英音听力讲解:加沙地带战火重燃

音频下载[点击右键另存为]

Hello, I'm Jerry Smit with the BBC News.

The Congressman Pablo Casado has been elected the leader of Spain's conservative People's Party. He is expected to take the party further to the right. Mr. Casado succeeds Mariano Rajoy who was ousted last month. Guy Hedgecoe reports. Pablo Casado is a 37-year-old Congressman who has promised to shake up a party which has been plagued by corruption scandals in recent years and which has been struggling in the polls. Mr. Casado has presented himself as a stridently right-wing figure who appeals to the party's more conservative voters, especially on issues like the family, abortion, and euthanasia. He defeated the former Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria. The times it was a bitter leadership contest which exposed divisions in a party usually known for its unity and discipline. Mr. Casado has vowed to take a particularly hard line against those in Catalonia who want independence.

There's relative calm in the Gaza Strip after a major flare-up on Friday that saw an Israeli soldier and four Palestinians killed. A late night truce was agreed between Israel and Hamas. Sebastian Usher reports. The only breach in the cease-fire so far has been a burst of Israeli tank fire this morning aimed at a Hamas post in response the army says to an attempted cross-border infiltration by Palestinian militants. The truce is the second to have been agreed in the past week to prevent the escalation in fighting becoming another all-out conflict. Neither Israel nor Hamas appears to have the appetite for a new war, but the tensions between them aren't going away. Next Friday, another Palestinian protest on the Gaza border could provide a new flashpoint. While there's no indication yet, but the Palestinian tactic of flying incendiary kites and balloons into Israel will cease.

Two beaches in northeastern Japan that were devastated by an earthquake and tsunami seven years ago have reopened. The reopening coincides with the severe heat wave. Here is Catherine Davis. Delighted local residents sprinted into the sea and children splashed around. A ritual was held to pray for safety and balloons released into the sky. In recent years, water quality checks have shown radioactivity levels are below the minimum required by regulations. Before the disaster in 2011, these beaches attracted up to 50,000 people during the summer. Their reopening now is a specially welcome as the country swelters in a heat wave.

World news from the BBC.