BBC news 2008-11-15 加文本

BBC News with Sue Montgomery.

The US administration is coming to terms with another set of bad financial statistics. The annual budget deficit has reached 455 billion dollars, it's the highest ever figure and represents more than 3% of the country's Gross Domestic Product. From Washington, here's Rachel Harvey.

There’s been no shortage of big numbers being bandied about, but the soaring budget deficit is amongst the most troubling, it's now reached an all-time high. President Bush and the two men who‘re vying to succeed him have all laid out new plans to boost the ailing economy. Barack Obama is concentrating his ideas on job creation, increasing taxes on the rich while cutting them for the middle-class; John McCain wants to cut taxes for everyone, particularly pensioners. The bottom line is that all the plans on the table are likely to add to America's spiraling national debt.

Trading in America ended calmly after President Bush announced measures which he said were designed to save the US financial system. Shares in Wall Street closed fractionally down, as investors decided to take some profits after the big rises in stocks on Monday. 250 billion dollars of US government money will be spent in buying shares in struggling American banks. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, said the measures would ease the financial crisis.

“Americans can be confident that every resource is being brought to bear. I’m not suggesting that the way forward would be easy, but I strongly believe that the application of these tools together with the underlying vitality and resilience of the American economy will help to restore confidence to our financial system and place our economy back on the path to healthy, vigorous growth.“

A research team in Tanzania says it’s developed a new cherry-flavored anti-malaria pill, which works just as well as current treatments, and it is easier for children to swallow. Writing in the medical journal, The Lancet, the team says the new tablet is not as bitter as current drugs, and does not need to be crushed before eating, making it easier for children to stick to the treatment.

A man has been executed in the United States despite his plea that the method was inhumane because of his obesity. Richard Cooey, who was convicted of killing two students in 1986, was executed by lethal injection at a prison in Ohio. Warren Bull reports.

Lawyers for Richard Cooey had brought an appeal saying he was so overweight at 120 kilograms that prison staff would have trouble finding a suitable vein to administer the injection. They’d also said the medication he was taking to ease migraines would interfere with the lethal dose and cause him to suffer an agonizing death. This, they argued, would amount to cruel and unusual punishment which is unconstitutional in the United States. But the Supreme Court rejected Richard Cooey's appeal and allowed the execution to proceed.

World News from the BBC

Scientists from six countries have announced what's described as one of the most ambitious explorations of the Antarctic ever. They want to discover how a hidden mountain range,( as high) as big as the Alps, was formed. Our environment correspondent Matt McGrath has the details. (WWw.hxen.net)

Locked four kilometers below the ice, these mountains are of the size of the Alps and are believed to be the birthplace of the huge east Antarctic ice sheet. The scientists will use ice-penetrating radar on board two aircraft [aircrafts] to build up a detailed picture of this mountain range. The researchers would also be hunting for ice that’s believed to be 1.2 million years old. They believed that locked in the ancient samples will be important information about climate change in the past that could help us better predict the changes in climate that lie ahead.

The most prestigious literary award for English fiction, the Man Booker Prize, has been awarded to Aravind Adiga for his novel, the White Tiger. The Chairman of the judges, Michael Portillo, described the book as being in the tradition of Macbeth with a delicious twist. Aravind Adiga, who is 33, was born in Madras, and White Tiger set in contemporary India, is his debut novel. He paid tribute to those who helped him win the prize and had particular thanks for his home city.

All that is good and all that is bad in India comes to Delhi for resolution and I hope that everyone in Delhi, rich and poor, will get together in the next few years to make sure that what is good will win.

Scientists in the United States say surfing the Internet can sharpen the brains of older people. A team from the University of California found searching the web stimulates parts of the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. They say using the Internet may help combat physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down, and that it uses different mental processes from those needed for reading books.

And that's the latest BBC News.