“伊斯兰国”（英语：Islamic State，缩写：IS），前称“伊拉克和大叙利亚伊斯兰国”，阿拉伯国家和部分西方国家称为“达伊沙”（DAESH），是一个自称建国的活跃在伊拉克和叙利亚的极端恐怖组织。2003年以前以“基地”组织伊拉克分支的名义开展活动。
Dec 19th 2015 | From the print edition
Islamic State extended its bloody reach far beyond its base in Iraq and Syria. The group's barbarity was unrelenting. Gruesome propaganda included the burning alive in a cage of a Jordanian pilot whom IS had captured, the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya and the murder of the 82-year-old head of antiquities at Palmyra, a heritage site in Syria that was looted by IS.
伊斯兰国已将其血腥的触角伸到了远离它在伊拉克和叙利亚地盘之外的地方。该组织的暴行毫无收敛。骇人的宣传包括将他们俘虏的一名约旦飞行员在一个笼子中活活烧死、在利比亚对21名埃及科普特基督徒的斩首以及在遭到他们洗劫的叙利亚的一处遗产胜地帕尔米拉对82岁的考古队队长的杀害。
Western governments felt compelled to counter the threat, especially after IS claimedresponsibility for an assault on Paris in which gunmen mowed down people in restaurants and bars and at a rock concert, killing 130 and injuring hundreds. PresidentFran?0?4ois Hollande declared that France was at war with IS.
西方各国政府被迫反击了这种威胁，尤其是在IS宣称对发生在巴黎的一次袭击负责之后。在那次袭击中，多名枪手射倒了当时正在多家餐馆、酒吧和一场摇滚音乐会中的人们，杀死130人，伤数百人。法国总统弗朗索瓦·奥朗德已经宣布，法国与IS处于战争状态。
After claiming that a Russian airliner had been bombed by IS affiliates in Egypt, Russia sent fighter jets to Syria, ostensibly to bomb IS. Most of its firepower, however, was directed at other opponents of the Syrian despot, Bashar al-Assad, a client of Vladimir Putin. In California 14 people were killed by a married couple inspired by IS. In December Barack Obama claimed that the American-led coalition was hitting IS hard, curtailing its operations in Iraq and Syria.
在宣布一架俄罗斯客机被IS在埃及的分支炸毁后，俄罗斯把战机派到了叙利亚，表面上是为了轰炸IS。但是，大部分火力都被导向了叙利亚暴君、弗拉基米尔·普京的一位代理人——巴沙尔·阿萨德的其他对手身上。在加利福尼亚州，14人被一对受到IS蛊惑的夫妇杀死。贝拉克·奥巴马在11月宣布，以美国为首的联军正在狠狠地打击IS，限制了它们在叙利亚和伊拉克的多项行动。
Turkey alsoentered the fray, after a student gathering was bombed in a town near the Syrian border. But Turkey also targeted the Kurdish PKK. Suicide-bombers in Ankara attacked a peace rally that called for an end to Turkey's actions against the Kurds, killing 102 people. The chaos only strengthened the hand of the ruling Justice and Development party, which won an election in November.
土耳其在叙利亚边境附近的一个城镇的一场学生集会遭炸后也加入了战团。但是，土耳其还把目标对准了库尔德工人党。自杀袭击者在安卡拉袭击了一场要求土耳其结束针对库尔德人行动的和平集会，杀死了102人。乱局反而增强了执政的正义和发展党的统治，该党在11月赢得了一场选举。
Je suis Charlie
我是查理
Other atrocities committed by jihadists included the killing of 148 people at Garissa University in Kenya, which the Shabab in next-door Somalia said it had carried out. A lone gunman slaughtered 38 tourists, most British, on a beach in Tunisia; three months earlier 22 people were killed at a museum in Tunis. In early January gunmen stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing 12. That attack prompted millions to protest worldwide in defence of free speech. But in some Muslim countries mass rallies were held denouncing the magazine for publishing cartoons of Muhammad the Prophet.
圣战分子所犯下的其他暴行包括在肯尼亚加里萨大学对于148人的屠杀，邻国索马里的索马里青年党声称执行了这场杀戮。一名独狼式的枪手在突尼斯的一处海滩上杀死了38名游客，其中大多数是英国人；三个月前，22人曾在突尼斯的一座博物馆中被杀。1月初，多名枪手袭击了巴黎的《查理周刊》办公室，杀死12人。那次袭击激起了世界各地数百万人上街游行，以捍卫自由的言论。但是，在一些穆斯林国家，多场大型游行却在谴责该杂志发表先知穆罕默德的漫画。
Around half of the hundreds of thousands of people who streamed into Europe in the continent's worst refugee crisis since the Balkan wars came from Syria. The image of a three-year-old Syrian boy found drowned on a Turkish beach caused widespread outrage. Several summits were held to try to resolve the crisis. Germany threw open its borders and is on course to accept more than 1m asylum-seekers this year.
在这块大陆自巴尔干战争以来的最严重的难民危机中涌入欧洲的数十万人中的大约一半人都来自叙利亚。在土耳其的一处海滩上被发现的溺水而亡已的一名三岁儿童的照片引起了大范围的怒火。数场峰会已经开过，以试图解决这场危机。德国敞开了自己的边境，今年接收的避难者将超过100万人。
China's stockmarkets plunged during the summer, sending out global ripples. China's ham-fisted attempts to stop the sell-off, such as directing large state investors (“the national team”) to buy shares, did nothing to calm nerves. Nor did a sudden devaluation of the yuan. The whole episode raised perturbing questions about the state of China's slowing economy and the competence of its regulators.
夏天的时候，中国股市崩盘了，导致了全球的连锁反应。中国停止卖空的拙笨尝试，如引导大型的国家投资者（“国家退”）购买股票，没能平定不安。一次突然的人民币贬值也是如此。整个剧情引出了有关中国正在减速的经济现状及其监管者能力的令人不安的问题。
The total value of announced takeovers in 2015 passed $4.3 trillion, breaking a record set in 2007. Pfizer's $160 billion purchase of Allergan, Dow Chemical's $130 billion merger with DuPont and Anheuser-Busch InBev's $110 billion acquisition of SAB Miller were three of the biggest in history. Other deals included Shell/BG Group ($70 billion), Charter Communications/Time Warner Cable ($55 billion), Anthem/Cigna ($52 billion) and Heinz/Kraft ($50 billion).
已在2015年宣布的收购合并的总价值超过了4.3万亿美元，打破了2007年创下的纪录。辉瑞对爱力根的1600亿美元的收购、陶氏化学1300亿美元与杜邦的合并以及安海斯-布什英博对米勒啤酒的1100亿美元的收购是史上最大的三宗收购交易。其他的交易包括壳牌与英国天然气公司（700亿美元）、查特通讯与时代华纳有线（550亿美元）、Anthem与信诺（520亿美元）以及亨氏与卡夫（500亿美元）。
The tech industry passed several milestones. Dell's $67 billion takeover of EMC was the biggest to date. Facebook set a new record when one billion people logged onto the socialnetwork in a single day. But there were fears that the heady valuations of many private tech startups, also known as “unicorns”, might turn out to be another bubble.
科技业走过了多个里程碑。戴尔670亿美元吃下易安信是截至目前最大的收购。脸书在10亿人在单独的一天中登录了这个社交网站之际创造了一个新记录。但是，存在着亦被称为“独角兽”的许多私有科技创业企业的高估值可能被证明是又一场泡沫的担忧。
It was a dismal year for Volkswagen. A boardroom spat at the German carmaker led to the resignation of Ferdinand Pi?0?5ch as chairman. VW was then embroiled in crisis in the autumn after admitting it had installed software on diesel cars that cheated emissions tests in America.
对于大众公司而言，今年是惨淡的一年。这家德国车企董事会的一场口角导致了费迪南德·皮耶希之于总裁一职的请辞。随后，大众公司在承认曾在柴油车上安装了欺骗了美国排放测试的软件后于秋天陷入了危机之中。
The president of everybody
人人的总统
VW's wrongdoing came to light because of an American investigation. America also brought another institution based in Europe to task when it laid corruption charges against several officials at FIFA, football's world governing body. Football fans cheered when Sepp Blatter at last stepped down as FIFA's president.
大众违法行为的曝光多亏了一场美国人的调查。美国人还曾对另一个总部设在欧洲的机构兴师问罪——他们对足球界的管理机构——国际足联的数名官员提出了腐败指控。当塞普·布拉特最终辞去国际足联主席时，球迷们欢呼雀跃。
A UN summit on climate change, held in Paris, produced an agreement that aims to hold the increase in the global average temperature to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels”, a more ambitious goal than had been expected. It marked an unprecedented political recognition of the risks of global warming, though some greens were sceptical that governments would follow through.
在巴黎举行的一场联合国气候变化峰会产生了一份协议，目标是把全球平均气温的升高保持在“远远低于前工业化时期高于2°C水平”，这是一个大于预期的野心勃勃的目标。它标志了一个史无前例的对于全球变暖风险的政治确认，尽管有些环保人士对各国政府会执行这个协议持怀疑的态度。
Gay marriage took two giant steps forward. It became legal everywhere in America when the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution grants an “equal dignity” to gay couples. And Ireland became the first country to approve gay marriage by a popular vote.
同性婚姻向前迈出了两大步。它在最高法院判定宪法准予同性夫妇一种“同等尊严”的那一刻起就在全美各地成为合法的了。爱尔兰成为了第一个通过全民投票赞同同性婚姻的国家。
Two big elections in Latin America suggested that the continent's “pink tide” was turning. In Argentina Mauricio Macri was elected president, beating the candidate favoured by the departing Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and bringing an end to 12 years of populist rule by the Kirchner family. In Venezuela, voters fed up with years of economic mismanagement rejected the party of President Nicolás Maduro in a parliamentary election.
拉丁美洲的两场大型选举表明，这块大陆的“粉色浪潮”正在转向。在阿根廷，毛里西奥·马克里当选为总统，打败了得到即将离任的克里斯蒂娜·费尔南德斯·基什内尔支持的候选人，终结了基什内尔家族长达12年的民粹主义统治。在委内瑞拉，已对多年的经济管理不善感到厌倦的选民在一次议会选举中拒绝了总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗的政党。
A career-defining election
决定前途的选举
Britain's general election confounded the pollsters when the Conservative Party, which had governed in coalition with the Liberal Democrats for five years, secured its first overall majority in Parliament since 1992. The Lib Dems were reduced to a handful of MPs, whereas nationalists won all but three seats in Scotland. The opposition Labour Party went into self-destruct mode after the election by choosing Jeremy Corbyn, a leftist, as its new leader.
英国大选在已同自由民主党联合执政了5年的保守党确任了它在议会中自1992年以来的第一次绝对多数时让民调机构感到困惑不解。自由民主党被减少到只有屈指可数的几位议员，而民族主义者在苏格兰获得了除三个席位之外的所有席位。反对党阵营的工党以在选举后选择一位左派人士——杰里米·科宾为其新的领导人的方式进入了自残模式。
The polls also got it wrong in Canada, where the Conservative Party was chucked out of office and a new Liberal government, headed by Justin Trudeau, was voted in. In Israel Binyamin Netanyahu wrong-footed the pundits when he was returned to power as prime minister. The Law and Justice Party, a group of xenophobic populists and conspiracy theorists, won two elections in Poland.
民调还在保守党被赶下台、一个由贾斯汀·特鲁多领导的新的自由党政府当选的加拿大出了错。在以色列，本杰明·内塔尼亚胡在被归还总理权力的时候把专家们打得晕头转向。由一群排外的民族主义者和阴谋论者组成的法律和正义党赢得了波兰的两场选举。
Nigeria elected a new president, Muhammadu Buhari, who defeated an incompetent incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan. Malcolm Turnbull became Australia's fourth prime minister in five years, when Tony Abbott was ousted by his Liberal Party.
尼日利亚选出了一位新总统——穆罕默杜·布哈里，他打败了一位不称职的在任者——古德勒克·乔纳森。马尔科姆·特恩布尔在托尼·阿博特被他的自由民主党罢免后，成为了澳大利亚5年来的第四位总理。
An election in January brought the far-left Syriza party to power in Greece. It went on to win a referendum in July that rejected austerity imposed by the IMF and EU. But withmarkets jittery, and trading on the Athens stock exchange suspended for five weeks, Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, was eventually forced to agree to another bail-out, much to the disgust of his more radical colleagues. Weary Greeks trudged to the polls for a third time in September and re-elected Mr Tsipras. With the euro zone still in the doldrums, the European Central Bank introduced a huge quantitative-easing programme in January.
1月，一场选举把极左的左翼联盟带上了希腊的权力顶峰。7月，它又赢了一场全民公决，拒绝了由IMF和欧盟强加给他们的紧缩措施。但是，在市场动荡和雅典股票交易所已被关闭了五周的情况下，总理阿列克西斯·齐普拉斯最终被迫同意了另一个救助计划，从而被他那些更加激进的同事所厌恶。11月，身心疲倦的希腊人第三次步履沉重地前往投票站，再次选举了齐普拉斯。鉴于欧元区仍旧低迷，欧洲央行在1月份引入了一项巨大的量化宽松计划。
After years of talks, Iran and six world powers reached a deal on Iran's nuclear programme. Some hailed it as a chance for Iran to come out of the cold. Others, notably Israel, said the deal was a mistake that would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons and throw its weight around.
经过多年谈判后，伊朗与世界6大国就伊朗核计划达成了一项协议。有人赞其为伊朗走出封闭的一个机会，以色列为代表的其他一些人称该协议是一个错误，它会允许伊朗发展核武器并四处投射其力量。
Dilma Rousseff had a terrible start to her second term as Brazil's president. A corruption scandal involving Petrobras, a state-controlled oil firm, ensnared members of her Workers' Party. The opposition threatened to impeach her because of allegedly illegal funding arrangements for the government. The economy shrank by 4.5% in the third quarter.
迪尔玛·罗塞夫作为巴西总统的第二个任期经历了一个可怕的开局。一桩涉及国有石油企业巴西石油的腐败丑闻把她的工人党的数名成员拉下了水。由于涉嫌非法的政府拨款安排，反对派已经威胁要弹劾她。该国经济在今年第三季度萎缩了4.5%。
Russia's economy stumbled. The IMF expects Russian GDP to contract by 3.8% this year and 0.6% in 2016. The country has been hammered by falling oil prices. Brent crude started the year trading at just under $60 a barrel; it is now below $38. Russia has also been hurt by sanctions in response to its military meddling in eastern Ukraine, though the fighting eased after a ceasefire was signed in February.
俄罗斯经济步履踉跄。IMF预计，俄罗斯的GDP，今年萎缩3.8%，2016年增长0.6%。该国所遭受的重创来自于不断下跌的油价。布伦特原油以仅仅低于60美元／桶的价格开始了今年的交易；如今，它位于38美元的下方。俄罗斯还被回应它对乌克兰东部的军事干预的制裁所伤，尽管战斗已经在一项停火协议于1月得到签署后平息了下来。
Nepal was struck by an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 in April, the worst in the Himalayan country in 80 years. The death toll of 9,000 was the highest from a natural disaster since the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.
4月，尼泊尔遭到了一场7.8级地震的打击，这是这个喜马拉雅山脉中的国家80年来最严重的一场地震。9000人的死亡总数，在2011年重创了日本的地震和海啸的自然灾害中是最高的。
Myanmar held its first freely contested election since 1990. The National League for Democracy, headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, trounced the party of the ruling junta. Cuba and the United States restored full diplomatic relations, which had been put in the deep freeze during the cold war. Travel restrictions were eased. America hopes its engagement with the Castro regime will push the island towards democracy.
缅甸举行了1990年以来的第一场自由竞争的选举。由昂山素季领导的全国民主联盟轻松地战胜了执政的军政府的政党。古巴和美国恢复了在冷战期间被终止了的完全的外交关系。旅行限制已被取消。美国希望与卡斯特罗政权的接触将推动这个岛国迈向民主。
He'd like to build a great wall
他想建造一座长城
America's presidential candidates started their campaigns. Hillary Clinton wobbled under pressure about her use of an insecure private server for official e-mail, but remains the Democratic front-runner. The Republican establishment was unpleasantly surprised when Donald Trump soared into the lead in the party's race, despite badmouthing women, Mexicans, Muslims, etc. The primaries start in February. Paul Ryan became (somewhat reluctantly) Speaker of the House following the defenestration of John Boehner.
美国的总统候选人们拉开了他们的造势活动。希拉里·克林顿在有关她为官方电邮使用了一个不安全私人服务器的压力下步履踉跄，但仍然是民主党的领跑者。共和党方面在唐纳德·特朗普在对妇女、墨西哥人和穆斯林出言不逊的情况下仍在党内领先。初选明年2月开始。保罗·瑞安在约翰·博纳出局后（多少有点不情愿地）当上了众议院议长。
America suffered several mass shootings. In one, in Charleston, South Carolina, nine people at a black church were gunned down by a white supremacist. Elsewhere the police were berated for their excessive use of force. The worst riots in Baltimore since the 1960s were triggered by the death of a black man in police custody.
美国遭受了数场大规模枪击之苦。在南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿的一场枪击事件中，9人在一个黑人教堂中被一名白人至上主义者开枪射杀。各地的警察因为过度使用武力而被讨伐。巴尔的摩上世纪60年代以来最严重的骚乱就是因为一位被警察的黑人的死亡而引起的。
The aviation industry introduced rules ensuring at least two crew members remain in the cockpit during a flight, after a suicidal co-pilot deliberately crashed a German airliner into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
民航业在一位有自杀倾向副驾驶故意将一架德国航班撞向法国阿尔卑斯山脉并造成了机上所有150人死亡后，引进了在飞行中至少要确保有两名机组成员在驾驶舱中的规定。
After a nine-and-a-half-year wait, the New Horizons space probe whizzed past Pluto at 14km per second (31,000mph). It took remarkable pictures that are only now filtering back to Earth, such as the ice-covered al-Idrisi mountains.
在9年半的等待后，“新地平线”太空探测器以每秒14千米（每小时31000英里）的速度掠过了冥王星。它拍摄到了目前正在传回地球的巨大的照片，如被冰层覆盖的伊德里西山脉。
Social media roared with indignation when Cecil the Lion was killed in a Zimbabwean national park by a dentist from Minnesota. Although the dentist had a permit, close to 1.5m people have signed a petition calling for him to face justice without anaesthetic.
社交媒体在狮王塞西尔在津巴布韦的一个国家公园中被一名来自明尼苏达州的牙医杀死时愤怒了。尽管这名牙医持有许可，但是仍有接近150万人签署了一项请愿，要求让他面对没有麻醉的正义。
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