13/07/2012 BBC World News

A massacre in Syria leaves up to 200 people dead, the UN says it's

trying to get observers into the village.

We will seek verification of facts. If and when there is a credible

ceasefire. A train hits a truck carrying farm

workers in South Africa, killing at least 19.

Political tensions ease in Thailand as a court rules the Government is

not threatening the monarchy. Welcome to BBC World News. I'm

David Eades. Also in this programme:

What implications for the global economy as China reports its

slowest growth in more than three years?

And more expected about the disastrous trading strategy at JP

Morgan Chase that cost the bank at Thank you very much for being with

The head of the UN mission in Syria says his team trying to reach the

site of what could be one of the worst massacres the country has

seen begins the uprising began in March last year. 200 people may

have been killed. It is in the farming village of Tremseh. Kofi

Annan says he is shocked by the killings. Opposition activists

claim that militiamen conducted the massacre after after Tremseh was

bombarded. The head of the UN observers mission held a news

conference to speak about the massacre.

The observers still based in the different provinces have the view

of surrounding areas and are engaging with the parties on the

ground. We can verify continuous fighting

yesterday. In the area of Tremseh. This

involved indirect fire as well as helicopters.

We stand ready to go in and seek verification of facts if and when

when there is a credible ceasefire. A representative has been speaking

to eyewitnesses. Over 160 citizens, up to 200

citizens were killed yesterday in the town, Tremseh. What we have

been informed yesterday early in the morning, Syrian regular army

started shelling the area. There was after that clashes between

armed groups and the Syrian regular army. In the middle of the day,

they stormed the city and started killing the people with guns and

some of them have been slaughtered. They have been seen also, 30 bodies,

totally, completely burned in the city. Also some of them have been

killed with knives and there is too many bodies.

It is clear there are still confusion as to who has done the

killing here and Jim Muir our correspondent, said in terms of

pictures, we have just seen a handful of the bodies of young men.

Is there anymore that convinces you or gives awe clear picture as as to

who has done what? It is very clear for us that this

massacre has been made by the militia and the regular army and

intelligence people. And what makes it that clear? You

said there were clashes between the two sides.

There is also - there was clashes and also between the people who

have been killed, members of the Syrian army defending the city and

trying to protect their civilians in the city. The most people who

have been killed are civilians from the city and there is also members

of the armed groups. They were protecting the people of the city.

To South Africa now where officials say 19 people have been killed

after a train hit a truck carrying farm workers at a railway crossing.

The crash took place in the eastern province of Mpumalanga. Details are

still coming in. One report says at least 24 other people were injured.

Earlier, I spoke to our correspondent in Johannesburg,

Milton Nkosi, who gave me the latest. It is not clear what

happened and what caused the this accident, but local reports seem to

suggest that a truck full of farm workers may have gone on a railway

level crossing without checking properly. That's when a goods train

hit the truck and that's where you have at least 19 dead. That's what

the paramedics on the ground are saying.

Right, obviously, we wait for more details to come in. Presumably

these level crossings are many in number and unmanned?

Very much so. South Africa has a wide and probably the best road

road network on the African Continent, but on an annual basis

over 10,000 fatalities from road accidents alone so there is

certainly a problem with the driving and probably the road

markings, but in this case, given that we don't know the exact

details, it appears that the truck driver may not have looked properly

before crossing the railway line. Good news for the governing party

of Thailand. I has been told that its plans to change the

constitution do not threaten the monarchy and the party itself does

not have to disband. The Constitutional Court dismissed

petitions against the proposed changes but it did say there would

have to be a referendum on the changes it is putting forward.

Jonah Fisher is outside the court in Bangkok.

Many people are breathing a sigh of relief, the decision taken has

averted a political crisis and potentially serious disturbances on

the streets here. People were out in force in anticipation of the

court verdict. Many of them seem to have now dispersed. The key

question which the court had to address was whether plans to

redraft the constitution amounted to a threat to the Thai monarchy

and the position of the Thai king within the Thai political system

and the eight judges ruled that they had seen no evidence that

there was a threat to the Thai king and the Thai monarchy as part of

the constitutional changes. It wasn't all in favour of the

governing party. The court ruled they couldn't draft a new

constitution through Parliament. The court ruled there had to be a

referendum first. Then things could move forward and they could begin

drafting it. If they want to amend the previous one, that's an option

open to them on a piecemeal basis. The constitution court has reigned

them in on other matters. But to what extent were they

looking to effect the -- affect the role of the monarchy in its

proposals? Well, the thing which many people

found ludicrous about this whole thing, they made it clear from the

start that they had no plans to change the role of the monarchy in

the Thai political political system. This was something which was

suggested by their opponents in Parliament. This was the reason

behind them proposing change to the constitution. They made it clear at

the hearings that they had no interest in changing the position

of the Thai monarchy within the political system here and it

appears that the constitutional court took them at their word and

that's why they ruled in their favour and ruled they would not

have to disband and their senior members would not face the

punishment which opponents would like.

The Olympics are two weeks away. London 2012 starts in a fortnight.

The Olympic torch is getting closer. Here is one very lucky and happy

young man who is parading the torch on that long relay into London. He

is in the county of Dorset in the West Country at the moment. He is

heading towards the town of Swanage. He is beginning his, what is a 300

meter, trot taking in the crowds there in South-west England as the

torch wends its way. I would say slowly, it is slowly while they are

running with it, but the torch does disappear into the bus from time to

time as they nip from village to village and town to town. Two weeks

to go and London 2012 will be upon We will have more about the

Olympics later in this bulletin. Let's Catch up on the business news.

A lot of focus on news coming from China.

He used to say that about America, when it sneezes we catch a cold.

But when China sneezes, we catch a cold!

Figures showed the pace of economic growth slowed down to 7.6%.

In the previous quarter, growth was running at 8.1%. The Government has

been trying to revive the economy by lowering interest rates and

lifting spending. Economists says China is now making all the right

moves to turn things round. Government Was slow on the uptake

to the fact, but over the last couple of weeks, we have seen a

Government more aware of the need to stimulate the economy. They

dropped interest rates twice in the space of a month and we are seeing

more and more projects being approved through the State Planning

Agency and fiscal spending improvement and that should

underwrite the improvement that we are expecting to see towards the

end of the year. That was Alistair Thornton.

Italian three-year borrowing costs have fallen below 5% on Friday at a

bond auction, a decent result considering the rating agency

Moody's downgraded its credit rating by two notches yesterday.

Laurence Boone is European Economist at Bank of America

Merrill Lynch. She says Italy is in a better financial position then

some of the other debt striken countries in Europe. When you look

at Italy's economy, it is different from Spain. They haven't done a lot

of reforms. They don't have the same banking issues as Spain has,

but they have an issue in terms of credibility and politics and the

protection, the guardian is the Prime Minister and this weakness,

this sensability is putting pressure on the bond market.

Exactly how many billions of dollars did JP Morgan lose when

trades went bad earlier this year? �2 billion or or $9 billion?

Investors will be hoping for an answer to that question when the

bank releases results for the three months to the end of June. The

losses, which the bank initially estimated at $2 billion, have

triggered a federal investigation. From New York, Michelle Fleury has

Jamie diamond, the chief executive, is getting used to being in the hot

seat. Are you too big to fail? we believe that a bank should be

possible to go bankrupt. This Friday, the bank's shareholders

will be asking the questions, keen to know just how much America's

biggest bank lost on bad derivatives trades. Whatever the

figure, the damage has been done. The size of the loss is not the

issue. It issued is, why did they miss the last in the first place?

And it raises the bigger question of, are these banks too big to

manage, regulate and control, but also, too big to understand? There

is one key difference in this particular case. JP Morgan is going

after the pay of the group where the losses occurred, starting with

the former head of the CEO Investment Office, who worked here.

This makes it the first major banks since the financial crisis to

penalise its staff in this way. claw backs are clearly more

symbolic, designed to send a message to the market, which has

been troubled by the fact that a few individuals can cause such a

precipitous market collapsed in the value of JP Morgan. So, I think

this is saying to the market, we will penalise people who do bad

things. This Friday the 13th, JP Morgan's horror show is unlikely to

end, with regulators investigating other potential wrong steps by the

bank. Two of Hong Kong's richest businessmen have been charged with

breaking anti-bribery laws. Thomas and Raymond Kwok are among five

people charged. Prosecutors say they bribed officials to gain

information about land sales. Our correspondent Juliana Liu explained

why the case was so high profile. These two brothers represent Asia's

most valuable property firm, the second biggest in the world, just

behind a US shopping mall operator. So, these two men, they are really

at the top of the political and business elite in Hong Kong. A lot

of people here are still shocked that these two men would be brought

to account to face a judge, because this is something which would have

been unthinkable just a few years ago. This is a massive company, its

shares have fallen by about 14% since this case came to light.

Cocoa prices fell by 5% in New York trading. It follows figures which

showed that demand in Europe have fallen by 18% in the last quarter,

the sharpest decline in more than 12 years. Let's have a look at the

markets. The markets are up. The FTSE is looking pretty strong. The

screen has gone blank. Anyway, the Asian markets are up a little as

well. It happens, from time to time!

Thanks for being with us. Still to come, we're going to be following

this little lot. They call them the "Panda Pawns", and they are pretty

good at chess. We will find out more. Also, hidden under bridges -

what is to be done to tackle the problems of homelessness in the

Olympic host city? When it comes to the world of

marketing, Facebook "likes" are seen as pretty big business.

Companies spend significant amounts on adverts to persuade social

network users to click the "like" button on their pages. Is it worth

it? From global celebrities to major companies, everyone wants to

be liked on Facebook. Many businesses, big and small, are

buying adverts to make that happen. But are they getting what they pay

for? This man thinks not. He bought Facebook adverts for small

businesses who wanted people to come to their pages, and it worked.

But when his clients look at who exactly liked them, they were not

happy. The individuals that were liking our pages, were not just

like in 200 pages, we started to see that they were liking up to

5,000 pages. We had 13-year-olds who were managers of global

multinational companies, who said that they lived in the US, but in

actual fact were placing "likes" from remote parts of Indonesia.

set up my own, imaginary business, and bought an advert which was

targeted at the US, the UK, and countries across the Middle East

and Asia. Within days, 3,000 people like it, nearly all of them from

various Asian countries. Among them, this one. My business was among

3,000 or so that he liked. So, we found that in some parts of the

world, people end up making pages like mine, albeit in a pretty

random sort of way. In the short term it is good news for Facebook,

which earns money from every click, but advertisers are beginning to

ask some questions. Facebook did not want to be interviewed, but

they told us that poorly targeted adverts like mine just did not work,

and that fake profiles were not a significant programme. Some

marketing firms say Facebook can deliver results, if it is used in

the right way. We are all still experimenting. I have no doubt that

some people will have horror stories. But in our experience, a

lot of clients are seeing a lot of commercial benefit from Facebook as

well. Investors have always worried about the future growth of Facebook.

If people decide they do not like the advertising on which the future

of the social network depends, that Our main headlines... The UN is

trying to get observers to the village in central Syria where

activist say more than 200 people have been killed. A train has had a

truck carrying farm workers in South Africa - at least 19 people

have been killed. Tributes have been paid to the nine

climbers killed when they were engulfed by an avalanche in the

French Alps. It all took place near Chamonix in the Mont Blanc region.

A press conference has been taking place with the mayor of the town,

the British ambassador to France and the head of police, who

confirmed that 14 people are still injured, one seriously. The police

commander, Jean-Baptiste Estachy, said they were alerted initially by

an injured climber, and that they had arrived at the scene to find

three people dead already. He said the investigation was ongoing.

TRANSLATION: The avalanche was caused by heavy snow, which was

made worse by a strong winds. This is the risk of a mountain which has

been covered by snow. The risk is known. We knew that the climbers

tried to traverse the mountain initially, and it is difficult to

foresee such an avalanche. The guides know the danger, they know

the route. And they know the risks of avalanche, especially during

July and August. Time now to introduce you to Public School 124

in Chinatown in New York. The pupils there are getting quite a

reputation for their ability at chess. They are between six and 11

years old, yet they have been winning against much older players.

Franz Strasser has been following the group, known as the "Panda

Pawns", to the US National Championships in Tennessee. We are

located in the heart of Chinatown. We have very strong, competitive

students, who are backed by strong, competitive parents, who really

believe that chess is good for them. And they try to get them started

early, in second grade, third grade, getting them into after-school

programmes, and also on Saturday, when you get competitions. If you

walk through the hallways, you will see that all the trophies are not

sports related, but they are all I started this 30 years ago, and to

have a thousand rating for a kid was remarkable, it was unheard of,

they were the stars. In real life, it helps you, so you can think

As you well know, the Olympic Games are about to start, and a group of

homeless charities has now had to admit that its target to end rough

sleeping in the British capital by the time the Olympics start, two

weeks from today, simply cannot be met. With the recession in

particular, the number of homeless people is on the rise, also with

more and more Eastern Europeans finding themselves out of work and

on the streets. But new efforts are under way to deal with the problem.

Under one of London's more iconic bridges, there is a persistent

problem. Tucked up in sleeping bags are five homeless men, most of them

from Eastern Europe. They include this man, who did not want his face

to be shown. I lost my job. I am waiting for and appointment with

Housing Options. On this morning, it is down to this outreach worker

and her partner to establish what can be done to help them.

majority of people we have met here this morning are from Eastern

European countries. Mostly they know that what we're going to be

able to offer them is just a reconnection to their home area.

There is a reticence about going back, they are here with an

intention of working, and their insistence on trying to find work,

but we know it is difficult. London is no longer a cardboard city. The

proportion of new rough sleepers proportion of new rough sleepers

being helped off the streets has risen in recent years. But so, too,

has the total number of rough sleepers. When London earned bid to

host the Olympics this year, it provided an incentive to end rough

sleeping once and for all. But now, with the numbers of new rough

sleepers rising, and the Games just weeks away, many organisations are

weeks away, many organisations are having to ask whether the target

can be met at all. I fear that the Olympics could lead

to an increase in terms of numbers on the street, and certainly people

coming onto the street in order to beg, that kind of thing, there will

be a big additional population coming through the city, so it

could take a while to reduce numbers after the Olympics.