英国新闻听力 “千年发展目标”的实现更加艰难（在线收听）

The President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick has warned of a human catastrophe unless urgent action is taken on the global economic crisis, which he described as unprecedented. Mr. Zoellick was speaking after a meeting of the main policy-making committees of the bank and the IMF in Washington. Reporting from there, our economics correspondent Andrew Walker.

Mr. Zoellick warned that most of the internationally-agreed targets for tackling poverty-related problems, the Millennium Development Goals, are now unlikely to be met. He called on developed country governments to meet their existing commitments to provide increased development aid and to consider going beyond them. He said the bank is in a strong position to help countries, but he also said that the agency has been asked by the Committee of Finance and Development Ministers which sets its policy direction to assess whether there is a need for more resources to help the poorest countries.

The World Health Organization has said that the world is better prepared than ever to withstand a potential flu pandemic as many countries began precautionary measures to try to stop the spread of a swine flu outbreak that has killed more than 80 people in Mexico. The Assistant Director-General of the WHO, Doctor Keiji Fukuda, said great improvements in dealing with potential pandemics had come from years of preparing for bird flu.

"In the past five years, the world has spent a huge amount of effort; countries have worked very hard to assess the threat of avian influenza. They have worked very hard on pandemic preparedness planning. And we have new tools. We also have new defenses in place. We have better surveillance. We have stockpiles of anti-virus drugs in case of a pandemic situation.”

The Pakistani military says it's launched an offensive against Islamic militants in the north of the country. A spokesman said scores of militants have been killed. The area is west of the Swat Valley where the Pakistani government recently agreed a peace deal with the militants in exchange for the enforcement of Islamic law in the region.

A row is broken out between the Iraqi government and the American forces there after a raid by US troops killed two people in Kut in the south. The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki said the raid was a breach of the security agreement governing the American presence in Iraq. Jim Muir reports.

The incident caused uproar in Kut itself and a sharp reaction from the Iraqi government. The Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki called the action a crime that violated the security agreement. He asked for the culprits to be handed over. Two senior Iraqi army officers were also arrested for permitting an American operation to go ahead without the knowledge of the Iraqi authorities. But the US military said the raid was fully coordinated and approved by the Iraqi government. Iraqi officials say the six people detained by the Americans have already been freed.

The United Nations top humanitarian official John Holmes has added his voice to the growing number of calls for humanitarian access to be allowed into the Sri Lankan conflict zone where government forces are battling Tamil Tiger rebels. Mr. Holmes said a humanitarian pause was needed to get aid and aid workers into the combat zone. The Sri Lankan government has rejected outright a unilateral ceasefire declared earlier by the rebels. The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry's Permanent Secretary Palitha Kohona said the LTTE rebels were taking advantage of the visit by Mr. Holmes.

“I think it is a cynical effort on the part of LTTE to exploit the visit of Under－Secretary, Sir John Holmes to Sri Lanka. LTTE is down on its knees. It has nothing to bargain in this, this and for declaring a ceasefire. It's a joke.”

Efforts to give religious teaching more prominence in secondary schools in Berlin have failed. The turnout in the referendum in the German capital was too low and of those who took part, the majority voted against the proposal. The current system will stay in which lessons in ethics are compulsory but those in religious studies are voluntary.

The people of Ecuador have been voting in a general election in which the left-wing President Rafael Correa is seeking re-election after just two years in office. Mr. Correa called the vote under a new constitution designed to reform Ecuador's political institutions. He’s widely expected to win a new four-year term but the parliamentary election is expected to be much closer.

Egyptian archaeologists say they have discovered dozens of ancient mummies during excavations 60 kilometers south of the capital Cairo. The head of the research team said 53 brightly-colored, 4, 000-year-old coffins from the reign of the 4th Dynasty Pharaoh, Sesostris II had been uncovered. He said the tombs had been cut directly into rock near Egypt's little known Lahun Pyramid.