BBC news 2008-03-19 加文本

BBC 2008-03-19

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BBC News with Julie Candler.

Stock markets have rallied after the United States Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, cut its main interest rate by three quarters of one percent for the second time in a month. The main lending rate now stands at 2.25%. In a statement, the Fed highlighted difficult credit conditions and problems in the housing market as threats to economic growth. This report from Evan Davis.

It's an extreme measure, yet so extreme of the times only a three quarters of a point cut in US rate was at the lower end of expectations in Wall Street. The move was apparently not unanimous. Why would the Fed not have gone further? The statement accompanying the cut mentions elevated inflation. The Fed might also have decided that when confidence is what is missing in the financial markets, it's best not to appear to rattle. It might be that the Fed wants to be seen to have more ammunition left in its arsenal. The question left after this is when and how, if lower interest rates fail to stimulate the economy, what new tools can the Fed find.

In his first major speech about race during the American presidential campaign, Barack Obama has called on Americans to break, what he called, the racial stalemate. He said he didn't agree with recent remarks by his former pastor Jeremiah Wright. In video clips of Mr. Wright widely shown on the American television, he seemed labeling the United States as racist, but Mr. Obama said the description was wrong. (wwW.hxen.net)

"I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins of every race and every hue scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible."

The British-born science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke has died in his adopted home Sri Lanka, he was 90. During his career, he wrote more than 100 books which sold millions of copies worldwide. Chris Jones reports.

Arthur C. Clarke was still in short trousers when he began experimenting with wireless telegraphy and rocket propulsion. By the time he was in his 20s, working in radar or in communications with the RAF, he'd come up with the idea explaining in great detail in Wireless World Magazine of communication satellites. In the 50s after the briefest of marriages, he moved to Sri Lanka where despite his disability, he would go diving and play table tennis everyday. His mind was still in overdrive, producing in 1968, his best-known work, 2001 A Space Odyssey, featuring how a super computer with psychotic tendencies.

The US Supreme Court has begun considering a case which could lead to the first legal definition of the constitutional right of Americans to keep and use arms. The court is considering whether it’s reasonable for the capital Washington D.C. to maintain its ban on most handguns and restriction on shotguns in the home.

World News from the BBC.(wWw.hxen.net)

The Kenyan parliament has approved two bills drawn up after a political deal was reached to end more than two months of violence following December's disputed presidential election. MPs approved amendments to the Constitution including the creation of the post of Prime Minister which will go to the opposition leader Raila Odinga. They later passed a bill outlining the structure of a grand coalition government which brings together the opposition and the party of President Mwai Kibaki.

The parliamentary panel in Nigeria has said the country's former president Olusegun Obasanjo awarded multimillion-dollar contracts to nonexistent companies to renovate the country's power sector. President Umaru Yar'Adua, who took office last May, said there was little to show on what the previous administration had spent. Alex Last reports from Lagos.

According to the investigating panel, the previous Nigerian administration gave more than 50 million dollars worth of government contracts meant to help fix the collapsed power sector to 34 nonexistent companies. It's the latest revelation by the panel which has been investigating an issue very close to Nigerians' hearts. Namely, why is there no light? Despite Nigeria's oil and gas wealth, the country still produces a miniscule 3000 megawatts of electricity for a population of 140 million people. To put that into context, South Africa produces 12 times as much power for just 1/3 as many people.

Two film directors in Sweden have won a court battle to stop a television channel inserting advertising breaks into their films. The Swedish Supreme Court ruled that commercial breaks on the TV4 channel violated the copyright held by directors Claes Eriksson and Vilgot Sjoeman. And like most directors say they've never given permission for advertising during their film.