英语听力精选进阶版 10089（在线收听）

The two most notorious drug gangs in Honduras have promised to end the violence which’s claimed tens of thousands of lives in the Central American country. A spokesman said the two gangs would commit to zero violence on the streets. Will Grant reports from Mexico City.

洪都拉斯两大最为臭名昭著的毒品组织承诺停止造成这个中美洲国家数万人丧命的暴力活动。一名发言人表示，两大团伙将努力做到街道上零暴力。Will Grant在墨西哥城报道。

“We ask for forgiveness,” the representatives of two violent drug gangs announced, “The ceasefire is with God, with society and with the authorities.” they said at a press conference inside a prison in the most violent city in the world San Pedro Sula. Following mediation from the Catholic Church and the organization of American States, the two groups called Mara Salvatrucha and Mara Dieciocho promised zero crime and zero violence in the streets. It's a significant step forward towards a full peace accord and comes after a similar pact which reached over a year ago in neighbouring El Salvador. There the peace agreement has roughly held together over the past 12 months and contributed to a significant reduction in the murder rate and incidence of other violent crimes.

“我们请求宽恕，”两大暴力贩毒团伙的代表宣布，“停火协议是与上帝，与社会，与当局签订的。”他们在世界上暴力事件最为严重的城市圣佩德罗苏拉一所监狱内的新闻发布会上表示。在天主大教堂和美洲国家组织的调停下，犯罪团伙Mara Salvatrucha和Mara Dieciocho承诺实现街道生上零犯罪和零暴力。这距离全面的和平协议又前进了重要的一步。一年多以前，邻近的萨尔瓦多也签署了类似的协议。该和平协议在过去12个月大致发挥了作用，谋杀率和其他暴力犯罪率都大幅下降。

The former President of Guatemala Alfonso Portillo has pleaded not guilty of money laundering in a US court. Prosecutors in New York accused Mr. Portillo of using US banks to launder 70 million dollars in public funds while in office. He was extradited from Guatemala to the US last week. In the past, the 61-year-old former president said he was the victim of political persecution.

危地马拉前总统阿方索·波蒂佑(Alfonso Portillo)在一家美国法庭否认了洗黑钱罪名。纽约检控官指控阿方索·波蒂佑(Alfonso Portillo)在职期间利用公共资金洗钱高达7000万美元。上周他从危地马拉被引渡到美国。过去，这位61岁的前总统宣称他是政治迫害的受害者。

Prosecutors in the United States have indicted the world's largest digital currency exchange accusing it of laundering money on a massive scale. The US attorney's office said the Costa Rica based company Liberty Reserve had laundered six billion dollars. It offered online facilities which for a small fee and without a complicated registration process allowed customers to deposit money and convert it into a digital currency that could be transferred to a different account and withdrawn.

美国检控官指控世界最大的数字货币交易所大规模洗黑钱。美国联邦检察官办公室表示，位于哥斯达黎加的“自由储备”(Liberty Reserve)洗黑钱的规模高达60亿美元。该交易所以很低的费用提供网络在线设备，不需复杂的注册程序就允许客户储蓄并转化为数字货币，而且可以转账至不同的账户再将现金提取出来。

The British Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that Britain can't start at arming Syrian rebels from now but has no active plans to do so. Russia responded to the EU decision not to renew its arms embargo on the Syrian opposition with an announcement that it would go ahead with a planned sale over a sophisticated air defence system to Syria saying it would restrain outside forces who wanted to get involved. Our world affairs correspondent Allan Little reports.

英国外交大臣威廉·黑格(William Hague)表示，英国不会为叙利亚叛军提供武装，但是没有积极的计划。俄罗斯对欧盟不继续对叙利亚反对派实行武器禁令的决定作出反应，宣布将继续进行向叙利亚出售尖端空中防御系统的计划，称该系统可以阻止想要进入境内的外在力量。我们的世界事务通讯员Allan Little报道。

It's looking more and more like a very polarized situation with Britain and France being drawn into Syria's conflict on the opposite side to Russia's involvement and the risk is now clearly that those two sides will fight a proxy war on Syrian soil and it will be the Syrians doing the fighting and the Syrians dying. We are still a long way from that, but clearly the intension by Britain and France, and they had to persuade their very skeptical European partners about this is not to send weapons immediately but to try to use the credible threat of the sending of weapons as a lever to try to extract concessions from Bashar al-Assad.

目前的形势似乎越来越两极分化，英国和法国卷入叙利亚冲突问题，反对俄罗斯的干预。目前的危险很明显，双方可能会在叙利亚国土上进行一场代理战争，进行战争的是叙利亚人，死亡的也是叙利亚人。目前我们距离这种状况还比较遥远，但是很明显，英国和法国引发了紧张形势，他们必须说服持怀疑态度的欧盟伙伴不要立即运送武器，而是要利用运送武器可能带来的切实威胁作为杠杆，迫使巴沙尔·阿萨德 (Basharal-Assad)做出让步。

The French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has urged African nations to coordinate efforts to tackle a growing Islamist militant threat in southern Libya. Mr. Fabius was speaking from Niger where suicide bombers suspected to have come from Libya carried out two attacks last week killing 24 soldiers and a civilian. There has been a flood of militants and heavy weapons out of Libya since Colonel Gaddafi was toppled in 2011. Correspondents say much of southern Libya has become ungovernable since then.

法国外长洛朗·法比尤斯(Laurent Fabius)敦促非洲国家一致努力，应对利比亚南部不断增长的伊斯兰好战分子威胁。法比尤斯在尼日尔发表讲话，疑似来自利比亚境内的自杀式爆炸者上周在这里发动了两起袭击，造成24名士兵和1名平民死亡。自2011年卡扎菲上校被推翻以来，大量好战分子和重武器从利比亚涌出。通讯员们表示，自那时以来，利比亚南部许多地区已经难以管制。

Members of parliament in Kenya have voted to give themselves a big pay rise in defiance of government appeals for restraint. They've granted themselves a monthly salary of 10,000 dollars, an increase of about 50%. Kenya's new President Uhuru Kenyatta had implored them to accept lower pay to help cut the public sector wage bill. Richard Hamilton reports.

肯尼亚议会成员无视政府节约开支的要求，投票给自己大幅提高薪资。他们给自己的月薪高达10,000美元，增加了大约50%。肯尼亚总统乌乎鲁·肯雅塔(Uhuru Kenyatta)恳求议员们接受更低的薪资，帮助削减公共部门薪资账单。Richard Hamilton报道。

With an average wage of around 1,700 dollars a year, it's easy to see why MPs salaries arouse such anger. Two weeks ago, protesters released a pig and its piglets outside parliament to highlight the issue. A new body, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission had recommended the wages be cut by nearly half. In the previous parliament, outgoing MPs voted to award themselves a retirement bonus of more than 100,000 dollars together with an armed guard, a diplomatic passport and access to VIP airport lounges.

肯尼亚人的平均年薪为1,700美元，这就不难看出为何议员们的薪资引发众怒。两周前，抗议者在议会大楼外放了一头猪和它的猪崽来突出该问题。新成立的机构，薪资与报酬委员会建议议员们薪资削减接近一半。在上一届议会，即将离职的议员们投票为自己提供超过100,000美元的退休奖金，同时还有一名武装护卫，一本外交护照和进入机场VIP休息室的奢侈待遇。

An Italian university has found what it believes is the world's oldest complete scroll of the torah, Judaism's most important text. According to the University of Bologna, it could be more than 800 years old. The scroll had been deemed of a little worth by a librarian in 1889 and wrongly categorized. But when University's professor of Hebrew, Mauro Perini took another look at it, he noticed that the script isn't the old Babylonian tradition which experts say means it's extremely old. The 36-meter long scroll of soft sheep leather was also subjected to carbon dating tests.

意大利一所大学发现了据信全世界最古老的完整的五书经卷，这是犹太教最重要的经卷。据博洛尼亚大学所说，这部经卷已有超过800年的历史。1889年，一名图书管理员认为该经卷价值不高，进行了错误的分类。但是，当这所大学的希伯来文教授佩拉尼再次查看的时候，他注意到，这部经卷并不是传统的书写方式，专家们称这说明历史悠久。该长达36米的软羊皮经卷也接受了碳元素时间分析鉴定。