英语听力精选进阶版 10172（在线收听）

The United Nations Security Council is meeting in emergency session to discuss allegations that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons when they shelled an area outside the capital Damascus on Wednesday. The main opposition National Coalition described it as a massacre. The Syrian government has denied that it used chemical weapons. Nick Bryant reports from New York.

叙利亚政府军被指于周三炮轰首都大马士革外一个地点时使用化学武器，联合国安理会召开紧急会议，对此展开讨论。主要反对派全国联盟(National Coalition)称这是惨无人道的大屠杀。叙利亚政府否认使用化学武器。Nick Bryant在纽约报道。

The focus of diplomatic efforts from Britain, America and France has been on getting the UN weapon’s inspection’s team immediate to an unrestricted access to the site of the alleged attack. That’s more complicated than it sounds. The 20 strong team is staying just 15 minutes away from Damascus suburb where hundreds were killed. But under the terms agreed beforehand with the Syrian government it’s only been allowed access to three sites of previous alleged attacks. In Damascus, the head of the UN weapon’s team, the Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom is in talks with the Syrian government.

英国，美国和法国外交努力的焦点集中在让联合国武器审查小组立即无限制地进入据称发生化学武器袭击的地点。事实比听上去更加复杂。由20人组成的审查小组只能进入导致数百人死亡的距离大马士革郊区15分钟车程的地方。但是按照此前叙利亚政府赞同的条件，调查小组只获准进入反对派宣称发生袭击的三个地点。在大马士革，联合国武器小组负责人，瑞典科学家塞尔斯特罗姆(Ake Sellstrom)正与叙利亚政府举行会谈。

People who say they’ve been treating those killed and wounded in Syria have told the BBC and other international media that victims started arriving at treatment centers in the early hours of the morning. With more, here is Frank Gardner.

宣称曾经对叙利亚死伤者进行治疗的人告诉BBC和其他国际媒体，黎明时分，受害者就开始陆续到达治疗中心。Frank Gardner报道更详细内容。

Video footage uploaded to the internet shows body after body brought into a makeshift morgue allegedly victims of a massive chemical attack. Some of the survivors have twitching with convulsions. The dead have frozen, paralyzed faces. None bear any visible wounds. A local doctor Haswan Budanni said there is evidence of the use of poison gas but Syria’s information minister Omran al-Zoubi said the rebel’s claims would time to coincide with the visit by UN inspectors.

上传到互联网的视频图像显示，一具又一具尸体被抬到一个临时停尸房，据称这些都是大规模化学武器袭击的遇难者。一些幸存者也出现抽搐，伴随着惊厥的症状。死者面部冰冷僵硬。任何遇难者都没有可见的明显伤口。当地医生Haswan Budanni表示，有证据表明政府军使用了毒气，但是叙利亚信息部长奥姆兰(Omran al-Zoubi)表示，随着联合国观察员的调查，叛军的说法会被反驳的体无完肤。

Egyptian’s state television has reported that the former president Hosni Mubarak will be put under house arrest following his release on corruption charges. 

埃及国家电视台报道称，前总统穆巴拉克贪污腐败指控不成立获得释放之后将被软禁。

The order was issued by a military official. Early in the day a court had ordered his release after judges dealt with the last corruption charges against him. Prosecutors are not appealing against the decision and his lawyers say he could be released from prison on Thursday. The 85-year-old still faces charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the uprising that forced him from power in 2011.

释放令由一位军方官员发布。当天早些时候，法官处理了最后的贪污腐败指控后，法庭宣布穆巴拉克获释。检控方不准备对该判决提起上诉，穆巴拉克的律师表示，他将于周四获释。这位85岁的前总统仍将面临一项指控，在2011年迫使他下台的暴乱活动中阴谋杀害抗议者。

The lawyer of the American soldier Bradley Manning has asked President Obama to pardon his client who’s been sentenced to 35 years in prison after leaking hundreds of thousands of secret documents to the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. His lawyer David Coombs says whistleblowers should be protected.

美国士兵曼宁(Bradley Manning)的律师请求奥巴马总统赦免他的当事人。曼宁由于向揭秘网站维基解密网泄露数十万份机密文件而被判处35年监禁。他的律师David Coombs表示，告密者应该受到保护。

“The time for our president to focus on protecting whistleblowers instead of punishing them is now. Early next week I will file on behalf of my client Pte Manning a request that will be rounded through the secretary of the army for the president, a request that the president pardon Pte Manning or at very least commute his sentence to time served.”

“我们的总统保护告密者，而不是惩罚告密者的时刻就是现在。下周初，我将代表我的当事人曼宁提交请求，由陆军部长递交给总统，请求总统特赦曼宁，或者至少能够为他减刑。”

A Swedish politician has been injured in an ambush in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Witnesses say Ann Margarethe Livh was been driven back to her hotel after delivering a university lecture on good governance when gunmen shot at her car killing her driver and translator. No one has said they carried out the attack.

瑞典一位政治家在索马里首都摩加迪沙的伏击中受伤。目击者称，Ann Margarethe Livh在一所大学结束了关于执政的讲座后乘车回酒店，持枪分子开枪射击了她的汽车，造成司机和翻译死亡。目前无人宣称为这次袭击事件负责。

The United States Federal Reserve has published a minutes of a key policy-making meeting with suggests the central bank is likely to reduce its efforts to stimulate the country’s economy. Share prices fell moderately. Andrew Walker reports.

美联储公开了长达几分钟的关键政策制定会议内容，暗示中央银行刺激国家经济发展的措施将会减弱。股价出现小幅下跌。Andrew Walker报道。

It is increasingly likely that the Federal Reserve will start to cut back on the 85 billion dollars a month it's pumping into the financial markets later this year. The minutes of the July policy-making meeting do reinforce the expectation that it will happen but they don’t provide much more clarity which the markets would have liked on exactly when or how quickly the Federal go about it. The prospective reduce Fed action has already hit stock markets and also the currencies of many emerging economies.

今年晚些时候美联储每月注入金融市场的资金将削减850亿美元，这种可能性越来越大。长达几分钟的7月份政策制定会议确实强化了这种情况可能发生的预期，但是没有明确美联储将何时采取这种措施。美联储预期可能采取的削减措施已经对股市和许多新兴经济体的货币市场产生影响。

Also in the United States the final installment of the tapes recorded in the White House by former president Richard Nixon have been released by the National Archives. They were recorded over three months in 1973 and covered the culmination of the Watergate’s scandal that led to Nixon’s resignation. David Willis reports.

同样是在美国，美国档案局公布了前总统尼克松在白宫录制的最后一批录音带。这些录音带在1973年三个月的时间里录制，记录了导致尼克松辞职的水门丑闻的高潮。David Willis报道。

The tapes cover an intense period of time that included the resignation of Nixon’s two close aides and two other senior administration officials in one day, the same day that Nixon made a public statement accepting blame for the Watergate scandal. But they also showed the president actively engaged in global diplomacy discussing a summit meeting with the Russians and taking a close interest in the soaring relations with China which the president described as the key to world peace. At one point Nixon can be heard describing the Chinese as the ablest people in the world.

这些录音带记录了一段非常紧张的时期，包括尼克松的两名亲密助手和两名高级行政官员在一天之内辞职，就在同一天，尼克松公开发表声明，接受人们对水门丑闻的谴责。但是，这些录音带也表明，总统积极参与全球外交活动，与俄罗斯人举行峰会，密切加强与中国的关系，尼克松称，这对于世界和平是非常关键的。在录音中，尼克松称赞中国人是世界上最有能力的人。