英语听力精选进阶版 7648（在线收听）

The United States presidential hopeful Herman Cain has in effect withdrawn from the race for the Republican Party nomination for next year's election. The Georgia businessman was a surprise front-runner in the Republican field in October. Marcus George reports from Washington.

在美国大选中颇具潜质的候选人赫尔曼·凯恩已退出明年的共和党候选人竞选，十月份，这位乔治亚州商人在共和党中突然杀将出来。MarcusGeorge在华盛顿报道。

Herman Cain made the announcement at what was supposed to be his new campaign headquarters in Atlanta. He thanked his supporters for what they'd achieved, but said he was suspending the campaign because of the continued distraction of false accusations. Without mentioning them, he said his family had paid a tremendous price. The lethal blow came earlier this week when allegations emerged of a 13-year affair.

赫尔曼·凯恩在亚特兰大宣布了这个消息，而这里本该是他的新竞选指挥部。他感谢支持者们对他的拥护，称停止竞选是因为无端指控带来的不断骚扰。他没有指出具体的麻烦，但他说，他的家人已经对此付出巨大代价。本周早些时候，他受到一个致命打击，他被指有13年的婚外情。

Before that, there were a string of accusations of sexual harassment. But even before those damning revelations, there were unanswered questions about his catchy 9-9-9 tax reform plan and his understanding of foreign policy.

之前，他还遭受一系列的性骚扰指控。不过，在这些该死的揭发出现前，凯恩尚未就他那很受关注的“999”税收改革方案回答有关问题，也没有表述他对外交政策的理解。

Independent election monitors in Russia have said they are coming under increasing pressure from the authorities as the Russian people head to the polls for Sunday's parliamentary election. The complaint came after the director of the monitoring group Golos, Liliya Shibanova, was detained for 12 hours at a Moscow airport. Daniel Sandford reports.

俄罗斯人即将参加周日的议会选举，俄罗斯独立选举监督组织称当局正在对其施加越来越大的压力。此前，监督组织Golos负责人莉莉娅·史巴诺瓦在莫斯科机场被拘留12小时。Daniel Sandford报道。

One of the biggest issues in these elections to Russia's Duma will be whether or not the poll was fair. Golos is a non-party political election watchdog largely funded by the European Union and the United States. It has recorded more than 5,000 complaints that the rules have been broken. Most of the allegations have been against government officials. Perhaps because of that, it has received attention this week from the courts, from state-financed television and even from the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who complained about foreign-funded organisations meddling in the elections. Daniel Sandford reporting.

这次俄罗斯杜马选举最重要的问题是，投票是否公正。Golos是一家非政党政治选举监督机构，主要由欧盟和美国提供资助。该组织已受到5000多个据称破坏制度的投诉，大多指向政府官员。或许是这个原因，本周，法院、国家电视台甚至总统普京都对此事表示关注，普京抱怨说外国赞助的组织在扰乱选举。

Several people have been injured in the Indian city of Bhopal as police fought with thousands of protesters demanding more compensation for a toxic gas leak on the anniversary of the accident. At least 15,000 people were killed and tens of thousands injured at a Bhopal chemical plant in 1984 - the world's worst industrial disaster. Pratiksha Ghildial reports from Delhi.

在印度波帕举行的毒气泄露事故纪念日游行中，抗议者要求得到更多赔偿，并与警察发生冲突，数人受伤。1984年波帕化工厂事故中，至少15,000人死亡，成千上万人受伤，这是全世界最严重的工业灾难。Pratiksha在德里报道。

Angry protesters clashed with the police after the security forces tried to prevent them from blocking trains passing through Bhopal. They threw stones at the police and set several government vehicles on fire. The police responded with force. The train blockade was called by activists representing the victims of the Bhopal gas incident. On Friday, they had protested against India's decision to compete in the London Olympics despite sponsorship of the games by Dow Chemicals, which has links to the company behind the leak.

Pratiksha Ghildial reporting. Dow Chemicals bought the firm that owned the Bhopal gas plant, Union Carbide. It says previous compensation deals have settled the matter.

World News from the BBC

The Arab League has given Syria until Sunday to accept its proposal to allow foreign observers into the country. An Arab League committee meeting in Qatar also confirmed the imposition of economic sanctions in response to the Syrian government's violent suppression of unrest. The committee said it would freeze the assets of 19 Syrian officials.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said a small bomb blast in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad several days ago may have been an attempt to assassinate him. He said that preliminary information indicated he was the target. The BBC's Karin Tobbe in Baghdad says the foiled attack has come at an awkward time for the authorities.

伊拉克总理Nouri al-Maliki说，几天前发生在巴格达防御“绿区”的小型爆炸事件可能要试图暗杀他。他说，初步掌握的情报表明，他就是袭击的目标。BBC驻巴格达记者Karin Tobbe说，这次失败的袭击对当局来说时机很不好。

Prime Minister Maliki tried very hard to downplay the significance of this attack, and he assured many times that shouldn't be considered as a sign of weakness of the security forces, but it's definitely embarrassing for Prime Minister Maliki and for the Iraqi authorities who have been saying that the country is under full control of the security forces.

总理Maliki一心想将这次袭击淡化处理，他多次表示，这并不意味着安全部队力量薄弱。但对总理Maliki和伊拉克当局来说，这肯定很尴尬，因为他们一直宣称本国在安全部队的严密保护下。

The Ministry of Defence in Britain has confirmed that a British soldier has been dismissed and jailed for stabbing a 10-year-old Afghan boy.

英国国防部长称，一名英国士兵因刺杀一名10岁阿富汗男孩被开除。

In a previously unpublicised conviction, the soldier, Daniel Crook, was court-martialled and jailed for 18 months. The court-martial, which sat last June, heard that Crook had drunk a considerable amount of vodka the night before the unprovoked attack in Helmand province.

士兵Daniel Crook之前已被军事法庭定罪，判刑监禁18个月。军事法庭去年6月听审了此案，Crook在赫尔曼德省无缘无故犯下袭击案的前一晚，喝了大量伏特加。

Officials in Germany are preparing to evacuate more than 45,000 people from the city of Koblenz as experts defuse a massive Second World War bomb discovered in the River Rhine. Nearly half the city's population will be forced to move to a safe distance before the delicate operation begins.

在德国Koblenz市，因专家要拆除一个在莱茵河发现的二战巨型炸弹，官方正准备疏散45,000多人。在这次严密的行动开始之前，该市近一一半人都须撤到安全地方。

A collision between a truck and a bus in Brazil has killed at least 33 people and left 13 injured. The crash happened at night as the bus was carrying farm workers through the state of Bahia.

巴西发生卡车和巴士碰撞事故，至少33人