英国新闻听力 日本出台巨额经济激励措施

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India and Nepal have agreed to work together to deal with the worst flooding in 50 years that has forced millions of people from their homes on both sides of their border. In India, bad weather is hampering¹ a huge relief operation in Bihar state. Chris Morris reports.

The Kosi river known in Bihar as the river of sorrow has changed course completely, inundating² hundreds of thousands of houses. Entire villages have been submerged, and food and medicines have been air dropped to people who've been cut off by the rising waters. More than 50 deaths have been reported so far, but there are fears the number of dead could be much higher. The army has now evacuated³ more than a-hundred-thousand people, but at least 2 million have been made homeless.

The Japanese government has announced a package of measures to stimulate⁴ the economy. It is described as being worth over $100 billion. Our economics correspondent Andrew Walker reports.

The headline figure for the size of the package is large by some measures larger than the stimulus⁵ provided by the US government earlier this year. And there is a promise in the Japanese initiative of temporary tax cuts to come. There are no details for the scale. But only a small proportion of the overall package is additional spending, much of it takes the form of loan guarantees for small businesses. Some may welcome that, and it certainly true that economic growth has slowed sharply. But critics say the plans are unlikely to have much impact and are in any case they say motivated by a desire to improve the government's popularity.