您现在的位置是：首页 > 英语听力 > BBC world news
正文
BBC news 2009-03-22 加文本
2009-03-22来源:和谐英语
BBC 2009-03-22
Download Audio
BBC News with Mike Cooper.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has responded to President Obama’s offer of a new beginning in relations by saying Iran will change if the US alters its attitude to his country, but he said words were not enough and that he’d seen no real shift in US policy in areas, such as sanctions on Iran or what he called “unconditional support of Israel”. The Ayatollah spoke a day after President Obama offered to end 30 years of hostility and distrust between the US and Iran. Our world affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge reports.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran on strategic matters of this kind, gave his response to President Obama’s olive branch in a televised speech from the holy city of Mashhad.
“For you to say that we will both talk to Iran and simultaneously exert pressure on her, our nation hates this approach, one cannot treat our nation in this way”, the Ayatollah said. But he went on to say that Iran would wait and see, and if the US changed its attitude, then Iran would too.(www.hXen.com)
President Obama has spoken out in support of his embattled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, saying he wouldn’t accept his resignation even if it was offered. Mr. Geithner has been heavily criticized for failing to prevent the insurance company AIG from paying huge bonuses to executives after it was bailed out with public money. Mr. Obama said neither he nor Mr. Geithner had mentioned the resignation.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has strongly criticized past American efforts to combat the Afghan opium trade. Speaking at a conference in Belgium, he said that despite spending more than 800 million dollars a year on counter-narcotics, Washington had got nothing out of it. He also said the Obama administration had been unhappy with the plan it inherited to increase the Afghan national police force by only 4,000 officers and wanted to add more.
"Everyone we talked to, without exception, agreed that was not sufficient, so we are looking in conjunction with our allies and friends in the Afghan government at a very significant increase."
Tens of thousands of people have marched through the southern Italian city of Naples against Italy’s powerful mafia networks. The marches were led by relatives of people killed by the mafia. Our correspondent in Italy Duncan Kennedy reports.
This was one of the biggest demonstrations against the mafia in recent years. Organizers say 150,000 people took part. The police put the figure at around 100,000. Those who came carried banners calling for victims to be remembered and to demand an end to the mafia’s prominence in southern Italy. The names of 900 people killed in the past few decades by the country’s four main mafia organizations were read out through loudspeakers. Police have had successes against the Sicilian mafia in recent years, but the Camorra and Ndrangheta on the mainland have continued to expand.
World News from the BBC.
Prominent Cuban dissidents have accused the European Union of treachery for improving its relations with Cuba’s Communist government. They also condemned Costa Rica for reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba this week on the sixth anniversary of the arrest of 75 government opponents. The EU’s development commissioner met President Raul Castro in Havana this week. The EU had already lifted the sanctions it imposed on Cuba after the arrests. The dissidents, including the democracy advocate Vladimir Roca said the EU had betrayed its own approach towards Cuba.
Reports from Angola say two people were killed and more than a dozen others injured in a stampede among a crowd that had gathered for an address by Pope Benedict. More than 50,000 people turned out to hear the Pope at a football stadium in the capital, Luanda. The Portuguese news agency says a man and a woman were taken to hospital, but were dead when they arrived.
The German President Horst Koehler has said society must learn from last week’s shooting of 15 people by a suicidal teenage gunman. He told a memorial service in a small town of Winnenden that there should be restrictions on violent films and video games, such as those that the gunman Tim Kretschmer was playing on the eve of the killings. Mr. Koehler said Germans had to question themselves in the wake of the killings.
"Are we doing enough to protect us and our children? Are we doing enough to protect vulnerable people from themselves? We all have to scrutinize ourselves what we can do better, what consequences we must draw from this act."
In the sport, Ireland have beaten Wales to win the six nations' Rugby Union Championship. They won the match by 17 points to 15. The win means Ireland took the championship with a Grand Slam, having beaten every other team in the competition. It’s Ireland’s first Grand Slam since 1948.
BBC News.
Glossary：
exert: If someone or something exerts influence, authority, or pressure, they use it in a strong or determined way, especially in order to produce a particular effect. (FORMAL)
speak out: If you speak out against something or infavour of something, you say publicly that you think it is bad or good.
in conjunction with: If one thing is done or used in conjunction with another, the two things are done or used together. (FORMAL) =together
treachery: Treachery is a behaviour or an action in which someone betrays their country or betrays a person who trusts them.
turn out: If people turn out for a particular event or activity, they go and take part in it or watch it.
scrutinize: If you scrutinize something, you examine it very carefully, often to find out some information from it or about it.
Grand Slam: If someone wins a Grand Slam, they win all the major tournaments in a season in a particular sport, for example in rugby or tennis.
Download Audio
BBC News with Mike Cooper.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has responded to President Obama’s offer of a new beginning in relations by saying Iran will change if the US alters its attitude to his country, but he said words were not enough and that he’d seen no real shift in US policy in areas, such as sanctions on Iran or what he called “unconditional support of Israel”. The Ayatollah spoke a day after President Obama offered to end 30 years of hostility and distrust between the US and Iran. Our world affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge reports.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran on strategic matters of this kind, gave his response to President Obama’s olive branch in a televised speech from the holy city of Mashhad.
“For you to say that we will both talk to Iran and simultaneously exert pressure on her, our nation hates this approach, one cannot treat our nation in this way”, the Ayatollah said. But he went on to say that Iran would wait and see, and if the US changed its attitude, then Iran would too.(www.hXen.com)
President Obama has spoken out in support of his embattled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, saying he wouldn’t accept his resignation even if it was offered. Mr. Geithner has been heavily criticized for failing to prevent the insurance company AIG from paying huge bonuses to executives after it was bailed out with public money. Mr. Obama said neither he nor Mr. Geithner had mentioned the resignation.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has strongly criticized past American efforts to combat the Afghan opium trade. Speaking at a conference in Belgium, he said that despite spending more than 800 million dollars a year on counter-narcotics, Washington had got nothing out of it. He also said the Obama administration had been unhappy with the plan it inherited to increase the Afghan national police force by only 4,000 officers and wanted to add more.
"Everyone we talked to, without exception, agreed that was not sufficient, so we are looking in conjunction with our allies and friends in the Afghan government at a very significant increase."
Tens of thousands of people have marched through the southern Italian city of Naples against Italy’s powerful mafia networks. The marches were led by relatives of people killed by the mafia. Our correspondent in Italy Duncan Kennedy reports.
This was one of the biggest demonstrations against the mafia in recent years. Organizers say 150,000 people took part. The police put the figure at around 100,000. Those who came carried banners calling for victims to be remembered and to demand an end to the mafia’s prominence in southern Italy. The names of 900 people killed in the past few decades by the country’s four main mafia organizations were read out through loudspeakers. Police have had successes against the Sicilian mafia in recent years, but the Camorra and Ndrangheta on the mainland have continued to expand.
World News from the BBC.
Prominent Cuban dissidents have accused the European Union of treachery for improving its relations with Cuba’s Communist government. They also condemned Costa Rica for reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba this week on the sixth anniversary of the arrest of 75 government opponents. The EU’s development commissioner met President Raul Castro in Havana this week. The EU had already lifted the sanctions it imposed on Cuba after the arrests. The dissidents, including the democracy advocate Vladimir Roca said the EU had betrayed its own approach towards Cuba.
Reports from Angola say two people were killed and more than a dozen others injured in a stampede among a crowd that had gathered for an address by Pope Benedict. More than 50,000 people turned out to hear the Pope at a football stadium in the capital, Luanda. The Portuguese news agency says a man and a woman were taken to hospital, but were dead when they arrived.
The German President Horst Koehler has said society must learn from last week’s shooting of 15 people by a suicidal teenage gunman. He told a memorial service in a small town of Winnenden that there should be restrictions on violent films and video games, such as those that the gunman Tim Kretschmer was playing on the eve of the killings. Mr. Koehler said Germans had to question themselves in the wake of the killings.
"Are we doing enough to protect us and our children? Are we doing enough to protect vulnerable people from themselves? We all have to scrutinize ourselves what we can do better, what consequences we must draw from this act."
In the sport, Ireland have beaten Wales to win the six nations' Rugby Union Championship. They won the match by 17 points to 15. The win means Ireland took the championship with a Grand Slam, having beaten every other team in the competition. It’s Ireland’s first Grand Slam since 1948.
BBC News.
Glossary：
exert: If someone or something exerts influence, authority, or pressure, they use it in a strong or determined way, especially in order to produce a particular effect. (FORMAL)
speak out: If you speak out against something or infavour of something, you say publicly that you think it is bad or good.
in conjunction with: If one thing is done or used in conjunction with another, the two things are done or used together. (FORMAL) =together
treachery: Treachery is a behaviour or an action in which someone betrays their country or betrays a person who trusts them.
turn out: If people turn out for a particular event or activity, they go and take part in it or watch it.
scrutinize: If you scrutinize something, you examine it very carefully, often to find out some information from it or about it.
Grand Slam: If someone wins a Grand Slam, they win all the major tournaments in a season in a particular sport, for example in rugby or tennis.
手机网站