瑪格麗特·撒切爾逝世 享年87歲

Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister who became one of the most influential global leaders of the postwar period, died on Monday, three decades after her championing of free-market economics and individual choice transformed Britain's economy and her vigorous foreign policy played a key role in the end of the Cold War.

英國前首相瑪格麗特·撒切爾(Margaret Thatcher)週一去世。她是二戰後全球最有影響力的領導人之一。30年前，她對自由市場經濟學和個人選擇的支持改變了英國經濟，其積極的外交政策也在冷戰末期發揮了關鍵作用。

'It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother, Baroness Thatcher, died peacefully following a stroke this morning,' said Mrs. Thatcher's spokesman, Timothy Bell. She was 87.

撒切爾的發言人貝爾(Timothy Bell)說，馬克·撒切爾(Mark Thatcher)和卡羅爾·撒切爾(Carol Thatcher)滿懷悲痛地宣佈，他們的母親、撒切爾女男爵週一上午突發中風，平靜地去世，享年87歲。

'We've lost a great prime minister, a great leader, a great Briton,' said U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who cut short a Europe trip to return to the U.K. on Monday afternoon. 'She saved our country and I believe she will go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.'

英國現任首相卡梅倫(David Cameron)說，我們失去了一位偉大的首相、偉大的領導人、偉大的英國人。卡梅倫縮短了他的歐洲之行，週一下午返回英國。他說，撒切爾挽救了我們的國家，我相信，她將作爲和平時期最偉大的英國首相被載入史冊。

Downing Street said Mrs. Thatcher's funeral service will be held next week at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and will be followed by a private cremation. It will be a ceremonial funeral with military honors.

唐寧街(Downing Street)說，撒切爾的葬禮將於下週在倫敦聖保羅大教堂(St. Paul's Cathedral)舉行，之後將舉行私人的火葬儀式。這將是一場帶有軍隊禮儀規格的葬禮。

Mrs. Thatcher, who grew up in an apartment without hot water above her father's grocery store in Grantham, eastern England, went on to become Britain's first female prime minister and arguably the country's most dominant political figure since Winston Churchill.

撒切爾夫人在英格蘭東部格蘭瑟姆(Grantham)的一個公寓里長大。這套公寓就在其父開的雜貨店樓上，屋內沒有熱水。但撒切爾夫人卻成了英國首位女首相，可以說是自溫斯頓·丘吉爾(Winston Churchill)以來英國最重要的政治人物。

She was a key ally and close friend of former President Ronald Reagan, sharing with him a view on free-market, monetarist solutions to the economic problems of the day, as well as an uncompromising stance on how to handle the former Soviet Union, earning her the nickname the Iron Lady. Together the two led a rightward shift in Western politics that extolled the virtues of a free-market economic system with little government intervention that has largely endured, though aspects, such as the deregulation of financial services, have been questioned during the credit crisis. In moves that were widely copied, Mrs. Thatcher took on Britain's all-powerful trade unions and privatized state-run industries, governing with a take-no-prisoners style that earned her both admiration and dislike.

她是美國前總統羅納德·里根(Ronald Reagan)的關鍵盟友和親密朋友，兩人在很多問題上觀點一致：都相信自由市場；都認爲當時的經濟問題要用貨幣主義的方法來解決；在如何處理前蘇聯問題上秉持毫不妥協的立常這也爲她贏得了“鐵娘子”的稱號。里根和撒切爾引領西方政壇向右傾斜，擁抱幾乎不加政府幹預的自由市場經濟體系。兩人在當時做出的政策轉變大部分得以保留，但諸如放鬆對金融業的管制等某些方面則在信貸危機期間受到質疑。撒切爾夫人全然不懼英國勢力強大的工會，將國有企業進行私有化改制，其鐵面無情的治理方式既爲她贏得了欽佩，也令她遭到某些人的憎惡。這些舉措被很多其他領導人效仿。

'She showed everyone what a political leader with a powerful agenda could accomplish,' said George Shultz, who was secretary of state to Ronald Reagan.

在里根政府擔任國務卿的舒爾茨(George Shultz)說，她向大家展示了一個擁有遠大目標的政治領袖所能達到的成就。

'She was the last outlier from the ideological wars against Marxism, an epoch-making politician, but an incredibly polarizing force,' said Patrick Dunleavy, professor of political science at the London School of Economics.

倫敦經濟學院(London School of Economics)政治學教授鄧利維(Patrick Dunleavy)說，她是反對馬克思主義的意識形態之爭中最後一位異類，一位劃時代的政治家，也是推崇極化政治的一股令人難以置信的力量。

Mrs. Thatcher is remembered within Britain mostly for her role in revolutionizing the fading economy, in a process that caused huge social change and division, and for the successful retaking of the Falkland Islands, the British South Atlantic territory invaded by Argentina in 1982─after which she declared 'We have ceased to be a nation in retreat.'

英國民衆記住撒切爾夫人主要是因爲她在徹底變革不斷衰落的英國經濟中所發揮的作用（這一過程導致了巨大的社會變革和分裂），以及在1982年成功奪回遭阿根廷入侵的福克蘭羣島(Falkland Islands)。福克蘭羣島是英屬南大西洋領土，奪回該羣島後撒切爾宣佈：我們不再是一個處在衰退中的國家。