BBC news 2008-11-20 加文本

BBC News with Nick Kelly.

The United States Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, has sharply lowered its estimates for the performance of the American economy. It now thinks Gross Domestic Product could be flat or grow only marginally this year. Its gloomy assessment was reflected on the New York stock market with the Dow Jones Index closing down by five percent. Michelle Fleury reports from New York.

Without using the word, America's Central Bank is forecasting a recession lasting a year or so. In October, the Federal Reserve lowered its key interest rate by half a point to one percent. The minutes from that meeting show officials are willing to cut rates even more to avoid a deep recession. That's because they believe economic activity will shrink in the second half of 2008 and the first half of next year.

The International Monetary Fund has approved a loan of more than two billion dollars to Iceland to help it cope with what the IMF described as a banking crisis of extraordinary proportions. Iceland became the first western country since the 1970s to ask the IMF for help after its banking system collapsed in October. Last week, the Icelandic government expressed frustration at delays in payment of the first installments of the loan.

An official report into Brazil's worst air crash in which nearly 200 people died has blamed ten government and airline officials who could now face prosecution. In July last year, a passenger plane belonging to the Brazilian airline TAM veered off a Sao Paulo runway in heavy rain and crashed into a building. From Sao Paulo, Gary Duffy reports.

The accident highlighted concerns about the safety of the short runway at Sao Paulo's domestic airport, especially in rainy conditions. However, it also emerged after the crash that controls for the plane's reverse thrusters were in the wrong position, and that one of the thrusters was not operational. Investigators also find fault with the airline over pilot training, and the plane's manufacturer, Airbus, for not making it compulsory to have an alarm which would give a warning over the incorrect positioning of the plane's thrusters.

The United Nations says it's trying to arrange talks between the government and rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo to discuss the demilitarization of an area in the east of the country from which the rebels have withdrawn. Despite the pullback agreed at the weekend, the humanitarian situation in the area remains very serious. However, Anjali Kwatra, the spokeswoman for the Relief Agency Action Aid, told the BBC that more aid was starting to reach the refugee camps.

I think that more help is, is reaching in, in the past few days that have done, up until now during the recent flare-up, but there are still people who are not able to be reached because of the unstable security situation, and obviously the delay in sending troops is, is gonna make that worse for us, but I've been in camps today where people are getting food and, and other supplies that they need, but they will need more.

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A senior Rwandan official, Rose Kabuye, has been placed under formal investigation by the French judicial authorities after being extradited to France from Germany. She is wanted for questioning over the shooting down of a plane in 1994, an event which killed the former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and two French pilots and helped trigger the Rwandan Genocide.

An explosion at an anti-government protest in the Thai capital, Bangkok, has killed at least one person and wounded more than 20 others. The demonstrators said their camp was attacked possibly with a grenade in the early hours of the morning. They have been protesting at government offices in Bangkok since August calling for the resignation of the Thai prime minister.

Inspectors working for the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, have confirmed that they found a significant quantity of uranium particles at a Syrian complex. Israel bombed the site last year, an IAEA report said the possibility that the site might have a non-nuclear purpose could not be excluded. Bethany Bell reports.

The confidential report says the building destroyed in Syria had similar features to what may be found at a nuclear reactor site. However, a senior UN official said the agency was not in the position to say whether it was or was not a nuclear reactor. Syria has told the agency the site was not involved in any nuclear activities. According to the report, Damascus says the uranium must have come from the Israeli missiles dropped on the building.