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The world this week
世界国际要闻
Business
经济
Britain’s economy plunged into recession in the second quarter, as GDP contracted by a record 20.4% compared with the previous three months. In the first half of 2020 the British economy was hit twice as hard as America’s and fared worse than Germany, Italy and France. There was a sliver of positive news—growth picked up again in June. That will be of little comfort to those facing the end of furlough. Figures also showed a huge drop in the number of people in employment, and redundancies are at a seven-year high. The government’s job-retention scheme will soon start to wind down, though millions still depend on it.
英国经济在第二季度陷入衰退，国内生产总值与前三个月相比下降了创纪录的20.4%。2020年上半年，英国经济遭受的打击是美国的两倍，比德国、意大利和法国的情况更糟。好消息是——6月份经济增长再次回升。对于那些即将结束休假的人来说，并不会得到什么宽慰。数据还显示，就业人数大幅下降，裁员人数达到7年来的最高水平。政府的工作保留计划将很快结束，尽管仍有数百万人依赖这一计划。
Come dine with me
跟我一起用餐吧
The hospitality industry in Britain has been missing all those absent workers. A government scheme to help the industry by subsidising meals in restaurants, pubs and cafés during August was used by 10.5m diners in its first week. Each customer gets up to 10 pounds ($13) deducted from his meal on Mondays to Wednesdays; the restaurant claims the money back from the Treasury.
英国酒店餐饮业的员工在流失。为了帮助餐饮业，政府推出了一项8月份在餐馆、酒吧和咖啡馆就餐的补贴计划，该计划在第一周就吸引了1050万的顾客用餐。周一至周三用餐，每人将优惠10英镑（13美元），餐饮店将向政府财政部提出补贴申请。
America’s unemployment rate fell again in July, to 10.2%. Employers created 1.8m jobs, fewer than the 4.8m that were added to the payrolls in June, when lockdowns eased.
美国的失业率在7月份再次下降到10.2%。雇主们创造了180万个工作岗位，少于6月份封锁措施放松时新增的480万个就业岗位。
With Democrats and Republicans at loggerheads over a new stimulus package, Donald Trump issued an executive order that, among other things, would reinstate the additional unemployment benefits that ceased in July (though at $400 a week rather than $600) and defer the collection of payroll taxes. The order’s intent may be to concentrate minds; the extra benefits depend on contributions from cash-strapped states.
由于民主党人和共和党人就一项新的刺激方案上争执不下，特朗普发布了一项行政命令，其中包括恢复7月份停止的额外失业福利（每周400美元，而不是600美元），并推迟征收工资税。该命令的目的可能是集中思路；额外失业福利取决于资金短缺的州的贡献程度。
Mr Trump also issued orders banning ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, from America within 45 days and a similar decree curtailing American firms from doing business with WeChat. As with many of Mr Trump’s dictums, the legality of the president’s latest orders is questionable, though they undoubtedly create uncertainty for the companies involved. The share price of WeChat’s parent company, Tencent, was hammered following his pronouncement.
特朗普还下令，限TikTok的中国公司所有者字节跳动(ByteDance)45天后离开美国市场，并颁布了类似的法令，限制美国公司与微信开展业务。与特朗普的许多裁决一样，总统最新命令的合法性令人生疑，尽管该令无疑会给相关公司带来了不确定性。在他发表声明后，微信母公司腾讯的股价大幅下挫。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
