📘【Ken的高頻單字筆記 I】
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📰 今天我們來讀讀【華爾街日報】
🖐🏽 五分鐘來關心國際時事 — 墨西哥治安 🇲🇽

📰 Mexico Reports Slight Decline in 2019 Homicides
Nation’s murder rate remained at highest level in decades despite fall in number of killings

MEXICO CITY—Mexico registered 209 fewer homicides in 2019 than a year earlier, the first decline in five years, though the murder rate remained at its highest level in decades, the National Statistics Institute said Wednesday.

📌 這篇文章討論墨西哥 (Mexico) 的殺人罪 (homicide) 數字的微小下降(slight decline)。nation是國家的意思，在這裡是指墨西哥，這是常用修辭方法之一。作者也用同義詞提高文章的可讀性： homicide vs murder vs killing。

The country registered 36,476 homicides last year, down from 36,685 in 2018, according to preliminary data based on death certificates. The homicide rate was unchanged from 2018 at 29 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest level on records stretching back 30 years.

📌 這段交代有關數據，register (登記)、down from (從...下降)、according to preliminary data (根據初步資料) 和 unchanged (不變的)是常見用語。

“The important thing is that the government doesn’t rest on its laurels by saying we’ve slowed the rise in homicides,” said Cassius Wilkinson, a security analyst at political-risk consultancy Empra. “A plateau at historic highs still isn’t good for Mexico’s public security.”

📌 這段引述一位保安分析員 (security analyst) 的意見。rest on one’s laurels (不求進步) 是道地用語。plateau的原意是高原，在這裡引申指有關數字維持於高位不降。

Monthly police reports for 2020 show that homicides were up 1.5% in the first eight months of this year from a year earlier, although the numbers have been overshadowed by more than 74,000 deaths of people infected with the coronavirus.

The drop in the preliminary number of homicides for 2019 will likely become a small increase when final data are released at the end of October, said security analyst Alejandro Hope. “The good news is that it’s not growing, the bad news is that it’s not falling,” he added.

📌 這兩段繼續分析有關數字的走勢。overshadowed by (因為...失色的) 是生動的用語。preliminary 跟 final 是異義詞，the good news is that…the bad news is that… 是平行結構，也是很好的修辭方式。

Lowering the level of violence, much of it by organized-crime groups, is among the main concerns of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador whose strategy has been to reduce direct confrontation between security forces and heavily armed criminal gangs.

Since taking office at the end of 2018, Mr. López Obrador has disbanded the Federal Police and replaced it with a National Guard drawn mostly from the ranks of army and naval police. The National Guard has close to 100,000 members, and is expected to increase to 140,000.

📌 這兩段介紹墨西哥總統其中一項主要關注 (main concern) 就是降低暴力的水平 (lower the level of violence)。他的策略 (strategy) 是減少保安部隊 (security forces) 和犯罪集團 (criminal gang) 之間的直接對抗 (direct confrontation)。

Homicide rates last year fell in 15 of the country’s 32 states, including Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo—home to tourism hubs Los Cabos and Cancún—and Mexico City.

Among the most violent states was Guanajuato in central Mexico, which has been the site of fighting between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and a gang of fuel thieves called the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. Authorities arrested José Antonio Yépez, the alleged head of the fuel theft gang, in early August.

While violence increased in Guanajuato, the homicide rate fell last year in neighboring Jalisco state. The number of murders could be masked by an increase in forced disappearances in the state as the Jalisco cartel consolidates its control of the area, said Mr. Wilkinson.

“A lot of the states that lead the rankings are leading for different reasons,” he added, noting increased killings in northern states such as Sonora and Chihuahua. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the 2020 numbers are much higher.”

📌 這四段詳細分析墨西哥不同州的殺人罪率 (homicide rate)去年的情況。the rankings的意思就是排名。在旅游樞紐 (tourism hub)的州殺人罪率下降，個別州份因爲幫派的打鬥變得最暴力的。

未完待續...
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📰 作者
Anthony Harrup
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