标题: Economist, June 15, 2019 (II) [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 6-25-2019 16:41 标题: Economist, June 15, 2019 (II) (4) Burying the poor | Potters' Field; What happens to the corpses of those who die poor or unclaimed in NYC. https://www.economist.com/united ... or-unclaimed-in-nyc
After the first 2 paragraphs: "Those who die without the means to pay for a funeral [even with next of kin], which costs nearly $9,000 on average, end up on Hart Island. In all about 1m people lie there. * * * Hart Island may be the largest cemetery for the [AIDS] epidemic. During heavy rains bones are sometimes washed away and end up on nearby beaches. The island, which has a stark beauty, is under the jurisdiction of the city's Department of Correction. Four days a week eight inmates from Rikers, New York's biggest jail, travel to the island to fig graves and lower coffins into them. They are paid $1 an hour. Because Hart Island's close connection with jail and prisoners, it is difficult for relaties (or anybody else) to visit. * * *
rain (n): "1.1 (rains) falls of rain <view examples yourself>" https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/rain
(e)
(i) start (adj): "2a: bare, desolate, or unadorned: an apartment with stark [unadorned] white walls; the stark [desolate] beauty of the desert landscape"
American Heritage Dictionary of English Language. 5th ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. https://www.yourdictionary.com/stark
(ii) stark (adj): "very plain in appearance, with little or no colour or decoration <In the cold dawn light, the castle looked stark and forbidding.> <the stark beauty of New Mexico>"
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE; the English founder's surname was Longman). https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/stark
(f) Rikers Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rikers_Island
(named after Abraham Rycken [a Dutch immigrant; last name is also spelled Riker or Ryker], who bought the island in 1664") 作者: choi 时间: 6-25-2019 16:41
(5) Rare earths | Magnetic Attraction. Control of a crucial industry gives China power. Using it will be costly. https://www.economist.com/china/ ... trade-war-at-a-cost
Quote after the first 2 paragraphs:
"Crucially, China has translated its control of the raw materials into dominance of the valuable next steps: turning oxides into metals and metals into products. To extend Mr Deng's comparison, it is as if the Middle Eastnot only sat on most of the world's oil but also, almost exclusively, refined it and then made products ouyt of it.
The most important of these [rare earth products] are specialised magnets for motors in electric vehicles, generators in wind turbines and missile-guidance systems. China produces more than 90% of world's output, according to Cituigroup, a bank. Even the Pentagon, through its suppliers, is a client.
"After the scare in 2010 [when China 'restricted rare-earth exports, in order, it said, to protect its environment' -- WTO years later ruled against China] Japan lent Money to Lynas, an Australian mining company with a refinery in Malaysia. Today, it can meet nearly a third of Japanese demand for rare earths. The Mountain Pass mine in California, which once supplied most of the world's rare earths but which shut in the early 2000s, has reopened. * * * China's share of of global rare-earth production fell from more than 95% in 2010 to 70% last year, and is likely to dip lower.
"America last year bought about $259m od rare-earth magnets from China, and there are no easy alternative sources. * * * The [magnets] are made to exact specifications. And, says Mr [Ryan] Castilloux[of Adamas Intelligence, a rare-earth consultancy], the industry is small enough for China to be able to spot any American attempts to skirt a Chinese ban by importing magnets through other countries. The Pentagon would probably able to cope. An industry joke has it that it can carry its annual supply of heavy rare earths (the kind used in its missiles) in a single suitcase. Businesses would find it harder.
"But it is far from certain that China will block exports to America. Doing so would also hurt Chinese companies, which are often the ones that build the motors an dbatteries for American customers using rare-earth magnets.* * *
Note: Regarding "its control of the raw materials" in the first quotation.