BBC news 2009-03-23 加文本

BBC News with Julie Candler.

The White House says that it expects the US economy to rebound within a year as it prepares to unveil measures to rescue the country's paralysed banking system. Here's Charles Scanlon of our America's desk.

The Obama administration is fighting to win credibility for its efforts to save the economy. It's preparing to unveil a scheme to clear up a trillion dollars of toxic debt from paralysed banks. One of President Obama's top economic advisors, Christina Romer, said the plan was a key part of the strategy to revive the collapsing economy. She predicted that it would help spur a return to growth by the end of the year. Analysts say the key will be getting private investors on board, inducing them to buy up hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bad assets from the banks.

The Japanese finance minister has suggested that his government might have to spend a further 200 billion dollars to stimulate the economy which is suffering its worst downturn in decades. The Minister, Kaoru Yosano, warned that the economy was facing another sharp contraction.

Indian cricket officials say they hope to announce in the next few days which country will host next month's multimillion-dollar tournament, the Indian Premier League. The tournament is to be staged outside India because it failed to get government's security clearance. Its match schedule clashed with the Indian elections and a recent attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan also heightened concerns. The cricket authorities in South Africa and in England and Wales have been approached as possible hosts. India's deputy Home Minister Shakeel Ahmad said that the country's security resources would be overstretched by two major events at the same time.

"We haven't ensured the security to the IPL just simply because that the date of IPL will clash with the impending parliamentary election in this country. And it's very difficult to provide security to more than 1 billion people during the election and to provide security for the IPL matches on a huge scale."

The UN has presented the Sudanese government with its assessment of the impact of the expulsion of 13 international aid agencies from Darfur. Sudan ordered the charities to leave early this month after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. Martin Plaut reports.

United Nation's staff have been travelling around Darfur with Sudanese officials, assessing just what has happened since the international aid agencies were expelled. Emergency measures have been put in place but the UN believes they cannot last more than a few weeks. In some camps more than two months worth of food has been distributed but without the complex monitoring to ensure that it goes to those most in need. The difficult process of therapeutic feeding of the worst nourished children is also not taking place.(www.hXen.com)

World news from the BBC.

The government of Bangladesh has banned people suspected of war crimes during the war of independence from Pakistan in 1971 from travelling abroad. It says these people who include leaders of one of the main opposition parties, Jamaat-e-Islami, will face war crime trials. Mark Dummett reports from Dhaka.

The new government says it wants to punish those who helped the Pakistan armies, brutal attempt to hang on to what was then Pakistan's eastern province. Its supporters say this is the last chance for the generation which live through the war to see justice. The government says three million civilians died and 200,000 women were raped. The Pakistan army was blamed for most atrocities, but local militias, some allegedly linked to the religious party Jamaat-e-Islami, were accused of helping them. Critics say it's just a cynical ploy to destroy Jamaat which has since become one of the Awami league's main political rivals.

A UN human rights investigator has compiled a report saying Israel's military assault on Gaza nearly four months ago may have been a war crime. The investigator, Richard Falk, will present his findings to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. He'll say the Israeli action could have been unlawful, because it was too difficult for Israeli forces to distinguish between military targets and surrounding civilians. Mr. Falk's report calls for an independent inquiry to examine possible war crimes committed by both Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.

The authorities in Malaysia have warned a lawyers' association to stop its online discussions over whether non-Muslims can use the word "Allah" when referring to God. A government minister said the debate might provoke Muslims to rise up against the lawyers. The Malaysian Bar Council asked its members on its website whether any group had exclusive rights over the word "Allah".

BBC News.

Glossary:

Therapeutic: Therapeutic treatment is designed to treat an illness or to improve a person's health, rather than to prevent an illness. (MEDICAL)

ploy: A ploy is a way of behaving that someone plans carefully and secretly in order to gain an advantage for themselves.

compile: When you compile something such as a report, book, or programme, you produce it by collecting and putting together many pieces of information.