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
analytical record book
androgyneity
aplanatic magnifier
approach shots
archidiskodon
arfvedsonites
audit of parliamentary appropriations
Bartragh I.
be innocent of
Bernoulli's theoren
Binefar
bongwaters
bootstrap procedure
bottom draw cut
bubblish
bucktail
celanoes
coaly facies
coding tool
coefficient for combination value of an action
coiffeured
cotton trousers
county-run
custom of port
cut surface
deceiving
dibutyl-butylphosphonate
diphenan
dyr air sterilization
electron speed regulator
electrowon
exchange acquisition
fabronia matsumurae besch
floral water
french double pique
gaeta
gerned
GM_who-whom
gonatagra
gouins
guddling
Gypsyhood
harpoon gun
hearthlike
hermaphroditical contact
higginsville
high compression ring
high current density electrolysis
high-frequency medium hot combination equipment
Hispaniola Trough
HLW (high-level waste)
Hoghes induction balance
Homocodon
hui p'o y?eh
input parameter list
irenina turpiniae
jump-welded pipe
lead wire error
leading features
line scan recorder
luminescence dosimetry
mail virus
major orders
mean fuel-conversion ratio
measuring hopper
meissonier
modes of infection
monthly individual payroll sheet
needlework club
nodal cubic
numerous hairs
ohhhh
pak pai
panchion
parallactic grid
penta resin
Phalaenopsis amabilis
phosphorus deprivation test
Plague on him !
radial inward turbine
road-bike
rooftiles
rulemakers
Rutana
single-cell protein
snuffies
soap shrunk
splanchnostaxis
split-second wheel bridge
stationary partition liquid
sutura vomeropalatina
thought ahead
to decay
transconjugant
ultrastructurals
unassuaged
unnaming
verified figures
Vespertilio murinus
visible mutant
zaldaride
Zariah