英语新闻稿

第三课

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is offering to scale back Britain's nuclear deterrence if an international agreement is reached to cut the world's nuclear arsenals. Mr. Brown is expected to tell a special session of the United Nations Security Council on Thursday that he'll be willing to give up one of four royal navy submarines that carry Trident nuclear missiles. Officials are insisting that cost isn't a factor here. Here's our defence correspondent Nick Childs. Gordon Brown is saying he'll be ready to throw part of the trident force into the port in the context of a much bigger global disarmament deal. He said so in general terms before. This offer though is more concrete. There is a growing sense that to avoid what some fear could be a sudden cascade of new nuclear states, the established nuclear powers need to do more in terms of disarmament to keep the proliferation regime intact. The Prime Minister will hope his move will be seen as an important gesture. But the key to the process will be the actions of the big players, the United States and Russia.

第八课

The head of the International Monetary Fund says Greece has nothing to fear from the organization. At a news conference in Washington, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the IMF was trying to provide Greece with the advice and resources necessary to help with its debt problem. Andrew Walker reports from Washington. Mr.Strauss-Kahn was responding to a Greek journalist who said the Greek public are demonizing the IMF that they fear things will be worse with IMF involvement. The agency has a reputation for requiring borrowing countries to make deep cuts in popular government spending programs. Mr. Strauss-Kahn said the Greek people should think of the IMF as a cooperative organization where the countries of the world work together to help those in trouble by providing resources and advice on behalf of the international community.

第九课

Finance ministers of the world's leading industrialized and developing countries, the G20, have agreed to continue supporting the global economic recovery. In a statement released after their meeting in Scotland, the ministers said conditions had improved, but economic and financial recovery was uneven and unemployment a worry. Andrew Walker reports. The communiqué avoids complacency. Although economic and financial conditions have improved, they decided they still need to keep up the initiatives intended to restore growth. The meeting was, however, rather overshadowed by a statement from the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, suggesting a tax on financial transactions as one of a number of options for making banks pay for the crisis. His calls have been received politely by the finance ministers but several made remarks which suggest that other ways of tackling the problem are rather more likely to be adopted.

第十课

The European Union has initialed an agreement to end one of the world's longest-running trade disputes over bananas. The EU, the world's biggest importer of bananas, is to cut the duty it imposes on Latin American producers of the fruit, while bananas grows in

former European colonies will gradually lose the preferential terms they've enjoyed. Andrew Walker reports. The deal signed in Geneva commits the European Union to gradually lowering the tariffs it imposes on bananas imported mainly from Latin America. The cut will be over a third by 2017. That will reduce the competitive advantage of a group of countries, mainly former colonies of EU states in Africa and Caribbean, which enjoyed tariff-free access. The EU plans to provide those countries with some compensation, in a shape of nearly 300,000 dollars in additional aid.

第十一课

The long-awaited take-off of the Solar Impulse was greeted with delight by those who have spent the last seven years working on it. The solar-powered plane has the wing-span of a jumbo jet, but weighs less than a family car. It doesn't use a single drop of aviation fuel, instead its giant wings are covered with solar cells. The project is the brainchild of Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard - he sees the Solar Impulse as a sign of things to come.

第十二课

It's the world's fastest growing economy and shows no sign of slowing down, so striking deals with Chinese businesses is now the top priority for every British company that wants to stay ahead in global trade. Now schools in the United Kingdom want to give their students a head start by teaching them Mandarin - and they are making it compulsory. Brighton College is a fee paying private school on the south coast of Britain and already teaches Latin, Spanish and French to its 1,200 pupils. Students can choose between these languages, but from the autumn, which is the beginning of the new academic year in British schools, every student must study Mandarin whether they like it or not.

第十四课

It might seem like an unlikely match an ancient institution getting to grips with cutting edge technology but the British royal family has been active online for more than a decade. They launched their own website in 1997. The Queen's Christmas message is available as a podcast, and a year ago the official Royal Channel was launched on YouTube, showing videos of the family at work. Royal watchers describe the 82 year old Queen as a silver surfer someone who's enthusiastic about the internet and who keeps in touch with younger members of her family by email.

第十五课

This weekend, around 35,000 runners filled the streets of London, running the 26th annual London Marathon. The course is 26.2 miles long (42 km), and goes past many of London's landmarks, such as the Tower of London, the famous 19th century ship Cutty Sark, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. The runners actually run over Tower Bridge.