Pinched bellies
勒紧裤腰带（陈继龙 编译）
Oct 19th 2006 | SEOUL
From The Economist print edition
（1）A NUCLEAR capability may be the toast of North Korea's leaders, but it is a blight[1] on their poor countrymen's bellies.Even before fresh sanctions were imposed against the rogue nation this week,______①response to its nuclear test on October 9th, North Korea could not feed itself. The latest internationalstrictures[2]are not supposed to inflict further damage on its food supply. But with few trustworthy observers in the country—and the level of aid it gets from China hard to ascertain—damage may be done nonetheless.
核能力也许备受朝鲜领导人的推崇，可它却扼杀了贫困的朝鲜人填饱肚皮的希望。本周，朝鲜刚刚由于其10月9日进行的核试验而受到制裁，而此前这个无赖国家甚至连养活自己都成问题。朝鲜有关人士认为，最新的国际制裁并不会使其粮食供应问题雪上加霜。不过，由于该国观察员所说的话大多不可信——很难弄清它到底从中国获得了多少援助——无论如何，损失都将不可避免。[/replyview]
To feed itself, North Korea needs 5.5m tonnes of grain a year. It cannot produce anything like this, even with a bumper harvest last year. （2）That crop was sufficient, however, to embolden the regime of Kim Jong Il last December to force the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) to leave the country, because it felt humiliated by its dependence on emergency relief.To fill the hole dug by thismoronic[3]policy, the regime had some success improving its food distribution. It was also counting______②getting food aid from South Korea, its biggest donor. That changed after the regime tested missiles in July, and South Korea froze its humanitarian aid. After the nuclear test, the South reaffirmed its decision.
朝鲜每年大约需要550万吨的粮食供应。虽说去年丰收，但它仍不具备粮食生产能力。可是去年9月，金正日政权竟然因为一时的好收成而冒失地强迫联合国粮食计划署（WFP）离开朝鲜，原因是为自己依靠救援感到羞耻。为了弥补这一弱智政策所造成的损失，金正日政权对粮食配给进行了改进，也取得了一定的成绩。过去它一直依靠其最大的援助国——韩国提供粮食援助，可自从今年7月该政权进行了导弹发射试验之后，情况发生了变化，韩国冻结了其为朝鲜提供的人道主义援助。而在核试验后，韩国重申了这一决定。For ordinary North Koreans, the loss of aid from the South may be a disaster. （3）In May, as hunger bit in the countryside, workers were ordered from idle factories to go and help on the land.Even the armed forces, which Mr Kim favours above all, have felt the pinch. A general is reported to have ordered soldiers to eat locally-found potatoes, rather than expect grain. This presumably increased pressure on local food supplies. North Koreans have told aid workers that they dread sending their sons to army units that are known to have especially high rates of malnutrition.
对于朝鲜的平民百姓而言，失去韩国的援助也许是一场灾难。5月，由于农村饥荒严重，停产工厂的工人们奉命纷纷下乡帮工。就连金正日最喜爱的军队也是叫苦不迭。据报道，某将军已下令士兵开始吃在当地找到的土豆，对粮食已经不作指望了。这可能又会增加地方粮食供应的压力。朝鲜人告诉援助工作人员，他们都怕送孩子参军，因为众所周知军队现在很多人都缺乏营养。
（4）As if this were not bad enough, ten days after its offending missile tests, North Korea suffered its worst flooding in recent memory.Relentless rains destroyed crops and, in central North Korea, sent mudslides into villages and towns, as terraces ondenuded[4]hills collapsed. The army was______③no state to help: it was on a near-war footing in response to the passage of a UN resolution condemning the tests. Good Friends, a Buddhist NGO in South Korea that collects reports from the North, says that 55,000 people, including many soldiers, drowned or went missing in the floods. Others dispute this figure.
屋漏偏逢连夜雨，朝鲜在违规试射导弹十天后，又遇到了近年来最严重的洪灾。无情的大雨毁坏了农作物，而且随着光秃秃的山上梯田的坍塌，泥石流侵袭了朝鲜中部地区的村镇。当时的事态让军队对此爱莫能助——由于联合国通过了一项谴责该试验的决议，军队正处于临战状态。专门从朝鲜收集报道、位于韩国的非政府佛教组织“好朋友”称，5.5万人在洪水中淹死或失踪，其中包括许多士兵。有人对这一数字予以了否认。
（5）To alleviate the crisis, South Korea said it would make flood relief an exception to its suspension of aid.But only half of a promised 100,000 tonnes of grain had arrived before the nuclear test, whereupon South Korea suspended the rest. In the next year, aid workers say, North Korea may fall short of at least 800,000 tonnes of grain. The WFP, which has returned and resumed operations with a staff one-fifth its former size, has the regime's permission to feed 1.9m North Koreans. But it has funds to help only 1m, in 30 of North Korea's 200-odd counties. The WFP says it has brought in just 75,000 tonnes of food this year, and that it will run out of milk powder in November and flour and cooking oil next January. Western powers seem unfussed by this shortage. This week, Condoleezza Rice, America's secretary of state, said America would not contribute______④the WFP's operation in North Korea because of a lack of transparency in the country—as if the UN could fix this.
为了缓解危机，韩方称其愿意破例对朝鲜洪灾施援。不过，承诺提供的10万吨粮食后来仅有一半于此次核试验之前运抵朝鲜，核试验后韩方随即中止了剩余的援助。救援工作人员说，朝鲜明年可能至少短缺80万吨粮食。WFP已经返回朝鲜重新开始援助工作，但工作人员较以前减少了4/5。金正日政权同意WFP为190万朝鲜人供应食物，但其现有资金只够帮助朝鲜200余个县中30个县的100万人。WFP称，其今年运来的食物只有7.5万吨，到今年11月份和明年1月份，奶粉及面粉、食用油将相继告罄。西方列强似乎对这一情况无动于衷。本周，美国国务卿赖斯说，美国不会为WFP在朝鲜的行动捐资，理由是该国缺乏透明度。这话听上去给人的感觉似乎是，联合国能够解决这一问题。
（6）There is meanwhile a hoary[5] assumption that China will not let North Korea collapse by suspending the aid it is often supposed to have supplied: it is said to have sent 500,000 tonnes of grain in 2005. Yet household surveys by the WFP last year found no Chinese grain. Even before the proliferation crisis, the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, concluded from research in China that its food aid was minuscule. It is probably now smaller still.
与此同时，有人素来都想当然地认为，中国是不会中止人们通常所想的那样为朝鲜提供的援助而让朝鲜垮掉的——据说2005年中国总共向朝鲜运送了50万吨粮食。然而，去年WFP挨家挨户进行调查时并没有发现任何来自中国的粮食。即使在此次核扩散危机之前，智库“国际危机组织”通过在中国开展研究后认为，中国所提供的粮食援助极少。现在可能将更少了。
By contrast, North Korea's trade with China (including in food) has grown fast. Last year the country imported over $1 billion-worth of Chinese goods. New UN sanctions against it may change that. This week branches of the Bank of China close to the border stopped doing North Korea-related business, either______⑤their government's decree or because of concerns that their loans could soon go bad.
相比之下，中朝贸易（包括粮食贸易）却快速增长。去年，朝鲜从中国进口的商品总价值超过10亿美元。最近联合国对它的制裁可能将改变这一状况。本周，中朝边境附近的中国银行各分行都已停止办理与朝鲜有关的业务，这或许是政府的敕令，抑或出于对贷款可能很快成为坏账的担忧。
North Koreans are somewhat more protected today than they were before the GREat famine of the mid-1990s, in which perhaps 1m died. Many can smuggle, trade, bribe, and grow food on individual plots. Still, according to the UN, a third of North Korean women with children under 24 months are malnourished or anaemic, and more than a third of children under six are stunted. （7）One outlet for the hungry in the 1990s was China, to which 50,000-100,000 North Koreans crossed.That route is now closing, at least for those without money. In the past month, authorities in China's north-east have cracked down with dawn raids_______⑥neighbourhoods in search of North Koreans. This week, a barbed-wire[6] fence was going up along the border. China is taking no risks.
与20世纪90年代的大饥荒（可能有100万人死于此次饥荒）前相比，现如今的朝鲜人得到了较多的保护。许多人都可以进行走私、贸易、贿赂以及在自留地里种植粮食。然而，据联合国统计，朝鲜有三分之一的妇女其24个月以下的孩子营养不良或贫血，还有三分之一6岁以下的儿童发育迟缓。20世纪90年代饥荒时人们的出路是中国，当时有5～10万名朝鲜人穿越边境涌向中国。现在这条路已经被堵死了，至少对于那些身无分文的人而言是这样。上个月，中国东北地区当局采取了“拂晓行动”对周围地带加以严格管控，目的就是搜寻朝鲜人。本周，边境沿线又搭起了一条带刺铁丝网防护栏。中国是很慎重的。
[QUIZ]
1. 根据上下文填入恰当的介词：
2. 英译汉（将划线部分英文翻译成中文）：
[NOTES](LONGMAN)
1. blight n. 损害，打击，不良影响，恶劣条件
2. stricture n. （严格的）限制，约束；谴责，责难
3. moronic adj. 低能的，愚笨的
4. denude v.使裸露（砍掉土地上树木等）；剥夺
5. hoary adj. 久远的，古老的（人们不再感兴趣的）
6.barbed-wire 带刺铁丝网
[KEY TO QUIZ]
1. ①in (response to) 响应，回应
②（count）on 依赖
③in (no fit state to do sth.) 情况不允许某人做某事
④（contribute） to 捐助
⑤at （one’s decree）遵照某人的命令
⑥（crack down） on 严厉处理和惩罚，镇压
2.（见译文，仅供参考，欢迎指正）
