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BBC news 2008-10-10 加文本

2008-10-10来源:和谐英语
BBC 2008-10-10

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BBC News with Julie Candler

Share prices in New York have fallen sharply again for the 7th day in a row. A sudden plunge in the last hour of trading on Wall Street left the key Dow Jones Index below 9000 for the first time in five years. It’s now lost more than a third of its value since an all-time high a year ago. Laura Trevelyan reports. 

US stocks fell for the seventh day in a row, with the Dow Jones Index of 30 leading American companies sinking rapidly in the last hour of trading. Shares in General Motors, a company in the Dow, have been falling all day because of concern about the carmaker’s performance so that dragged the index down. But beyond that, the markets are twitchy and volatile. Despite the US government’s bail-out plan, and the coordinated interest rate cuts worldwide, investors are still nervous. Credit remains tight and the fear is that before too long, companies will start to lay people off and there will be a global recession.

The Prime Minister of Iceland Geir Haarde has expressed confidence that the country will recover from its current severe financial crisis. Mr. Haarde said measures to restructure the banking system were allowing normal banking services to resume. Earlier the Icelandic prime minister had accused Britain of contributing to the collapse of his country’s last remaining but independent bank which was taken over by the Icelandic government on Thursday.

Two neighbors of Europe’s newest self-declared independent state, the former Serbian province of Kosovo, have officially recognized it as independent. Macedonia and Montenegro rejected strenuous objections from Serbia in doing so. Shortly before the Macedonian decision was announced, Serbia expelled the Montenegrin ambassador to Belgrade in protest at this decision. Montenegro’s Foreign Minister, Milan Rocen, said the decision was guided by the government’s desire to have better relations with its neighbors.

“Kosovo is above all a political reality, and our biggest interest is to have stable borders, a fact that also guided us in making this decision. The Montenegrin government also took into consideration the prevailing positions of key countries in the world, members of the EU, and NATO. And their assessment of such a move is an important contribution to the security and stability of the region.”

The NATO military alliance has agreed to send warships to help combat piracy off the coast of Somalia. NATO defense ministers meeting in Hungary agreed to dispatch them to the region within weeks. The NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer said the task force would serve two purposes.

The bottom line here is the following, huh, there will soon be NATO military vessels off the coast of Somalia hopefully deterring piracy and escorting food shipments.  And I think that’s good news for the people of Somalia and as it to be bad news for the pirates.”

World News from the BBC.

The Prime Minister of Peru Jorge Del Castillo had said the entire cabinet including himself are to offer their resignation over allegations that they accepted bribes to influence the awarding of lucrative oil contracts. The minister has denied any involvement. But there have been strong calls across the political spectrum for the prime minister to go.

From Lima, Dan Colen reports.

The Peruvian Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo flanked by his cabinet ministers marched into a session of Congress. After being shouted down by opposition members of parliament, he told reporters that he and all his ministers would offer their resignations to the president and allow him to decide. Mr. Del Castillo, the president’s right-hand man, is mentioned in a taped conversation between two prominent members of the governing APRA party as they discussed the money they would receive if they favored Norwegian Discover Petroleum in an auction of oil concessions.

Officials in northwestern Pakistan say at least 9 people including 6 Arab militants have been killed in a suspected missile attack by United States drone aircraft. They said the missiles targeted the house of a local Taliban leader in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Islamic militants near the Afghan border

There’s been no comment from the US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan.

This year’s Nobel Prize for literature has been awarded to the French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio. The Secretary of the Academy described Le Clezio as a citizen of the world. Le Clezio has spent time living with indigenous peoples in Central America and described the experience as crucial to his world view. His early work was marked by an experimental approach, but from the late 70s onwards, his style became more conventional. At a press conference Le Clezio said he didn’t want to define his work.(WWW.hxen.net)

I’m just a writer, that’s all. I don’t have any definition of writing, just, I’m just a writer. A writer is a witness, nothing else than a witness.

 
BBC News.