英国新闻听力 法国银行限制奖金发放（在线收听）

At least 40 people have been killed and more than 60 injured in a huge bomb explosion in the center of southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Rescue workers have been searching through the rubble for survivors. Chris Morris reports from Kabul.

The attack took place in the early evening when Afghans were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Officials in Kandahar say that they believed a huge bomb was hidden in a petrol tanker or a truck. Windows across the city were shattered by the force of the blast. The offices of a Japanese-owned construction company were destroyed. And a number of nearby buildings including a wedding hall were badly damaged. Local officials have blamed Taliban for the attack in a region where the insurgency is strong.

Hours earlier, preliminary results from last week’s presidential election in Afghanistan showed President Karzai with a narrow lead over his nearest rival Abdullah Abdullah. With 10% of all the ballots counted, the election commission said Mr. Karzai have 41% of the votes to 39% for Mr. Abdullah.

Iraq and Syria have recalled their ambassadors from each other’s capitals in a row over last week’s suicide bombings in Baghdad which killed more than 100 people. Iraqi state television has broadcasted the alleged confession of an organizer of the bombings who said he’d received his orders from 2 Syrian-based members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist party. Our Arab affairs analyst Midi Abudhadi reports.

Last week, the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveled to Damascus for talks on security cooperation and the visit ended with the host reiterating their commitment to help Iraq become stable and prosperous. But the decision by the two governments to recall the ambassadors underlines that behind the diplomatic niceties serious tensions between the two countries remain. Ever since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, both Baghdad and Washington have pointed the finger at Syria for harboring Iraqis and other Arab militants banned on overthrowing the Iraqi government.

Special fraud police in Nigeria say they are preparing to make further arrests of prominent businessmen and other debtors who owe billions of dollars to the country’s troubled banks. The move comes with the imminent expiry of a deadline for those owing money to return it. From Lagos, Caroline Duffield reports.

The chief of Nigeria special fraud police Farida Waziri says that her officers are preparing to question Nigeria’s elite debtors. They include some of the wealthiest and most powerful tycoons in Africa. They are being blamed for bringing five major banks close to collapse while failing to pay their debts. Many of the individual and businesses publicly named by the Nigerian authorities are protesting. They say that they are disputing bank charges, or that they have serviced their loans or the authorities have got the numbers wrong.

Leading French bankers have agreed to curb excessive bonuses after being summoned to a meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy. Bank leaders said the bonuses would now only be based on long-term profits rather than short-term speculation. And there would be penalties for traders who subsequently lose money.

President Obama has nominated Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairmen of the Federal Reserve, the United States central bank. The president said Mr. Bernanke had shown calmness and creativity in facing the financial crisis. Here is our economics correspondent Andrew Walker.

He has faced the biggest challenge of any Federal Reserve boss since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Indeed Mr. Bernanke’s aim over the last year has been to prevent a repeat of that episode. Under his leadership, the Fed has taken a wide range of measures, some of them innovative, intended to contain the financial crisis and stimulate a wider economic recovery. The US economy has contracted sharply in the last year and unemployment has climbed. But without the Fed’s response it would almost certainly had been worse, perhaps very much worse.

A mass burial has been held in Tanzania for 12 school girls aged between 13 and 16 who died in a fire in their dormitory on Saturday. The bodies were burned beyond recognition. They have to be placed in unnamed graves until they can be identified individually by DNA testing. Tanzanian police say the fire was probably caused by a candle used by one of the girls to study at night.

A group of engineers from Hampshire in the south of England have broken the world's longest standing land speed record, the fastest speed for a steam driven car. The record breaking car, nicknamed “the world’s fastest kettle” reached an average speed of 225 kilometers per hour over 2 runs at the Edward’s Air Force Base in California. The previous record was set by an American, 103 years ago.

阿富汗南部城市坎大哈发生特大炸弹爆炸案，造成至少40人死亡，60多人受伤。搜救人员正在废墟中寻找幸存者。Chris Morris在喀布尔报道。

爆炸袭击发生在傍晚时分，当时阿富汗人正在准备穆斯林斋月的开始。坎大哈官员称他们相信该威力巨大的炸弹隐藏在油罐车或卡车上。全市的窗户都被爆炸的巨大威力震碎。一家日本建筑公司的办公室被完全毁坏。附近一些建筑，包括婚礼大厅遭到严重损坏。当地官员指责塔利班实施了这次袭击。该地区的反叛分子一直十分猖獗。

几个小时之前，上周阿富汗总统选举的初步结果显示现任总统卡尔扎伊以轻微的优势领先于相差最小的竞争对手阿卜杜拉。现在已经统计了选票的10%。选举委员会称，卡尔扎伊的支持率为41%，而阿卜杜拉为39%。

上周巴格达发生致命的自杀式爆炸导致100多人死亡之后，伊拉克和叙利亚分别召回其在对方首都的大使。伊拉克国家电视台报道称，爆炸事件的组织者声称其收到位于叙利亚的两名前萨达姆党羽的命令。我们的阿拉伯事务分析家Midi Abudhadi报道。

上周，伊拉克总理马利基访问大马士革，针对双方安全合作问题进行会谈。最终叙利亚强调，他们承诺帮助伊拉克更加稳定繁荣。但是双方政府召回其大使的决定表明，在表面友好的外交关系背后，紧张形势依然存在。自2003年萨达姆·侯赛因被推翻之后，巴格达和华盛顿一直指责叙利亚包庇伊拉克和其他阿拉伯好战分子，他们企图推翻伊拉克政府。

尼日利亚特别诈骗案警察称，他们正准备进一步逮捕接触的商业人士和其他人士，这些人欠尼日利亚濒临破产的银行高达数十亿美元的贷款。警方的宣布发生在归还贷款的期限即将来临之际。

尼日利亚特别诈骗案警方负责人称，他们准备审讯尼日利亚的精英欠债人。包括一些非洲最富有和最有权势的人。他们被指责因拖欠贷款而导致尼日利亚五家主要银行濒临破产。许多被尼日利亚当局公布名字的个人和企业提起抗议。他们说，他们对银行的指控存在争议，或者他们已经偿还了贷款，或者说贷款金额是错误的。

法国主要银行家与法国总统萨科齐会晤之后同意限制奖金的过度发放。他们表示，奖金的发放将基于长期收益而非短期表现。而对那些持续亏损的人将会实行处罚。

美国总统奥巴马提名本·伯南克担任美国中央银行美联储主席第二次任期。奥巴马表示，在面对金融危机的时候，伯南克表现出了冷静和创意。我们的经济新闻记者Andrew Walker报道。

他遭遇了自30年代大萧条以来美联储历任主席所面临的最大挑战。Andrew Walker去年一整年的目标就是防止这种情况重演。在他的领导下，美联储采取了一系列的广泛措施，其中一些是非常有创新精神的，目的就是为了控制金融危机，刺激更广泛的经济复苏。去年，美国经济急剧缩减，失业率大幅上升。但是，如果没有美联储的快速反应，情况可能更糟糕，而且可能糟糕很多。

周六，坦桑尼亚一所学校宿舍发生火灾，12名13至16岁的女生在火灾中死亡，目前举行了集体埋葬。他们将被埋葬在没有名字的坟墓中，直到进行了DNA测验身份得到确认。坦桑尼亚警方称，火灾起因可能是其中一名女生在晚上点蜡烛学习。

来自英国南部汉普郡的工程师制造的蒸汽机汽车打破了保持最久的陆地速度记录。打破纪录的汽车昵称为“世界最快的水壶”在加利福尼亚爱德华空军基地达到了平均每小时225千米的速度。此前的世界记录在103年前由美国人打破。