VOA慢速英语:Drones: Not Just For the Military Anymore

Late last month, for the first time, President Obama publicly confirmed the American use of drone strikes in tribal areas in Pakistan. He answered a question on the subject during a Google video conference with people around the United States.
上月末，奥巴马总统首次公开证实美国使用无人机袭击巴基斯坦部落地区。他在与美国各地民众的一次Google视频会议期间，他回答了这个问题。
 
BARACK OBAMA: "I want to make sure that people understand that actually, drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties. For the most part, they have been very precise precision strikes against al-Qaida and their affiliates. And we are very careful in terms of how it has been applied."
奥巴马：“我希望确保人们明白，事实上无人机并没有造成大量平民伤亡。在大多数情况下，它们非常精确地打击了基地组织及其分支机构。而我们在无人机的应用方面也非常小心。”
 
Debate continues about how many people, including civilians, have been killed in those drone attacks.
关于包括平民在内的有多少人们在这些无人机袭击中丧生的争论仍在继续。

Drones are technically known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. These aircraft, however, are not just used for air strikes, and they are not just used by governments.
无人机在技术上被称为无人驾驶飞行器，或无人机。然而，这些飞机不仅用于空袭，也不仅仅被政府使用。

Human rights activists, environmental groups and journalists are increasingly using drones in their work.
人权活动家、环保团体以及记者在工作中也越来越多地使用到无人机。

Drones can fly above news events to capture images that reporters may not be able to get close to on the ground.
无人机可以飞到新闻现场上方，捕抓一些记者在地面上未必能够接近的画面。

Matt Waite is a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Students in his Drone Journalism Lab are exploring different uses for drones in news reporting.
Matt Waite是内布拉斯加大学林肯分校的一名新闻学教授。在他的无人机新闻实验室里，学生们正在探讨无人机在新闻报道中的不同用途。

MATT WAITE: "Drone journalism as an idea is less than a year old at this point. The first instance I saw was a labor protest in Poland where a man had a remote-controlled helicopter and he put a camera on it and he flew it up and got just a view of the protests from the air. And you could see police moving into position to kind of block the protest route."
MATT WAITE：“ ‘无人机新闻’作为一种理念诞生还不到一年。我看到的第一个实例是在波兰的劳工抗议中，其中一名男子使用一架安装了摄像头的遥控直升机飞上天空，从空中拍到了抗议的情景。你可以看到警察位置的移动到堵塞抗议路线。”

A video on YouTube shows images captured by the so-called RoboKopter.
YouTube上的一个视频展示这种所谓的RoboKopter所捕抓的图片。

A group of citizen journalists in Moscow used a similar drone camera to record protests during Russian parliamentary elections.
莫斯科一家公民记者组织使用类似的无人机摄像机记录下了俄罗斯议会选举期间的抗议活动。

And Professor Waite noted a recent environmental case in the United States captured by someone flying his remote-controlled airplane.
而Waite教授指出，美国最近的一起环境案件就是由某个人操作他的远程遥控飞机所拍摄的。

MATT WAITE: "He spotted a meat packing plant that was polluting a nearby creek that ran into a nearby river. He had images of a river of blood flowing out of this meat packing plant, which was against the law. And environmental regulatory authorities were alerted to it."
MATT WAITE：“他发现一家肉类包装厂污染了附近一条流入小河的小溪。他拍摄到一条‘血河’从这家肉类包装厂内流出的图片，这是违反法律的。环境监管当局对此产生了警惕。”

Andrew Sniderman is a co-founder of the Genocide Intervention Network. He wrote recently in the New York Times that drones could be used to collect important information in conflict areas, like Syria.
Andrew Sniderman是种族灭绝干预网络的联合创始人。他最近在纽约时报发表文章，无人机可以用于收集冲突地区的重要信息，例如在叙利亚。
 
Professor Waite also imagines many other uses for drones.
Waite教授还设想了许多其他无人机的用途。

MATT WAITE: "I thought of every hurricane, and tornado and fire and every kind of mass disaster that I ever covered as a journalist and thought, oh wow, that would be amazing to have as a tool."
MATT WAITE：“我曾是一名记者，每当想起报道的每场飓风、龙卷风、火灾和所有大规模灾难时认为，哇，要是有这样一种工具就太棒了。”

Drone use in the United States is now rare because of federal restrictions on airspace. However, Congress just passed a bill designed to ease those restrictions by twenty fifteen.
因为联邦在领空上的限制，现在在美国使用无人驾驶飞机是罕见的。然而，美国国会刚刚通过一项法案，旨在2015年前缓解这些限制。