21/08/2012 BBC World News

Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, dies at the age of 57 and

sparks concern about stability in the country. The owners of the

South African mine where dozens of people were killed in recent

clashes drop their threat to sack workers who refused to return to

work. And President Obama warns Syria that US military action could

follow if it uses chemical weapons. Welcome to BBC World News. George

Soros, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, buys a 2% stake in

Manchester United. That famous last. We remember

American comic Phyllis Dellape, who Hello. Ethiopia's government says

that the country's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, has died after

developing an infection while recovering from illness. He is

understood to have been receiving treatment at an overseas hospital.

He has been replaced on an acting basis by his deputy, Hailemariam

Desalegn. His time and power coincided with famines and conflict

with other countries. It also saw the country establish new

international links. 1991. Meles Zenawi's rebels from

the northern region of Tigray and their allies sweep into Addis Ababa.

It is an end for the Marxist dictatorship of Mengistu Haile

Mariam, propped up by the Eastern Bloc and one of the many proxy

theatres of the Cold War. Meles Zenawi, from Marxist Ritz himself,

was a medical student before he took up arms against the regime.

The legacy of the Civil War and the highly ideologically driven

politics, and of the decades of feudalism that preceded it, was

widespread and deeper poverty, little investment in infrastructure.

It made Ethiopia are particularly vulnerable to famine. It was at its

most devastating in 1984, when Highlanders tracked across the

front lines of conflict in their thousands to seek help and up to 1

million people died. Meles Zenawi set this never colonised land, with

various ethnic identities are, on a path to so-called ethnic federalism.

He was regularly accused by human rights groups of abuses towards

ethnic minorities. There have been clear limits to the tolerance of

political dissent. When the result in an election was disputed in 2005,

nearly 200 people died in a crackdown on demonstrations. In the

next elections, Meles Zenawi won 99% of the vote and began a third

decade in power. TRANSLATION: The parties that have been denied votes

need to recognise the decision of this nation and its proud people. I

advise them not to try to override the vote as I will not bow to

pressure from foreign forces. Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia has seen a

wreckage rise in economic growth. - - record rise. China has been a big

player. While Western nations have had their worries about democracy

and the handling of dissent, they also saw him as an ally, not only

independent shall economic translation of his own country, but

of the developing world and General. But will his legacy be greater or

The owners of a pattern and mine in South Africa, where more than 14

people died in a violent dispute, say they are lifting if threat to

dismiss staff that will not return to work. The company, Lonmin, says

a third of workers reported for duty earlier. A spokesman for the

company says that it has not backed down. If I can take you back to

last week, the illegal strike, the workers were called back to work on

Friday. On the events of Thursday, we left it that ultimatum because

of the tragic events of Thursday. When we asked people to come back

to work, for the morning shift on Monday, eventually about 30% of

workers came back to work. No dismissals occurred at all. So, now

we have decided that there will be no dismissals this week.

You have been following that story as well. Also, Manchester United. I

promised viewers this. We have had such an interesting investment in

Manchester United from a certain billionaire, you may have heard of

him? This is the billionaire that is betting on read. See what I have

done their? We are talking about a surprising match, you mentioned

Manchester United, the world's most famous football, or soccer, club,

teaming up with one of the world's most famous investors, George Soros.

He sits on eye two trillion dollar fund. He now owns 2% of the club.

Manchester United went public, they were listed on the New York shock

Exchange. Cash stock exchange. Yesterday, it closed at $13.60. It

has been under pressure. One of the reasons is the controversy over the

Glazer family, how they structure their share sales. If you are an

investor, you do not get a dividend, a regular return or payout. There

are very little voting rights. You don't have much of a say in how the

country is run. It was registered in the Cayman Islands and it had a

debt of $600 million. That has been almost halved banks to the money

they have raised from the share sales. Given that big institutional

investors have stayed clear, the question is, what his George Soros

seeing, and he isn't an idiot, that others are not? One person

suggested that Manchester United would become what he called the Son

of Facebook. Shares are already down, for the reasons you have

mentioned. What would have enticed him, I suspect, is that in terms of

revenue Manchester United is the biggest club in the world. It has

three main revenue streams. It has the money that comes in from the

football rights, it has the match- day takings in terms of programmes.

In particular, it is a bit of a merchandising machine. The club

itself estimates that it has �700 million, globally. On the back of

the fact that the US female team won the football in the Olympics,

there is a possibility that soccer might be taking some sort of

traction. Given the fact that it is still a long way behind the three

major sports in the United States, I can only imagine that is the

attraction. Let me ask you this. I have also read that it is deemed as

one of the biggest global brands. You mentioned the lucrative media

rights, retailing, money that comes in from that. Here is the question.

How do shareholders make money from the club if they do not get a

dividend? Did they just have to wait until the share price goes up

and then sell? That's right. It's down to capital growth, rather than

income. There was, at one stage in the UK, we had the best part of 20

football clubs voted. -- floated. We are now down to one or two. At

the time they were floated on this side of the pond, football clubs

are notoriously difficult investments to be having. Automatic,

although United has a track record, their fortunes are very much tied

to what is going on on the pitch. If they had a few poor seasons,

that would start eating into their income. As such, you're taking

something of a view on the individual success of any given

team. That has proved, in the past, all sporting franchises, a high

risk strategy. Suzuki has started limited

production in its car plant on Tuesday. It's over a month since a

riot by a workers claimed the life of company officials and injured

100 others. It left a trail of destruction through the factory.

Only 300 permanent workers will resume duties.

This is a significant day for narrative Suzuki, as workers re-

entered the factory following violent clashes between managers

and employees. One manager was killed and nearly 100 workers were

injured. Now, the company is not taking any more chances and it has

deployed nearly 100 security officers. The state has deployed

about 500 armed policemen for this security. Even today, the

production will only stop partially. About 300 employees have gone

inside and they aim to produce about 150 cars, eight fraction of

what the factory is capable of. When it was fully functional, this

used to produce about 1500 cars of the top selling models. It accounts

for a third of the car-making capacity here. It was very

significant that it resumes operations as fast as possible.

It seems even the world's largest mining could be cannot insulate

itself from the economy. Glencore announced a drop of about a third

in first-half profits, coming into about $1.8 billion. That was

slightly better than originally expected. The company owns 34% of

the rival mining group Xstrata and it is currently trying to buy the

rest. It is being met with some resistance. A lot of -- prices are

going down and that is one of the reasons for that slowing in innings.

There is the faltering economic story in the United States. But

Glencore is a market here, as well should be better place to ride out

at Widnes. Virgin Atlantic is to begin a

short-haul service between London Heathrow and Manchester. That is

starting next March. This will be their first foray into domestic

flying. It signals the start of a new network that will provide

regional flights that will feed into the airline's long-haul

service. The chief executive of Virgin says that the new route will

be good for consumers by providing important competition to none other

than British Airways. Manchester, which we are announcing today, is

an important market. Over 64,000 passengers each year connect

through Heathrow to the rest of the world and back to Manchester. If we

were not doing this, they would only have one choice. That is never

good in a market. One of Facebook's directors has cashed in most of his

stake in the company. Peter Teale was one of the earliest investors

in the firm and also the co-founder of another firm. A regulatory

filing showed that he sold $100 million worth of shares after an

initial lock up which restricted the shares and came to an end. All

eyes will certainly be on November when most of the company staff are

allowed to sell shares. Will they or will they not? That price

remains under a lot of pressure. Always a pleasure.

Let's move on to Syria. President Obama has warned President Asadabad

of his military deployed chemical weapons against opponents then that

the United States would rethink its response to the conflict. He added

he has not ordered military intervention at this point, but did

confirm that the US had put This unverified footage shows how

rapidly the conflict has escalated. President Obama has been regularly

asked what it would take to trigger military intervention from the US.

So far, such action has been off the table. But the knowledge that

the Assad regime has chemical weapons and has threatened to use

them in the event of a foreign attack has prompted some of the

strongest rhetoric yet. We have been very clear to the Assad regime,

but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for others

is that we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving

around will be neutralised. That would change my car Kilis. There

are growing security concerns, have to keep such weapons safe as the

fighting on the ground intensifies. That doesn't just concern Syria, it

concerns are close allies in the region, including Israel. It

concerns us. We cannot have a situation where chemical biological

weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. The US says it

will not harm the rebels because it does not know who they are. It is,

however, providing non-lethal assistance and that is set to

South Korea's Foreign Minister has rejected Japan's proposal that a

row over disputed islands be resolved by the International Court

of Justice. The islands, between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, are

controlled by Seoul but also claimed by Tokyo. Relations between

the countries worsened after South Korea's president visited the

islands earlier this month. There has been a crackdown on social

networking site in India display threatening messages towards

migrants. It sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of workers and

students from major cities, including Bangor and Mumbai. All of

this follows fears of reprisal attacks from Muslims after recent

ethnic classes in the state of Assam.

30 people have been rescued from a bus after a crane collapsed in

Toronto. Live power lines were brought down by the construction

crane, trapping passengers until emergency workers arrived. All

passengers were unharmed. The crane operator was eventually freed and

Militants have damaged the plane used by the most senior US

commander in Afghanistan after firing shells at Bagram airbase.

The Americans say the general was not in the plane at the time and

was in no danger. They have described the hit as a lucky shot.

We have been hearing from NATO officials in Kabul and they have

told us that General Martin Dempsey was on the base at the time, but he

was in his sleeping quarters. This happened during the night and the

shells were fired into the air base just a short distance north of

Kabul and the shrapnel from one shell damaged his plane and also a

helicopter. There were only two servicemen who were injured and

their injuries are described as very slight. The general has now

taken another aircraft out of Afghanistan. The Taliban say they

carried out this attack, but they are prone to exaggeration, and they

say they damage 17 American aircraft. But there have been

attacks like this fairly frequently at Bagram airbase. But it is quite

rare that aircraft are damaged. The significance is it was the aircraft

of the most senior American military officer.

Plenty to come: Nasa's Curiosity rover is going on a test drive

after its successful landing on Mars. And it is one of France's top

tourist spot, but are the hallowed cloisters becoming too

commercialised? The summer heatwave across Europe has triggered a

series of wild fires around the Mediterranean. Blazes are being

tackled in Spain, Greece and Croatia where thousands of homes

have been evacuated. This is Croatia, its Dalmatian coast is a

region of natural beauty, but wild fires are putting all that at risk.

Planes scan the horizon dousing flames in the hope of bringing the

fires under control. The ground below is as dry as a bone. The

fires are spreading ever closer to local villages, putting homes and

businesses in danger. As the wild fires raged on, fire fighters push

through the undergrowth to get to the heart of the flames, but they

are desperately in need of help. TRANSLATION: This is one in a

series of fires in this area. There is a huge one which is spreading

towards our main forces and we have asked for help from the state.

Spain the worst wild fires for a decade have burnt 50,000 hectares

of land. In the last month, several areas of mainland Spain, the Canary

Islands and Majorca have been scorched. Now fire fighters are

battling flames in the centre of the country. This is a Greek island

and these fires have been blazing four days, burning 18,000 acres of

land and destroying half of the island's rare trees. Resin from the

trees is used to make chewing gum, soap and to flavour liqueurs. It is

a trade that rakes in more than $80 million a year. But while the fires

rage and the crops continue to burn, the islanders who produced the

resin face a very uncertain future. Ecuador's President Rafael Correa

says it would be suicide for the UK to enter the Ecuadorian embassy in

London where the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been staying. He

said removing him would set a dangerous precedent and he said he

was willing to take the issue to the United Nations. TRANSLATION: It

would be suicide for the United Kingdom to enter the Ecuadorian

embassy. It would set a precedent that would allow UK diplomatic

premises in other territories to be violated later on. The UK would not

have a say on that. You are watching BBC World News, the

headlines: The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, has died at

the age of 57. An ultimatum to the striking South African miners to

return to work has been dropped. In China the Government is pouring

billions of dollars in the country's north-east region. The

ancient city is on the Silk Road and Chinese authorities want to

return it to its glory days. But it is now experiencing its biggest

economic boom end up living memory and it is driving up costs.

For centuries this has hosted a livestock market. Some farmers

travel for 50 kilometres to bring their cattle into the city. You

will see them haggling with customers. Most of the buyers are

butchers, but on some occasions you will see a family by an animal to

mark a special celebration. A cow will cost about $2,000, but if you

want a donkey, it would be half of that and if you are short of cash

and want to splash out on a sheep, it would be $500. What is

noticeable about this market is that farmers say prices have more

than doubled in the last five years. That is because as China becomes

better off, more people like eating meat and that is pushing up prices.

What this market shows is the effects of rising prosperity in

China are being felt in far flung parts of the country.

It is a big day for the team behind the Mars rover mission. In a few

hours it will take the probe on its first test drive. If all goes well,

it will set off on a year-long trip into the Martian folk tales. Dr

John Bridges is a planetary scientist at Leicester University

and is currently working with the Mars science laboratory team in

Pasadena and he brings as up-to- date with the mission so far.

will have been ticking off a lot of boxes. We have tested the robotic

arm and that is behaving as predicted. We have also tried the

laser to get sparks of plasma on rock surfaces. From that we can

determine what rocks are made of. We are taking off all the boxes and

checking ate the instruments and we are going to check out a small

movement of Curiosity to check that the rover movement is working well

as well. She will be remembered as a woman who paved the way for other

female comics. The American comedienne Phyllis Della has died

aged 95. She took to the stage in the 1950s at a time when stand-up

comedy was not seen as something fit for women.

She had big hair, an outlandish wardrobe and a cackling laugh that

became her trademark. Phyllis Diller's career spanned five

decades. She broke into comedy after working in advertising as a

writer. A pop-culture icon in the Sixties, she was famous for making

disparaging jokes about her looks and her cooking. I once entered a

beauty contest. I not only came in last, I got 361 get-well cards.

appeared in several films and had two TV series. She also toured with

Bob Hope to entertain the troops. She is credited with paving the way

for a female comedians to be accepted on stage and TV. The Queen

of one-liners. To her friends and fans she was the first lady of

stand-up comedy. One of the biggest attractions in

France is being restored. Mont St Michel is a giant rock sitting one

kilometre from the Normandy coast. Scientists are working with

engineers to remove the sort that has built up, however the project

is proving divisive. -- silt. For 1300 years it has been a focus of

deep reverence and spirituality. In medieval times it was a fort was

repelling repeated attacks by the English. But today the ramparts are

open to 3 million visitors a year. It is the second most visited site

in France and it is getting a facelift. Since the late 19th

century and the building of a causeway, the rock has been

surrounded by vast deposits of silt. There were fears by 2050 it would

not be an island. Until they built this dam which at high tide stores

water upstream and at low tide flushes it out through the Bay

carrying the silt with it. Cars and buses have been banned

from the mud flats since the spring and we are directed instead to this

new car-park where they charge the princely sum of 8 euros. The

trouble is it is a long walk to the bus, particularly in the afternoon

temperate weather. Those with businesses on the island say they

have lost 30% of their trade. TRANSLATION: For us it is a

catastrophe. Since they brought in the new parking rules cars cannot

go through and we deplore the system. It is an infringement on

our liberty. In antiquity the rock was besieged by English armies.

Today it is controversy that surrounds the island, aesthetic

spaces profit. The quiet piece of the abbey still offers welcome

refuge from the warring parties below.