31/03/2014 World News Today

This is BBC world news Today with me, Zeinab Badawi. The latest

international report on climate change warns that unless serious

action is taken, global warming will get worse and constitute a greater

threat to humankind. More food shortage and floods. Is it another

apocalypse now scenario or is there a glimmer of hope? The world has to

adapt and the world has to mitigate and the sooner we do that the less

the chances of some of the worst impacts of the climate change.

President Francois Hollande of France tries to rejuvenate the

Government after the socialist poor showing in elections. A new Prime

Minister and a new Cabinet is being announced. Also coming up - widening

the scope for child cruelty prosecutions. How emotional abuse

could become a criminal offence here in the UK.

And a special report on the challenge for the Nigerian

authorities who are fighting Boko Haram as the killing campaign claims

more and more lives. Welcome. The UN Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change has delivered it's first report in seven

years on global warming. The report complied by more than 300 experts

from 70 countries says there's an increased risk of floods and food

shortages, but it says some of the impact can be offset through

adaptation. These are the key findings - it warns that the impact

of climate change are likely to be severe, pervasive and irreversible.

The report suggests rising global temperatures that are likely to

cause a higher risk of flooding, more extreme weather like heatwaves,

as well as changes to crop yields, causing food shortages. Scientists

behind the report conclude that people may be able to adapt to some

of the changes, but only within limits. Sceptics have accused the

report's authors are being too alarmist.

A consignment of animal feed from South American. Brought ashore in

Belfast Harbour. The food industry is now so global and so dependent on

international trade that if crops are struggling in one part of the

world, the impacts will be felt in another. So, how the climate changes

in countries very distant from our own can have serious implications.

This is soya from Brazil, where they've just had a heatwave. So the

prices have gone up. Because this stuff is used for chicken feed, the

prices of chicken will also rise. What the UN panel is saying is that

while some plants in some regions may do better with climate change,

overall, the yields are likely to go down. The scientists say the most

severe impacts like this record drought in Texas two years ago are

more likely if temperatures rise steeply during the course of the

century. They want the world to start adapting to a changing

climate. At the launch of the report in Japan this morning, there was a

warning of the need for urgent action. The one message that comes

out very clearly is that the world has to adapt and the world has to

mitigate. The sooner we do that, the less the chances of some of the

worst impacts of the climate change being faced in different parts of

the world. The report says that climate change is now being felt

across the continents and the oceans. Warming the Arctic and as we

have been reporting in recent years, melting the ice which raises the

level of the sea. There's also change in the oceans. The waters

becoming more acidic and the BBC was in applicant knew Guinea this week

to report on the threats to coral. We filmed these scenes in Bangladesh

five years ago. A struggle to cope with extreme conditions. The most

vulnerable, the report says, are the poorest cities. Within the slum

areas they do not have the proper facilities. Then you add on the

impact of climate change or extreme events and people become more

vulnerable. The report does offer a message of hope that just as the

Dutch build new defences against the rising sea, people can adapt to a

changing climate. The question is how serious the impact will be. And

one scientists withdrew his name from the report because he said it

was going too far. People live on the equator and at the Poles so

humans are very, very adaptive to very diverse climates. We have

well-developed technology to deal with that. There will be impacts,

but I don't think it will be dramatic. Here, the chief Government

scientist says climb change will mean more intense rain and flooding

in line with what is expected for us. Global warming will mean

different things to different parts of the world, but according to the

new report, we will all be affected. I've been joined by Professor Samuel

Fankhauser, co-director of the Grantham Research Institute. He's a

member of the UK committee on climate change, an independent body

that advises the Government and he's had a little bit of impact into the

IPPC report. Is this a council of despair? We have had one of the

report's authors saying look this is all a bit depressing and too

pessimistic? Well, there's a lot of information in that report to be

alarmed about, but I don't think it's alarmist. The scientists we

heard, there were over 300 of them, who produced this report, are quite

clear in their message. They are measured and it's evidence-based and

they're careful, but what they say is quite important, yes. Sure. You

don't want people to throw their hands up in despair and say,

"Goodness, it's so awful, there's nothing we can do about it." There's

a number of things we can do and have to do now. Two things

particularly, as we heard from the report. First, to adapt to climate

change that is already locked in. What we will experience over the

next 20 years is the product of past emissions. That's locked in. We have

to adapt to it. We can't change it. What we can change is the climate we

will have beyond those 20 years and what we have to do there and

urgently is to start reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's the

mitigation that worries people, because it comes with a very high

price tag. It requires people to have a radical change in their live

styles, use leg fossil fuel, trying to convert renewable energy and that

comes with a heft by price tag that the governments say they can't

afford. A lot of governments are taking action and they're

recognising that it does cost something, but the price tag isn't

actually very high. Certainly not if you compare it with the cost of

reducing emissions with the risks of climate change if we don't do

anything. We know what we have to do. We know how one can take fossil

fuels out of the energy sector and we have ideas about energy

efficiency. If developing countries, we know how one can stop

deforestation, so we have a plan, a blueprint. If you can adapt to the

impact of climate change that has already made itself felt, why can't

you also adapt to any future changes in climate change? Adaptation and

mitigation are not alternatives. We have to do both. We have to do it

over the next 20 or so years, to adapt to relatively moderate climate

change, say up to two degrees. Why isn't that enough in itself and just

go for an adaptation policy rather than mitigation andious say, "Human

beings are resourceful and resilient." We have been adapting to

different climates for centuries? Humans are capable of living in many

climates, but as a species we have never experienced the sort of change

we have had unless we mitigate. We have will have maybe five degrees of

warming by the end of the century and it's not something we have seen

for hundreds of thousands of years. It's not something we as a people

have ever experienced so we do not know whether we can actually

adeposit to that. In a nutshell, 25 seconds, sum this report up. What is

the key message? For me, it's two-fold. The first, climate change

is real. We can already see it. We can see the impacts, so we are

talking about the real phenomenon. The second message for me is, it's

going to get worse unless we start taking action now, but we can still

avoid the worst impacts from climate change. Professor Samuel Fankhauser,

thank you. President Francois Hollande from

France has just named Manuel Valls the former interior minister as the

under Prime Minister, following those dismal results he had in

Sunday's local polls. The out-going Prime Minister, Jean Marc Ayrault

resigned earlier today. The President was speaking a short time

ago at. TRANSLATION: In the last elections voting or not vote, you

expressed your anger and disappointment with us. I come here

to tell you that I have heard your message. It is clear. Not enough

change. Things going too slow. And not enough jobs. Too much

unemployment. Not enough social justice. Too many taxes. And too

many questions. That's on the capacity of the country to get out

of the crisis. That was President Francois Hollande there in that

statement. It wasn't live, by the way. In Paris is the French

political comexT Tatar -- commentator, Anne-Elizabeth Moutet.

Apart from Manuel Valls, what else? We don't really know yet. We know

who is not going to be in the Cabinet and that is the two Greens

and Hollande has muted a red/green coalition, but the housing minister

would said she would never sit in a Cabinet headed by Manuel Valls, who

she thinks is too right-wing. The coalition is finished with that

result. There might be some other members of the more left-wing parts

of the Socialist Party, who until now the President had managed to

appease and these people may not well to agree to sit under Manuel

Valls, who they see as a Nicolas Sarkozy clone. I know the

announcement is being made and you may not wish to risk your

reputation, by trying to guess who might be moved out or whatever.

We'll take some of the big names. What about finance and foreign

affairs, will they stay put? Fabouse very probably. I would not bet on

the other minister because these been lacklustre in finance. He was

in a difficult situation in which he has seven junior ministers next to

him or under him in some cases and there were so many disagreements

within the various storeys of the massive buildings in the ministry

that there was a feeling that he's not making that much of an

impression. The Budget minister was doing his own thing, but the

industrial recovery minister was really in many ways a disruptive

presence. What about fresh faces with the departure of the form First

Lady? Could we see Miss Royale? He name has been linked to the

education portfolio. The President's former partner, need I remind

anybody? Well, that's certainly more likely than the minister from

culture, but yes it is possible. The President has said for some time he

had to do something about it and she is very much wanting to be a

minister. It's possible she has popularity. She was a presidential

candidate seven years ago. There's no reason why she shouldn't be in

the inner Cabinet. She is his former partner, but she has political

legitimacy. Anne-Elizabeth Moutet, thank you.

Manuel Valls is the new Prime Minister in France. The Cabinet

reshuffle is on-going. Meanwhile, in the local elections in Turkey, the

governing party has won a convincing victory. It won just under half of

the votes, almost 20% more than the main opposition party. And this has

given a boost to the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has

endured months of protests against his rule and allegations of

corruption. The party retained control of the country's two biggest

cities, Ankara and Instanbul. He welcomed the outcome saying his

rivals would now pay a price for challenging his authority.

Now, new inquests have begun into the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans who

were killed in the Hillsborough disaster 25 years ago here in

England. The original verdicts of accidental death were overturned at

the High Court in London in 2012, after a campaign by the victims'

families. Our reporter, Judith Moritz reports.

They lost their loved ones. They came to court to find out what

happened. These families have spent years campaigning. They know the

months ahead will not be easy. I think there will be quite a few

shocks as we progress over the next 12 months, maybe. The truth will

out. You can't underestimate how difficult it will be for everybody.

We can do is do our best and in the judge. Sheffield Wednesday's Stadium

has long been associated with the disaster which happened here. It is

where Liverpool came to play an FA Cup semifinal in 1989, and whether

terraces became so overcrowded that 96 people eventually lost their

lives. What happened here nearly 25 years ago has defined the lives of

many people, most directly, Deborah Reeve and survivors, but arguably

across the Pennines, in Liverpool, the entire reputation of the city

has been affected -- directly, the bereaved. This woman spoke about her

brother, who died at Hillsborough. Donna came to court again today. It

is something we have got to go through, the evidence, as hard as it

is, we have to do it for the 96. They were taken from their families

needlessly. We will continue. They knew inquests are housed in a

purpose-built courtroom. The hearing will cover areas including cause of

death, crowd management and the response of the emergency services.

There is thousands and thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of

witnesses coming and hours and hours of footage that has never been seen

before. All the work that has gone into this is huge. The youngest to

die at Hillsborough was ten, the oldest, 67. Worst murder under the

age of 30 -- most were under the age of 30.

Here, the Government is considering a new offence of emotional cruelty

to children. If a change of the law is introduced, it will mean children

will have the same protection against this as they do against

physical abuse. The proposal would make it a criminal offence to

inflict emotional or mental suffering on a child in cases where

there's evidence of significant harm. It's understood the new law

could come into force before the general election next year. Joining

me now from Westminster is the former UK Children's Minister and

Conservative MP Tim Loughton. Many would say, isn't this already on the

books, this kind of law? Emotional abuse is physically very

detrimental, sometimes very easy to identify, why isn't it already a

criminal offence? The law on child neglect goes back to 1933. We have

good laws on dealing with children who are abused physically, we have

good laws on dealing with children who are victims of sexual

exploitation, and those have been getting better, but still, an awful

lot of children are subject to neglect through emotional abuse. The

traumatic conditions it can bring about and the mental health problems

it can bring about a considerable. Too many social workers are saying

they would like to be able to intervene but under the current

rather have to wait until the condition is much more serious. Give

it a quick idea of what you might mean by a serious case of emotional

abuse. We're not talking about parents bellowing at their children

in Tesco's. This is sustained neglect of children, caused by

neglecting their health, caused by emotional neglect as well, and

clearly not forming a proper attachment with their child. What we

know is parents who don't form an emotional attachment with their

child at an early stage and neglect their children, those children are

likely to have attachment dysfunction with mental health

problems later in life. We need to be careful here between what is poor

parenting and what is clearly abusive or deliberately neglectful

parenting. That is what I was going to ask. Well parenting could mean a

parent with holding cuddles from a child, not putting a child, not

telling a child that the paradoxes, and the child could say -- not

telling a child that the parent looks it, and the child could say

they had problems. Is that emotional abuse? You have to be able to prove

a pattern of sustained and deliberate abuse. We should not

underestimate the mental health implications on children who are

neglected. Over 60% of serious case reviews into children who have been

abused, injured or even killed attribute neglect as a common

factor. The fact is, we are doing better than we were at intervening

to protect one double children, but we have to do a lot better. Social

workers and others are telling is that under the current law, they are

not able to intervene until the situation has got far more serious.

That can't be the right thing. Thank you very much for talking to others.

Now a look at some of the day's other news.

The Ebola outbreak in Guinea has been called an unprecedented

epidemic by the aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres. Health

authorities in the West African nation say at least 78 people have

died after contracting the virus. Neighbouring Liberia has confirmed

two cases, including one death. A court in Pakistan has charged the

former president, Pervez Musharraf, with high treason for imposing

emergency rule and violating the constitution in 2007. Mr Musharraf

pleaded not guilty and claims the charges against him are politically

motivated. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

A US government website where people sign up for health insurance under

President Obama's affordable health care act was briefly out of service

on Monday just hours before a midnight enrolment deadline. More

than six million Americans have signed up for the various plans,

with a large increase in the number of people taking out policies in the

past month. Russian media say some military

forces are being pulled back from the country's border with Ukraine.

Reports suggested several hundred troops are withdrawing. The United

States says up to 40,000 have been stationed on the border. Earlier,

Ukraine condemned a visit to Crimea by the Russian Prime Minister,

Dmitry Medvedev.The peninsula was recently annexed by Russia. Mr

Medvedev said Russia would make Crimea a special economic zone, with

tax breaks to attract investors. The BBC's David Stern is in Kiev.

David, what do you make of these new developments in the race for

president? It is a bit of a mixed bag. The German foreign minister

said it was a small signal of lessening intentions. At the same

time, you have this visit by the Prime Minister to Crimea. There are

still quite a few troops, estimated tens of thousands, on the Ukrainian

border with Russia. That is still a very tense situation. There is also

the ongoing dispute over Crimea, the Americans calling it the

annexation, illegal and illegitimate. The Russians are going

ahead with their plans after a number of economic enticements,

including raising pensions and salaries. This has been a very mixed

development on both fronts today. Thank you, David.

Amnesty International says at least 1,500 people have been killed in

northern Nigeria this year alone as the Islamist group Boko Haram

carries out a campaign of attacks against civilian and military

targets. Boko Haram recently launched am audacious attack on the

main barracks in the city of Maiduguri - freeing many suspected

militants kept inside. Will Ross reports on the challenge of fighting

Boko Haram. Islamist militants on the move in

North East Nigeria. This rare footage of the group Boko Haram. The

insurgents filmed this themselves. The target, the main military

barracks. There was a firefight with the Nigerian army, and Boko Haram

managed to breach the barracks. They burst open the cells and set many

suspected Islamist militants free. That's where the Boko Haram video

ends. The Nigerian military says the attack was successfully repelled,

and many of the retreating Islamist fighters were killed by the air

force and by ground troops. Vigilante groups killed many of

those who escaped from cells. We will never know exactly how many

people died that day. Some hospital sources said they received about 100

bodies. Others said more than 500 people died. Their elusive leader

celebrated the raid and pledged more violence. These mountains are close

to the border with Cameroon. This footage was taken a few years ago,

but these days, Boko Haram fighters have set up base in parts of this

mountain range. I met a cattle herder who recently fled the area

due to the insecurity there. He says last year, he offered to guide the

Nigerian army to Boko Haram hideouts in the mountains. TRANSLATION: As

soon as we began climbing up, Boko Haram started firing down at us.

They regrouped, but he says a local chief ensured that the Islamist

militants were in a mission to thwart the operation. TRANSLATION:

The soldiers all met in a village, and then suddenly, a civilian

defence force came to join us. But I could see there were Boko Haram

members among them. I pointed it out to the soldiers.

How do you know there were Boko Haram? TRANSLATION: We all live in

the same area. I know their faces. I grew up with them. My younger

brother is even a Boko Haram commander. To stop these attacks,

the Army will have to flush the Islamist militants out of the

mountain hideouts. With Boko Haram members enmeshed in communities

across North East Nigeria, winning this war is a daunting task.

A reminder of our main news: The UN intergovernmental panel on climate

change, the IPCC, has delivered its first report in seven years on

global warming. But it does say that some of the

impact can be offset through adaptation. Goodbye from me and the

team. Monday for most of those was a fine,

settled day with some good spells of sunshine. Towards Tuesday morning,

this weather front continues, bringing outbreaks of rain and even

some thunderstorms. Tomorrow starts off rather damp and cloudy. They

will