分类：社论

Disasters in China and Myanmar
中国和缅甸的灾难
No time to sit back
干预措施，刻不容缓

May 15th 2008
From The Economist print edition

China has shown up Myanmar’s generals. But it is not too late for outsiders to help the Burmese
中国已经使缅甸的将军们感到难堪,但对于外界人员而言,救助缅甸民众为时未晚

IT HAS taken another catastrophe, this one in China, to show the generals who run Myanmar how better to respond to a natural disaster. Ten days after a cyclone struck Myanmar (formerly Burma) on May 2nd, the xenophobic junta there had managed to ensure that aid from abroad was still only trickling in and most of what had arrived was not being distributed to those who needed it. The United Nations’ estimates for the dead and vulnerable were rising dramatically. It was then that a devastating earthquake struck western China. President Hu Jintao at once mobilised soldiers and other workers in an all-out rescue effort. The prime minister, Wen Jiabao, arrived in the region within a few hours, making no attempt to play down this “severe disaster” and saying China would gratefully accept international help (see article). The contrast with Myanmar was telling.
又一场灾难告诉缅甸将军们如何应对自然灾害,这次灾难发生在中国.在五月 二号缅甸遭受热带风暴袭击的十天后，伊外的军政府成功地确保外部援助如同细水般流入，并且其中大多数没有分配给灾民们．联合国就死亡与受伤人数的估计急剧 上升．就在这时一场毁灭性的地震袭击了中国西部．胡锦涛主席立即动员士兵和其他人员全力组织营救．温家宝总理在几小时之内赶赴灾区，没有试图掩盖这场＂严 重灾难＂并且声明中国愿意接受国际援助．中国与缅甸政府高下立判。 继续阅读“[2008.05.17] No time to sit back 干预措施，刻不容缓”

Cyclone in Myanmar
缅甸风暴
Myanmar’s misery
缅甸的苦难

May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Despite their appalling government, the Burmese people deserve all the help they can get
缅甸人民不应因其残暴政府而失去他们应得的援助

THE decision by Myanmar’s ruling generals to move their capital in 2005 from Yangon, the country’s biggest city, to the remote mountain fastness of Naypyidaw was as baffling as many of their other policies. Local rumour ascribed it to the advice of fortune-tellers, who foretold revolt and disaster in Yangon.
2005年，缅甸军政府将其首都从其最大城市仰光迁至遥远的山区堡垒内比都。这一决策与他的很多政策一样，令人困惑不已。当地谣传，此举源于算命先生的占卜，他们预言仰光会有叛乱和灾难发生。

继续阅读“[2008.05.10] Myanmar’s misery 缅甸的苦难”

Russia’s new president
俄罗斯新总统
Enter, pursued by a new bear
新熊入主克里姆林宫
May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition
The West should hang tough with President Dmitry Medvedev
西方应对新总统梅德韦德夫持强硬立场

路透社

1908LD4.jpg (12.66 KB)

IT HAS been a busy week in Moscow. First Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated president. A day later his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, became his new prime minister. Then on May 9th Moscow planned to mark the annual Victory Day celebrations with the first parade of tanks and nuclear missiles through Red Square since the end of the cold war. What should the watching West make of all this?
本周莫斯科忙碌非凡，先是总统梅德韦德夫正式上任，次日，前任总统普京也宣誓就任新任总理。五月九日，俄罗斯计划举行盛大游行庆祝胜利日，届时，坦克和核弹将穿越红场，这在冷战结束以来，实属首次。冷眼旁观的西方应当对此采取如何应对措施？
继续阅读“[2008.05.10]Enter, pursued by a new bear 新熊入主克里姆林宫”

The world economy
世界经济

Japain
大涸时代
Feb 21st 2008
From The Economist print edition

The world’s second-biggest economy is still in a funk—and politics is the problem                  世界第二大经济大国一蹶不振，政策不利竟是元凶

THE ghost of Japan’s “lost decade” haunts the United States. As the consequences of America’s burst housing bubble are felt through financial markets, it has become popular to ask whether Japan’s awful experience of boom-and-bust has lessons for other rich countries facing, at best, sharp slowdowns. Japan’s property-and-stockmarket bubble burst in 1990, creating bad loans equivalent in the end to about one-fifth of GDP. The economy began growing properly again only 12 years later, and only in 2005 could Japan say it had put financial stress and debt-deflation behind it. Even today the country’s nominal GDP remains below its peak in the 1990s—a brutal measure of lost opportunities.
“失去的十年”是日本经济挥之不去的阴霾，现在又缠上美国了。目前，国际金融市场广受美国房产泡沫余波影响，业内广为关注的一个问题是其他发达国家能否吸取日本经济从一飞冲天到持续低迷的悲惨教训，以更好地面临—最乐观估计—经济大幅放缓的挑战。1990年，日本房产和股市泡沫破裂，因此造成的坏账最后占国内生产总值的五分之一。12年后，日本经济才有复苏迹象。直到2005年，日本才终于可以说是摆脱了财政压力和债务紧缩。即使是今天，日本的名义国内生产总值也低于90年代的峰值—这残酷地表明日本失去的机会有多少。

继续阅读“[2008.2.21] Japain 大涸时代”

Leaders
Digital music

Music wants to be free
数字音乐：　音乐要走向自由

Feb 8th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Everyone will benefit if digital music is sold without copy-protection
如果数字音乐以无版权保护的方式出售，所有人都会从中受益。

IT IS not often that the company that dominates an industry, and is thus most wedded to the status quo, calls for the rules that govern the business to be changed. But that is what happened this week when Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple—which dominates digital music with its iPod music-player and iTunes music-store—published an essay on his firm’s website under the unassuming title “Thoughts on Music”.
　　一家处于行业霸主地位的公司通常是最想保持现状的，所以我们很少见到一位行业霸主呼吁改变行业规则。但以iPod数字音乐播放器称霸数字音乐领域的苹果电脑上周就这么做了－－苹果总裁斯蒂夫.钱伯斯（ Steve Jobs）上周在公司网站上发表了一篇名字平实的文章，叫《关于音乐的一些思考》。

继续阅读“[2007.2.10][Leaders]Digital music : Music wants to be free”

The Search for Talent
求贤若渴

The world’s most valuable commodity is getting harder to find
世界上最珍贵的商品，正变得越发难觅

THESE are heady days for most companies. Profits are up. Capital is footloose and fancy-free. Trade unions are getting weaker. India and China are adding billions of new cheap workers and consumers to the world economy. This week the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new high.
这是个令许多公司如痴如醉、欢欣鼓舞的年代。利润增长，资本自由流动，工会势力也日渐衰微。印度和中国为世界经济贡献了数以亿计的廉价劳动力和消费者。本周的道琼斯指数更是再创新高。

继续阅读“[2006.10.08][Leaders]The Search for Talent”

Trade talks collapse

The future of globalization
全球化的未来
Jul 27th 2006
From The Economist print edition

The wrecking of the world trade talks was senseless and short-sighted
世贸谈判的破裂是何等的愚蠢与短见。

WHEN the Middle East is ablaze, oil prices near record highs, the American economy cooling and the climate warming, it is hard to get excited about the beaching of trade talks. After all, globalisation is unstoppable: so what if a few technocrats in Switzerland packed up their briefcases and went home?
时值中东烽火通明、油价几近历史最高、美国经济趋冷以及气候变暖之际，贸易谈判的搁浅已很难激起人们的兴趣。毕竟，全球化是不可阻挡的：所以在瑞士与会的各国部长拍屁股走人又有何妨呢？

继续阅读“[2006.07.27] The future of globalization”