澳总理“力挺”末日论 盼人民战斗到底

According to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the Mayans were right and the apocalypse is near.

According to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the Mayans were right and the apocalypse is near.

In a spoof 50-second video appearance promoting a local radio station's breakfast show, Gillard provided hair-raising details that she said would come when the world ends this month, as the ancient Mayans calendar predicted.

With the straight face she often uses in a normal press conference, and surrounded by Australian national flags, Gillard addressed viewers as "My dear remaining fellow Australians."

"The end of world is coming. It wasn't Y2K, it wasn't even the carbon price," said Gillard firmly. "It turns out that the Mayan calendar is true."

Y2K was the computer glitch feared globally just before the year 2000, while the carbon tax refers to a major controversial policy put forward by her Labour government in 2017.

She went into terrifying details about the end of the world such as "flesh-eating zombies" and "demonic hell beasts", but then wooed her constituents with promises.

"If you know one thing about me it is this: I will always fight for you to the very end," she said, but noted that there is also a bright spot.

"At least this means I won't have to do Q&A again," she said, referring to an Australian TV show where politicians usually have to face tough questions from the audience.

A spokesman for Gillard said the video, which was uploaded by radio station Triple J on Thursday and has already been viewed more than 232,000 times on YouTube, was simply a spoof.

"It's just bit of fun," he told the reporters. "It's just a bit of humor for the end of the year. Nothing else."

The video comes out in the wake of a phone hoax in which two Australian presenters from another local radio station called the hospital which is treating Prince William's wife Kate and posed as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles to ask questions about her condition.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

双语资讯

(Agencies)

日前，澳大利亚总理茱莉亚-吉拉德录制了一段视频，在其中表示：玛雅人的预言是真的，世界末日即将来临！

在这段50秒钟的搞笑视频中，吉拉德告诉了大家一些自己认为即将在本月月末的世界末日发生的令人恐惧的细节。有些人认为古老的玛雅历法预言了世界末日的来临。这段视频是为推广当地一家电台的早间节目录制的。

她在视频中和平时召开记者发布会时一样表情严肃，身边插着数面澳大利亚国旗。吉拉德称呼观众为“我亲爱的澳大利亚幸存同胞们”。

吉拉德坚定地说：“世界末日就要来了。不是千禧危机，也不是碳税，玛雅历法是真实的。”

千禧危机是指2000年之前出现的全球性计算机故障恐慌，碳税是指2017年以她为首的工党政府提出的一项有争议的政策。

接着，她还描述了世界末日有可能出现的恐怖细节，比如“食人僵尸”、“恶魔怪兽”等等，但之后也做出了承诺。

“如果你对我有所了解的话，那就是，我会一直为你们战斗到底。”但她指出也有令人高兴的一面。

她说：“至少这意味着我将不用再去参加质询了。”她指的是参加一档电视台节目时，政客经常要回答观众提出的尖刻问题。

吉拉德的一名发言人说，这只是一段搞笑视频。这段视频在本周四由电台“三J晨间秀”节目上传到网上，在YouTube视频网站上点击量已经超过23.2万次。

他告诉记者：“这只是为了有趣。只是末日幽默。没有别的意思。”

在这段视频发布之前，来自另一家地方电台的两名澳大利亚主持人致电凯特王妃就诊的医院，假装伊丽莎白女王和查尔斯王储，询问有关凯特王妃的情况。

Vocabulary:

Y2K: 千禧危机，千年虫

in the wake of: 紧紧跟随，效仿