21/03/2014 World News Today


21/03/2014

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This is BBC World News Today, with me, Zeinab Badawi.

:00:00.:00:08.

President Putin has signed into law his annexation of Crimea. As far as

:00:09.:00:13.

Moscow is concerned, it is now formally part of Russia.

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Celebrations and fireworks in Red Square and Crimea itself after the

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signing ceremony is over. Earlier, Moscow had dismissed further Western

:00:22.:00:38.

sanctions against it. In Brussels, the interim Ukrainian

:00:39.:00:41.

Prime Minister puts his signature to a deal bringing his country closer

:00:42.:00:44.

to the European Union. Two weeks after the disappearance of

:00:45.:00:47.

a Malaysian passenger plane, dozens of ships and aircraft search the

:00:48.:00:50.

Southern Indian Ocean, but nothing has been found.

:00:51.:00:53.

Also coming up: Turkey's Twitter row - President Gul tweets that Prime

:00:54.:00:56.

Minister Erdogan's move to ban Twitter is illegal. What does this

:00:57.:00:59.

tell us about the political balance of power in Turkey?

:01:00.:01:01.

Pub landlords, debt collectors and construction workers come out as

:01:02.:01:04.

Britain's most miserable workers, but what jobs make people happiest?

:01:05.:01:05.

Stay with us. Hello and welcome.

:01:06.:01:25.

As far as Russia is concerned, the legal formalities are over. The

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Black Sea Peninsula of Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation.

:01:29.:01:33.

Fireworks and a rock concert light up Moscow skyline tonight in

:01:34.:01:36.

celebration of the annexation of the region. Similar festivities are

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taking place in the Crimean cities of Simferopol and Sebastapol.

:01:40.:01:47.

Earlier today, President Putin signed into law the official

:01:48.:01:52.

incorporation of Crimea into Russia. Moscow says the move reflects the

:01:53.:01:55.

will of the people of Crimea, but it has led to more sanctions against

:01:56.:02:00.

Russia by the EU. The EU has today signed a co-operation agreement with

:02:01.:02:03.

Ukraine in a sign that Kiev is turning more towards the West. In a

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moment, we will be assessing what the impact of today's developments

:02:08.:02:10.

are on Moscow. First, Gavin Hewitt reports.

:02:11.:02:20.

A day of signings, two worlds, East versus West. In Moscow, President

:02:21.:02:26.

Putin sealed the absorption of Crimea into Russia by signing the

:02:27.:02:30.

documents. The Russian president saluted what he called a serious,

:02:31.:02:35.

momentous event. The Russian anthem played.

:02:36.:02:46.

1400 miles away in Brussels, very different signing. The EU took this

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ball at first step of signing an agreement with Ukraine, bringing the

:02:51.:02:55.

nation of 46 million people closer to the heart of Europe. No anthem

:02:56.:03:02.

here, just a ripple of applause. At a summit in Brussels, Europe's

:03:03.:03:06.

leaders adopted new sanctions against 12 Russian officials,

:03:07.:03:12.

including the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, after the referendum in

:03:13.:03:17.

Crimea. Since we last met as sham and illegal referendum has taken

:03:18.:03:22.

place at the barrel of a Kalashnikov. This is a flagrant

:03:23.:03:26.

breach of international law and something we will not recognise.

:03:27.:03:33.

After this summer, 33 Crimean sand Russian is now face travel

:03:34.:03:40.

restrictions. The summit agreed that if the crisis escalates, they are

:03:41.:03:45.

prepared to move to some kind of economic sanctions and the

:03:46.:03:48.

commission has been tasked with exploring potential targets. The

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atmosphere was spiced with warnings about Russian intentions. This was

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the Ukrainian Prime Minister. What is happening in the world today?

:04:01.:04:10.

Russia decided to impose a new post world War order, revise the results

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of the Second World War. This is the truth! This is the president of

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Lithuania. We are facing the largest security threats since the Second

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World War. So, amid such warnings, European leaders agreed to

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accelerate reducing their dependency on Russian energy.

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With me is Alexander Nekrassov, a former adviser to Boris Yeltsin.

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Let stock about Russian energy. Europe depends on Russian gas, but

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you need to sell your gas to somebody. You can't really afford to

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upset the Europeans. First of all, it would take years for the European

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Union to change its supplies. China is basically banging on Russian

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doors demanding more oil and gas. The issue is how will this be

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resolved? How long will these sanctions last? The interesting

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thing I have noticed is that the markets all this week have not

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really panicked. Russian stock markets have gone down three or 4%.

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The Russian market will bounce back. The markets in the West, they

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realise that the sanctions, the real ones, will not be implemented. These

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people have to trust their judgement. They see it as a game. It

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is probably time to stop the game and start talking. Do you think it

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is a game when the Ukraine signs this first step of agreement with

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the European Union? They might join the EU, maybe even NATO. It was

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signed by an interim regime. It was only signed on the political side,

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not the economic side. The moment it does that, it will hit its industry

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very hard. I don't think the interim regime dares to do that. You are

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looking at what is happening today, but I am putting it to you that we

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are starting to see a shift in alliances which could come in due

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course, operate to the detriment of Russia. It would have happened

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anyway. The western side was stonethrowing thugs. Anything can

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happen. At the moment I think the danger is this, Ukraine can split

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into two parts. It is time for diplomacy. The West, there will be a

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G-7 meeting in London on Monday and they not inviting Russia. That is a

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bad idea. It is time to talk rather than play those games.

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We have to leave it there. Thank you for talking to us.

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It is exactly two weeks today since the missing Malaysian airliner

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disappeared. The second day of an international search in the Southern

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Indian Ocean for the missing plane has come to a close. The plane

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disappeared after leaving Kuala Lumpur and still there is no clear

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understanding of what happened to it and the 239 passengers on board.

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Hi-tech search aircraft and ships are being despatched to an area

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where satellite images picked up some possible debris, but nothing

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has been found. Jonathan Head has the latest.

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After ten hours, this is truly an aircraft comes to its base in

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Western Australia. It is one of five to make the long journey today, I'd

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do the search site in the southern Indian Ocean. They are using every

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moment of daylight descends mission to from this space. Yet, the stretch

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of ocean they have to cover is so vast it is only a matter of luck as

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to whether they find any of the missing airliner. Of all the many

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kinds of planes and vessels thrown into this remarkable operation, this

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aircraft is among the most effect. Yet, for all its sensitive

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technology, the crew are overwhelmed by the size of the task. Journalists

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crowd around the young pilot, eager for any news of the Malaysia

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airliner. We had really good weather today, compared to what we saw

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yesterday. The visibility was great. There was no reason. We had a

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really good opportunity to see anything visually out there. We have

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a lot of hope. If the commission 's -- conditions remain as they are,

:09:13.:09:17.

we, hopefully, we'll find something soon. This satellite pictures shows

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what looks like something large close to the surface of the sea. The

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photographs are five days old, so they are expanding the search to

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where the powerful currents might have carried it. Although the search

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area is much smaller than we started with, it is a big area when you're

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looking at the window and trying to see something. We may have to do

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this a few times to be confident about the coverage of research area.

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It is exhausting, repetitive work. But they have to keep going. Each

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day without any sign of where the airliner went down makes the

:10:00.:10:02.

likelihood of finding it more removed.

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With each passing day, the families of those on board have little to do

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but hope and wait. Jennifer Pak has been to a shopping centre in Kuala

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Lumpar, where people have been sharing their prayers and messages

:10:17.:10:25.

of support. This is the wall of hope, set up in the shopping centre

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in downtown Kuala Lumpur are. It is set up so people can ) is an

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well-wishers to people on board the flight. The messages are in English,

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Malay, Chinese. This one says there are too many rumours about the

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flight, but we don't know which is true. Look at the number of messages

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that have been put up. The disappearance of this flight is

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affecting a lot of people. It is making us feel sad. Many people

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can't sleep because they are thinking about the people. Did you

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know anyone on the flight? My colleague has an uncle that was on

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the flight. He is still trying his best to be positive. If they are no

:11:20.:11:28.

longer here if you know what I mean, I hope the families will have the

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opportunity to get the bodies back so they can pay their last. Militia

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officials are still saying this is a search and rescue effort, but so

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many days have passed without any concrete information of where this

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team could be. A lot of the messages here choose to remain hopeful. This

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one, in Chinese, says, come home soon.

:11:53.:11:58.

The row over Twitter in Turkey is now showing the splits at the heart

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of the government. President Abdullah Gul has challenged a block

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on Twitter imposed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Gul tweeted

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that the complete shutdown of social media platforms was unacceptable. He

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said only individual internet pages should be blocked, if courts found

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they had violated personal privacy. Mr Erdogan had promised to wipe

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Twitter out after it was used to spread allegations of corruption and

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alleged recordings of his private conversations. Some internet users

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in Turkey, where Twitter is very popular, have managed to get round

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the block. With me is Serkan Demitas, a columnist at Hurriyet

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Daily News, the English language section of one Turkey's biggest

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newspapers. This isn't really about Twitter, is

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it? This is about Prime Minister Erdogan feeling a bit under

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pressure. It is about politics, not twitter. In Turkey, Prime Minister

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Erdogan has continued his efforts to control media of four years. Social

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media seem to be a great vehicle for the Internet savvy in Turkey. What

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we have seen yesterday is another blow from Prime Minister Erdogan on

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the freedom of expression. Does he realise how difficult that is going

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to be to do? It is virtually impossible. Even the president

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managed to get round it! Of course. We have seen that this blocking has

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been very unsuccessful. People could circumvent the blocking through

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adjusting their settings. Does that show you that the Prime Minister is

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a bit out of touch with reality? This is one of the most important

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questions we are asking! If you are talking about politics, Prime

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Minister Erdogan is running for elections. There is just over a week

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left for elections. He knows that the leakages of his conversations or

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documents, allegedly linking him with the corruption network, that is

:14:28.:14:35.

coming from twitter. Or other social media. What does it tell you when

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the President, President Abdullah Gul, says I am going to keep on

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using twitter. This splits within the ruling party are coming out in

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the open, are they? President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister

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Erdogan have been on different pages for a long time. The president is

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much more keen in preserving democracy in Turkey. Prime Minister

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Erdogan is trying to strengthen his one-man party. We don't know if

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Prime Minister Erdogan wants to run for president in August. Could he

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really have any chance of standing and winning again? Has he and for

:15:20.:15:25.

the constituency in Turkey? He is trying to consolidate his 50%

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majority that he had in Parliamentary elections three years

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ago. He needs to have 50% to become president. We need to elect the

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president through popular vote, that means they need 50%. Prime Minister

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Erdogan is not really there, he is losing his popularity. His moves are

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dividing the nation. Thank you very much indeed.

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A doctor and another man have become the first people in Britain to be

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charged in connection with performing female genital

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mutilation. FGM has been banned in the UK since 1985. The World Health

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Organisation says more than a 125 million girls and women alive today

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have been cut in the 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East where FGM

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is concentrated. In the UK, it's thought around 66,000 women have

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been mutilated and a further 23,000 girls are at risk every year from

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the practice. Matt Prodger has this report.

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Whittington Hospital in London, where a doctor, Dr Dhanoun

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Dharmasena, is alleged to have mutilated a woman's genitals after

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she gave birth. As acute as saying his defence was to allegedly restore

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a mutilation performed on the woman prior to her becoming pregnant.

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Another man is charged with encouraging the act. Female genital

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mutilation has been outlawed for 30 years, but today marks only the

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first prosecution. A lot of FGM will be young girls and will involve

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immediate members of their family, so they will not want to give

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evidence against them, will not want to make a complaint that could see

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members of their family go to prison. So we have had to look at

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other ways to get the evidence. We have looked at how to work with

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police around proactive operations, and there are other things we can

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look at, such as anonymity for victims. It is estimated 66,000

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women in the UK have been affected, and over 20,000 girls under 15 are

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thought at risk of the practice, classed as torture by the UN. The

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BBC discovered only this week that many patients have been treated in

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London alone. This is a crime, something that has been hidden for

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far too long, which is why the government has stepped up its

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response and stepped up some great understanding to take this crime out

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of the shadows and into the light. -- some greater understanding. Women

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are contacting helplines like this. For many years little known in the

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UK, FGM has been given greater attention thanks to the work of

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campaigners, who are delighted by today's news. Today is one of the

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best days of my life in campaigning. I feel like standing on top of the

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roof and shouting. That is how I feel about it. All eyes will be on

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the success, or failure, of these first prosecutions. The accused will

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appear in court next month. In France, social services have

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found four children kept in a flat. It seems the children hadn't left

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the apartment since they were born. The children are between two months

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and six years of age. Hugh Schofield in Paris has more on this.

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The family, of Indian origin, lived on the seventh floor of an apartment

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block in a poor part of northern Paris, three boys and a baby girl.

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The boys had never been to school or seen a doctor. The elder pair, five

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and six, could barely talk. Neighbours said they had no idea.

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TRANSLATION: They are our neighbours. When we were taking our

:19:32.:19:34.

children to school, we should have noticed something was wrong, but we

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didn't. I don't know anything about the mental state of the parents, but

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I think there is a problem. The alert was raised after the mother

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gave birth to her daughter in January. Staff could see that she

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has had no medical care during pregnancy and they sent social

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services to the flat. The parents were drawing state benefits but the

:19:58.:20:01.

situation had gone undetected. TRANSLATION: It is not up to the

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benefits office to monitor what happens to the benefits paid to

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families who have provided the documents required. The parents are

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now in custody facing charges for negligence. The children are in

:20:16.:20:16.

care. Now a look at some of the day's

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other news. Afghan authorities say that nine

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people are now known to have been killed in an attack by Taliban

:20:24.:20:27.

gunmen at a luxury hotel in the capital, Kabul, after previously

:20:28.:20:29.

saying there were no casualties. The dead include two Afghan children and

:20:30.:20:33.

four foreign nationals. Four teenagers with small pistols posed

:20:34.:20:36.

as diners before they opened fire on Thursday evening. They were killed

:20:37.:20:42.

by Afghan security forces. A court in the Indian city of Mumbai

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has sentenced four men to life in prison for gang raping an

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18-year-old telephone operator at a deserted textile mill last July.

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Three of the men had already been found guilty of gang raping a

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photographer a month later at the same spot.

:20:59.:21:07.

Those were the wrong pictures for that story. They were for this

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picture -- this story. The parliament in Kenya has passed a

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new marriage bill, changing it at the last moment to allow men to

:21:16.:21:18.

marry as many women as they want without consulting their existing

:21:19.:21:21.

wives. Female politicians stormed out in protest. The bill had

:21:22.:21:24.

previously allowed polygamy, but stated wives had to be consulted

:21:25.:21:27.

before their husbands could marry again.

:21:28.:21:30.

Michelle Obama has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife on

:21:31.:21:34.

the first full day of her week-long visit to China. The trip is being

:21:35.:21:39.

seen as an opportunity for soft diplomacy, to reinforce relations

:21:40.:21:43.

between the US and China. Mrs Obama is being accompanied by her mother

:21:44.:21:48.

and her two daughters. Today she also tried her hand at table tennis

:21:49.:21:51.

and was shown how to do Chinese calligraphy.

:21:52.:21:58.

Most of us have to work to earn a living but job satisfaction is also

:21:59.:22:04.

important. Well, research in the UK has ranked the life satisfaction, or

:22:05.:22:07.

general contentment, of people in different jobs. And it turns out

:22:08.:22:12.

that while pay levels are clearly a factor, it's not all about what you

:22:13.:22:17.

earn. At the top of the list, the happiest workers were clergy -

:22:18.:22:22.

vicars and priests. They were followed by chief executives and

:22:23.:22:25.

senior officials. Then came managers in farming and horticulture. But at

:22:26.:22:30.

the bottom of the list were workers in basic construction jobs, followed

:22:31.:22:34.

by debt and rent collectors. And the group with the lowest level of life

:22:35.:22:40.

satisfaction were pub landlords. The findings are part of a wider

:22:41.:22:43.

investigation into how much government decisions and policy

:22:44.:22:46.

should take account of the wellbeing and happiness of the population.

:22:47.:22:50.

With me is Gus O'Donnell, former head of the UK civil service and the

:22:51.:22:54.

chair of the panel that wrote the report. Thank you for joining us.

:22:55.:23:07.

How, in the first place, do you measure happiness? It is quite a

:23:08.:23:13.

difficult thing to be objective about subjective emotions. Which is

:23:14.:23:18.

why we ask you. We ask for your feelings. For this study, we said to

:23:19.:23:23.

people, tell us, overall, how satisfied are you with your life and

:23:24.:23:27.

your job. We had that information. We know there is more to life than

:23:28.:23:33.

money, as you rightly said. We are tracking life satisfaction and

:23:34.:23:39.

income, with the idea that when people in careers service for

:23:40.:23:41.

schools, colleges and universities, when they are thinking about what

:23:42.:23:44.

job they should get, at the moment all that they know about is the

:23:45.:23:48.

money they will earn. We are saying there are other attributes you

:23:49.:23:52.

should be thinking about. If you do jobs where you are helping other

:23:53.:23:55.

people, you will be more satisfied, and maybe that is a consideration

:23:56.:23:59.

you should take into account when thinking about your career. To

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altruism, service to the community, that has to be balanced with pay,

:24:05.:24:08.

but pay is still important and you need a basic level in order to be

:24:09.:24:12.

content. The absence of a decent living wage is not something you

:24:13.:24:17.

recommend. Hugely important. When people say income does not matter

:24:18.:24:22.

for well-being, that is untrue. Particularly at low to medium

:24:23.:24:26.

levels. But it tails off. When you are at low income, and extra

:24:27.:24:30.

increased matters a lot. When you are a millionaire, if you extra

:24:31.:24:33.

hundred stores not make a difference to your well-being. It does not stop

:24:34.:24:40.

them chasing it. You are an economist with a lot of experience

:24:41.:24:44.

in government, the Treasury and economics and so on, but society as

:24:45.:24:48.

a whole does not recognise what you have said. Take a nurse, for

:24:49.:24:51.

instance, not very well paid, looking after the elderly, the sick

:24:52.:24:56.

and infirm, doing a real job serving the community. A hedge fund manager

:24:57.:25:00.

deals with finance, produces nothing and gets paid millions. Well, that

:25:01.:25:05.

is the market for you. I can't change that with this report. But I

:25:06.:25:10.

can tell people that what matters is that the hedge fund manager may have

:25:11.:25:13.

a lot of money but is he or she happy doing that job? I would say

:25:14.:25:18.

that the nurse is making a real difference, interacting. At the end

:25:19.:25:23.

of your life, do you want to say, I look back and I think I made a real

:25:24.:25:28.

difference? Why do you say what you have said? We know market forces are

:25:29.:25:33.

difficult to control, but surely government policy can redress that

:25:34.:25:37.

balance. I am not talking about the superstars and pop stars who have a

:25:38.:25:42.

unique talent and appeal, but just groups of people who really perform

:25:43.:25:45.

fundamental duties and services should be better paid. Well, there

:25:46.:25:51.

is only a certain amount that governments can afford. Many of

:25:52.:25:55.

these are public sector jobs. What we can do is show our appreciation

:25:56.:25:59.

for them. Lots of things that we do, in terms of the honour system and

:26:00.:26:02.

other things, do reward these people, and we have a progressive

:26:03.:26:07.

tax system which does tend to equalise. When we look at economics

:26:08.:26:12.

and element indicators, surely we need to put in happiness somehow,

:26:13.:26:17.

and not just look at GDP as the be all and end all. I couldn't agree

:26:18.:26:22.

more. There is more to life than money and we must move beyond GDP,

:26:23.:26:26.

which is a ridiculous way of measuring success. Very few

:26:27.:26:31.

countries only think about GDP. When we think about how successful we are

:26:32.:26:35.

as a society, or as individuals, we do not just think about money. We

:26:36.:26:38.

think about what we are achieving, whether we feel our life is

:26:39.:26:44.

worthwhile or satisfied. Do you have job satisfaction? Huge job

:26:45.:26:51.

satisfaction. That is it. Next, the

:26:52.:26:53.

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