时间:2019-01-12 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2008年(九月)


英语课

Two aid workers from French charity Medecins du Monde have been kidnapped while travelling in a remote region along the border between Ethiopia and Somalia. VOA's Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports a rebel group active in the area has denied responsibility for the incident.


Details of the abduction are sketchy 1. Officials say a group of heavily-armed men captured the two humanitarian 2 workers who were providing aid to victims of the severe drought gripping Ethiopia's Somali region. A spokeswoman at the Medecins du Monde headquarters in Paris, who asked that she not be identified by name, would say only that the incident occurred Monday.


"Two expatriates from Medecins du Monde have been kidnapped in Ethiopia, and that's all. We don't mention the nationality or if they are male or female. We don't say that. We don't communicate more details about that, for the security of our team," she said.


Diplomats 4 and aid agency sources in the Ethiopian capital also asked not to be quoted, but confirmed privately 5 that the kidnap victims were a Japanese woman and a Dutch man.


There was no immediate 6 claim of responsibility for the kidnapping, and it was unclear whether it occurred in Ethiopia or Somalia. Two officials in Ethiopia's Somali region, known as the Ogaden, flatly denied there had been any recent kidnappings on the Ethiopian side of the border.


The Ogaden National Liberation Front, a rebel group fighting for the region's independence, condemned 7 the abduction, calling it a cowardly act.


A senior French diplomat 3 told VOA the incident might be the work of criminals. Armed Somali gangs have carried out several kidnappings in recent months, often targeting foreigners and humanitarian workers and demanding ransom 8.


Somalia has been plagued by conflict since 1991, when the dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown 9. Three years of failed rains have worsened already severe living conditions on both sides of the Ethiopia/Somalia border.


The United Nations World Food Program this week issued an appeal for an additional $460 million to provide emergency food aid in the Horn of Africa region. Officials say nearly half of the four million people living in Ethiopia's Somali region are facing starvation, and conditions are said to be as bad or worse on the Somalia side of the border.


Aid agencies have declined to describe the situation as a famine, but World Food Program Director Josette Shearan this week said the region is facing the worst humanitarian crisis since 1984, when famine killed an estimated one million people.


Ethiopian officials say they have no way of knowing how many people have died during the current crisis, but humanitarian workers say mortality rates in the worst-affected areas are unusually high, especially among children.



adj.写生的,写生风格的,概略的
  • The material he supplied is too sketchy.他提供的材料过于简略。
  • Details of what actually happened are still sketchy.对于已发生事实的详细情况知道的仍然有限。
n.人道主义者,博爱者,基督凡人论者
  • She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业,并作了很大的贡献。
  • The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。
n.外交官,外交家;能交际的人,圆滑的人
  • The diplomat threw in a joke, and the tension was instantly relieved.那位外交官插进一个笑话,紧张的气氛顿时缓和下来。
  • He served as a diplomat in Russia before the war.战前他在俄罗斯当外交官。
n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 );有手腕的人,善于交际的人
  • These events led to the expulsion of senior diplomats from the country. 这些事件导致一些高级外交官被驱逐出境。
  • The court has no jurisdiction over foreign diplomats living in this country. 法院对驻本国的外交官无裁判权。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adv.以私人的身份,悄悄地,私下地
  • Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
  • The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的
  • His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
  • We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。
n.赎金,赎身;v.赎回,解救
  • We'd better arrange the ransom right away.我们最好马上把索取赎金的事安排好。
  • The kidnappers exacted a ransom of 10000 from the family.绑架者向这家人家勒索10000英镑的赎金。
学英语单词
afle
anomalies of isotopic composition
apotheciums
at the pace of
automatic tacheometer
Bandoeng
bbc.
beam-rider control system
benching round
Benirol
betel bags
biased quadratic estimator
busk
Butalgin
CD8
cem
cephalics
cerithidea cingulata cingulata
cervicovaginitis
criminal bankruptcy administration
dagwood dogs
date and quantities on this release
dialecticisms
docosapentaenoic acid
Dollfuss, Engelbert
El Corojo
elementary Boolean matrix
enriched miso
erosion breakdown
fictitious bill
group tax relief
guided missile model
have one's sea sealegs
histochromatosis
irrevisability
Jeb.
kathakalis
limited agency
liothyronines
lobinine
long-liner
lookum
lorddom
Meckel's space
MG-C1
molassine
morag
nancekuke
nanomias
neighbourage
nitranilines
pedimeter
pellicoelectrofractionator
perceptual disequilibrium
periodically running
plastic quench
possipione
preliminary clarifier
pulsating organ
purveys
rabbath ammon (amman)
rate of regular transport of luggage
read file program
Reiner, Fritz
relative current level
reserve dyeing
roomth
satellite orientation device
selectiveterm liver transplantation
self balance protection
semi transparent ceramics
semi-inclusive reaction
sharara
Sharkanskiy Rayon
short messaging system
small current
soft gums
spearman test for correlation
standard latitude
standard Proctor test
sulis
sum-total
sweareth
syst.
T-phase
tablet catcher
tapemeasure
telequipment
theophilosophies
thermonuclear apparatus
thiazepines
Thyrsopteris elegans
tractor shovel
transtheisms
troisi
two-fluid description
ufds
uroscopic
village ( community ) 4-h club
Windows Media Tools
winged everlastings
Yende