:00:14. > :00:18.An escalating crisis in Gaza - the first Israeli deaths are announced
:00:18. > :00:23.as a Palestinian rocket hits a block of flats in southern Israel.
:00:23. > :00:26.It comes as the military head of Hamas is buried. He was killed in
:00:26. > :00:30.an Israeli air strike along with 10 others on Wednesday.
:00:30. > :00:35.An Israeli minister warns that if the rocket don't stop, no Hamas
:00:35. > :00:40.leader will be immune from targeting.
:00:40. > :00:44.Welcome to BBC World News. Also in the programme: The eurozone's
:00:44. > :00:49.economy is back in recession. The official numbers confirm the
:00:49. > :00:59.economic slump has worsened. Chinese New Leader Xi Jinping has
:00:59. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:12.promised he will fight for a better There has been more violence in
:01:12. > :01:15.Gaza and in Israel after the killing of the Hamas leader in an
:01:15. > :01:25.Israeli air strike on Wednesday. Hundreds of people turned out in
:01:25. > :01:32.
:01:32. > :01:35.Gaza City for the funeral of Achmad Al jamboree. -- Ahmed al-Jabari.
:01:35. > :01:43.Three Israelis are said to have been killed by rocket fire from the
:01:43. > :01:52.Gaza Strip. Israel's transport minister has warned that if the
:01:52. > :02:02.rocket fire from Gaza doesn't stop, Israel will target the Hamas leader
:02:02. > :02:12.
:02:12. > :02:21.Ismail Haniyeh. A spokesperson from What has it been like in Gaza City
:02:21. > :02:23.itself? I am joined now by Our Correspondent in Gaza City. You
:02:23. > :02:33.experienced the air strikes yesterday, and the continuing
:02:33. > :02:35.
:02:35. > :02:43.troubles. Tell us what it has been like. I live in Gaza City, and last
:02:43. > :02:47.night nobody could sleep. I could hardly sleep for two hours. It was
:02:47. > :02:57.continuous bombing and shelling from all types of military
:02:57. > :03:03.
:03:03. > :03:11.equipment, especially from planes, F-16s, Apak ches, everything.
:03:11. > :03:16.are those who are attending the funeral of Ahmed al-Jabari today.
:03:16. > :03:24.But generally, what are people doing? Are they keeping as far out
:03:24. > :03:29.of sight and out of harm as possible? I would imagine so. I
:03:29. > :03:36.don't know to what extent this round of escalation, to what extent
:03:36. > :03:46.it is going to go. From statements by the Israeli officials, they will
:03:46. > :03:47.
:03:47. > :03:51.be looking for more targets, and more Hamas officials to assassinate.
:03:51. > :03:56.Is that what you and your friends and family are expecting, that this
:03:56. > :04:03.will get worse before it gets better? I guess that that is what
:04:03. > :04:10.we are all used to as Palestinians, especially here in Gaza, but all
:04:10. > :04:20.around Palestine, we grow up like this, we grew up knowing that
:04:20. > :04:28.things don't change here, they just going to different phases. It calms
:04:28. > :04:34.down a bit and then it goes back to escalation and confrontation.
:04:34. > :04:44.Unfortunately I do expect that it will get worse. I hope not. But we
:04:44. > :04:45.
:04:45. > :04:48.are very, very worried. Can I just ask you one other question. The
:04:48. > :04:51.Israeli authorities are making the point that they are trying to
:04:51. > :04:56.target those responsible for launching attacks in to southern
:04:56. > :05:02.Israel. Can you give us any clear idea as to how targeted it feels
:05:02. > :05:12.that these air strikes are, or random? How does it feel, as
:05:12. > :05:15.
:05:15. > :05:25.someone living in Gaza? Gaza has a high density of population. Houses
:05:25. > :05:26.
:05:26. > :05:34.and neighbourhoods, it is so crowded. Whenever there is even a
:05:34. > :05:42.little bomb, it affects people all round. There is possibly some
:05:42. > :05:51.targeting, but not every time. Most of the time, across the border at
:05:51. > :06:00.least, they sometimes go on with guns and shooting. This is what we
:06:00. > :06:06.witness normally in our daily routine. So to some extent it is
:06:06. > :06:12.targeted, but no, Gaza is highly populated most of the time, and you
:06:12. > :06:22.get many, many innocent civilians who are simply walking by or live
:06:22. > :06:27.in the same house or the same building. It is not straightforward.
:06:27. > :06:31.I understand what you are saying. I'm sorry to cut too short there.
:06:31. > :06:35.We are getting some funny sounds coming from the system, but thank
:06:35. > :06:38.you for your personal feelings as to what it is like in Gaza at the
:06:38. > :06:42.moment. There are personal feelings on the
:06:42. > :06:46.other side of the border as well, and authorities in southern Israel
:06:46. > :06:53.say three Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire from the
:06:53. > :07:02.Gaza Strip. A short while ago, the BBC's Ben Brown in Malachy in
:07:02. > :07:12.southern Israel spoke to someone from the idea of Southern Command.
:07:12. > :07:12.
:07:12. > :07:15.I can't say anything about the missile intercepting system, but I
:07:15. > :07:20.can say other things regarding civilians and what is happening all
:07:20. > :07:25.around us. How shocked are you that so many people have died in this
:07:25. > :07:30.particular rocket attack on this apartment block? We are very
:07:30. > :07:36.shocked. We have here three dead people and a few wounded people.
:07:36. > :07:42.One of them is a child. We have a few post trauma victims, and it is
:07:42. > :07:47.a very sad attack, very sad. just tell us. When you hear that a
:07:47. > :07:51.rocket is coming in. The sirens go, we took to the shelters. What is
:07:51. > :07:57.the advice to people in towns like this who are vulnerable to rocket
:07:57. > :08:01.attacks? First of all, they have about 30 seconds to do something.
:08:01. > :08:06.We advise them to go to the safest place they have where they are in
:08:06. > :08:10.right now. If they are at home and have a protective room, that is the
:08:10. > :08:17.best thing. If they don't, they should go to the stairway, because
:08:17. > :08:24.that is more protective than the balcony that you see over here. The
:08:24. > :08:30.civilians know quite well because we every day give the guidelines of
:08:30. > :08:34.what to do and how to behave, because the Daily guidelines tell
:08:34. > :08:40.them if they go to school, they go to work, we tried to put them in
:08:40. > :08:44.the most safe place and not take them out where they shouldn't be on
:08:44. > :08:51.a day like this one, we try not to disturb the routine of life of
:08:51. > :08:56.people. My wife and kids are in the house near the protective room
:08:56. > :09:00.right now. They are not going anywhere. People are clearly
:09:00. > :09:04.terrified here. You can't blame them. But Palestinians are
:09:04. > :09:09.terrified inside Gaza when they see your war planes coming in carrying
:09:09. > :09:15.out air strikes and killing people. We know that the Hamas leader was
:09:15. > :09:19.killed yesterday, but there were children killed as well. I can't
:09:19. > :09:26.tell you anything about what is going on in Gaza, because that is
:09:26. > :09:34.not my field of doing. There is suffering on both sides, clearly.
:09:34. > :09:39.It looks like that, but when I look at it, I see for over a decade now
:09:39. > :09:46.thousands of rockets. This last day, we had a couple of hundred rockets
:09:46. > :09:56.in one day over civilians. These are not military targets. They are
:09:56. > :09:56.
:09:56. > :10:02.not terrorists. They are civilians. The rockets have standard
:10:02. > :10:07.explosives, they start from far away. We have 1 million civilians,
:10:07. > :10:13.children, women, men, under attack. That is what we have to deal with
:10:13. > :10:17.right now. The Israeli defence force there. We are going to move
:10:17. > :10:23.on for a moment, because Aaron Heslehurst is here with some bad
:10:23. > :10:30.news for the whole of Europe. eurozone couldn't defy gravity much
:10:30. > :10:33.longer, and the 12 trillion dollar global economy is back in recession.
:10:34. > :10:39.It was confirmed today. We started seeing all the economic numbers
:10:39. > :10:44.coming out of reach of the individual 17 member states. If we
:10:44. > :10:54.break it down further, we saw the likes of Germany and France still
:10:54. > :10:55.
:10:55. > :11:00.both grew, 0.12 %. Germany's growth is OK, but compared to the last
:11:00. > :11:07.year, a mighty fall off the cliff. And one of the worrying factors
:11:07. > :11:11.have all of this, we talk about the core being hit, and this is
:11:11. > :11:16.probably the last good number we can expect from Germany, certainly
:11:16. > :11:20.for the time being. We know that orders out of Germany have been
:11:20. > :11:25.falling for a year, the business climate in Germany has sunk into a
:11:25. > :11:33.cave, so a big worry. Let's listen to someone I spoke to earlier who
:11:33. > :11:42.gave us his take on the numbers. The only positive spotted take away
:11:42. > :11:47.from this is that the decline was and larger. One major concern is
:11:47. > :11:51.that if you look at the core economies, Germany, France and so
:11:51. > :11:56.on, all the signs are that the output in the fourth quarter of
:11:56. > :12:00.this year is going to be even softer. We are more likely to see
:12:00. > :12:06.that the recession continues across the euro area at least until the
:12:06. > :12:12.end of this year, and it won't just be about Spain and Italy, it is now
:12:12. > :12:17.spreading to the core. The other big business story of the day: BP
:12:17. > :12:21.says it is in advanced discussions with US agencies about selling
:12:21. > :12:25.criminal and other claims from the Gulf of Mexico spill two years ago.
:12:25. > :12:30.The explosion and fire aboard Deepwater Horizon which killed 11
:12:30. > :12:33.workers and set off a spell that polluted large areas of the coastal
:12:33. > :12:41.United States. The settlement is expected to dwarf the largest
:12:41. > :12:45.previous corporate criminal penalty in the US, backing 2009 $1.2
:12:45. > :12:50.billion was paid. Tom Bergin is from Reuters, and is the author of
:12:50. > :12:57.Spills & Spin: The Inside Story of BP. Before we talk about the nuts
:12:57. > :13:02.and bolts of any settlement, take us back to that day, 20th April,
:13:02. > :13:09.2010, an explosion that killed 11 people. It reeked an environmental
:13:09. > :13:16.catastrophe in big part of that area, didn't it? Good morning. The
:13:16. > :13:23.fatal explosion killed 11 men. Then we saw, depending on whose version
:13:23. > :13:32.of events you looked to, either for 0.9 million barrels of oil or
:13:32. > :13:39.considerably less than that, spilling onto the ocean floor --
:13:40. > :13:49.4.9 million. Tens of thousands of people were involved in the clean-
:13:49. > :13:54.up, an enormous effort. The company struggled to cap the leak. It is
:13:54. > :14:03.probably the biggest disaster in the oil industry in terms of
:14:03. > :14:07.environmental impact. It dwarfed the Exxon Valdez spill, for example.
:14:07. > :14:11.Possibly the biggest environmental disaster in the United States, and
:14:11. > :14:15.that will be a very big chunk of money they will have to cough up.
:14:16. > :14:22.What are you expecting? We are hearing reports of up to $40
:14:22. > :14:27.billion. The overarching legal cases that are outstanding have a
:14:27. > :14:31.somewhat open-ended potential liability on them. Today's news
:14:31. > :14:37.relates to one of those, possibly not the biggest one. The company
:14:37. > :14:40.under what is called the Clean Water Act faces fines of
:14:40. > :14:44.potentially in excess of $20 billion, and that is just the
:14:44. > :14:49.spilling the oil. It also faces what a record natural resource
:14:49. > :14:54.damages, the cost of a mediating the damage they have done, and
:14:54. > :14:59.again, who can say how much it costs to fix the Gulf of Mexico?
:14:59. > :15:03.That could certainly run into billions. And then we are talking
:15:03. > :15:07.today about the criminal element of this, and the Department of Justice
:15:07. > :15:12.said backing 2010 that it was looking at potential criminal
:15:12. > :15:17.charges against the company in relation to the spell. They haven't
:15:17. > :15:23.fully articulated what charges they are looking at. So we don't
:15:23. > :15:27.necessarily know what exactly will be settled. My colleagues at
:15:27. > :15:31.Reuters in the US are hearing that a statement could come as early as
:15:31. > :15:35.today on this. But you have a number of elements, and the figures
:15:36. > :15:40.in this are potentially enormous and potentially open-ended. In your
:15:40. > :15:44.point of view, you have been following this from day one. How
:15:44. > :15:53.has BP handled itself since the spell? You can imagine they won't
:15:53. > :15:59.get much new business in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has struggled, it
:15:59. > :16:04.must be said, to articulate a new strategy to its investors, and the
:16:04. > :16:07.share price tells its own story, really, of an investor base which
:16:07. > :16:12.doesn't really understand what the company is trying to do at the
:16:12. > :16:15.moment. The company has tried to reinvented through a number of
:16:15. > :16:21.deals, and one of those is that major deal in Russia that they
:16:21. > :16:27.announced backing 2011, and that fell apart. The company did a big
:16:27. > :16:31.deal in India that hasn't worked out so well. So in terms of BP
:16:31. > :16:37.regaining its competitive advantage, it has struggled on that, and it
:16:37. > :16:40.has also struggled to convince investors that the work that the
:16:40. > :16:44.new chief-executive was doing on rebuilding the company and
:16:44. > :16:49.improving safety, that that was something that people had to be
:16:49. > :16:55.patient and wait for that to happen. So it is probably fair to say that
:16:55. > :17:05.there has not been a rapid rebound in BP and its share price that was
:17:05. > :17:35.
:17:35. > :17:41.predicted. Tom, we appreciate your Are you a vampire fan? You know
:17:41. > :17:49.what, yeah. Well, they are on BBC World News. Coming up in just a
:17:49. > :17:57.moment: Twilight hysteria hits London as hundreds camped out to
:17:57. > :18:01.see the stars of the vampire film saga.
:18:01. > :18:05.They have tried poisoning them, gassing them, even offering free
:18:05. > :18:10.mobile phones for their capture. But rats are still causing a major
:18:10. > :18:13.problem for residents in the South African township of Alexandra. So
:18:13. > :18:18.the Johannesburg City Council in charge of the area has decided to
:18:18. > :18:22.take the ecological approach and introduced owls. It is an option
:18:22. > :18:32.that has not gone down well with the more superstitious occupants of
:18:32. > :18:41.one of the country's boldest townships. My name is Robson. I am
:18:41. > :18:46.from a company which has been working with these owls for a year.
:18:46. > :18:52.We are trying to educate the students and their parents around
:18:52. > :19:00.the community, to let them know about the owls. They are just like
:19:00. > :19:08.a normal bird. It is just active at night. People are superstitious,
:19:08. > :19:15.but it does not work like that. We are trying to bring in the else to
:19:15. > :19:25.eradicate the rats in this community. They must go in, one by
:19:25. > :19:29.
:19:29. > :19:37.one. We take care of the owls, because owls are wise. Tell us more
:19:37. > :19:46.about these cages? It was rolled back -- rolled out as far back as
:19:46. > :19:56.much. We have already issued about 200 of these pages two communities
:19:56. > :19:57.
:19:57. > :20:03.in Alexandra. It is tied to the whole project. It is a natural way
:20:03. > :20:13.to use the owls to catch the rats. We use the cages to track the rads
:20:13. > :20:14.
:20:14. > :20:24.inside. There are lots of rats in this community, so we are using
:20:24. > :20:27.
:20:27. > :20:31.owls to try to reduce the number of rodents. We need to have bait. With
:20:31. > :20:39.the owls flying at night in Alexandra, it will never be the
:20:39. > :20:44.same again. You are watching BBC World News.
:20:44. > :20:48.The headlines: the crisis in Gaza gets worse. Three Israelis are
:20:48. > :20:50.killed by Palestinian rocket fire. At least three Hamas fighters have
:20:50. > :20:54.also been killed in the last few hours.
:20:54. > :20:59.New figures show that the Eurozone's economy is back in
:20:59. > :21:02.recession for the first time in three years.
:21:02. > :21:06.China's new leader Xi Jinping has said his government will fight for
:21:06. > :21:10.a better life for the people. The new leadership has been unveiled in
:21:10. > :21:14.Beijing, with Mr Xi succeeding President Hu Jintao as head of the
:21:15. > :21:21.ruling Communist Party. He told a press conference that the party had
:21:21. > :21:25.to tackle corruption and be more in touch with the Chinese.
:21:25. > :21:31.After a mysterious secretive process, China has chosen its new
:21:31. > :21:40.leaders. Seven men in Communist sartorial splendour, and foremost
:21:40. > :21:43.among them, the new party general secretary, as expected, Xi Jinping.
:21:43. > :21:51.In front of the invited journalists, he lost no time in warning of the
:21:51. > :21:56.challenges ahead. TRANSLATION: The problems among
:21:56. > :22:03.hour party leaders warned us of corruption, taking bribes, being
:22:03. > :22:09.out of touch with the people, formalities and bureaucracy, which
:22:09. > :22:13.must be addressed. Little is known about Xi Jinping's preferred
:22:13. > :22:17.solutions to those challenges. Those who have met him describe a
:22:17. > :22:21.relaxed, informal man, seemingly different from his predecessors.
:22:21. > :22:27.But he is also known to have close ties to China's hardline military
:22:27. > :22:33.chiefs. Chinese people have had no say in choosing their leaders. The
:22:33. > :22:38.party has done that for them. Few people will expect many changes in
:22:38. > :22:43.direction. But outside observers will be trying to read the runes
:22:43. > :22:50.about the men now in charge about the world's second biggest economy.
:22:50. > :22:55.They include the second most senior ranked leader, a former farm
:22:55. > :22:59.labourer. The number six in the line-up is already an architect of
:22:59. > :23:06.economic reform and perhaps offers the hope of some more. But then
:23:06. > :23:15.there is number three and number five, both said to be conservative
:23:15. > :23:20.hardliners. Xi Jinping's wife is a singer who is at least as famous as
:23:20. > :23:25.he is. It is something else that marks him out as different. But
:23:25. > :23:29.only by a matter of degree. Conformity and caution are keys to
:23:29. > :23:36.the long, hard climb up Communist Party politics, and all of these
:23:36. > :23:41.men are likely to have those in abundance.
:23:41. > :23:45.Some Other stories now. The US military has revoked access for two
:23:45. > :23:51.women after the scandal that led to Friday's resignation of the CIA
:23:51. > :23:54.boss General David Petraeus. Secure teachers has been suspended for his
:23:54. > :23:57.ex-mistress, army reservist Paula Broadwell, and Jill Kelley's pass
:23:57. > :24:02.and the foreign air force base where she organised social events
:24:02. > :24:06.has also been frozen. An earthquake has struck the south
:24:06. > :24:13.west of Mexico. The quake measured six on the Richter scale. It had
:24:13. > :24:15.about 30 kilometres east of the town of Altmirano. No reports of
:24:15. > :24:18.casualties or significant damage yet.
:24:18. > :24:25.The health ministry in Uganda says a new outbreak of the ebola virus
:24:25. > :24:29.has killed at least two people near the capital, Kampala.
:24:29. > :24:33.Now, such is the devotion of Twilight film fans but some of them
:24:33. > :24:38.camped out in central London for four days in temperatures as low as
:24:38. > :24:41.four Celsius, to get a glimpse of the stars of the movie. Robert
:24:41. > :24:50.Pattinson and Kristen Stewart were among those who came to the
:24:50. > :24:55.premiere of the fifth and final film in the Twilight series. It is
:24:55. > :25:00.the film series that has made stars of its young cast and gained loyal
:25:00. > :25:05.fans across the globe. Thousands filled London's Leicester
:25:05. > :25:12.Square for the premiere of Breaking Dawn: Part 2. Many camped overnight
:25:12. > :25:17.just for the chance to see the cast. Especially Robert Pattinson, an
:25:17. > :25:23.actor whose life has been transformed by the films' success.
:25:23. > :25:27.Sum up what the last few years of Twilight have been like for you?
:25:27. > :25:35.has been unbelievable. I feel like I have gone into a parallel
:25:35. > :25:39.dimension. I have no idea what happened. But it has been fun.
:25:39. > :25:43.Based on a series of best-selling books, the five movie stress the
:25:43. > :25:46.love story between Edward, vampire, and teenage Bella. This final
:25:46. > :25:54.instalment in this series sees them fighting to defend their young
:25:54. > :25:59.daughter from the threat posed by a vicious vampire sector. This
:25:59. > :26:02.Vampire series has so far made more than �1.5 billion at the worldwide
:26:02. > :26:07.box-office, and with so much potential cash to be made, now that
:26:07. > :26:16.Twilight is over, the film studios will be eagerly looking for the
:26:16. > :26:23.next teen fiction sensation that they can sink their teeth into.
:26:23. > :26:27.Back to reality now, as we draw to the end of the programme. This is
:26:27. > :26:32.the picture overlooking Gaza City right now. It looks quiet, but
:26:32. > :26:39.there has been smoke billow a ping up out through the city during the
:26:39. > :26:45.day. And in the process, a funeral has also been taking place. The