英国新闻听力 古巴进行政治大改组（在线收听）

The Cuban President Raul Castro has announced a major cabinet reshuffle, removing 11 ministers from office including two of the country's most prominent politicians. State television said the cabinet chief Carlos Lage and the Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque would both step down in line with plans to make the island's government more compact and functional. Michael Voss reports from Havana.

This is the first major political shake-up since Raul Castro officially took over the presidency just over a year ago. More than ten top officials have been dropped or replaced and four ministries merged. President Raul Castro had announced last year that he intended to restructure the government, but such a large scale cabinet reshuffle has not been seen in Cuba since the revolution. All of those affected by the changes had originally been appointed by Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro.

The American Central Intelligence Agency has for the first time acknowledged destroying a large number of tapes of interrogations of terrorist suspects. It had previously said there were only two. The disclosure comes from government lawyers in a legal case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union which said the destruction of the tapes was a systematic attempt to hide evidence of illegal interrogations. Rajini Vaidyanathan reports.

A letter from the United States attorney has disclosed that the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, destroyed 92 tapes, showing the interrogation of terror suspects. Prosecutors are currently investigating the destruction of these recordings. The American Civil Liberties Union claims they show CIA operatives using harsh interrogation methods. The letter also reveals that the CIA is currently gathering more information for this lawsuit, including a list of what tapes were destroyed and what they might have shown.

There have been sharp falls on major stock markets amid fears that the turmoil in the financial services industry is far from over. Earlier the American insurance giant AIG reported the biggest quarterly loss in US corporate history. Andrew Walker reports.

The American insurer AIG beat all previous records for a corporate loss, nearly 62 billion dollars in three months. Earlier the international bank HSBC announced that its profits fell by more than half last year. The markets also had to contend with some very downbeat comments from one of the world’s most respected professional investors, Warren Buffet. He said the economy would be in a shambles throughout 2009. Share prices around the world are down. The Dow Jones has now fallen by half from its highs in 2007.

President Obama has officially named the Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius, as his new Health Secretary. She will oversee the president's ambitious plans to overhaul the country's healthcare system. Mr. Obama's original nominee for Health Secretary, Tom Daschle, withdrew over tax irregularities.

Egypt says international donors at a conference in Sharm El-Sheikh have pledged 4.5 billion dollars for the Palestinians mainly to rebuild Gaza after Israel's offensive. The Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad thanked the donors but said reconstruction would be impossible unless Israel lifted its blockade. He said Israel should allow in concrete and steel which it's been blocking because of concerns that they could be used by Palestinian militant groups for military purposes.

A study published in a leading medical journal says fire-related injuries are the leading cause of death in young women in urban India with many of the cases tied to domestic abuse. The research in the Lancet said more than 100,000 women were victims of fire-related death in a single year, three times as many as men. The researchers looked at hospital reports and death registrations, and found that the number of women who died from self-immolation, kitchen accidents and domestic abuse was six times higher than that recorded by police.

The Scottish government has outlined radical measures to tackle alcohol abuse by stopping cut-price offers. The government is imposing a minimum price on each unit of drink depending on its alcohol content. It's the first country in Europe to do so. Scotland has the eighth highest alcohol consumption in the world and the worst rates of death from liver disease in Europe. Colin Blaine reports from Glasgow.

Scotland has had a close relationship with alcohol for hundreds of years. Scotch whiskey generates vast export revenues and drink has long been a part of social occasions, dances, weddings and even funerals. But other northern European nations have also had a tradition of heavy-drinking. The trouble for Scotland is that our consumption now outstrips that of Norway, Finland and even Russia. The Scottish government says one of those reasons is that drink has become 70% more affordable here over the last 30 years.

古巴总统劳尔.卡斯特罗宣布进行大规模的内阁改组，将撤掉11位部长，其中包括该国最知名的两位官员。国家电视台声称，内阁首领拉赫和外交部长佩雷斯.洛克都在这次该组中被撤换，据说这是为了精简该岛国的政府机构并提高效率。

这是劳尔.卡斯塔罗一年多前任职以来的首次政治大改组，十多位高级官员被撤或被替换，四个部被合并。去年总统卡斯塔罗宣布他将重组政府，但是像这次这么大幅度的内阁改组，是自革命以来古巴历史上的第一次。此次该组中所有被撤换的官员都是原来由前总统菲德尔.卡斯特罗任命的。

美国中央情报局首次承认曾毁坏大量记录对恐怖嫌疑犯审问的录音带，起先它承认仅毁掉了两个。这是美国律师在一份由美国公民自由联盟提交的诉讼中透露的，声称毁坏录像带是有系统有目的的，企图掩藏非法审问的证据。

美国律师的这封信透露了中央情报局毁坏了92个记录审问恐怖嫌疑犯的录音带，检察官目前正在就毁灭录音带一案进行调查。美国公民自由联盟声称中央情报局利用了严酷的方法进行审问，这封信还透露，中央情报局目前收集了此诉讼有关的更多信息，包括被毁坏的录音带的名单，以及这些录音带里有什么内容。

主要股票市场大幅度下跌，人们担心金融服务市场的混乱还远未结束。早些时候，美国保险业巨头AIG报道了美国公司史上最大的季度损失。

美国保险公司AIG三个月内损失奖金620亿美元，打破了公司损失方面之前所有的记录。早些时候，汇丰银行宣布去年其利润下跌了一半多。交易市场也不得不应对巴菲特的一些让人非常气馁的言论，他是世界最受尊敬的专业投资者之一，他说整个2009年经济都将处于混乱中。全世界的股票价格都在下降，道琼斯指数从2007年的最高点跌了一半。

奥巴马总统正式任命堪萨斯州州长Kathleen Sebelius担任新的卫生部长，她将监督总统雄心勃勃的计划，以整顿美国的医疗卫生体系。奥巴马最初任命的卫生部长Tom Daschle因税收上的不法行为被撤。

埃及声称，在沙姆沙伊赫举行的会议上的国际捐赠已经为巴勒斯坦筹集45亿美元，这将主要用于被以色列进攻后的加沙地区的重建。巴勒斯坦总理法雅德对这次捐赠表示感谢，但是他说，除非以色列取消封锁，否则重建将不可能。他说以色列应该允许水泥和钢铁进来，由于担心巴勒斯坦武装组织拿来做军事用途，目前这两样材料被阻止进入。

发表在一个重要的医学刊物上的研究表明，印度城市地区与火相关的受伤是导致年轻妇女死亡的主要原因。《柳叶刀》杂志上说，在去年一年中，多于10万的妇女是与火相关的死亡的受害者，这个数字是男子的三倍。研究人员查看了医院的报告和死亡注册表，发现死于自焚、厨房事故和家庭暴力的女性人数比警察记录的数字多六倍。

为阻止酗酒，苏格兰政府草拟了一些激进措施—停止对酒削价出售。根据每瓶的酒精含量，政府对每瓶酒施加了最低价格限制。这是欧洲首次这么做的国家。在全世界酒精消费量最大的国家中，苏格兰排名第八，也是欧洲肝病死亡率最高的国家。

苏格兰与酒的密切关系已有几百年的历史，苏格兰威士忌为这个国家带来了巨大的出口收入，饮酒长期以来就是社会场所、舞会、婚礼甚至葬礼的一部分。但是其他的北欧国家也有大量饮酒的传统。苏格兰的问题是其酒的消费量已经超过了挪威、芬兰甚至俄罗斯。苏格兰政府说，其原因之一是在过去的三十年间，酒的价格已经比原来便宜了70%。