07/09/2012 BBC World News

French police investigate whether a family dispute about money led to

four people being shot dead in the Alps.

Give me more time to fix the economy - the plea to American

voters from President Obama at the Democratic convention. Her the

choice you face will not just be between two candidates or two

parties, it will be a choice between two different paths for

America, a choice between two fundamentally different visions for

the future. Britain's Prince Harry is back in

Afghanistan with the army. Welcome to BBC World News. Also in

our programme: the battle between Amazon and Apple hots up.

And could the shrinking of the polar ice lead to more storms over

Police investigating the fatal shooting of a British family in the

French Alps are looking into whether a family feud over money

may have been behind the killings. A former Iraqi engineer was killed,

together with his wife and mother- in-law. A French cyclist was also

shot dead. It is possible that he may have been a passer-by. The

couple's two young daughters survived. One was physically unhurt.

The other, who is in hospital, is out of danger. Earlier, our

correspondent spoke to the British ambassador to France. We are in the

early stages of a major murder investigation, and it is inevitable

that you have all sorts of information and theories

circulating. It is the job of the prosecutors to follow each one. I

am here to make sure the lines of communication are working between

the British and French police. And every shred of information is being

followed up. I will not comment on individual elements, because that

will confuse things. But the corporation is excellent. Obviously,

this is a huge murder investigation in south-eastern France. But I

imagine there are substantial police inquiry is going on in the

UK as well? Of course, and the whole resources of the police, as

the Prime Minister said to President Hollande last night, are

at the disposal of the French authorities. It is their

investigation, but we support them. Your other role here is a consular

one, helping British citizens in trouble when they are broad. There

is a four-year-old girl and a seven-year-old girl in hospital,

traumatised. What are you doing there? It is a heart-rending case.

In addition to the terrible murder, we do have these two traumatised

girls. The younger girl is not physically hurt, but deeply shocked.

She has British consular staff with her, English-speaking, friendly

faces to be with her alongside the French authorities. The older girl,

who is still badly hurt, although stable, we will be with her as soon

as it is medically feasible for us to be so, so that there is a

friendly face around her before the family arrives.

A president Obama has told American voters it will take more than a few

years to solve the nation's economic problems. In his speech to

the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina, he appealed for

them to back him for a second term in office. Mr Obama said the US

faces a choice between two fundamentally different visions of

the future in November's election. Win or lose, this campaign is the

last time Barack Obama will ask the American people for their trust.

Democrats say that the moment, and he seemed impatient to address a

troubled nation beyond the convention hall. Know this, America.

Our problems can be solved. Our challenges can be met. The path we

offer may be harder, bag and least -- it leads to a better place, and

I am asking you to choose that future. Republicans framed this

election as a referendum on the Obama economy, but he said voters

faced a choice. On every issue, the choice you face will not just be

between two candidates or two parties, it will be a choice

between two different paths for America. RS is a fight to restore

the values that built the largest middle-class in the strongest

economy the world has ever known. By contrast, he said republicans

were about little more than tax cuts for the rich, and he mocked

Mitt Romney's inexperience on foreign policy. They want to take

us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so

dearly. After all, he did call Russia our number-one enemy. Not

Al-Qaeda, Russia, unless you are still stuck in a cold-war mindset.

He rattled off goals for a second term - new manufacturing jobs, more

science teachers, less imported oil. But it was a speech about direction

more than detail, and it ended with a rallying point across. America, I

never said this journey would be easy, and I will not promise that

now. Yes, our parties harder, but it leads to a better place. We keep

our eyes fixed on that distant horizon, knowing that Providence is

with us and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the

greatest nation on earth. Thank you. A stirring performance by a man

pleading for more time. Once again, Barack Obama showed he can turn on

the style. But what really matters is what America far beyond this

hall makes of the substance. Still in the US, officials at

Yosemite National Park say thousands more people who stayed

there during the summer may have been exposed to a potentially fatal

virus. At least eight people have been infected with the virus, which

can be picked up through mice droppings. Three of those have died.

Health officials believe 22,000 visitors to the Californian Park

could be at risk. Jamie Robertson is here now with

the business. Amazon has unveiled larger versions

of its Kindle Fire tablets, stepping up competition with Apple

ahead of a holiday shopping season. The cheapest will sell for $159.

Amazon said the first Kindle Fire had captured 22% of the US tablet

market. But that was the only country it was sold in. The largest

of the new models is pitched directly against Apple's iPad, the

best-selling Ted Tablet on the market. I am joined now by Stuart

Miles from media technology website pocketlint.com. Many think of the

Kindle as just a simple reading device, but it is more than that?

The Kindle is perfect for reading on the beach, because there is no

backlit display. The Kindle Fire is a full-blown tablet which competes

with Google's product and the Apple iPad. It does not just compete

against Apple. What kind of criteria are dominated the

competition? It is a fierce market. Apple rules the nest, but everybody

wants a piece of the pie. You are seeing lots of smaller tablets,

seven-inch devices like the Kindle Fire. There is also an 8.9 inch

version. Doing it smaller means you can create a cheaper device. That

is where they want to win out against Apple, which is more

expensive. In recessionary times, price is the killer factor. Yes. If

you want to give a device to a child, what a lot of people are

doing, they are having their iPads nicked by their children to play

games and stuff. If you hand over something worth $400, or we can get

them there until $159, that is a compelling offer. What about the

actual things it does? Are they comparable? They are. That is what

is fascinating about the price difference. Because it is a smaller

device with a smaller screen and smaller components, it doesn't cost

as much. The screen takes a lot of the cash out of it. Amazon holds

the rights to a lot of content. Amazon content will work on the

iPhones. But once you have got a device in your hands, they can sell

you books and get you into the store to buy things a lot easier.

They will get their money elsewhere. It is an eleventh-hour attempt to

salvage one of the biggest mergers in the corporate world which was on

the brink of collapse and yesterday. Mining giant Glencore has just

raised its offer for Xstrata hours before a crucial vote by the two

company's' shareholders. Earlier this year Glencore and Xstrata

agreed to form a single company in a deal worth $80 billion. But

Xstrata shareholders, including Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, said

the Glencore original offer was too low. But it has now increased its

offer to 3.05 shares in the new company for every Xstrata share

held. Alex Harrison is the editor of Metal Bulletin, and he thinks a

tie-up of the two companies would make sense. It is not a cash offer,

it is a share swap. You are talking about combining the two companies.

A couple of weeks ago, when Glencore announced its results, its

argument that its commodity trading in the market would protect it from

a downturn appeared to be validated. So the deal does make sense. When

Glencore listed last year, one of the reasons it listed was because

it wants to get this deal done. It markets a lot of material for

Xstrata and already owns a 34% stake in it. Whether the markets

are rising or falling, the deal makes sense.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 42 seconds

You are watching BBC World News. Still to come, we will find out

more about how Britain's Prince Harry is growing up and getting on

to his next mission. A woman in the Indian state of West

Bengal recently gave away her three daughters because she said she was

unable to feed them. The girls were later rescued by the authorities

and reunited with their mother. Trafficking is common in this area

of India. Media reports suggest she saw the girls for as little as $3.

A hot meal for this girl, and the mother who sold her and her two

sisters for $3 and some bread. Only because they have been rescued and

are now in a refuge has their story come to light. There are dozens of

girls here, saved from human traffickers. Workers at the refuge

suspect that the three sisters would have met the same fate. A

woman took the eight-year-old and said she would send her to school.

I miss my mum, she tells me. I tried to run away, but then they

caught me. Of it is a story that starts with them being kicked out

of their home by their father. TRANSLATION: He used to get drunk

and beat me and the girls. One day he kicked me and my youngest

daughter, and told us to go. They ended up living rough on this

station. It was here that their mother was persuaded to sell them

to people who promised to give the girls a better life. It shows how

few options the mother thought she had that she says she gave away her

daughter's here at the station for their safety, because she feared

they would be abducted. She ended up handing them over to run even

more uncertain fate, in an area where human trafficking is rife.

More than 15,000 children have disappeared into the hands of

traffickers here in West Bengal in the last year. Most of them were

girls who were sold for forced marriages or prostitution.

TRANSLATION: In India, when a girl is born, she is seen as a burden.

Here, where there is so much poverty, they think they will not

get any income from AA Gill and will just have to pay for her

marriage. In their new home, the girls are getting lessons. But they

are finding it hard to settle, still traumatised by their

experiences. Then one of them walked out. She knows her mother

still wants to give her daughters away.

This is BBC World News. The headlines: a family rift is

being investigated as a possible motive behind the murders of four

people in the French Alps. A president Obama has made his bid

for his second term in office, vowing to create new jobs, cut debt

and put the US economy on a Prince Harry has arrived in

Afghanistan at the start of a four- month deployment as an Apache

commander. The Prince, known as Captain Wales in the army, is based

at Camp Bastion in Helmand. He last served in Afghanistan in 2008, but

his tour was cut short when news leaked that he was there.

The BBC's defence correspondent joins me now from Kabul. Is the

Prince, but the third in line to the throne, going back to frontline

duties? It is frontline duties because he

will be involved in combat operations. He has been trained for

combat but it is a very different role from that that he fulfilled

last time he was in Helmand in 2007. A very different situation. He was

on the ground then. He was a forward air controller co-

ordinating strikes. They also used blackouts. -- there was a news

blackout. That blackout was broken and after that, the MoD decided to

bring Prince Harry back much earlier, much to his frustration.

This time they are telling us he arrived. It is a very different

role. He will be flying the Apache helicopter. It is a sophisticated

weapon with a lot of self-defence systems on board. It is essentially

a flying tank. It is used to support ground troops. There is a

risk but the MoD believes it is low, simply because the threat from

ground to air weaponry in Helmand Province from the Taliban is less

sophisticated than say, Libya, so there have been up no instances

where British Apaches have been shot down in Afghanistan. They are

more confident he will be in a safe environment. That said, no doubt

about it, the fact that this news is out, there will be Taliban out

there who will try to target British Apaches.

Prince Harry has made no secret of the fact that he wanted to get back.

Yes. He said he was not going to go through all the expensive training,

millions of dollars it costs to train and Apache pilot, it is more

than $60 million as a weapon system, and less he was given to be

deployed with his unit. He went through the training in Arizona,

California. He was voted the top gun by his own class. His job he

will be the commander of the Apache. Two pilots on board. He will be in

charge of the weapons system and will make the difficult judgments

about when to use the weapons. But yes, he wanted to get back to

Afghanistan. I think he wants to be known as captain Wales and to do a

proper job. As I said, it is a very different situation to last time.

He will see through this four months in Helmand in his operations,

obviously not just supporting troops on the ground but in

surveillance roles as well. It is an important role for the Prince

and it is a risky one, but not as risky as last time.

South Korea is hosting the World Conservation Congress this week

against a backdrop of criticism for failing to observe the

international ban on whaling. It plans to begin whaling for what it

says are scientific purposes next year, but as Lucy Williamson

reports from the southern town of Jangsengpo, there are some parts of

South Korea where it seems the ban never existed.

The old ways have a habit of clinging on in Jangsengpo. This

sleepy town used to be the heart of Korea's whaling industry. These

days, his activity and population has waned because of the

international whaling ban. But the old culture lingers. At the. Along

the harbour wall. And in the restaurants that line it. The

streets are packed with whale meat restaurants and all of them have

signs prominently displayed outside, advertising their wares. Commercial

whaling is illegal in South Korea but there is still plenty of whale

meat around. The restaurants have changed little since the industry's

heyday. The meat is still boiled in large vats and hacked into lunch on

the concrete kitchen floor. TRANSLATION: For many years, we

used to catch them, so despite the ban, we can still get hold of them,

whether they are being caught illegally or through accidental

catches. Organisations like Greenpeace come and create a big

scene but there is no reason for them to stop us. Wales are

important to this community. South Korea wants to follow Japan's lead

and allow scientific whaling as a way to assess whether to resume it

commercially. At the moment, the only way to catch them at legally

is by accident, when they are trapped in fishing nets, but

Greenpeace say that 80 up to 100 large whales are call this way in

Korea every year, more than 30% of the global total -- court this way.

They have a strangely large number of by a-catch, which is very

suspicious. Even Jangsengpo's coastguards will privately admit

that some fishermen catch them for money. The ban has raised the

market price so much that the Wales have now been nicknamed the Sea

Lottery. Amid the controversy, many are focusing on the area's history,

with their in new museum dedicated to the town's whaling culture, but

in Jangsengpo itself, few people are ready to consign it to the past.

A Christian girl arrested in Pakistan for defaming Islam has

been granted bail. The 14-year-old was arrested in a poor Islamabad

suburb three weeks ago, accused of burning papers containing verses

from the Koran. And on Saturday police detained a Muslim cleric on

suspicion of planting evidence to frame the girl.

Our correspondent in Islamabad has more. A case that started three

weeks ago when Rimsha, a Christian girl who lives in Islamabad, was

accused by a neighbour of carrying these burnt pages of the Qur'an and

blasphemy as an offence is taken very seriously in Pakistan. She was

immediately jailed, even though at subsequent medical report showed

that she was a charred and one with learning difficulties. -- she was a

child. She has now been released on bail. She will have to face a trial.

Human rights groups are pleased about the fact that she has been

released on what was considered before this an unbailable offence

in Pakistan but they are also pointing to the fact that she

should never have been jailed in the first place and also to the

fact that a lot of human rights groups in Pakistan feel that things

in general for minorities in Pakistan are going in the wrong

direction. Two earthquakes have hit south-

western China, killing at least 43 people. The tremors with a

magnitude of up to 5.7 hit the border between the provinces of

Yunnan and Guizhou. State media say more than 20,000 houses have

collapsed or have been damaged. Scientists in the Arctic have

warned that the melting of polar ice is likely to accelerate over

the next few years. The thaw set a new record last month and the

summer melt is still under way. One of the world's leading weather

research centres says the shrinking of the polar ice could lead to more

storms over Europe. From Svalbard, deep within the arctic circle, here

is David Shukman. A heavy swell in the High Arctic.

These latest pictures are from the Norwegian Polar Institute and they

were filmed in the past few days. Huge areas of ice have broken up

and more has melted than at any time for at least the last 30 years.

On the deck of a Norwegian research ship, the high-tech device to

measure the ice is lifted into the air. A helicopter flies the

instrument over the ocean. All the signs are that the ice is getting

thin and weak. Moored at Norway's Arctic research station, the

scientists are assessing the data. The milk has been far faster than

predicted. There was a big change, bigger than we could imagine even

ten years ago, and it has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our

understanding of the system and our science, and we must adjust our

feelings for the nature around us. I have seen for myself how rapidly

the Arctic is changing and the more ice disappears, the more the

melting will speed up. The Arctic is warming faster than any other

region on earth it there is a simple reason for that. When the

Sun's rays land on the bright white surface of the ice, most of the

energy is reflected back into space and the region stays cool but when

the ice retreats, the Sun's rays falls on the dark recesses of the

ocean and that energy gets absorb, warming the ocean, melting the ice,

and a vicious scientist begins. The scientists call that positive

feedback, and acceleration of this change. The Arctic may seem remote

but that changes could be far reaching. It could even implement

the pattern of the weather in your room. If we have warmer than

average sea surface temperatures in the north-west Atlantic, and a ice

mulcting in summer, leads to storms been steered over the UK in summer,

which is not the normal situation. We find a seal on a tiny ice bed,

one of many creatures that meet the ice. The ocean will freeze again

this winter but sometimes you are there may be a summer with no ice

at all. -- but some time soon. Our top story about the shooting

dead of four people in the French Alps. The BBC has learned that one

of the lines of inquiry by the French prosecutors concerning the

murder of this British Iraqi man Saad Al-Hilli, his wife and mother-

in-law and a French passer-by, one of the lines of inquiry is about a

dispute between him and his brother over family property and family