BBC在线收听下载:美国休斯敦遭遇洪水侵袭

BBC news 2016-04-20

Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff has said she felt indignant and wronged by the decision of the lower house of congress to go ahead with impeachment proceedings against her. She's rejected claims that she manipulated budget figures to help secure her re-election in 2014. Brian Winter, the-editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly Magazine says there's been something about backlash against what took place in the lower house. A lot of people likened it to a circus. You had people shooting off confetti and screaming and you know dedicating their votes to god and family and peace in Palestine and also to causes that kind of make Brazilians or some Brazilians look at this whole process and raise their eyebrows and go 'Gosh, are we really sure we want to do this?' The senate is expected to open an impeachment trial next month and suspend the president while the proceedings take place.

The first funerals are taking place in Ecuador for the victims of Saturday's earthquake. At least 413 people are known to have died with many more injured. It's still unclear how many people are missing. The quake has devastated towns along Ecuador's Pacific coast. Grant Laity, who is with the children's charity UNICEF is in the capital Quito. He says the destruction is far-reaching. A lot of the cities have been half flattened or destroyed. So people cannot stay in their homes. There is no longer any safe drinking water or sanitation system. They're living in a number of hospitals that have come down. And it's an estimated 120 schools that are either damaged or destroyed.

The fourth biggest city in the United States Huston has been hit by huge floods which are reported to have killed 5 people. Meteorologists say more than 40 centimeters of rain fell on the Texas city on Monday alone. Rivers burst their banks in the city center and 1200 people were rescued from rising flood waters. Parts of the city and surrounding districts have been declared disaster areas.

The remaining candidates for the US presidency have been making a final push for votes in New York ahead of crucial primaries in the state on Tuesday. The Democrats front-runner Hillary Clinton told voters she wasn't taking anything for granted in spite of her strong opinion poll ratings. For the Republicans, Donald Trump held a rally stressing his love of New York. His main rival, Ted Cruz, is not expected to do well after criticizing Mr Trump's New York values earlier in the campaign.

The American alternative rock band Pearl Jam is becoming the latest to cancel a scheduled performance in South Carolina over a new law limiting the rights of gay and transgender people. Pearl Jam, who had been due to perform there on Wednesday, described the law as despicable. Bruce Springsteen has already canceled a concert in South Carolina. World news from the BBC.

The Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed that he intends to call an election for July 2nd. On Monday, the Australian senate rejected a piece of government legislation for a second time, giving Mr Turnbull a legal mechanism for calling an election.

There has been an explosion in the center of the Afghan capital Kabul. A plume of black smoke could been seen near the US embassy but the embassy said it was not affected. So far, there has been no reports of casualties.
A replica of the 2000-year-old Arch of Triumphal destroyed by the IS group in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra last year will be unveiled in London today. Naomi Grimley reports. This is the sound of a computer-controlled drill chiseling away at blocks of marble. The machine was programmed with 3D images of the original 2000-year-old arch so the texture of the stone could be replicated. It's a collaboration between experts from Oxford and Harvard Universities and Dubai's Museum of the Future. The group hope technology like this might help rebuild parts of Palmyra. But some classic scholars think the replica arch is a waste of time and money.

New research shall suggest that dinosaurs were on their way to extinction millions of years before meteor impact which is widely believed to have wiped them out. Dr Chris Venditti is one of the authors of the new research. He says dinosaurs began to lose their supremacy in the evolutionary chain. There was some competition for resources and these dinosaurs weren't winning. They weren't able to survive in their environment anymore and thus went extinct. And the opportunity didn't seem to be there for other species to lead to new species themselves. So again, the combination of those two things led to the decline.BBC news.