英语听力精选进阶版 9636

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Hi there, I'm Ore from the BBC World News for Schools. It's Wednesday the 8th of June. 

Coming up: 

?Nato meets to talk about Libya 

?A Japanese astronaut to grow cucumbers in space 

?And a rare Mozart manuscript found in a charity box! 

But first to Libya in North Africa, where the country's leader Colonel Gaddafi has said that he'll remain in the country "dead or alive". He says being killed would be a "million times better" than to surrender. There have been months of violence in Libya between Gaddafi's forces and rebels in the country. 

Nato, which is the organisation¹ which brings together the armies of various countries, began airstrikes against Gaddafi and his forces two months ago. They're meeting today to talk about their attempts so far to bring peace to the country and it's thought they'll also talk about what happens when the air campaign ends - and during any transition period that follows. 

Next over to New Zealand - and it's a fond farewell to their famous woolly animal. Shrek the sheep was 16 - that's pretty old for a sheep - and became quite a star during his life. 

He ran away and hid in caves for an unbelievable six years - and when he was found he had a huge fleece - so big that it would've been big enough to make twenty men's suits! The wool was sheared² live on national TV and auctioned⁴ for children's charities - in fact the sheep raised over 120,000 American dollars during his life. Shrek became so famous that he even met the country's Prime Minister and children's books were written about him. 

Now, let's talk about cucumbers. The green vegetable has got some bad press recently because it was thought to be the cause of the E coli food bug⁵ outbreak in Germany, but here's some good news for it today. A Japanese astronaut will be growing cucumbers in space. He's part of a three-man crew on their way to the International Space Station on the Russian rocket Soyuz and here's the moment they blasted into space. 

CLIP: "We have lift off of the Soyuz 27 rocket spacecraft carrying Mike Fossum, Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov into orbit..." 

They'll be there until November. In orbit they'll perform two space walks and carry out scientific experiments, including growing the cucumbers, to see how plants cope in a gravity-free environment. . 

Speaking of interesting discoveries, something very rare was found in a box donated to a charity. It looked like an old sheet of paper but it was actually a piece of music written by none other than world famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! 

CLIP: Mozart music. 

Aah classic. The manuscript found was a piece of music written by an eight-year-old Mozart on a visit to London in January 1765 and was dedicated⁶ to the Queen at the time. It's was supposed to go on auction³ today in London, expected to raise around five thousand dollars, but moments before it was to go under the hammer, the owner got in touch and said she'd put it in the charity box by mistake! 

And for today's question we want to know where Mozart was born? 

Yesterday we asked you, where do cuckoos lay their eggs? 

And the answer is... 

In the nests of OTHER birds - bit cheeky if you ask me! 

OK my friends, that's all from the World News for Schools team to today. We're back tomorrow!