ECONOMIST (2007-9) (3회 수업)

[charliek]

READING LEVEL-UP(3/4회), SEPTEMBER, 2007                TERMS & BACKGROUND      INSTRUCTOR KIM SOO-YEON

Denuclearising North Korea: Scherzo

The music is more cheerful, but the libretto is hard to take seriously

PROGRESS, of sorts: on September 1st and 2nd in Geneva, negotiators from the United States and North Korea reaffirmed what in essence had been agreed in February but had then (1)m** obstacles. North Korea would declare and (2) d****** its nuclear programmes; America would, (3) among other o*******ing bilateral issues, start the process of (4) taking North Korea (전치사) its list of s**** s******s of terrorism.

Not for the first time, (5) disagreement a**** at once about what had actually been negotiated. Christopher Hill, (6)the chief American envoy, denied that his country was about (7) to take North Korea (전치사) the blacklist, as his counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, had claimed. That depended, Mr Hill said, on (8) North Korea's future efforts towards d***************. But even North Korea agreed that it had committed itself to declaring and disabling all its programmes by the end of the year.

It is a promise that Mr Hill badly wanted, after (9)the schedule l*** out in February had been t***** back by a tangle over North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank. In practice, North Korea could in a jiffy declare what it possesses, if it chose to. So what remains as uncertain as ever—perhaps even to that dark country's regime itself—is North Korea's strategic intent. Whether the deadline is a declaration in name only, or some way forward on substance, matters to those other members of (10)the six-p**** talks—America, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia—who want (11)a Korean peninsula f*** (전치사) nuclear weapons. To that end, there is not just the question of North Korea's declaration and disablement of its nuclear programmes, but also their complete dismantlement. That was not (12)s****ed out in the February agreement. But it was central to the agreement's parent deal, reached in September 2005 before North Korea stalked off in a huff.

What remains unclear is (13)the level of s******* North Korea will now allow. (14)International i********s this summer confirmed that the North had (15)shut down and s***ed the Yongbyon reactor and reprocessing plant responsible for producing the plutonium for the bomb that was exploded last October. Other sites were also sealed. But there is presumably much more to inspect, including (16)facilities for e*****ing uranium. Were North Korea to declare all its facilities, not even the most fervent admirers of Kim Jong Il, its strange dictator, would (17)t*** it at its w***. A declaration followed by a refusal to allow (18)i******** inspections would also be a joke. And if North Korea claimed to have disposed of all its nuclear stuff, then it would need to be traced to its new owners.

1.        걸림돌에 봉착하다

2.        핵 프로그램을 불능화하다

3.        양국의 다른 미해결 현안

4.        북한을 테러 지원국 명단에서 지우다

5.        서로 다른 말이 나오다

6.        미국의 북한 특사

7.        북한을 블랙리스트에서 지우다

8.        비핵화를 향한 북한의 앞으로의 노력

9.        지난 2월에 제시된 일정이 지연되었다

10.     6자 회담

11.     한반도 비핵화

12.     명시되다

13.     사찰 수준

14.     국제(핵)사찰단

15.     영변원자로 및 재처리 시설을 폐쇄하고 봉인하다

16.     우라늄 농축 시설들

17.     액면 그대로 받아들이다

18.     심도있는 사찰

Denuclearising North Korea: Scherzo

The music is more cheerful, but the libretto is hard to take seriously

PROGRESS, of sorts: on September 1st and 2nd in Geneva, negotiators from the United States and North Korea reaffirmed what in essence had been agreed in February but had then (1)met obstacles. North Korea would declare and (2) disable its nuclear programmes; America would, (3) among other outstanding bilateral issues, start the process of (4) taking North Korea off its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Not for the first time, (5) disagreement arose at once about what had actually been negotiated. Christopher Hill, (6)the chief American envoy, denied that his country was about (7) to take North Korea off the blacklist, as his counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, had claimed. That depended, Mr Hill said, on (8) North Korea's future efforts towards denuclearisation. But even North Korea agreed that it had committed itself to declaring and disabling all its programmes by the end of the year.

It is a promise that Mr Hill badly wanted, after (9)the schedule laid out in February had been thrown back by a tangle over North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank. In practice, North Korea could in a jiffy declare what it possesses, if it chose to. So what remains as uncertain as ever—perhaps even to that dark country's regime itself—is North Korea's strategic intent. Whether the deadline is a declaration in name only, or some way forward on substance, matters to those other members of (10)the six-party talks—America, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia—who want (11)a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. To that end, there is not just the question of North Korea's declaration and disablement of its nuclear programmes, but also their complete dismantlement. That was not (12)spelled out in the February agreement. But it was central to the agreement's parent deal, reached in September 2005 before North Korea stalked off in a huff.

What remains unclear is (13)the level of scrutiny North Korea will now allow. (14)International inspectors this summer confirmed that the North had (15)shut down and sealed the Yongbyon reactor and reprocessing plant responsible for producing the plutonium for the bomb that was exploded last October. Other sites were also sealed. But there is presumably much more to inspect, including (16)facilities for enriching uranium. Were North Korea to declare all its facilities, not even the most fervent admirers of Kim Jong Il, its strange dictator, would (17)take it at its word. A declaration followed by a refusal to allow (18)intrusive inspections would also be a joke. And if North Korea claimed to have disposed of all its nuclear stuff, then it would need to be traced to its new owners.

READING LEVEL-UP(3/4회), SEPTEMBER, 2007                TERMS & BACKGROUND      INSTRUCTOR KIM SOO-YEON

Put the following sentences into Korean.

1. So what remains as uncertain as ever—perhaps even to that dark country's regime itself—is North Korea's strategic intent. (p. 36)

2. Whether the deadline is a declaration in name only, or some way forward on substance, matters to those other members of the six-party talks—America, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia—who want a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons. (p. 36)

3. Simpler designs cut maintenance and repair costs. Shut-downs are now far less frequent, so that a typical station in America is now online 90% of the time, up from less than 50% in the 1970s. New “passive safety” features can shut a reactor down in an emergency without the need for human intervention. (p.11)

4. Technology has thus improved nuclear's economics. So has the squeeze on fossil fuels. Nuclear power stations are hugely expensive to build but very cheap to run. Gas-fired power stations—the bulk of new build in the 1980s and 1990s—are the reverse. Since gas provides the extra power needed when demand rises, the gas price sets the electricity price. Costly gas has therefore made existing nuclear plants tremendously profitable.

5. And what they think of the government they may well think of the country. (p. 12)

6. The two groups do not get on—hence the inability to form a government. They lead parallel lives, largely in ignorance of each other. (p. 12)

7. There was radical talk in both main parties of encouraging parental choice as the best way to drive up standards: if schoolchildren were free to vote with their feet, taking public funding with them, new schools would open and existing ones would improve in order to compete. (p. 12)

8. That talk has died down. Gordon Brown, the prime minister, is backing away from some of his predecessor's hard-won measures to loosen local government's control over schools and make them more responsive to parental demand. (p. 12)