英国新闻听力 53（在线收听）

BBC news with Jonathan Weekly.

The United States government says it may use part of its $700 billion aid package for the financial sector to help America’s beleaguered carmakers. On Thursday, the Senate failed to agree a $14 billion rescue plan for the industry. Our Washington correspondent James Coomarasamy was asked whether President Bush could in effect defy the Senate’s opposition to the plan.

“Yes, he has a power to change what he does with that money. But until now, until this collapsed, the Bush administration, President Bush himself have been saying, look we can’t divert that money because that money was given for a different purpose. It was given to prop up the financial services industry. Now, remember they already have changed the mission to a certain extent since September, they’ve already changed this from simply buying up those toxic assets to actually investing in those banks, so it has been changed once, but this will be a pretty radical change, but it is something they can just do.”

The Columbian authorities have extradited a man alleged to be one of the country’s most powerful drug lords to the United States where he is to stand trial on charges of murder, drugs trafficking and money laundering. The charges against Diego Montoya relate to his time as leader of a cartel which /is at its peak is said to have exported 70% of the cocaine sold in the United States and Europe. Jeremy McDermott now reports.

Don Diego had his own private army, which he called the ‘Macho Men.’ They controlled his drug laboratories, the routes he used to move cocaine across the country, and formed his praetorian guard. The Macho Men and the organization Don Diego headed has been largely dismantled. But his place and the drug smuggling routes he ran have been taken over by a new capo known by the alias ‘Combatant.’

Four British marines have been killed in two separate attacks in Helman province in Southern Afghanistan. One died when his armed vehicle was blown up by a bomb. Shortly after, in the same area, there was a second explosion as a young Afghan pushing a wheelbarrow approached accompanied marines taking part in an operation against the Taliban. Two marines died at the scene. The third succumbed to his wounds later.

Investigators in the United States have begun attempts to establish the extent of losses run up by a leading Wall Street broker, Bernard Madoff. So far, Mr. Maddoff has been charged for causing losses worth $50 billion, the case could be proved to be one of the biggest frauds in history. Prosecutors say he ran a hedge fund as a pyramid scheme. One of the lawyers representing investors, Brad Freeman, described how they’d been completely misled by the broker.

“They invested their money with Madoff, in some cases all of their money, tens of millions of dollars, which apparently he was taking, purporting to be getting 10-15% returns on their money, when in fact he had lost all of it and was just continuing in a pyramid fashion to get more investor’s money and pretending to pay off the old people with new people’s money. And now $50 billion in assets are wiped out, gone. ”

World News from the BBC.

European Union leaders have agreed an ambitious package and measures to tackle global warming. It will reportedly cost about $260 billion and aims to cutting carbon emissions by a fifth by the 2020. The agreement was welcomed by the United Nations’ top climate change official Yvo de Boer. However, a BBC correspondent says the European Union made many concessions to reach the compromise.

The jury at the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes a Brazilian man shot dead by police in London after being mistaken for a suicide bomber in 2005 has returned to open verdict. After the verdict was announced, the police said they accepted /the full responsibility for his death.

The Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has ordered the country to officially default on its foreign debt, valued nearly $10 billion. Mr. Correa refereed to the international lenders the money is owed to as real monsters and said he would take full responsibility for the default and follows a government audit in November which classified some of the debt taken on by the previous government is illegitimate or illegally incurred. It’s the first default in Latin America since 2001 when Argentina failed to repay debt in the midst of its financial meltdown.

The Hollywood actor Van Johnson has died at the age of 92. He was a big star in the 1940s, appearing with co-stars like Humphrey Bogart and Elizabeth Taylor. NK Now reports.

Van Johnson was one of the last stars to emerge from the studio system after arriving in Hollywood in 1941. Once there, the wartime absence of more established stars and his own boy-next-door good looks ensured screen success for the former vaudeville artist. Women swooned over his appearance in the 40’s films The White Cliffs of Dover and Weekend at the Waldorf which led him to more demanding roles in Battleground and The Caine Mutiny. He also starred with Gene Kelly in 1954 musical Brigadoon.