11/07/2011 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today. The scandal surrounding Rupert

Murdoch's newspapers intensifies, New evidence suggests the personal

details of senior royals were sold to the News Of The World by a Royal

Protection officer. The big prize though gets kicked

into the long grass. Rupert Murdoch's bid for BSkyB is referred

to the regulators, delaying any decision for months. I am now going

to refer this to the Competition Commission with immediate effect,

and will be writing to them this afternoon.

The UN calls the drought in East Africa the World's worst

humanitarian crisis. But why is this refugee camp sitting empty in

Kenya? The party's over - so what's the

morning after like for the world's newest nation? In an exclusive

interview with the BBC, Sudan's President says there could still be

war with the South over oil-rich Abyei.

More than 600 victims of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia are

re-buried on the 16th anniversary Welcome to the programme. The

scandal surrounding the murder of British newspapers took another

turn today with evidence a News Of The World reporter tried to buy

highly confidential telephone numbers of the royal family from a

royal protection officer. Another title, the Sunday Times, is alleged

to have targeted personal information of the former Prime

Minister, Gordon Brown, when he was Chancellor. He also fears medical

records relating to their son that has cystic fibrosis may also have

been obtained. The head of state, the royal family,

her and their security is the duty of the police in the Royal

Protection Branch. The integrity of those officers must surely be

beyond doubt, but this morning, we learned that news of the world's e-

mails uncovered by News International in 2007, but kept

secret, contained evidence that they were paying a royal protection

officers for private information about the royal family. It later

emerged in the Guardian that the telephones of Prince Charles and

the Duchess of Cornwall may have been hacked. In one of these e-

mails, Clive Goodman, the former royal editor, was requesting cash

from Andy Coulson, the editor, to buy a confidential directory called

The Green Book of the royal family's landline telephone numbers

and all of the mobile numbers of the household staff. Now implies

that a police officer had stolen the directory and wanted �1,000 for

it. These latest disclosures about systematic wrong doing at the News

Of The World could not have come for a worse time for the owner,

News Corporation. They are trying to buy all of one of the most

important media businesses in the UK, British Sky Broadcasting.

Rupert Murdoch is creditors as the founder of BSkyB, his News

Corporation owns just 39 % of it, and the reason he wants 100 % is

because BSkyB is a growing business generating huge amounts of cash.

Profits this year are expected to be close to �1 billion, whereas

revenue from his famous newspapers, those left out to the closure, they

are under pressure. For the past year, he has argued that his

takeover should be allowed to go through without a lengthy

investigation by the Commission. He gave undertakings to protect the

independence of Sky News to have secured the agreement of Jeremy

Hunt for the deal. This afternoon, he withdrew those undertakings,

asking for the deal to go to the Competition Commission. The delay

in the takeover is better for him than the alternative of abandoning

it altogether. As a result of the announcement from News Corporation

this afternoon, I will refer this to the Competition Commission with

immediate effect. I would be writing to them this afternoon.

Rupert Murdoch, of this week has been an eternity in business, and

along to late in the BSkyB bid is now for him, perhaps the best he

can hope for. -- a long delay. Two other papers allegedly targeted

so Gordon Brown. Documents and telephone recordings suggest

illegal attempts were made by the Sunday Times to find out about his

private financial and property details when he was the Chancellor.

This contains flash photography. The allegations relate to the

period before Gordon Brown became the Prime Minister, when he was

Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Guardian of the finances of the

nation. In 1992, he bought a flat in this block in Westminster, and

the Sunday Times, pages later, ran a story that it was purchased very

reduced price. Now, the BBC has received a tape of a phone call

which appears to show how the The man interested in the flat was

Barry be a dull, and man adept at getting information for newspapers.

He was working for the Sunday Times, it is claimed. In the year 2,000,

somebody called an Abbey National Centre in Bradford six times

pretended to be Gordon Brown. He obtained financial details. There

is no suggestion of any failings of the building society. Letters

obtained by the BBC show somebody was masquerading as cent. A letter

was sent to the Sunday Times setting out concerns, but they

could not prove that the newspaper was involved. All of this goes

beyond the original phone hacking allegations to another of the dark

arts of journalism, so-called Bull again. A newspaper pays somebody to

bring up a medical centre Rory bank and get the person that answers the

phone to be about private information. This requires a steady

nerve and a degree of acting ability. Obtaining personal

information about another person from a company that controls that

information, that has that information, that is quite clearly

a criminal offence. What is unclear is the extent to which a journalist

can say, I have a defence, because I am doing this, getting this

information in the public interest. One of the most disturbing

interests for the Brown family was surrounding their son, year in the

arms of Gordon Brown in 2006. A newspaper article revealed he had

cystic fibrosis. The family are worried that the information was

obtained from his medical records. They were told that the details of

Gordon Brown were in the notebook of the investigator, Glenn Mulcare.

There are investigating the allegations.

Let's speak to Paul Connew, a former deputy editor of the News Of

The World, he is an editor of the Sunday Mirror and has worked on the

Daily Mirror as well. He is now a media consultant. Picking up on

what Gordon Brown alleges, is this an acceptable journalistic tool?

depends how it's done and for what story. I would not totally say that

blogging was out of order. -- blagging. I do not know enough

about the allegation of the Sunday Times to comment on this case, but

it has now thrust a flagship broadsheet, another murder title,

into the flames. It so, in certain circumstances, it is acceptable,

even though it is illegal? One of the finest journalists in the UK,

in the public interest, if we look at the MPs expenditure scandal, and

some people went to jail, that was the result of the Daily Telegraph

buying stolen information, stolen documents from a whistleblower.

Initially, MPs were saying, this is outrageous, let's find out and

prosecute the whistleblower. But the media as well, they were

threatened for receiving the documents. There was an outcry from

the public, so bad died away. was a legitimate story in the

public interest. What about finding out about medical records of a very

sick young child? That would be completely out of order, on

acceptable, and obviously criminal, and I would not seek to defend that

at all. How high up with the provenance of this information go

in terms of the editorial control? When you were editor, which you

want to know how you got that information? Yes, absolutely. What

is baffling to me and most other editors and ex-editor is, is how

the editor allegedly did not know, that applies to Andy Coulson and

Rebecca Brooks. Rebecca Brooks is somebody you worked with. Starting

out, so I cannot judge. How would you explain that Rebecca Brooks is

still in this position and has this incredible loyalty as far as Rupert

Murdoch is concerned? A number of things there, Rupert Murdoch can be

ruthless, but also amazingly loyal. He obviously believes her denials.

He also believes that she is the victim of information withheld from

her and on a number of levels, at conspiracy by a junior executives

and possibly she was not put into the loop, possibly, of internal

investigation reports. These reports that she may not have seen.

This is one line being spun out of Wapping, rightly or wrongly. He is

very fond of virtue, and for that reason, he is standing by her. She

is probably the only person between James Murdoch being the front

person for the ongoing investigation. She could be there

to take the flak. A possibly. Thank you. Some of the other news:

The defence minister and head of the Army in Cyprus have both

resigned after a huge explosions at a munitions dump killed 12 people.

The report say be Commander of the Navy was among those killed. The

blast near Limassol was blamed on a bush fire. It contained explosives

confiscated from a ship. Supporters of the Syrian President,

Bashar Al-Assad, has attracted the French embassy in Damascus. -- has

attacked. They demanded compensation for the damage. At the

French embassy, guards fired into the year when staff for wounded in

a similar attack. Victoria Beckham has given birth to

a girl that she and her husband David have named Harper Seven. She

is the fourth child for the family, Harper Seven was delivered at the

Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on Sunday. The couple's

three sons are delighted to have a sister.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has described the

drought in East Africa as the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.

Antonio Guterres today urged Kenya to open a new refugee camp

completed last year but not used. Today, 350,000 people are refugees

in the Dadaab camp. Still they come, weary and hungry.

More than 1,000 people turned up at the Dadaab refugee camp every day,

some having walked for weeks. This story is tragic but depressingly

familiar. The jet in Somalia drove this for many year when her husband

was too sick to travel. -- the drought in Somalia. He said, save

yourself, save our children, to not stay here to die. Some in the

village were already dead. Too many refugees are now converging on this

camp, built to also 90,000 people, almost 400,000 people call it home.

-- bid to has 90,000 people. Another refugee camp sits empty.

The UN was allowed to build this last year. There is enough water

here for 80,000 people, but the Nairobi government at fearing that

refugees may not want to come home and they stopped construction and

close the place down. Meanwhile at the Dadaab camp, sleeping mats,

pots and pans are being collected. When this woman will see her

husband again, nobody knows. Six months as the Arabs bring

exploded across North Africa and the Middle East, the chopping of

the Tunisian President, Ben Ali, started a string of uprising. Now,

people are asking if they have the changes they wanted. The BBC has

been gauging the mood in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Yes, Tahrir Square is once again alive with the sound of protests.

You cannot see it now, it is getting dark, but there are banners

and slogans and placards everywhere. That is because in Egypt, people

are talking about their revolution being at a crossroads. The

revolution is being betrayed, people says. What is happening here,

happened after the momentous events in Tunisia. That is where one man,

Mohammad Bouazizi, a fruit salad, set himself alight. This sparked a

fire right across the region. The Tunisian people have said that the

revolution, the uprising would probably have happens...

Apologies, we seem to have lost George. I think we can go to a

report from Tunisia, because he was talking about the revolution

starting in Tunisia, and the BBC's Middle-East editor has been there

This man's radio show lampoons Tunisia's leaders. Political jokes

would have put him in prison before the revolution. Now Tunisians are

allowed to laugh at him. He does all the voices in a satirical

phone-in. His Colonel Gaddafi is a regular caller. Tunisia's former

president Ben Ali, who fled in January, argues with the colonel

about who is most popular. They love me off. After the show, what

seems as Tunisians were lucky. TRANSLATION: Ben Ali was a coward.

He just ran away. We lit the fuse for the other revolutions.

Tunisia's is the most complete of all the Arab revolutions, but it is

still disappointing some of the people who fought for it. In

January, Tunisia showed the rest of the Arab world that it was possible

to remove a leader despite a police state and despite his powerful

Western friends. Since then, Tunisia has also shown that getting

rid of a dictator does not solve all of a country's problems. The

years of corruption and mismanagement leave a difficult

legacy. The country is unstable enough for the army still to guard

government buildings in Tunis, and elections in October will not on

their own fix the biggest problem, unemployment. Mohammed, whose deft

started the uprising, killed himself after years without a

proper job. This is where he died, about three hours' drive from Tunis.

The people here are proud that they started the revolution after word

spread that he had set fire to himself. He did it after these

government inspectors confiscated the food he was selling without a

licence. This woman spent 110 days in prison, she says unjustly, after

Mohammed became the people's hero. These officials were symbols of a

repressive regime, but even they agree that a revolution was waiting

to happen. TRANSLATION: He was just the first

spark. It was like a full glass of water,

and he was the drop that made it overflow. This town is full of men

killing time. Still frustrated and angry that they cannot earn money

for their families. TRANSLATION: I am in the cafe all

day. I want a job. The problem, I'm

afraid, is that our dreams will not come true. The old Arab world could

not satisfy the people. They have shown that they will not be ignored

any more. So how long will their patience last if the new world does

not deliver? As I was saying before our

technical difficulties, the people here in Tahrir Square are beginning

to feel that their revolution is losing its way. You cannot read the

banners, but they are basically saying that they want to see more

of the perpetrators of the violence that happened during the protests

brought to trial. They want to see tangible signs of change. To

discuss that with me I have a spokesperson from the Human Rights

Watch group in Egypt. Looking at these banners, one gets the

impression that the Egyptian revolution is losing its way.

think people are in the Square today because they do not have

faith in the way the military has been handling the transition. They

do not have faith that the justice system will punish those police

officers. Animal Bira, police officers enjoyed impunity from

torture and abuse. They feel they have to come back to the square to

make the justice system work properly. They do not understand

why police officers have not been suspended, those who should have

been on trial. And that have been a lot of incidents of families of

victims of the revolution being pressured into withdrawing

complaints. If someone from the military tribunal were here,

presumably they would say that these tribunals are speeding up

justice in this country? All the trials for the killings that took

place have been held in civilian courts. But the military has been

using military courts to try thousands of civilians, more than

9000. And those convictions are unsound under international law,

because they do not meet basic standards. That is the longer term

challenge in Egypt. Protesters want things to happen properly. They

want trials to be fair. We have also seen cases of protesters being

arrested and tried before military tribunals. You speak about the rule

of law and you look at it from the point of view of an organisation

like Human Rights Watch. But I have spoken to ordinary Egyptians who

have been glad that somebody who indulged in burglary and rape cases

have been put away quickly through these military tribunals. In Egypt

at the moment, we have a general sense of insecurity because of

rising crime. And the military itself has been very clever at

managing its PR strategy around military tribunals, saying this is

the only guarantee of security. But he regular systems are not

functioning. Low-level crimes can be tried before regular courts, and

will not leave us with the problem of thousands of people being

arbitrarily did paint -- detained. If you are that critical, can you

trust the military to organise a free and fair election, which is

supposed to happen in September? think people are out in the Espace

Pacific Quay because they do not trust the military. The military

does not consult. To what extent the military will listen to the

demands of various political parties out there and not just

specific sections, we will see. But they have insisted that they will

stick to elections. From our perspective, we are worried that

the environment for elections is not one which will allow free and

fair elections, because there are still laws which restrict freedom

of assembly and freedom of expression, and that is not the

environment we need. You get an impression from what heather was

saying is that things are so different from the carnival

atmosphere some five months ago. The truth is that the protesters

who got rid of Hosni Mubarak all those months ago are now beginning

to to realise that toppling him was perhaps the easy part, and that

building a new Egypt is the real challenge and one that this country

is struggling with. It was a weekend of celebration for the

people of South Sudan, the world's newest nation. Tens of thousands

watched the raising of their new country's flag at an independence

ceremony in the capital, Juba, where their President, Salva Kiir,

signed the constitution and took his oath of office. Now the

challenge is to maintain stability, both in the south and in the

northern Republic of Sudan. After decades of civil war which ended

with the peace agreement in 2005, there still remains disagreement

over the oil-rich area of Abyei. Speaking exclusively to Zeinab

Badawi in his first interview since the break-up of Sudan, President

Omar al-Bashir said his country wants a peaceful resolution to the

disputed border region. But he did not rule out the use of force if

South Sudan were to take up arms to keep Abyei.

TRANSLATION: When we achieve peace, it was based on the last battle in

which we decimated southern troops. We were fighting peace and we

divided Sudan for peace and we are keen on preserving peace. We should

never fight unless compelled to do so. But if Abyei were to stay with

the south, it is a simple question. Do you foresee any possibility that

north and south Sudan could take up arms against each other over this

issue of Abyei? TRANSLATION: There is a protocol on

Abyei that governs if there is a peaceful solution.

But in the past, we were forced to fight when they tried to impose a

new reality. Thousands of mourners have flocked

to the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica so to mark the 16th

anniversary of the massacre there. Around 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and

boys were killed in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serb troops overran an

enclave guarded by Dutch UN soldiers. Burials took place today

for the remains of another 613 victims unearthed from mass graves.

16 years on, the pain is just as raw. A mother overwhelmed by

anguish at finding the remains of her son. Two pelvic bones -- bones

and a fragment of his jaw was all that could be recovered. At 29

years old, he was one of those killed at Srebrenica in 1995. Today,

just another green coffin lowered into the ground. Over 600 were

buried on this anniversary, identified through DNA analysis.

Statistics, perhaps, but for those grieving, sons, fathers, husbands.

It was the worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War.

Thousands of Bosnian Muslims had crowded into the UN safe haven of

Srebrenica as the war raged on. But the lightly armed Dutch troops were

easily overrun by Bosnian Serb soldiers. The men and boys were led

off to be slaughtered, around 8000 of them within the space of five

days. It is the only part of the Balkan wars to be labelled genocide.

The Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic was filmed reassuring Muslim

children that all would be fine. It was his troops who carried out the

killing. General Mladic was indicted for genocide in 1995, but

evaded justice until this year. In May he was arrested in Serbia and

now awaits trial at the UN tribunal in the Hague. But at his initial

appearance, he was defiant. The charges were obnoxious, he said,

claiming he had only defended his people. 16 years on, Bosnia remains

deeply divided between its main ethnic groups. The Muslim member of

the country's apartheid presidency spoke of the commotion.

TRANSLATION: Shrubbery so is the deepest wound on the body of the

tortured Bosnian people. Of the winds may heal in time, but

Srebrenica so will never heal. It is a dark stain on the face of the

international community. That stain will never fade. As the digging

goes on, the names of victims were read out. Their families gathered,

yelling for closure. This is a nation still struggling to recover

from a conflict that tore it apart. Each side lost thousands, but so

Bonita remains undoubtedly the most potent and agonising symbol of

Bosnia's devastating war. A reminder of our main news.

There have been further allegations about the behaviour of journalists

working for Rupert Murdoch's News International company. The BBC has

learnt that a police protection officer was bribed to get private

contact details of the British royal family.

Through the night, it will be mostly dry, with clear spells. But

for tomorrow, those showers will make a return. Scattered, but we

could see heavier downpours at times. We also need to watch the

developing feature across the Bay of Biscay. It is pushing northwards,

developing into an area of low pressure. It could threaten the

south-east corner on Tuesday. We will see more cloud in the sky

tomorrow. South-west England, the showers here could be heavy and

thundery. In north-east England, fewer showers, with a good deal of

sunshine. Some doubt about the exact extent of this cloud and rain,

but it is certainly bringing some showers in the afternoon across

south-east England. We are looking at heavy and banned -- under it

downpours through south-west England. In South Wales, some

showers will be developed to be quite torrential during the

afternoon. But for Northern Ireland, the showers are light and scattered,

with sunny spells in between. Across Scotland, a scattering of

light showers through many central areas and northern Scotland should