[時事英文] 4 Top Global News Stories
聚焦疫情之餘,別忘國際時事~
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I. Locust outbreak 蝗蟲爆發
Desert locust swarms are causing an “unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods” across eastern Africa, United Nations agencies have warned. In Kenya, which is suffering its worst locust infestation for 70 years, one swarm occupied an area of sky more than three times the size of New York City.
1. unprecedented threat 史無前例的威脅
2. food security and livelihood 食安與生計
3. suffer 經歷,經受,遭受(壞事)*
4. locust infestation 蝗蟲侵害
5. occupy an area 佔領一地
聯合國機構警告,沙漠蝗蟲群正對東非造成「史無前例的食安與生計威脅」。肯亞正遭受70年來最嚴重的蝗害,蝗蟲群遮蔽的天空面積已超過紐約市的三倍。
完整報導: https://nyti.ms/3bPwoi7
*suffer: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/suffer
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II. Oil price crash 油價暴跌
Demand for oil was already down as economic activity declined with China and other countries in lockdown. But an oil price war between two of the world’s biggest oil producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, has added to fears over the health of the global economy. On 9 March, global stock markets, spooked by the oil price collapse and continued coronavirus unrest, saw their sharpest falls since the 2008 financial crisis.
6. demand for 對……的需求
7. economic activity 經濟活動
8. add to 加劇
9. fears over 對……的擔憂
10. the global economy 全球經濟
11. be spooked by 被……嚇到
12. oil price collapse (n.) 油價的暴跌
13. continued unrest 持續的動盪
14. financial crisis 金融危機
在鎖國的情況下,中國與其它國家的經濟活動衰退,各國對石油的需求已經下降。但全球最大的兩個石油生產國——俄羅斯與沙烏地阿拉伯——之間的油價戰已加劇了人們對全球經濟的擔憂。3月9日,全球股市受油價暴跌與武漢肺炎的驚嚇,出現了自2008年金融危機以來的最大跌幅。
完整報導: https://nyti.ms/2x4t9EJ
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III. Europe’s new refugee crisis 歐洲新難民危機
Tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been trying to get into Greece by land and sea since Turkey eased its border controls on 28 February. Turkey, which had agreed with the EU in 2016 to halt the flow of asylum seekers from Syria and other countries in return for aid, announced that it would no longer stop them trying to make their way to Greece, sparking fears over another European migration crisis.
15. asylum seeker 尋求(政治)庇護者
16. in return for 作為……的回報
17. no longer 不再
18. make their way to 通往*
19. spark fears 引發擔憂
20. migration crisis 移民危機
自土耳其2月28日放鬆邊境管制以來,成千上萬的尋求庇護者一直試圖從陸路與海路進入希臘。土耳其——於2016年曾與歐盟達成協議,暫停敘利亞與其它國家尋求庇護者的流動以換取援助——宣布將不再阻撓尋求庇護者進入希臘,這引發了人們對另一場歐洲移民危機的擔憂。
*https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/make-your-way
完整報導: https://bit.ly/2x0rK1W
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IV. Second-warmest February on record 有紀錄以來第二高溫的二月
Earth just had its second-warmest February since climate records began in 1880, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The northern hemisphere experienced an unseasonably warm winter with many parts of Europe recording exceptionally high temperatures for that time of year. Norway hit 19°C in January – more than 25°C above the monthly average. Europe and Asia recorded their warmest winters ever during December, January and February, according to NASA and NOAA. This comes after NASA and NOAA scientists declared 2019 the second-warmest year on record.
21. climate records (n.) 氣候紀錄
22. northern hemisphere 北半球
23. experience (v.) 經歷
24. exceptionally high temperatures 異常的高溫
25. the monthly average 每月平均
26. on record 記錄在案*
根據美國太空總署(NASA)以及國家海洋與大氣總署(NOAA),自1880年有氣候紀錄以來,地球剛出現第二高溫的二月。北半球經歷了一次不合時令的暖冬,同時歐洲許多地方也記錄到了異常的高溫。挪威在一月時達到19℃,比月均溫高出25℃以上。 按NASA與NOAA,歐洲與亞洲都在12月、1月以及2月偵測到有史以來最暖的冬季。這是在NASA與NOAA的科學家宣布2019年為有紀錄以來第二熱的年份之後。
*on record: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/record
完整報導:https://bit.ly/3aKclkX
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資料來源: https://bit.ly/2JwfqcA
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🇩🇰 這是一篇深度報導,來自歐洲現存最古老的報紙:丹麥Weekendavisen,題目是從香港抗爭運動、香港聯繫加泰羅尼亞的集會,前瞻全球大城市的「永久革命」。一篇報導訪問了世界各地大量學者,我也在其中,雖然只是每人一句,加在一起,卻有了很完整的圖像。
以下為英譯:
Protest! The demonstrations in Hong Kong were just the beginning. Now there are unrest in big cities from Baghdad to Barcelona. Perhaps the stage is set for something that could look like a permanent revolution in the world's big cities.
A world on the barricades
At the end of October, an hour after dark, a group of young protesters gathered at the Chater Garden Park in Hong Kong. Some of them wore large red and yellow flags. The talk began and the applause filled the warm evening air. There were slogans of independence, and demands of self-determination - from Spain. For the protest was in sympathy with the Catalan independence movement.
At the same time, a group of Catalan protesters staged a protest in front of the Chinese Consulate in Barcelona in favor of Hong Kong's hope for more democracy. The message was not to be mistaken: We are in the same boat. Or, as Joshua Wong, one of the leading members of the Hong Kong protest movement, told the Catalan news agency: "The people of Hong Kong and Catalonia both deserve the right to decide their own destiny."
For much of 2019, Hong Kong's streets have been ravaged by fierce protests and a growing desperation on both sides, with escalating violence and vandalism ensuing. But what, do observers ask, if Hong Kong is not just a Chinese crisis, but a warning of anger that is about to break out globally?
Each week brings new turmoil from an unexpected edge. In recent days, attention has focused on Chile. Here, more than 20 people have lost their lives in unrest, which has mainly been about unequal distribution of economic goods. Before then, the unrest has hit places as diverse as Lebanon and the Czech Republic, Bolivia and Algeria, Russia and Sudan.
With such a geographical spread, it is difficult to bring the protests to any sort of common denominator, but they all reflect a form of powerlessness so acute that traditional ways of speaking do not seem adequate.
Hardy Merriman, head of research at the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, is not in doubt that it is a real wave of protest and that we have not seen the ending yet.
"I have been researching non-violent resistance for 17 years, and to me it is obvious that there are far more popular protest movements now than before. Often the protests have roots in the way political systems work. Elsewhere, it is about welfare and economic inequality or both. The two sets of factors are often related, ”he says.
Economic powerlessness
Hong Kong is a good example of this. The desire among the majority of Hong Kong's seven million residents to maintain an independent political identity vis-à-vis the People's Republic of China is well known, but the resentment of the streets is also fueled by a sense of economic powerlessness. Hong Kong is one of the most unequal communities in the world, and especially the uneven access to the real estate market is causing a stir.
According to Lee Chun-wing, a sociologist at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the turmoil in the city is not just facing Beijing, but also expressing a daunting showdown with the neoliberal economy, which should diminish the state's role and give the market more influence, but in its real form often ends with the brutal arbitrariness of jungle law.
'The many protests show that neoliberalism is unable to instill hope in many. And as one of the world's most neoliberal cities, Hong Kong is no exception. While the protests here are, of course, primarily political, there is no doubt that social polarization and economic inequality make many young people not afraid to participate in more radical protests and do not care whether they are accused of damage economic growth, 'he says.
The turmoil is now so extensive that it can no longer be dismissed as a coincidence. Something special and significant is happening. As UN Secretary General António Guterres put it last week, it would be wrong to stare blindly at the superficial differences between the factors that get people on the streets.
“There are also common features that are recurring across the continents and should force us to reflect and respond. It is clear that there is growing distrust between the people and the political elites and growing threats to the social contract. The world is struggling with the negative consequences of globalization and the new technologies that have led to growing inequality in individual societies, "he told reporters in New York.
Triggered by trifles
In many cases, the riots have been triggered by questions that may appear almost trivial on the surface. In Chile, there was an increase in the price of the capital's subway equivalent to 30 Danish cents, while in Lebanon there were reports of a tax on certain services on the Internet. In both places, it was just the reason why the people have been able to express a far more fundamental dissatisfaction.
In a broad sense, there are two situations where a population is rebelling, says Paul Almeida, who teaches sociology at the University of California, Merced. The first is when more opportunities suddenly open up and conditions get better. People are getting hungry for more and trying to pressure their politicians to give even more concessions.
“But then there is also the mobilization that takes place when people get worse. That seems to be the overall theme of the current protests, even in Hong Kong. People are concerned about various kinds of threats they face. It may be the threat of inferior economic conditions, or it may be a more political threat of erosion of rights. But the question is why it is happening right now. That's the 10,000-kroner issue, ”says Almeida.
Almeida, who has just published the book Social Movements: The Structure of Social Mobilization, even gives a possible answer. A growing authoritarian, anti-democratic flow has spread across the continents and united rulers in all countries, and among others it is the one that has now triggered a reaction in the peoples.
“There is a tendency for more use of force by the state power. If we look at the death toll in Latin America, they are high considering that the countries are democracies. This kind of violence is not usually expected in democratic regimes in connection with protests. It is an interesting trend and may be related to the authoritarian flow that is underway worldwide. It's worth watching, 'he says.
The authoritarian wave
Politologists Anna Lürhmann and Staffan Lindberg from the University of Gothenburg describe in a paper published earlier this year a "third autocratic wave." Unlike previous waves, for example, in the years before World War II, when democracy was beaten under great external drama , the new wave is characterized by creeping. It happens little by little - in countries like Turkey, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Hungary and Russia - at such a slow pace that you barely notice it.
Even old-fashioned autocrats nowadays understand the language of democracy - the only acceptable lingua franca in politics - and so the popular reaction does not happen very often when it becomes clear at once that the electoral process itself is not sufficient to secure democratic conditions. Against this backdrop, Kenneth Chan, a politician at Hong Kong Baptist University, sees the recent worldwide wave of unrest as an expression of the legitimacy crisis of the democratic regimes.
“People have become more likely to take the initiative and take part in direct actions because they feel that they have not made the changes they had hoped for through the elections. In fact, the leaders elected by the peoples are perceived as undermining the institutional guarantees of citizens' security, freedom, welfare and rights. As a result, over the past decade, we have seen more democracies reduced to semi-democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes, ”he says.
"Therefore, we should also not be surprised by the new wave of resistance from the people. On the surface, the spark may be a relatively innocent or inconsiderate decision by the leadership, but people's anger quickly turns to what they see as the cause of the democratic deroute, that is, an arrogant and selfish leadership, a weakened democratic control, a dysfunctional civil society. who are no longer able to speak on behalf of the people. ”The world is changing. Anthony Ince, a cardiff at Cardiff University who has researched urban urban unrest, sees the uprisings as the culmination of long-term nagging discontent and an almost revolutionary situation where new can arise.
"The wider context is that the dominant world order - the global neoliberalism that has dominated since the 1980s - is under pressure from a number of sides, creating both uncertainty and at the same time the possibility of change. People may feel that we are in a period of uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, but perhaps also hope, ”he says.
Learning from each other.
Apart from mutual assurances of solidarity the protest movements in between, there does not appear to be any kind of coordination. But it may not be necessary either. In a time of social media, learning from each other's practices is easy, says Simon Shen, a University of Hong Kong political scientist.
“They learn from each other at the tactical level. Protesters in Hong Kong have seen what happened in Ukraine through YouTube, and now protesters in Catalonia and Lebanon are taking lessons from Hong Kong. It's reminiscent of 1968, when baby boomers around the globe were inspired by an alternative ideology to break down rigid hierarchies, 'he says.
But just as the protest movements can learn from each other, the same goes for their opponents. According to Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, Russia has been particularly active in trying to establish cooperation with other authoritarian regimes, which feel threatened by riots in the style of the "color revolutions" on the periphery of the old Soviet empire at the turn of the century.
"It has resulted in joint efforts between Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Venezuelan, Belarusian, Syrian and other national authorities to develop, systematize and report on techniques and practices that have proved useful in trying to contain such threats," writes Chenoweth in an article in the journal Global Responsibility to Protect.
Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, commentators at the New York Times, point to the social media as a double-edged sword. Not only are Twitter and Facebook powerful weapons in the hands of tech-savvy autocrats. They are also of questionable value to the protesting grass roots. With WhatsApp and other new technologies, it is possible to mobilize large numbers of interested and almost-interested participants in collective action. But they quickly fall apart again.
The volatile affiliation is one of the reasons why, according to a recent survey, politically motivated protests today only succeed in reaching their targets in 30 percent of cases. A generation ago, the success rate was 70 percent. Therefore, unrest often recurs every few years, and they last longer, as Hong Kong is an example of. Perhaps the scene is set for something that might resemble a permanent revolution in the world's big cities - a kind of background noise that other residents will eventually just get used to.
"Since there is still no obvious alternative to neoliberalism, the polarization that led to the protests initially will probably continue to apply," says Lee of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. "At the same time, this means that the anger and frustration will continue to rumble in society."
turkey economic crisis 在 Fadzil Zahari Facebook 的精選貼文
Salam Alaikum Wa Rehmat Allah wa Barakato Hu.
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HUMBLE APPEAL TO MUSLIM UMMAH.
Please BUY TURKISH LIRAS, £40 / $50 / €50 or any amount you can afford, to help Turkey in their hour of need.
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Turkey is having to pay the price for standing up against the anti Islamic collusion of the present day US-Israeli leadership.
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If every muslim buys a small amount of Turkish Liras we can help them overcome this gravest economic crisis in their history.
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Please, please, please act fast and also pass this message to all your contacts and groups on social media.
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