Rubbish in Rio 里約熱內盧的垃圾

媒體英語會帶大家一起學習 BBC 撰稿人在報道世界大事時常用到的單詞和短語。

里約熱內盧當局同馬路清潔工就結束罷工行動已達成新協議。持續了八天的大罷工導致這座巴西首都城市在狂歡節的一周里垃圾成堆，臭味難忍。以下是 BBC 記者 Julia Carneiro 發回的報道：

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.