Turkey was battling to respond to a historic natural disaster after its biggest earthquake in almost a century flattened neighbourhoods across the country’s south-east and northern Syria, leaving a death toll rising through the thousands.

土耳其发生近一个世纪以来最大地震，该国东南部和叙利亚北部的居民区被夷为平地，死亡人数上升至数千人。该国正在努力应对这场历史性的自然灾害。

Monday’s 7.8 magnitude quake destroyed thousands of buildings when it hit shortly after 4am local time, sending people fleeing into the streets in near freezing temperatures. Yet more devastation was wrought by a second quake of 7.5 magnitude that struck hours later.

当地时间周一凌晨4点刚过，一场7.8级地震摧毁了数千座建筑物，人们在接近零度的温度下逃到街上。然而，几小时后发生的第二次7.5级地震造成了更大的破坏。

Regions of Syria impoverished by years of war were also badly hit by the quake, with tremors felt as far away as Lebanon, Egypt and Israel.

由于多年战争而陷入贫困的叙利亚地区也受到了地震的严重打击，远至黎巴嫩、埃及和以色列都有震感。

——本文2023年2月7日发布于FT中文网，英文原题为Devastating earthquakes rock Turkey and Syria leaving thousands dead

Google revealed plans on Monday to launch a chatbot to rival OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT, as it seeks to make up lost ground in the race to bring powerful new language artificial intelligence to the internet search business.

谷歌(Google)周一透露计划推出一款聊天机器人，与OpenAI颇受欢迎的ChatGPT竞争。该公司正寻求在将强大的新语言人工智能引入互联网搜索业务的竞赛中收复失地。

The announcement comes more than two months after OpenAI drew worldwide attention with the public release of its chatbot, which highlighted an easier way to find answers to queries than using a traditional search engine such as Google.

两个多月前，OpenAI公开发布了其聊天机器人，吸引了全世界的关注，该机器人强调了一种比使用谷歌等传统搜索引擎更容易找到查询答案的方法。

Microsoft, which recently announced a “multibillion dollar” investment in OpenAI, has been gearing up to use its AI in its Bing search engine, potentially beating Google to the punch in the most important new technology to hit the search market in years.

微软(Microsoft)最近宣布向OpenAI投资“数十亿美元”，并一直在准备在搜索引擎必应(Bing)中使用其人工智能技术，这可能会在多年来冲击搜索市场的最重要的新技术上击败谷歌。

——本文2023年2月7日发布于FT中文网，英文原题为Google reveals plans for chatbot ‘Bard’ as AI tech race heats up

The UK Treasury and Bank of England are designing a “digital pound” that could supplant banknotes by the end of this decade and fend off a Big Tech competitor.

英国财政部和英国央行(Bank of England)正在设计一种“数字英镑”(digital pound)，有望在2030年左右取代纸币，并抵御大型科技公司的竞争。

With the decline of cash, ministers and officials think there is likely to be a need for a publicly-backed digital currency that would sit in wallets on smartphones and could be used for shopping much like notes and coins.

随着现金的减少，大臣和官员们认为，可能需要一种由政府支持的数字货币，这种货币可以存放在智能手机的钱包里，像纸币和硬币一样用于购物。

Consumers already accustomed to fast digital payments would see few obvious differences, but the core infrastructure would be part of the central bank and could be guaranteed to be available for everyone to use.

已经习惯了快速数字支付的消费者将看不到什么明显的区别，但核心基础设施将是央行的一部分，可以保证每个人都可以使用。

——本文2023年2月7日发布于FT中文网，英文原题为UK to design ‘digital pound’ that could fend off future private tech rival

US President Joe Biden will take aim at Wall Street and corporate America in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday, reviving his plan for a tax on billionaires and calling on Congress to quadruple the US levy on share buybacks.

美国总统乔•拜登(Joe Biden)将在周二发表的年度国情咨文(State of the Union)演说中将矛头对准华尔街和美国企业，重启对亿万富翁征税的计划，并呼吁国会将美国的股票回购税提高两倍。

Previewing the economic portions of Biden’s speech, the White House said the president would tout the strength of recovery in the US labour market and his efforts to reduce inflation, while calling for deficit reduction “through additional reforms to ensure the wealthy and largest corporations pay their fair share”.

在预告拜登演讲中的经济部分时，白宫表示，总统将宣扬美国劳动力市场的复苏力度，以及他为降低通胀所做的努力，同时呼吁“通过进一步改革，确保富人和大企业支付公平份额”来削减赤字。

Biden’s call for higher taxes on high-income households and big business has had only limited success over the past two years, when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress, and will face even more resistance with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

拜登呼吁对高收入家庭和大企业增税的呼吁在过去两年里只取得了有限的成功，当时民主党控制着国会两院，而现在众议院由共和党控制，拜登将面临更大的阻力。

——本文2023年2月7日发布于FT中文网，英文原题为Biden to revive plan for billionaire tax in State of the Union address