时间:2019-01-13 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2008年(一月)


英语课
By Nick Wadhams
Nairobi
22 January 2008


The chief of Kenya's leading tourism body says post-election chaos 1 has sparked the worst crisis the country's travel industry has ever seen, and that hotels and suppliers are at risk of collapse 2 unless the political impasse 3 ends soon.  Nick Wadhams reports from Nairobi.


The violence that followed Kenya's December 27 election led to a mass exodus 4 of vacationers during the peak of the country's tourist season.  Hotels around the country have been all but empty and thousands of reservations have been canceled.


The director of the Kenya Tourist Board, Achieng Ogonga, says the industry has never experienced such a sharp downturn before, even after the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and a terrorist attack on a Mombasa hotel in 2002 that killed 13 people.


Ogonga says that the refusal by President Mwai Kibaki and opposition 5 leader Raila Odinga to negotiate is only making the matter worse because it has prevented the tourism industry from being able to offer deals to lure 6 vacationers back to the country.


"We are sandwiched between the political crisis and the business," Achieng said. "We cannot make any plan forward unless the political crisis is resolved.  If they would sit today, have dialogue, sort out their issues, the economy will pick up very fast because the Kenyan tourist industry has the capacity, highly skilled people, experienced and we have past lessons."


The extent of the damage to the tourist industry has been difficult to measure, but officials say it could result in 120,000 lost jobs.  Tourism injected nearly one billion dollars into the economy last year.


Ogonga says that once a deal is reached, the Kenyan tourism industry will launch a massive campaign that will include discounts, junkets for travel writers and other enticements to drum up newly favorable press.


Despite the potential magnitude of the losses, President Kibaki and Mr. Odinga appear far from a compromise. 


Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to arrive late Tuesday to mediate 7 the crisis.


Earlier in the day, Mr. Odinga's camp announced it had filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands arguing that the Kibaki government's crackdown on protesters amounted to crimes against humanity.


At least 600 people have been killed and 250,000 have reportedly fled their homes since the violence began shortly after the vote, which observers said was seriously flawed.




n.混乱,无秩序
  • After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后,城市一片混乱。
  • The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。
vi.累倒;昏倒;倒塌;塌陷
  • 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。
n.僵局;死路
  • The government had reached an impasse.政府陷入绝境。
  • Negotiations seemed to have reached an impasse.谈判似乎已经陷入僵局。
v.大批离去,成群外出
  • The medical system is facing collapse because of an exodus of doctors.由于医生大批离去,医疗系统面临崩溃。
  • Man's great challenge at this moment is to prevent his exodus from this planet.人在当前所遇到的最大挑战,就是要防止人从这个星球上消失。
n.反对,敌对
  • The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
  • The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。
n.吸引人的东西,诱惑物;vt.引诱,吸引
  • Life in big cities is a lure for many country boys.大城市的生活吸引着许多乡下小伙子。
  • He couldn't resist the lure of money.他不能抵制金钱的诱惑。
vi.调解,斡旋;vt.经调解解决;经斡旋促成
  • The state must mediate the struggle for water resources.政府必须通过调解来解决对水资源的争夺。
  • They may be able to mediate between parties with different interests.他们也许能在不同利益政党之间进行斡旋。
学英语单词
-phasia
advanced rural transportation system
ancillary resources
andrologia
arcus frontalis
bacteriomes
battlestars
betula populifolias
Big, large,
Castiglioncello
CC (channel controller)
chinne
Chlormuron-ethyl
chromospheric bubble
close in for the kill
colloidal graphite for fibre glass
conjunctive proposition
Cruikshank
delete capability
disassure
double heterojunction diode
electronic ceramic device
fat vacuole
follicular hydrops
footpad
formals
fourvey
fruitbat
Fua'amotu
geochemical dispersion
glaucarubin
green water deck wetness
grid plate characteristics
inch-meal
inference procedure
intermediate frequency signal
irregular nature of traffic
jumptv
La Virgen, Cerro
Lagarosolen hispidus
landside slope
lead compensation
lignaloe oil
logic control
logrolling legislation
maunching
mearstone
mincing knife
Mitteleschenbach
mole blade
myrons
narrow-leaved white-topped aster
natural theology
Neonalium
neuroautoimmune
new-land
niche differentiation
No power
occupation forces
octothorpe
out of collar
parthenocarpous fruit
Pedicularis pseudocephalantha
pension program
photoepinasty
polar distribution
Portballintrae
property insured
quasi peak
radiation analyzer
reverse conducting thyristor
Rhogogaster dryas
rubidium indium alum
saouma
Saxifraga aristulata
Simchat Torah
simulation centre
sinusoidal trace
skirt
soil erodibility
sour mushroom
stochastic perturbation
submerged coastal plain
taxed product
telectorate
tephrosia
through phrase
thudding
top-hinged swinging door
truth table reducibility
understudies
UnitName
virtual core
virusin
wavelength plate
wild apples
WILKIE
windowless presenter
withdraw an action
workers' management
working dogs
worth his salt