When finance ministers from the world's seven richest nations gather in Washington at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund next weekend, one of them will be notable by his absence.

七国集团(Group of Seven)今年的主席国是德国，但是在同僚们坐下来工作的时候，德国财长佩尔o施泰因布吕克(Peer Steinbrück)却将和家人一道前往纳米比亚度假，去观察非洲的野生生物。 While his colleagues get down to work, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, whose country currently chairs the Group of Seven, will be surveying the African wildlife with his family on holiday in Namibia.

这位财长把家庭置于工作之上的决定令柏林颇感意外，也与德国总理安吉拉o默克尔(Angela Merkel)部署的举措不符。默克尔希望德国能以欧盟主席国和七国集团主席国的双重身份，在国际舞台上留下良好印象。

The minister's decision to put family before work is raising eyebrows² in Berlin and jars with the efforts Angela Merkel, the chancellor³, has deployed⁴ to make a good impression on the international stage as joint⁵ holder⁶ of the European Union and G7 presidencies⁷.

施泰因布吕克的缺席更加令人吃惊之处在于，下周的会议预计将重点关注这位财长G7议程上最有争议的问题之一：提高全球主要工业国对冲基金的透明度。

Mr Steinbrück's absence is all the more surprising because next weekend's meeting was expected to focus on one of the most controversial items on the minister's G7 agenda: to improve the transparency of hedge funds in the world's leading industrial economies.

这位财长历经辛苦，才在2月份于德国埃森召开的G7会议上，说服最持怀疑态度的其它两位财长--美国的汉克·保尔森(Hank Paulson)和英国的戈登·布朗(Gordon Brown)同意加强对这类基金的监管，但是人们认为，他仍有一些说服工作要做。

The minister managed to coax⁸ an agreement from his most sceptical counterparts - Hank Paulson of the US and Gordon Brown of the UK - on boosting the surveillance of such funds at an earlier G7 meeting in Essen, Germany, in February, but he is still seen as having some persuading to do.

在《明镜》(Spiegel)周刊首先报道了施泰因布吕克度假的消息后，德国财政部一位发言人昨日表示："人们以这种诽谤性的语言来谈论这件事，我感到很悲哀。"

"I think it is sad that people are putting such a scandalous spin on this story," a Finance Ministry⁹ spokesman said yesterday after the Spiegel weekly first reported on Mr Steinbrück's vacation.

"此次度假很早以前就计划好了。这是这位财长对家人的承诺，而且去纳米比亚度假和去波罗的海度周末不同，想重新安排不是一件易事。"

"This holiday has been planned for a very long time. It was something the minister had promised his family, and a trip to Namibia is not a weekend on the Baltic Sea that would be easy to reschedule."

这位发言人表示，德国财政部副部长托马斯o米洛(Thomas Mirow)将出席IMF会议，他的准备非常充分，而且在埃森会议前曾亲自参与了对冲基金提议的磋商。

The spokesman said Thomas Mirow, the minister's deputy, would be attending the IMF meeting and that he was perfectly¹⁰ briefed, having personally negotiated the hedge fund proposal ahead of the Essen meeting.