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The world this week
本周国际要闻
Business
商业板块
In an unexpected move, Facebook blocked news content on its sites in Australia, and also stopped people outside the country from viewing Australian news publications on its platforms. The social-media giant took the action after the lower house of parliament passed a bill that would force it to pay for news content that has been shared by users; it says the law is unclear about what constitutes “news”.
令人意外的是，Facebook屏蔽了其澳大利亚网站上的新闻内容，并禁止境外人士在其平台上浏览澳大利亚新闻出版物。这家社交媒体巨头采取这一行动之前，澳洲下议院通过了一项法案，要求Facebook为用户分享的新闻内容付费；该公司表示，这项法案并未清楚定义什么是“新闻”。
Facebook’s defiant tone was a stark contrast to Google’s global agreement to pay News Corporation for content from its publications, which include the Wall Street Journal and the Sun in Britain. Google was also under threat from the proposed law in Australia and had warned that it would shut its search engine there.
Facebook的挑衅式口吻与谷歌同意向新闻集团(News Corporation)支付其出版物内容费用的全球协议形成鲜明对比，这些出版物包括《华尔街日报》和英国的《太阳报》。谷歌也受到澳大利亚拟议法律的威胁，并警告称公司将关闭其在澳大利亚的搜索引擎。
Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH, a French luxury-goods group, is joining the growing list of business leaders who have set up a special-purpose acquisition company. A SPAC is a shell company that lists on a stock exchange with the intent of merging with an existing company, enabling the firm to raise capital without the slog of an IPO. They became popular in America in 2020, but are now taking off in Europe, too. Mr Arnault’s investment company is launching its spac with other investors to look for deals in financial services.
法国奢侈品集团路威威登集团的主席伯纳德·阿尔诺也加入了成立特殊目的收购公司的商界领袖的行列。特殊目的收购公司（SPAC）是一家在证券交易所上市的空壳公司，其目的是与现有公司合并，使公司无需进行首次公开募股即可筹集资金。它们于2020年在美国开始流行，现在欧洲也开始流行起来。阿尔诺的投资公司将与其他投资者一起推出特殊目的收购公司，寻找金融服务领域的交易。
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as the new director-general of the World Trade Organisation. She is the first African and the first woman to hold the job. The Trump administration had opposed the nomination of Ms Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance minister, claiming that she lacks experience. But her only rival, Yoo Myung-hee, South Korea’s trade minister, withdrew her candidacy in early February, soon after Joe Biden took office.
恩戈齐·奥孔乔·伊韦拉（Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala）被任命为世界贸易组织新任总干事。她是第一位担任该职位的非洲人，也是第一位任此职位的女性。特朗普政府曾反对提名尼日利亚前财长伊韦拉，称她缺乏经验。而她唯一的竞争对手、韩国贸易部长柳明熙在2月初乔·拜登上任后不久就撤回了她的候选人资格。
China displaced America as the European Union’s biggest trading partner last year, according to official data, with both exports and imports growing. America remains the EU’s biggest export market (followed by Britain), but overall trade slumped between the two after their economies tanked during the pandemic.
根据官方数据，中国去年取代美国成为欧盟最大的贸易伙伴，出口和进口都在增长。美国仍然是欧盟最大的出口市场(其次是英国)，但在疫情期间双方经济遭受重创后，二者之间的贸易总额大幅下滑。
Official statistics confirmed that Britain’s GDP contracted by 9.9% in 2020, the worst performance in the G7. The economic recovery that began mid-year stalled when the second wave of the pandemic took hold. The Treasury’s average of forecasts suggests that the economy will grow by 4.4% this year and 5.7% in 2022, depending on what happens with COVID-19.
官方统计证实，英国的GDP在2020年下降了9.9%，是七国集团中表现最差的。年中开始的经济复苏在第二波疫情爆发时陷入停滞。财政部的平均预测显示，今年经济将增长4.4%，2022年将增长5.7%，这取决于新冠疫情的发展情况。
Japan’s economy shrank by 4.8% in 2020. The country’s economic output picked up towards the end of the year, helped by a surge in exports.
日本经济在2020年萎缩了4.8%。在出口激增的推动下，日本的经济产出在接近年底时有所回升。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
