【慢速听力 3 篇 as】UN: Nearly 500 Million People in Asia-Pacific ...
No.1
AS IT IS
Amsterdam Tests ‘Bubble Barrier’ to Clean River
December 21, 2019
View of the "The Bubble Barrier" in Amsterdam, Netherlands October 31, 2019.
Amsterdam is testing a “bubble barrier” to help remove plastic from the city’s waterways.
The project is called the Great Bubble Barrier. The system aims to capture waste beneath the surface of the water. The city launched the effort in November. The non-profit group supporting the project hopes it can be used in other places if successful.
Francis Zoet is the technical director of the Great Bubble Barrier project. She told Reuters, “A bubble barrier is basically a tube that we place on the bottom of the river or canal, that has holes in it and we press air through it; that creates a bubble curtain.”
The tube lies diagonally across the canal. The bubbles work with the flow of water in the canal to float the waste and then move it into a collector on the side.
The bubbles do not interfere with passing boats. They also do not cause a major problem for fish or birds.
Amsterdam already has four boats that collect about 42,000 kilograms of plastic a year. But the boats can only pick up the waste on the surface. They miss some smaller pieces altogether.
Roy Leysner is with Waternet, part of the local water authority that is paying for the project with the City of Amsterdam. He told Reuters, “Every piece of plastic which falls into the water in the canals is eventually flowing out to the North Sea. We want to prevent that.”
The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany estimates that rivers carry up to 4 million metric tons of plastic into the world’s oceans each year.
Another Dutch group has also launched a system to collect surface-level river waste using floating barriers.
Zoet of the Amsterdam project said the two ideas work well together. She said, “We support basically every initiative that is focused on reducing the plastic soup.”
I’m Jonathan Evans.
Toby Sterling reported this story for the Reuters news service. Jonathan Evans adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.
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Words in This Story
authority –n. people having powers to make decisions and enforce rules and laws
eventually –adv. at an unspecified later time; in the end
initiative –n. a plan or program that is intended to solve a problem
focus(ed) –v. to direct or cause to direct at
No.2
AS IT IS
Report Describes North Korea’s Efforts to Ban Outside Information
December 21, 2019
In this Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, photo, a man plays a game on his mobile phone in North Korea. Millions of North Koreans are now using mobile phones, and not just to make phone calls. Not long after the use of mobile phones was opened up in 2009.
Officials in North Korea are trying to develop new ways to stop outside information from spreading inside the country.
A recent report details North Korean government efforts to reduce the influence of foreign media content. The Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea released the report last week.
Reporter Martyn Williams wrote the report called, Digital Trenches: North Korea’s Information Counter-Offensive. He has followed North Korea’s communications technology and media for 20 years.
Williams described three ways that North Korea is dealing with outside information. The first is through its laws.
The law
North Korean law makes using media from outside the country a crime.
Williams said a lot of foreign media material has gotten into the country during the last 15 or so years. But recently, fewer people are facing sentences for crimes linked to foreign media.
“They can’t put everybody in jail because there are just too many people,” Williams said.
His report shows that many people caught watching or spreading foreign media escape punishment by paying officials.
“If you get caught watching South Korean movies, you’re supposed to go to prison." But the willingness of officials to accept money or goods in return for protection from the law has created different levels of justice. Wealthy people can watch banned content from South Korea and then pay security officials for protection from legal action.
The report notes that “As the State economy has weakened, vital services, such as the public distribution system for food, have been cut.” This has affected everyone, “including the security officials.”
Buying legal protection appears to be easier for offenders the further they are from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. This is because economic hardship is more severe in rural areas, the report said.
To find foreign media products, police raid homes.
This measure was more successful in the past. Police would cut electric service and enter homes in search of video tapes or discs. Now, movies and other media can be stored on devices that are extremely small. This makes it harder for police to find banned content.
Police also try to catch people through random inspections on the street.
“…As well as checking someone’s pockets, they’ll also ask for a cell phone, and they’ll ask for the password to the cellphone,” Williams said. The police then search the cellphones for banned media or even the use of South Korean words or phrases.
The report notes that officials have shifted punishment to people who spread banned media even as they catch people who use it.
Propaganda
Content on state-operated media is said to be not very interesting.
Williams noted that North Korea is trying to increase the production value of its own media so more people will use it.
The report said that North Korea’s state-run KCTV started showing programs in high definition earlier this year. But it said people still like foreign media more. It said KCTV’s content is “dry, propaganda-heavy and cannot compete with more interesting content from overseas.”
Some foreign media such as computer games and sports coverage are permitted. Williams said the government believes that people will ignore other foreign media if they are occupied playing games and watching sports.
Technology
The report also discusses ways North Korean officials use technology to prevent the spread of outside information. An example is the software “Red Flag” which runs on smartphones and keeps a record of webpages visited.
Another method is file watermarking. In this measure, the file records every device that plays it. One person who spoke to researchers said, “North Korean smartphones and other devices leave a tag on USB [flash drives] so they can trace which computers or mobile devices have viewed them.”
Watermarks on files also make it easier for officials to discover networks that spread foreign media information.
Information campaign needed
David Maxwell is with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies based in Washington. He said the report shows that the North Korean government is most afraid of information. He said the international community should find ways to target people in North Korea with more information.
Thomas Barker is a lawyer who has represented North Korean escapees seeking U.S. citizenship.
“…Getting access to information about the outside world, it plants in the heart of a North Korean the desire to be free…and it gives them the desire to escape North Korea,” Barker said.
The report, Digital Trenches, was based on discussions with 41 North Korean escapees living in Seoul, South Korea and on independent research.
I’m Caty Weaver, and I’m Mario Ritter, Jr.
Eugene Whong reported this story for Radio Free Asia. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.
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Words in This Story
content –n. information found in books, magazines, movies, and other sources
vital –adj. very important or necessary
shift –v. to go or to cause (something) to go from one person or thing to another
distribution –n. giving or delivering something to many people
tag –n. a piece of identifying information used on a computer system
high definition –n. a television system that provides a better picture than earlier systems
No.3
AS IT IS
Arctic Reindeer Face Starvation Threat in Sweden
December 21, 2019
Members of a native community in the arctic areas of Sweden say their reindeer are facing possible starvation from unusual weather related to climate change.
The Sami indigenous community takes care of about 8,000 reindeer throughout the year. The animals are moved between traditional feeding areas in high mountains bordering Norway in the summer and forests farther east in the winter.
Community member Niila Inga told The Associated Press he is worried about his reindeer. He said climate change has affected the area’s weather activity and created food shortages. “If we don’t find better areas for them where they can graze and find food, then the reindeers will starve to death,” Inga said.
He demonstrated the problem by reaching down into the snow and pulling up a hard piece of ice close to the soil.
The area received unusual snowfall early in the fall, followed by rain that froze. Inga said this traps the plants that reindeer eat under a thick cover of ice. Some of the hungry reindeer have now moved away from their traditional migration areas in search of food.
Community members say half the reindeer moved towards the east as planned. But the rest headed back to the mountains, where they face the risk of attacks by other animals or being caught in an avalanche.
Older members of the Sami community say that in the past, they only remember bad winters about once every ten years. But now, Inga says “extreme and strange weather are getting more and more normal,” happening several times a year.
Studies have shown that the arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the Earth. Measurements by Sweden’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute show the country has warmed 1.64 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times.
In Sweden’s mountain areas, the increase is even greater. Average winter temperatures between 1991 and 2017 rose more than 3 degrees Celsius compared with the 1961-1990 average.
Snowfall is normal for the area. But as temperatures increase, rain can also fall, creating a “rain-on-snow” effect. When this happens, food remains trapped underneath the ice where the reindeer cannot reach it. This causes the animals to grow weaker and struggle to make it through the winter.
Weather changes have hit the Sami community hard. “We have winter here for eight months a year and when it starts in October with bad grazing conditions it won’t get any better,” Inga said.
Sanna Vannar is a 24-year-old Sami community member living in a mountain town just north of the Arctic Circle. “Everyone wants to take the reindeers’ area where they find food,” she told AP. “But with climate change, we need more flexibility to move around. Here you can’t find food, but maybe you can find food there. But there they want to clear-cut the forest and that’s the problem.”
Vannar is president of the Swedish Sami Youth organization. The group launched a legal action in 2018 to force the European Union (EU) to set better targets for reducing human-caused greenhouse gases.
“We’ve said we don’t want money because we can’t buy better weather with money,” Vannar said. “We’ve said we need the EU to take action and they need to do it now.”
I’m Bryan Lynn.
The Associated Press reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. was the editor.
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Words in This Story
indigenous – adj. always having lived or existed in a place
graze – v. feed on land covered by grass
avalanche – n. a large amount of snow that falls down the side of a mountain
flexibility – n. able to be changed easily
greenhouse gas – n. gases in the atmosphere that trap heat