听力4新闻原文(4)

The problem is though, most of the first batch were not considered up to it. Of 500 volunteers who were sent for assessment, just 142 were fit enough. The rest were too fat, unfit or had what the head of the corps told an English language newspaper was poor overall presentation and grooming. Corps members wear military uniforms but most of them are unpaid volunteers with limited powers.

Street crime, particularly mugging, is seen as a serious problem in Malaysia’s major cities. The opposition has called for the country’s top policeman to be replaced because of the failure to tackle the issue.

News item 3

Australian police say a nuclear reactor may have been the intended target of a group of terrorist suspects arrested last week in Sydney and Melbourne. The suspects were among a group of 18 Muslims charged with terrorism-related offences.

This is the first official indication as to what the target of this alleged plot might have been. The Lucas Heights nuclear facility is on the outskirts of Sydney and is Australia’s only reactor. In documents released today the police have said that three of the suspects were stopped and questioned near the plant last December. It’s claimed that the defendants have been trying to stockpile large quantities of chemicals. It is also alleged they attended military style training camps in the Australian outback. Lawyers for the accused have insisted that the case against them was weak and politically motivated.

Unit 5

News item 1

Scientists have produced evidence showing dramatically that the current temperature rise there is highly unusual. For most of the last two thousand years, the Arctic slowly cooled, a consequence of variations in the Earth’s orbit.

But over the last century, the cooling abruptly reversed, and the region is now warmer than at any time in the 2,000-year record. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say this shows how quickly the Arctic responds to climatic changes.

News item 2

The international conservation group, WWF, has accused European toilet and tissue paper manufacturers of contributing to global deforestation by not using enough recycled material. A spokesman said more than a quarter of a million trees were in fact being flushed down toilets or discarded as rubbish each day.

The report found alarmingly low levels of recycled fibers in the vast majority of products and said the fibers were instead being taken from natural forests in South Africa, Asia, Europe and across the Americas. Using virgin forest to make toilet paper, says the report, is wasteful and unnecessary. The report also warns that illegal and unsustainable logging and conflicts over land rights still exist in many of these areas and that all but on of the companies have so far failed to take effective measures to prevent illegal or controversial timber from being used in their products.

News item 3