BBC在线收听下载:科学家发现古人在指南针发明前的导航之谜

BBC News with Sue Montgomery
The coffin of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is inching its way through a huge crowd of his supporters in the streets of the capital Caracas. The vice president, Nicolas Maduro, who was chosen by Mr Chavez as his successor, is heading the procession in a tracksuit in the colours of the Venezuelan flag. The president’s body will lie in state at a military academy before his funeral on Friday. Will Grant reports.
委内瑞拉已故总统乌戈•查韦斯的灵柩缓缓通过首都加拉加斯的大街，街上挤满了他的支持者。副总统尼古拉斯•马杜罗被选为查韦斯选的继任者，他身穿国旗色的服装，走在送丧的人群前面。周五举行葬礼之前，总统的遗体将陈放在一所军校里。 Will Grant报道。

For his most devoted supporters, it was a chance to bid their leader, their commandant, goodbye. For many the death of Hugo Chavez has been a moment of visceral raw grief as though they’d lost a family member.
对于他最忠实的支持者来说，这是一个向他们的领袖和指挥官告别的机会。对于许多人来说，乌戈•查韦斯去世像失去家人一般令人悲痛。

“Chavez lives. Chavez lives because I am Chavez and because most of us are Chavez. Long live Chavez!”
“查韦斯永在，我就是查韦斯，我们大多数人都是查韦斯，因此查韦斯永在，查韦斯万岁！”

“Chavez hasn’t died. The revolution goes on.”
“查韦斯没有去世，革命还将继续。”

Hero or authoritarian, champion of the poor or autocrat, Chavez represented many things to many people.
无论是被视为英雄还是独裁者，穷人的后盾还是专制，查韦斯对很多人来说意味着很多。

Armed rebel fighters in Syria have seized about 20 United Nations peacekeepers in the Golan Heights. Reports say all the captives are from the Philippines. The UN Security Council has demanded their release. Here’s James Reynolds.
叙利亚的武装叛乱分子在戈兰高地逮捕了20多名联合国维和人员。报道称，所有俘虏都来自菲律宾。联合国安理会已要求将他们释放。下面是James Reynolds报道。

A video posted online shows a group of Syrian rebels standing on a road next to three white UN vehicles. The cars’ engines are still running. The pictures briefly show two men wearing the UN observer uniform of blue flak jacket and helmet sitting in their trunk at the back of the small convoy. In a statement, the UN confirms that around 20 of its peacekeepers have been detained. It says that the observers were stopped on a regular supply mission near a post that had recently been abandoned because of heavy fighting in the area.
发布在网络上的视频显示一群叙利亚叛军站在路上，旁边是三辆白色的联合国车辆，车的引擎仍在运转。画面还瞬时显示小车队后面有两名身穿联合国观察员制服—蓝色防弹衣和头盔—的男子坐在卡车上。联合国在声明中确认约20名维和人员被捕，称这些观察员是在一个哨卡履行常规供给任务时被阻拦的，此地最近因激烈的战斗被抛弃不管。

A row has broken out in Kenya over whether spoiled ballots should be included in the presidential vote. The coalition led by Uhuru Kenyatta says rejected ballots should not be included in the final tally, something which would help his chances of winning the presidency. Correspondents say Kenyans are becoming anxious about the delay in finalising the results.
肯尼亚目前就是否将废票记入总统选票展开争论，乌呼鲁•肯雅塔的联盟称废票不该记入最终点票，这样做的话他赢得总统的几率就大了。记者称肯尼亚人延误会影响最终结果。

The UN has agreed to lift temporarily the embargo on light weapons in Somalia, the world’s oldest weapons blockade. The new government had been lobbying to have the sanctions lifted. Barbara Plett reports.
联合国同意暂时取消对索马里轻型武器禁运令，该国是全世界实施武器禁运最久的国家。新政府一直游说希望取消禁令，Barbara Plett报道。

The resolution eases a UN arms embargo imposed in 1992 as warlords battling for control of Somalia began a long civil war. Now Somalia is trying to establish its first functioning government after two decades of chaos and says that security forces need more weapons to consolidate gains in the fight against Islamist militants. So the Security Council has partially lifted the arms embargo for one year, allowing the authorities to buy light weapons. But recognising that the country is still very fragile, it kept a ban on heavy weapons and added new measures to monitor arms purchases.
1992年军阀为争夺对索马里的控制展开混战，并导致内战，联合国当时就实施了武器禁运，目前联合国的决议取消了该禁令。经过20年的困乱，现在索马里试图建立首个健全的政府，称安全部队需要更多武器来强化与伊斯兰武装分子战斗的成果。因此安理会就部分取消了武器禁运措施，有效期为一年，允许当局购买轻型武器。但联合国也承认该国仍不稳定，于是禁止购买重型武器，并采取新措施来监督武器购买情况。

BBC News
The US House of Representatives has passed a stop-gap bill that will keep the government operating as the White House grapples with spending cuts due to come into force automatically at the end of the month. The bill approved by the Republican-controlled House is designed to ease deep cuts across the defence department that came into effect last week. But Democrats hope to expand it to cover other departments when the bill goes to the Senate.
美国众议院通过一项权益法案，使得政府能保持运作，目前白宫因即将于本月底自动生效的开支削减措施而争论不休。共和党控制的众议院通批准，目的是纾缓上周在国防部实施的大幅度削减措施。不过，民主党希望在法案进入参议院时能扩展到其他部门。

The Supreme Administrative Court in Ukraine has ordered that the lawyer defending the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko should be stripped of the seat he has in parliament. It means Serhiy Vlasenko loses his parliamentary immunity and can himself be prosecuted. Mr Vlasenko leads the legal team representing Ms Tymoshenko who is in prison for exceeding her authority while in office and is facing further charges of tax evasion and a contract murder. She said her lawyer had highlighted the absurdity of her judicial harassment.
乌克兰最高行政法院下令剥夺前总理尤利娅•季莫申科的辩护律师在议院的席位，这意味着谢尔盖•瓦拉森科要失去他在议会豁免权，并可以被起诉。季莫申科因任职期间越权而入狱，还面临逃税和协约谋杀罪，她的案子由瓦拉森科负责的律师团代理。她说她的律师指出了其司法骚扰的荒谬。

French scientists believe they have come a step closer to understanding how the Vikings were able to navigate across the sea well before the invention of the magnetic compass. A crystal found in the wreckage of a British ship in the English Channel is believed to be what was referred as a “sunstone” in ancient Norse literature. It’s thought the crystal was used to pinpoint the sun’s position. Here’s Hugh Schofield.
法国科学家相信，他们已经进一步了解为何维京人能在指南针发明之前航行大海之谜。据悉，在英吉利海峡一艘英国船只废墟中发现的一颗水晶就是古挪威文学中所指的“太阳石”。据悉这种水晶可用来确定太阳的位置，下面是Hugh Schofield报道。

An oblong crystal the size of a cigarette packet was found on a ship next to a pair of dividers, suggesting that it was part of the navigational equipment. It’s now been shown that the crystal is of Iceland spar, a form of calcite, which is known for its property of diffracting light into two separate rays. Testing a similar crystal, the team of scientists from Rennes University in France shows that by rotating it you can find the point where the two beams converge and that indicates the direction of the sun. It works on cloudy days and when the sun has set.
在船只废墟中一对圆规旁边找到了一块香烟盒大小的长方形水晶，这表明这是导航设备的一部分。据信这种水晶是冰洲石，是方解石的一种，众所周知，这种石头可以将光衍射称各种光线。法国雷恩大学的科学家小组通过测试类似的水晶发现，转动这种水晶可以发现两个光柱的汇合点，这样就能指明太阳的方向。这种石头在阴天和太阳落山时依然有用。

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