时间:2018-12-19 作者:英语课 分类:VOA双语新闻 2011年11月


英语课

  Italy's tough austerity drive includes plans to force local authorities to merge 1, in a bid to rein 2 in public spending. The tiny village of Filettino faces such a prospect 3 - but its mayor is fighting back. The town is bidding to become an autonomous 4 principality with its own currency. And it might just stand a chance.

意大利为了控制公共开支而准备采取的严厉的紧缩计划,包括强迫地方政府合并。山顶上的小村庄费莱蒂诺就面临着这样的前景。不过,村长可不答应,他挺身反击,领导全村争取成为自治小王国,还自行印发货币。说不定,他们还真有可能成功呢。

Deep in the rugged 5 mountains east of Rome lies the quiet village of Filettino.

在罗马以东的崎岖山区深处座落着一座宁静的村镇,名叫费莱蒂诺(Filettino)。

Not much has changed here for centuries. But the 554 residents are now part of a revolution in the making; Filettino is trying to break away from Italy.

这里几百年来都没什么变化。不过,村里的554名居民正在卷入一场革命:费莱蒂诺正试图脱离意大利。

Under the government’s tough $67-billion [50 billion euro] austerity package, all towns with fewer than 1,000 residents are being forced to merge with neighboring communities.

按照意大利政府500亿欧元的严峻紧缩方案,所有人口不到1000的村镇都必须和邻近社区合并。

That would see Filettino’s Mayor Luca Sellari out of a job. So he’s leading the fight back.

这意味着费莱蒂诺的村长卢卡·塞拉利的工作要丢了。所以,他正在领头反击。

“We want to manage our resources independently. This town is rich in natural resources and this could provide great economic opportunities. We have about 8,000 hectares of land, and forests that we could cut, but the state doesn’t allow us to do it,” he added. “We have water resources, but these are managed by a company in Rome, and we don’t receive any money."

村长塞拉利说:“我们希望独立管理我们的资源。我们镇里有丰富的自然资源,可以提供很多经济机会。我们有大约8000公顷土地,有森林可砍。可国家不允许我们这样做。我们有水资源,可是却由罗马的一家公司管理,我们拿不到任何钱。”

Filettino has even started printing its own currency, the Fiorito - complete with a picture of Mayor Sellari.

费莱蒂诺甚至开始印行自己的钞票了。货币名为“费奥里托”(Fiorito),票面一应俱全,还有村长塞拉利的头像。

The village's few shops stock T-shirts bearing the new Filettino coat of arms. For now, they are just souvenirs. Sellari insists, though, there is legal precedent 6.

村上屈指可数的店铺出售带有新的费莱蒂诺纹章的体恤衫。现在,这些只能算纪念品。可塞拉利坚持说,这是有法律先例的。

Before unification in the 19th century, Italy was made up of dozens of principalities and kingdoms. Some, like San Marino, still survive.

在19世纪统一之前,意大利有几十个诸侯国和王国。有些仍然存在,比如圣马利诺。

“We were the first ones to protest, maybe the ones who protested loudest - and the government stepped back. At the moment the town is not merged 7 with the neighboring village, but still, the government is forcing us to unify 8 our services. That would force our costs up, so I hope [Prime Minister] Monti’s new government will propose a reasonable solution to this,” said Sellari.

塞拉利说:“我们是第一批抗议的,也许是抗议声最大的。政府就退缩了。目前,我们的村镇没有和邻村合并,不过,政府还是强迫我们合并服务。这会把我们的成本逼上去。因此我希望蒙蒂的新政府将对此提出合理的解决方案。”

Rosa Maria Giulitti helps run Filettino’s main restaurant, La Galleria. She remains 9 skeptical 10 of the mayor’s plans.

罗萨·玛丽亚·朱利亚蒂帮助经营费莱蒂诺的主要餐馆La Galleria。她对村长的计划心存怀疑。

“We don’t want to be independent from Italy, we don’t want to be out. We just want to manage our own resources, which we don’t want to concede to anyone else,” said Giulitti.

她一边烤着牛排一边说:“我们不想从意大利独立出去,不想脱离,我们只想管理自己的资源,不想让给别人。”

Giulitti’s mother takes over the cooking - insisting that the local cattle produce the tastiest steak in the world. "This is the local blood of the principality!" she declares.

朱利亚蒂的母亲从罗萨手中接过烧烤。她坚持认为,本地牛肉才能做出世界最好的牛排,并端着烤好的牛排宣称:这是本地公国的血液。

Filettino’s people are clearly proud of their culture and their village.

费莱蒂诺人显然为自己的文化和村庄感到自豪。

Across Italy, around 2000 villages face losing their mayors. Many of them will be watching carefully whether Mayor Sellari can one day call himself the Prince of Filettino.

在意大利各地,大约2000个村镇有可能失去村长。很多村长将密切关注塞拉利村长是否有一天会自封“费莱蒂诺亲王”。



1 merge
v.(使)结合,(使)合并,(使)合为一体
  • I can merge my two small businesses into a large one.我可以将我的两家小商店合并为一家大商行。
  • The directors have decided to merge the two small firms together.董事们已决定把这两家小商号归并起来。
2 rein
n.疆绳,统治,支配;vt.以僵绳控制,统治
  • The horse answered to the slightest pull on the rein.只要缰绳轻轻一拉,马就作出反应。
  • He never drew rein for a moment till he reached the river.他一刻不停地一直跑到河边。
3 prospect
n.前景,前途;景色,视野
  • This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
  • The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。
4 autonomous
adj.自治的;独立的
  • They proudly declared themselves part of a new autonomous province.他们自豪地宣布成为新自治省的一部分。
  • This is a matter that comes within the jurisdiction of the autonomous region.这件事是属于自治区权限以内的事务。
5 rugged
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的
  • Football players must be rugged.足球运动员必须健壮。
  • The Rocky Mountains have rugged mountains and roads.落基山脉有崇山峻岭和崎岖不平的道路。
6 precedent
n.先例,前例;惯例;adj.在前的,在先的
  • Is there a precedent for what you want me to do?你要我做的事有前例可援吗?
  • This is a wonderful achievement without precedent in Chinese history.这是中国历史上亘古未有的奇绩。
7 merged
(使)混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 ); 相融; 融入; 渐渐消失在某物中
  • Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
  • The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。
8 unify
vt.使联合,统一;使相同,使一致
  • How can we unify such scattered islands into a nation?我们怎么才能把如此分散的岛屿统一成一个国家呢?
  • It is difficult to imagine how the North and South could ever agree on a formula to unify the divided peninsula.很难想象南北双方在统一半岛的方案上究竟怎样才能达成一致。
9 remains
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹
  • He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
  • The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。
10 skeptical
adj.怀疑的,多疑的
  • Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
  • Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。
学英语单词
-iz-
admission by ticket
aminoadamantan
ankylopollexian
announcementware
Antinopolis
AOG (augmented operator grammar)
application virtualization
arthropodic
atrophaneura semperi
audio facilities
b.walker
bilabulate lophophore
bilds
biotransformed
boiler jacket band
book shop
branch volume
byporesalexia
calciprivic
complex values
cosmique
daftest
delta match
diamond drill machine
diesel engine starting system
diffused-base alloy technique
discontinuous action controller
dockmaster
dominium directum
dortha
double-deck road
drive tumbler
Drweca
ear phones
edge away
factor Vl
feedback-time lag effects
finite elasticity
fisher's bed
fixed but adjustable exchange rate
floor-mops
Forsbach
gallantry in europe
get straight
glass or ceramic solidification
glass spacer block
golet
grantee of a patent
hallooing
haselden
Helmholtz-Kelvin contraction
hemidactylus bowringii
heptazines
homentropic flow
kind designation
leishmania pifanoi
measure feeder
mechanical testing
Mesolithic Age
method of coordinate transformation matrix
microprocessor design criteria
midst distancemeter
Molchanovskiy Rayon
molybdenum hemitrioxide
multiplication/division unit
Neagrǎ, Marea
neohercullin
nonskewed
nuclear attraction
Old Norwegian
ordinary point of a curve
Pendleton Bay
phyfe
piros
potato onion
pregame
presulfidation
Ranton
resuscitator
revision marks
rustmicin
schoema
set a precdent for
step tread board rubber cover
subpermanent magnetism
sullamon
sweat balls
swelling of vein
test framework
tetyukhe-pristan (rudnaya pristan)
tipping tank
transfer vehicle
trochoblast
uncollectibles
under provisions of
unique visitor
unqualified acceptance
unrelishing
unwindowed
waterclock
Wendlandia cavaleriei