BBC新闻附字幕:英女王对爱尔兰进行历史性访问

BBC News with Julie Candler

In what correspondents describe as adramaticescalation of American pressure on Syria, the US has imposed its first ever sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad. Washington says he and eight others have been targeted for violence and repression during the two-month uprising in Syria. The State Department spokesman Mark Toner said it was time to increase the pressure on President Assad.

"I think we're looking at what next steps, what possible additional pressure we can provide really tocrystalliseour message to the Syrian government, which is that your current behaviour is unacceptable and the violence must stop. The Syrian government has talked a lot about reform, has made a lot of promises but done very little. So again, we're trying to seek additional ways to apply pressure on them."

Earlier, President Assad said the Syrian security forces had made mistakes in their handling of the protests, while the BBC received new reports of army attacks on civilians.

A senior Chinese army general, Chen Bingde, has said China has no intention of attempting to match US military power.Speaking in Washington at the National Defense University, General Chen said that the United States military forces were far more advanced than their Chinese counterparts.He said there was a 20-year difference between US and Chinese military capabilities, but that China's military forces had improvedconsiderablyin recent years.

China has acknowledged that the controversial Three Gorges dam has created major problems. The country's policy-making body, the State Council, says it plans to deal with the difficulties. Paddy Clark reports.

The problems posed by the Three Gorges dam were discussed at a meeting of the State Council, chaired by the Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. A statement issuedafterwardssaid there was an urgent need for ecological protection, the prevention of geological disasters and the smooth relocation of displaced residents. It said problems also existed for transport, irrigation and water supplies further down the Yangtze River, which the damstraddles. The dam, which cost nearly $40bn, led to thesubmerging of towns, fields and heritage sites, and forced more than a million and a quarter people to move.

The World Bank says the Indian government's main programmes for the poor are only delivering limited benefits, with much of the money lost to corruption and bad management.India spends more than 2% of its gross domestic product on poverty reduction, but the World Bank says that its food distribution scheme suffers so much from corruption that only about 40% of its grain reaches the poor.

There's been an almost sixfold rise in the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Satellite images from the government show that between March and April last year, around 100 sq km of vegetation were destroyed. But this year, that figure was almost 600. The worst affected state is Mato Grosso.

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In the first address of her historic visit to the Irish Republic, Queen Elizabeth has extended her "deep sympathy" to those who she said had suffered during the troubled past of the two countries. She spoke of the painful legacy of history, but added that Britain and Ireland were now firm friends and equal partners. From Dublin, Peter Hunt reports.

At Dublin Castle, where once previous monarchs came as rulers, this monarch, wearing a dress adorned with hand-sewn embroidered shamrocks, came to reflect. She impressed her audience immediately by opening her speech in Gaelic with the words "President and friends". The Queen said she wanted to extend her "sincere thoughts and deep sympathy" to all those who had suffered as a consequence of the UK and Ireland's shared troubled past. She went on, "With the benefit of historicalhindsightwe can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all."

Libya has released four international journalists who had been detained for several weeks. Two Americans, a British man and a Spaniard disappeared while covering the conflict in Libya. The four are said to be in good health. Andrew North reports from Tripoli.

They were all brought to the Tripoli hotel where the foreign media covering the conflict are staying, looking tired and somewhatbewildered by the scrum of journalists awaiting them. Libyan officials say the four had been freed by a judge after being given a one-year suspended prison sentence for illegally entering the country. There's been no word on the fate of a South African citizen, photographer Anton Hammerl, who's believed to have been detained in Libya in early April.

Astronomers in Japan say they've found 10 planets the size of Jupiter which do not appear to orbit any star. Writing in the science journal Nature, the researchers say it's unclear how the planets, which are near the centre of the Milky Way galaxy,came to bewithout a star to orbit. One theory is that the planets may have beenejected from infant solar systems bygravitationalforces or inter-planetary collisions.

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通讯员表示，美国对叙利亚施加的压力迅速增加，美国对阿萨德总统实施了首次制裁。华盛顿方面表示，在叙利亚为期两个月的起义中，阿萨德和其他八人试图实施暴力和镇压行动。国务院发言人唐纳(Mark Toner)表示，是时候对阿萨德总统增加压力了。

“我认为我们现在正在探寻下一步可以采取什么样的措施，施加什么样的压力，将我们向叙利亚政府传达的信息具体化，那就是：你们现在的行为是难以接受的，必须立即停止暴力活动。叙利亚政府已经多次提到进行变革，也多次做出承诺，但是没有采取任何行动。所以，我们将再次采取多种方式向他们施加压力。”

此前，阿萨德总统表示，叙利亚安全力量在应对抗议活动方面出错，BBC也收到了关于军队袭击平民的新的报告。

中国上将陈炳德表示，中国无意与美国军事实力一争高下。在华盛顿国防大学发表讲话时，陈将军表示，美国军队的军事实力远远超出中国。他表示，中国的军事能力与美国有着20年的差距，但是近年来，中国的军事能力确实取得了长足的进展。

中国已经承认具有争议的三峡大坝制造了重大问题。政策制定机构国务院表示，他们正在计划解决这些难题。Paddy Clark报道。

在温家宝总理主持召开的国务院会议上，与会人员深入探讨了三峡大坝造成的问题。随后发表的一份声明表示，移民安稳致富、生态环境保护、地质灾害防治等方面还存在一些亟需解决的问题，对长江中下游航运、灌溉、供水等也产生了一定影响。三峡工程耗资400亿美元，造成许多城镇，农田和文化遗址被淹没，迫使125万人移民。

世界银行表示，印度政府主要的扶贫项目仅提供了有限的福利，大部分资金由于贪污和管理不善而损失。印度将超过2%的GDP花费在扶贫项目上，但是世界银行表示，印度的粮食分配机制受到贪污的严重影响，只有大约40%的谷物到达穷人手中。

巴西亚马逊雨林的森林砍伐速度增加了六倍。政府拍摄的卫星图像显示，去年三月份至四月份期间，大约100平方千米的植被被破坏。但是今年，该数字增加到大约600平方千米。受影响最严重的是马托格罗索州。

BBC世界新闻。

对爱尔兰共和国进行的历史性访问的首次讲话中，伊丽莎白女王向那些在两国尴尬的历史中遭遇困境的人们表示慰问。他讲到了令人痛苦的历史遗产，但是补充说，英国和爱尔兰现在是亲密的友邻之邦，平等的合作伙伴。都柏林，Peter Hunt报道。

在都柏林城堡，以前的英国王者是统治者，而现在的女王则身穿手工刺绣的三叶草的服装。她用盖尔语的“总统和朋友们”开始讲话，立即给人们留下了深刻的印象。女王表示，她向由于英国和爱尔兰之间不愉快的历史而遭遇困境的人们表达“真诚的问候和深切的慰问”。她继续说，“在今后的历史中，我们能够看到我们所共同希望的事情有没有尽力去完成。”

利比亚释放了四名被拘留了几周的国际社会记者。两名美国人，一名英国人和一名西班牙人在利比亚报道冲突状况的时候失踪。据称这四人的健康状况良好。Andrew North在的黎波里报道。

他们被带到外国媒体报道冲突状况的的黎波里酒店，看上去非常疲惫，面对等待他们的记者的混乱景象似乎有点迷惑。利比亚官员表示，这四人因非法入境被判处一年的缓期监禁之后被释放。据信在四月份初期被关押的南非公民，摄影师Anton Hammerl的情况则没有提及。

日本天文学家表示，他们发现了10颗像木星一样大的行星，不围绕任何恒星运行。这些研究人员在《科学》期刊上表示，目前还不清楚接近银行系中心的这些不围绕恒星运转的行星是怎样形成的。其中一个理论是，这些行星可能是由于引力作用或行星间的碰撞从太阳系中分裂出来的。