1月28日BBC聽力：科學家發明比地球大10倍的行星9
Hello, I am Marion Marshall with the BBC news.
Billions of dollars have been wiped off stock marketsaround the world because growing concern aboutplunging oil prices and fears about economicslowdown. In New York, the Dow Jones Index close1.5% down. The main European stock exchanges slip to a 15 months low. Theo Leggettreports.
“Serious concerns about growth in China and what that might mean for the global economy,falling oil prices and the effects of rising interest rates in the United States. All of these havebeen cited as factors affecting share prices around the world. The 100 Share Index has droppedto levels not seen since late 2012 and it's lost a fifth of its values since reaching record highs inApril 2015, the situation known as a bear market. Analysts say many investors are simply losingconfidence and selling shares in order to find a safer place for their money.”
A watchdog in the United States has severely criticized the way more than 800 million dollarsspent by the Department of Defense in Afghanistan to boost economic development. Especiallyinvestigator general for Afghan reconstruction says the scheme's legacy was marred bypoorly planned ill-conceived projects.Here is Gary O’Donoghue.
“This is the latest in a series of blistering criticisms which’ve accused the defense departmentof a scatter-gun approach to economic developments. Among the projects which has drawnan eye of the inspect general,is one which saw more than 6 million dollars spent to build upAfghanistan's cashmere industry around the city of Herat. Nine rare blond Italian goats wereimported, rumored cost around 50,000 dollars each and according to the inspect general thescheme was so poorly monitored that it can't be said for sure that the goats weren't justeaten. Contractor has hit back the allegations saying that the money created between 250 and350 jobs.”
US astronomers say they may have discovered a new planet in the solar system about 10times bigger than earth. The object is named planet 9. Jonathan Amos has more.
“The idea that there might be a so-called planet-x moving in the distant reaches of the solarsystem has been dated for more than 100 years. It's fallen in and out of vogue, the latestclaim is based on the analysis of the movements of objects in the band of icy material orbitingmore than 3 billion miles away, known as the Kuiper belt. The only way these alignments can beexplained, said the Cal tech team, is for an object 10 times as massive as the earth is out theresomewhere moving perhaps 20 times as far away as Neptune, the current most distantplanet.
New figures in Brazil show a further rise in the number of babies born with abnormally smallheads. There have been nearly 3900 cases of microcephaly since October when the authoritiesfirst notice the surge. The disease has been linked to the Zika virus, which has carried bymosquitoes.
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The news website Exaro has published what it says as a draft copy of the official report intosexual abuse committed by one of Britain’s biggest television stars Jimmy Savile who died in2011. He carriedout some of the crimes described as unprecedented in the UK while workingatthe BBC. The draft condemns what it says was a deferential culture in which stars wereseen as untouchable.
Democrat senators in the United States have blocked a bill that seeks to restrict the number ofSyrian and Iraqi refugees entering the country. The Republican-led senate fell short of the 60votes needed to move ahead with the legislation.
Activists have welcomed the decision of Zimbabwe’s constitutional court to ban marriage foranyone under the age of 18. Two child brides in Harare asked the court to declare the practiceillegal and unconstitutional saying it was a form of child abuse which trapped girls in lives ofpoverty and suffering. The activist group Human Rights Watch says almost 1/3 of Zimbabweanwomen are married before the age of 18. Tendai Biti, alawyer representing the two women, saida public education campaign was now needed.
“The communities, the society now has to be educated about these judgments and theillegality of entering into marriages before the age of 18,so education is going to be the key.”
Security officials in Egypt say gunmen have attacked asecurity service’s patrol in the SinaiPeninsula killing three officers and two soldiers and injuring at least seven others. The incidenttook place in the center of the city of Al-Arish.
All four members of one of the world’s biggest selling bands ABBA have reunited for the firsttime in eight year for the opening of a Mama Mia themed party venue in the Swedish capitalStockholm. It’s the brainchild of ABBA star Bjorn Ulvaeus. Guests can enjoy show, dinner, andABBA songs in the Greek taverna in the style of the Mama Mia movie.
BBC news.
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