12/04/2016 Outside Source

Hello, I'm Ros Atkins, this is Outside Source.

Gloomy news from the International Monetary Fund I'm afraid.

Growth forecasts are down - again - details coming shortly.

We've got shocking new statistics from the UN showing a huge rise

in the number of children being used as suicide bombers by Boko Haram.

The Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff has accused her

Vice President of being one of the leaders of

This story was released a few seconds ago.

Stephen Hawking is backing a new project to send miniature

Plus what are chatbots and why are facebook

The International Monetary Fund is an organisation funded

by the most of the countries in the world - it's aim

is to preserve economic stability and to respond to financial crises.

Recently it has not been a font of optimism -

it has again downgraded its forecast for global economic growth.

3.2% for this year is the prediction.

Wherever you're watching, this is relevant to you.

Russia is facing another year of decline, hit by low oil prices

The largest downgrade of all is for Nigeria,

which again has been hit by the low price of crude oil.

Brazil is forecast to see its economy shrink -

the huge political crisis there at the moment

And then two of the most important India and China -

both still predicted to have significant growth,

but that growth is slowing in the case of China.

Here's the IMF's chief economist explaining the global downgrade.

We have seen a loss of momentum in advanced economies, in the second

half of last year. Particularly Japan, but also the United States.

The eurozone continues to move at a sub dude space. We have seen

continuing head winds in emerging markets, including some large

markets. That adds up to a slower picture of growth. If you want to

follow the IMF on this, they have a Twitter feed.

I spoke to Andrew Walker about why this is happening.

It is a view in the IMF and the World Bank that we are looking at a

period in which the potential for the world economy to grow is weaker

than we thought. Productivity, the amount that businesses can produce

with every worker they employ is not going to grow as rapidly as we

thought. One idea is perhaps the technology transformation that

industry has been going through maybe running out of steam. So those

concerns are there and the IMF is wary that the fact that we have not

really had growth coming back after the financial crisis does mean the

word economy that is much more vulnerable to unexpected shocks.

There is more chance of going into a period of what they call protracted

stagnation. The IMF was created after the war and the idea was when

necessary it could intervene to help move the global economy, what are

the tools available to it now? The IMF is in the business of coming to

the aid of countries in crisis or giving advice if they're not

desperately in need of financial help. What its calling for is

countries that have the space to do more with the government finances to

spend more on infrastructure, on roads and telecommunications and

improving the skills of the workforce, not every country has the

space to do it, but some do. They would like to see more by way of

reforms to labour markets and markets for goods and services to

make it easier for businesses to invest to create new jobs and to

create goods and services that people may want to buy. Some viewers

may be thinking 3.2% growth is growth, what is the problem? It is

growth and it is faster growth than world population growth, so on

average world living standards will continue to rise. But it is slower

than people thought. So if it is growing more slowly, we are making

less progress in reducing poverty and the IMF is worried that it is

closer to what they call stall speed and it could be pushed off that path

of passable but not very good growth and into contraction and recession.

Thank you. There is another important strand to this story

talking about Christine Lagarde, a powerful French politician who, has

a keen interest in the referendum on EU membership in the UK. Christine

Lagarde has been saying this personally and now the IMF is

endorsing her, Brexit could cause damage. This would be bad for

Britain and Europe's economy and bad for the global economy. Well, in 25

minutes I will play you a new report from our economics editor on just

this issue. He has been assessing the analysis of the IMF on Brexit.

Now to Africa. Shocking new details

on Boko Haram in Nigeria. The UN says three quarters

of its suicide bombers are girls - many of whom have often been drugged

and or sexually abused. Last year 44 children

were used to carry out attacks in Cameroon,

Chad and Nigeria. Boko Haram is an Islamist group,

it pledges allegiance to the Islamic State group and it's

responsible for 1.3 million children being uprooted in four

countries around Lake Chad region. That has ramification for children.

Our security correspondent has been covering this. He is based in

Nigeria and knows west Africa, sorry is based in Nairobi, but knows

Nigeria well. They're saying there has been an increasing number of

young children used in suicide attacks and a large number are

girls. That is because these children are seen as innocent when

they move around in public. It is very unlikely that people would

suspect that they pose a threat. Now Unicef says the reverse is happening

and as the attacks increase involving children, children are now

being viewed with suspicion and previously when they were seen as

the tar get of the attacks, they're now seen as the threat themselves.

So the number of children being used is increasing, is the number of

attacks across the board by Boko Haram increasing too? Well, the

number of attacks over all I wouldn't say is increasing, but we

see the proportion is now skewed largely towards suicide bombings,

because the Government, the military, Nigeria's military and the

allies from the region have been able to push the Boko Haram

militants away from the towns and they're using suicide bombers who

are hard to detect and can mingle with the public and then carry out

their deadly attacks, that are usually targeting the maximum

casualties possible. We have seen barbaric acts by Islamic State and

IS has justified them, I wonder if Boko Haram has offered any

justification however warped it may be for its use of girls and boys in

this way? Well generally it sees these people as its own and it feels

like it can use them how it wishes. Of course these people are taught

they're going to paradise. So as they are being pushed in to carry

out attacks many are told they're going to paradise. Others are

believed to be drugged so they're not going into it willfully and the

explosives are said to be strapped around them and possibly remotely

detonated. It sees as it longs as it carries out its attack.

The political crisis in Brazil has escalated.

The President says she is the victim of

an attempted coup and has pointed the finger

Yesterday, in Brazil, a congressional

committee recommended that

President Dilma Rousseff is impeached.

She's accused of manipulating government accounts -

And the President is pushing back hard.

The President says she's suffering "unimaginable abuses"

in the impeachment process and that the vice president

is "rubbing his hands in glee while carrying out a farcical leak

Here is the BBC's correspondent in Rio, Wyre Davies. Talk us through

this leak. Well this committee was deliberating and voting in congress

yesterday on whether or not to recommend the impeachment of the

president. Dilma Rousseff's vice president, Michel Temer released a

tape and in that aid owe tape he read out a 14 minute speech in which

he seemed to be accepting the presidency, because the president

has been forced to step aside. The problem was that that vote doesn't

happen until this weekend. In the full house of congress. And there is

no guarantee that the president will lose that vote. This one cordial

relationship between Michel Temer and Dilma Rousseff has broken down

and Dilma Rousseff not only repeating her accusations that

congress is plotting a coup, but that the chief architect of the coup

is her once-trusted ally, her vice-president, Michel Temer. Here

is a clip of the leak. TRANSLATION: As the lower house decides with a

significant number of votes to open the impeachment proceedings against

the president, many people sought me out to give some preliminary remarks

that I'm doing with modesty, caution and moderation, but as a natural

substitute of president. Watching this from here, it peoples like the

story is feverish. Are we getting a correct impression? Absolutely. The

presidency of Dilma Rousseff hangs in t balance, by the end of the week

she could be forced out, for 180 days, while her impeachment is

debated. These are critical days for the president. She has seen her

support in congress dwindle and Michel Temer is not from her own

party, but from an opposition party, but that was part of coalition

government. They have now left the Government. They're campaigning for

other impeachment. But the Dilma Rousseff and her ally say it is a

ridiculous situation and it is a coup against a democratically

elected government and point out that most of those people sitting in

judgment on the president are accused of far bigger crimes and far

worse crimes of corruption than she is accused of. The technicality on

which she is being tried or will be tried is of manipulating government

accounts. That is not as bad as some of multimillion dollar corruption

scandals in which other politicians are implicated. Thank you. I suspect

we will be talking about this again. It is a huge test of Brazil's

institutions. In a few minutes we are talking about chatbots and why

Facebook will be talking about a major investment in them.

More than 2,000 pupils in Edinburgh affected by the closure of 17

schools over fears over the safety of buildings should be

Contingency measures have been put in place for those

Architect Malcolm Fraser explained what he thinks went wrong.

Perhaps going to happen in situations where there is a failure

of oversight and in these sorts of contracts architects are employed

directly and engineers are employed directly by the contractor. They

have no professional role to stand outside what is going on on site and

inspect things and note if these things happen. So it is like the

banking industry f we rely on self regulation, things tend to go wrong.

The contracts should be run in a more proper way and we see the

problems if we allow companies, banks, contractors to self regulate.

This is Outside Source live from the BBC newsroom.

Our lead story is the International Monetary Fund have

lowered their forecasts for the global economy again.

The falling price of oil is being blamed for much of the worries.

And some story fwrs the BBC world service.

a German TV comic has been placed under police protection

after he read an obscene poem about the Turkish President Erdogan

Mr Erdogan has filed a criminal complaint against the satirist.

BBC Chinese reports more than 80% of rural wells in China's north-east

contain water that's unsafe for drinking.

Officials aren't disputing this urban areas across the country

And a Portuguese mixed martial arts fighter has died after an event

He underwent emergency brain surgery but unfortunately died today.

Story is in the BBC's most read list.

Revenues from music sales around the world have increased

significantly for the first time in nearly twenty years.

Billboard tells us why. It says revenues, digital revenues surpassed

physical. This is about the fact we are spending more on streaming music

and less on CDs and vinyl. And here is the organisation that put

together the stats, the international federation of

phonographic industry. It says streaming is driving up rev news. If

you go back 20 years not many people would think they would be sitting as

pretty as they are now. Now tax. Major corporations in

Europe could be forced Here's a look a EU plans for greater

transparency by Leana Hosea. Avoidance costs the EU between 60

and 80 US dollars a year. That is big bucks when many countries are

struggling. The new rules mean big companies earns over $850 million a

year will be forced to publish their income and tax Reports from which

ever EU country they operate in. How many companies will it affect? 6,500

globally, including Apple, Google and Amazon. But some say it does not

go far enough, it does not force disclosure in all countries. Big

business fear it may be bad for them.

A new report on a a plan to send a spacecraft the size

Stephen Hawking is one of those backing it.

For thousands of years, people have dreamed of one day

The world's most famous scientist, Stephen Hawking,

thinks that that day will come very soon.

Astronomers believe there is reasonable a chance

of an earth-like planet orbiting one of the stars

There are no greater heights to aspire to than the stars.

Technological developments in the last two decades

and in the future make it in principle possible

Already, a probe has been sent to Pluto.

That is seven-and-a-half billion miles away.

And Voyager 1 has reached the edge of the solar system,

The plan is to send spacecraft to a star in another solar system.

That is a staggering 25 trillion miles from earth.

Using current technology, it would take a spacecraft 30,000

years to get to our closest star, but by making them

Over the years the size of spacecraft have shrunk.

in the '80s this micro satellite was used for earth observation,

in the '90s, this nano-satellite was launched for communications.

The ultimate aim of the new research programme is to make

To cram all the cameras and instruments you have in these,

The idea is to launch these mini-spacecraft into

A giant laser on earth would give each one a powerful push,

Life on earth faces danger from astronomical events likes

asteroids or super novas and there are dangers from ourselves.

If we are to survive that, we must ultimately go to stars.

Here in Surrey where they pioneered the development of mini satellites

30 years ago, scientists believe it will be possible.

What we did back in the '80s was considered very

whacky, now small satellites now are all the fashion.

This is currently a whacky sounding idea,

Now it is not just whacky, it is just difficult.

There is still a lot of work needed to develop the technology.

But scientists believe that although it will be difficult,

What was once a distant dream, could very soon become reality.

Next at story about the sale of hair in India. There is a big domestic

and a big export market and often women who are Hindus will have their

hair cut at the temple. This temple in southern India is the most

visited holy place in the world. 40 to 50 million pilgrims visit each

year. It is also one of the largest collectors of human hair in the

world, 500 tonnes a year. Most of hair weaves and wis in the word

originate here. It is considered a virtue to have long hair. So why are

they giving it up? Sacrificing hair to the Gods is thought to bring

luck. What does it feel like when the

barber was shaving your head? It is not just temple hair that is

collected. 150 rue pees. OK. Not bad. Is she

happy? It is a good way? Yes. Most of the

hair comes from the temple? It comes from the temple and other temples

other. 80% of the hair comes from the temple. So that is a lot of

hair? Absolutely. How many tonnes a month? Around 10 to 15. Here we have

the steam curly section? Yes. This is what is particularly popular in

Africa? Yes. It is very labour intense swrif, winding the hair

around a metal stick and then what happens? I goes for steam process.

In a steam machine? Yes. That keeps the curls? Yes. I have seen my

future is in Africa. Because I have seen hundreds of African women when

they come into our shop, I see the eyes gleaming with happiness and

they see so much hair. Their joys, you can't see how joyful they are,

because they think their beauty is enhanced by wearing this hair

phenomenally. That is it for the first half of outside source, see

you in a minute. Hello, here in the UK in early

spring it is hard to imagine the temperatures that have been

experienced in some parts of India. Here we have a new