时间:2019-02-08 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2009年(十一月)


英语课

By Jeffrey Young
Washington
03 November 2009


 
US diplomats 1 held captive by Iranian militants 2
November 4 is the 30th anniversary of the siezure, by young Iranian militants, of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Leading up to that event, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had returned to Iran from exile in France, leading an Islamic revolution that forced the Shah of Iran to flee. Fifty-two of the US diplomats seized by the Iranians were held captive for more than a year, most of them at the US embassy.


On November 4, 1979,the United States embassy in Tehran was seized by militants in the name of Iran's new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. For the next 444 days, it was the scene of captivity 3 for 49 Americans, including embassy Press Attache Barry Rosen.


He describes how he was taken hostage. "One young man, looking rather ferocious 4 at that time, started to kick, to kick the door down," he says, "This person said to me in a loud voice, in Farsi, "You are under arrest! You are a member of the nest of spies! You are going to come with me!" 


 
Barry Rosen
The Acting 5 US Ambassador at the time, Bruce Laingen, was also taken hostage. In hindsight, he says, the close U.S. relationship with the Shah of Iran, widely unpopular, set the stage for what happened.


"If we had done things differently, you could come up with all kinds of scenarios 6. But I believe myself that it was almost inevitable," Laingen said.


A celebration in Algiers on November 1st, where Iran's Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was photographed meeting with U.S. National Security Advisor 7 Zbigniew Brzezinski, pushed the situation over the edge, according to Victor Tomseth, who was a political officer at the embassy. "I'm convinced to this day that it was that picture that was the catalyst 8 for the student group that carried out the attack on the embassy," Tomseth said.


The U.S. diplomats spent nearly 15 months confined in the embassy, the foreign ministry 9 and other Tehran locations.


In the U.S., Americans hung yellow ribbons to show solidarity 10, also putting pressure on President Jimmy Carter to act. 


Months later, the US mounted a rescue mission. A dust storm turned the operation into a disaster, killing 11 eight servicemen. The mission was aborted 12


Barry Rosen says the U.S. made several mistakes, including not closing the embassy after an earlier takeover attempt in February 1979. "We should have shut down the embassy after February 14th. And said to the Iranians 'When you want us back, we will be back,'" he states.


 
Bruce Laingen
Bruce Laingen says decisionmakers in Washington weren't paying attention to the detailed 13 reports the embassy was providing about the deteriorating 14 situation in Iran.


Washington was paying attention to the Cold War and Moscow, according to Rosen. "We are still worried about the Soviets 15. We had listening posts in the embassy. That to the administration was more important than bilateral 16 relations or the bodies [the embassy personnel] that were in Tehran," Rosen said.


Bruce Laingen says he spoke 17 with Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi late on November 4 about the situation. "I had a telephone conversation that night, of the first day, when he told me 'Look. We will resolve this by morning.' And I said to him, 'OK, what am I going to do?' What are you going to do with me? And he said 'Why don't you go down into the diplomatic reception rooms [at the Foreign Ministry] and find a place to sleep there?" Laingen recalls.


It was a nap that lasted nearly 15 months. In November 1980, President Carter lost his re-election bid. On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President of the United States. On the same day, Bruce Laingen and 51 other Americans were freed. 


Some 30 years later, the United States and Iran are still at odds 18.



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》
激进分子,好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )
  • The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来,反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
  • Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此,巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚
  • A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
  • He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。
adj.凶猛的,残暴的,极度的,十分强烈的
  • The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
  • The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的
  • Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她,她只是假装的。
  • During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代,她的表演生涯黯然失色。
n.[意]情节;剧本;事态;脚本
  • 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
n.顾问,指导老师,劝告者
  • They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
  • The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。
n.催化剂,造成变化的人或事
  • A catalyst is a substance which speeds up a chemical reaction.催化剂是一种能加速化学反应的物质。
  • The workers'demand for better conditions was a catalyst for social change.工人们要求改善工作条件促进了社会变革。
n.(政府的)部;牧师
  • They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
  • We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。
n.团结;休戚相关
  • They must preserve their solidarity.他们必须维护他们的团结。
  • The solidarity among China's various nationalities is as firm as a rock.中国各族人民之间的团结坚如磐石。
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财
  • Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
  • Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。
adj.流产的,失败的v.(使)流产( abort的过去式和过去分词 );(使)(某事物)中止;(因故障等而)(使)(飞机、宇宙飞船、导弹等)中断飞行;(使)(飞行任务等)中途失败
  • The rocket flight had to be aborted because of difficulties with computer. 因电脑出故障,这次火箭飞行只好中辍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • They aborted the space flight finally. 他们最后中止了这次宇航飞行。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的
  • He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
  • A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。
恶化,变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 )
  • The weather conditions are deteriorating. 天气变得越来越糟。
  • I was well aware of the bad morale and the deteriorating factories. 我很清楚,大家情绪低落,各个工厂越搞越坏。
苏维埃(Soviet的复数形式)
  • A public challenge could provoke the Soviets to dig in. 公开挑战会促使苏联人一意孤行。
  • The Soviets proposed the withdrawal of American ballistic-missile submarines from forward bases. 苏联人建议把美国的弹道导弹潜艇从前沿基地撤走。
adj.双方的,两边的,两侧的
  • They have been negotiating a bilateral trade deal.他们一直在商谈一项双边贸易协定。
  • There was a wide gap between the views of the two statesmen on the bilateral cooperation.对双方合作的问题,两位政治家各自所持的看法差距甚大。
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别
  • The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
  • Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗?
学英语单词
anoy
bering land bridge
biohermal
blennerhassets
bookcrosses
card punch reproduce check unit
cascade experiment
charge prepaid
checks us out
clusterite
coach-wheel
condensed monolayer
cotton silk union
crumplely
Curaray, R.
cutting tool for drill
day car
debts
deunionised
differential mode interference
drengages
drum clutch
E-Thrombosis
earth-
EDBP
empty body weight of lamb
end-and-end lease
feel short of
fern year
ficedula albicilla
filing date
flannel fabrics
foramen hypoglossal
geared machine
genus leiopelmas
glycero-aldehyde
greens economizer
hafnium plate
hand operated starter
heterogeneity index
hindnecks
hypocentre(hypocentrum)
impatiency
in half
inlet cock
interspecific interaction
intradisciplinary
jus aequum
kabish
Kimpila
layerage by notching
lesur
Ligamentum lumbocostale
liver cheese
logarithmic deviations
lumpenus lumpretaeformiss
machine science
made ourselves at home
Major-Minor Fault Presumption Rule
Manglares, Pta.
mechanical washer scrubber
Milesian
monolight
neocarzinostatins
non concurrent force
obtain a refund of a deposit
phaseolin
pierce-arrow
pikeheads
plumber's itch
predigest
programmable keypad
promove
radiation-induced someatic effects
reckoning without
regressive tax
Rhododendron ririei
right to grass
running-light current
sacrileger
sale-leaseback
Savozero, Ozero
sederunt
Sergokalinskiy Rayon
shrievalty
special interest holidays
spot-kicks
stabilization tank
stand by you
starting carburetor
steering grommet
sternnesses
stet
to-reose
tonations
upright vacuum
URL bar
uwajima
vapourises
wages of sin
walling curb