05/08/2013 World News Today

me, saner and Dali. Turkey's former military chief is one of puzzled --

Gazans jailed for plotting to overthrow the government. What does

this tell us about who controls the levers of power is in Turkey?

Overreaction or a real terror threat - US embassies in the Middle East

and Africa will remain shut until the end of the week.

The world's biggest dairy exporter apologises for a scare in its

powdered dairy milk products. And the $300,000 burger being touted

as the meat of the future, but apparently it doesn't taste that

good. Hello and welcome. The five-year

mass trial of army officers, journalists and academics in Turkey

has come to an end but the controversy has by no means

finished. Protesters clashed with police outside the courthouse even

before the verdicts were handed down. Nearly 275 have been found

guilty of plotting to overthrow the Islamist leaning dogma. One of them

is a former army chief who received a life sentence. The trial has put

the focus on tensions between secular traditions and the ruling AK

Party, which has its roots in political Islam.

Outside the high criminal Court, the protests began before the verdicts

were even delivered. The police stopped demonstrators from making it

to the court. We are the soldiers of the founder of the secular state,

the protesters chanted. They accused the government, rooted in Islam, of

inventing a conspiracy to silence valid opposition. I have attacked

the life sentences given to former army commanders.

TRANSLATION: this is a menace to the Republic of Turkey. If you are

trying somebody who is a member of the Armed Forces for being a member

of a terrorist organisation, you are trying be army. This nation will not

accept it. -- trying the army. prime minister once sat next to the

man accused of leading the conspiracy. The court has found him

guilty of plotting against the Prime Minister. The general has said the

church -- the charges are comic. The decades the military was the final

arbiter in Turkish politics. Between 1960 and 1997 the Armed Forces

removed four civilian governments but Erdogan has now asserted

civilian supremacy over the military. The sentences handed out

at the court are a sign of the changing nature of the Turkish

state. The military has lost its overwhelming power. Its defenders,

supporters of secularism, struggle to form a movement capable of

challenging the government. I am joined by the Turkey analyst

Fadi Hakura from Chatham House. Who would have thought that the once

powerful Turkish military would come to this? I think what happened today

is not a surprise. For five years there has been a clear process where

the civilian government was asserting and consolidating its

control over the military establishment. You needed to take

the army out of Turkish politics, the EU wanted Turkey to do that. But

they have been custodians of secularism in Turkey. If they are

not going to do the job, who is? Pretty much now it is left to the

Turkish voters. The military can no longer intervene in politics, the

period of military coups is over. What we saw in Egypt cannot happen

in Egypt. -- in Turkey. It is left to Turkish democracy to deal with

these ideological issues. What about the judiciary -- are they able to be

a check on the legislature? There is increasing evidence that the

judiciary is coming under control of the government. We are seeing less

and less evidence that they can elite act as an independent check on

the Prime Minister's extensive power. Is there any personal

animosity in this case. When the general was army chief, that is when

you had the military chief in 1997, and Erdogan ended up in prison. In a

sense the tables have been turned. Given the harsh sentences meted out

today by the court, there is growing opinion that this case became

increasingly politicised, that there was an element of score settling,

and even the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention

criticised the trial. The trial was held behind closed doors and most

witness statements were in secret. Do we know whether there is any

chance of a real appeal? I think the likelihood of a successful appeal

looks remote. It is most likely in the immediate future that these top

sentences will stand. -- tough sentences. I doubt that these

verdicts will trigger a massive political reaction in Turkey. It has

been ongoing for five years and really the majority opinion in

Turkey, whether amongst secularists, liberals are Conservatives or

nationalists, they don't want to see any military intervention. When we

secret Susan is about the AK Party, and its critics say they are trying

to make society more Islamists, are they going to have a more free hand

as a result of this sentence? think they had enormous political

leveraged even before this verdict. The last tree or four years the AK

Party has been in the asserted -- the ascendancy and has been able to

implement its agenda in Turkey. Where would you put this trial in

the history of modern Turkey? think this verdict would be seen as

a lost opportunity. Turkey could have used this occasion to really

reveal the tragedies and brutalities of the past clues -- coups.

The US State Department has been giving its reasons to close around

20 embassies in the Middle East and Africa on Sunday. It has extended

the period until August ten. The US believes it has credible information

about a possible terror attack. The State Department said there was a

serious threat. We will keep evaluating information

as it comes in, and that is why yesterday we announced that sum

would be reopening and some would be closing today. We are going to keep

analysing the information and making adjustments where we need to but

overall what we are doing is taking precautionary steps to protect our

people and our facilities and visitors to those facilities

overseas. A spokesperson for the US State

Department there. Let's go to our risk -- our correspondent Rajini

Vaidyanathan. They say they don't want to be too specific but what is

the chapter that they have been hearing? -- chatter. We did not get

any more details but she reiterated that the source of the threat was

chatter, intercepted conversations suggesting that Al-Qaeda in the

Arabian Peninsula were planning an attack and that it was of a serious

nature, which is why they wanted to close this many embassies. What she

said in the briefing is that, as the now, the closures of the 19 will

continue. -- as for now. She said she could not give a finite time and

when any may open but she said that for at least a week the 19 would

remain closed. She was pressed on the idea that if it was a specific

threat why are so many embassies being shut? One reporter suggested

it was not that specific but she was unable to give us any more clarity

than that. Further next week, until the weekend, these 19 will remain

shut. It is worth noting that she said they were reevaluating the

situation day by day. What is the chatter in Washington about this. Do

they think this is an overreaction or the right response? One thing

many people are saying in Washington is that this has come at a time when

lawmakers have gone on their summer holiday so in terms of getting more

information people have been feeling that they have been in the dark

slightly. We heard from some congressmen over the weekend who

talked about the level of the threat, they have been briefed over

the weekend and they did reveal some information about the severity of

it, about the fact that the source of this potential attack was

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but other than that there is a

feeling that more information is needed in terms of what will happen

after this week, will discontinue. I have spoken to a former US

ambassador who spent time in Iraq and he said that whilst it is worth

noting that they are closing these embassies it will not be a total

shutdown. They are going into security mode, there will still

people inside. In one sense they are not completely shut down. There

still will be a presence in these countries but they will be operating

in a very different way. Thank you, Rajini Vaidyanathan in Washington.

As the US takes measures to protect -- to prevent an attack abroad,

there has been more information about the lack -- the latest attack

on American soil. One of the brothers involved allegedly in the

Boston bombings was involved in websites involving white supremacy

and anti-government rubber gander. -- propaganda.

The horror of April in Boston and a burning question in the mind of

America - where did the hatred come from to do this? When these ethnic

Chechen brothers, Tamala and and Dzhokhar, were caught on camera, it

was put down to the work of jihadists. They had been reading

militant Islamic websites. But now the BBC has found out that the older

brother was reading right wing American literature months before

the bombing. Articles about government conspiracies, gun rights,

white supremacy and the minds of mass killers. Was Tamala a true

radical jihadist or just an angry young man who latched onto Islam. --

Tamerlan. A few months ago he had risen to become a prominent boxer. A

close friend said he began to change around the time he was barred from

competing at a national level because he did not have American

citizenship. He vanished, it raised his face chip page -- Facebook page.

He began to hate America and turned heavily to Islam. At his mosque near

Boston he only turned up to pray occasionally. As far as connecting

with the Islamic community here, actually praying, being involved,

doing acts of charity, all of those were pretty much lacking. I would

say maybe he was just a Muslim of convenience. The brothers were on

their way here, New York, with more bombs before they were caught.

America's terror services are on constant alert. They are a new, less

predictable kind of terrorist. The chief minister of the British

territory of Gibraltar, off southern Spain, has accused Madrid of sabre

rattling and "acting like North Korea" in a dispute over fishing

rights. Tensions have increased between the two countries after the

Spanish government suggested it could introduce a fee for crossing

the border into Gibraltar, as Bridget Kendall reports. The Rock of

Gibraltar, Britain's tiny outpost on the tip of Spain. After tightened

border controls caused traffic chaos one week ago, the row seems to be

hotting up. Spain's foreign minister has warned that his government might

impose new restrictions on traffic and flights in and out of the

territory, declaring, the party is over. Gibraltar's Chief Minister

this morning was also raising the rhetorical temperature. We have seen

the sabre rattling of the sort that we have not seen for some time.

threat, laid out in a Spanish newspaper interview, is just that, a

threat, but one step could be a border crossing fee of 50 euros for

each trip between Spain and Gibraltar. Another is tax

investigations into property owned by people from Gibraltar in Spain,

as well as closing Spanish airspace to planes landing at the airport in

Gibraltar. Downing Street said David Cameron was seriously concerned. And

this is what it seems prompted Spanish anger, concrete blocks

tipped into the Bay last month I Gibraltar, to make an artificial

reef to encourage marine life. Spain says the reef is illegal, and is

ripping the nets of Spanish fishermen. The row has rumbled on

for decades, and Britain says it wants this latest spat resolved

politically. But Spain has given no indication that it is prepared to

give way. It could be a long, hot August. Now, let's have a look at

some of the other main developments today. Pro-Mohamed Morsi protests

have been going on in Egypt. Today, US Senators John McCain and Lindsey

Graham have arrived in Cairo. Meanwhile, a former leading member

of the Muslim Brotherhood has said that only a minority of the

Brotherhood leaders want to reach a peaceful solution. Japanese nuclear

bread later is say the Fukushima power plant is facing a new

emergency. -- nuclear regulators. They say if a solution cannot be

found, material could spill into the Pacific Ocean. Germany's Olympic

Sports Union has demanded the publication of a study which alleges

that West Germany engaged in the doping of athletes in the 1970s. If

true, it would lead to comparisons with East Germany, which is known to

have doped its athletes during the Cold War. The New Zealand dairy

company Fonterra has apologised to Chinese customers after a health

scare led to some of its baby milk products being recalled. The company

found that a bacteria which can cause botulism was in some of which

supplies. It is a worrying development for Chinese parents, who

had to go through another crisis about unsafe baby milk several years

ago. Martin Patience reports from Beijing. It is a decision Chinese

parents agonise over, what milk formula to buy for their babies.

Following safety scandals here, many turned to foreign brands, believing

they were safer. But now, New Zealand's biggest dairy company has

ordered a major recall. The chief executive of Fonterra flew into

Beijing to apologise. We really grabbed the distress and anxiety

which this might have caused. We totally understand the concern of

parents and other consumers around the world. Fonterra has issued a

recall in countries including Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and

Vietnam. Russia has reportedly banned some of the company's

imports, but China is its main market. It buys the vast majority of

its milk powder from New Zealand. Domestic brands are no good, and

now, foreign brands are the same, said this man. I have no idea what

to choose. Six babies died in China in 2008 after drinking contaminated

formula. Since then, Chinese parents have paid a premium for foreign baby

milk. Such has been the demand that some supermarkets in Britain

introduced rationing to stop supplies being shipped to China.

Fonterra says it hopes to have everything under control within 48

hours, but winning back the trust of the Chinese public will take a good

deal longer than that. Staying with matters to do with food, how do you

like your beefburger watching Mark well done, medium or rare? Soon,

there may be a new choice on the market. -- your beefburger - well

done, medium or rare? Today, the first burger made from artificially

grown meat was served up to food critics here in London. The Dutch

scientist behind the breakthrough said he hoped the technology would

help feed people around the world. Pallab Ghosh reports. Grown in the

lab and cooked in a pan, the world 's first synthetic hamburger, but

what does it taste like? There is some quite intense taste, it is

close to meat, it is not that juicy, but the consistency is perfect.

taster is a food writer, chosen by the organisers the burger started

off in this dish, as a few cells taken from a dead cow. They were

then grown into this pale white circles of muscle. Food

technologists then added Caravelle saffron and other things to make it

taste better, and beetroot juice to make it look of the right colour. --

camera Mel, saffron and other things. It would be simpler for

people to eat less meat, and I would favour that, but meat consumption is

in fact increasing. In the UK, on average, each person eats AT

kilograms of meat a year, and that is likely to remain the same. There

is going to be rising demand internationally, by a growing

population, and more people wanting to eat meat in emerging nations such

as China. Currently, 258 million tonnes of meat is produced across

the world each year. In 2050, it is estimated that it will need to be

455 million tonnes. It is not necessarily about producing more

food, but it is about changing the systems of supply, affordability and

accessibility, so that not just more food but better food gets to the

people who need it. Even those behind this project admit that their

meat will never taste as good as the real thing. But they say that as

prices rise, and animal welfare and environmental concerns increase,

their way is the only ethical and pragmatic way forward. Researchers

say it will be at least ten years before they perfect their burger,

and the first lab-grown meat will be on sale. Alex Renton is a food

policy journalist, also the author of Planet Carnivore, which looks at

the future of meat eating. He joins us now from Edinburgh. Once you get

past that yuk factor, do you think this could be the food of the

future? I think it could be one of the foods of the future. There is no

reason why everyone should eat it. But I certainly think it can fill in

a whole, where cheap meat is, and meat is an amazingly expensive

substance, in terms of planetary resources. Is there not something

slightly abhorrent in producing something from the stem cells of a

dead cow? . Well, I am a meat eater, and far more abhorrent to me is what

goes on every day to millions of animals in factory farms around the

world. That involves terrible cruelty, really just in order to

produce the cheapest possible meat. One great promise in this is that no

animals whatsoever will suffer. we retire the world's hours and

leave them to Cherry on chewing their card, and take their milk and

not eat them at all? -- to Cherry on chewing their cud. -- carry on. No,

I think what is far more likely is that we will not be shipping

products across the world. The cheap end of the animal protein market,

the people who at the moment are fed in quite disgusting ways, often from

recovered meat, from animal carcasses which have been pressure

hosed, this new technology will supply that end of the market. Those

of us who want to eat expensive, grass fed beef, can do so in the

traditional manner. If you had been asked to go and being that food

taster today, would you have agreed to do it? I would have loved to have

tried it. But for those meat connoisseurs, do you think it really

can mimic the taste of beef? No, I do not think it ever will. But one

of those journalists today was trying out a prototype, he never

said it was what he hoped to produce. It had no fat in it, which

is ridiculous, because all of the taste in meat comes from that. It

was just straight muscle tissue, which will not taste anything at

all. But 20 years down the line, I think there will be something which

will convince a lot of people. But at the moment, if you eat a cheap

sausage or a burger, which might have horse meat in it, that is a lot

of dubious stuff on it, and if you saw it on the animal's bones, you

would not think there was meat on it. A reminder of our main news.

Protests in Turkey, as a five-year trial of 275 soldiers, journalists

and academics ends in a string lengthy string of prison sentences.

The former head of the Turkish military, General Basbug, was

sentenced to life in prison, as were several other former army generals.

Outside the courthouse, police fired water cannon at protesters. That is

Isles, it really has been a wash-out tonight. But the rest of the week

could not be more different. Tomorrow, much drier. Here is the

culprit for that wet weather, which badly affected the south-west of

England, Wales, and Scotland on Monday. By Tuesday, it will have

made way for much clearer conditions. Still some long spells

of sunshine tomorrow afternoon. East Anglia and the south-east, in the

sunshine, temperatures getting up to about 23. What a big difference,

though, for the south-west of England, the Midlands and Wales. The

torrential downpours are gone, replaced by sunny spells, light

winds, with temperatures getting up into the low 20s. Northern Ireland

could have a bit more cloud on Tuesday, with isolated showers. But