Average hourly earnings were flat last month, and are up just 1.7% from a year earlier, half the rate at which they were growing before the recession.

平均小时薪金与上月持平，仅比去年同期水平增长了1.7%，这只是衰退前增长率的一半。

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On December 4th the Bank of England again opted for boldness. It cut its benchmark rate by a percentage point, to 2%, following a stunning one-and-a-half-point reduction a month earlier.

12月4日，英格兰银行再一次选择大幅度降息，继一个月前1.5%的惊人降幅将市场基准利率降低了1个百分点，至2%。

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Porsche AG's sales fell by half last month from a year earlier, to 1,427 vehicles.

保时捷(Porsche AG)当月的销量较一年前下降了一半，只有1,427辆。

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Explorer Pen Hadow led a two-and-a-half-month trek earlier this year that revealed Arctic ice is melting faster than previously thought.

VOA: standard.2009.12.13

Simply put, the company he returned to last month is not the one he left half a decade earlier.

FORBES: ABC News Chief Attempts To Reinvent The News

Earlier in the month a blue, half-sized gorilla named Werbert was taken from St Werburgh's City Farm and a sculpture in Clifton, created by television personality Timmy Mallett, was set on fire.

BBC: Stolen gorilla Werbert

It was one of more than 60 ships that have been attacked by pirates off the Somali coast this year alone, compared with about half that in 2007, according to a report released earlier this month by Chatham House, a London-based institute that analyzes international affairs.

CNN: Somali forces free pirate hostages