【www.guakaob.com--英语听力】
VOAtaco篇一：VOA听力文本
1
With South Sudan now fully independent, plans are underway to deploy a new United Nations peacekeeping force in the country. The UN Security Council unanimously approved that force last week, assuring the new nation of military and police support to help maintain peace and security. Today, the newly appointed head of UNMISS, Hilde Johnson, who is also the special representative of the UN secretary general to South Sudan, met with journalists for the first time since her appointment. Johnson is a veteran of south Sudanese affairs. As the Norwegian minister of
International Development, she was heavily involved in the north-south negotiations and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. Recently, she wrote a book on that topic, called Waging Peace in Sudan. Previously, she was also the deputy director of the UN Children's Agency.
At a press conference today, she spoke about the mandate of the new mission as featured in UN Security Council Resolution 1996.
She spoke with reporter Charleton Doki in Juba.
2.Call-in radio
Each day around the world, thousands of Southeast Asians pick up their telephones to listen to the radio.
They tune in to one of at least 20 different teleconferences, which broadcasts programming similar to traditional radio stations. But instead of flipping a switch to pick up the signal, they make a call.
A woman in California sings to hundreds of people on one teleconference line. The song encourages youth to keep Hmong culture alive. Cher Vang listens in her living room in Washington state. She's
middle-aged and, like many Hmong people, war has scattered her family. "My family went everywhere on earth," says Vang. "I have three brothers. They live in Australia. I haven't seen them in 30 years. My older sister lives in California. One sister lives in Laos, my country."
Easing sense of isolation
When Vang arrived in America, she felt isolated.
"I came to the United States and married my husband in 1986," she says. "I didn't know how to speak English. I didn't know how to drive. It was very, very hard for me."
That's where the teleconferences come in. One of the purposes of the programming is to connect isolated Hmong people - especially people like Vang, who never got to go to school or learn to use computers.
Washington state has a small Hmong community but, when Vang calls into a teleconference line, she can connect to a much bigger group.
Tseng Yang is one of the founders of a teleconference line called LongCheng Radio. The station offers 24-hour-a-day programming featuring music, ghost stories, economic news and more.
Yang estimates 3,500 people call to listen to LongCheng Radio every day. The nightly news is the station's most popular show. The hosts translate global news into Hmong, Yao and Laotian.
Sharing milestones
But the teleconferences are also a global forum for Hmong people around the world to share their own local news with one another. People can call in to report important events, like the death of a community leader. "If something happen, you know, important elderly for the Hmong community who pass away in Salt Lake City, nobody know, right? So we also open for them to tell us," says Yang.
Longcheng Radio is based in Minnesota, but its programs include reports from Hmong communities in Europe and Southeast Asia.
"They just have like half an hour of news telling what they're doing down there, planting crop, corn and weather," says Yang.
Today, Cher Vang participates on the teleconferencing line by singing a traditional love song from home.
She says sharing with others over the phone helps her connect to people who have gone through the same challenges, like losing their family to war and trying to make a new life in a foreign country.
"Me, I was so mad. I felt so bad for myself. Sometimes I would just go crazy," she says. "Thinking about everything too much, remembering. I was
thinking, thinking, ‘Oooh, maybe I'm the only one in the world who has these problems. Maybe there's no one like me, no one's life is like mine.'" But realizing that everyone on the phone line understands her life, she says, makes her feel better and makes her happy.
3
In most major American cities, You can find food carts, where vendors sell meals from mobile trucks.
Many people end up cooking the foods of their childhood - whether it's new immigrants selling their native cuisine or entrepreneurs dipping back into grandmother's recipes.
But throughout the United States, a new breed of food cart is emerging. These mobile restaurants sell fusion food, bringing together several different ethnic dishes and ingredients to create a new American cuisine - like a Korean taco.
"It's wrapped in a corn tortilla, Mexican. We have a spicy pork, which is very Korean," says Kamala Saxton, who owns Marination Mobile, a food truck in Seattle, Washington. "We have put our own homemade pickled jalapenos, which is Korean or Hawaiian. And so there are a number of different ethnicities in one serving of the spicy pork taco."
The Korean taco might be a new taste for a lot of diners. But Saxton feels like it's a natural combination, especially given where she comes from. "I'm Korean, Hawaiian, Filipino and Spanish," she says. "And given that, you have someone in your family that knows how to cook one of those ethnic dishes."
But fusion doesn't just happen for vendors with Saxton's diverse culinary background. Historian Jane Ziegelman, who writes about New York street food, says that even in places which don't have multi-ethnic families, street carts have always been a place where people come together and find out what their neighbors eat.
"You had Irish kids eating Jewish pickles. You had Italian immigrants eating Jewish potato pancakes," says Ziegelman. "You had all kinds of people drinking seltzer, which was, in fact a street food. So people were eating each others' food all the time."
This exchange fueled the evolution of the street food itself. According to Ziegelman, knishes, egg rolls and hot dogs all underwent the same American transformation.
"Foods brought over by immigrants grew in size," she says. "This is like something that happens to a lot of foods once they come to the United States. They get bigger and they get blander."
They also get portable. Ziegelman notes that the hot dog moved from a plate to a bun and the bagel became a vehicle for an on-the-go meal of smoked salmon and cream cheese.
In Portland, Oregon, Megan Walhood fuses this American grab-and-go attitude with the food of her European family. She and her fiancée Jeremy Daniels own a truck called Viking Soul Food.
"The sort of foundation product we serve is lefse, this Norwegian potato flatbread, and I grew up eating that every year at Christmastime," says Walhood. "And then it was Jeremy who kind of had the idea to start using it like a tortilla or a crepe, and just stuffing it with all manner of different things."
Viking Soul Food's most popular lefse is the meatball wrap, a recipe which comes from Walhood's grandmother. It's topped with pickled cabbage and a sauce of melted Scandinavian cheese. This wrap variety would never be seen in Norway, but Daniels and Walhood believe it appeals to the tastes of people of all backgrounds.
"People see pork and beef meatballs," says Daniels, "and then they see cheese sauce, and they don't look anything further."
Others agree that fusing the familiar with the exotic helps people approach cart food.
"There's something very familiar to eating a taco," says Kamala Saxton of Marination Mobile. "If you've never had Korean food, or if you've never had Hawaiian food, fair bet that you have had a taco."
As a historian, Ziegelman appreciates how food cart fusion has evolved. But for customers, it's how the food tastes that keeps them coming back for more.
"I have had a Korean taco. It's really, really good," says Ziegelman. "It's really interesting the way these foods, which never grew up together and
have no particular reason to harmonize, harmonize in this really gorgeous way."
And if you don't fancy Korean tacos, you might want to give Marination Mobile's kimchi quesadilla a try.
4
In Zambia, it's an important part of the government's malaria control program, and the controlled use of DDT spray has led to a reduction in malaria cases over the years.
Other African countries are facing a rise in the number of cases and several African governments are considering the carefully monitored use of DDT as part of their strategy against the disease.
In Malawi, for example, the Department of Health may undertake a DDT spray program in malaria prone-areas.
There is no doubt that DDT is very effective in killing mosquitoes. The problem lies in what other effects DDT may have on human health, wildlife, environment, horticulture and crops.
Malawi's secretary of health, Chris Kang'ombe, was part of a delegation that visited Zambia to learn how the use of DDT has helped reduce malaria there.
Kang'ombe is convinced that DDT can help reduce the spread of malaria in Africa -- if handled under controlled conditions by trained personnel and monitored by government agencies.
He says, "DDT is used for indoor spraying. It is used to only spray within, inside the house, dwelling houses. What we have learnt (from Zambia) and we know from our experience here (in Malawi), the other chemicals [are active for] up to about two or three months, whereas with DDT you are talking of six months plus. So in terms of "residue effect," it (DDT) is better, and also eventually the cost of indoor spraying...will be much cheaper, more cost effective than using other chemicals. "
While authorities in Malawi are still considering using DDT in malaria control, a thorny issue has arisen.
The Tobacco Control Commission is against the idea of using the pesticide. Tobacco is the mainstay of Malawi's economy, and there's fear that Western
VOAtaco篇二：美国之音特别英语
Are You Into Podcasting Music by Bobby Short A Listener Asks About April Fool's Day Written by Ed Stautberg and Nancy Steinbach 31 March 2005American Mosaic - Download MP3 American Mosaic - Download RealAudio American Mosaic (MUSIC)DOUG JOHNSON Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week Music by Bobby Short ...A question from a listener about April Fool’s Day ...And a report on something called podcasting. PodcastingHere is something new people are listening to the radio without using a radio. They are also producing radio shows to broadcast on the Internet. It is called podcasting. Phoebe Zimmermann explains. PHOEBE ZIMMERMANN Podcasting is also called personal radio. A person who has a computer and a special microphone can record a radio show about anything. This technology is new because listeners can put the recording onto portable electronic devices and listen to them away from the computer. Apple iPod The name podcasting came from one of these portable electronic devices, the iPod made by the Apple computer company. An iPod is small. It can copy, save and play music and written material. You do not have to have an iPod to listen to the broadcasts; many people also listen to them on a computer with Internet connection.The new broadcasters enjoy sharing information with their listeners. Many say podcasting is a new form of the Internet Web log or blog. It is another way for a person to offer his or her ideas to anyone who is interested.People broadcast about many subjects, including religion, their everyday lives or hobbies such as fishing or drinking wine. Right now, a very popular podcast is called “The Dawn and Drew Show”. Dawn and Drew are a young wife and husband who live in the state of Wisconsin. Their show is meant to be funny. In it, they talk about their lives and whatever interests them at that moment. They bring guests to their show, including their parents and other family members. Not much competition exists right now among the different podcasts. Many people speak on more than one. They are usually friendly. One Web site has a list of the ten most popular podcasts based on votes by listeners. It is called podcast alley dot com. It also lists interesting new podcasts.Thousands of podcasts are being created all over the world. If you are interested in finding out about them, go to podcastalley.com. That is spelled p-o-d-c-a-s-t-a-l-l-e-y dot com. You can find a podcast that interests you. Or you might try to create your own.April Fool’s DayOur VOA listener question this week comes from Vietnam. Myle asks about the history of April Fool’s Day on April first. Today is April Fool’s Day in the United States. It is not an important American holiday like the Fourth of July or Labor Day. It is not observed by schools or the government. It is just a day when people play tricks on each other.His
tory experts say people have been doing this for a long time. They also say it is difficult to know how it began. Some believe the tradition comes from the ancient Romans more than two thousand years ago. Others say the day for fooling began in France in fifteen sixty-four when King Charles changed the yearly calendar. He moved New Year’s Day from April first to January first.Many people did not know about the change because of the communications problems in those days. Others knew about the change, but refused to accept it. So some people continued to celebrate New Year’s Day on April first. Other people called them April Fools and played jokes on them. The French called them “poissons d’avril” or “April Fish” because young fish are easily caught. This tradition later spread to other countries like Britain. The early settlers from Britain brought April fooling to the American colonies. Americans today still play tricks on each other on April Fool’s Day. Children might put signs on the backs of their friends that say “kick me” or “hit me.” They might tell their friends that school has been cancelled. Or they might go to a house, ring the doorbell, run away, then yell “April Fool’s!” when the homeowner comes to the door.We found a Web site that claims to list the top one hundred April Fool’s Day jokes of all time. Maybe you remember this one. It took place on April first, nineteen ninety-six. The Taco Bell fast food company made an announcement in newspaper advertisements. It said it was buying the famous Liberty Bell from the federal government to help reduce the national debt. The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is one of America’s most historic treasures. The company said it was re-naming it the “Taco Liberty Bell.” Many people did not realize it was a joke. Hundreds of angry people called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia to protest the action. A few hours later, Taco Bell admitted its April Fool’s joke!Bobby ShortDOUG JOHNSON American singer Bobby Short died last week in New York City of the blood disease leukemia. Bobby Short was eighty years old. Gwen Outen tells us about him.GWEN OUTEN Bobby Short performed all over the world. He entertained American presidents and European royalty. He was well known for singing the great American songs written by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. He was nominated for a Grammy Award in two thousand for his album “You’re the Top The Love Songs of Cole Porter.” Listen as he sings the title song. (MUSIC)Bobby Short dances with designer Gloria Vanderbilt in 1980 Bobby Short was born in Danville, Illinois. He was the ninth of ten children. As a child, he sang and played the piano to earn money for his family during the great economic Depression in the nineteen thirties. Later, he performed around the United States and in Europe. For more than thirty-five years, Bobby Short performed six
nights a week at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. Here is a song from another Grammy-nominated album, “Late Night at the Cafe Carlyle.”(MUSIC)Bobby Short wrote two books about his life. He also performed his music and appeared in movies and on television. But he will always be remembered for his sweet, smooth voice. We leave you now with another song from Bobby Short – “Every Time We Say Goodbye.”(MUSIC)HOSTI'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program.Our show was written by Ed Stautberg and Nancy Steinbach. Caty Weaver was our producer. Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA’s radio magazine in Special English.