英语听力精选进阶版 9918（在线收听）

There are reports of fierce clashes in the Syrian capital Damascus around the airport and in eastern districts after most communications in the country went down. Sebestian Usher reports.

有报道称，叙利亚大部分地区通讯中断，首都大马士革机场周围及东部地区出现了冲突。Sebestian Usher报道。

It’s been difficult to get information out of Syria since the internet and phone lines went down at midday, but activists say a major battle is taking place in the east of Damascus, towards and around the airport. They said the airport road has been closed and flights have stopped. The government denies this, but the BBC has managed to speak to several people in the central of the city. They say they can hear what they call an unprecedented clash in eastern districts held by the rebels. It’s not clear yet if the clashes were initiated by the army of offensive or a rebel attack on the airport.

由于网络和电话线中午中断，外部很难了解叙利亚的情况，但活动人士称大马士革东部机场附近发生了重大战斗。他们称机场道路已经关闭，航班取消。政府对此否认，但BBC已设法采访到市中心的数人，他们说可以听到叛军在东部地区进行的前所未有的战斗，尚不清楚冲突是由军队引起，还是叛军先袭击的机场。

The United Nations General Assembly is considering a resolution to upgrade the Palestinian’s status of UN and will vote it shortly. Member States will decide whether the Palestinians should become an observer state rather than simply an observer. The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he had come to the General Assembly because his people were in desperate need of peace.

联合国大会正在考虑提升巴勒斯坦在联合国地位的决议，并将立即进行表决。成员国将决定是否将巴勒斯坦升级为观察员国，而非仅仅为观察员。巴勒斯坦总统马哈茂德·阿巴斯称自己之所以来联大是因为自己的人民急需和平。

Palestine comes today to the General Assembly because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past days, are in desperate need of it. Palestine comes today to this prestigious international forum, representative and protector of international legitimacy, reaffirming our conviction that the international community now stands before the last chance to save the two-state solution.

巴勒斯坦今天参加联大会议，是因为我们相信和平，也是因为正如过去几天大家所看到的，我们的人民迫切需要和平。联合国是个有威望的国际论坛，代表并保护国际合法性，巴勒斯坦此行是为了重申我们的观点，即现在是国际社会最后一次拯救两国方案的机会了。

The American soldier accused of passing thousands of secret US documents to the WikiLeaks website, Bradley Manning, is giving testimony for the first time before a US military judge in Maryland. General Bryan reports from Washington.

被控向维基解密网站泄露大量美国秘密文档的美士兵布拉德利·曼宁目前在马里兰州首次向美国军事法官作证。General Bryan在华盛顿报道。

The pretrial military hearing at Fort Meade in Maryland has been held out of the sight of television cameras, but reporters in the court say 24-year-old Bradley Manning looked nervous and startled as he tried to answer questions from his defense lawyer. He claims he has already been punished enough for his part in the WikiLeak's scandal, which caused intense embarrassment to the US government. Earlier in the day, the judge accepted terms under which he will plead guilty to 8 lesser charges, which include leaking of video of US troops shooting at Iraqis from a helicopter.

这次在马里兰州米德堡举行的军事预审听证没有电视录像，但法庭记录员称，24岁的布拉德利·曼宁在开始回答辩护律师的提问时看起来紧张不安。他声称自己因为维基解密丑闻已受惩罚很多，这件事还令美国政府极度难堪。今天早些时候，法官接受曼宁认罪8项较轻指控的条款，指控包括泄露美国军队在伊拉克从直升机拍下的视频。

A yearlong inquiry into press standards in Britain has issued a damning conclusion on the role played by some of the countries newspapers which hacked people’s phones. In his report, Lord Justice Leveson said tougher self-regulation of the industry was needed because newspapers have wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people.

对英国新闻业标准长达一年的调查就该国一些报纸窃听电话的行为得出一个可怕的结论。英国法官莱维森勋爵在报告中称该行业需要进行更强有力的自律，因为报纸已对无辜者造成了伤害。

World News from the BBC

The body drafting Egypt’s new constitution has been voting on the contents of a final draft and made a growing confrontation between the Islamist President Mohammed Mursi and his secular and liberal opponents. The panel, which is dominated by President Mursi’s supporters, has kept the principles of Islamic law as the main source of legislation. Liberals and Christian members of the panel boycotted it, saying that they’ve been marginalized. The President’s decree last week to grant himself extensive new powers has sparked protest across the country.

起草埃及新宪法的机构开始就最终草案进行表决，并导致伊斯兰总统穆尔西及其世俗派和自由派反对派之间的对峙升级。该小组的成员主要是总统穆尔西的支持者，他们将伊斯兰法作为立法的主要来源。小组中的自由派和基督徒表示反对，称自己受到排挤。总统上周颁布法令授予自己更大权力，由此导致全国范围的抗议。

President Obama has met his Republican challenger Mitt Romney for the first time since the US presidential election earlier this month. They’ve had a private lunch at the White House, fulfilling a promise Mr. Obama made in his victory speech to work with the Republican Party.

总统奥巴马在月初总统选举结束后首次会面共和党对手米特·罗姆尼，他们在白宫进行午餐，奥巴马开始履行自己在获胜演讲中与共和党合作的承诺。

A major new study in the polar ice sheets has discovered that the rate of melting has accelerated in the past 20 years. David Shukman is our science correspondent.

有关极地冰原的重大研究表明，冰原的融化速度在过去20年间已经加速。科学记者David Shukman报道。

Remote, vast and inaccessible, the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica are extremely difficult to measure. But by comparing readings from different satellites, researchers have come up with a single estimate for the rate at which the ice has been melting into the ocean. Over the past twenty years, they say, melting is added about 11mm to the global sea level. And crucially, they found that this loss of ice is accelerating. Greenland is losing ice the fastest. Western Antarctica is also shedding some, but eastern Antarctic is gaining ice while it remains well below zero.

格陵兰和南极的冰原位置偏远、广大、难以接近，因此很难评估。但研究者通过对比不同卫星的读数，已对冰原融化后流入海洋的速度进行了简单的估计。研究者称，在过去20年间，融冰使海平面上升了11毫米。更重要的是，他们发现冰原消失的速度也在加速，格陵兰的冰消失得最快，南极西部也在失去一些冰块，但南极东部的冰却在增加，仍远低于零。

The new manager of the Brazilian football team Luiz Felipe Scolari has angered the bank workers with remarks made soon after his appointment to lead the squad into the 2014 World Cup. Scolari said players who didn't want to face pressure should get a job at the country state bank, Banco do Brasil, where they would in his words sitting in an office doing nothing.

巴西足球队新教练路易斯·菲利佩·斯科拉里最近的言论令银行员工动怒，就在此前，他刚刚被任命为2014年世界杯领队。斯科拉里说，那些不想面对压力的队员应该到国家银行巴西银行谋职，这样就可以坐在办公室无所事事。