外，黎巴嫩一年多以来都没有总统。不幸的是，就连这次民粹运动也是碎片化的。所以很显然，上述这一切产生的影响是显而易见的。

在上海证券交易所第二天遭遇严重损失后，中国央行降低了利率，以控制股价大幅下跌。上海证券交易所此次股票下跌几乎是该交易所历史上最糟糕的情况。本台纽约记者米歇尔·弗勒里提供了事件的最新进展。

道琼斯工业平均指数又一次出现较大涨落。交易日结束之前，道琼斯指数收于100点。所以你会看到，在一天之内，涨落幅度达400点，成为金融危机以来该指数的最大逆转。总之，道琼斯工业平均指数收于1%以上。

交易日结束时，中国股市暴跌，欧洲股市上升，美国股市出现小幅度下跌，这个怎么解释呢？

我认为美国人对此感到十分吃惊，原因有很多。之前，许多人都希望中国决策者采取一定的措施救市。

1 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

2 whatsoever   

adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么

参考例句：

• There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
• All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,do ye even so to them.你想别人对你怎样，你就怎样对人。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

5 postponed   

vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发）

参考例句：

• The trial was postponed indefinitely. 审讯无限期延迟。
• The game has already been postponed three times. 这场比赛已经三度延期了。

6 quorum   

n.法定人数

参考例句：

• The meeting is adjourned since there is no quorum.因为没有法定人数会议休会。
• Three members shall constitute a quorum.三名成员可组成法定人数。

7 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

8 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 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。