Rubbish in Rio 里约热内卢的垃圾

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

里约热内卢当局同马路清洁工就结束罢工行动已达成新协议。持续了八天的大罢工导致这座巴西首都城市在狂欢节的一周里垃圾成堆，臭味难忍。以下是 BBC 记者 Julia Carneiro 发回的报道：

There's something rotten in Rio - and the smell is coming from the huge stacks of rubbish piled up on sidewalks all over the city. Rio's street sweepers chose the carnival holiday to demand better salaries. Their wages start at roughly $400 a month.

There could hardly be a better time for them to prove their importance. The streets were left a mess after hundreds of carnival parades and now, rubbish piles up in both poor and uptown neighbourhoods - and in tourist areas like Ipanema or Copacabana beach.

The president of Rio's rubbish collecting company has even appealed to the population to store rubbish at home whenever possible. He says 30% of the city's sweepers have gone on strike. Some of those who have been working have been threatened by the strike movement so now police has been deployed alongside rubbish collectors to keep them safe as they go about their business.

The strike has divided opinions in Rio. On social media, many support the sweepers' demands for better salaries. Others say they are opportunists and the situation is a big embarrassment to the city.

But Brazil's culture of littering the streets doesn't help. A video that went viral online shows that even authorities have a problem with that. Rio's mayor, Eduardo Paes, is seen throwing what seemed to be the rest of an apple on the sidewalk - and now promised to impose himself a fine for his wrongdoing. His government recently created a programme to keep Rio's residents from littering the streets.