美国国家公共电台 NPR--Pakistan's foreign minister talks about the country's flood damage

Pakistan's foreign minister talks about the country's flood damage

Transcript¹

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan's foreign minister, is at the U.N. along with other leaders to seek help for a country ravaged² by floods.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Leaders of Pakistan are at the United Nations this week seeking help for a country under water. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is his country's foreign minister.

BILAWAL BHUTTO ZARDARI: I would like to say I'm, more often than not, an optimistic person. I like to sort of find rays of hope in moments of crisis. I have never been as overwhelmed as I am feeling right now.

INSKEEP: Overwhelmed by the flooding that has covered one-third of his country. Bhutto Zardari faces that problem at the age of 33.

ZARDARI: It is our generation that's going to have to live with the consequences of climate change.

INSKEEP: Which Bilawal Bhutto Zardari sees not as a single disaster, but one of many that the world can expect again and again.

ZARDARI: There's the sort of biblical story of Noah's floods and the rains that lasted 40 days and 40 nights. Well, our monster monsoon³ rains that we just experienced started in mid-June and ended in August. We had a 100-kilometer lake form in the middle of my country that could be seen from space. We have the threats of epidemics⁴ as a result of waterborne diseases. And these floods have washed away a third of my country and the prospects⁵ of sort of the economic stability we wanted to see.

INSKEEP: I was looking at a map of the flooding. And I noticed that it appeared to include Larkana, your ancestral family home.

ZARDARI: Yes. That 100-kilometer lake that I was talking about includes my hometown of Larkana.

INSKEEP: We were talking over a video link. And Bhutto Zardari leaned forward into the camera at the mention of his hometown. Larkana, with its ancient shrines⁶ and ruins, is near a bend in the Indus River and surrounded by farmland.

ZARDARI: Which is at sea level. So rather than sort of coming down in a rush, as it does for many mountainous areas, it stays there. And I can't communicate to you - I'm not an extremist climate activist⁷. I never was. I was in this sort of understanding that, OK, we have to focus on green energy. And we'll do solar. But this is so overwhelming, because how does a developing country like Pakistan overnight reconstruct homes and households for 33 million people? And it has completely changed our perspective because it's - obviously, we'll continue to focus on green energy and on solar and on wind. But I understand now, as a result of this, that even if we go totally solar and totally wind power that I can't save my people from the next floods.

INSKEEP: When Bhutto refers to my people, you sense the way that he identifies with his country. He's from an elite⁸ family in a region where landowners hold power and poor farmers work the soil. His grandfather was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a prime minister who said in the 1970s that he would lead his country into a new era, shoving aside an older generation.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ZULFIKAR ALI BHUTTO: We're an entirely⁹ new world today. The mood and the music of the people is different. Either they dance to that mood and music according to its tune¹⁰, or they get off the floor.

INSKEEP: Bhutto was a top official when Pakistani forces committed genocide in Bangladesh. But he also founded a political party, the Pakistan People's Party, which dominated politics until the army deposed¹¹ him and, eventually, hanged him. The executed prime minister's daughter, Benazir Bhutto, led repeated movements to restore democracy. In 2007, she called into this program while under house arrest.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

INSKEEP: I'm Steve Inskeep. Can you hear me?

BENAZIR BHUTTO: Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?

INSKEEP: Yes. Good to speak with you again. Thanks for taking the time. What is your freedom of movement like, if any?

BHUTTO: I have freedom of movement within the house. I don't have freedom of movement outside the house. We've got a very heavy police force, 4,000 policemen.

INSKEEP: Benazir Bhutto was released. But a few weeks after our phone call, she attended a political rally where an attacker was waiting.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Benazir Bhutto assassinated¹².

(SOUNDBITE OF SIREN RINGING)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The shocking news from Pakistan.

INSKEEP: Her son then became chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, which has woven in and out of power since. This year, Prime Minister Imran Khan from a rival party lost a vote of no confidence in parliament. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's party became part of the replacement¹³ coalition¹⁴ government over Khan's continued protests, all of which Bhutto describes as one step forward, two steps back for democracy.

ZARDARI: For those who study Pakistan's history and have seen how past prime ministers have been hanged to be removed from office, have been exiled, witness military dictators take over, this is the first time that a democratic vote of no confidence was deployed¹⁵ to change the government. Not only did Mr. Khan refuse to accept that, when we came up with the numbers in parliament, his deputy speaker declared that we are all traitors¹⁶ and our votes will not be counted.

INSKEEP: Months after his removal, Khan's supporters are still protesting in the streets and claiming his office was stolen.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Singing in non-English language).

INSKEEP: Bhutto Zardari sees the former prime minister as an anti-democratic tool installed by the army that wields¹⁷ great power, then discarded by the army, but still trying to tear down the system.

ZARDARI: This young democracy is also being challenged by a post-fact, alternate reality politics in a highly partisan¹⁸ political environment. And I think that's a particularly distinct and difficult challenge for Pakistan's democracy. And it's yet to see how we will overcome.

INSKEEP: I want to ask about one aspect of this. When I was last reporting in Pakistan, I reported on the freedom of the press because a number of journalists had been knocked out of their jobs, it seemed, or arrested. Now the government has changed. And according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, there are still arrests of journalists from time to time. It is sometimes hard to say who's behind this. Is your government behind it?

ZARDARI: So as far as the sort of health of freedom of the press in Pakistan, there's definitely a lot of room for improvement. The biggest assault on freedom of the press in Pakistan took place during the last four years of Mr. Khan's government. And it is unfortunate that up until this day, we still don't enjoy the levels of press freedom as we did in the past. But I believe that there has been an improvement. It's only been a few months. Going forward, I hope that we continue to move in a positive direction and improve the environment for freedom of the press.

INSKEEP: Isn't it correct that a Pakistani television channel that was supportive of Imran Khan was completely taken off the air last month by the media authority?

ZARDARI: There should be no channels supportive of either me or Mr. Khan. There should be freedom of the press. And there should be impartial¹⁹ media within Pakistan. Unfortunately, this trend was started from Mr. Khan's time, where now any journalist that he didn't appreciate was fired from their media house. And we saw this trend start where media channels were taken off the air under Mr. Khan's time. And unfortunately, once you set a precedent²⁰ in place, you set norms in place. You set rules in place. You create habits within institutions to turn off channels for doing the wrong thing, for something you don't like. Then when you're in opposition²¹, those very tools are used against you. That's not something that I can support, nor do I support. We can't repeat the mistakes of Mr. Khan. And Mr. Khan now must understand that the way in which he ruled was not necessarily the most conducive²² for the country.

INSKEEP: Foreign Minister, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you.

ZARDARI: Thank you so much.

INSKEEP: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is the foreign minister of Pakistan and the leader of the Pakistan People's Party.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOEP BEVING'S "AB OVO")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 ravaged   

毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫

参考例句：

• a country ravaged by civil war 遭受内战重创的国家
• The whole area was ravaged by forest fires. 森林火灾使整个地区荒废了。

3 monsoon   

n.季雨，季风，大雨

参考例句：

• The monsoon rains started early this year.今年季雨降雨开始得早。
• The main climate type in that region is monsoon.那个地区主要以季风气候为主要气候类型。

4 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

5 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

6 shrines   

圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• All three structures dated to the third century and were tentatively identified as shrines. 这3座建筑都建于3 世纪，并且初步鉴定为神庙。
• Their palaces and their shrines are tombs. 它们的宫殿和神殿成了墓穴。

7 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

8 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

9 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

10 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

11 deposed   

v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证

参考例句：

• The president was deposed in a military coup. 总统在军事政变中被废黜。
• The head of state was deposed by the army. 国家元首被军队罢免了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 assassinated   

v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏

参考例句：

• The prime minister was assassinated by extremists. 首相遭极端分子暗杀。
• Then, just two days later, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. 跟着在两天以后，肯尼迪总统在达拉斯被人暗杀。 来自辞典例句

13 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

14 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

15 deployed   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
• The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。

16 traitors   

卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人

参考例句：

• Traitors are held in infamy. 叛徒为人所不齿。
• Traitors have always been treated with contempt. 叛徒永被人们唾弃。

17 wields   

手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的第三人称单数 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响）

参考例句：

• She wields enormous power within the party. 她操纵着党内大权。
• He remains chairman, but wields little power at the company. 他还是主席，但在公司没有什么实权了。

18 partisan   

adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒

参考例句：

• In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中，他们忘掉一切党派之争。
• The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。

19 impartial   

adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的

参考例句：

• He gave an impartial view of the state of affairs in Ireland.他对爱尔兰的事态发表了公正的看法。
• Careers officers offer impartial advice to all pupils.就业指导员向所有学生提供公正无私的建议。

20 precedent   

n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的

参考例句：

• Is there a precedent for what you want me to do?你要我做的事有前例可援吗？
• This is a wonderful achievement without precedent in Chinese history.这是中国历史上亘古未有的奇绩。

21 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

22 conducive   

adj.有益的，有助的

参考例句：

• This is a more conducive atmosphere for studying.这样的氛围更有利于学习。
• Exercise is conducive to good health.体育锻炼有助于增强体质。