31/10/2011 GMT with George Alagiah

It is getting crowded out here. From today, we are sharing the

earth with 7 billion others. The global population has doubled in

just 50 years. We will hear how some countries want to get even

Welcome to GMT. Also coming up - the last few hours of the NATO

mission in Libya. The allies say it is a major success, but at what

cost? And a night to chill the soul, as an unseasonal snowstorm hits the

north-east of the United States. It is lunchtime in London, 8:30am in

New York. Today is the daily chosen by the United Nations to mark the

arrival of the 7 billionth occupant on the earth. What matters about

today is the impact of the soaring population on the planet. We will

be live in Africa to talk about it in a moment. First, this report

from our correspondent. It is more about symbols than exact science,

when it comes to global population. The UN has declared that in each

country, one baby born on 31st October becomes the 7 billionth

person. There are mini Tanni candidates. The Philippines'

contribution is this baby. Blissfully unaware of her celebrity

status. Born into a crowded public hospital in Manila, she was greeted

with a chocolate cake and speeches. Family planning is a controversial

issue in this Catholic country, and her mother has decided to defy

Church teaching and practise birth control. This little boy is that

chosen one in Russia. But a quarrel is brewing. In the Far East of the

country, local politicians have declared another candidate as the

first to be born on this day. Russia has a shrinking population.

But India has the opposite problem. It has been projected that in 2025,

its population will overtake China's. There is also a sex ratio

problem, because of a cultural preference for boys. So in one

region, they said they would be nominating seven girls. In 20

years' time, there will be far less girls than boys at a marriage age.

That means that girls will be brought in from different states.

They will be brought in from a different society, and they will be

less empowered to deal on equal terms with their husband. China is

also dogged by a shortage of girls. But the government there believes

its draconian family planning policy has paid dividends. Its

problem now is not enough young Chinese to support a huge elderly

population. So, 7 billion and counting. And for many, the key

question is, how to manage the earth's scarce resources so that

babies born now have a bright future. Much of the world

population growth is coming from Africa. In Zambia, half the

population is aged under 16. Nigeria, already the largest

country on the continent, is also seeing the demographic boom. Our

correspondent joins us from Lagos, a city of 15 million and still

growing. Yes, welcome to what has been called the baby factory by its

director. This is a maternity hospital in Lagos, the post-natal

ward, with about 50 women here, who have given birth in the past few

days. There is an extraordinary atmosphere here, as some of the

Dad's turn up, nappies are being changed, milk is being fed. There

is lots of breast feeding going on as well. One of the women worthy of

much congratulations is this one with me now. How are you and your

little one doing? Fine, thanks. He is a nice boy. I gave birth on

Tuesday, it is nearly a week now. He seems fine. Is he your first

one? Yes, and I would like to have two more. Just two more, that's

quite small by Nigerian standards. Before, about five years ago...

sorry, we seem to have lost our correspondent there. Problems with

the satellite. We can bring you some breaking news coming in from

Paris. Unesco, the United Nations cultural organisation, has voted in

favour of giving the Palestinians full membership. 107 votes against

14, with 15 abstentions. The United States and Israel were firmly

opposed. It is going to cost Unesco dear, because having approved this,

they will lose their funding from the US, which amounts to some 22%.

It is not clear who will step in to meet that. They needed the backing

of to thirds of the 193 members, but this is another step, really,

towards the aspiration of full statehood. That news just in.

Unesco, the world heritage organisation, making that decision.

Some of the other headlines. The Australian airline Qantas has

resumed flights following the industrial dispute. The company

says services will be back to normal by Tuesday. An independent

tribunal forced the airline and the unions to negotiate. A suicide

bomber has killed five people in a United Nations building in Kandahar

in the southern Afghanistan. The Taliban has claim responsibility.

Floodwaters are still wreaking havoc across much of Thailand,

swamping suburbs. Much of the capital appears to have escaped the

worst of the floods. There is worry about disease in the outer suburbs.

NATO is officially ending its seven-month long mission in Libya.

The operation began in March, one month after the uprising against

Colonel Gaddafi started. NATO has been asked to keep a presence in

the country, and discussions are ongoing. Let's go to Tripoli, to

speak to our correspondent. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of the NTC,

asked NATO to stay until the end of the year, so are they disappointed

about this move? I apologise, the line is not very good, but as far

as the NTC is concerned, the war against Colonel Gaddafi is over.

But they definitely want NATO to stay. The Secretary-General of NATO,

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is here now. He will be speaking with the

leaders of the Transitional Council. And he will be talking to them

about what kind of a role NATO member states can play as Libya

builds its new future, whether that is securing the borders,

decommissioning of weapons, or, most importantly, according to the

defence ministry here, building a national military. On the ground at

least, the war against Colonel Gaddafi's forces was fought by

individual militias, nominally loyal to the Transitional Council,

but there are quite fond of their weapons and their new-found power,

and it will be difficult to draw Let's go to our central London

studio, to speak to a Conservative MP, who opposed Britain joining the

NATO mission in Libya. Anders Fogh Rasmussen says this was one of the

most successful NATO missions yet - do you accept you called this one

wrong? Not at all. None of us that doubted that NATO would prevail at

the end of the day. It was essentially an uneven battle

against a tinpot dictator. But victory in itself does not justify

intervention. War Nige to be a measure of last resort, and this is

why I opposed our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

were calling for a diplomatic negotiation, but Colonel Gaddafi

never had any intention of leaving, did he? We must remember here that

there were alternatives to war before we committed our NATO forces.

For example, Egypt had a vastly superior air force, was calling for

un no-fly zone, was in a better position to put it in, and was

ideally located. We should have explored these options first.

Intervention should always be a lost resort once we have explored

all other options, and that includes diplomacy. What about the

moral high ground in this? Had NATO not intervened, Benghazi could have

been the scene of a massacre. not know that for sure. I spend

quite a lot of time there, and when you see the number of tanks and

artillery which were destroyed by NATO, you realise that Colonel

Gaddafi was within a few miles of the city. Don't forget, Gaddafi was

having trouble taking the much smaller town of Misrata in the West.

But also, Egypt had a vastly superior air force to Libya, it

could have put in a no-fly zone overnight. I think NATO getting

involved stretched the UN mandate, and basically, the objective was

regime change. It was in my view the longest assassination attempt

in history. If we talk about the humanitarian reasons for

intervention, we must not forget, why have we not intervened in

Bahrain, in Yemen? These are locations where tinpot dictators

are putting down their own people, smaller countries. Answer that

question, is it just because Gaddafi had no friends? There is an

element of that, but there has to be some consistency with regard to

our foreign policy interventions. France's initial reaction to the

Tunisian uprising was to put the revolt down. I suspect this was

less to do with humanitarian reasons and more to do with regime

change, as we saw with the bombing of Gaddafi's homes, and stretching

the UN mandate to breaking point by With Libya's transition taking

place, Syria is also feeling the heat. The Arab League is waiting

for a response from President Assad to its proposals for ending the

bloodshed. President Assad, in a newspaper interview yesterday,

warned of another Afghanistan, if foreign forces intervened in Syria,

as they had in Libya. Our correspondent has been watching

events from neighbouring Lebanon. Apocalyptic language from President

Assad yesterday, and really, encapsulating what a lot of the

region feels about the dilemma, when it comes to dealing with

That's right. Syria is not a simple knock on the affair from Libya,

Egypt, Tunisia and so on. The conditions in each of these

countries are different. But Syria is certainly more complicated than

any other. It has a very complex internal, sectarian situation and

an interface with Israel so the whole Arab Israeli conflict comes

into play with Syria's long history of opposition to Israel. There are

a lot of consideration Sir that didn't hold true for the countries

in North Africa, which were in a sense more homogenised and easier

to deal with. President Asad was saying what everyone knows, that

there are fault-lines that come together, ethnic and others, which

means what happens there has a big effect on the region, both in the

immediate vicinity in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, with sectarian

issues, and in the wider region, politically. It is a complex case,

but the bloodshed goes on and on and there are fears that that kind

of fragmentation could happen anyway unless there is a resolution

in sight, which is why the outside world is starting to scratch its

head a bit and think, maybe we should be doing something about

Syria. There was defiance in the tone of the interview yesterday. He

said he had interviews -- introduced reforms, and

pragmatically speaking, does he have the support of the key cities

in Syria? Damascus and Aleppo are yet to come out and join the

uprising, which means there are significant social classes,

especially the Sunni Muslim middle- classes, the middle-class, the

minorities, like that Christians who are largely with the regime

because they fear the consequences of regime change. What he is trying

to do for sale, at least, is a reform process. It took a little

step forward with the first meeting and it has for months to complete

its job. From the point of view of the opposition, that is not fast

enough and they don't take it seriously because the reforms and

changes they have seek makes no difference on the ground, and the

bloodshed goes on, the torture, all very well documented and it still

goes on. So there is a disconnection between the two

narratives. Jim, thank you very much. In the last few minutes the

UN group Unesco has planted Palestinians full membership --

grunted. A small step from a body which protects world heritage site,

but a significant one in the wider ambitions of Palestine to the

estate. We can speak to John Dovaston. It would have been a

surprise had they not done this, but they must be very pleased.

are very pleased. I have been watching the Palestinian delegation

celebrating in the hall in Paris and it was an overwhelming victory.

107 countries voted in favour of Palestinian membership with only 14

against with 49 abstentions. You are right. This membership of

Unesco will not give the Palestinians the state they want,

but they see it as a step, if you like, towards gaining international

recognition and putting pressure on Israel. I have just lost the sound

to you, I think, but this was a victory despite huge pressure from

the United States, Israel and the European Union for the Palestinians

not to go ahead. The US, for example will probably cut of all

funding to Unesco under a law that was approved in the 90s that no UN

body will get funding if Palestine is a full member state. The United

States give 70 million US dollars a year to Unesco, 20 % of the Budget,

and despite the threat the membership went ahead and approved

the membership. We will leave it there if we have lost sound with

you. You're watching GMT. As the snow falls over Occupy wall Street

protesters, we speak to a hedge fund manager who wonders if the

rift between demonstrators and the companies can ever be bridged.

Let's see if we can bridge any gaps here. Where shall we start with?

Qantas? Great news for the 70,000 passengers to have been stranded

since Saturday since the airline suspended all operations. It is

back in the sky, and the reason is the Australian independent tribunal

ordered a permanent end to the industrial strike action which has

rocked the airline. It is important to explain the background. There is

expansion in Asia and our sorting, so the unions have been up in arms.

Ever since then the reason that the see of Qantas order the suspension

was he wanted a permanent end to the strikes, which is what he got

that the broader picture is that the Western legacy have to shake-up

the business model because they are struggling to compete. It is 20 %

more expensive to run than other airlines. Yes, and the reason is?

Let me see means like pensions, proper working practices and costs

which means they have to get them under control which is part of the

process. He summed up very well. are hearing by when estate

operations should be back to normal. OK. ECB, Super Mario, why Super

Mario? He is Italian, and we will get a bat, but he is highly

regarded for what he has done in turning round the Italian central

bank. Jean-Claude Trichet, it is his last day today and he has held

the reins for eight years and the focus is his legacy. It's

interesting because the first half of his reign where we saw euro-zone

growth and moderate inflation and on top of that the financial system

in the Eurozone was stable. It is likely to be overshadowed by the

sovereign debt crisis, but all eyes on Super Mario. The biggest problem

he may have at the moment is that he is Italian. He has to be

regarded as an Italian central banker who likes easy money and low

interest rates that he is in fact a very conservative central banker

and he is going to try and avoid being regarded as a dark -- as a

dark, so he might be more conservative. He may be more

conservative, but all eyes will be on whether he can continue on the

same path as the ECB is following. He is not very keen on buying all

of these bonds. The was described as a very German Italian. He might

have to be too. A quick look at the markets, I don't know if we have

got them. It is more bank and lest ways. The markets are down and it

is retreating. We want to hear what you think, so do get in touch with

us at GMT. The best way to do that is to go to our website -

This is GMT from BBC World News. I'm Tim Willcox. The headlines: The

world's population hits the landmark figure of seven billion.

The UN says it has doubled in the last 50 years and it will carry on

climbing. NATO is officially ending its seven-month long mission in

Libya - the new transitional authorities have asked it to keep a

More than three million homes are without power in the United States

after an unseasonal snowstorm blanketed the country's north east.

At least nine people have died in snow-related accidents. From

Washington, Zoe Conway reports. It is being called shock October,

freakish no raining down on 60 million Americans. Could it be that

Mother Nature has been playing a spectacular Hallowe'en trick? She

has certainly broken records. Only four times in the past 135 years

has New York's Central Park seen snow this early. I hate it, hate it,

hated. I cannot express how much I hate it. This weather is just

blowing us away. We are shocked. Misery has been felt across the

country as downed power lines knocked out 3 million people

electricity. For many residents it could be days before the power

comes back. Nine people died in the storm as roads became treacherous.

More than 1,000 flights were cancelled and some passengers were

trapped on grounded planes for hours. In their autumnal glory, the

White House trees were proved that the President hadn't got the date

wrong. It is not ideal. Are you doing all right? And the first

family were still needed to preside over trick or treating. Good to see

you. Well the weather did not prevent him from doing his job, for

many Americans it will take time for their lives to return to normal,

The snow in New York was a taste of what's to come for the Occupy Wall

Street demonstrators camping out in lower Manhattan. The movement

against corporate influence in government which began six weeks

ago has spread to many cities in the US and around the world, but

not without controversy. Over the weekend, police took action against

a number of Occupy protests in Virginia, Texas, Oregon and

Colorado. On today's GMT, we explore the view from the other

angle, the view from Wall Street. We can speak now to James Altucher.

He is New York Managing Director of Formula Capital. Many of you guys

dismiss the protesters as an incoherent jumble of groups, but

you ignore them at their peril, don't you? I don't think so. You

said yourself, they are protesting against corporate influence in

government, so why isn't there and occupy Washington DC? We always

hear about this one, but the people working on Wall Street on normally

low level back office administrators and officials of the

different banks. They have lost their homes and lost their savings

and pensions and now they have to deal with all of these protesters

yelling in their faces when they are not guilty. Where is Occupied

Washington DC? When you say you people, we are not sure what you

mean. I used to live on Wall Street but I don't work on Wall Street.

think a lot of the anger is that some of the people in the financial

industry are getting richer where is the the rest of this life is

getting much tighter. When you say the rest of us, a lot of people

want jobs and they don't want their homes foreclose on. They want to

have a chance at success and the so-called American dream. Again,

who initiated the bail-out? To improve double the compensation? It

is not the low level workers -- work is on Wall Street it is the

chief executives on Park Avenue or in Connecticut, it is the

government in Washington. I think the anger, I understand that, and

we are all angry, but let's get to the root of the problem if we want

to have changed, and it is not sitting on Wall Street, it is

sitting in Washington DC where many of the policies were initiated.

Does Wall Street share any of the blame when you look for example at

the hedge funds, the derivatives markets, the slicing up a debt,

money being made each time that is done. Of course, but all of those

see he does have quit or been fired or throw out and had their golden

parachutes. All of them? Leman brothers, a lot of the big guys who

were there are now gone. Lehmann Brothers is demolished. Meryl Lynch

got absorb into Bank of America, which is based in North Carolina,

so I think at some point you have to say he will be protesting

against? Why I'll be sitting here in a park next to Wall Street when

the corporations are maybe thousands of miles away or even

just five miles away. What are we protesting about and what do we

want? Right now I have heard everything from the banks not

lending to health care, and of course a lot of scapegoating and

accusations of anti-Semitism coming out of Occupied Wall Street. Who

are they protesting against and why the location they are in? I have

not heard a reasonable argument. Many of the corporates are still in

Washington DC. It is a new phenomenon, so that is what makes

it difficult for us to get our heads around, this is spreading

almost like the internet. There is a wide range of complaints but they

have to focus themselves somewhere. I agree, but look at the last time

there were massive demonstrations across the US. 1968, when we were