2016年6月英语四级听力改革短篇新闻练习(2)

　　听力材料：

　　BBC News with Iain Purdon

　　Divers searching a submerged cruise ship in Italysay they will work through the night to try to findmore survivors. Fifteen people are still unaccountedfor while five are known to have died. Earlier, two more bodies were found. Filippo Marini is aspokesman for the Italian coast guard.

　　"The bodies of two elderly people have been found. They'll be identified as soon as possible.The correct procedures will be observed, and then we will proceed with identification. It's asad piece of news to give. Our divers have found themselves with this very sad situation. Thebodies are being brought onto the mainland. They're two elderly people found on the third floorin a meeting area section of the ship."

　　The vessel, the Costa Concordia, smashed into rocks off the Italian coast on Friday. The ship'scaptain has been questioned. He argues that nautical charts failed to show any spike of rock,but the authorities say he brought the ship too close to the island of Giglio, where it ranaground.

　　The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has harshly criticised President Bashar al-Assad ofSyria and the way he's handled the anti-government protests in the country. Speaking inLebanon, Mr Ban said the Arab revolution showed that people no longer accepted tyrannies.

　　"Today, I say again to President Assad of Syria: Stop killing your own people. The path ofrepression is a dead end. The lessons of the past year are eloquent and clear. The winds ofchange will not cease to blow. The flame ignited in Tunisia will not be dimmed."

　　However, the French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has attacked what he called the silence of theUN Security Council over Syria.

　　The head of UN humanitarian operations in Somalia, Mark Bowden, has told the BBC many morepeople will die of hunger before the famine there is brought under control. He said thesituation was improving, but the crisis would continue till July or August.

　　"The number of people facing strict famine conditions has been reduced from 750,000 toabout 250,000, but that doesn't mean that there's not a major crisis in Somalia."

　　Mr Bowden said that the famine had killed tens of thousands of people since it was declared sixmonths ago and some of the world's highest child malnutrition rates had been recorded inSomalia with half of all children being malnourished.

　　Two planes have attacked the Somali city of Jilib in the south of the country, an area controlledby Islamists of al-Shabab. Elders in the city have told the BBC that six children were killed in thebombing which was apparently carried out by Kenyan military jets. There are reports that al-Shabab fighters were among the casualties. The Kenyan military spokesman told the BBC thathe was checking whether Kenyan aircraft were involved in the raid.

　　World News from the BBC

　　There's been a third day of fighting between rival Libyan militia groups despite efforts of theinterim government to broker a ceasefire. At least three people have been killed and morethan 40 wounded since Friday in clashes near the town of Gharyan, south of the capital Tripoli.The interim government has been struggling to control armed groups.

　　Voting has ended in parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan, which the party of PresidentNursultan Nazarbayev is expected to win. International observers have never deemed anyelection in Kazakhstan as free or fair. Rayhan Demytrie reports.

　　In Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, the turnout was low. But nationwide by 6pm local time,nearly 70% of voters had cast their ballots. The presidential party Nur Otan is expected to winby a landslide. So far it has been the only party represented in parliament. But a new electionlaw guarantees the party with the second highest number of votes some seats. The six otherpolitical parties that are standing do not pose a serious challenge to Nur Otan.

　　A Swiss-German consortium has announced a $2bn project to develop solar technology inOman. The investors plan to build 400 megawatts of solar generating capacity, and factories tomake solar panels for Oman and for export. Despite plentiful sunshine, the Middle Eastregion's solar power production is negligible, compared with that of Europe, China or theUnited States.

　　Russia says it believes debris from a spacecraft that failed in its mission to Mars has crashedinto the Pacific Ocean. The probe, Phobos-Grunt, is one of the heaviest and most toxic ever tofall back down to earth although the Russian space agency says most of it will have burnt up onre-entry. The spacecraft was launched last November in an ambitious bid to scoop up rockyfragments from a Martian moon and bring them back for study. But it became stranded inEarth's orbit after the launch went wrong.

　　BBC News