媒體英語會帶大家一起學習 BBC 撰稿人在報道世界大事時常用到的單詞和短語。

AK-47步槍之父卡拉什尼科夫于2013年12月23日辭世。據俄羅斯境內報道，在他過世一年半前，曾寫信給俄東正教大牧首，表示因自己設計的步槍造成很多人死亡而萬分悔恨。以下是 Steve Rosenberg 給 BBC 發來的報道：

In his letter to the Russian Patriarch, Mikhail Kalashnikov wrote that "one question was causing pain to his soul": if the rifle he had created had claimed lives, then did that mean that he, "a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?"

"The longer I live," he continued, "the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression".

The letter has been published by the newspaper Izvestia. It quotes a spokesman for the Patriarch as saying that when weapons serve to defend the fatherland, the Russian Orthodox Church supports those who created them, as well as the soldiers who use them.

It's thought that more than 100 million Kalashnikov rifles have been sold worldwide. Mikhail Kalashnikov had been awarded the title Hero of Russia - he died last month aged 94 - and was buried with full state honours.