英国新闻听力 104（在线收听）

President Barack Obama has issued a stark new warning on the United States economy, saying that it is getting sicker by the day. Mr. Obama said that if Congress failed to pass his economic stimulus package, the recession could linger for years and destroy another five million jobs in the United States.

This isn't some abstract debate. Last week we learned that many of America's largest corporations are planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers. Today we learned that last week the number of new unemployment claims jumped to 626, 000.

President Obama dismissed arguments put forward by Republican opponents that a range of less sweeping measures would be enough.

China has declared an emergency in eight northern and central provinces where drought is threatening crops and has left nearly four million people without proper drinking water. State media says nearly half of the country's winter wheat crops have been affected. Millions of migrant workers in China have already lost their jobs in the global economic downturn. Here's our China editor Shirong Chen.

China's drought relief office has declared an emergency for the first time in its history. Eight wheat-producing provinces in central and northern China are threatened by the continuing drought. Altogether 10 million hectares of wheat and rapeseed have been badly affected. Central and local governments have allocated 16 million dollars in relief funds, and the country's leaders have demanded all-out efforts to combat the problem.

Preliminary results from Iraq's local elections have shown big wins for the bloc headed by the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. His State of Law Coalition won landslide victories in Baghdad and Basra, and emerged as the largest group across the mainly Shiah provinces of southern Iraq. Observers say his party has benefited from stressing its commitment to law and order and its nationalists rather than religious credentials. In the northern city of Mosul, a Sunni Arab faction finished well ahead of Kurdish groups, restoring political balance in the area where many Sunni Arabs had boycotted the last polls.

More than 30 people have been killed in a bomb blast near a Shiah mosque in Punjab province in Pakistan. Many others were wounded. The explosion appeared to target a procession of Shiah worshipers in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan. From Islamabad, here is Barbara Plett.

Television footage showed bodies surrounded by debris with survivors wailing and beating their heads in grief. It's not clear who carried out the bombing but the provincial police chief called it a terrorist attack aimed at Shiites to create unrest. Pakistan saw a wave of sectarian violence in the 1980s and 90s. In recent years, this has been aggravated by the growing strength of the Taliban, a militant Sunni Muslim movement. Southern Punjab in particular is home to violent sectarian groups with links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

This is Blerry Gogan with the latest world news from the BBC.

Both houses of Parliament in Zimbabwe have unanimously approved a constitutional amendment allowing for the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to become prime minister. He will share power with Robert Mugabe who will remain as president. Mr. Mugabe, who's ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years, is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday.

The government of Sweden has reversed a decision taken nearly 30 years ago to phase out nuclear power. It said new reactors were needed to help secure the country's energy supply. The Deputy Prime Minister Maud Olofsson said the agreement would also help tackle climate change.

As far as I am concerned, this means that all our four parties in the coalition can take the first step into a sustainable society. I do this for my children and grandchildren, and I believe today we have a historic possibility to turn the page.

The country voted in a referendum in 1980 to close its 12 nuclear reactors by 2010. However, the target was later relaxed.

The left-wing Colombian rebel group, the FARC, has freed a politician it had been holding hostage since 2002. The former regional Congressman, Sigifredo Lopez, was handed over to a humanitarian commission headed by the Red Cross. He's the last of the six high profile hostages the rebels had announced in December that they were planning to release. The other five were freed earlier this week. Mr. Lopez was also the last Colombian politician being held by the group.

The Anglican Church is to hire professional mediators to try to bring together factions divided by the issue of homosexuals in the ministry and find a way forward. The initiative was announced as a five-day conference of Anglican Church leaders ended in Alexandra in Egypt. The final statement said the conflict between continuity in doctrine and change raise potentially destructive questions and it was imperative to hold actions that might cause further offense or misunderstanding.

BBC News.

Glossary

stark: used for describing an unpleasant fact or situation that is very obvious or impossible to avoid.

linger: When something such as an idea, feeling, or illness lingers, it continues to exist for a long time, often much longer than expected.

lay off: If workers are laid off, they are told by their employers to leave their job, usually because there is no more work for them to do.

unemployment claims: 申报失业救济

wail: If someone wails, they make long, loud, high-pitched cries which express sorrow or pain.

phase out: If something is phased out, people gradually stop using it.