听力原文：VIENNA The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries holds an emergency meeti

听力原文： 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. "

Questions:

6. Which country is pressing for an increase of a million barrels per day？

7.What did the Iraqi ambassador ask the United Nations to do？

8.What was proposed at the joint meeting staged by the European Union？

9.What was disclosed in a survey released by the US Defence Department on Tuesday？

10.As compared with the same period last year, how much did Japan's trade surplus drop？

(26)

A．Algeria and Libya.

B．Saudi Arabia.

C．Venezuela and Algeria.

D．Venezuela.