Food

The silent tsunami
Apr 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

  Food prices are causing misery and strife around the world. Radical solutions are needed

   PICTURES of hunger usually show passive eyes and swollen bellies. The harvest fails because of war or strife; the onset of crisis is sudden and localised. ‚Its burden falls on those already at the margin.

   Today's pictures are different. “This is a silent tsunami,” says Josette Sheeran of the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency. A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake. For the first time in 30 years, food protests are erupting in many places at once. Bangladesh is in turmoil (see article); even China is worried (see article). Elsewhere, the food crisis of 2008 will test the assertion of Amartya Sen, an Indian economist, that famines do not happen in democracies.

   Famine traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today's crisis are misery and malnutrition. The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate—those on 50 cents a day—face disaster.

  Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day. If, on a conservative estimate, the cost of their food rises 20% (and in some places, it has risen a lot more), 100m people could be forced back to this level, the common measure of absolute poverty. ƒIn some countries, that would undo all the gains in poverty reduction they have made during the past decade of growth. Because food markets are in turmoil, civil strife is growing; and because trade and openness itself could be undermined, the food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalisation.

   好，以上是小占的朗读版，由于第一次弄录音，很多地方还需要学习，期待大家对节目的意见，也希望大家喜欢【柠檬加蜜糖】这个节目，希望大家能花些时间和小占一起体验英语阅读。好了，下周见，see u

原文链接：http://www.economist.com/printedition/

要做作业咯～～
将上文进行中英翻译。

在阅读的过程中，小占遇到了问题（见文中标注123），希望能和大家一起交流意见
还有小占做了笔记哦～～～so what about u？

参考翻译回复可见：

沉默的海啸
  
粮价飞涨，饥饿冲突各地频发，解决之道迫在眉睫。

饥饿的人们总是双眼无神，腹部浮肿，由于战争和动乱导致粮食欠收；这种危机往往是爆发式的，具有明显的地域性，总是发生在已经贫穷不堪的地方。

今天的形式却大相径庭，“这是沉默的海啸”世界粮食计划署的Josette Sheeran说道，世界粮食计划署是联合国的一个部门。粮价走高正在全球泛滥，引起暴动，给各地政府敲响了警钟。这是30年来首次在多个地区同时爆发粮食危机。孟加拉正处于混乱之中，连中国都开始为粮食担忧，2008年的这次粮食危机将验证印度的经济学家Amartya Sen的断言：“ 在民主社会绝不会发生饥荒。”

当大量人群都处于饥饿状态就可定义为饥荒。贫困和营养不良是当今危机的度量尺寸。贫穷国家的中产阶级为了能保证一日三餐而舍弃医保和肉食。日均消费水平为2$的中等贫困的人们不得不让孩子辍学，减少菜，才能吃得起饭。日均消费1$的人们减少吃菜吃肉，以及一两顿饭，才能吃上一碗饭。 那些穷途末路的人们每天只能花50美：他们面对着是灾难。