spotlight

一周聚焦
Prodi claims Italy election win
Edited by Kovisal

The Italian Interior Ministry said last Friday that the number of contested ballots in the just-concluded parliamentary election was roughly 5,000, far fewer than originally believed, meaning that the center-left coalition led by Romano Prodi had secured their victory.
According to the ministry, the number of contested ballots had been reduced from 43,028 to 2,131 for the Lower House of parliament, and from 39,822 to 3,135 for the Senate.
The ministry attributed the mistake to a mix-up in some provinces between disputed slips and ballots that had been officially declared void or blank.
The April 9 and 10 election was the closest in modern Italian history. Prodi's center-left alliance squeaked past the center right, winning a majority of two seats in the Senate and 49.8 percent in the Lower House compared to the center right's 49.73 percent, a margin of just 25,000 votes out of 38.1 million cast.
But the center-right found that 18 boxes of ballot slips bearing the Interior Ministry stamp were abandoned on Wednesday morning near a Rome school used as a polling station during the vote on Sunday and Monday.
Incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi subsequently challenged Prodi's win and is demanding checks on spoilt and disputed voting slips and even a possible recount. He has also talked about "irregularities" in the votes of Italians resident abroad, which unexpectedly snatched away Berlusconi's apparent victory in the Senate...But an initial report from the ongoing review of contested ballots suggested late on Thursday that the result would not be overturned. The ANSA news agency reported that the recount was close to a conclusion and the votes were being divided equally between the rival coalitions.
Prodi, who had claimed victory for his center-left coalition, and had been congratulated by many heads of government including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said after learning of the ministry figures that "our victory is confirmed."
Berlusconi has kept up a barrage of electoral fraud allegations and has refused to concede defeat for his center-right government.

 

 

world in pics

Water eggs
水下“复活蛋”寻踪之旅

Jason Schwenke glides above the sea floor of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary off Key Largo as he hides eggs for an underwater Easter egg hunt April 14. Schwenke's dive center, as well as other Keys dive shops, are staging underwater egg hunts during the Easter holiday weekend.

Malaysia ater festival
吉隆坡水节

Revellers take part in a pillow fight during the water festival at Port Dickson, about 120 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur, April 16, 2006.

″Employee of the Century″ passes away
美“世纪员工”辞世

Bus cleaner Arthur Winston of the LA the Metropolitan Transit Authority. After more than three-quarters of a century working for public transit agencies, Winston retired on March 22, 2006, on his 100th birthday. He died on April 13, 2006, in LA, California. In 1997, President Clinton presented Winston with a congressional citation naming him the "Employee of the Century".

Not lost their marbles
打弹珠世锦赛拉开帷幕

British marble player and last year's winner John Hunt poses Arpril 14 at the annual World Marble Championships, Crawley, West Sussex. The traditional British hobby attracts crowds of several hundred to the eccentric contest every year at the Greyhound Pub, West Sussex, UK.

 

odds & ends 大千世界

RMB 350,000 thrown out with trash
警方垃圾中寻回巨款
A Japanese man wept for joy this week when he recovered 5 million yen (RMB 350,000) in cash his wife had mistakenly thrown out with the household rubbish. Local police returned the money after the man was able to give details of the exact amount and where he had withdrawn it.
日本一主妇不慎将家里的500万日元(约35万元人民币)的现金随垃圾一起倒掉.庆幸的是,警方最终物归原主,男主人不禁喜极而泣.

Cat saves baby boy's life
男婴救命恩人竟是猫
A cat saved the life of a newborn baby abandoned on the doorstep of a Cologne house in the middle of the night by meowing loudly until someone woke up, a police spokesman said on Saturday. There was no indication of what happened to the boy's mother.
德国科隆一男婴半夜遭遗弃,幸而被猫发现.这只聪明的猫用叫声唤醒沉睡的主人,终于救了小男婴的命.至于男婴为什么被遗弃,目前仍不得而知.

Texas halts arrests of drunks in bars
德州佬又可开怀畅饮
A controversial Texas program to send undercover agents into bars to arrest drunks has been halted after a firestorm of protest from the public.
德州之前曾通过法案,派遣便衣深入酒吧抓捕醉汉.法案自通过之始就倍受争议,最终还是因为民众的强烈抗议而被迫取消.

Pigs go for gold
猪仔也能竞赛“奥林匹克”
Hundreds of Russians gathered for the first day of the annual "Pig Olympics" on Saturday, cheering a field of 12 piglets who competed in three events: pig-racing, pig-swimming and "pigball".
一年一度的俄罗斯猪仔奥林匹克大赛终于开幕,吸引了成百上千的观众.共有12只猪仔参加了此次大赛,竞赛项目包括赛跑、游泳和“足球”.

Collected& translated by Beverly

Vocabulary
ballot 票数 [piao(4),shu(4)]
coalition 联盟[lian(2),meng(2)]
incumbent 在职的 [zai(4),zhi(2),de(0)]
barrage 阻塞[zu(3),sai(1)]
void 无效的 [wu(2),xiao(4),de(0)]
squeak 发出尖叫声 [fa(1),chu(1),jiang(1),jiao(4),sheng(1)]