:00:04. > :00:13.Hello. Welcome to BBC World News. Our top stories: Russia's President
:00:13. > :00:17.appeals directly to the American people, urging them not to back
:00:17. > :00:20.military action against Syria. But the Free Syrian Army rebels rejects
:00:20. > :00:29.Russia's plan to put the government's chemical weapons under
:00:29. > :00:32.international control. The international community should not
:00:32. > :00:36.be content with withdrawing chemical weapons which are a criminal
:00:36. > :00:40.instrument, but to hold the perpetrator accountable and
:00:40. > :00:47.prosecute him. US satellite images appear to reveal North Korea
:00:47. > :00:50.restarting a nuclear reactor. And a new role for Prince William -
:00:50. > :00:52.Britain's second in line to the thrown is to leave the military
:00:52. > :01:17.after seven years of service. US prepare for face to face talks
:01:17. > :01:20.over chemical weapons in Syria, Vladimir Putin has issued a direct
:01:20. > :01:24.appeal to the American people. He's written an article in the New York
:01:24. > :01:29.Times, warning that any US strike against Syria could unleash a new
:01:29. > :01:33.wave of terrorism. The talks aren't due to start until this evening but
:01:33. > :01:36.already this morning, one of the main rebel groups, the Free Syrian
:01:36. > :01:37.Army has rejected Russia's proposals. Rajesh Mirchandani has
:01:37. > :01:47.Army has rejected Russia's the latest. Increasingly, Syria's
:01:47. > :01:55.conflict is a fragmented war of attrition. Here in this Christian
:01:55. > :02:00.town in north-east and in this case -- Damascus, the BBC filmed street
:02:00. > :02:06.fighting. Events on the ground are not waiting for politics to catch
:02:06. > :02:11.up. Yet diplomacy is at a crucial stage. US Secretary of State John
:02:11. > :02:16.Kerry arrived in Geneva to examine Russia's plan to eliminate Syria's
:02:16. > :02:46.weapons. Russia's presidents reached out to Americans through a
:02:46. > :02:52.newspaper. He wrote: And so, in this hotel, Russian and American
:02:52. > :02:56.diplomats will spend two days trying to work out how an estimated 1000
:02:56. > :02:59.tonnes of Syrian chemical weapons could be locked, collected and
:02:59. > :03:06.destroyed. The US has come with could be locked, collected and
:03:06. > :03:09.open mind but one eye on the clock. The military is ready and is waiting
:03:09. > :03:19.for a certain period of time. It will not negatively affect whether
:03:19. > :03:29.we can inflict damage on President Assad's abilities. Syria's main
:03:29. > :03:35.rebel fighting cause, the Free Syrian Army, rejected the plan. We
:03:35. > :03:39.ask that the international community should not be content with
:03:39. > :03:44.withdrawing chemical weapons which are a criminal instrument, but to
:03:44. > :03:50.hold the perpetrator accountable and prosecute him at the international
:03:50. > :03:55.court. Removing the criminal tools is one matter and holding him
:03:56. > :03:59.accountable is another. And what of those UN weapons inspectors who
:03:59. > :04:02.collected evidence of the poison gas attack last month. Their report will
:04:02. > :04:06.not assign blame and may be of attack last month. Their report will
:04:06. > :04:12.limited use now that Syria has admitted having chemical weapons and
:04:12. > :04:17.agreed to the Russian plan. Even if the plan works, how will it help
:04:17. > :04:22.stop the carnage and a death toll that is already rising above 1000?
:04:22. > :04:32.Imogen Foulkes is in Geneva for us now. We saw pictures earlier of John
:04:32. > :04:36.Kerry's huge convoy arriving. If the size of the delegation is anything
:04:36. > :04:50.to go by then the USA is taking this extremely seriously. Yes, I think
:04:50. > :04:55.that is right. For both the US and the Russian diplomats, we know that
:04:55. > :04:58.there has been stalemate for well over two years at the UN Security
:04:58. > :05:01.Council. We know that has been frustration, anger and quite
:05:01. > :05:05.frankly, shame, in many diplomatic frustration, anger and quite
:05:05. > :05:11.circles that they have not been able to do something. Now there is a
:05:11. > :05:15.window of opportunity to do something, albeit in a country that
:05:15. > :05:21.has suffered a violent civil war for two years. It seems that both sides
:05:21. > :05:26.are very serious about striking a deal but the devil will be in the
:05:26. > :05:32.detail. How do you verify and then destroy a massive stock of chemical
:05:32. > :05:36.weapons in a country which is involved in a civil war, and which
:05:36. > :05:42.is reluctant to let into many international observers? We saw
:05:42. > :05:50.pictures of John Kerry just that, in Geneva. William Hague has just said
:05:50. > :05:55.that Syria's acceptance of the Russian plan must be treated with
:05:55. > :06:00.caution because the Assad regime has lied for years about possessing
:06:00. > :06:05.chemical weapons. Nevertheless, Mr Putin's intervention is a blinder,
:06:05. > :06:12.that letter because it is bound to be seen as a coherent set of
:06:12. > :06:17.arguments. Yes, and it is being quoted across the world and is on
:06:17. > :06:20.every news outlet all morning long. The Russians are feeling very
:06:20. > :06:25.comfortable with their foreign policy efforts at the moment,
:06:25. > :06:30.whereas America and President Obama look a little bit on the back foot.
:06:30. > :06:41.The point really is, can they strike this deal? If they can, could it
:06:41. > :06:45.perhaps lead to wider peace negotiations in Syria? Everyone here
:06:45. > :06:50.in Geneva, where all of the humanitarian aid agencies are, say
:06:50. > :06:59.it is desperately needed. 2 million refugees, 4 million are displaced,
:06:59. > :07:04.at least 100,000 people dead. Destroy the chemical weapons, move
:07:04. > :07:06.on from there. These talks are due to go on for a couple days at least,
:07:06. > :07:13.thank you. In other news today, to go on for a couple days at least,
:07:13. > :07:18.suspected Muslim rebels in the Philippines have struck a town as
:07:18. > :07:29.fighting continues. Two people were reportedly wounded and five were
:07:29. > :07:37.missing after gunmen attacked a town near the Mauritanian border. To Mali
:07:37. > :07:42.where government troops have clashed with rebels, the first eruption of
:07:42. > :07:50.fighting since the two sides signed a peace deal it in June. Three
:07:51. > :08:00.soldiers were injured in the clash. Firefighters in Argentina are
:08:00. > :08:02.struggling to contain a series of forest fires, being fanned by strong
:08:02. > :08:07.winds and unseasonably high temperatures of up to forty degrees
:08:07. > :08:15.celsius. The worst fires are in Cordoba province, where hundreds
:08:15. > :08:17.people have been evacuated. Russia is disputing the accuracy of
:08:17. > :08:21.satellite images appearing to show North Korea has restarted a nuclear
:08:21. > :08:23.reactor at Yonbyon. A US based research group is reporting that
:08:23. > :08:26.steam has allegedly been seen emerging from a building housing
:08:26. > :08:28.turbines and generators. I've been speaking to the BBC's Lucy
:08:28. > :08:41.Williamson, who's following developments from Seoul, in
:08:41. > :08:43.neighbouring South Korea. Researchers frequently publish
:08:43. > :08:48.commercial satellite images of what is going on inside North Korea and
:08:48. > :08:57.the most recent photographs from less than two years ago -- two weeks
:08:57. > :09:03.ago show white steam coming from a complex which houses steam turbines
:09:03. > :09:07.and generators for the five megawatts that North Korea vowed it
:09:07. > :09:14.would restart earlier this year. The volume and colour of the steam
:09:14. > :09:19.indicates that the reactor is very near operation or in operation. The
:09:19. > :09:23.problem with that, of course, is not the electricity being generated but
:09:23. > :09:28.the fact that spent fuel rods can be used to make plutonium. The Russians
:09:28. > :09:36.have come out with a quick response to that, have they not? Yes. It is
:09:36. > :09:43.very difficult with satellite imagery to be sure what is going on.
:09:43. > :09:48.Many analysts look over these photographs and look for evidence of
:09:48. > :09:53.changes or construction inside North Korea. It is one of the few ways of
:09:53. > :09:58.getting some kind of glimpse inside the country. Certainly, there was
:09:58. > :10:03.speculation about how long it would take North Korea to rebuild this
:10:03. > :10:09.particular reactor. They said they would rebuild that reactor and time
:10:09. > :10:16.frames went from six months to 18 months. The cooling tower there was
:10:16. > :10:23.blown up five years ago when it was last suspended. It seems that North
:10:23. > :10:28.Korea, if the photographs are accurate, has rebuilt it quite
:10:28. > :10:34.quickly. A distressing story from Pakistan. A man who drowned his own
:10:34. > :10:41.one-year-old daughter because according to his family he wanted a
:10:41. > :10:46.son, says he now regrets what he did. The case has highlighted a
:10:47. > :10:49.problem which exists across South Asia, of killing children purely
:10:49. > :10:53.because of their gender. Aleem Maqbool reports from Lahore. This
:10:53. > :10:59.man has to live with a shocking crime he committed against his
:10:59. > :11:02.daughter. It was a mistake, he tells me. I made a big mistake and I do
:11:02. > :11:07.not know what was going through my mind. His family says his actions
:11:07. > :11:14.were calculated and he plan exactly what happened at the river. The man
:11:14. > :11:20.has confessed that he did come here at the dead of night and when he
:11:20. > :11:26.came here this river was flowing much faster after heavy rains. At
:11:26. > :11:30.this spot he threw in his daughter and the divers have now given up
:11:30. > :11:36.finding her body. Why did he kill her? His wife, who saw the whole
:11:36. > :11:43.thing, said he had been threatening it for some time. Since our first
:11:43. > :11:50.daughter was born, he was not happy and wanted a son. He said, if I had
:11:50. > :11:56.another daughter I would kill the first child. When I had another
:11:56. > :12:02.girl, that is what he did. She was screaming in the water but when I
:12:02. > :12:07.tried to save her, he beat me. The mother says she was threatened with
:12:07. > :12:12.death herself if she reported what happened. After several days, she
:12:12. > :12:20.now has. A culture across this region has meant girls being killed
:12:20. > :12:24.because their families wanted boys. Human rights groups in Pakistan
:12:24. > :12:30.accuse law-enforcement agencies of not taking it seriously. Police are
:12:30. > :12:35.already undermining the case. How can a mother who sees someone else
:12:35. > :12:45.throwing the daughter in the river just leave quietly and not report it
:12:45. > :12:49.for a week? He may be behind bars now and he may have admitted to
:12:49. > :12:57.killing his daughter but there are no guarantees that this man will be
:12:57. > :13:03.punished for what he did. The terrible plight affecting a family
:13:03. > :13:08.in Pakistan. Stay with us on ABC news. Still to come: Oxfam warns
:13:08. > :13:10.that European austerity programmes news. Still to come: Oxfam warns
:13:10. > :13:20.risk pushing another 25 million into poverty. Plans are in place to build
:13:20. > :13:25.a new sewer under London to stop millions of tonnes of untreated
:13:25. > :13:30.sewage going into the River Thames. 30 feet below the City of London, a
:13:30. > :13:36.world a few people only ever see. These sewers were built in 1860s
:13:36. > :13:40.were a triumph of Victorian engineering, draining rainwater from
:13:40. > :13:44.the streets and waste from people's homes. If you walk down these
:13:44. > :13:51.tunnels there is quite a bit of head room and this forms what is a 20,000
:13:51. > :13:56.mile network in London. The sewers are under strain and they
:13:56. > :13:59.increasingly deal with the daily age of waste and storm water. This is
:13:59. > :14:06.raw sewage from half a million homes and businesses. When the level gets
:14:06. > :14:12.too high it overflows and that is why we are standing in the overflow
:14:12. > :14:17.area. When that happens, the sewage will come pastors at the weight of
:14:17. > :14:25.50 tonnes as second. That is the weight of 30 family cars. It is not
:14:25. > :14:29.consistent for a world leading city to be using its rivers as an open
:14:29. > :14:33.sewer. We need to build a project that will intercept those flows and
:14:33. > :14:39.take them off to East London for treatment. Thames Water once to
:14:39. > :14:44.construct a 50 mile tunnel 200 feet deep. There will be 24 construction
:14:44. > :14:48.sites. It is an engineering megaproject and will cost £4.2
:14:48. > :14:53.billion, and create the biggest network of its kind in the northern
:14:53. > :14:57.hemisphere. Some who live nearby are worried. The amount of waste that
:14:57. > :15:02.will come out from the tunnel would be astronomical. We want a clean
:15:02. > :15:05.river but this is proving to be an ineffective way of doing it. What we
:15:05. > :15:11.know is that they are promising to build something that won't work. It
:15:11. > :15:17.will add £80 a year to customer's Bills but some environmentalists say
:15:17. > :15:20.it is not needed at all and they want more things like this to deal
:15:20. > :15:25.it is not needed at all and they with the heavy rain before it even
:15:25. > :15:28.enters the sewers. It attracts water by itself. A lot of that water would
:15:28. > :15:33.actually be sent back to the atmosphere rather than going down
:15:34. > :15:40.the sewers. Thames Water says modernising this Victorian network
:15:40. > :15:43.would lead to 9000 new jobs. The end result would help to create a
:15:43. > :15:58.cleaner environment but critics will ask, at what cost? This is BBC World
:15:58. > :16:01.News. The latest headlines. Russian President Vladimir Putin has written
:16:01. > :16:04.to the American people urging them not to back military action against
:16:04. > :16:08.Syria. Key talks between Russia and the US are due to take place in
:16:08. > :16:20.Geneva, later. US satellite images appear to reveal North Korea
:16:20. > :16:23.restarting a nuclear reactor. Here in the UK it's been announced that
:16:23. > :16:24.Prince William has left the British military just a few weeks after
:16:24. > :16:26.becoming a father. He is second in military just a few weeks after
:16:26. > :16:32.line to the throne and finished his final stressed that shift on
:16:32. > :16:37.Tuesday. He is now focusing on royal duties and charity work. Let's find
:16:37. > :16:43.out more what that means. Alan royal correspondent is at Kensington
:16:43. > :16:48.Palace. They won't become fully fledged full-time Royals yet, but
:16:48. > :16:52.this is a big change? Yes, I think it's a step for Prince William,
:16:52. > :16:57.almost a baby Prince George Stapp, along that path towards embracing
:16:57. > :17:01.his destiny, to become the king of the UK and the 15 other countries
:17:01. > :17:06.where currently Queen Elizabeth is the head of state. We are now in a
:17:06. > :17:09.transitional 12 months. We know William has given up his military
:17:09. > :17:14.career and would have found that hard. His three years as a pilot in
:17:14. > :17:17.Wales were very, very rewarding for him and he spoke once to the BBC
:17:17. > :17:21.about how you couldn't get a greater calling in life to save people,
:17:21. > :17:23.which is exactly what he did. The thrill and the enjoyment of a job
:17:23. > :17:32.for him was the fact he was doing it thrill and the enjoyment of a job
:17:32. > :17:35.on his terms, he got it because of his ability not because of who he
:17:35. > :17:38.was. So that is ending. Now we're in a transition period for 12 months
:17:38. > :17:43.for the family while he does some more royal work but possibly, given
:17:43. > :17:45.that the monarch is 87, he may carry out investitures, ceremonies where
:17:45. > :17:48.people receive awards and acknowledgements for this service to
:17:49. > :17:53.the country and he may take on some of that and do more charity work.
:17:53. > :17:58.Particularly conservation. In the last couple of months, we would hear
:17:58. > :18:02.an announcement about other public duties he may take on. That's what
:18:02. > :18:06.is Workman at the moment, to work out what that could be. It is not
:18:06. > :18:10.being a full-time role, what's he doing with the rest of his time?
:18:10. > :18:15.That will be the question people will ask. He is moving into
:18:15. > :18:21.Kensington Palace in the next few weeks to an apartment which has been
:18:21. > :18:27.restored and done at £1 million spent on the renovation at taxpayers
:18:27. > :18:32.expense. What we will see over this 12 month period is a bit more royal
:18:32. > :18:35.work, some charity work, may be periods of times with charities and
:18:35. > :18:40.then come in the New Year, they will announce what is public duties are.
:18:40. > :18:44.It's not a new challenge Royals are facing. If you look at Prince Philip
:18:44. > :18:47.back in the 1940s, there was a suggestion should go down a coal
:18:47. > :18:52.mine for a month, but that never went beyond the drawing board. The
:18:52. > :18:56.1960s, the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, he wanted to work in a
:18:56. > :18:59.factory but that was dismissed. There were suggestions he could
:18:59. > :19:02.become an ambassador to France, or Governor general of Australia, and
:19:02. > :19:09.those ideas were ultimately dismissed. Royals have always
:19:09. > :19:12.wrestled with this issue of what to do to occupy yourself and what will
:19:12. > :19:18.you miss doing now is to look at the options. But he is now slowly moving
:19:18. > :19:21.towards embracing the ultimate destination of becoming one day the
:19:21. > :19:24.Kings. We couldn't resist showing the baby pictures whilst we were
:19:24. > :19:34.talking. Peter, thank you very much indeed. A Canadian woman has been
:19:34. > :19:37.arrested in Colombia after trying to board a plane with a fake pregnancy
:19:37. > :19:40.belly stuffed with cocaine. Police say the tourist caught the attention
:19:40. > :19:44.of an anti-narcotics officer during a routine pat down search. Laura
:19:44. > :19:48.Westbrook reports. They thought they had seen it all. But Colombian
:19:48. > :19:53.authorities say this is the first time they are caught someone trying
:19:53. > :19:58.to smuggle drugs act like this. The Canadian traveller was preparing to
:19:58. > :20:02.go to Toronto telling officers she was seven months pregnant. That,
:20:02. > :20:07.during the regular police pat-down, customs official noticed her belly
:20:07. > :20:12.was cold and unusually hard. TRANSLATION: The anti-narcotics
:20:12. > :20:18.squad and police arrested a 28-year-old Canadian citizen Tabatha
:20:18. > :20:22.Ritchie, trying to smuggle two kilograms of cocaine out of the
:20:22. > :20:30.airport by faking a pregnancy, attempting to fill officers. Upon
:20:30. > :20:35.further inspection, they discovered the woman was attempting to deliver
:20:35. > :20:40.up to $60,000 worth of drugs. Her pregnant bump, a latex belly prop,
:20:40. > :20:45.the anti-narcotics department is now trying to find those who made it.
:20:45. > :20:49.Officials say more than 870 foreigners are being held in
:20:49. > :20:53.Colombian jails, mostly on drug charges. If the Canadian market was
:20:53. > :21:01.social worker is convicted, she could face up to eight years behind
:21:01. > :21:05.bars. -- the Canadian social worker. The international aid charity Oxfam
:21:05. > :21:12.has called on European governments to reverse their austerity
:21:12. > :21:14.programmes. The charity claims the policies risk pushing another 25
:21:14. > :21:18.million people into poverty in Europe in just over a decade.
:21:18. > :21:22.Oxfam's Max Lawson joins me now to talk about the report. What are you
:21:22. > :21:26.saying here exactly? Austerity in Europe is not working. Oxfam are
:21:26. > :21:30.more famous for working in Africa, the poorest countries in the world
:21:30. > :21:35.and we didn't expect to ever talk to you in 2013 about people not having
:21:35. > :21:40.enough food to eat in the UK or thousands and thousands of young
:21:40. > :21:43.people in Spain facing no future. We need to see action in Europe to
:21:43. > :21:47.combat austerity because it's not working. Your claims are
:21:47. > :21:53.far-fetched. You are saying should the UK to follow Bolivia's struggle
:21:53. > :21:57.to recover, the gap between rich and poor could become greater than in
:21:57. > :21:59.South Sudan. That is a ridiculous claim because you're talking about
:21:59. > :22:04.very wealthy people in London, aren't you? The numbers are very
:22:04. > :22:10.clear that inequality is shooting up in Europe and, yes, it's about that
:22:10. > :22:13.top 1%... There's so many measures of inequality but if you judge
:22:13. > :22:16.between the richest and poorest, of course it's going to be very wide in
:22:16. > :22:22.some European countries because of the wealth at the top. The important
:22:22. > :22:25.thing is the trend so inequality is rising rapidly across Europe, and
:22:25. > :22:29.not just Oxfam, but many have said in the UK we could return to
:22:29. > :22:36.Victorian levels of inequality is relatively soon so it's not a Sox
:22:37. > :22:38.fan saying that. More rich people are making money from the recession
:22:38. > :22:42.was the poor are suffering. You are making money from the recession
:22:43. > :22:45.can't be anti-wealth creation if you're only going to measure
:22:45. > :22:51.inequality because Londoners become an international hub for the rich.
:22:51. > :22:54.That's a completely bizarre statistic to in this report because
:22:54. > :23:00.people in other parts of the world are much lower levels of basic
:23:00. > :23:06.wealth than Europe. We're talking about the gap between rich and poor
:23:06. > :23:10.and many, many economists all agree that inequality in the rich world is
:23:10. > :23:15.going in the wrong direction, returning to levels we haven't seen
:23:15. > :23:19.since the 19th century, and, yes, it's about wealth creation. If it
:23:19. > :23:22.only at the very top, we are not seeing the jobs, decent work for
:23:23. > :23:27.ordinary people in Europe, the recovery isn't helping anyone. The
:23:27. > :23:31.richest 10% in Europe are much wealthier now than they were before
:23:31. > :23:35.the financial crisis. It means not just Oxfam is staying this, but it's
:23:35. > :23:39.a serious problem in Europe, of growing inequality and not something
:23:39. > :23:44.which should be belittled at all. OK, thank you for joining us.
:23:44. > :23:47.Africa's population of vultures is under threat because of illegal
:23:47. > :23:49.poaching of elephants and rhinos. Poachers have been poisoning the
:23:49. > :23:52.animals' carcasses to prevent the sight of circling vultures alerting
:23:53. > :23:57.wardens. A single incident can lead to the death of hundreds of birds.
:23:57. > :24:07.Nomsa Maseko reports from a conservation project in Magalisberg
:24:07. > :24:13.in South Africa. From these mountains they approach.
:24:13. > :24:21.Step-by-step, the vultures cautiously hone in on a meal of the
:24:21. > :24:28.day. Their job is to clean the flesh off the bones that nature leaves
:24:28. > :24:32.lying around. There are less than 10,000 of these King vultures left
:24:32. > :24:37.in the world. And its human activity which is threatening their numbers.
:24:37. > :24:42.When you see the role that these birds played in the ecosystem,
:24:42. > :24:47.fighting over the carcasses of dead animals, it's easy to see why
:24:47. > :24:51.vultures get such bad publicity. But the threat to their existence is a
:24:51. > :24:58.real worry. And the problem is getting worse. Over 600 rhinos have
:24:58. > :25:03.been poached in South Africa this year. Poachers lace the carcasses of
:25:03. > :25:09.poison killing the vultures so they don't act as a signal to game
:25:09. > :25:16.wardens. At this sanctuary, they are trying to help. We are going to type
:25:16. > :25:21.this bird with a piercing. This poisoned bird will be let back into
:25:21. > :25:25.the wild soon as it recovers. But staff fear they are fighting a
:25:25. > :25:30.losing battle. All you need is the one poisoned rhino, one poisoned
:25:30. > :25:34.elephant, and you wipe out 600 vultures. However, during breeding
:25:34. > :25:40.season, it's not only the 600 vultures which consume that carcass,
:25:40. > :25:45.but potentially there checks as well, so you are looking at 1200
:25:45. > :25:51.poisoned birds in one incident. And it's not just the vultures
:25:51. > :25:53.suffering. People don't realise the important ecological role these
:25:53. > :25:59.birds play and if they disappear from the environment, we will feel
:25:59. > :26:07.the impact of that, there will be a number of human health issues. We
:26:07. > :26:10.know that from Asia. Rabies has increased exponentially, 40,000
:26:10. > :26:13.people dying of rabies in the last increased exponentially, 40,000
:26:13. > :26:19.two years because the vultures are no longer present in the
:26:19. > :26:23.environment. PJ is in safe hands for now, but there are thousands more
:26:23. > :26:31.like him out there facing extinction in the skies above southern Africa.
:26:31. > :26:37.Just before we go, I want to mention in the skies above southern Africa.
:26:37. > :26:45.some news coming into us from Iran. The new convoy that envoy has said
:26:45. > :26:49.Iran will cooperate with the UN to overcome existing issues once and
:26:49. > :26:57.for all. But comes into us from Teheran. This is BBC World News. We
:26:57. > :27:00.are back throughout the day on BBC News. Thanks for being with us.