2007年VOA标准英语-Holocaust Museum, Google Map Out Crisis in Darf

By William Ide
Washington
10 April 2007

The U.S. Holocaust¹ Museum has launched a joint² project with Google's satellite imagery Web site Google Earth to promote awareness³ of the crisis in Darfur and give the public a new perspective on the death, displacement⁴ and destruction that is going on there. VOA's William Ide reports from Washington.

 

Burned Darfur village as seen on Google Earth

Lawrence Swiader, chief information officer at the Holocaust Museum, stands in front of a power-point display of the online version of the Web site and a large satellite image of the African continent to explain the thrust of the effort. The borders of Sudan are highlighted in yellow.

 

"Google Earth allows us to see something that could have gone on unseen," said Lawrence Swiader. "This technology allows us to visualize⁵ something in seconds and minutes that otherwise might take pages of text and columns of figures to understand. If ever."

Over the past four years, Darfur has been torn by fighting between government-backed militias⁶ and rebel forces that have left more than 200,000 people dead and displaced more than two million others.

Swiader explains that the new addition to the Google Earth website allows visitors not only to hover⁷ over massive fields of refugee camps and begin to grapple with the sheer numbers of the displaced, but to also see the destruction they left behind.

"You're going to see these structures, you'll see them and they will be represented by hollowed blackened circles on the ground," he said.

The high-resolution images of the "Crisis in Darfur" project allow users to zoom⁸ in on the western portion of Sudan, where Darfur is located, an area about the size of the southern U.S. state of Texas. Users can view more than 1,600 damaged villages and 100,000 homes, schools, mosques⁹, and other structures destroyed by militias.

Google Earth's vice¹⁰ president of Global Communications, Elliot Schrage, says he hopes the Website will not only spread understanding, but spur countries to take action.

"The marriage of satellite imagery, 3-D mapping technology and search makes geographic¹¹ information easily accessible, understandable and useful, empowering organizations like the museum to communicate, to educate and importantly to advocate in order to improve our world," said Elliot Schrage.

Daowd Salih, a native of Darfur, former aid worker who has helped focus world attention on the crisis, voiced his hope that the project would put Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir under increased scrutiny¹².

"We need people to understand what is happening," said Daowd Salih. "We need President Bashir and other perpetrators to understand that they are being watched."

Holocaust Museum Director Sara Bloomfield said she hopes this new initiative will make it much harder for the world to ignore Darfur, but acknowledges the challenges as well.

"We have found sadly that even with a lot of visual information about genocide, and I am talking about post-holocaust genocide that the difference has been somewhat, but not what we would have hoped when the world said never again in 1945."

1 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

2 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

3 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

4 displacement   

n.移置，取代，位移，排水量

参考例句：

• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。
• The displacement of all my energy into caring for the baby.我所有精力都放在了照顾宝宝上。

5 visualize   

vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想

参考例句：

• I remember meeting the man before but I can't visualize him.我记得以前见过那个人，但他的样子我想不起来了。
• She couldn't visualize flying through space.她无法想像在太空中飞行的景象。

6 militias   

n.民兵组织，民兵( militia的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The troops will not attempt to disarm the warring militias. 部队并不打算解除战斗中的民兵武装。 来自辞典例句
• The neighborhood was a battleground for Shiite and Sunni militias. 那里曾是什叶派和逊尼派武装分子的战场。 来自互联网

7 hover   

vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫

参考例句：

• You don't hover round the table.你不要围着桌子走来走去。
• A plane is hover on our house.有一架飞机在我们的房子上盘旋。

8 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

9 mosques   

清真寺； 伊斯兰教寺院，清真寺； 清真寺，伊斯兰教寺院( mosque的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Why make us believe that this tunnel runs underneath the mosques? 为什么要让我们相信这条隧洞是在清真寺下？
• The city's three biggest mosques, long fallen into disrepair, have been renovated. 城里最大的三座清真寺，过去年久失修，现在已经修复。

10 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

11 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

12 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。