时间:2018-12-19 作者:英语课 分类:CNN美国有线新闻2016年9月


英语课

 


First up, the remnants of a secret war. We're taking you to the Asian country of Laos. It's a landlocked communist nation located between Thailand and Vietnam. And during the Vietnam War, from the 1950s to the 1970s, Laos was fighting a civil war of its own. And the United States had a role in it.


In Vietnam, the U.S. supported South Vietnamese forces fighting the communist government of North Vietnam. In Laos, the U.S. supported southern Lao forces fighting communist forces in the north. The U.S. mission led by the Central Intelligence Agency dropped millions of tons of bombs on Laos.


But many of them did not explode and 43 years after the mission ended, some are still going off when people find or step on them. An average of 50 people in Laos are killed or maimed each year. And the presence of the bombs prevents much of the agricultural country from expanding its farmland.


Yesterday, the U.S. government pledged $90 million to help clear these bombs out. U.S. President Barack Obama, who's in Laos, made the announcement.


Andrew Stevens gives a sense of the challenge ahead.


ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For nine years until 1973, the U.S. carpet bomb Laos, trying to stop the communist insurgency 1 and smashed North Vietnamese supply lines.


It was known as the Secret War. No American boots on the ground, just American bombs. More than two million tons of them rained down. Per capita, more explosives were dropped here than on any other country in history.


(SHOUTING)


(EXPLOSION)


STEVENS: And they're still exploding today.


This is a controlled detonation 2 by the Mines Advisory 3 Group which works in Laos to clear the bombs literally 4 a few square yards at a time. Every patch of land has to be mapped and then swept.


Once detected, they zero in on the object and uncover it.


And this is what they usually find, clustered munitions 5 known locally as bombies.


Up to 80 million of these failed to detonate and 1 percent of them have been cleared.


How long realistically with the resources at the country's disposal is it going to take to make this country safe?


NEIL ARNOLD, MINES ADVISORY GROUP (MAG): Currently with the resources, I'd say decades.


STEVENS: Decades?


ARNOLD: Yes.


(EXPLOSION)


STEVENS: And that is one more explosive device taken out, but across these plains, across these valleys and across these mountains, there are still tens of millions of threats remaining.



1 insurgency
n.起义;暴动;叛变
  • And as in China, unrest and even insurgency are widespread. 而在中国,动乱甚至暴乱都普遍存在。 来自互联网
  • Dr Zyphur is part an insurgency against this idea. 塞弗博士是这一观点逆流的一部分。 来自互联网
2 detonation
n.爆炸;巨响
  • A fearful detonation burst forth on the barricade.街垒传来一阵骇人的爆炸声。
  • Within a few hundreds of microseconds,detonation is complete.在几百微秒之内,爆炸便完成了。
3 advisory
adj.劝告的,忠告的,顾问的,提供咨询
  • I have worked in an advisory capacity with many hospitals.我曾在多家医院做过顾问工作。
  • He was appointed to the advisory committee last month.他上个月获任命为顾问委员会委员。
4 literally
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实
  • He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
  • Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候,她不走到真正要昏厥了,决不肯坐下来。
5 munitions
n.军火,弹药;v.供应…军需品
  • The army used precision-guided munitions to blow up enemy targets.军队用精确瞄准的枪炮炸掉敌方目标。
  • He rose [made a career for himself] by dealing in munitions.他是靠贩卖军火发迹的。
学英语单词
ABA transit number
acetaldehyde mutase
after-cut
agapanthuss
allertons
alpha-limit point
Ampelopteris
anneloids
anti-parallel connection
antirride
argument of function
audit planning process
barshefsky
beta-hemolytic streptococci
blonde moments
buoyant smoke signal
chromium tartate
chronic gastric hypersecretion
decimal candles
denner
descending inhibitory system
Desulfoviridins
direct charge table
duodecimals
electron beam projection exposure apparatus
enablers
engenesis
erbium nitrate
euclideans
Euonymus semenovii
exhaust-suction stroke
fakelore
feasted on
fininvest
Fletcherise
Forsythia suspensa
galleon
get sb nowhere
glycosylceramidases
go on bivouac
governor servo-mechanism
greenwich observatory
gwps
Hamilton Dome
hash sequence
heptene
Herbertia
high-prestige
hoberd
Ilatane
impingement rate
interplanting
krupp renn method
language collection
lebruns
machanical handling of crops
machinery industry
mean squares total
men-folk
metalloregulator
Milne Seamounts
motha
moulding-die
multiform layer
nonsleepers
Nucleolites
out-oftown
Oxalis hupehensis
oxy compound
panduriformis
paste formats
polymixia japonica
potato psyllid
present state examination
raster-to-vector conversion
rate of both profits and taxes on entire funds
re-appoints
reciprocal-inhibition therapies
reefer vessel
roof-tops
round locomotive shed
running-light test
secondary valence bond
semivariograms
seven-iron
seven-level
ship reserve antenna
shore net
shrimp toast
single card microcomputer
soft-plastic
splenoparectasia
stoppered graduated measuring glass
summer-land
supersensitive communication system
syngnathus schlegeli
teenagers
thin shock-layer theory
unsigned constant
Wasī'
welfare states
yikker