BBC 英语新闻

BBC 英语新闻 BBC新闻听力100篇 News Item 1 The Japanese government has played down concern about a possible nuclear meltdown, followinga big explosion at a nuclear power station in the north of the country. The blast occurred a day after thearea was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami. A top government offcial, Yukio Edano, said a steelcontainer encasing the nuclear reactor had not been ruptured by the blast. News Item 2 Fifty thousand Japanese military personnel had been ordered to join the huge rescue and reliefoperation following the earthquake and tsunami. More than 1,000 people are feared dead. About 400 bodieswere found in the town of Rikuzentakata, and Japanese media reports say 10,000 people are unaccountedfor in Minamisanriku. Damian Grammaticas in the port of Sendai says the scenes of devastation there areastonishing. News Item 3 International disaster relief teams have been sent to Japan. The United Nations said a nine strong UNteam of experts would include several Japanese speakers. Britain said it was sending expert assistance afterreceiving a request from Japan. Singapore is also deploying an urban search and rescue team. Americanforces stationed in Japan have already been involved in rescue operations, and more than 50 territories andcountries have offered assistance. News Item 4 As offcials in Japan struggle to assess the extent of the damage following the tsunami caused by amassive earthquake, it’s been announced that some 300 people are known to have been killed and morethan 500 are unaccounted for in the area around the northern coastal city of Sendai. The 8.9-magnitudequake, the biggest ever recorded in Japan, sent a wave of water several meters high sweeping far inland.Its epicenter was about 130km off Japan’s east coast. In the capital Tokyo, several hundred kilometersaway, buildings swayed violently during the quake, which was followed by a series of powerfulaftershocks. News Item 5 Slowly but relentlessly, Colonel Gaddafi’s forces seem to be winning the battle for Ras Lanuf.Opposition fghters are still in the town, but they are under intense pressure. The bombing from governmentwarplanes continued today, and there’s a big plume of smoke from the oil installation s no sign of either the rebel which was hit acouple of days ago. There’ fghters or the local population beginning to fee thearea. If Ras Lanuf falls, it brings the frontline closer to the main opposition-held city of Benghazi. 1 News Item 6 Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators have marched in cities across Yemen after Fridayprayers, demanding the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. At least six people were wounded whensecurity forces fred at protesters in the southern port city of Aden. In the capital Sana’a, where supportersof the government also held a rally, police set up roadblocks to keep the two sides apart. News Item 7 The American State Department spokesman PJ Crowley has described the treatment of the U.S.soldier suspected of passing material to the Wikileaks website, Private Bradley Manning, as “ridiculous”, “counterproductive” and “stupid”. Private Manning has been charged with offences including aiding theenemy, and he’s being held in solitary confnement in prison. Mr. Crowley said however that it was rightthat Private Manning was being held in jail. News Item 8 The abolition of the death penalty was approved by the Illinois state assembly in January and has nowbeen signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn. Supporters of capital punishment had urged him to veto thechange, but in a statement, the governor said he’d concluded that executions had no deterrent effect oncrime, and that the death penalty system was inherently fawed. Illinois has a dark history of miscarriagesof justice. Since 1977 when capital punishment was reinstated in America, 20 death row inmates in the statehave been exonerated. The last execution in Illinois was in 1999. News Item 9 In London, the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee has heard evidence about the recentlyannounced cuts to the budget and output of the BBC World Service. Its director Peter Herrick told thecommittee that the value of the organization was highlighted by its comprehensive coverage of the currentturmoil in Arab countries. He said that if the cuts had come into effect earlier, that coverage of the eventswould have been d been damage seriously diminished. Mr. Herrick also acknowledged there’ to the WorldService, although he was optimistic about its future. News Item 10 French police have found 25 million dollars’ worth of stolen jewelry hidden in a drain outside Paris.Detectives found 19 rings and three sets of earrings concealed in a plastic container set into a cement mouldat a house outside the French capital. Investigators believe many of the items were stolen from the luxuryHarry Winston boutique in Paris in a raid in 2008. News Item 11 The ruler of Oman, Sultan Qaboos, has announced he is to hand over some of his powers to offcialsfrom outside the royal family. A royal decree said the Legislative Council of Oman would be givenlawmaking powers. Until now, the role of the council has been to advise the Sultan, who has ruled Oman 2 for four decades. News Item 12 An agreement by Iceland to pay compensation to Britain and the Netherlands over the collapse ofits banking system has run into problems. President Olafur Grimsson is to put the $5 billion deal to areferendum, even though it’s been approved by parliament. A previous deal with different repayment termswas overwhelmingly rejected by voters in Iceland last year. News Item 13 President Obama says the U.S. and its Nato allies are still considering a military response to thesituation in Libya where he said the people were facing unacceptable violence. But Russia says it’s opposedto any military intervention. Nato is engaged in what its Secretary General called “prudent planning”. WhileBritain confrmed it was working to secure a Security Council no-fy zone resolution. News Item 14 A young Mexican woman who gained worldwide attention last year when she took over as police chiefin a town plagued by drug-related violence has been sacked for abandoning her post. Marisol Valles washailed as Mexico’s bravest woman in October when she became head of public security in the border townof Praxedis G. Guerrero. News Item 15 Marisol Valles, a 20-year-old criminology student, became police chief in a town when nobodyelse was willing to take the job. Her appointment six months ago made her a sensation worldwide. Butthe mayor of Praxedis Guerrero said she hasn’t come back to work since last Wednesday, when she tookpersonal leave to take care of her baby. Local activists told the BBC that Mrs. Valles and her family had fedto the United States after receiving threats of kidnapping. News Item 16 The toy manufacturer Mattel has closed its fagship Barbie store in Shanghai just two years after itopened to much fanfare. The pink-theme, six-foor emporium was launched in a drive to attract Chineseconsumers at a time when the famous doll faced declining sales in the West. But analysts said sales toChinese consumers were poor. News Item 17 Reports from Egypt say democracy activists have been attacked by men in plain clothes armed withknives outside the offces of the interior ministry in Cairo. It’s the frst time since the toppling of PresidentMubarak last month that the protesters appeared to have come under such an attack. Over the weekend,activists stormed several offces of the secret police. 3 News Item 18 The newly-appointed U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, has stressedthe importance of pursuing a diplomatic settlement in Afghanistan alongside military operations. During hisfrst visit to Kabul, he said the United States supported the Afghan government’ s move towards talks withthe Taliban, but he said it was important that the Taliban end its alliance with al-Qaeda. News Item 19 Thirteen soldiers in Mexico have been charged with drug traffcking after they were allegedly found inpossession of almost a tone of the synthetic drug methamphetamine and 30kg of cocaine. A local militarycommander said the men had been transporting the drugs from the capital Mexico City to Tijuana, on the U.S.border. President Felipe Calderon has deployed about 50,000 soldiers to help fght the war on drugs. Sincehe came to power, more than 34,000 people have died in drug-related violence. News Item 20 The suspect in the shootings in Tucson, Arizona in January when U.S. congresswoman GabrielleGiffords was seriously wounded has been indicted on a number of new charges. Jared Loughner now faces49 counts, including the murder of six people and the attempted assassination of Ms Giffords. News Item 21 Sixty-one-year-old Alan Gross was driven into the Havana courthouse inside an unmarked van withblacked-out windows. He’s charged with acts against the integrity and independence of Cuba, and prosecutorshave said they are seeking a 20-year sentence. Mr. Gross has already spent 15 months in a Cuban jail, accusedof providing satellite communications equipment, which is illegal in Cuba, to groups on the island.News Item 22 The United Nations food agency says global food prices reached a record high last month. The Foodand Agriculture Organization is warning that costs could spiral even further if unrest in Libya and theMiddle East keeps driving up the price of oil. Rising food costs helped spark the recent protests in Egyptand Tunisia. News Item 23 The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, has issued a personal apologyfor the killing of nine young boys in Kunar province on Tuesday. Local Afghan offcials say the boys, aged12 or younger, had been gathering frewood when helicopter gunship attacked them with rockets. Nato saysthere was a mistake in relaying information about the position of presumed militants who were fring at aNato base. News Item 24 Britain is to end its international aids to 16 countries. The International Development Secretary 4 Andrew Mitchell, told parliament that he wanted to concentrate the money where it would do most good.Nations like Lesotho and Kosovo will lose direct funding, but others like Ethiopia and Bangladesh willreceive more aid from the Department for International Development, or DEFID. News Item 25 Western leaders have been discussing ways to increase pressure on the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafto stop him killing the people rebelling against him and persuade him to step down. The Pentagon inWashington says it’s repositioning naval and air forces around Libya so that there’s fexibility for actionshould government planners require it. News Item 26 Two of Argentina’s former military rulers have gone on trial, accused of overseeing the systematictheft of babies from political prisoners. Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone are accused of kidnappingabout 30 babies whose parents were killed or disappeared during military rule. The babies were then givenfor adoption to members of the Argentine military or their allies. Both former leaders are already servinglong sentences for murder and torture. News Item 27 A landslide caused by intense rains has destroyed more than 150 homes in the Bolivian city of LaPaz. The authorities managed to evacuate the poor neighborhood of Kupini Dos before it was crushed bya collapsing hillside. Right across Bolivia thousands of people have been left homeless by weeks of heavyrain. News Item 28 The stage is set in Hollywood for the Academy Awards, the flm industry’ s biggest night of the year.Hot favorite to win Oscar’s glory is the British drama The King’s Speech, based on the true story of theattempts by King George VI to overcome a bad speech impediment and lead his nation in the Second WorldWar. But the flm faces strong competition from The Social Network about the Internet site Facebook, aswell as the western remake of True Grit and the ballet thriller Black Swan. News Item 29 An emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has recommended suspendingLibya from the body. The council also authorized an international investigation into the violence in thecountry with a view to prosecuting those responsible. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights NaviPillay told the council the priority should be the safety of the civilian population. News Item 30 The French fashion house Dior has suspended its star designer John Galliano after he was arrestedat a Paris bar and accused of making anti-Semitic and racist remarks to a nearby couple. Mr. Galliano has 5 strongly denied any wrongdoing. His suspension comes just days before the launch of Paris Fashion Week.News Item 31 Republican lawmakers in the American state of Wisconsin have sent out police to search for a groupof Democratic Party politicians. The Democratic state senators left Wisconsin in order to block a crucialbudget bill, which includes controversial plans by the Republican Governor Scott Walker to limit the powerof trades unions. Without the Democratic lawmakers, the Senate cannot reach a quorum and the bill, whichwould have been passed easily by the Republican majority, cannot be voted on. News Item 32 A former Serbian police chief has been jailed for 27 years for his role in the murder of more than700 ethnic Albanians in Serbia’s province of Kosovo in 1999. Vlastimir Djordjevic was convicted by theinternational tribunal in The Hague on four counts of crimes against humanity. News Item 33 The New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has said it’s unlikely that many more survivors will befound in the city of Christchurch, hit by an earthquake on Tuesday. Mr. Key said he hadn’t given up hope offnding people but that the authorities had to be realistic. At least 70 people have been killed, but up to 300others are missing. News Item 34 A mass polio vaccination campaign is being planned in Burma after a 7-month-old baby was found tohave the virus. It’s the frst case there for three years. Burma had been on the point of being declared free ofpolio, a highly contagious virus that can lead to paralysis and which is spread mainly through contaminatedfood and water. Four years ago, the Burmese government immunized nearly 7 million children. Since adrive to eliminate polio began more than 20 years ago, the number of cases has dropped by 99% worldwide.A team from the World Health Organization is already in Burma to work out how to stop its spreading againthere. News Item 35 More than a quarter of a million people have taken part in a march and rally in central London toprotest against the deep public spending cuts introduced by Britain’s coalition government. The marchwhich was organised by trade unions was the biggest protest in Britain since an anti-war rally eight yearsago before the invasion of Iraq. News Item 36 The Cuban government has freed a jailed dissident who had refused to go into exile in Spain as acondition for his release. Ivan Hernandez, a journalist who was one of 75 opponents that the governmentarrested in 2003, was released along with six other prisoners. Mr. Hernandez is among a group of dissidents 6 whose freedom was brokered by the Catholic Church. He has said he intends to continue to write about theissues facing ordinary Cubans. News Item 37 Finance ministers from the G20 economies meeting in France have reached a deal aimed at preventinga repeat of the global fnancial crisis. The accord covers what indicators can be used to measure economicimbalances, such as large trade surpluses. The French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde described thedeal as a compromise agreed after sometimes frank and tense negotiations in Paris. News Item 38 The U.S. Treasury says billions of dollars moved by New Ansari to Dubai included the drug money oftwo major traffckers—one supplying heroin in southwest Asia and the Middle East; the other smugglingheroin, opium and morphine in the border regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran by designating NewAnsari a major money laundering vehicle. The U.S. is trying to chip away at its financial foundations.Americans are now banned from doing business with the company and with 15 individuals and frms withlinks to it. News Item 39 A European court has upheld the right of television viewers in the European Union to watch importantsporting events, such as the World Cup, without having to pay. Football’s world governing body FIFA andthe European body UEFA want to broadcast World Cup and European championship matches on pay TV.But the court ruled that these games are of national importance. It said wide public access to events, deemedto be of major signifcance to society, should be ensured. News Item 40 An opposition activist in Belarus has been sentenced to four years in prison for taking part in a largeprotest in December against the disputed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko. Vasily Parfenkov,who campaigned for an opposition candidate, had been charged with participating in mass disorder. He’sthe frst of 30 opposition fgures to be tried. News Item 41 Kyrgyzstan’s parliament has voted to name one of its mountains after the Russian Prime MinisterVladimir Putin. The parliament said it would immortalize the Russian leader’s name. Putin Peak stands at4,500 meters, higher than Yeltsin Peak, named after the former Russian leader. However, both are dwarfedby the 7000-metre Lenin Peak, named over 80 years ago. News Item 42 The group of policemen is accused of forming a death squad which killed more than 45 people overthe last 10 years. Among those already in jail are several high-ranking offcers, including one colonel, the 7 highest rank in the country’s military police. The federal police investigation that led to the arrests beganmore than a year ago when the authorities noticed an increase in the number of deaths in the areas to wherethese policemen were assigned. News Item 43 Astronomers say the Sun unleashed a huge fare early on Tuesday, its strongest vewarned this could create a geomagnetic for four years. They’ storm around the Earth, which might interfere with electricalpower grids and communication systems. Reports from southern China already speak of disruption to radiobroadcasts. Researchers say the Sun is becoming more active after several relatively dormant years.News Item 44 The World Bank says rising food prices have pushed an extra 44 million people into poverty sincelast June. The Bank’s food price index has shot up by 15% in the last four months alone. The World Bankfgures show sharp price increases in wheat, maize, sugar, and edible oils over the past six months, withprices almost reaching the peaks of the year 2008 when there were food riots in a number of countries inthe developing world. Wheat and maize are the basis of many poorer people’s diets. But the poor suffer adouble whammy because they also spend a larger proportion of their income on food than those in richercountries. News Item 45 A court in Ecuador has fined the American oil giant Chevron a reported $8 billion for polluting alarge part of the country’s Amazon region. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said they’d been awarded the sumafter accusing the Texaco oil company, which was bought by Chevron in 2001, of damaging swathes of thenorthern jungle. Chevron said it intended to appeal. News Item 46 Swiss voters have decided in a referendum to retain the current system which allows army-issueweapons to be kept at home. It means several million Swiss men won’t have to deliver their weaponsinto army arsenals. A coalition of civil and religious groups and centre-left parties had wanted thesystem overturned, arguing that Switzerland has one of Europe’ s highest gun-related suicide rates. Buttraditionalists said banning the weapons would have broken the long-standing trust between the Swisspeople and the army. News Item 47 The report says that in less than a decade, the number of women dying during pregnancy or childbirthhas reduced by 40%. The sharp fall is due to better healthcare facilities, education and the widespread useof mobile phones. The study also shows Bangladeshi women are having fewer babies. Only one ffth ofthem have four or more children. Now experts say the country needs to achieve a UN goal of reducing therate even further in the next four years. 8 News Item 48 An attack on a crowded nightclub in the Mexican city of Guadalajara has left 6 people dead and morethan 20 wounded. Unidentifed gunmen sprayed the city centre bar with bullets and threw a hand grenadebefore escaping in three vehicles. Police said the attackers were customers who returned to extract revengeafter a late-night dispute with other drinkers. News Item 49 The President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, says his government will set up a $1.2 billion fund to createjobs in a country where more than one in fve people are unemployed. In his annual state of the nation address,Mr. Zuma said he was concerned that unemployment and poverty persisted despite 10 years of economic growth.News Item 50 India and Pakistan have agreed to resume peace talks suspended since the Mumbai attacks in 2008,which India blamed on militants from Pakistan. In a joint statement, the nuclear-armed neighbors saidthey’d agreed to resume dialogue on all issues including the disputed region of Kashmir. They saidPakistan’s foreign minister would visit India by July to review progress. A BBC correspondent in Delhisays mistrust between India and Pakistan remains huge. News Item 51 A U.S. government investigation into safety in Toyota cars has found no problems as with theelectronics in the company’s vehicles. The U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood spelled out theinquiry’s findings. Since 2009, the Japanese company had recalled more than 12 million cars and vansacross the world to deal with problems such as sticking accelerator pedals. News Item 52 Hundreds of indigenous Brazilians are protesting in the capital Brasilia against the construction ofwhat will be the world’s third biggest hydroelectric dam. An indigenous leader delivered a petition opposingthe project signed by more than half a million people. Environmentalists and celebrities say the dam in theAmazon River Basin will harm the world’ s biggest virgin forest. News Item 53 The new Egyptian cabinet has announced a 15% pay rise for government workers at its first fullmeeting since protests erupted two weeks ago. The government has also agreed to set up a compensationfund for those affected by looting and vandalism. But the protesters who’ve occupied Tahrir Square saythey won’t disband until President Hosni Mubarak leaves offce, and Shadi el-Ghazali Harb, a member ofthe youth coalition, says their demands still haven’t been met. News Item 54 Thousands of supporters of Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to step down as president of Ivory Coast, 9 have staged a rally in the main city Abidjan. They are protesting against the leader of Burkina Faso,Blaise Compaore, who’s trying to mediate in the crisis. Mr. Gbagbo’s opponent Alassane Ouattara isinternationally recognized as the winner of November’s election. News Item 55 A court in Rwanda has sentenced two journalists to long prison sentences after fnding them guilty ofdisrupting state security and propagating ethnic divisions. Newspaper editor Agnes Uwimana was sentencedto 17 years in jail. Her colleague Saidath Mukakibibi was ordered to serve seven years. The judge said thetwo women wrote an article last year which claimed that Rwandans were unhappy with the government ofPaul Kagame for president. News Item 56 The government of Brazil is to provide free medicines for everyone suffering from diabetes andhigh blood pressure. President Dilma Rousseff said the measure was part of her campaign to end extremepoverty. The health ministry says around 33 million Brazilians have high blood pressure and more thanseven million have diabetes. News Item 57 NASA says it might have found several hundred new planets in distant solar systems in addition to the500 already discovered. They were spotted by the Kepler space telescope, which has also found an entiresolar system of six planets orbiting around a Sun-like star. This is the biggest news in astronomy in 16 yearssince the frst planet outside our solar system was detected. News Item 58 Reports from Moscow say that Russian ground controllers have failed to establish contact with amilitary satellite after its launch into space on Tuesday. A senior Russian military offcer was quoted bythe Interfax news agency as saying that the satellite has entered an incorrect orbit and that efforts to restoreradio communication haven’t yet succeeded. News Item 59 The director of a psychiatric hospital in Cuba where 26 patients died from hypothermia last year hasbeen sentenced to 15 years in prison. Twelve other staff at the hospital in the capital Havana also receivedsentences ranging between five and 15 years. The deaths exposed failings in Cuba’ s free public healthsystem, which the communist government hails as one of its main achievements. News Item 60 Thousands of people in Northern Ireland have taken part in what could be their final march toremember 13 Roman Catholics shot dead by the British army in 1972 on what became known as BloodySunday. But the Catholic community is divided about whether now is the time to end their annual 10 commemoration. News Item 61 The close relatives of two opposition leaders detained in Belarus have written to European Unionforeign ministers, asking them to impose the strictest possible sanctions on the Belarusian government. Oneof the opposition fgures, Vladimir Neklyayev, was freed on Saturday, but his daughter dismissed this as aploy. The EU has condemned what it regards as the fawed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenkoand his subsequent crackdown on the opposition. EU foreign ministers will discuss on Monday whatmeasures to take in response. News Item 62 The Dutch government has frozen all contacts with Iran in protest at the hanging of a 45-year-oldDutch woman of Iranian origin. Reports from Iran said that Sahra Bahrami had been convicted of drugsmuggling. Her family says she was in fact detained for taking part in anti-government protests last year.The Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal declared himself shocked by the hanging. News Item 63 At least four people have died in the latest violence in the central Nigerian city of Jos. Churches,mosques and petrol stations were set on fre. Soldiers shot at students following protests which erupted onFriday about the stabbing of three classmates. Witnesses said they saw market stores and houses being setalight as rioting spread. News Item 64 Researchers in the United States said they’re trying to use genes from ancient varieties of staplefoods, such as rice, maize and corn, to develop hardier and more disease-resistant crops in the future.The food crops we have today have been bred for generations from older varieties to maximize yield.But in the process, important and useful traits have been lost, which scientists are now rediscoveringusing new gene technologies. Researchers investigating ancient varieties of rice have found genes ofconfrmed disease-resistance. They believe that by analyzing the genes of more plants, they’ll be ableto build up a live-breed of properties, with which plant breeders can create new varieties suit to localcircumstances. News Item 65 The upper house of parliament in the Irish Republic has passed a controversial fnance bill, clearing theway for an early general election. The bill was needed to comply with the terms of a huge fnancial rescuepackage Ireland had to accept from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. It’s expectedthat the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who leads a minority government, will now dissolve parliamentnext Tuesday. 11 News Item 66 NASA has marked the 25th anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle disaster, which killed sevenastronauts as they ascended into orbit. Hundreds gathered at Cape Canaveral for a memorial serviceattended by former astronauts, NASA staff and relatives and friends of the dead crew. One of the astronautskilled in the disaster was Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher who would have broadcast science lessonsfrom space. News Item 67 Ancient sculptures blown to pieces by a British air raid on Berlin in 1943 have been reassembled andput on public display. Archaeologists spent nine years painstakingly piecing together nearly 30,000 shardsof basalt to reconstruct the giant fgures of sphinxes, gods and lions. News Item 68 An offcial report in the United States says the American banking crisis that rocked the global economythree years ago was caused by the failure of regulators and excessive risk-taking on the part of the financialindustry. The investigating panel said the crisis was avoidable and resulted directly from human action andinaction. But the panel divided along party lines with Republican members producing their own separate reports.News Item 69 Finance ministers from the G20 Economics meeting in France have reached a deal aimed at preventinga repeat of the global fnancial crisis. The accord covers what indicators can be used to measure economicimbalances, such as large trade services. The French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde described the dealas a compromise agreed after sometimes frank and tense negotiations in Paris. News Item 70 The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has accused the United States and the United Nations ofconspiring to defame his government. He said criticism by the U.S. and the UN drugs agency over Bolivia’shandling of the war on drugs were part of a strategy to falsely link his government to drug traffcking. Mr.Morales said the U.S. was trying to force him to invite American anti-narcotics agents, which he expelled in2008, back into the country. News Item 71 The Hubble Space Telescope has detected what astronomers think may be the oldest galaxy everobserved. The fuzzy picture shows a cluster of stars dating back to shortly after the birth of the Universe,an event known as the Big Bang. The galaxy is thought to be more than 13 billion years old. One researchersaid the image was from a time when new star systems had been forming at an astonishing rate. News Item 72 The human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, has called for a fresh investigation into allegations 12 that Kosovo Liberation Army rebels were involved in organized crime and the traffcking of human organs.The council adopted a report carried out by its investigator which says organs were taken from prisoners ofwar killed by the KLA after the Kosovo confict with Serbian forces in 1999. News Item 73 American scientists working in the Arctic have recorded what they believe is the longest-ever swimby a polar bear. They ftted a female bear with a radio collar and then tracked her as she swam non-stopfor nine days. She covered nearly 700km northwards from Alaska in icy waters and then traveled a further1,600km, sometimes walking on the ice. The scientists say that as more sea ice melts, polar bears have toswim greater distances in search of food. News Item 74 One of the big companies that buy cocoa from Ivory Coast, Cargill, says it’s suspending furtherpurchases. It follows a call from the internationally recognized President of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara,for a month-long ban on cocoa exports, which provide the main source of revenue for his rival LaurentGbagbo, who’s refusing to give up the presidency. News Item 75 The head of the Catholic Church in Italy has criticized political leaders who behave immorally. Thecomments by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco come as the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi struggleswith a scandal over his relationship with a teenage nightclub dancer. Cardinal Bagnasco said the youngwere being sold the idea that success came through moral compromise and selling yourself rather than hardwork. News Item 76 In a month since the Central Bank governor was told to give Alassane Ouattara unique access to theIvorian bank accounts, Laurent Gbagbo has been able to withdraw around $160 million, money that willhelp him pay army salaries this month and stay on in power. That left heads of state from the West AfricanMonetary Zone meeting in Mali this weekend little choice but to ask the bank governor to resign, whichhe did. For Mr. Gbagbo’ s administration, the loss of access to the state accounts will increase the fnancialpressure. They are already facing travel bans, asset freezes and the threat of a regional military intervention.News Item 77 A French court has convicted the former boss of the French-American media giant, Vivendi Universal,of embezzlement and false reporting to the stock market. Jean-Marie Messier was ousted in 2002 followingthe purchase of Universal when it had debts of $47billion. He’s been given a three-year suspended prisonsentence and fned $200,000. A lawyer representing the small shareholders, Frederik Karel Canoy, said itwas a hard-fought victory. 13 News Item 78 Police in Mexico say a posting on the social networking site Facebook has led them to the mainsuspect in the shooting of the Paraguayan footballer Salvador Cabanas last year. Police knew that thesuspect, Jose Jorge Balderas Garza, was in a relationship with a Colombian model. When she listed aMexico City neighborhood as her current location on Facebook, police moved in. News Item 70 UN patrols have been attacked, and their movements severely restricted by forces loyal to theincumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, who accuses the UN of bias because it supports his rival AlassaneOuattara. The extra troops and armed helicopters authorised by the Security Council will be used to protectUN personnel as well as the delivery of supplies to the hotel where Mr. Ouattara is under blockade. They’llalso comprise a rapid reaction force to respond to emergencies and strengthen attempts to protect civiliansand investigate reported atrocities. News Item 80 The Electoral Commission in Uganda has identified at least nine armed groups allied to politicalparties and candidates which it says are threatening to disrupt presidential elections later this year. Thecommission chairman said the militias had been organized with the pretext of guarding the votes of thepoliticians they are affliated with. The government has been accused of sponsoring two of the nine groups.News Item 81 A German man has admitted to smuggling hundreds of live tarantula spiders to the United Statesthrough the mail. Prosecutors in Los Angeles said Sven Koppler was caught after he posted tarantulas fromGermany to federal agents posing as buyers. Court documents showed Mr. Koppler, who faces a possible20 years in jail, had earned $300,000 smuggling spiders to dozens of countries. News Item 82 Scientists in the United States have warned that new varieties of grape need to be developed to securethe future of wine-making. Nearly all types of grape in use today belong to one species, meaning thatthey are vulnerable to the same diseases. Researchers from Cornell University in the U.S. have analyzedthe genomes of more than 1,000 individual vine plants. They’ve identifed bits of DNA that are linked tovarious traits, including acidity, sugar content and disease resistance. Writing in Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences, they say that using this information should make it far easier to create new grapevarieties that are resistant to disease; if we are lucky, they might even result in better tasting wines.News Item 83 A woman in Mauritania has been convicted of keeping two girls in slave-like conditions in a raresuccessful prosecution against the practice. The woman, a bank employee, was sentenced to six months inprison. The mothers of the two girls, aged 10 and 14, were given six-month suspended sentences. The court 14 said the mothers had exploited their children by handing them over to the woman. News Item 84 The United Nations is appealing for millions of dollars in emergency aid for Sri Lanka to compensatethose who’ve been affected by the foods and to help them replant their crops. More than 300,000 peoplein eastern and central Sri Lanka have been displaced. A UN offcial said clean drinking water was a majorproblem as tens of thousands of wells have been contaminated. News Item 85 A government report said the drug known as Mediator should have been banned as early as 1999when it began to emerge that it could cause heart disease. Several other European countries and the UnitedStates then withdrew it, but it remained on sale in France for another 10 years. The Health Minister XavierBertrand said it was now his duty to rebuild the regulatory system to protect the public. His statement isbeing seen as an admission that one of the biggest medical scandals in France in recent years may not be anisolated case. News Item 86 The founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been speaking of his ambitions for the website10 years after it was set up. Wikipedia is now available in 270 languages, covers 17 million topics and isread by hundreds of millions of people around the world. But the man behind the site, Jimmy Wales, sayshe expects its future growth to come from emerging nations like India and Brazil. News Item 87 Fighting has continued to rage in Libya despite some 70 sorties from international aircraft trying toenforce a UN resolution to end attacks s forces. At least nine people arereported on civilians by Colonel Gaddaf’ to have been killed by forces loyal to the Libyan leader in the city of Misrata, the only big rebelstronghold in western Libya. There were also clashes near Ajdabiya in eastern Libya as Ian Pannell reports.News Item 88 Abnormally high levels of radioactive substances have been detected in seawater near the Fukushimanuclear power plant in Japan, which was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami 10 days ago. Radioactiveiodine levels are over 100 times higher than government-set standards, while radioactive cesium levels are25 times the offcial limit. Earlier, the head of the United Nations Nuclear Agency said the situation wasstill very serious at the plant. Yukiya Amano was speaking at an emergency meeting at the IAEA.News Item 89 Thousands of supporters of Ivory Coast’s Young Patriots movement have answered a call to join thearmy to fght for Laurent Gbagbo, who’s refused to leave the presidency since last November’s election. Inthe city of Abidjan, the pro-Gbagbo youths chanted threats to supporters of Mr. Gbagbo’s rival, Alassane 15 Ouattara, who’s internationally recognized as having won the election. News Item 90 The number of people confrmed dead in the earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan now stands atnearly 8,500. Almost 13,000 are missing. Police say it’s possible some of their names will match bodies thathaven’ t yet been identifed. More than 350,000 people are living in basic shelters with little food. Japanesetelevision has shown footage of an elderly woman rescued from her wrecked home. It’s said she’d beentrapped in her kitchen with her grandson for nine days. News Item 91 Offcials in Egypt say voters have approved a referendum, introducing amendments to the constitutionand setting the ground for presidential and parliamentary elections later this year. Millions of people turnedout to vote on Saturday. According to the offcial count, a clear majority of nearly 80% of voters approvedof the nine amendments to the constitution. That opens the way for the military to hand over power to a newcivilian government in a matter of months. News Item 92 The Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has told President Obama that the United States will havemany opportunities to help develop Brazil’ s newly found oil felds. She was speaking after talks with Mr.Obama who’ s visiting the country for the frst time. For his part, President Obama said the U.S. was lookingforward to signing several trade and fnancial agreements with Brazil. News Item 93 The Japanese authorities say that they’ve detected radioactive contamination in food as they are tryingto fx the rigged nuclear power plant at Fukushima. Offcials said they’d found radiation levels above safetylimits in milk and vegetables originating from the Fukushima area. Traces of radioactive iodine were alsoreported in tap water near Tokyo. But the government said the levels present posed no risk to human health.News Item 94 The governing party in the southern Indian state of Tamil Natu said it will provide all households inthe state with free food mixer if it’ s voted back into power. The DMK party, a key ally of the congress-ledgovernment, is also offering free laptops for college students and free rice for nearly two million very poorfamilies. News Item 95 The United States has signed a nuclear accord with Chile despite growing misgivings in thecountry about the safety of nuclear power. The Chilean government said the deal focused on trainingnuclear engineers rather than building a reactor. Chile suffered a devastating earthquake last year, andenvironmental groups have questioned the decision to invest more in nuclear energy. 16 News Item 96 The Roman Catholic Church has welcomed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that thedisplay of crucifxes in state schools is historic”, sayingthe acceptable. The Vatican described the ruling as “ crosses were an expression of the cultural and religious identity of traditionally Christian countries.A woman in Italy had complained that crucifixes at a local school violated secular principles and werediscriminatory. News Item 97 A computer expert from Bangladesh has been jailed for 30 years in Britain for conspiring to blowup an airliner. Rajib Karim, who worked for British Airways, was found guilty last month of makingpreparations for terrorist attacks. A court was told he used his job to supply confdential information aboutBritish Airways to a militant linked to al-Qaeda. The judge described Karim as a “committed jihadist”.News Item 98 Members of the network subscribed to a website run from the Netherlands, which claimed to be aforum where people could discuss their sexual interest in boys. Having made contact, members emailedeach other to share illegal images and flms of children. A four-year international operation led by the UKchild protection centre Ceop has identified 670 suspected offenders, of whom more than a third are inBritain. So far 121 of the British suspects have been arrested. They include police offcers, teachers and ascout leader. News Item 99 A judge in the United States has found a former nurse guilty of encouraging two people sufferingfrom depression to commit suicide. William Melchert Dinkel was accused of trolling the Internet fordepressed people and then entering fake suicide packs or telling them how to kill themselves. He is due tobe sentenced in May. News Item 100 The American State Department spokesman P J Crowley has resigned after criticizing the Pentagonfor its treatment of a U.S. soldier suspected of passing classifed documents to the WikiLeaks website. In astatement, Mr. Crowley said he was taking full responsibility for the impact of his remarks. On Friday, Mr.Crowley said that holding the soldier, Private Bradley Manning, in solitary confnement and obliging him tostrip repeatedly was ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid.