评论
打印
The war in Yemen ground on. An air strike on a school bus that killed scores of children was just one incident in which civilians were caught up. The un warned that the country was on the brink of a famine, with up to 14m people at risk of starvation.
也门战争仍在继续。一辆校车遭遇空袭，造成数十名儿童死亡，这只是平民被殃及的事件之一。联合国警告称，该国正处于饥荒边缘，多达1400万人面临饥饿的危险。
Gun violence in America hit the headlines again. A former pupil went on a rampage at his high school in Florida on St Valentine’s Day, murdering 17 people. Eleven Jews were murdered by a gunman at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, America’s worst-ever anti-Semitic attack. Over one weekend in Chicago 75 people were shot in separate incidents, 13 of them fatally.
美国的枪支暴力再次成为头条新闻。情人节当天，一名离校学生在佛罗里达州的高中开枪射击，杀害了17人。11名犹太人在匹兹堡一间犹太教堂被枪杀，这是美国有史以来最严重的反犹太袭击案件。在一个周末，芝加哥市有75人分别在不同的事件中受到枪击，其中13人死亡。
Trump grump
特朗普发火
Jerome Powell continued gradually raising interest rates in his first year as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Mr Trump said he wasn’t “even a little bit happy” with him. The political pressure Mr Powell endured was nothing compared with Turkey’s central bank. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, described high interest rates as “the mother of all evil” and claimed that they cause inflation. Most economists think they curb it. After a run on the lira, the central bank eventually raised rates regardless.
杰罗姆·鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）在担任美联储主席的第一年里继续逐步提高利率。特朗普表示，他对此“一点都开心不起来”。与土耳其央行相比，鲍威尔所承受的政治压力可以说微不足道。土耳其总统埃尔多安称，高利率是“万恶之源”，并声称高利率会引发通货膨胀。大多数经济学家认为，他们抑制了这一趋势。在发生里拉挤兑后，央行最终还是提高了利率。
After a run on the peso, Argentina had to call in the IMF (again). Mauricio Macri, the president, introduced an austerity plan and new taxes on exports.
在发生比索挤兑后，阿根廷不得不（再次）向国际货币基金组织求助。阿根廷总统毛里西奥·马克里(Mauricio Macri)推出了一项紧缩计划，并对出口征收新税。
Stockmarkets appeared to be heading for their worst year since the financial crisis. Many leading indices, including the s&p 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the ftse 100 are set to end the year below the level at which they started. There was a broad sell-off in technology stocks. Apple, which had earlier become the first company worth $1trn, tumbled. Google was slapped with a record 4.3bn euros ($5bn) fine by the European Commission. The bitcoin bubble burst.
股市似乎即将迎来金融危机以来最糟糕的一年。包括标准普尔500指数(s&p 500)、道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数(Dow Jones Industrial Average)和富时100指数(ftse 100)在内的许多领先指数今年年底都将低于开始时的水平。科技股普遍出现抛售。早些时候成为第一家市值破1万亿美元的公司的苹果股价暴跌。谷歌被欧洲委员会处以创纪录的43亿欧元(50亿美元)的罚款。比特币泡沫破裂。
The consolidation of media and telecommunications companies produced some of the year’s blockbuster mergers, including a deal between T-Mobile and Sprint that valued the combined entity at $146bn. Rupert Murdoch’s association with Sky, a British subscription-TV broadcaster that Mr Murdoch’s company founded in 1989, ended after it was bought by Comcast.
媒体和电信公司的整合促成了今年一些轰动的并购交易，包括T-Mobile和Sprint之间的一笔交易，该交易将合并后的公司估值为1460亿美元。鲁珀特·默多克(Rupert Murdoch)与英国付费电视广播公司天空广播公司(Sky)的合作在被康卡斯特(Comcast)收购后终止。天空广播公司是默多克的公司于1989年创建的。
Germany’s government lost two state elections in which the far right gained. Angela Merkel, chancellor since 2005 and a stabilising force in Europe, said she would step down in 2021. Germany’s consternation was compounded by its football team being knocked out in the early stage of the World Cup for the first time since 1938. France won the tournament.
德国政府输掉了两场州选举，极右党派在选举中胜出。德国总理安格拉·默克尔(Angela Merkel)表示，她将于2021年卸任。默克尔自2005年以来一直担任德国总理，成为维持欧洲稳定的一股力量。德国足球队自1938年以来首次在世界杯小组淘汰出局，这更加剧了德国人的恐慌。法国队赢得了2018年世界杯。
One of the most bizarre stories of 2018 was the faked assassination of Arkady Babchenko, a Russian journalist and critic of the Kremlin, by Ukraine’s intelligence services. Mr Babchenko’s body was smeared with pig’s blood and taken to a morgue while his “murder” was deplored by the world’s media. His sudden appearance, alive, at a press conference dumbfounded his grieving friends and colleagues. Wisely, he had kept his wife in the loop, but he still apologised to her publicly.
2018年最离奇的故事之一是乌克兰情报机构伪造暗杀俄罗斯记者、克里姆林宫批评者阿尔卡季·巴布琴科(Arkady Babchenko)一事。巴布琴科的尸体上沾满了猪血，随后被送往太平间，而他的“伪造谋杀”遭到了全球媒体的谴责。他突然活着现身新闻发布会，这让陷入哀痛的朋友和同事们目瞪口呆。机智如他，甚至让妻子也蒙在鼓里，不过他还是公开地向妻子道歉。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
