CNN 2009-03-15

Hello to you, I'm Creshon Saunders at the CNN.com newsroom in Atlanta. Here's a look at what's happening NOW IN THE NEWS.

President Barack Obama is meeting with his Brazilian counterpart at the White House. The two leaders are expected to talk about the troubled global economy, energy and the environment. Brazil is a major U.S. trading partner and thanks to cautious economic policies it's fared better than almost all other major countries in the current economic downturn.

The world's industrial powers are trying to get on the same page these days to deal with the global economic crisis. Finance ministers from the G-20 nations are meeting in Britain right now. Americans and Europeans have a different opinion about how to tackle the crisis though, the US wants to see more government spending, for European leaders the priority is to tighten¹ financial regulations. Today's meeting is in preparation for the summit of G-20 leaders in London in April.

All right, we're learning more about Bernie Madoff's personal worth. His lawyers filed documents yesterday that indicate Madoff and his wife had 823 million dollars in assets at the end of last year now that included a seven-million-dollar yacht and a two-million-dollar boat and they also had 22 million dollars in property stretching from New York to the French Riviera. Madoff now occupies a jail cell, the size of a walk-in closet. He'll be sentenced in June and could get 150 years in prison for the 65-billion-dollar Ponzi scam.

The Interfax news agency is reporting that Russian strategic bombers² may soon be based in Cuba. Moscow has recently tried to improve relations with Cuba which has long been highly critical of Washington. Cuba has never permanently³ hosted Russian fighter planes, but Soviet⁴ bombers often stopped there during the Cold War.

Another recording⁵ purportedly⁶ by Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin⁷ Laden⁸ is calling Israel's recent offensive in Gaza a "holocaust⁹." Arabic language news network Al-Jazeera aired this message just this morning, but CNN cannot confirm at this time if the tape is in fact authentic¹⁰. Now the last time we heard from Bin Laden was in January, when he called for a holy war to stop Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

Those are the headlines this hour. For more on these stories and other news of the day, CNN is your source online, on TV, even when you're on the go.

1 tighten   

v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧

参考例句：

• Turn the screw to the right to tighten it.向右转动螺钉把它拧紧。
• Some countries tighten monetary policy to avoid inflation.一些国家实行紧缩银根的货币政策，以避免通货膨胀。

2 bombers   

n.轰炸机( bomber的名词复数 )；投弹手；安非他明胶囊；大麻叶香烟

参考例句：

• Enemy bombers carried out a blitz on the city. 敌军轰炸机对这座城市进行了突袭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Royal Airforce sill remained dangerously short of bombers. 英国皇家空军仍未脱离极为缺乏轰炸机的危境。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

4 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

5 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

6 purportedly   

adv.据称

参考例句：

• This is purportedly the oldest tree in the world. 据称这是世界上最古老的一棵树。 来自互联网
• Mayor Oh Se-Hoon launched the campaign last year, purportedly to improve efficiency. 据悉，首尔市市长吴世勋于去年提出了这项旨在提高工作效率的计划。 来自互联网

7 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

8 laden   

adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的

参考例句：

• He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

9 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

10 authentic   

a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的

参考例句：

• This is an authentic news report. We can depend on it. 这是篇可靠的新闻报道, 我们相信它。
• Autumn is also the authentic season of renewal. 秋天才是真正的除旧布新的季节。