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BBC新闻听力100篇

News Item 1

The Japanese government has played down concern about a possible nuclear meltdown, following a big explosion at a nuclear power station in the north of the country. The blast occurred a day after the area was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami. A top government official, Yukio Edano, said a steel container 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 relief operation following the earthquake and tsunami. More than 1,000 people are feared dead. About 400 bodies were found in the town of Rikuzentakata, and Japanese media reports say 10,000 people are unaccounted for in Minamisanriku. Damian Grammaticas in the port of Sendai says the scenes of devastation there are astonishing.

News Item 3

International disaster relief teams have been sent to Japan. The United Nations said a nine strong UN team of experts would include several Japanese speakers. Britain said it was sending expert assistance after receiving a request from Japan. Singapore is also deploying an urban search and rescue team. American forces stationed in Japan have already been involved in rescue operations, and more than 50 territories and countries have offered assistance.

News Item 4

As officials in Japan struggle to assess the extent of the damage following the tsunami caused by a massive earthquake, it’s been announced that some 300 people are known to have been killed and more than 500 are unaccounted for in the area around the northern coastal city of Sendai. The 8.9-magnitude quake, 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 kilometers away, buildings swayed violently during the quake, which was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks.

News Item 5

Slowly but relentlessly, Colonel Gaddafi’s forces seem to be winning the battle for Ras Lanuf. Opposition fighters are still in the town, but they are under intense pressure. The bombing from government warplanes continued today, and there’s a big plume of smoke from the oil installation which was hit a couple of days ago. There’s no sign of either the rebel fighters or the local population beginning to flee the area. If Ras Lanuf falls, it brings the frontline closer to the main opposition-held city of Benghazi.

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News Item 6

Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators have marched in cities across Yemen after Friday prayers, demanding the removal of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. At least six people were wounded when security forces fired at protesters in the southern port city of Aden. In the capital Sana’a, where supporters of 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 the enemy, and he’s being held in solitary confinement in prison. Mr. Crowley said however that it was right that 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 now been signed into law by Governor Pat Quinn. Supporters of capital punishment had urged him to veto the change, but in a statement, the governor said he’d concluded that executions had no deterrent effect on crime, and that the death penalty system was inherently flawed. Illinois has a dark history of miscarriages of justice. Since 1977 when capital punishment was reinstated in America, 20 death row inmates in the state have 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 recently announced cuts to the budget and output of the BBC World Service. Its director Peter Herrick told the committee that the value of the organization was highlighted by its comprehensive coverage of the current turmoil in Arab countries. He said that if the cuts had come into effect earlier, that coverage of the events would have been seriously diminished. Mr. Herrick also acknowledged there’d been damage to the World Service, 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 mould at a house outside the French capital. Investigators believe many of the items were stolen from the luxury Harry 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 officials from outside the royal family. A royal decree said the Legislative Council of Oman would be given lawmaking powers. Until now, the role of the council has been to advise the Sultan, who has ruled Oman

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for four decades.

News Item 12

An agreement by Iceland to pay compensation to Britain and the Netherlands over the collapse of its banking system has run into problems. President Olafur Grimsson is to put the $5 billion deal to a referendum, even though it’s been approved by parliament. A previous deal with different repayment terms was 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 the situation in Libya where he said the people were facing unacceptable violence. But Russia says it’s opposed to any military intervention. Nato is engaged in what its Secretary General called “prudent planning”. While Britain confirmed it was working to secure a Security Council no-fly zone resolution.

News Item 14

A young Mexican woman who gained worldwide attention last year when she took over as police chief in a town plagued by drug-related violence has been sacked for abandoning her post. Marisol Valles was hailed as Mexico’s bravest woman in October when she became head of public security in the border town of Praxedis G. Guerrero.

News Item 15

Marisol Valles, a 20-year-old criminology student, became police chief in a town when nobody else was willing to take the job. Her appointment six months ago made her a sensation worldwide. But the mayor of Praxedis Guerrero said she hasn’t come back to work since last Wednesday, when she took personal leave to take care of her baby. Local activists told the BBC that Mrs. Valles and her family had fled to the United States after receiving threats of kidnapping.

News Item 16

The toy manufacturer Mattel has closed its flagship Barbie store in Shanghai just two years after it opened to much fanfare. The pink-theme, six-floor emporium was launched in a drive to attract Chinese consumers at a time when the famous doll faced declining sales in the West. But analysts said sales to Chinese consumers were poor.

News Item 17

Reports from Egypt say democracy activists have been attacked by men in plain clothes armed with knives outside the offices of the interior ministry in Cairo. It’s the first time since the toppling of President Mubarak last month that the protesters appeared to have come under such an attack. Over the weekend, activists stormed several offices of the secret police.

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News Item 18

The newly-appointed U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, has stressed the importance of pursuing a diplomatic settlement in Afghanistan alongside military operations. During his first visit to Kabul, he said the United States supported the Afghan government’s move towards talks with the 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 trafficking after they were allegedly found in possession of almost a tone of the synthetic drug methamphetamine and 30kg of cocaine. A local military commander 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 fight the war on drugs. Since he 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 Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded has been indicted on a number of new charges. Jared Loughner now faces 49 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 with blacked-out windows. He’s charged with acts against the integrity and independence of Cuba, and prosecutors have said they are seeking a 20-year sentence. Mr. Gross has already spent 15 months in a Cuban jail, accused of 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 Food and Agriculture Organization is warning that costs could spiral even further if unrest in Libya and the Middle East keeps driving up the price of oil. Rising food costs helped spark the recent protests in Egypt and Tunisia.

News Item 23

The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, has issued a personal apology for the killing of nine young boys in Kunar province on Tuesday. Local Afghan officials say the boys, aged 12 or younger, had been gathering firewood when helicopter gunship attacked them with rockets. Nato says there was a mistake in relaying information about the position of presumed militants who were firing at a Nato base.

News Item 24

Britain is to end its international aids to 16 countries. The International Development Secretary

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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 will receive 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 Gaddafi to stop him killing the people rebelling against him and persuade him to step down. The Pentagon in Washington says it’s repositioning naval and air forces around Libya so that there’s flexibility for action should government planners require it.

News Item 26

Two of Argentina’s former military rulers have gone on trial, accused of overseeing the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners. Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone are accused of kidnapping about 30 babies whose parents were killed or disappeared during military rule. The babies were then given for adoption to members of the Argentine military or their allies. Both former leaders are already serving long 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 La Paz. The authorities managed to evacuate the poor neighborhood of Kupini Dos before it was crushed by a collapsing hillside. Right across Bolivia thousands of people have been left homeless by weeks of heavy rain.

News Item 28

The stage is set in Hollywood for the Academy Awards, the film 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 the attempts by King George VI to overcome a bad speech impediment and lead his nation in the Second World War. But the film faces strong competition from The Social Network about the Internet site Facebook, as well 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 suspending Libya from the body. The council also authorized an international investigation into the violence in the country with a view to prosecuting those responsible. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay 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 arrested at a Paris bar and accused of making anti-Semitic and racist remarks to a nearby couple. Mr. Galliano has

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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 group of Democratic Party politicians. The Democratic state senators left Wisconsin in order to block a crucial budget bill, which includes controversial plans by the Republican Governor Scott Walker to limit the power of trades unions. Without the Democratic lawmakers, the Senate cannot reach a quorum and the bill, which would 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 than 700 ethnic Albanians in Serbia’s province of Kosovo in 1999. Vlastimir Djordjevic was convicted by the international 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 be found in the city of Christchurch, hit by an earthquake on Tuesday. Mr. Key said he hadn’t given up hope of finding people but that the authorities had to be realistic. At least 70 people have been killed, but up to 300 others are missing.

News Item 34

A mass polio vaccination campaign is being planned in Burma after a 7-month-old baby was found to have the virus. It’s the first case there for three years. Burma had been on the point of being declared free of polio, a highly contagious virus that can lead to paralysis and which is spread mainly through contaminated food and water. Four years ago, the Burmese government immunized nearly 7 million children. Since a drive 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 again there.

News Item 35

More than a quarter of a million people have taken part in a march and rally in central London to protest against the deep public spending cuts introduced by Britain’s coalition government. The march which was organised by trade unions was the biggest protest in Britain since an anti-war rally eight years ago 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 a condition for his release. Ivan Hernandez, a journalist who was one of 75 opponents that the government arrested in 2003, was released along with six other prisoners. Mr. Hernandez is among a group of dissidents

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whose freedom was brokered by the Catholic Church. He has said he intends to continue to write about the issues facing ordinary Cubans.

News Item 37

Finance ministers from the G20 economies meeting in France have reached a deal aimed at preventing a repeat of the global financial crisis. The accord covers what indicators can be used to measure economic imbalances, such as large trade surpluses. The French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde described the deal 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 of two major traffickers—one supplying heroin in southwest Asia and the Middle East; the other smuggling heroin, opium and morphine in the border regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran by designating New Ansari 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 firms with links to it.

News Item 39

A European court has upheld the right of television viewers in the European Union to watch important sporting events, such as the World Cup, without having to pay. Football’s world governing body FIFA and the 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, deemed to be of major significance 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 large protest 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’s the first of 30 opposition figures to be tried.

News Item 41

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament has voted to name one of its mountains after the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The parliament said it would immortalize the Russian leader’s name. Putin Peak stands at 4,500 meters, higher than Yeltsin Peak, named after the former Russian leader. However, both are dwarfed by 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 over the last 10 years. Among those already in jail are several high-ranking officers, including one colonel, the

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highest rank in the country’s military police. The federal police investigation that led to the arrests began more than a year ago when the authorities noticed an increase in the number of deaths in the areas to where these policemen were assigned.

News Item 43

Astronomers say the Sun unleashed a huge flare early on Tuesday, its strongest for four years. They’ve warned this could create a geomagnetic storm around the Earth, which might interfere with electrical power grids and communication systems. Reports from southern China already speak of disruption to radio broadcasts. 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 since last June. The Bank’s food price index has shot up by 15% in the last four months alone. The World Bank figures show sharp price increases in wheat, maize, sugar, and edible oils over the past six months, with prices almost reaching the peaks of the year 2008 when there were food riots in a number of countries in the developing world. Wheat and maize are the basis of many poorer people’s diets. But the poor suffer a double whammy because they also spend a larger proportion of their income on food than those in richer countries.

News Item 45

A court in Ecuador has fined the American oil giant Chevron a reported $8 billion for polluting a large part of the country’s Amazon region. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said they’d been awarded the sum after accusing the Texaco oil company, which was bought by Chevron in 2001, of damaging swathes of the northern 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-issue weapons to be kept at home. It means several million Swiss men won’t have to deliver their weapons into army arsenals. A coalition of civil and religious groups and centre-left parties had wanted the system overturned, arguing that Switzerland has one of Europe’s highest gun-related suicide rates. But traditionalists said banning the weapons would have broken the long-standing trust between the Swiss people and the army.

News Item 47

The report says that in less than a decade, the number of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth has reduced by 40%. The sharp fall is due to better healthcare facilities, education and the widespread use of mobile phones. The study also shows Bangladeshi women are having fewer babies. Only one fifth of them have four or more children. Now experts say the country needs to achieve a UN goal of reducing the rate even further in the next four years.

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News Item 48

An attack on a crowded nightclub in the Mexican city of Guadalajara has left 6 people dead and more than 20 wounded. Unidentified gunmen sprayed the city centre bar with bullets and threw a hand grenade before escaping in three vehicles. Police said the attackers were customers who returned to extract revenge after 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 create jobs in a country where more than one in five 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 said they’d agreed to resume dialogue on all issues including the disputed region of Kashmir. They said Pakistan’s foreign minister would visit India by July to review progress. A BBC correspondent in Delhi says 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 the electronics in the company’s vehicles. The U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood spelled out the inquiry’s findings. Since 2009, the Japanese company had recalled more than 12 million cars and vans across 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 of what will be the world’s third biggest hydroelectric dam. An indigenous leader delivered a petition opposing the project signed by more than half a million people. Environmentalists and celebrities say the dam in the Amazon 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 full meeting since protests erupted two weeks ago. The government has also agreed to set up a compensation fund for those affected by looting and vandalism. But the protesters who’ve occupied Tahrir Square say they won’t disband until President Hosni Mubarak leaves office, and Shadi el-Ghazali Harb, a member of the 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,

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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 is internationally recognized as the winner of November’s election.

News Item 55

A court in Rwanda has sentenced two journalists to long prison sentences after finding them guilty of disrupting state security and propagating ethnic divisions. Newspaper editor Agnes Uwimana was sentenced to 17 years in jail. Her colleague Saidath Mukakibibi was ordered to serve seven years. The judge said the two women wrote an article last year which claimed that Rwandans were unhappy with the government of Paul Kagame for president.

News Item 56

The government of Brazil is to provide free medicines for everyone suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure. President Dilma Rousseff said the measure was part of her campaign to end extreme poverty. The health ministry says around 33 million Brazilians have high blood pressure and more than seven million have diabetes.

News Item 57

NASA says it might have found several hundred new planets in distant solar systems in addition to the 500 already discovered. They were spotted by the Kepler space telescope, which has also found an entire solar system of six planets orbiting around a Sun-like star. This is the biggest news in astronomy in 16 years since the first planet outside our solar system was detected.

News Item 58

Reports from Moscow say that Russian ground controllers have failed to establish contact with a military satellite after its launch into space on Tuesday. A senior Russian military officer was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that the satellite has entered an incorrect orbit and that efforts to restore radio communication haven’t yet succeeded.

News Item 59

The director of a psychiatric hospital in Cuba where 26 patients died from hypothermia last year has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Twelve other staff at the hospital in the capital Havana also received sentences ranging between five and 15 years. The deaths exposed failings in Cuba’s free public health system, 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 to remember 13 Roman Catholics shot dead by the British army in 1972 on what became known as Bloody Sunday. But the Catholic community is divided about whether now is the time to end their annual

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commemoration.

News Item 61

The close relatives of two opposition leaders detained in Belarus have written to European Union foreign ministers, asking them to impose the strictest possible sanctions on the Belarusian government. One of the opposition figures, Vladimir Neklyayev, was freed on Saturday, but his daughter dismissed this as a ploy. The EU has condemned what it regards as the flawed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko and his subsequent crackdown on the opposition. EU foreign ministers will discuss on Monday what measures 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-old Dutch woman of Iranian origin. Reports from Iran said that Sahra Bahrami had been convicted of drug smuggling. 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 fire. Soldiers shot at students following protests which erupted on Friday about the stabbing of three classmates. Witnesses said they saw market stores and houses being set alight as rioting spread.

News Item 64

Researchers in the United States said they’re trying to use genes from ancient varieties of staple foods, 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 rediscovering using new gene technologies. Researchers investigating ancient varieties of rice have found genes of confirmed disease-resistance. They believe that by analyzing the genes of more plants, they’ll be able to build up a live-breed of properties, with which plant breeders can create new varieties suit to local circumstances.

News Item 65

The upper house of parliament in the Irish Republic has passed a controversial finance bill, clearing the way for an early general election. The bill was needed to comply with the terms of a huge financial rescue package Ireland had to accept from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. It’s expected that the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who leads a minority government, will now dissolve parliament next Tuesday.

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News Item 66

NASA has marked the 25th anniversary of the Challenger space shuttle disaster, which killed seven astronauts as they ascended into orbit. Hundreds gathered at Cape Canaveral for a memorial service attended by former astronauts, NASA staff and relatives and friends of the dead crew. One of the astronauts killed in the disaster was Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher who would have broadcast science lessons from space.

News Item 67

Ancient sculptures blown to pieces by a British air raid on Berlin in 1943 have been reassembled and put on public display. Archaeologists spent nine years painstakingly piecing together nearly 30,000 shards of basalt to reconstruct the giant figures of sphinxes, gods and lions.

News Item 68

An official report in the United States says the American banking crisis that rocked the global economy three years ago was caused by the failure of regulators and excessive risk-taking on the part of the financial industry. The investigating panel said the crisis was avoidable and resulted directly from human action and inaction. 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 preventing a repeat of the global financial crisis. The accord covers what indicators can be used to measure economic imbalances, such as large trade services. The French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde described the deal as 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 of conspiring to defame his government. He said criticism by the U.S. and the UN drugs agency over Bolivia’s handling of the war on drugs were part of a strategy to falsely link his government to drug trafficking. Mr. Morales said the U.S. was trying to force him to invite American anti-narcotics agents, which he expelled in 2008, back into the country.

News Item 71

The Hubble Space Telescope has detected what astronomers think may be the oldest galaxy ever observed. 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 researcher said 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

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that Kosovo Liberation Army rebels were involved in organized crime and the trafficking of human organs. The council adopted a report carried out by its investigator which says organs were taken from prisoners of war killed by the KLA after the Kosovo conflict with Serbian forces in 1999.

News Item 73

American scientists working in the Arctic have recorded what they believe is the longest-ever swim by a polar bear. They fitted a female bear with a radio collar and then tracked her as she swam non-stop for nine days. She covered nearly 700km northwards from Alaska in icy waters and then traveled a further 1,600km, sometimes walking on the ice. The scientists say that as more sea ice melts, polar bears have to swim 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 further purchases. 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 Laurent Gbagbo, 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. The comments by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco come as the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi struggles with a scandal over his relationship with a teenage nightclub dancer. Cardinal Bagnasco said the young were being sold the idea that success came through moral compromise and selling yourself rather than hard work.

News Item 76

In a month since the Central Bank governor was told to give Alassane Ouattara unique access to the Ivorian bank accounts, Laurent Gbagbo has been able to withdraw around $160 million, money that will help him pay army salaries this month and stay on in power. That left heads of state from the West African Monetary Zone meeting in Mali this weekend little choice but to ask the bank governor to resign, which he did. For Mr. Gbagbo’s administration, the loss of access to the state accounts will increase the financial pressure. 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 following the purchase of Universal when it had debts of $47billion. He’s been given a three-year suspended prison sentence and fined $200,000. A lawyer representing the small shareholders, Frederik Karel Canoy, said it was a hard-fought victory.

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News Item 78

Police in Mexico say a posting on the social networking site Facebook has led them to the main suspect in the shooting of the Paraguayan footballer Salvador Cabanas last year. Police knew that the suspect, Jose Jorge Balderas Garza, was in a relationship with a Colombian model. When she listed a Mexico 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 the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, who accuses the UN of bias because it supports his rival Alassane Ouattara. The extra troops and armed helicopters authorised by the Security Council will be used to protect UN personnel as well as the delivery of supplies to the hotel where Mr. Ouattara is under blockade. They’ll also comprise a rapid reaction force to respond to emergencies and strengthen attempts to protect civilians and investigate reported atrocities.

News Item 80

The Electoral Commission in Uganda has identified at least nine armed groups allied to political parties and candidates which it says are threatening to disrupt presidential elections later this year. The commission chairman said the militias had been organized with the pretext of guarding the votes of the politicians they are affiliated 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 States through the mail. Prosecutors in Los Angeles said Sven Koppler was caught after he posted tarantulas from Germany to federal agents posing as buyers. Court documents showed Mr. Koppler, who faces a possible 20 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 secure the future of wine-making. Nearly all types of grape in use today belong to one species, meaning that they are vulnerable to the same diseases. Researchers from Cornell University in the U.S. have analyzed the genomes of more than 1,000 individual vine plants. They’ve identified bits of DNA that are linked to various traits, including acidity, sugar content and disease resistance. Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they say that using this information should make it far easier to create new grape varieties 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 rare successful prosecution against the practice. The woman, a bank employee, was sentenced to six months in prison. The mothers of the two girls, aged 10 and 14, were given six-month suspended sentences. The court

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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 compensate those who’ve been affected by the floods and to help them replant their crops. More than 300,000 people in eastern and central Sri Lanka have been displaced. A UN official said clean drinking water was a major problem 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 1999 when it began to emerge that it could cause heart disease. Several other European countries and the United States then withdrew it, but it remained on sale in France for another 10 years. The Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said it was now his duty to rebuild the regulatory system to protect the public. His statement is being seen as an admission that one of the biggest medical scandals in France in recent years may not be an isolated case.

News Item 86

The founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been speaking of his ambitions for the website 10 years after it was set up. Wikipedia is now available in 270 languages, covers 17 million topics and is read by hundreds of millions of people around the world. But the man behind the site, Jimmy Wales, says he 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 to enforce a UN resolution to end attacks on civilians by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces. At least nine people are reported to have been killed by forces loyal to the Libyan leader in the city of Misrata, the only big rebel stronghold 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 Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami 10 days ago. Radioactive iodine levels are over 100 times higher than government-set standards, while radioactive cesium levels are 25 times the official limit. Earlier, the head of the United Nations Nuclear Agency said the situation was still 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 the army to fight for Laurent Gbagbo, who’s refused to leave the presidency since last November’s election. In the city of Abidjan, the pro-Gbagbo youths chanted threats to supporters of Mr. Gbagbo’s rival, Alassane

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Ouattara, who’s internationally recognized as having won the election.

News Item 90

The number of people confirmed dead in the earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan now stands at nearly 8,500. Almost 13,000 are missing. Police say it’s possible some of their names will match bodies that haven’t yet been identified. More than 350,000 people are living in basic shelters with little food. Japanese television has shown footage of an elderly woman rescued from her wrecked home. It’s said she’d been trapped in her kitchen with her grandson for nine days.

News Item 91

Officials in Egypt say voters have approved a referendum, introducing amendments to the constitution and setting the ground for presidential and parliamentary elections later this year. Millions of people turned out to vote on Saturday. According to the official count, a clear majority of nearly 80% of voters approved of the nine amendments to the constitution. That opens the way for the military to hand over power to a new civilian government in a matter of months.

News Item 92

The Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has told President Obama that the United States will have many opportunities to help develop Brazil’s newly found oil fields. She was speaking after talks with Mr. Obama who’s visiting the country for the first time. For his part, President Obama said the U.S. was looking forward to signing several trade and financial agreements with Brazil.

News Item 93

The Japanese authorities say that they’ve detected radioactive contamination in food as they are trying to fix the rigged nuclear power plant at Fukushima. Officials said they’d found radiation levels above safety limits in milk and vegetables originating from the Fukushima area. Traces of radioactive iodine were also reported 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 in the state with free food mixer if it’s voted back into power. The DMK party, a key ally of the congress-led government, is also offering free laptops for college students and free rice for nearly two million very poor families.

News Item 95

The United States has signed a nuclear accord with Chile despite growing misgivings in the country about the safety of nuclear power. The Chilean government said the deal focused on training nuclear engineers rather than building a reactor. Chile suffered a devastating earthquake last year, and environmental groups have questioned the decision to invest more in nuclear energy.

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News Item 96

The Roman Catholic Church has welcomed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that the display of crucifixes in state schools is acceptable. The Vatican described the ruling as “historic”, saying the 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 were discriminatory.

News Item 97

A computer expert from Bangladesh has been jailed for 30 years in Britain for conspiring to blow up an airliner. Rajib Karim, who worked for British Airways, was found guilty last month of making preparations for terrorist attacks. A court was told he used his job to supply confidential information about British 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 a forum where people could discuss their sexual interest in boys. Having made contact, members emailed each other to share illegal images and films of children. A four-year international operation led by the UK child protection centre Ceop has identified 670 suspected offenders, of whom more than a third are in Britain. So far 121 of the British suspects have been arrested. They include police officers, teachers and a scout leader.

News Item 99

A judge in the United States has found a former nurse guilty of encouraging two people suffering from depression to commit suicide. William Melchert Dinkel was accused of trolling the Internet for depressed people and then entering fake suicide packs or telling them how to kill themselves. He is due to be sentenced in May.

News Item 100

The American State Department spokesman P J Crowley has resigned after criticizing the Pentagon for its treatment of a U.S. soldier suspected of passing classified documents to the WikiLeaks website. In a statement, 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 confinement and obliging him to strip repeatedly was ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid.