点击观看视频

Assad dismisses claims he ordered Idlib attack as “fabrication”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claims the US fabricated last week'schemical weapons attack in Syria -- to justify a military strike on one of its airbases. He made the comments in an exclusive interview with the AFP news agency.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad says that quite simply Syria did not have chemical weapons, did not use them, and what we saw last Tuesday after the alleged chemical weapon attack was 100 percent fabrication, this has all been concocted by the United States and organizations within Syria working against the government, as an excuse so that the US could carry out a missile attack on that Syrian airbase.

Idlib：伊德利卜，叙利亚西北部城市，伊德利卜省省会。4月9日，伊德利卜市发生两起来源不明的爆炸。

fabricate：伪造，捏造

chemical weapons attack：化武袭击事件。美政府13日表示，美方已掌握证据证明叙政府日前在东古塔地区实施了“化武袭击”。

military strike：军事打击

AFP：Agence France-Presse，法国新闻社，成立于1944年，是与路透社（Reuters）、美联社（Associated Press, AP）和合众社（United Press International, UPI）齐名的西方四大世界性通讯社之一。

allege：断言，宣称

concoct：捏造

missile attack：导弹攻击。

"They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack, It wasn't an attack because of what happened in Khan Sheikhoun... It's only few days - two days, 48 hours - between the play and the attacks, and no investigations, no concrete evidence about anything, the only thing were allegations and propaganda, and then strike," Al-Assad said.

pretext：借口，托辞

allegation：主张；宣称

propaganda：鼓吹

He even questioned whether the children were seen in those videos were actually dead. He went on to say that the chemical weapons that were being alleged being used were something that could not happen by the Syrian government, because they did not have chemical weapons. He said they gave up their arsenal a few years ago, referring to the 2013 agreement which led to investigators going into Syria to collect up the chemical weapons stockpiles and destroy them.

This fabrication claim from the president was similar with what we heard from Russia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations.

arsenal：兵工厂，军火库

chemical weapons stockpiles：化学武器储备

点击观看视频

Chinese FM calls for political settlement

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called for greater communication on the Syria crisis, adding that an independent and comprehensive investigation on last week's chemical attack in the country is necessary. Wang made the comments at a news conference on Thursday with visiting Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki.

"A political settlement is still the only reliable and correct way to address the Syrian issue. Therefore, China calls upon all parties, in particular Russia and the United States, to step up communication and coordination and to avoid confrontation and conflict. It is important that the international community maintains unity and supports the United Nations in playing a leading role in this process," Wang said.

Wang Yi said the UN Security Council should maintain the unity of all the members, to solve the issue peacefully. He confirmed that China's special envoy on Syria issue, Xie Xiaoyan, will visit related countries for the regional conflicts.

political settlement：政治解决，即外交谈判，而非军事解决。

confrontation：对峙；冲突

UN Security Council：联合国安全理事会

special envoy：特使

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement saying the Western coalition’s “act of aggression” would only exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria.

Putin called the strike a "destructive influence on the entire system of international relations" and said Moscow would call for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

coalition：联盟

act of aggression：侵略行为

exacerbate：使恶化；使加重

humanitarian catastrophe：人道主义灾

此外，联合国秘书长古特雷斯警告所有各方必须遵守《国际法》。他说：“我呼吁所有成员国在这种危险环境下要采取克制，避免任何可能使局势加剧、加深叙利亚人民痛苦的行为。”

战争是残酷的，战争的炮火将会给人带来一生的伤痛。

I can't quite remember when or how the war ended for us; my mind is always drawn back to that first day in the meadow, the explosions destroying the peaceful flowers and the naive days of my childhood. Try as I might, I still can't understand what we could have done to justify all the suffering war inevitably inflicts.

我不太记得战争是在何时、以何种方式结束的，但我的记忆总是被拉回到战争开始那一天草地上的情形，爆炸摧毁了花丛的宁静，也摧毁了我的童年的纯真时光。无论我如何努力，我还是无法明白我们因何要承受这战争带来的一切伤害。

——摘自《新视野大学英语（第三版）读写教程3》Unit 6 Section A Under the bombs: 1945

视频及文本来源：http://english.cctv.com/