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
acid head
aimed precision
albinsim
alitrunk
anti-coagulant
arteriae malleolaris posterior medialis
as easy as falling of a log
assignment half-word
bachelorships
Bukundi
Buurhakaba
cement box
cereal grain processing
Chekhovian
chosenness
come to a conclusion
cumulation accumulation
damaged by hooks
depigmented
dexify
diquinoline
disto-occlusal angle
exercise metabolism
federal radiation council
fields of vision
flow riser
forbearers
fossil-fired superheater
frequency response error
gangue froth
Giraud, Chutes
govardhans
haemovores
hegman
hygienical evaluation
i-furn
in a good quarrel
in quick procession
interferometer manometer
interior
internal conversion
introduced plant
keep from the bottle
Kennedy Round of tariff reductions
left triangular ligament of liver
length of air gap
linaria vulgariss
loaminess
lord mayor's court in london
luminous test
Machiakow limestone
miraval
mold top half
multiplying punch
northern celadon
Oculist-in-charge
offsquare
old shell
order for eviction
Oryong
ospytalle
oxygen pitting
paleoxylological
passeri
Paz, R.da
peg-tooth drum
performatively
pneumatic gripping
Poa sphondylodes
poruwa
powerman margin
precision wire wound resistor
proliferative trichilemmoma
pulse regenerating circuit
purchases account
Quarnstedt
research team
rule of seven
Sarcina violacea
scanning angle
scar-faced
seepage lake
sees the light
sijina
slavnov taylor identity
spear-point
spur vein (or external thoracic vein)
squeezibility
subharmonic protector
the traffic will bear
tonneaux
torque command storage
translingual
Trepocid
troubleshooter
twin-tubes
ullyett
Ultramide
unbenefitted
urban line
veatchanol
wallon