These standards may sound like instruments of accounting torture, but countries all over the world are embracing them.

这些标准乍看像是一种会计折磨，但全世界的国家都采纳它。

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New legislation to be introduced by the end of the month will make it impossible for British arms brokers to sell long-range missiles and instruments of torture to anyone.

BBC: UK arms pledge 'abandoned'

But even if it is, the whole idea raises that interesting question and suggests, to me at least, a better way to deal with the problem than weird-looking instruments of torture that enforce certain postures and hand gestures.

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