英国新闻听力 02（在线收听）

BBC News with Charles Caro.

Leaders from both parties in the US Senate are sounding increasingly confident that the chamber will pass a revised version of the government's multi-billion-dollar rescue package for the American financial sector. The Senate is expected to vote on the issue within hours. Democrats and Republicans have also indicated that the support for the plan is growing in the House of Representatives which could vote on the revised proposals on Friday. From Washington, Rachel Harvey reports.

The central core of the rescue plan is the same as it's always been. Hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to be made available to buy bad assets from banks, but senators have now added sweeteners to make the medicine more palatable, including tax breaks and higher levels of insurance for depositors. A procession of speakers in the chamber have made clear that their constituents are both angry about the present and frightened about the future, something has to be done.

Mexico's Central Bank says the amount of money sent home by Mexicans living abroad has seen its biggest monthly drop since the bank started keeping the data on such transfers in 1995. Remittances are Mexico's second largest source of foreign income after oil exports with nearly all the money coming from Mexicans living and working in the United States. Analysts say the economic slowdown in the US has hit foreign workers hard.

The United Nations Humanitarian Chief, John Holmes, has warned that about half the population of Zimbabwe could soon be in need of constant food aid and medical assistance. Mr. Holmes told the BBC that three million people were already reliant on food aid and that figure could rise to five million by January when food stocks were at their lowest. Laura Trevelyan reports.

The violence around the disputed presidential election in March led many to flee their homes, now they need food. Spiraling inflation has only made matters worse. John Holmes says seeds and fertilizer are needed now before the next May's planting season which begins in five weeks' time. Foreign aid agencies were banished from Zimbabwe by the government, now they've been allowed back. Although President Mugabe has signed a power-sharing deal with the opposition, talks on forming a cabinet are deadlocked.

New research suggests that HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS, may have been circulating among humans for more than a century. Analysis of an early previously unknown sample of the virus collected in Central Africa shows that it could have begun spreading among humans as early as the 1880s. Risto Pica reports.

The research has compared the new samples later ones and also ones of SIV -- the virus affecting apes. Calculating the rate of genetic change between them allowed the scientists to estimate when the ape virus mutated into the human one. They say it's likely to have happened around a hundred years ago, maybe even earlier. At first, only a few people caught the virus and scientists think the rise of cities in Africa may have helped it spread.

World News from the BBC.

A ban on smoking tobacco in public places has come into force in India. The ban covers hotels, restaurants, offices and public places, such as bus stops. More than a hundred million smokers are affected by the ban which the Indian government says is necessary in a country where one out of every ten deaths is attributed to smoking. However, a BBC correspondent says India has had strong anti-smoking laws before but was unable to enforce them effectively.

Police in California say they may have recovered items belonging to the millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett who disappeared on a flight in the western United States a year ago. Rajesh Mirchandani reports.

Police in the Mammoth Lakes area of eastern California say a hiker brought them some ID with Mr. Fossett's name on, some cash and a sweatshirt. The hiker told officers they had found the items near the town of Mammoth Lakes, a popular tourist resort high on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Steve Fossett disappeared more than a year ago after taking off in a small plane from a private ranch in the neighboring state of Nevada. No sign of him was ever found and he was declared legally dead in February.

The British government has decided to bring home the children of its diplomats based in Pakistan. Foreign Office officials said the decision was based on a security review following the bomb attack on the Mariott Hotel in Islamabad last month which killed more than fifty people. About sixty children will be affected.

The world football governing body FIFA has warned Poland that it faces severe sanctions including exclusion from World Cup qualifying matches if a decision that suspends the management of its national Football Association is not reversed within days. The Polish government suspended the management earlier this week as part of an anti-corruption drive. But FIFA said that it could not accept political interference in the running of the game.

And that's the latest BBC News.