English Quiz 125

(English Quiz 125)

1. What's the world's most worrisome nuclear-proliferation hotspot? Answer: the diplomatic table in Beijing where six-party talks are periodically convened to discuss North Korean nuclear disarmament. Every time the international negotiators gather—or even threaten to gather—Pyongyang seems to take another step toward unrestrained nuclear breakout.

Q: 試翻 "Every time ... unrestrained nuclear breakout."

2. In the summer of 2003, when the talks were first planned, Pyongyang merely insisted on its right to hold what it coyly called a "war deterrent." Five rounds of dialogue later, there has been real progress—not in the negotiations, but in North Korea's nuclear program. After defiantly admitting that the nation already possessed nukes and later stating it would not get rid of them "under any circumstances," the North last October shocked the world with its first nuclear test. You might think that the diplomatic sophisticates in charge of the negotiations would have detected a discouraging pattern by now. Apparently not. Recent reports suggesting that Pyongyang may be preparing for a second test have only increased urgent calls for the North to return to the bargaining table, possibly as soon as early February.

Q: 試翻 "Recent reports suggesting that ... as soon as early February."

3. Perhaps most astonishing of all, even Washington is now straining for another chance to coax Pyongyang into voluntary nuclear self-disarmament. Over the past year, the Bush Administration, once the only actor in the cast committed to pressing North Korea into nonproliferation compliance, has performed a dizzying climb-down. Gone are U.S. demands for the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of the North's nuclear programs. American diplomats no longer even talk of North Korea's highly enriched-uranium program, whose public exposure by State Department officials in 2002 triggered the ongoing proliferation drama. Since North Korean officials now insist they've never had such a program, it would be undiplomatic to suggest otherwise. Instead, the U.S. was reduced last month to promising North Korea an "early harvest" in return for good behavior. This concept called for the U.S. to pledge economic aid (food, oil) and other benefits (including, perhaps, diplomatic recognition) in return for a provisional North Korean freeze of its plutonium facilities and a readmission of nuclear inspectors. In other words, the Bush Administration was proffering a zero-penalty return to the previous nuclear deals Pyongyang had flagrantly broken—but with additional goodies, and a provisional free pass for any nukes produced since 2002. With this overture, the Bush team embraced the very approach it had once mocked as weak-kneed and "Clintonesque."

Q: 試翻 "Gone are U.S. demands ... the North's nuclear programs."

Q: 試翻 "In other words, ... since 2002."