24/12/2015 BBC World News

Welcome to BBC News. I'm Alice Baxter.

Our top stories: Reports from Afghanistan say Taliban

fighters have almost complete control of the town of Sangin.

In Iraq, government forces continue their

offensive to try to drive Islamic State fighters out of Ramadi.

Once Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky tells the BBC

he may seek asylum in Britain as Moscow issues

And an early Christmas present for Beatles fans as more than 200 songs

are made available for worldwide streaming for the first time.

In Afghanistan, Taliban fighters are reported to

have taken control of most of the town of Sangin in Helmand province,

There is also fierce fighting in other parts of the province.

It's over a year since British troops pulled out of Helmand

but some British servicemen have now returned as military advisors.

As the Taliban announce victory in Sangin district,

Afghan troops are desperately fighting to push them back, not just

from the strategic town but other districts in Helmand province.

It looked as if things could get better for the Afghan soldiers

after supplies were airdropped and additional troops arrived.

Some, however, are still willing to fight.

TRANSLATION: We're ready to defend our country,

And when we get the order, we will fight the enemy.

Here in Kabul, the acting Afghan Defence Minister insists the

army is still resisting and that the operation is still ongoing.

What do you say to British families who have lost relatives in Sangin,

in particular, who say the British military provided support, training,

money, they've paid in blood, only for the Afghan army to fail?

The British and other nations, they have contributed with

their treasure and their blood and their contributions and sacrifice,

that is always appreciated by the people of Afghanistan.

But at the same time, in just one year we took over

responsibility, we were thinly spread throughout the country.

We tried our best to hold all those areas.

The latest fighting in Helmand has exposed significant weaknesses both

in the Afghan army and the government in

maintaining a solid grip of security after the withdrawal of Nato forces.

It is in that weakness that the Taliban found the chance to

regroup and deal heavy blows to Afghan troops across the country.

Each loss of a strategic position also means

loss of Afghan lives and families getting caught in the violence.

TRANSLATION: We fled home with the clothes on our backs.

I went to the market and saw Taliban militants there.

In a statement today, the Taliban condemned the British

troops for returning to Helmand province to support Afghan forces.

They said the British government has broken its promise to the people not

More than 100 British troops were killed in Sangin alone and

as the Taliban continue to tighten their hold on the districts of

Helmand province, many will continue to ask why those lives were lost.

Anthony H Cordesman, is a defence analyst at the Center

for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

He says the situation in Helmand has been deteriorating for some time.

Sangin is the district capital but you are never pacified Helmand

Province. You had never controlled the necrotic output. You pushed the

Taliban out of river valleys but not out of the area and over the last

two years, before even the withdrawal of ISAF forces, you saw a

return of the Taliban, use or serious problems in governance. You

saw a police force which really isn't trained to fight against the

Taliban. Often, it simply retreats back to its headquarters. And use of

narcotics production go way up. This is not a sudden new trend. What it

is is a province that is steadily being lost and you are beginning to

move into the more visible areas, the district capitals, but it is a

problem that has been steadily building up really for the last two

years. In Iraq, security forces are

trying to drive out Islamic State Officials say government troops

and Sunni tribal fighters have taken control of several districts

and are advancing towards Like Sangin in Afghanistan,

Ramadi is seen as strategically important, largely because it's

about 100km from Baghdad. Hannan Razek from the BBC's

Arabic Service has this report. Street to street, this is how the

fighting is going in Ramadi. The operation that aims to recapture the

city centre from the so-called Islamic State fighters who has been

there since May might take longer than thought. Iraqi officials said

earlier that the operation would only take 72 hours but a military

spokesman has sent out what that message to journalists, saying : the

reason is that Islamic State fighters have set booby traps around

the city centre to make it difficult for the troops to go in. But this is

not the only fear. TRANSLATION: Ice as insurgents might disguise in

civilian outfits and they might shave their beards. -- IS

insurgents. The role of the fighting groups will be to identify those

inside. TRANSLATION: All of the troops are pretty confident we will

defeat IS. We will win the battle. We will take on insurgent pockets

but with caution of civilian lives. It is only a matter of days and

Ramadi will be liberated. Raising the Iraqi flag over the government

complex is what these soldiers are aiming for. If they succeed, it will

be the second biggest victory for the Iraqi government after

recapturing Detroit. That it does not look like it will be an easy

task. -- after recapturing Tikrit. In other news,

four people have died after One died from stab wounds,

the other was apparently shot dead Two Palestinians were shot by

police trying to stop the attack. It's the latest in a series of such

attacks in the past three months. Demonstrators protesting

against the police shooting of a black man in the American city of

Minneapolis last month have blocked They also forced shops

in the country's biggest mall to close on one of the busiest shopping

days in the year. A Judge on the Thai island of Koh

Samui is set to deliver a verdict on Hannah Witheridge and David Miller

died on the neighbouring island Two migrant workers from Myanmar,

Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun, They could face the death penalty

if convicted. The former Russian oligarch

Mikhail Khodorkovsky says he may He says an arrest warrant issued

by a Russian court over the murder of a Siberian mayor in

the 1990s is politically motivated. Once Russia's richest man

and the boss of the Yukos oil company, Mr Khodorkovsky spent ten

years in a Russian jail In an exclusive interview with

the BBC, he told Richard Galpin it was clear that

the Kremlin wants him silenced. TRANSLATION: This means that

President Putin gave the investigators the order to do what

they are doing now. President Putin has decided that I was behind the

efforts of shareholders who were demanding $50 billion in

compensation in Russia for plundering the company. It is also

clear that Putin have decided it potential involvement in the 2016

parliamentary elections is dangerous. Are you a threat to the

Russian president? Is it your goal to overthrow Mr Putin? TRANSLATION:

It seems that trying to change the regime in Moscow would be too

optimistic but I'm convinced that in the next ten years the regime will

change and I hope that my efforts will play an important role in that

regard. Are you concerned for your own safety if you take this route?

TRANSLATION: There is an impressive history in the deaths of Putin's

opponents but I'm a man who spent ten years in prison. It would have

been easy to kill me there. No problem at all. Today in London, I

feel safe, of course, safer than at any time over the last ten years.

So, how realistic is regime change, as Mr Khodorkovsky put it?

Olga Ivshina of BBC Russian told us that there

are signs of discontent, despite Mr Putin's massive popularity.

Opinion polls show that is approval rate is growing. It used to be 86%

and now it is close to 90%. On the other hand, we are seeing some

protest rallies imagine. Truck drivers protested in opposition to

the new taxation system. And as Mr Khodorkovsky has pointed out, it is

quite sporadic. It was quite a surprise because truck drivers are

on of those groups that support Putin the most. This shows that

there is an underground movement, some ideas which seemed to have

appeared from nowhere, which shows that there is tension within the

society, especially when the economy is collapsing.

Back in November, Indonesia bowed to international pressure

and said it would temporarily stop executing prisoners.

But the government of President Joko Widodo still wants to

Now it's come up with a controversial plan to build

TRANSLATION: My idea is that outside this jail there will be

a moat filled with crocodiles. The next one filled with

piranhas, and then after that, an area filled with tigers.

This is how serious we are about dealing with inmates sentenced

We have to do this because this is an extraordinary

crime, so all efforts against it have to be extraordinary.

We are also at the same time conserving these animals

by creating a conservation area that happens to be around a jail.

Senior members of the government as well as the public have

Are you serious about implementing this?

This is an idea we are working on on the orders of the president.

A team made up from members of the National Drugs Board

and the Human Rights Ministry are working on this and looking at

Can this proposal of a crocodile jail - you also mentioned tigers -

I have been swamped with donations of crocodiles from communities

I am struggling to find a home for all of these crocodiles that

We need to make sure this happens given the huge public response.

Still to come: They're known as man's best friend but can dogs

We saw this enormous tidal wave approaching the beach,

and people started to run, and suddenly it was complete chaos.

United States troops have been trying to overthrow the dictatorship

The Pentagon said the operation had been 90% successful,

but it's failed in its principal objective, to capture General

Noreiga and take him to the United States to face drugs charges.

The hammer and sickle was hastily taken away.

The Russian flag was hoisted over what is now no longer the

Soviet Union, but the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Day broke slowly over Lockerbie, over the cockpit of the

Pan-Am's Maid of the Seas, nose-down in the soft earth.

You could see what happens when a plane eight storeys high, a football

Christmas has returned to Albania after a communist ban lasting more

Thousands went to midnight Mass in the town where there were

The latest headlines: Fierce fighting in Afghanistan.

Almost the entire town of Sangin has now fallen to the Taliban after

And Iraqi forces are continuing their offensive

on Ramadi to try to drive Islamic State fighters out of the city.

During the course of 2015 we have spent a lot of time covering both

the conflict in Syria and the refugee crisis it has sparked.

As the world gets set to ring in a New Year,

the situation on the ground in Syria is as desperate as ever.

And many now question whether the most powerful global organizations

are able to cope with the enormity of the world's trickiest problems.

The BBC's Fergal Keane has this special report.

The struggles of the present are rooted in the past. When greater

powers decide the fate of far away millions. Here outside Paris have a

signed the first of a series of treaties which would bring

generations of conflict. In this room he defeated Ottoman Turks gave

up an empire including Syria, Iraq and Palestine. -- that. As the

victorious allies were busy carving up the Middle East, here they had

already signed another treaty in a different part of the city to set up

the world's first peacekeeping organisation, the League of Nations,

former to the UN. Now as millions of Syrians flee their homeland, why has

the international in the UN being incapable of ending the conflict?

There is no value for the child, for a human being. No value at all.

Where is the humanity? It was meant to be very different. Back in 1994

the horrific images of the Rwanda genocide, along with Bosnia,

prompted pledges to protect civilians. There are thoughts for

the people who knew they would die and the terror they must have felt,

and the savagery and hatred in the hearts of those two would kill them.

After the shame of Rwanda interventions like Sierra Leone were

welcomed -- who would kill them. In Beijing is in the Muslim world would

change all of that. -- invasions. The region was destabilised. The UN

deeply divided. When Syria descended into chaos there was no big power

agreement to intervene. The west was fearful of integral bet. The

Russians backed Assad and regional powers waged a proxy war. The sound

of aid agency MSF is one of the most eminent thinkers on humanitarian

affairs. We can't just say intervention is worth nothing

because this is not entirely true -- the founder. In some cases it is

worth something. But in most cases it produced more harm than good. And

we all know what happened in Iraq in 2003. Or what happened in Libya

after the French and British intervention in 2011. So then we

left intervention as a political solution. President Assad, his

enemies and supporters all have clear objectives, the West has been

incoherent, inconsistent. A veteran UN peacemaker in Africa, Iraq,

Northern Ireland, Marty condemns the behaviour of the Syria. It is a

disgrace and I am ashamed that international community has allowed

the Syrians to kill each other, it is criminal, I would say -- Martti

Ahtisaari. But there are places where peace is winning. This is a

celebration for Nobel Prize winners from Tunisia. Civil society groups

refuse outside help and still brought opposing factions together,

avoiding civil war. This woman, business leader, is one of the Nobel

laureates. Many of the international community tried to help us or to get

us to keep us together and we said no it is our affair. Maybe sometime

we were absent, sometimes we were happy, but we have just one thing,

to avoid war. The Syrian crisis presented the world with its

greatest political and humanitarian challenge in decades. These newly

arrived refugees in Stockholm are among millions paying the price of

failure. Is a play and we pay. This game. But a bad game and a bloody

game. Our children pay. If you see every day a lot of kids killed

without any reasons... You find kids in pieces, without a head, without

limbs, without arms. Why? Now, they're known as

"man's best friend" but can dogs Wel, scientists

in Italy are claiming they can copy each other's facial expressions,

and display basic empathy. We share our lives with them,

but are they more This is a fragment of the hours

of video filmed by researchers in Italy,

who say there is clearly evidence that dogs mimic facial expressions

and movements, mirrored behaviour Talk to any dog owner,

and chances are they'll tell you for at least some of the time,

their animal can read their mind. But can that same empathy

really exist between dogs? She will smile if another dog is

friendly and wagging its tail. It's crazy,

but you have to know your dog. Since we first reported

the findings, a growing pack of owners have been

sending us their own evidence of dog empathy - shared emotion, or just

a tendency to humanise our pets? We all behave that way towards

our dogs. We can't help it, really,

even though we try hard not to. Until now,

the split-second copying of behaviour has only been identified

in humans and some primates. The people who have studied canine

science agree that dogs are incredible good readers

of body language. They don't necessarily have to

and may not be able to understand Centuries of domestication have

taught dogs to read our emotions. When it comes to some daily

pleasures, their communication In one sense it's an early Christmas

present for Beatles fans because their music has just been

made available for streaming More than two-hundred tracks went

online here in the UK an hour ago. Songs from the original thirteen

studio albums as well as other tracks have been licensed

to nine streaming services. 1967, All You Need Is Love,

broadcast live by what was then But 48 years on,

there's a new technology growing All you need is

a computer or smartphone. So

if you want to listen to Yesterday, But not until now,

the Beatles' Original. The decision to stream, though,

hasn't been taken lightly. Big old acts like the Stones and

Led Zeppelin, they keep For every Ed Sheeran,

Calvin Harris or Taylor Swift, a lot of money goes into hearing about

those artists and those artists Remember, the biggest selling album

of the year of 2000 was The Beatles. And visit Abbey Road studios,

and there's always a crowd So 50 years on after their heyday

here at Abbey Road, The Beatles are still finding a new generation of

fans, but are they buying the music? The problem is CDs brought a torrent

of cash, streaming a dribble, If you're not there, even a song

like Yesterday can be forgotten. So, streaming might not be lucrative

but it will at least give them And don't forget you can get

in touch with me and most