BBC 2008-12-17
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BBC News with Cathy Clarkson.
In its latest effort to fight recession, the United States central bank has cut its main interest rate to the lowest level on record. But instead of cutting it by a fixed rate, it has opted for a target range, reducing it from 1% to between 0 and 0.25%. U.S stock markets reacted positively. The New York Dow Jones Index closed up more than 4%. Our Washington correspondent Kevin Conolly reports.
It is a dramatic move from the Federal Reserve Board designed to signal both to Wall Street and to Main Street that the American authorities are doing everything they can to fight back for the economy slides into recession. Interest rates in the US have now been cut by a full five percentage points in just over a year. The plan is to make borrowing so cheap that liquidity returns to the economy and restores confidence and consumption levels. The outlook for the American economy remains bleak and the Fed says / it's likely that rates will remain exceptionally low for some time.
The United Nations Security Council has approved a resolution valid for a year, allowing foreign military forces to pursue pirates on land in Somalia. Pirates are already holding about a dozen captured ships including a Saudi super tanker. From the UN, Lorry Trevelyan reports.
The UN Security Council has already authorized countries to enter Somali's territorial waters and chase pirates. Now, countries will be able to chase pirates on land too, provided they have the consent of Somalia's transitional government. Piracy is rife off Somalia's coastline, a symptom of the country's descent into chaos.
In an attempt to give a new impetus to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the UN Security Council has passed its first resolution on the Middle East for five years. The resolution prepared by the US and Russia says that the US-sponsored process between the Israelis and Palestinians is irreversible. It calls on both sides to fulfill their obligations. The resolution was passed with 14 out of 15 votes. Libya, the only Arab country currently on the Security Council, abstained, criticizing it for not condemning Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
There are reports of heavy casualties after a day of intense clashes between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the island. Both sides say they have killed dozens of fighters during fighting around the rebel's stronghold of Kilinochchi. Here is Arland Johnston.
A military spokesman said that 120 rebels were killed. He also acknowledged that 25 soldiers had died and that another 10 were missing. The Tigers, meanwhile, say that 150 troops were killed in the fighting around the town of Kilinochchi, and that more died further north. They've made no reference to any casualties of their own. This latest fighting was part of what has been many months of sustained effort by the army to capture rebel territory.
World News from the BBC.
The United States Justice Department says Mexican drug traffickers posed a biggest organized crime threat to the US. It says Mexican drug cartels controlled the distribution of illegal drugs in most American cities, and in those markets that they don't control they are gaining strength. According to the Justice Department, most of the cocaine available in the US has been smuggled across the Mexican border.
The British government has welcomed the guilty verdict given to an Iraqi doctor Bella Ahbudala for plotting a series of car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow. A court in London convicted him of conspiring to murder and to cause explosions. A Jordanian doctor, Muhammad Arssia, was acquitted of the same charges. They were arrested after an attempted suicide attack at Glasgow airport last year. They were also accused of involvement in failed car bomb attacks a day earlier on a nightclub and a bus stop in London. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, praised the police investigation but said the case showed that Britain remained the target.
"I'm pleased that once again policing and this technology together have brought this person to justice. It identifies the very good works being carried out by the police and the security services but it also identifies the British people that we face a severe and sustained threat from terrorism."(www.hXen.com)
The Bangladeshi military-backed government has lifted a two-year state of emergency ahead of parliamentary election scheduled for December the 29th. The main contenders to parliament are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of the former Prime Minister Hallie Daziya and the Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina.
A 105-year-old singer, a former favourite of Adolf Hitler, has lost a lawsuit against the film maker who had accused him of singing for Nazi guards at the Dachau concentration camp. Photographs showed the singer, Johannes Hissters, at the camp in Germany in 1941, but he denied he performed for the ...
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