羅馬再度推出共享單車

In 2013, Rome pulled the plug on its bike share program after it ran out of money and cars kept double-parking in front of its bike racks. Last year, a Hong Kong company gave up after many of its green bicycles ended up in the Tiber river. Months later, a Singapore company bailed after Romans stole the yellow bikes and broke them down for parts.

2013年，由於經費用盡，加上老有汽車並排停在單車架前，羅馬終止了單車共享計畫。去年，在旗下許多綠色自行車落得葬身台伯河的下場後，一家香港公司打了退堂鼓。數月後，一家新加坡公司在羅馬人偷走其黃色單車並拆解拿走零件後，也離開了。

Rome has been a bike share wasteland, but Uber says things will be different for the shiny new red bikes it has introduced all over the city.

羅馬一直是單車共享難以生存的荒原，但優步宣稱，它在全市推出的閃亮紅色新單車會讓情況改觀。

“We’ve tested ours on Rome’s cobblestones,” said Michele Biggi, manager of Uber’s Jump electric-bike program in southwestern Europe, who added that previous competitors’ bikes weren’t up to the city’s demands and “could have fallen down with just a gust of wind.”

優步南歐地區Jump電單車計畫經理米歇爾．畢吉說：「我們已在羅馬的鵝卵石街道上做過測試」，並指以前競爭對手的單車未達到城市的要求，「可能光是一陣風吹過就倒下了」。

He has big plans for the Uber bikes, he said, which “will change Rome and give the city a new lifeblood.”

他說，他為優步單車制定宏偉計畫，這「將改變羅馬且給這座城市注入新的生命力」。

Uber and its competitors have already introduced similar pedal-assisted bikes and electric scooters in Paris; London; Lisbon, Portugal; Brussels and other cities that in several cases are overrun with rolling menaces. (Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, has decried “the scooter anarchy.”) But Rome, the first Italian city to get Uber’s electric-bicycle service, is not any other European city.

優步及其競爭對手已在巴黎、倫敦、里斯本、布魯塞爾及其他城市推出類似的助力單車和電動滑板車，而其中有些城市狀況連連。（巴黎市長安妮．伊達戈曾譴責「滑板車無政府狀態」）。然而，第一個獲得優步電動自行車服務的義大利城市羅馬，可不是任何其他歐洲城市。

Rome could be a bike-share dream in one respect: There is no shortage of demand. The city has only two finished subway lines (a third is perennially under construction), and buses come late, fail to show up and occasionally explode.

從某方面來說，羅馬可以成為共享單車的夢幻國度：不乏需求。該市只有兩條完工的地鐵線路（第三條一直在興建中），而公車則會晚點、不出現，偶爾還會爆炸。

Driving on the city’s notoriously clogged streets is a nightmare. Parking is worse.

在這個城市塞到爆的街道上開車有如噩夢一場，找地方停車更會要了老命。

But the obstacles to a bike share program are daunting: Rome’s infamous potholes, its mounds of uncollected trash, double-parked cars, a strong vandal spirit in place since the actual Vandals sacked Rome, and a local resistance to change and physical exertion.

Rome’s embattled mayor, Virginia Raggi, urged Romans to show that the city is civilized after all.

但單車共享計畫遇到的阻礙也令人生畏：羅馬惡名昭彰的路面坑窪、成堆待收的垃圾、並排停放的汽車、自真正的汪達爾人洗劫羅馬以來就一直存在的強烈破壞精神，以及當地人對改變和體力消耗的抗拒。陷入困境的羅馬市長拉吉敦促羅馬市民，以行動證明這座城市畢竟是文明的。

“If we don’t want these bikes to be badly treated, guess who it is up to?” Raggi said at the Uber bikes’ unveiling Oct. 21. “Romans themselves are the first defense against degradation.”

拉吉10月21日在優步單車發布會上說：「如果我們不希望這些單車受到虐待，猜猜要靠誰呢？羅馬人自己是抵禦毀壞的第一道防線。」

The company is introducing a fleet of 2,800 bicycles that can be left practically anywhere, and they seem to be everywhere.

該公司正推出總數2800輛的自行車隊，使用後幾乎隨處皆可停放，而它們也似乎無所不在。

But not all Romans are fans. “Rome Is Gross” a well-known social media feed decrying the city’s degradation, has posted complaints about the high price of the Uber bikes, which cost 50 cents to unlock and then 20 cents for every minute of use. That is about the rate charged by car-sharing services.

但並非所有羅馬人都很喜歡。譴責城市退化的著名社交媒體消息「羅馬讓人噁心」抱怨優步單車收費高昂，解鎖價格為50美分，每用一分鐘收費20美分，這跟汽車共享服務費率差不多。

印尼輸出汞 禍害無窮

Thousands of children with crippling birth defects. Half a million people poisoned. A toxic chemical found in the food supply. Accusations of a government cover-up and police officers on the take.

數以千計兒童有嚴重先天缺陷。50萬人中毒。在食物裡發現一種有毒化學物。政府被指包庇，員警被控貪贓枉法。

This is the legacy of Indonesia’s mercury trade, a business intertwined with the lucrative and illegal production of gold.

這是印尼汞貿易遺留的後果。汞貿易與獲利豐厚卻違法的黃金生產業息息相關。

More than a hundred nations have joined a global campaign to reduce the international trade in mercury, an element so toxic there is “no known safe level of exposure,” according to health experts.

根據公共衛生專家的說法，汞元素很毒，「沒有已知的安全暴露劑量」。已有一百多國加入全球削減國際汞貿易量的行動。

But that effort has backfired in Indonesia, where illicit backyard manufacturers have sprung up to supply wildcat miners and replace mercury that was previously imported from abroad. Now, Indonesia produces so much black-market mercury that it has become a major global supplier, surreptitiously shipping thousands of tons to other parts of the world.

不過這種努力在印尼出現反效果，非法的製汞業者在各地民房後院湧現，向不正規的採礦人供貨，取代先前從國外進口的汞。如今，印尼製造這麼多黑市汞，成了全球性供應大國，偷偷把數千噸汞運到世界其他地方。

Much of the mercury is destined for use in gold mining in Africa and Asia, passing through hubs such as Dubai and Singapore, according to court records — and the trade has deadly consequences.

法庭紀錄顯示，這些汞多半經過杜拜和新加坡等轉運樞紐，用於非洲和亞洲的採金業，這種貿易產生致命的後果。

“It is a public health crisis,” said Yuyun Ismawati, a co-founder of an Indonesian environmental group, Nexus3 Foundation, and a recipient of the 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize. She has called for a worldwide ban on using mercury in gold mining.

印尼環保團體「連接點3基金會」共同創辦人、2009年高曼環境獎得獎人尤雲說：「這是一場公共衛生危機。」她已呼籲全球禁止在開採金礦時使用汞。

Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, stands out for its huge number of outlaw gold miners and for concerns that some law enforcement officials assigned to police the trade are instead profiting from it.

印尼是全球人口第四多的國家，非法的採金業者數量龐大，一些奉命監督汞貿易的執法官員反而從中牟利，這兩個現象都很嚴重。

As much as anyone, Cece Rifa’i, a former miner, is responsible for Indonesia’s mercury boom and spreading the scourge of contamination across the country.

礦工出身的西西就跟別人一樣，要為印尼汞貿易的熱絡發展和汙染擴散到全國負責。

But he has no regrets.

但他不後悔。

“I don’t feel guilty about anything,” he said from the veranda of his two-story home on the island of Java.

西西在他位於爪哇島的兩層樓自家陽台上說：「我毫不愧疚。」

For years, Cece was a pioneer in a network of illegal mercury producers, traders and smugglers who supply gold miners across Indonesia with mercury, used to extract gold from crushed ore.

多年來，西西一直在非法製造、買賣和走私汞的網絡裡打頭陣，這個網絡向印尼各地採金人提供汞，讓他們從碎礦砂中提取黃金。

On a single day, operating a furnace he constructed in his backyard, he could produce a ton of black-market mercury worth more than $20,000, he said.

西西說他在自家後院設置的一個熔爐運轉一天，就能製造一噸黑市汞，值兩萬多美元。

For decades, Indonesia got most of its mercury legally from the United States and Europe. But recognizing the harm it was doing, Western countries began reducing mercury exports six years ago.

曾有數十年，印尼多數汞是從歐洲和美國合法進口，但西方國家認識到輸出汞的危害之後，六年前開始減少出口量。

Since 2013, 114 countries, including Indonesia, have signed on to the Minamata Convention, a treaty that took effect in 2017 and that requires participating nations to reduce the export and use of mercury in a variety of industries.

從2013年起，包括印尼在內共有114國簽署「關於汞的水俣公約」，公約2017年生效，要求締約國減少汞的出口量和在多種產業的使用量。

Nevertheless, United Nations trade data shows that Indonesia became a significant exporter of mercury from 2015 to 2017, peaking at more than 320 tons in 2016.

但聯合國貿易資料顯示，2015到2017年，印尼成了汞的重要出口國，2016年出口量最多，超過320噸。

※說文解字看新聞

這篇說的是印尼製造並輸出大量的汞，讓亞洲、非洲採金業得以從礦砂中提取黃金，但汞含劇毒，汙染環境，造成印尼公共衛生危機。

wildcat當名詞時是野貓，當形容詞時有幾種引申義。第一是「財務不可靠的」，如：wildcat banks，或「財務不可靠的機構發行的」，如：wildcat currency。美國有一本書wildcat currency（中譯「虛擬貨幣經濟學」），就是談虛擬貨幣，包括線上寶物、紅利點數、比特幣等。

第二是本文使用的意思「在合法範圍外的」，所以wildcat miners是「未經官方許可的採礦者 」。第三是「未經工會同意的」，如：wildcat strike。最後是「在未曾鑽探過油氣的地區鑽鑿的」，如：wildcat well，這是美國人早期在德州鑽井時的俚語。

illegal和illicit是同義詞，可以互換，不過illicit多了一個意思「社會不容的」，如：an illicit love affair。