英闻天下——155 Fighting Continues in Mali

 　　Fighting raged in one Mali town on Thursday, air strikes hit another and army troops raced to protect a third, on the seventh day of the French-led military intervention¹ to wrest² back Mali's north from al Qaida-linked groups.

 

　　West African troops began arriving in the Malian capital, Bamako, to help French and government forces fight Islamists in control of the country's north.

 

　　Colonel A. Mounkaila is an ECOWAS official from Niger.

 

　　"We are very happy to see the first African soldiers disembarking onto the soil of Mali. A promise was made they be here by the 18th of January and it was kept."

 

　　Meanwhile, Malian Foreign Minister Tieman Coulibaly said the current military resources on the ground were insufficient³ to repel⁴ Islamic rebels in the West African country.

 

　　European Union members had agreed to send hundreds of military personnel to train Malian government forces in fighting Islamist rebels, as a civil war in Mali spilled across its borders.

 

　　The mission will comprise about 200 military trainers as well as some security personnel.

 

　　At the same time, China has asked the Malian government to protect Chinese nationals living in the country.

 

　　Chinese embassies in Mali and neighboring Algeria have been keeping close contact with concerned personnel, enterprises and other organizations, as well as provide them with necessary consular⁵ assistance and protection.

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 wrest   

n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲

参考例句：

• The officer managed to wrest the gun from his grasp.警官最终把枪从他手中夺走了。
• You wrest my words out of their real meaning.你曲解了我话里的真正含义。

3 insufficient   

adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的

参考例句：

• There was insufficient evidence to convict him.没有足够证据给他定罪。
• In their day scientific knowledge was insufficient to settle the matter.在他们的时代，科学知识还不能足以解决这些问题。

4 repel   

v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥

参考例句：

• A country must have the will to repel any invader.一个国家得有决心击退任何入侵者。
• Particles with similar electric charges repel each other.电荷同性的分子互相排斥。

5 consular   

a.领事的

参考例句：

• He has rounded out twenty years in the consular service. 他在领事馆工作已整整20年了。
• Consular invoices are declarations made at the consulate of the importing country. 领事发票是进口国领事馆签发的一种申报书。