16/03/2016 World News Today

The headlines: A political showdown for Barack Obama

He's nominated a moderate judge, Merrick Garland, to fill the vacant

But the Republicans say they'll block him.

He is the right man for the job. He deserves to be confirmed.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump bolster their positions as the US

presidential frontrunners, winning key US primary votes.

European naval forces say there's been a sudden increase in the number

of migrants trying to reach the EU on flimsy boats from Libya to Italy.

Get the roles Royce. We are going for a little dry.

Sylvia Anderson, the co-creator of the children's adventure series

Thunderbirds, who gave voice to one of its most famous characters

President Obama has announced his choice for the next

He's nominated a judge from the centre of the political

This is despite calls from Republicans to leave

the nomination to the next president,

The announcement came just hours after Donald Trump

He challenged Republicans to drop their refusal to even consider his

choice. At a time when our politics

are so polarised, at a time when norms and customs of political

rhetoric and courtesy and comedy are so often treated

like they are disposable, this is precisely the time

when we should play it straight and treat the process of appointing

a Supreme Court Justice with the seriousness

and care it deserves. Well, that announcement

from President Obama came just hours after another big night in the run

up to the presidential election. Fve big states chose their preferred

candidate for November. The two frontrunners -

Donald Trump for the Republicans and Hillary Clinton

for the Democrats - Our North America editor Jon Sopel

reports now from Florida. He's young, articulate,

telegenic and Hispanic. But Senator Marco Rubio

is also a loser. Last night the great

hope of the Republican establishment was crushed

in his home state of Florida While it's not God's

plan that I be president and while today my

campaign is suspended... ..the fact that I've even come this

far is evidence of how special Donald Trump made

impressive gains last night, winning nearly all the races

he fought and is now even further And he's achieved it

by bringing in new We have a great opportunity

and the people that are voting, Democrats are coming

in, Independents are coming in and very importantly,

people that never voted before. Donald Trump has had an emphatic

victory here in Florida. But perhaps the most striking thing

about tonight is what has happened It was to this man, the state

governor John Kasich, a moderate Republican who has now

vowed to carry on his fight We are going to go all

the way to Cleveland and secure the Republican

nomination. But the path is strewn

with more than confetti. John Kasich staying in the race

means the anti-Trump vote is now split between him

and Senator Ted Cruz. On the Democratic side,

things couldn't be Last night she won

all the contests that had been declared, leaving her rival

lagging a long way behind. John told me a short while ago that

the picture in the race was becoming clearer. I think things have become

a lot clearer on the Democratic side. It is hard to see how Senator

Bernie Sanders is going to overtake Hillary Clinton. I think there will

still be a week ago and more contests, but I think effectively

the Clinton camp can feel some relief. -- there will still be a way

to go. On the Republican side, much more complex. What looks like will

happen is Donald Trump will get to the convention way ahead of all his

rivals, but without the critical majority that he needs. That raises

the question, would the Republican establishment they try to mount a

coup against him even though he is out in front? -- would they dare?

Donald Trump has said if they try to do that there would be riots in the

streets. You have got a clash between the mathematics and the

politics. Mathematically it would be possible to stop Donald Trump,

politically, less so. How much hope are those who don't debate Donald

Trump taking from that win in all I will? -- who don't want Donald Trump

taking from that win in Ohio? It is accommodated and high-risk manoeuvre

to say we will stitch this up at the convention. -- a complicated

manoeuvre. What it is saying is we will go into a smoke-filled room, do

some deals and then decide. It would be seen as very anti-democratic.

That is why you still have to bet that Donald Trump will be the

Republican nominee for the presidency. President Obama 's

announcement of his choice for the next Supreme Court Justice. This is

the perfect consensus candidate, what is the problem no? There is no

such thing as a perfect inventors in US politics, particularly in an

election year. -- no such thing as a perfect consensus. Everything is

hotly disputed, and so it will be already Supreme Court pick that

Obama announced today. I don't see how this can make a lot of progress

when you have Congress in control of the Republicans who believe, and

they ... Wait until the election is over and then review it, they say.

It is the President's constitutional duty to bring forward the name, but

it has to be approved by Congress, and Congress looks like it is going

to block it. Now a look at some of

the days other news. Former Brazilian president

Luis Inancia Lula da Silva has agreed to take a cabinet post

in the Government Prosecutors have decided to charge

Lula in connection with a huge corruption scandal centred

on the state oil company Petrogras. By joining the cabinet,

he will escape the jurisdiction The United States has accused

North Korea of using American citizens as pawns to pursue

a political agenda. The White House statement came

after North Korea sentenced a US student, Otto Warmbier,

to fifteen years of hard labour An alliance of Kurdish,

Christian and Arab groups say they are planning to declare

a federal system of self-administration

in northern Syria. They said the areas would represent

all ethnic groups living The move comes as representatives

from the Syrian Government and rebels hold a third day of peace

talks in Geneva. The EU naval force targeting migrant

smuggling gangs in the Mediterranean says there's been a sudden increase

in the number of boats trying Navy chiefs say they expect those

numbers to continue to rise sharply in the days to come

because of improved weather conditions and as a direct result

of the Greek-Macedonian Our Europe ereporter Gavin Lee

has spent the past few days on the European ships looking at how

the operation is working. The daily routine in the battle

against migrant smugglers. This is the Nave Cavour,

an Italian aircraft carrier commanding a fleet of five EU

warships in international waters Every day helicopter search

the skies, reporting signs The ships have a mandate to seize

and destroy empty migrant boats. But the presence of these patrols

has turned the operation into a huge We received information

from a patrol aircraft that around three migrant boats at sea,

just outside the territory Within minutes of the boats

being spotted, we joined the emergency response

team searching for them. The smuggling business

has become routine now. A clear sky and a calm sea mean

the perfect conditions We are 40 nautical miles

from the Libyan coast, and this is the daily reality

for the patrol teams in the sea. Down below, there is a migrant boat

with around 100 people on board that has just been rescued by the British

ship HMS enterprise. There are people now being

processed on the ship. You can see quite clearly them

climbing the ladder as they are being rescued,

but I am told there are still another four migrant boats

still waiting to be rescued. We flew a few miles from the British

ship and spotted this. A boat full of people desperate

for help, with no life jackets, children crouched at the front,

floating in this vast sea. Within an hour, rescue teams

from HMS Enterprise managed to get Eight migrant boats

were picked up today. 900 people were rescued -

the highest in a single day But there is growing criticism

that the EU ships have become a magnet, with smugglers

now directing migrants We have to think about

what if we were not here? Patrolling, creating

deterrents and able to support And I am afraid that a good

percentage of the migrants we save maybe would not be alive any

more if we wouldn't be Senior military commanders say more

than 100,000 migrants are in Libyan And navy officials here claim

the recent closure of the migrant route from Greece to Macedonia

will lead to more people choosing this far more dangerous route by sea

in the days to come. Martin Xuereb is the director

of Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a foundation dedicated to preventing

loss of life to refugees Thank you for talking to us. Does

this warning of increased numbers do, across the Mediterranean

correlate with what your agency is seeing? Yes, definitely. It does

not, as a surprise. There is always spike depending on the season, and

we now expect crossing along the Mediterranean route today, and then

there is a lot of trepidation as to what is good happen in the Aegean. I

have no doubt that some refugees who feel they have no option but to do

this crossing will choose the riskier route from Libya. You say

this is down in part to some of the Central European routes being close.

What do you think should be the other options for people if they

feel they have no option? All I have to say is, the transfer or ferry

crossing from Libya, from Turkey to Greece costs a few euros. For a

Syrian national to do it will cost them 600, 700, 800, 900 euros. So

clearly there are people who feel they have no option. Otherwise they

would not take this option. There have to be options, F 's upstream, a

greater effort in countries of have to be options, F 's upstream, a

transit and for those who unfortunately choose to take this

crossing at the, there needs to be an adequate effort to save lives at

sea. We are out of time. Thank you very much for joining us on that

from Malta. The search for two armed men

goes on in Brussels. The men escaped from an apartment

in the city after a police raid Another suspect was shot dead hours

after the raid. Belgian prosecutors say

he was Algerian and was in

the country illegally. Beside his body they found a flag

of the Islamic State group, a Kalashnikov rifle and a large

quantity of ammunition. Anna Holligan sent this

update from Brussels. This is an average residential

street in suburban Brussels. But look up there and there

is evidence of the intensity Windows on the first

and second floor blown out, and police are now in the process

of recovering pieces One of the suspect was killed inside

the apartment by a special forces sniper. Detail about the object

found next to his body give us some indication as to who these people

might have been. There was a bit on fundamental is one and a black

standard flag, the flag that has been adopted by and have become

synonymous with the so-called Islamic State. In terms of who this

man what, he has been named as a 35-year-old Algerian national who

the authorities say was in Belgium illegally. He had only come to their

attention once before in the past, in 2014, an connection with a

robbery. The two other suspects managed to escape and there is

speculation they jumped through one of the back windows of this

apartment. You can see the glass in the kitchen is smashed. So those two

people still the subject of a police manhunt. Two other people who were

questioned have now been released without charge.

And in France, police say they've arrested four Islamist militants

on suspicion of planning to carry out attacks in central Paris.

Officers said three men and one woman were arrested at dawn.

Police also seized an unused cartridge for an automatic rifle

The French media say the four were already known to security

services and one had been under house arrest since last month.

World football's governing body Fifa says it's a victim

The organisation is trying to get back tens of millions of dollars

it says were stolen by its former leaders.

The new head of Fifa, Gianni Infantino,

has filed a damages claim in the United States,

saying money meant for developing the sport has been illegally

Our sports correspondent Alex Capstick told me more.

It is officially a victim according to the US authorities,

which entitles it to go after the money it says it lost

from the so widespread corruption scandal.

Fifa claims that the people involved in this, many of them senior,

were operating outside the boundaries of Fifa.

They were part of the regions, part of the confederations.

Conmebol in South America, Concacaf North Central America

They were separate legal identities, therefore they didn't know

They have said and they have always said.

And the reason they are going after it is they have got

What they did to secure that was pushed these reforms through.

When Gianni Infantino was elected as president a few weeks ago,

just before that election, there was another vote on key

This was seen as absolutely essential for the firm if it was to

maintain its victim status. It was pushed through, it was good news for

them. Is Gianni Infantino driving this action or was it an the

pipeline beforehand? He had given it the green light to budget has been

on the minds of Fifa officials for some time now. They were

particularly annoyed about that wheat by Geoffrey Webb who replaced

the head of Concacaf who was indicted by the US authorities.

There was a picture of him celebrating his wife's birthday in a

mansion where they were sipping champagne and having a good party,

which really annoyed the far officials. They were really

determined to go after the money that these former officials have

diverted away from Fifa to pocket themselves.

Britain has become the latest country to announce a tax on sugar

in soft drinks, to help tackle childhood obesity.

The measure was announced by the British finance

George Osborne said the levy, from 2018, would raise more

than ?700 million to fund sport in schools.

A similar tax introduced in Mexico in 2014 has led to a drop

In other economic news the Federal Reserve has kept its target interest

rates unchanged for a further three months. Despite raising rates in

December, they decided to keep them at between 0.25 and 0.5% over

concerns in the global economy. Sylvia Anderson - the co-creator

of Thunderbirds and the voice of one of its most enduring characters -

has died aged 88. She was the woman behind

Lady Penelope, the elegant aristocrat who moonlighted

as a secret agent. An aristocrat, a British '60s style

icon and a secret agent that regularly saved the world

from imminent disaster. Someone has been

listening at my door. Come along quietly so as not

to waken the other passengers. Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward

was voiced and modelled Along with her then husband

Gerry Anderson she created some of the most iconic TV shows

of the time, including Thunderbirds, At a time long before computer

graphics, the puppets, filmed in what was called

Supermarionation, were As was the role of Sylvia

in the then very male world The woman was always walking a few

paces behind the lead. So I wanted to get away

from that if I could. You only realise when you step back

from what you've done And that is why I think a lot

of our stuff has lived on. After divorcing in 1991,

Sylvia continued to have a successful career in TV and film

for the next 30 years. But it is probably her alter ego

Lady Penelope that she will Sylvia Anderson, who has died at the

age of 88. Now, earlier we brought

you Jon Sopel's report and you may have detected

the sound of some strain Well, there's been criticism

from some commentators Brit Hume, senior political analyst

with Fox News, said she was "shouting angrily"

during a victory speech, while others on social media spoke

of her "shrill" voice. First, let's hear again a little

of her speaking following those When we hear a candidate

for president call for rounding up 12 million immigrants,

banning all Muslims from entering When he embraces torture,

that doesn't make him strong, So should Ms Clinton take any notice

of those criticising the way she speaks and do such

things make a difference? Joining me now is the executive

speech coach Simon Bucknall. What did you make of that? The last

thing I would think of that particular clip is that she sounds

shrill. Certainly if you're in that hall as an audience member it is

very different from watching it on TV. There needs to be an energy from

the speaker that can seem a little strong sometimes. For me it is

natural that for a presidential candidate who has done as much

speaking as she has done, it is not surprising voice has some strain.

Yes, it sounds as if she has been doing a lot of shouting impact all

is trying to get herself heard. Yes, these events are high-energy and it

can come across as strained on TV. When we get stressed, have to use

the boys a lot, it is natural that eventually the boys. To show that.

-- when we have to use the voice. Men's voices will also go up, but

people will hear the female voice going to a higher pitch. Speaking to

colleagues in the newsroom, they detect perhaps some sexism in the

criticism. Not so much criticism if a man went shrill or started

shouting, perhaps. I think that is true. If not sexist then certainly

patronising as a description. To describe somebody was Mac energy is

different from commenting on the voice or how high-pitched it is. The

election is becoming very emotionally charged, it seems to me,

so it is not surprising that there are men and right-wing commentators

who are having a bit of a go. One politician who famously

tried to change her voice to improve her electoral

prospects was the former British Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher. We must tand together

and fight for the things They are more important

than any of us individually. He wanted the European Parliament

to be the democratic body he wanted the Commission

to be the Executive, he wanted the Council

of Ministers to be the Senate. That was a sort of before and after

clip showing what she had thought she had to do to sound more credible

over the years. Yes, I think it is something many people not just in

politics seeks to work on from a leadership point of view. I meet all

kinds of people both male and the mill who want to work on their

voice. There is something in our nature for a listener that lends

authority. To speak in a deeper voice you have to be more relaxed.

The tension makes the boys go higher. It is about portraying come

outside even if there is no harm in sight. Absolutely. -- even if there

is no harm inside. Churchill, for example, had to work very hard to

convey the authority he wanted to convey. So the work on the voice is

a male and female challenge. There is something in human nature that

means that I play slower, deeper tone tends to greater authority in

general. There must be many people listening out there who want to

know, how do I make myself sound cam if I am feeling very nervous about a

presentation or something like that. What do you recommend? One thing is

remained yourself to dig deep quality breast using the diaphragm.

Which is hard if your body is tense. Yes, but just taking a moment. A tip

I have found has worked out treat is tipped the chin down. It helps to

just centre you and enable you to breathe deeply. That can certainly

help. The second thing is it needs to feel artificially deep and slow.

If it feels natural, it is probably not deep enough and it is probably a

bit too fast. Thank you very much. You can get in touch with me

and some of the team via Twitter.