BBC news 2007-09-19 加文本

BBC 2007-09-19


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BBC World News with John Jason.

The United States central bank the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate for the first time in four years. The half point cut to 4.75% was bigger than it had been expected. From Washington, here is James Coomarasamy.

The Fed’s decision to cut interest rate by a full half percent is been seen as a bold and aggressive attempt to jump-start the American economy. It was immediately welcomed on Wall Street. Although a reduction had been expected, many economists were predicting that the Fed Chairman Bernanke would air on the side of caution and lower the rate at which banks borrow from each other by a quarter of a percent. The decision to ease credit conditions here is designed to encourage greater household spending and business investment to counter the effects of America’s housing slump and poor job growth.

Four months after becoming President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy challenged his compatriots to cut their social welfare system and streamline their economy for their modern age. In a speech in Paris, Mr. Sarkozy said France’s generous social system was unsustainable and must now be wholesale change.

“Our social system is not financially tenable, our social system discourages work, our social system does not ensure equal opportunities. Basically, I’m saying let’s stop the hypocrisy, these are matters which are too serious to be satisfied by talk followed by no action afterwards.”

Union leaders have criticized Mr. Sarkozy for wanting to rush through with the reforms. They said it was placing an unfair burden on workers.

The top intelligence official in United States says Russia and China are spying on American facilities at levels close to those during the Cold War. Speaking at a congressional hearing, Mike McConnell said that the two countries were aggressively collecting information on American systems and projects. Mr. McConnell was testifying in support of a controversial bill giving the US government a right to eavesdrop on international phone conversations and email traffic.

The former American football star O. J. Simpson has been charged on seven counts including kidnapping, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Simpson who has cleared the murdering his ex-wife and a friend twelve years ago was arrested in Las Vegas last Sunday as part of investigation into alleged armed robbery sports memorabilia. Our correspondent David Willis reports.

O. J. Simpson was arrested on Sunday after a memorabilia dealer called the police on Thursday night to report that a group of armed men had charged into his hotel room in Las Vegas and taken various sports items. Simpson who maintains that the items were his has now been charged with assault and robbery with a deadly weapon as well as kidnapping and conspiracy. He's been held at a detention center in Las Vegas and is due in court on Wednesday. If convicted, he faces the possibility of life in prison.

World News from the BBC.

Officials in a town near the American state of New Jersey voted to rescind a controversial law that would have imposed the heavier penalties on businesses which employ illegal immigrants and landlords who rent their property to them. In what immigrant rights campaigners are hailing as a victory, the local authorities in the town of Riverside voted to overturn the legislation they passed last year.

The authorities in Peru say 600 people have required medical treatment after an object from space believed to be a meteorite plummeted to earth near the town of Carancas in the Andes mountains. The space object has left a deep crater which is flooded with water. People who have been to the scene complained of headaches, vomiting and nausea after inhaling gases.

Demonstrations are being held in cities across Argentina to mark a year since a key witness in a human right trial disappeared. The man Jorge Julio Lopez has not been seen since testifying in a trial of a former Police Chief Miguel Etchecolat. Mr. Etchecolat is now serving a life sentence for human rights abuses committed under military rule in Argentina. Daniel Schweimler reports.

Everyone in Argentina knows who Jorge Julio Lopez is and regular marches ensure he is not forgotten. President Nestor Kirchner has said he wants to know where the 77-year-old retired labor is. But for a year, ther's been no trace. Mr. Lopez disappeared near his home in the city of La Plata after giving evidence in a trial of former Police Chief Miguel Etchecolat. Human rights activists believed that Mr. Lopez was kidnapped by former policeman as a warning to potential witnesses who might be considering giving evidence in future human rights trials.

A powerful typhoon has hit China’s densely populated eastern coast south of the city of Shanghai. State television showed huge waves hitting the shore while soldiers worked in pouring rain to help residents to move to temporary shelters. More than one and a half million people have been evacuated and schools and businesses have been closed.

BBC World News.