澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2009-11-09

The Federal Government has taken a dip in the polls as a standoff with the group of asylum¹ seekers onboard an Australian Customs ship continues. Today's Newspoll in the Australian newspaper shows 53% of voters think the government is doing a bad job of managing asylum seekers. Seventy-eight Sri Lankans are still refusing to get off the Oceanic Viking because they don't want to be taken to Indonesia. The Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith will arrive in Sri Lanka later today for talks aimed at putting a stop to people smuggling².

A strong earthquake has struck Indonesia. The quake with a magnitude of 6.7 hit the Indonesian island of Sumbawa this morning. There are no reports of damage and no tsunami³ warning was issued.

There has been a drop in job ads in October after two months of gains. The Olivier Job Index shows a decline of 1.5% last month but the number of ads over the past three months is still up 4.3%.

And world leaders are in Germany today to commemorate⁴ the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The city's mayor says events at the Brandenburg Gate will not only remember the past, but also celebrate Berlin's development since 1989.

We’ll have more news update later.

1 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

2 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。

3 tsunami   

n.海啸

参考例句：

• Powerful quake sparks tsunami warning in Japan.大地震触发了日本的海啸预警。
• Coastlines all around the Indian Ocean inundated by a huge tsunami.大海啸把印度洋沿岸地区都淹没了。

4 commemorate   

vt.纪念，庆祝

参考例句：

• This building was built to commemorate the Fire of London.这栋大楼是为纪念“伦敦大火”而兴建的。
• We commemorate the founding of our nation with a public holiday.我们放假一日以庆祝国庆。