【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】
[听力原文] 6-10
VIENNA
The
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries holds an emergency meeting in
Vienna Sunday to discuss an increase in the production of crude oil. Delegates
from the 11 member nations of OPEC gather for the second time in a month at
their Vienna headquarters. The cartel is expected to increase its official
output quota, some officials speculate, by one million, or 1.5 million barrels
per day, to make up the shortfall caused by a six-week strike in Venezuela, a
major supplier to the United States. Saudi Arabia wants a bigger increase, but
Algeria and Libya are pressing for a million barrel per day increase, which
would represent about a four percent rise over the current output of 23 million
barrels per day.
UNITED NATIONS
Iraq asked the United Nations to continue providing humanitarian aid
despite cutting off exports of crude oil under the UN's oil-for-food programme,
UN officials said.
The Iraqi ambassador to the UN, Saeed Hasan,
met on Tuesday with programme director Benon Sevan and Iraq "wanted the UN to
continue normal operations," UN spokesman Fred Eekhard told reporters.
The spokesman for the programme, John Mills, said "humanitarian
supplies will continue to arrive and be distributed in Iraq." On Monday, the UN
said that Iraq had stopped pumping oil through the 960-kilometre pipeline to
Turkish port of Ceyhan.
LONDON
For the first time in its 42-year history, the European Union (EU) staged
a joint meeting of foreign affairs and defence ministers to debate how the union
can acquire a security dimension consistent with its economic strength.
During that meeting, Britain and France proposed that Europe,
by either 2002 or 2003, should possess the capacity to deploy a rapid reaction
force of some 50,000 troops in a peacekeeping operation in or around the EU.
The proposal received a strong response, which is indicative
that the EU is making concrete efforts to bolster its military clout in
Europe.
WASHINGTON
A high
percentage of blacks, Hispanics and other minorities in the US military
complained in a survey of more than 40,000 US troops, and one in five blacks
responding also said they felt race relations played a negative part in their
prospects for promotion or assignment. But the survey, taken in 1997, indicated
that military personnel felt Pentagon efforts to promote good race relations and
equal opportunity were succeeding and that discrimination in uniform was far
less pronounced than in other areas of American life.
TOKYO
Japan's trade surplus plunged 14.4
percent in October from its level a year ago, the government said yesterday.
Government officials blamed the strong yen for severely
damaging exports.
The trade surplus dropped to US $11.2
billion, the Finance Ministry reported, making October the seventh month in a
row for a drop in the trade surplus. "Japan's exports have been pressed by the
sharp appreciation of the yen against the US dollar, which mainly contributed to
the surplus fall," said Naoko Ogata, an analyst at the Sakura Research
Institute. "With the yen rising to current levels, exporters are finding it
difficult to make a profit. "
6. Which country is pressing for an increase
of a million barrels per day?