20/11/2012 BBC World News

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon joins peace efforts in Cairo,

calls on both sides in the Gaza conflict to stop the fighting.

Immediate steps are needed by all to avoid further escalation,

including a ground operation. Overnight, Israel has attack my

Lord than 100 targets in Gaza, but Hamas's military leader has

broadcast a defiant statement. Rebels in the Democratic Republic

of Congo have entered the main city in the east of the country. Can

Greece's debt mountain be made more managable? The EU and the IMF

struggle to agree a way forward. And pressure on France after

Moody's downgrades its triple-A cred it rating, saying France is

heavily exposed to Europe's debt There are intense earths to reach

agreement an ceasefire in Gaza, the UN Secretary-General moon is

calling for an immediate ceasefire from both sides and the US

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her way to the Middle East,

to join the diplomatic efforts. Israel have threatened a ground

offensive but that has been put on hold for now, while talks continue.

Hamas's hill Friday commander has broadcast a defiant statement on

Gaza television. After seven days, more than 100 Palestinians have

been killed, including a children, as well as three Israelis. Israeli

air strikes continued overnight into Tuesday. Round 100 targets in

Gaza hit, according to the military. More buildings reduced to rubble,

including this bank. And more children among the casualties now

being treated in the overstretched hospitals. Palestinian officials

say the number of injured since Israel's bombardment began last

Wednesday is almost 900. The number of dead more than 110, many of them

civilians. And all this as the United Nations Secretary-General

Ban Ki-Moon arrived in the region, to try to persuade both sides to

agree to a ceasefire, and negotiations taking place in Cairo.

My message is clear. All sides must halt fire. Immediately. Further

escalating the situation will put the entire region at risk.

Israel is also still under attack. This, the aftermath of yet another

rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip. One

of dozens fired so far today. As long as this continues, then Israel

will continue to threaten to send its troops into the Gaza Strip.

They have been waiting on the border here, since last week. If

they do go in, it would be a major escalation. For the moment, though,

the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is waiting to see if the

talks in Cairo about a ceasefire make progress. If not, then the

Government may order a ground invasion before the end of this

week. Our correspondent in Gaza has been looking at what life is like

for the citizens there. This is Palestine square, the economic

heartbeat of Gaza. It looks busy enough but only about 20% of the

shops and stalls are open here, the fighting has had a real effect on

the local economy. That is not say there are foot short tapbls.

Traders are quick to point out plenty of food is getting through.

The crossing between Israel and Gaza, all of this fruit has come

from Israel, the vegetables are grown locally. It is important to

point out, that prices haven't gone up because of the fighting. The

bananas here are still about three shekels a kilo, that is about a

dollar a kilo. A lot of people here in Gaza are hopeful, and positive,

that the talks between Hamas and Israel taking place in Egypt can

bring about some sort of ceasefire. There has been violence in Gaza

overnight, several people were killed in overnight Israeli air

strikes. It is important to point out that not much will change in

Gaza if there is a ceasefire. The Hamas rockets will stop, and Israel

is demanding that Hamas doesn't rearm. But what most Gazans want is

an improvement in their daily lives. Israel says 120 trucks were ready

to enter Gaza from Israel today, but they the crossing was closed

after Palestinian militants fired rockets at it, only 24 trucks

entered. Let us have a wider look at what is going on in the region.

Joining me from our studios at new broadcast house is Faris Couri. If

I can start with the statements coming in from the Hamas military

leader, on a television statement. Very defiant, saying Israel will

pay a heavy price if it launches a ground invasion, and that they

almost hope Israel will launch a land invasion as it would never

succeed. That is not what anyone wants to hear. Is there a tactical

reason for that sort of statement? Yes I believe it is for tactical

reasons. Why while he was talking on the television, there was a

diplomatic effort under way. I think you can see Ban Ki-Moon is

travelling from Cairo to Jerusalem to meet the Israeli leaders and

also the Arab League and a number of ash Foreign Ministers and the

Turkish Foreign Minister, to talk to Hamas people, there is efforts

to have a ceasefire. Of course, the main broker is Egypt, through the

discussions in Egypt, through the Egyptian intelligence. There is an

effort to hold this operation now, and the Israelis already have put

back their ground invasion, but of course, if the talks would not

result in any agreement, from is a possibility of a ground invasion.

From what our conds were saying that, the demands from both sides o

correspondents, from both sides seem steep. Is there any chance of

not, not only a short-term cessation but something that will

lead to a long-term solution at this stage? This is not the first

time we have a large-scale attacks, and rocket launching from Gaza, and

even ground offensive. Remember 2008 and 2009, we had a wide scale

Israeli operation into Gaza. That resulted in a ceasefire, and a kind

of a truce, lasted until now. Of course, the ambition is to have a

long lasting piece agreement, but this is difficult to achieve at the

current stage, what the Egyptians are trying to do, is is to have a

ceasefire that could last, be verified and look into the demand

from both side, and how this could be met through discussion and

dialogue. Many thanks indeed. Pakistan's high court has thrown

out a blasphemy case against a 14- year-old girl Rimsha Massih. The

court quashed the case and declared her innocent. She was arrested for

allegedly desecrating pages of the holy Koran and spent three weeks in

an adult jail. The cleric who made accusation has been accused of

planting the evidence himself. Well the verdict in the case quashing

the charges against Rimsha Massih has been w welcomed by her legal

team and Human Rights activists who have protested her innocence, they

say it doesn't mean the threat against her is lifted. So far we

haven't had any word from Rimsha or her family. They remain under

protection at an undisclosed location, the Interior Ministry has

said it will remain in place. She was accused by some neighbour tons

outskirts of Islamabad of burning pages of an Islamic test book,

containing verses of the Koran. After that happened an angry mob

surrounded her house, they threatened to set her alight. As

she was arrested and detained she was held in a maximum security

prison. There was concern among western governments and the Vatican

and campaigners, at the detention of this schoolgirl. Now doctors

established she was about 14, but said her mental age was less than

that. Her family told us that she was as young as 11. She was

released back in September after an extraordinary twist in the case,

when a local Muslim cleric was accused himself of fabricating

evidence against him. He is out on bail. Police say the case against

him is proceeding. Even though the channels have been dropped, there

are continuing concerns about her safety. Just being accused of

blasphemy can amount to a death sentence. Christian campaigners

here say in the past 20 years more than 30 people have been killed,

out on the streets by mobs or vigilantes. They say the law, the

blasphemy law is too open to abuse and is often used to settle scores

and% kuelt minorities. But goib dares to call for reform of that

law can pay with their lives. Two prominent politicians were killed

last year for suggesting the claw law needed to be changed. Aaron is

here. We are talking Greece. There is a huge potentially unsustainable

debt, yet Germany does not want to be seen to bailing them out;

because we they have Italy and Spain watching. Absolutely. Some

will say poor old Greece, they are caught between a rock and hard

place. Greece will say they have done everything they have been

asked to do. They faszed a tough budget, only roughly this time last

week, that was supposed to be the last sumling block to get this

chunk of bail out money. It is about five-and-a-half months late.

But, the problem and the the row is between the international lender.

The IMF and Christine Lagarde, and Europe, the rest of the eurozone

finance ministers in particular, Germany. The IMF, and you said it

in a nutshell. It is saying look, we can't throw money into a black

hole. Greece has so much debt it won't be able to achieve its

targets, and, yeah, you can't keep throwing, good money after bad.

Germany, with Angela Merkel has an election, she doesn't want to be

seen being too soft. She doesn't want to see any development that

looks like another bail out or a soft approach to, it's a tough

problem. The IMF are meeting to thrash this out and answer the

question, how to manage the Greek debt. All forecasts since the

beginning of our bail out, all forecasts, they were suggesting we

would be able to get back to the markets in 2011. This was not

possible, then there was a situation that we would be able to

have a sustainable debt of about 120%. That was also revised. It

seems really, that all expectations don't square, so the IMF I believe

has decided to set in its own state, which is pretty much the technical

advice and expertise they have, and pretty much hold on to their guns

in relation to what they know best, and that is to decide that this is

not going to be viable, and we really cannot continue giving money

to a black hole. That is how we perceive it. Let us move on and

talk about another blow for the eurozone, because its second

largest economy France has been downgraded. Moody's has downgraded

France from its triple-A credit rating. The debt has been reduced

to AA1 and Moody's kept its negative outlook. It means France

could be downgraded further. In a statement, Moody's blame the risk

of a Greek exist from the euro. They will have to cough up more

money if another country needs bailing out. This downgrades

highlights that France has serious problems, it needs to contend with.

So far it has Maced to avoid being associated with the euro area

periphery, even though many of the indicators, the size of its debt,

the Government borrowing requirement, those are not too far

from the problematic countries in the euro area, in addition France

is going into recession, so the problems are building for 2013, if

the economy is in recession it is more difficult to cut the deficit

and the debt level continues to rise, so the fact that Moody's has

put France on a negative outlook will be a warning signal and could

mean in fact France does start to welcome associated with the euro

area countries in the frifry. us get away from the eurozone.

Would be the biggest a named in Silicon Valley Hewlett Packard

reports fourth quarter numbers later on. They are expected to

provide evidence the PC era is in decline. The market is focused on

smartphones and tablets. PC sales are in trouble. Big trouble.

Worldwide, shipments fell over 8%, to round 18 -- 87 million. The

sharpest decline since 2001. And that is hurting HP. The company

that has fought for so many years to win the title of the world's

number one PC maker. Now it is stuck with a business that is in

decline. The problem is that consumer habits have changed. When

it comes to suffering the web, keeping up the wends and watching

videos, more of us are using smart phones and the tablet computers.

And weak results from Dell showed the economy isn't helping either.

Business customers are frugal. They are only spending where they have

to. It is strange because they have significant cash hoardes, they

could spend, they could modernise, upgrade their equipment but they

are not. The company is counting on its third CEO to be its saviour.

She has axed thousands of jobs and shaken up HP's structures but

writing this -- righting this ship is taking longer than investors

would like. The share price has fallen over 40% since she took over.

The decline in PC, decline in printing, those thing are out of

her control. Unfortunately for shareholders those changes are

probably going to continue to buffer HP's share price. For those

hoping for an improvement, HP may News out not too long ago. A London

trader who lost $2.6 billion of the Swiss bnk's UBS's money has been

found guilty of one account of fraud. He denied the charges of

fraud between October 2008 and October 2011. The prosecution told

the court in London he was a gamble or two away from destroying

Switzerland's largest bank. A couple of other business stories

making headlines. The Japanese government will spend 1 trillion

yen on a second round of fiscal stimulus. The chief cabinet

secretary, Osamu Fujimura, said the Government will tap reserved funds

from this year's budge toted pay for those measures. Ease -- budget

to pay. EasyJet has posted a rise in profit all helped by late-summer

demand and bucking trends elsewhere. Europe's second-biggest budget

airline reported a profit of just over $500 million for the year

until the end of September. We may be in recession.

But we all want to get away. My husband still uses PCs.

Still to come: the former editor of the Sun newspaper, Rebekah Brooks

is among those charged with making illegal payments it public

officials. And the European Commission turns

up its nose at some of the ingredients used by perfume makers.

Now, a man who strapped a fake bomb around the neck of a young girl in

Australia, has been jailed for more than 13 years. The girl spent ten

hours with the fake device attached to her last August.

Madeleine Pulver in the red was joined by her whole family to hear

sentence passed on the man at the centre of this bizarre collar bomb

plot. REPORTER: How are you feeling? Slightly sad but happy it

is nearly all over. Paul peeters went to Madeleine's home in Sydney

and tied what he said was a bomb to her neck using a chain. He left a

ransom note. It took ten hours for bomb squad officers to realise it

was fake. Madeleine was freed, shaken but unharm. Peters fleed to

America but was later arrested. Paul Peters never gave in evidence

this so we may never know why he did it. The prosecutors said he got

the wrong house. He should have gone to a neighbour who was a

member of a trust fund from whom he could distort money. But the

defence denied that. He said he was depressed because of financial

losses and turned himself into one of the characters of a book he had

written. The judge said Madeleine had gone through an unimaginable

terror. She later spoke for the first time about her ordeal. To me

it was not about the sentencing, but to know he would not reoffend.

It was good to hear the judge acknowledge the trauma he put me

and my family through. It is a surprise to mow that this year has

been harder than last year. -- to me. I'm lucky to have a great

familiar lane friends and we are making great progress. -- family

and friends. The judge sentenced Peters to 13-and-a-half years in

prison. She is soon off to university and says she never wants

to be associated with Paul Peters again, having been left with no

apology or no explanation as to why she was the target of this bizarre

collar bomb plot. A large bushfire in Southern

Australia is burning out of control, forcing some residents to evacuate.

Five water bombers and 120 firefighters were battling the

blaze, as strong winds pushed it towards the town of Port Lincoln.

500 hectares of scrub and farmland have been burnt so far.

Firefighters are hoping a weather change later today will help bring

the fire under control. This is BBC World News. The

headlines: the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, calls on both sides in

the Gaza conflict to immediately stop the fighting.

Rebels from the Democratic Republic of Congo say they've taken control

of the main eastern city of Goma. British prosecutors have said today

they will charge the Prime Minister David Cameron's former media chief,

Andy Coulson and Rupert Murdoch's former newspaper boss, Rebekah

Brooks, with making illegal payments to public officials.

Prosecutors say that Brooks conspired with Jon Kay to funnel

money to a Ministry of Defence employee in return for a stream of

stories that were published in Murdoch's the Sun newspaper.

Prosecutors allege that Coulson conspired with journalist Clive

Goodman to pay officials for access to a royal phone directory known as

the Green Book. Joining me ising Matt Prodger. We have had a

statement in from Andy Coulson saying he is disappointed with the

latest charges and denies the allegations and will fight the

charges in court. Can you explain more about what the charges

actually are? Well, this results from a police investigation known

as Operation Elveden. This is investigating alleged payments to

public officials by journalists. It is a spin-off from the original

phone-hacking inquiry which caused the scandal last year which led to

the Leveson Inquiry and much soul- searching within British public

life and the British media about the techniques used to get stories.

Now, Operation Elveden has resulted in a number of arrests. What we

have heard today is that the crown prosecution, the body in the United

Kingdom which brings prosecutions have made a decision to charge a

number of people. One of them is Rebekah Brooks. Obviously a very

high-profile figure over previous months. She is charged along with

the former chief reporter of the Sun newspaper for 20 years a man

called Jon Kay, with conspiring to bribe a public official. This is an

official at the Ministry of Defence called Bettina Jordan Barber. They

are accused of paying her �100,000 over a number of years from 2004-11

for stories which were then printed in the Sun UN the other set of

charges relate to sandy Coulson. -- Sun newspaper.

He was David Cameron's press advisor. Before that he was working

as editor of the News of the World. He is being prosecuted for a number

of things at the moment. But the CPS has said he will now be charged

with another offence, and this relates to something which he is

alleged to have conspireding together with Clive Goodman, a

former royal editor of the News of the World. What they are alleged to

have done, is to conspire to bribe officials to get hold of a phone

directly known as the Green Book. This contained a number of contact

details, telephone numbers for members of the Royal Family. As you

said, Andy Coulson has denied that charge. We have been told that all

of these individuals will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court in

London for a initial court appearance at a date yet to be set.

Obviously this case incredibly complex. We have had the Leveson

Inquiry, which is due to report. Does this - you know, will people

be worried that this is still damaging, politically? Well there

has been political fallout from this. In particular, David Cameron

has received criticism for his decision to appoint Andy Coulson as

his Director of Communications at Downing Street. There was also much

controversy over the decision by Jeremy Hunt, who was then the

Culture Secretary, over his communications with News

International for a period of time. But this is a criminal process now

happening now a judicial process. These trials are now continuing,

they will progress. They will take some matter of months and time for

them to reach any conclusions. What we have to wait and see is if there

are any convictions and there have only been a very limited number of

convictions with this so far and those very much historical, going

back to 2006 and people who are more junior in the newspaper

operations. OK, thank you very much. Rebekah

Brooks not commenting at the moment on the elf den charges and

obviously her solicitor will advice if that changes -- Eleveden..

The Church of England is to vote on whether women can become bishops

today. The issue has been debated for more than ten years and it is

one of the most controversial for Anglicans, as John Maguire reports.

At All Saints Church in Haggerston, east London, it's a normal Sunday

morning service. The congregation is in good voice.

The deby the about leadership in this and other diocese seems a

remote concept. But, it's never far from the surface.

Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin is the chaplain for the House of Commons

as well as being the vicar here. She is a passionate advocate for

women bishops. The Church looks silly. The Church look s out of

touch and ridiculous. It's been 20 years since the General Synod, the

Church's governing body voted to approve women priests and the first

group were ordained here at Bristol Cathedral. But now, once more, the

issue is causing divisions within the Church. There is a compromise

proposal that parishes who don't want a female Bishop can opt to be

led by a man but that has caused further rifts on both sides.

Whatever happens today, the biggest challenge for the Church, will be

to remain united, despite such a divisive issue.