BBC News with Kathy Clugston
President Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, is critically ill in Washington. Mr Holbrooke, who's 69, underwent heart surgery on Saturday after falling ill while at work in the State Department. His family is at his bedside. Here's Peter Cardwell.
In a career alternating between finance and diplomacy, Richard Holbrooke is perhaps best-known as the architect of the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended three years of war in Bosnia. Tapped as a replacement for Warren Christopher as US secretary of state in 1997, Holbrooke lost out to Madeleine Albright and later served as US ambassador to the United Nations. He took up his current post last year.
One of the sons of the disgraced New York financier Bernard Madoff has been found dead on the second anniversary of his father's arrest. Police say Mark Madoff was found hanged at his home in New York in an apparent suicide. Mark Madoff and his brother Andrew had been investigated in relation to his father's huge fraud, but no charges were brought against them.
Two of the three main candidates in the disputed presidential election in Haiti have rejected a proposed recount of votes from the first round a fortnight ago. The recount was proposed following protests by opposition supporters. Here's Vanessa Buschschluter.
The Haitian electoral council had hoped that its offer of holding a recount would bring calm to the streets of Haiti. But both the front-runner Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly, who came third, have dismissed the plan. They have been joined in their rejection of the move by six election monitoring groups, who say a recount would not be enough to end days of street protests by opposition supporters. That leaves the governing party candidate, Jude Celestin, as the only top candidate to support the recount.
There have been two explosions in the Swedish capital Stockholm. Police said a car exploded, injuring two people. A few minutes later, another explosion nearby killed a man. Local media have speculated that it could have been a suicide bomber. But a police spokesman, Ulf Johansson, said they hadn't linked the blasts to terrorists. Damien McGuinness in Riga has more.
Security police in Sweden received an email about 10 minutes before the first explosion in Stockholm on Saturday afternoon. The mail contained a sound file in both Swedish and Arabic, in which a voice condemns Sweden's presence in Afghanistan; Sweden is also criticised for supporting the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who in 2007 drew a controversial cartoon of Mohammad.
Protests have taken place in major cities in Spain against the detention in Britain of the Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. Hundreds of people gathered outside the British embassy in Madrid, calling for him to be freed. Mr Assange is facing extradition to Sweden for alleged sexual offences. His detention is seen by his supporters as an orchestrated attack on Wikileaks.
World News from the BBC
The leader who's been recognised internationally as the winner of the disputed presidential election in Ivory Coast has said the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo must concede power before talks can begin between the two sides. A spokesman for Alassane Ouattara said he was not against dialogue, but until he's recognised as president by everyone, no negotiations could take place. The African Union has suspended Ivory Coast while Mr Gbagbo continues to hold on to power.
The governing party in southern Sudan, the SPLM, has for the first time publicly backed independence for the South ahead of next month's referendum. This is at odds with the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended a long civil war with northern Sudan. Here's Simon Ponsford.
When they signed their peace deal, the leaders of both North and South Sudan also made a commitment - they would campaign to make unity attractive to southerners. But it's been an open secret that what the South really wants is independence, and that's what a senior SPLM member, Anne Itto, has now made perfectly clear. She accused the governing party in the North, the NCP, of making unity a very, very, very unattractive prospect.
Tens of thousands of people have attended a rally in Rome against the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The protest was organised by the opposition Democratic Party. Mr Berlusconi faces a motion of no confidence in parliament next week. In a message to supporters, he insisted he'd win Tuesday's vote.
The authorities in Germany say two bank robbers shot dead on Friday may have been the same married couple who staged a string of hold-ups over a 15-year period. The pair were carrying out a heist when they were interrupted by police and a gunfight broke out. German media said the female robber took her own life when she saw her husband killed. A police officer was also badly injured. The couple were widely known as the "gentleman robbers" because they were extremely polite to their victims.
BBC News
1.critically adv.危急地;严重地
例句:Last night she was critically ill in intensive care.
昨晚她病危,处于重病特别护理中。
The plane was critically disabled when one of the engines caught fire.
有一台引擎起火,使飞机严重受损。
2.dismiss v. 解散,开除;
v. 轻视,忽略
例句:I have dismissed the idea of travelling abroad.
我不再想出国旅游了。
discharge,dismiss,fire
这些动词都有“解雇,开除”之意。
discharge语气较重,指有理由的解雇,含几乎不再复用的意味。
dismiss正式用词,是这组词中语气最轻的一个词,一般只有从上文才能看解雇的原因或理由。
fire口语用词,多指被断然地突然解雇,其行动犹如开枪一样干净利落。
3.speculate vt.vi.推断; 猜测, 推测(~ about/on sth)
例句:We don't know all the circumstances, so it would be pointless to speculate.
我们不了解所有的情况, 妄加推测是没有意义的。
He speculated that he would succeed.
他推测他将成功。
4.orchestrate v.和谐地安排;精心策划
例句:He orchestrated that entire evening.
他组织了整个晚会的全部活动。
5.commitment n.承诺, 许诺, 保证
例句:He made a commitment to pay the rent on time.
他保证按时付房租。
6.attractive a.有吸引力的,引起注意的,引起兴趣的
7.prospect n.前景; 前途
例句:John is in high spirits at the prospects.
约翰对前景充满希望。
8.heist n.强夺,拦劫,抢劫
1.The leader who's been recognised internationally as the winner of the disputed presidential election in Ivory Coast has said the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo must concede power before talks can begin between the two sides.
concede power出让权利
concede表示让出,承认
例句:You must concede that I have tried my best
你必须承认我已经尽力了。
2.The African Union has suspended Ivory Coast while Mr Gbagbo continues to hold on to power.
hold on抓紧不放
例句:Hold on, Zhang Long!
抓紧, 张龙!
(在困境或危险中)坚持住,挺住
例句:If he can just hold on a little longer, we can get help to him.
如果他能再坚持一会儿, 我们就能使他得到帮助了。
He was determined to hold on this job whatever difficulties he might run into.
他下定决心, 不管碰到什么困难, 都要坚持做这工作。
3.This is at odds with the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended a long civil war with northern Sudan. Here's Simon Ponsford.
at odds with与…不和, 与…争吵
例句:She is at odds with her boss.
她与上司不和。
Local media have speculated that it could have been a suicide bomber.
could have猜测
1)may / might have 过去分词”表示对已发生的动作或存在的状态进行不肯定的推测,might的语气比may弱一点。这种结构主要用于肯定句和否定句,疑问句改用can或could。如:
They may not have known it beforehand.
You might have read about it in the papers.
2)“must have 过去分词”表示对过去发生的事情或状态进行推测,语气比较坚定,通常只用于肯定句。如:
It must have rained last night, for the ground is wet.
You must have been mad to speak to the servant.
3)“can / could have 过去分词”表示对过去某种情况的怀疑或不确定。can和could一般用于否定句和疑问句,could的语气较can弱。如:
I didn't see her at the meeting this morning; she can't / couldn't have spoken at the meeting.
He can't have finished the work so soon.
4)“should / ought to have 过去分词”表示过去本该做某事但没做,其否定式表示过去不该做某事但做了,这种句式含有不满或责备之意,ought to的语气比should强一些。如:
You ought to / should have studied harder. 你本应该更努力学习的。(但没有)
He oughtn't to / shouldn't have done that. 他本来就不该做那件事。(可是做了)
5)“would + have + 过去分词”表示对过去的某种情况进行猜测,或本来要做某事却因某种原因未做成,通常用来说明某一情况,但不像用should或ought to那样含有责备之意。如:
I guess the poet would have been about twenty when she wrote her first poem.
Another worker wouldn't have acted like that.