BBC news 2009-03-24 加文本

As recently as January the International Monetary Fund predicted a global trade reduction of just 2.8%. Now the World Trade Organization says the outlook is in fact far worse. Developed countries will bear the brunt of the dropping demand. Their exports are expected to fall by 10%, with the WTO acknowledges a consequent rise in unemployment. 

A suicide bomber has struck at a funeral in Iraq, killing at least 25 people. Nearly 50 people were wounded. Hugh Sykes reports. 

The suicide bomber exploded his device in a dense crowd of mourners in a funeral tent in the town of Jalula, 115 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. They were attending the funeral of the father of Karim Khudadat, an official in the Kurdish Committee Party which is part of the political bloc that led by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. It’s likely that Mr. Khudadat was the target.  

Al-Qaeda in Iraq have amounted dozens of suicide bomb attacks in Diarra province, most of them since the organization was driven out of areas west of Baghdad where local people formed the Awakening Movement, a coalition of Sunni tribes which joined forces with the Americans to fight al-Qaeda. 

The Mexican authorities have offered a reward of up to two million dollars each for information leading to the arrest of the 24 most wanted leaders of Mexican drug gangs. Among those on the list, published by the office of the attorney general is Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El Chapo recently became the first suspected Mexican drug cartel leader to be included in the list of the world’s richest billionaires by the American magazine Forbes. 

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The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned as a terrorist crime the killing of the deputy head of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Lebanon Kamal Medhat. Mr. Medhat, a member of the Fatah political faction and three of his body guards were killed by a roadside bomb as they were leaving the Mieh Mieh refugee camp in southern Lebanon. (www.hXen.com)

The Nobel Peace Prize committee says it won’t participate in a peace conference in South Africa unless the country reconsiders its decision not to allow the ** Lama to attend. The government has said the time isn’t right for the visit because it will distract from the issues of the conference on using football to fight racism. A presidential spokesman denied that China had exerted any pressure.  

Scientists in United States say there’s new evidence for the concept of cold nuclear fusion. Adhered to theoretical process, it promises a cheap and abundant source of energy. Matt Mcgrath has more.

There was a great deal of scientific excitement in March, 1989 when researchers first declared they’d produced nuclear energy using simple laboratory equipment. That hopes of endless cheap power supplies were short-lived as other scientists failed to reproduce what was termed “cold fusion”. Some experts refused to give up on an idea that imitated the energy source of the sun at room temperatures. Now at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Utah, researchers say they have the first clear visual evidence that the process of cold fusion can produce highly energetic neutrons--particles that suggest that new nuclear reactions are occurring. 

The American cyclist and 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has broken his collarbone in a crash during a race in Spain. He was taken to hospital after a pileup and he said that if he needs surgery this could scupper his chances of competing in the Tour de France in July. Armstrong, who’s 37, returned to competitive cycling earlier this year, three years after saying he’d retired from the sport. 

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