:00:11. > :00:14.It is getting crowded out here. From today, we are sharing the
:00:15. > :00:18.earth with 7 billion others. The global population has doubled in
:00:18. > :00:28.just 50 years. We will hear how some countries want to get even
:00:28. > :00:35.
:00:35. > :00:40.Welcome to GMT. Also coming up - the last few hours of the NATO
:00:40. > :00:49.mission in Libya. The allies say it is a major success, but at what
:00:49. > :00:54.cost? And a night to chill the soul, as an unseasonal snowstorm hits the
:00:54. > :01:04.north-east of the United States. It is lunchtime in London, 8:30am in
:01:04. > :01:04.
:01:04. > :01:13.New York. Today is the daily chosen by the United Nations to mark the
:01:13. > :01:17.arrival of the 7 billionth occupant on the earth. What matters about
:01:18. > :01:22.today is the impact of the soaring population on the planet. We will
:01:22. > :01:26.be live in Africa to talk about it in a moment. First, this report
:01:26. > :01:30.from our correspondent. It is more about symbols than exact science,
:01:30. > :01:36.when it comes to global population. The UN has declared that in each
:01:36. > :01:42.country, one baby born on 31st October becomes the 7 billionth
:01:42. > :01:49.person. There are mini Tanni candidates. The Philippines'
:01:49. > :01:56.contribution is this baby. Blissfully unaware of her celebrity
:01:56. > :02:00.status. Born into a crowded public hospital in Manila, she was greeted
:02:00. > :02:05.with a chocolate cake and speeches. Family planning is a controversial
:02:05. > :02:11.issue in this Catholic country, and her mother has decided to defy
:02:11. > :02:19.Church teaching and practise birth control. This little boy is that
:02:19. > :02:22.chosen one in Russia. But a quarrel is brewing. In the Far East of the
:02:22. > :02:32.country, local politicians have declared another candidate as the
:02:32. > :02:34.
:02:34. > :02:40.first to be born on this day. Russia has a shrinking population.
:02:40. > :02:45.But India has the opposite problem. It has been projected that in 2025,
:02:45. > :02:51.its population will overtake China's. There is also a sex ratio
:02:51. > :02:57.problem, because of a cultural preference for boys. So in one
:02:57. > :03:02.region, they said they would be nominating seven girls. In 20
:03:02. > :03:06.years' time, there will be far less girls than boys at a marriage age.
:03:06. > :03:11.That means that girls will be brought in from different states.
:03:11. > :03:15.They will be brought in from a different society, and they will be
:03:15. > :03:20.less empowered to deal on equal terms with their husband. China is
:03:20. > :03:25.also dogged by a shortage of girls. But the government there believes
:03:25. > :03:29.its draconian family planning policy has paid dividends. Its
:03:29. > :03:35.problem now is not enough young Chinese to support a huge elderly
:03:35. > :03:40.population. So, 7 billion and counting. And for many, the key
:03:40. > :03:45.question is, how to manage the earth's scarce resources so that
:03:45. > :03:49.babies born now have a bright future. Much of the world
:03:49. > :03:54.population growth is coming from Africa. In Zambia, half the
:03:54. > :03:59.population is aged under 16. Nigeria, already the largest
:03:59. > :04:03.country on the continent, is also seeing the demographic boom. Our
:04:03. > :04:11.correspondent joins us from Lagos, a city of 15 million and still
:04:11. > :04:16.growing. Yes, welcome to what has been called the baby factory by its
:04:16. > :04:20.director. This is a maternity hospital in Lagos, the post-natal
:04:21. > :04:25.ward, with about 50 women here, who have given birth in the past few
:04:25. > :04:33.days. There is an extraordinary atmosphere here, as some of the
:04:33. > :04:37.Dad's turn up, nappies are being changed, milk is being fed. There
:04:37. > :04:42.is lots of breast feeding going on as well. One of the women worthy of
:04:42. > :04:48.much congratulations is this one with me now. How are you and your
:04:49. > :04:54.little one doing? Fine, thanks. He is a nice boy. I gave birth on
:04:54. > :05:02.Tuesday, it is nearly a week now. He seems fine. Is he your first
:05:02. > :05:11.one? Yes, and I would like to have two more. Just two more, that's
:05:11. > :05:16.quite small by Nigerian standards. Before, about five years ago...
:05:16. > :05:20.sorry, we seem to have lost our correspondent there. Problems with
:05:20. > :05:28.the satellite. We can bring you some breaking news coming in from
:05:28. > :05:36.Paris. Unesco, the United Nations cultural organisation, has voted in
:05:36. > :05:45.favour of giving the Palestinians full membership. 107 votes against
:05:45. > :05:51.14, with 15 abstentions. The United States and Israel were firmly
:05:51. > :05:56.opposed. It is going to cost Unesco dear, because having approved this,
:05:56. > :06:02.they will lose their funding from the US, which amounts to some 22%.
:06:02. > :06:09.It is not clear who will step in to meet that. They needed the backing
:06:09. > :06:19.of to thirds of the 193 members, but this is another step, really,
:06:19. > :06:22.
:06:22. > :06:30.towards the aspiration of full statehood. That news just in.
:06:30. > :06:35.Unesco, the world heritage organisation, making that decision.
:06:35. > :06:38.Some of the other headlines. The Australian airline Qantas has
:06:38. > :06:44.resumed flights following the industrial dispute. The company
:06:44. > :06:48.says services will be back to normal by Tuesday. An independent
:06:48. > :06:55.tribunal forced the airline and the unions to negotiate. A suicide
:06:55. > :07:02.bomber has killed five people in a United Nations building in Kandahar
:07:02. > :07:06.in the southern Afghanistan. The Taliban has claim responsibility.
:07:06. > :07:11.Floodwaters are still wreaking havoc across much of Thailand,
:07:11. > :07:21.swamping suburbs. Much of the capital appears to have escaped the
:07:21. > :07:22.
:07:22. > :07:27.worst of the floods. There is worry about disease in the outer suburbs.
:07:27. > :07:31.NATO is officially ending its seven-month long mission in Libya.
:07:31. > :07:36.The operation began in March, one month after the uprising against
:07:36. > :07:45.Colonel Gaddafi started. NATO has been asked to keep a presence in
:07:45. > :07:52.the country, and discussions are ongoing. Let's go to Tripoli, to
:07:52. > :07:56.speak to our correspondent. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of the NTC,
:07:56. > :08:05.asked NATO to stay until the end of the year, so are they disappointed
:08:05. > :08:09.about this move? I apologise, the line is not very good, but as far
:08:09. > :08:15.as the NTC is concerned, the war against Colonel Gaddafi is over.
:08:15. > :08:20.But they definitely want NATO to stay. The Secretary-General of NATO,
:08:20. > :08:23.Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is here now. He will be speaking with the
:08:23. > :08:27.leaders of the Transitional Council. And he will be talking to them
:08:27. > :08:31.about what kind of a role NATO member states can play as Libya
:08:31. > :08:36.builds its new future, whether that is securing the borders,
:08:36. > :08:39.decommissioning of weapons, or, most importantly, according to the
:08:39. > :08:44.defence ministry here, building a national military. On the ground at
:08:44. > :08:48.least, the war against Colonel Gaddafi's forces was fought by
:08:48. > :08:53.individual militias, nominally loyal to the Transitional Council,
:08:53. > :09:03.but there are quite fond of their weapons and their new-found power,
:09:03. > :09:07.
:09:07. > :09:15.and it will be difficult to draw Let's go to our central London
:09:15. > :09:23.studio, to speak to a Conservative MP, who opposed Britain joining the
:09:23. > :09:28.NATO mission in Libya. Anders Fogh Rasmussen says this was one of the
:09:28. > :09:32.most successful NATO missions yet - do you accept you called this one
:09:32. > :09:39.wrong? Not at all. None of us that doubted that NATO would prevail at
:09:39. > :09:44.the end of the day. It was essentially an uneven battle
:09:44. > :09:50.against a tinpot dictator. But victory in itself does not justify
:09:50. > :09:56.intervention. War Nige to be a measure of last resort, and this is
:09:56. > :10:00.why I opposed our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
:10:00. > :10:08.were calling for a diplomatic negotiation, but Colonel Gaddafi
:10:08. > :10:13.never had any intention of leaving, did he? We must remember here that
:10:14. > :10:19.there were alternatives to war before we committed our NATO forces.
:10:19. > :10:23.For example, Egypt had a vastly superior air force, was calling for
:10:23. > :10:28.un no-fly zone, was in a better position to put it in, and was
:10:28. > :10:32.ideally located. We should have explored these options first.
:10:32. > :10:37.Intervention should always be a lost resort once we have explored
:10:37. > :10:42.all other options, and that includes diplomacy. What about the
:10:42. > :10:49.moral high ground in this? Had NATO not intervened, Benghazi could have
:10:49. > :10:53.been the scene of a massacre. not know that for sure. I spend
:10:53. > :10:56.quite a lot of time there, and when you see the number of tanks and
:10:56. > :11:01.artillery which were destroyed by NATO, you realise that Colonel
:11:01. > :11:06.Gaddafi was within a few miles of the city. Don't forget, Gaddafi was
:11:06. > :11:10.having trouble taking the much smaller town of Misrata in the West.
:11:10. > :11:15.But also, Egypt had a vastly superior air force to Libya, it
:11:15. > :11:20.could have put in a no-fly zone overnight. I think NATO getting
:11:20. > :11:26.involved stretched the UN mandate, and basically, the objective was
:11:26. > :11:29.regime change. It was in my view the longest assassination attempt
:11:29. > :11:33.in history. If we talk about the humanitarian reasons for
:11:33. > :11:40.intervention, we must not forget, why have we not intervened in
:11:40. > :11:44.Bahrain, in Yemen? These are locations where tinpot dictators
:11:44. > :11:48.are putting down their own people, smaller countries. Answer that
:11:48. > :11:53.question, is it just because Gaddafi had no friends? There is an
:11:53. > :11:58.element of that, but there has to be some consistency with regard to
:11:58. > :12:04.our foreign policy interventions. France's initial reaction to the
:12:04. > :12:07.Tunisian uprising was to put the revolt down. I suspect this was
:12:07. > :12:14.less to do with humanitarian reasons and more to do with regime
:12:14. > :12:24.change, as we saw with the bombing of Gaddafi's homes, and stretching
:12:24. > :12:29.
:12:29. > :12:34.the UN mandate to breaking point by With Libya's transition taking
:12:34. > :12:37.place, Syria is also feeling the heat. The Arab League is waiting
:12:37. > :12:46.for a response from President Assad to its proposals for ending the
:12:46. > :12:51.bloodshed. President Assad, in a newspaper interview yesterday,
:12:51. > :12:55.warned of another Afghanistan, if foreign forces intervened in Syria,
:12:55. > :12:59.as they had in Libya. Our correspondent has been watching
:12:59. > :13:03.events from neighbouring Lebanon. Apocalyptic language from President
:13:03. > :13:07.Assad yesterday, and really, encapsulating what a lot of the
:13:07. > :13:17.region feels about the dilemma, when it comes to dealing with
:13:17. > :13:19.
:13:19. > :13:23.That's right. Syria is not a simple knock on the affair from Libya,
:13:23. > :13:28.Egypt, Tunisia and so on. The conditions in each of these
:13:28. > :13:34.countries are different. But Syria is certainly more complicated than
:13:34. > :13:38.any other. It has a very complex internal, sectarian situation and
:13:38. > :13:43.an interface with Israel so the whole Arab Israeli conflict comes
:13:43. > :13:48.into play with Syria's long history of opposition to Israel. There are
:13:48. > :13:53.a lot of consideration Sir that didn't hold true for the countries
:13:53. > :13:58.in North Africa, which were in a sense more homogenised and easier
:13:58. > :14:02.to deal with. President Asad was saying what everyone knows, that
:14:02. > :14:06.there are fault-lines that come together, ethnic and others, which
:14:06. > :14:10.means what happens there has a big effect on the region, both in the
:14:10. > :14:16.immediate vicinity in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, with sectarian
:14:16. > :14:20.issues, and in the wider region, politically. It is a complex case,
:14:20. > :14:24.but the bloodshed goes on and on and there are fears that that kind
:14:24. > :14:28.of fragmentation could happen anyway unless there is a resolution
:14:28. > :14:31.in sight, which is why the outside world is starting to scratch its
:14:31. > :14:36.head a bit and think, maybe we should be doing something about
:14:36. > :14:41.Syria. There was defiance in the tone of the interview yesterday. He
:14:41. > :14:44.said he had interviews -- introduced reforms, and
:14:44. > :14:51.pragmatically speaking, does he have the support of the key cities
:14:51. > :14:55.in Syria? Damascus and Aleppo are yet to come out and join the
:14:55. > :15:01.uprising, which means there are significant social classes,
:15:01. > :15:05.especially the Sunni Muslim middle- classes, the middle-class, the
:15:05. > :15:09.minorities, like that Christians who are largely with the regime
:15:09. > :15:16.because they fear the consequences of regime change. What he is trying
:15:16. > :15:23.to do for sale, at least, is a reform process. It took a little
:15:23. > :15:27.step forward with the first meeting and it has for months to complete
:15:27. > :15:30.its job. From the point of view of the opposition, that is not fast
:15:30. > :15:35.enough and they don't take it seriously because the reforms and
:15:35. > :15:40.changes they have seek makes no difference on the ground, and the
:15:40. > :15:43.bloodshed goes on, the torture, all very well documented and it still
:15:43. > :15:50.goes on. So there is a disconnection between the two
:15:50. > :15:55.narratives. Jim, thank you very much. In the last few minutes the
:15:55. > :15:59.UN group Unesco has planted Palestinians full membership --
:15:59. > :16:02.grunted. A small step from a body which protects world heritage site,
:16:03. > :16:07.but a significant one in the wider ambitions of Palestine to the
:16:07. > :16:12.estate. We can speak to John Dovaston. It would have been a
:16:12. > :16:16.surprise had they not done this, but they must be very pleased.
:16:16. > :16:20.are very pleased. I have been watching the Palestinian delegation
:16:20. > :16:26.celebrating in the hall in Paris and it was an overwhelming victory.
:16:26. > :16:32.107 countries voted in favour of Palestinian membership with only 14
:16:32. > :16:34.against with 49 abstentions. You are right. This membership of
:16:34. > :16:41.Unesco will not give the Palestinians the state they want,
:16:41. > :16:46.but they see it as a step, if you like, towards gaining international
:16:46. > :16:51.recognition and putting pressure on Israel. I have just lost the sound
:16:51. > :16:56.to you, I think, but this was a victory despite huge pressure from
:16:56. > :17:01.the United States, Israel and the European Union for the Palestinians
:17:01. > :17:07.not to go ahead. The US, for example will probably cut of all
:17:07. > :17:13.funding to Unesco under a law that was approved in the 90s that no UN
:17:13. > :17:19.body will get funding if Palestine is a full member state. The United
:17:19. > :17:23.States give 70 million US dollars a year to Unesco, 20 % of the Budget,
:17:23. > :17:29.and despite the threat the membership went ahead and approved
:17:29. > :17:35.the membership. We will leave it there if we have lost sound with
:17:35. > :17:38.you. You're watching GMT. As the snow falls over Occupy wall Street
:17:39. > :17:45.protesters, we speak to a hedge fund manager who wonders if the
:17:45. > :17:50.rift between demonstrators and the companies can ever be bridged.
:17:50. > :17:55.Let's see if we can bridge any gaps here. Where shall we start with?
:17:55. > :17:59.Qantas? Great news for the 70,000 passengers to have been stranded
:17:59. > :18:03.since Saturday since the airline suspended all operations. It is
:18:03. > :18:08.back in the sky, and the reason is the Australian independent tribunal
:18:08. > :18:14.ordered a permanent end to the industrial strike action which has
:18:14. > :18:19.rocked the airline. It is important to explain the background. There is
:18:19. > :18:24.expansion in Asia and our sorting, so the unions have been up in arms.
:18:24. > :18:27.Ever since then the reason that the see of Qantas order the suspension
:18:27. > :18:32.was he wanted a permanent end to the strikes, which is what he got
:18:32. > :18:39.that the broader picture is that the Western legacy have to shake-up
:18:39. > :18:43.the business model because they are struggling to compete. It is 20 %
:18:43. > :18:48.more expensive to run than other airlines. Yes, and the reason is?
:18:48. > :18:50.Let me see means like pensions, proper working practices and costs
:18:51. > :18:58.which means they have to get them under control which is part of the
:18:58. > :19:04.process. He summed up very well. are hearing by when estate
:19:04. > :19:10.operations should be back to normal. OK. ECB, Super Mario, why Super
:19:10. > :19:13.Mario? He is Italian, and we will get a bat, but he is highly
:19:13. > :19:18.regarded for what he has done in turning round the Italian central
:19:18. > :19:21.bank. Jean-Claude Trichet, it is his last day today and he has held
:19:21. > :19:26.the reins for eight years and the focus is his legacy. It's
:19:26. > :19:30.interesting because the first half of his reign where we saw euro-zone
:19:30. > :19:35.growth and moderate inflation and on top of that the financial system
:19:35. > :19:38.in the Eurozone was stable. It is likely to be overshadowed by the
:19:38. > :19:46.sovereign debt crisis, but all eyes on Super Mario. The biggest problem
:19:46. > :19:52.he may have at the moment is that he is Italian. He has to be
:19:53. > :19:58.regarded as an Italian central banker who likes easy money and low
:19:58. > :20:06.interest rates that he is in fact a very conservative central banker
:20:06. > :20:10.and he is going to try and avoid being regarded as a dark -- as a
:20:10. > :20:14.dark, so he might be more conservative. He may be more
:20:14. > :20:18.conservative, but all eyes will be on whether he can continue on the
:20:18. > :20:22.same path as the ECB is following. He is not very keen on buying all
:20:22. > :20:27.of these bonds. The was described as a very German Italian. He might
:20:27. > :20:35.have to be too. A quick look at the markets, I don't know if we have
:20:35. > :20:40.got them. It is more bank and lest ways. The markets are down and it
:20:40. > :20:45.is retreating. We want to hear what you think, so do get in touch with
:20:45. > :20:55.us at GMT. The best way to do that is to go to our website -
:20:55. > :20:58.
:20:58. > :21:00.This is GMT from BBC World News. I'm Tim Willcox. The headlines: The
:21:00. > :21:04.world's population hits the landmark figure of seven billion.
:21:04. > :21:10.The UN says it has doubled in the last 50 years and it will carry on
:21:10. > :21:13.climbing. NATO is officially ending its seven-month long mission in
:21:13. > :21:19.Libya - the new transitional authorities have asked it to keep a
:21:19. > :21:22.More than three million homes are without power in the United States
:21:22. > :21:26.after an unseasonal snowstorm blanketed the country's north east.
:21:26. > :21:35.At least nine people have died in snow-related accidents. From
:21:35. > :21:38.Washington, Zoe Conway reports. It is being called shock October,
:21:39. > :21:42.freakish no raining down on 60 million Americans. Could it be that
:21:42. > :21:49.Mother Nature has been playing a spectacular Hallowe'en trick? She
:21:49. > :21:53.has certainly broken records. Only four times in the past 135 years
:21:53. > :21:58.has New York's Central Park seen snow this early. I hate it, hate it,
:21:58. > :22:03.hated. I cannot express how much I hate it. This weather is just
:22:03. > :22:07.blowing us away. We are shocked. Misery has been felt across the
:22:07. > :22:09.country as downed power lines knocked out 3 million people
:22:09. > :22:16.electricity. For many residents it could be days before the power
:22:16. > :22:20.comes back. Nine people died in the storm as roads became treacherous.
:22:20. > :22:24.More than 1,000 flights were cancelled and some passengers were
:22:24. > :22:27.trapped on grounded planes for hours. In their autumnal glory, the
:22:27. > :22:36.White House trees were proved that the President hadn't got the date
:22:36. > :22:40.wrong. It is not ideal. Are you doing all right? And the first
:22:40. > :22:45.family were still needed to preside over trick or treating. Good to see
:22:45. > :22:49.you. Well the weather did not prevent him from doing his job, for
:22:49. > :22:57.many Americans it will take time for their lives to return to normal,
:22:57. > :23:01.The snow in New York was a taste of what's to come for the Occupy Wall
:23:01. > :23:03.Street demonstrators camping out in lower Manhattan. The movement
:23:03. > :23:07.against corporate influence in government which began six weeks
:23:07. > :23:10.ago has spread to many cities in the US and around the world, but
:23:10. > :23:13.not without controversy. Over the weekend, police took action against
:23:13. > :23:17.a number of Occupy protests in Virginia, Texas, Oregon and
:23:17. > :23:24.Colorado. On today's GMT, we explore the view from the other
:23:24. > :23:32.angle, the view from Wall Street. We can speak now to James Altucher.
:23:32. > :23:36.He is New York Managing Director of Formula Capital. Many of you guys
:23:36. > :23:41.dismiss the protesters as an incoherent jumble of groups, but
:23:41. > :23:46.you ignore them at their peril, don't you? I don't think so. You
:23:46. > :23:50.said yourself, they are protesting against corporate influence in
:23:50. > :23:56.government, so why isn't there and occupy Washington DC? We always
:23:56. > :24:00.hear about this one, but the people working on Wall Street on normally
:24:00. > :24:03.low level back office administrators and officials of the
:24:03. > :24:06.different banks. They have lost their homes and lost their savings
:24:06. > :24:12.and pensions and now they have to deal with all of these protesters
:24:12. > :24:16.yelling in their faces when they are not guilty. Where is Occupied
:24:16. > :24:21.Washington DC? When you say you people, we are not sure what you
:24:21. > :24:25.mean. I used to live on Wall Street but I don't work on Wall Street.
:24:25. > :24:28.think a lot of the anger is that some of the people in the financial
:24:28. > :24:34.industry are getting richer where is the the rest of this life is
:24:34. > :24:38.getting much tighter. When you say the rest of us, a lot of people
:24:38. > :24:44.want jobs and they don't want their homes foreclose on. They want to
:24:44. > :24:48.have a chance at success and the so-called American dream. Again,
:24:48. > :24:54.who initiated the bail-out? To improve double the compensation? It
:24:54. > :24:57.is not the low level workers -- work is on Wall Street it is the
:24:57. > :25:02.chief executives on Park Avenue or in Connecticut, it is the
:25:02. > :25:07.government in Washington. I think the anger, I understand that, and
:25:07. > :25:11.we are all angry, but let's get to the root of the problem if we want
:25:11. > :25:16.to have changed, and it is not sitting on Wall Street, it is
:25:16. > :25:19.sitting in Washington DC where many of the policies were initiated.
:25:19. > :25:23.Does Wall Street share any of the blame when you look for example at
:25:23. > :25:29.the hedge funds, the derivatives markets, the slicing up a debt,
:25:29. > :25:32.money being made each time that is done. Of course, but all of those
:25:32. > :25:39.see he does have quit or been fired or throw out and had their golden
:25:39. > :25:46.parachutes. All of them? Leman brothers, a lot of the big guys who
:25:46. > :25:50.were there are now gone. Lehmann Brothers is demolished. Meryl Lynch
:25:50. > :25:54.got absorb into Bank of America, which is based in North Carolina,
:25:54. > :26:00.so I think at some point you have to say he will be protesting
:26:00. > :26:03.against? Why I'll be sitting here in a park next to Wall Street when
:26:03. > :26:07.the corporations are maybe thousands of miles away or even
:26:07. > :26:10.just five miles away. What are we protesting about and what do we
:26:10. > :26:15.want? Right now I have heard everything from the banks not
:26:15. > :26:20.lending to health care, and of course a lot of scapegoating and
:26:20. > :26:24.accusations of anti-Semitism coming out of Occupied Wall Street. Who
:26:24. > :26:28.are they protesting against and why the location they are in? I have
:26:28. > :26:32.not heard a reasonable argument. Many of the corporates are still in
:26:32. > :26:35.Washington DC. It is a new phenomenon, so that is what makes
:26:35. > :26:39.it difficult for us to get our heads around, this is spreading
:26:39. > :26:46.almost like the internet. There is a wide range of complaints but they
:26:46. > :26:50.have to focus themselves somewhere. I agree, but look at the last time
:26:50. > :26:54.there were massive demonstrations across the US. 1968, when we were