经济学人下载:一周要闻 马云风波后首现身谈教育

Supported by a group of British business leaders, Eurostar reiterated its request to the British government for a bail-out. Operating trains through the tunnel linking Britain and France, Eurostar’s passenger numbers have plummeted by 95% since March. The British government sold its stake in 2015. Eurostar is majority owned by sncf, the French state-owned railway company. 

在一群英国商界领袖的支持下，欧洲之星再次向英国政府提出了紧急援助的请求。欧洲之星运营着连接英国和法国的隧道列车，自3月以来，乘客数量已经暴跌了95%。2015年，英国政府出售了其所持股份。欧洲之星的多数股权由法国国营铁路公司（SNCF）持有。

London’s transport authority, Tfl, abandoned plans to make payments on the network completely cashless, after an experiment prompted by COVID concerns last summer was criticised by the official watchdog. COVID is causing problems in other ways. Tfl’s finances are floundering as passengers avoid travel, and the mayor is reluctant to increase fares. Despite securing a 1.8bn pounds ($2.5bn) bail-out last year, Tfl’s financial plans recently submitted to the government forecast more than 3bn pounds in shortfalls in each of the next two years
去年夏天，出于对新冠肺炎的担忧，伦敦交通局(Tfl)进行了一项网络售票的无现金支付试验，结果遭到官方监管机构的批评，该机构放弃这一计划。新冠肺炎疫情也给其他方面带来了麻烦。由于乘客不愿出行，伦敦交通局的财政状况也陷入困境，而市长也不愿提高票价。尽管去年获得了18亿英镑(合25亿美元)的救助，但伦敦交通局最近提交给政府的财政计划预测，未来两年每年的缺口将超过30亿英镑。

United Airlines said it would need to make further cost-cutting measures, after the rate at which it was burning cash to keep flying during the pandemic rose sharply. Its annual loss last year was $7.1bn. 

联合航空公司(United Airlines)表示，该公司需要采取进一步的成本削减措施，因为在疫情期间，该公司为维持航班运行而烧钱的速度大幅上升。该公司去年的年度亏损为71亿美元。

General Motors announced a partnership with Microsoft in which vehicles being developed by Cruise, its autonomous-car startup, will be plugged in to Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform. 

通用汽车(General Motors)宣布与微软建立合作关系，旗下自动驾驶汽车初创公司Cruise正在开发的汽车将接入微软Azure云计算平台。

Netflix added another 8.5m subscribers in the final months of last year, taking the total to almost 204m. The video-streaming service said it no longer required external financing to fund day-to-day operations and was looking at buying back stock. Its share price soared by 17%. 

去年最后几个月，Netflix新增用户850万，用户总数接近2.04亿。这家视频流媒体服务公司表示，不再需要外部融资来为日常运营提供资金，并正在考虑回购股票。其股价飙升了17%。

Jack Ma surfaced in public for the first time since Chinese regulators scotched the IPO of his Ant Group and announced an antitrust investigation that in effect targets his business interests. According to state-backed TV, the founder of Alibaba said that after “studying and thinking” he and his colleagues are “more determined to devote ourselves to education and public welfare”. 

自中国监管机构叫停蚂蚁集团上市并宣布针对其商业利益展开反垄断调查以来，马云首次公开露面。据国家电视台报道，阿里巴巴创始人马云表示，经过“学习和思考”，他将和同事们“更决心投身于教育和公益事业”。

After a failed attempt last May, Virgin Orbit at last put its first satellites in space. The company launched the payload on a rocket that is carried under the wing of an old Virgin Atlantic 747 plane, making it theoretically possible to send satellites into space from anywhere in the world. 

在去年5月一次失败的尝试后，维珍轨道公司终于将其第一颗卫星送入太空。该公司用一枚火箭发射了有效载荷，该火箭由维珍航空一架老式747飞机的机翼携带，从理论上讲，这项技术使得卫星可以从世界各地发射升空。