和谐英语

您现在的位置是:首页 > 英语听力 > BBC world news

正文

BBC news 2008-01-18 加文本

2008-01-18来源:和谐英语
BBC 2008-01-18


Download Audio

BBC news with Lopaco Tary.

President Bush has been talking to Republicans and Democrats in Congress to share ideas about staving off the threat of economic recession in America. Democrats want him to consider more help for the jobless and aid for the hardest hit states. The Republicans are still calling for measures that include business tax cuts. Vincent Dowd reports from Washington on the measures that president is to set out.
What Mr. Bush will set out is the broad outline of measures, which his administration in its final year believes will give the US economy a spurt of growth. Detail plans will have to await the agreements of Congress, controlled by the opposition Democrats. But these plans are to be announced now rather than awaiting the annual state of the union address a week on Monday shows all sides agree stimulating the US economy is now an urgent concern.

The American investment bank Merrill Lynch has become the latest to announce big losses linked to turmoil in the American homelands market. The company suffered losses of nearly ten billion dollars during the last three months of last year, the worst figures in the company's history. The total losses for this from the subprime lending crisis admit by major banks now exceeds 100 billion dollars.

The British government has denounced Russia for what it calls the intimidation of staff working for the cultural organization the British Council. The Council's Russian staff in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg have been questioned by secret police as part of a dispute over the organization's status. The chairman of the Russian parliaments International Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said the British Council could reopen its offices if it abided by Russian laws.
"Russia is not a banana republic, we have our own legislation and any foreign organizations irrespective of their form of ownership and irrespective of their state names must act accordingly to the existing national legislation. This is a generally accepted democratic civilized norm. As soon as the British Council brings its activities into line with Russian law, I'm sure there will no longer be any obstacles to resuming its operations in Russia.

There has been praise for the pilots and crew of a plane that made a crash landing at London's Heathrow Airport, one of the world's busiest. The British Airway's Boeing 777 came down short of the runway and left a trail of wreckage as it skidded towards the tarmac. All the passengers were safely evacuated and there were no serious injuries. There has been no official explanation for what happened but an airport worker said the pilot talked of a sudden loss of power.
"They just told me that the aircraft shut down and everything and that was it. I mean, he glided in across and lifted the nose up, managed to get it in, and he’s hit the grease, ditched it. All is gone to the grass. He said to me he had no warning, absolutely nothing at all. It's just suddenly BOOM. It’s just lost absolutely everything. It's a miracle. The man deserves an absolute medal as big as a frying pan."

This is Lopaco Tary with the latest world news from the BBC.

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued a warning to the Israeli government within hours of Israel announcing that it had test-fired a ballistic missile. Mr. Ahmadinejad said Israel would not dare to attack Iran because of the response it would expect. Reports in the Israeli media said the missile was aimed at intercepting aerial threats against the Jewish state. Israel has carried out a third day of air attacks on the Gaza Strip, killing at least five Palestinians. In the latest incident, aircraft targeted a car carrying members of the Islamic Jihad Group. Twenty-nine Palestinians have now been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since Tuesday.

The authorities in Britain have broadly given the go-ahead to research involving the production of human and animal hybrid embryos. The research was regarded as controversial because it will mean the creation of human embryos containing animal DNA. Scientists hope that the process might help them find cures for brain disorders and other diseases. Dr. Helen Watts from the Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics said the British authorities were entering dangerous territory.
"We don't know what kind of entity this will produce - if it produces a human embryo we have a serious ethical problem, because our human embryo will have a non-human partial mother. Even if it's not a genuine human embryo that's produced, it's still morally offensive. I think it's a mistake we often make in this country, to think so long as you destroy the entity you create, um, it's okay to create it."

The governing body of international football FIFA says it will change the timing of the African Cup of Nations in future to avoid a clash with the European season. Speaking to the BBC ahead of this year's tournament in Ghana, FIFA's President Sepp Blatter said the cup of nations should fall into line without the major international football events which are played in June and July. There have been frequent complaints from European clubs over the absence of key players at a crucial part of the season.

BBC news.