玛格丽特·撒切尔逝世 享年87岁

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.

英国前首相玛格丽特·撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)周一去世。她是二战后全球最有影响力的领导人之一。30年前，她对自由市场经济学和个人选择的支持改变了英国经济，其积极的外交政策也在冷战末期发挥了关键作用。

'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.

撒切尔的发言人贝尔(Timothy Bell)说，马克·撒切尔(Mark Thatcher)和卡罗尔·撒切尔(Carol Thatcher)满怀悲痛地宣布，他们的母亲、撒切尔女男爵周一上午突发中风，平静地去世，享年87岁。

'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.'

英国现任首相卡梅伦(David Cameron)说，我们失去了一位伟大的首相、伟大的领导人、伟大的英国人。卡梅伦缩短了他的欧洲之行，周一下午返回英国。他说，撒切尔挽救了我们的国家，我相信，她将作为和平时期最伟大的英国首相被载入史册。

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.

唐宁街(Downing Street)说，撒切尔的葬礼将于下周在伦敦圣保罗大教堂(St. Paul's Cathedral)举行，之后将举行私人的火葬仪式。这将是一场带有军队礼仪规格的葬礼。

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.

撒切尔夫人在英格兰东部格兰瑟姆(Grantham)的一个公寓里长大。这套公寓就在其父开的杂货店楼上，屋内没有热水。但撒切尔夫人却成了英国首位女首相，可以说是自温斯顿·丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)以来英国最重要的政治人物。

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.

她是美国前总统罗纳德·里根(Ronald Reagan)的关键盟友和亲密朋友，两人在很多问题上观点一致：都相信自由市场；都认为当时的经济问题要用货币主义的方法来解决；在如何处理前苏联问题上秉持毫不妥协的立常这也为她赢得了“铁娘子”的称号。里根和撒切尔引领西方政坛向右倾斜，拥抱几乎不加政府干预的自由市场经济体系。两人在当时做出的政策转变大部分得以保留，但诸如放松对金融业的管制等某些方面则在信贷危机期间受到质疑。撒切尔夫人全然不惧英国势力强大的工会，将国有企业进行私有化改制，其铁面无情的治理方式既为她赢得了钦佩，也令她遭到某些人的憎恶。这些举措被很多其他领导人效仿。

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

在里根政府担任国务卿的舒尔茨(George Shultz)说，她向大家展示了一个拥有远大目标的政治领袖所能达到的成就。

'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.

伦敦经济学院(London School of Economics)政治学教授邓利维(Patrick Dunleavy)说，她是反对马克思主义的意识形态之争中最后一位异类，一位划时代的政治家，也是推崇极化政治的一股令人难以置信的力量。

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.'

英国民众记住撒切尔夫人主要是因为她在彻底变革不断衰落的英国经济中所发挥的作用（这一过程导致了巨大的社会变革和分裂），以及在1982年成功夺回遭阿根廷入侵的福克兰群岛(Falkland Islands)。福克兰群岛是英属南大西洋领土，夺回该群岛后撒切尔宣布：我们不再是一个处在衰退中的国家。