早报导图

Raise a rocket: covid-19 in India

“Social distance applies from prime minister to every citizen,” declared Narendra Modi yesterday in his announcement of a 21-day lockdown across India. The decisive step comes after India registered over 550 cases of covid-19, of which more than 100 were added on Monday alone. Around $2bn has been set aside to strengthen a crumbling health-care infrastructure. Understaffed hospitals and a lack of testing facilities may disguise the true extent of the problem. India has just one isolation bed per 84,000 people and one doctor for every 11,600 citizens. By one estimate, staying indoors will reduce the expected number of cases by 62%. And yet when Mr Modi urged families to gather on their balconies on Sunday and cheer doctors and essential workers in the fight against the disease, people turned out on the streets in droves to celebrate his call to action. This time should be different.

纳伦德拉•莫迪(Narendra Modi)昨日宣布，印度全国实施为期21天的封锁，他在声明中表示: “从总理到每个公民，都存在社会距离。”。 这一决定性的举措是在印度登记了550多例 covid-19之后采取的，其中仅在周一一天就增加了100多例。 政府已拨出约20亿美元，用于加强摇摇欲坠的医疗基础设施。 人手不足的医院和缺乏检测设施可能掩盖了问题的真实程度。 印度每84000人只有一张隔离床，每11600人只有一名医生。 据估计，呆在室内可以减少62% 的病例。 然而，当莫迪先生敦促家庭在周日聚集在阳台上，为医生和抗击疾病的重要工作人员欢呼时，人们成群结队地走上街头，庆祝他的行动号召。 这次应该有所不同。

crumbling adj. 破碎的

Faster, higher, later: the Olympics postponed

The odds this summer’s Tokyo Olympics would survive the covid-19 pandemic have been lengthening for weeks. Yesterday a joint statement from the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo organising committee bowed to the inevitable and announced a delay until “not later than the summer of 2021”. This is an embarrassment for Japan’s prime minister, Abe Shinzo, who long refused to countenance a postponement, but also a partial victory—he has avoided the definitive cancellation of a legacy project. The delay will be a relief to athletes, 87% of whom in a recent survey said the pandemic had marred their preparation, and 78% of whom preferred postponement. The governments of Japan and Tokyo have invested $25bn in the games, and companies provided more than $3bn in sponsorship. They too will be glad not to write off the prospect of any income from what, whenever they are held, will still be called the 2020 games.

这个夏天的东京奥运会能够在 covid-19大流行中幸存下来的几率已经延长了几个星期。 昨日，国际奥委会(ioc)和东京奥组委(Tokyo organising Committee)发表了一份联合声明，屈服于这一不可避免的事实，宣布推迟至“不迟于2021年夏天”。 这让日本首相安倍晋三(Abe Shinzo)颇为尴尬，他长期以来一直拒绝支持推迟，但这也是部分胜利ーー他避免了一个遗留项目的最终取消。 这次推迟对运动员来说是一种安慰，在最近的一项调查中，87% 的运动员说大流行破坏了他们的准备工作，78% 的运动员倾向于推迟。 日本和东京政府已向奥运会投资250亿美元，企业提供了逾30亿美元的赞助。 他们也会很高兴，不会因为2020年的奥运会而失去任何收入。

odds n. 不平等；几率；胜算；差别

countenance vt. 支持,赞同,批准

marred vt. 破坏，损毁；损伤；糟蹋；玷污；损坏……外表

write off 勾销；取消；很快地写好

Busting the black zero: Germany's budget

For years Germany has run the tightest of fiscal ships, frustrating many in the euro zone and beyond. Then came covid-19. Today the Bundestag will approve a €156bn ($168bn) supplementary budget for 2020, under which Germany will issue new debt for the first time since 2013. The borrowing breaks Germany’s “black zero” balanced-budget policy and exploits an emergency rule in the constitutional “debt brake”. Yet it is just one part of Germany’s response. The government has expanded Kurzarbeit support (in which the state partly covers the lost wages of workers who have their hours cut), extended various loan guarantees and even earmarked funds for direct investment in companies. The package amounts to a potential €750bn, and more may follow. The scale of the response has surprised observers—but at European level less is happening. Germany, and the euro area’s other hawks, remain implacably opposed to debt mutualisation.

多年来，德国一直是财政最紧张的国家，这让欧元区内外的许多国家感到沮丧。 然后是 covid-19。 今日，德国联邦议院(Bundestag)将批准一项1560亿欧元(合1680亿美元)的2020年补充预算，根据该预算，德国将自2013年以来首次发行新债。 借款打破了德国的“黑色零”平衡预算政策，并利用了宪法“债务刹车”中的一条紧急规定。 然而，这只是德国应对措施的一部分。 政府扩大了对 Kurzarbeit 的支持(政府在一定程度上承担了被削减工作时间的工人的工资损失) ，扩大了各种贷款担保，甚至为企业的直接投资指定了专项资金。 这一方案的规模可能高达7500亿美元，随后可能还会有更多。 这种反应的规模令观察人士感到意外，但在欧洲层面，这种情况正在减少。 德国和欧元区的其他鹰派仍然坚决反对共同分担债务。

implacably adv. 无法和解地,执拗地难宽恕地

Switching on the printers: the Bank of England

Today’s meeting of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee should have been the first with Andrew Bailey in the chair. But the new governor found himself presiding over an emergency meeting last week, amid what he described as market conditions “borderline disorderly”. In common with other central banks, the Bank of England is aggressively easing monetary policy to react to a rapid economic slowdown due to the spread of covid-19. Despite interest-rate cuts, £200bn ($232bn) more quantitative easing (amounting to some 10% of GDP) and more direct support for private-sector lending, the bank is more worried about undershooting its inflation target than overshooting it. Today’s release of consumer-price statistics is likely to show that inflation remained below the 2% target last month. More monetary easing is likely, but with interest rates already at 0.1%, anall-time low, fiscal policy will have to do most of the heavy lifting.

英国央行(Bank of England)货币政策委员会(Monetary Policy Committee)今日召开的会议，本应是安德鲁•贝利(Andrew Bailey)主持的第一次会议。 但这位新任行长发现自己上周主持了一次紧急会议，他形容当前的市场状况“近乎无序”。 与其他中央银行一样，英格兰银行正在积极放松货币政策，以应对由于 covid-19的蔓延而导致的经济快速放缓。 尽管英国央行采取了降息、2000亿英镑(合2320亿美元)的量化宽松政策(相当于 GDP 的10%) ，以及对私营部门贷款的更直接支持，但央行更担心的是低于通胀目标，而不是过高。 今天发布的消费者价格统计数据很可能显示，上个月的通货膨胀率仍低于2% 的目标。 更多的货币宽松政策是可能的，但是利率已经是0.1% ，空前的低，财政政策将不得不承担大部分重担。

In common with 与...相同

all-time adj. 空前的,创记录的

Brace positions: Argentina's economy

Argentina’s new government will today publish GDP figures for last year, with economists warning that the covid-19 pandemic could be about to send the country into a deep recession. GDP is forecast to have contracted by 2.1% in 2019. But what matters now is the dire situation to come. One former central banker predicts that the country’s economy could shrink by up to 4% in 2020. Though weighed down by high inflation and heavy debt, President Alberto Fernández’s government is implementing fiscal stimulus measures worth billions of dollars. Its treasury minister, Martín Guzmán, warns that the covid-19 crisis means that it is now impossible to say when, and how, Argentina can return to growth. That was Mr Fernández’s primary goal when he took office just four months ago, an aim that looks harder by the day as infections mount in the country.

阿根廷新政府今天将公布去年的国内生产总值数据，经济学家警告说，covid-19疫情可能会使该国陷入深度衰退。 预计2019年本地生产总值将收缩2.1% 。 但现在重要的是即将到来的可怕局面。 一位前央行行长预测，到2020年，经济可能会萎缩4% 。 尽管受到高通胀和沉重债务的拖累，总统阿尔贝托 · 芬德斯的政府正在实施价值数十亿美元的财政刺激措施。 阿根廷财政部长马丁 · 古兹曼(mart n guzm n)警告称，covid-19危机意味着，现在无法确定阿根廷何时、如何能够恢复增长。 这是芬德斯先生四个月前上任时的首要目标，随着国内感染病例的增加，这个目标看起来越来越难实现。

The world in brief

American shares surged on hopes that Congress would pass an aggressive economic stimulus bill to limit the fallout of the covid-19 pandemic. Lawmakers and the Trump administration say they are close to agreeing on a package worth nearly $2trn that will give financial aid to Americans and help struggling businesses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 11.4% up and the S&P 500 9.5%.

美国股市飙升，因投资者希望国会将通过一项激进的经济刺激法案，以限制疫情的影响。 国会议员和特朗普政府表示，他们即将就一项价值近2万亿美元的一揽子计划达成一致，该计划将为美国人提供财政援助，并帮助陷入困境的企业。 道琼斯工业平均指数收盘上涨11.4% ，标准普尔500指数收盘上涨9.5% 。

In a sign of the economic damage covid-19 is doing, indicators of business activity fell across America and Europe. The IHS Markit purchasing managers’ index for Germany fell from 50.7 points last month (any figure over 50 indicates expansion) to 37.2 in March. In America it fell from 49.6 to 40.5, in Britain from 53.0 to 37.1 and in France from 51.9 to 30.2.

美国和欧洲的商业活动指标都出现了下降，这表明 covid-19正在造成经济损失。 德国 IHS Markit 采购经理人指数(pmi)从上月的50.7点下降至3月的37.2点(超过50表明经济扩张)。 美国从49.6下降到40.5，英国从53.0下降到37.1，法国从51.9下降到30.2。

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, announced a nationwide lockdown for 21 days from midnight on Tuesday to contain the spread of covid-19 (see main stories). Mr Modi said there would be a “total ban on venturing out of your homes” for its 1.3bn people. More than 500 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in the country, whose health system is already fragile.

印度总理纳伦德拉 · 莫迪(Narendra Modi)宣布，从周二午夜开始，印度全国实施为期21天的封锁，以遏制 covid-19疫情的蔓延。 莫迪先生表示，将对13亿人口实行“全面禁止外出户外活动”。 该国已经确认了500多例冠状病毒病例，而该国的卫生系统已经十分脆弱。

The summer Olympic games, due to start in July in Tokyo, have been postponed until 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic (see main stories). On Sunday the International Olympic Committee had said it would make a decision within four weeks, but several countries, including America, which sends the biggest contingent to the games, urged officials to postpone the event.

由于冠状病毒的流行，原定于7月在东京举行的夏季奥运会已经推迟到2021年。 周日，国际奥委会表示将在四周内做出决定，但包括美国在内的几个国家敦促奥委会官员推迟比赛。

contingent vadj. 可能发生的, 可能的;有条件的

China’s Hubei province, the source of the covid-19 outbreak, will lift restrictions on people leaving the province today, for those with a code certifying their health. Wuhan, the provincial capital, where the outbreak began, will do the same on April 8th.

中国湖北省是疫情爆发的源头，该省今天将取消对那些持有健康证明的人离开湖北省的限制。 此次疫情爆发的省会城市武汉也将在4月8日采取同样的措施。

An Islamist group ambushed and killed around 70 Nigerian government troops in Borno state, in the north-east of the country. The jihadists used rocket-propelled grenades to attack a vehicle full of soldiers; they also took several captive. The group they belong to split off from Nigeria’s homegrown Boko Haram in 2016, and now considers itself an Islamic State affiliate.

在尼日利亚东北部的博尔诺，一个伊斯兰组织伏击并杀害了大约70名尼日利亚政府军。 圣战分子使用火箭推进榴弹袭击了一辆满载士兵的汽车，他们还俘虏了几名士兵。 他们所属的组织于2016年从尼日利亚本土的博科圣地(Boko Haram)分离出来，现在自认为是伊斯兰国的一个附属组织。

ambush vt. 埋伏伏击

grenade n. 灭火弹；手榴弹 vt. 扔手榴弹；用催泪弹攻击

captive adj. 被俘虏的；被迷住的 n. 俘虏；迷恋者

A jury in Edinburgh acquitted Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland, on all 13 sexual-offences charges brought against him. The 13-member jury found Mr Salmond not guilty on 12 of the charges and found that one, of sexual assault, was “not proven”, a verdict unique to the Scottish legal system.

爱丁堡的一个陪审团宣告前苏格兰首席大臣亚历克斯 · 萨尔蒙德(Alex Salmond)13项性侵犯指控无罪。 由13名陪审员组成的陪审团裁定萨尔蒙德先生在12项指控中无罪，并裁定其中一项性侵犯“未经证实” ，这是苏格兰法律体系独有的裁决。

jury n. 陪审团；评判委员会 adj. 应急的

acquit adj. 无罪；无罪开释 v. 释放

verdict n. (陪审团的)裁决, 裁定 (经过试验、检验或体验发表的)决定, 意见

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本文摘自The Economist Espresso

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