VOA慢速英语 IN THE NEWS - NATO at 60: A War in Afghanistan, and

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is sixty years old. On April fourth, nineteen forty-nine, twelve countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. They were allies from World War Two. They promised to protect each other from the growing threat they saw from another former ally, the Soviet¹ Union.
　
NATO leaders at a working dinner in Baden-Baden, Germany, on Friday

Leaders from NATO countries have gathered for two days of meetings through Saturday in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany. The summit meetings also brought thousands of troops and police for security and to control protests.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the main subject at the sixtieth anniversary meetings would be the NATO operations in Afghanistan. President Obama announced a new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan last week.

About thirty-eight thousand American troops are currently in Afghanistan. The president is moving to raise that to about sixty-eight thousand by the end of the year.

The collapse² of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia in the nineteen nineties challenged NATO's traditional position as a defensive³ alliance. Ten years ago at this time, NATO was bombing Serbia to end its violent campaign against ethnic⁴ Albanians in Kosovo.
　
Protesters in Baden-Baden

NATO first brought together the countries of Western Europe with Canada and the United States. Today it includes former enemies of NATO that were members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact⁵. NATO's expansion to the east, toward the borders of Russia, has raised Russian concerns.

This week, Albania and Croatia officially joined NATO -- bringing the alliance to twenty-eight nations. And French President Nicholas Sarkozy has decided⁶ to return France to NATO's military command for the first time in more than forty years.

Looking to the future, spokesman James Appathurai says there are questions that NATO must answer.

JAMES APPATHURAI: "What do we need to do: Should we do more to fight cyber attacks? Should we do more to engage in energy security? How far should NATO's reach be for operations? Who should our partners be and how should we engage them?"

On Thursday, leaders of major industrial and developing countries met in London to battle the world recession. The Group of Twenty agreed to finance one trillion dollars in additional loans and credits for struggling countries. The money will go to the International Monetary⁷ Fund and other lenders.

President Obama said there is no guarantee that all the steps agreed to at the meeting will work, but:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "I think we applied⁸ the right medicine. I think the patient is stabilized⁹. There are still wounds that have to heal. There are still emergencies that could arise. But I think you have some pretty good care being applied."

The American president will meet with European Union leaders in the Czech Republic on Sunday. He talked about the summit at a meeting of mainly French and German students in Strasbourg on Friday. He says that in Prague he will lay out a plan to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Then Barack Obama heads to Turkey for the last stop on his first trip to Europe as president.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, written by Brianna Blake. I'm Steve Ember.

1 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

2 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

3 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

4 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

5 pact   

n.合同，条约，公约，协定

参考例句：

• The two opposition parties made an electoral pact.那两个反对党订了一个有关选举的协定。
• The trade pact between those two countries came to an end.那两国的通商协定宣告结束。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

8 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

9 stabilized   

v.（使）稳定， （使）稳固( stabilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The patient's condition stabilized. 患者的病情稳定下来。
• His blood pressure has stabilized. 他的血压已经稳定下来了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》