12/09/2013 BBC World News

Hello. Welcome to BBC World News. Our top stories: Russia's President

appeals directly to the American people, urging them not to back

military action against Syria. But the Free Syrian Army rebels rejects

Russia's plan to put the government's chemical weapons under

international control. The international community should not

be content with withdrawing chemical weapons which are a criminal

instrument, but to hold the perpetrator accountable and

prosecute him. US satellite images appear to reveal North Korea

restarting a nuclear reactor. And a new role for Prince William -

Britain's second in line to the thrown is to leave the military

after seven years of service. US prepare for face to face talks

over chemical weapons in Syria, Vladimir Putin has issued a direct

appeal to the American people. He's written an article in the New York

Times, warning that any US strike against Syria could unleash a new

wave of terrorism. The talks aren't due to start until this evening but

already this morning, one of the main rebel groups, the Free Syrian

Army has rejected Russia's proposals. Rajesh Mirchandani has

Army has rejected Russia's the latest. Increasingly, Syria's

conflict is a fragmented war of attrition. Here in this Christian

town in north-east and in this case -- Damascus, the BBC filmed street

fighting. Events on the ground are not waiting for politics to catch

up. Yet diplomacy is at a crucial stage. US Secretary of State John

Kerry arrived in Geneva to examine Russia's plan to eliminate Syria's

weapons. Russia's presidents reached out to Americans through a

newspaper. He wrote: And so, in this hotel, Russian and American

diplomats will spend two days trying to work out how an estimated 1000

tonnes of Syrian chemical weapons could be locked, collected and

destroyed. The US has come with could be locked, collected and

open mind but one eye on the clock. The military is ready and is waiting

for a certain period of time. It will not negatively affect whether

we can inflict damage on President Assad's abilities. Syria's main

rebel fighting cause, the Free Syrian Army, rejected the plan. We

ask that the international community should not be content with

withdrawing chemical weapons which are a criminal instrument, but to

hold the perpetrator accountable and prosecute him at the international

court. Removing the criminal tools is one matter and holding him

accountable is another. And what of those UN weapons inspectors who

collected evidence of the poison gas attack last month. Their report will

not assign blame and may be of attack last month. Their report will

limited use now that Syria has admitted having chemical weapons and

agreed to the Russian plan. Even if the plan works, how will it help

stop the carnage and a death toll that is already rising above 1000?

Imogen Foulkes is in Geneva for us now. We saw pictures earlier of John

Kerry's huge convoy arriving. If the size of the delegation is anything

to go by then the USA is taking this extremely seriously. Yes, I think

that is right. For both the US and the Russian diplomats, we know that

there has been stalemate for well over two years at the UN Security

Council. We know that has been frustration, anger and quite

frankly, shame, in many diplomatic frustration, anger and quite

circles that they have not been able to do something. Now there is a

window of opportunity to do something, albeit in a country that

has suffered a violent civil war for two years. It seems that both sides

are very serious about striking a deal but the devil will be in the

detail. How do you verify and then destroy a massive stock of chemical

weapons in a country which is involved in a civil war, and which

is reluctant to let into many international observers? We saw

pictures of John Kerry just that, in Geneva. William Hague has just said

that Syria's acceptance of the Russian plan must be treated with

caution because the Assad regime has lied for years about possessing

chemical weapons. Nevertheless, Mr Putin's intervention is a blinder,

that letter because it is bound to be seen as a coherent set of

arguments. Yes, and it is being quoted across the world and is on

every news outlet all morning long. The Russians are feeling very

comfortable with their foreign policy efforts at the moment,

whereas America and President Obama look a little bit on the back foot.

The point really is, can they strike this deal? If they can, could it

perhaps lead to wider peace negotiations in Syria? Everyone here

in Geneva, where all of the humanitarian aid agencies are, say

it is desperately needed. 2 million refugees, 4 million are displaced,

at least 100,000 people dead. Destroy the chemical weapons, move

on from there. These talks are due to go on for a couple days at least,

thank you. In other news today, to go on for a couple days at least,

suspected Muslim rebels in the Philippines have struck a town as

fighting continues. Two people were reportedly wounded and five were

missing after gunmen attacked a town near the Mauritanian border. To Mali

where government troops have clashed with rebels, the first eruption of

fighting since the two sides signed a peace deal it in June. Three

soldiers were injured in the clash. Firefighters in Argentina are

struggling to contain a series of forest fires, being fanned by strong

winds and unseasonably high temperatures of up to forty degrees

celsius. The worst fires are in Cordoba province, where hundreds

people have been evacuated. Russia is disputing the accuracy of

satellite images appearing to show North Korea has restarted a nuclear

reactor at Yonbyon. A US based research group is reporting that

steam has allegedly been seen emerging from a building housing

turbines and generators. I've been speaking to the BBC's Lucy

Williamson, who's following developments from Seoul, in

neighbouring South Korea. Researchers frequently publish

commercial satellite images of what is going on inside North Korea and

the most recent photographs from less than two years ago -- two weeks

ago show white steam coming from a complex which houses steam turbines

and generators for the five megawatts that North Korea vowed it

would restart earlier this year. The volume and colour of the steam

indicates that the reactor is very near operation or in operation. The

problem with that, of course, is not the electricity being generated but

the fact that spent fuel rods can be used to make plutonium. The Russians

have come out with a quick response to that, have they not? Yes. It is

very difficult with satellite imagery to be sure what is going on.

Many analysts look over these photographs and look for evidence of

changes or construction inside North Korea. It is one of the few ways of

getting some kind of glimpse inside the country. Certainly, there was

speculation about how long it would take North Korea to rebuild this

particular reactor. They said they would rebuild that reactor and time

frames went from six months to 18 months. The cooling tower there was

blown up five years ago when it was last suspended. It seems that North

Korea, if the photographs are accurate, has rebuilt it quite

quickly. A distressing story from Pakistan. A man who drowned his own

one-year-old daughter because according to his family he wanted a

son, says he now regrets what he did. The case has highlighted a

problem which exists across South Asia, of killing children purely

because of their gender. Aleem Maqbool reports from Lahore. This

man has to live with a shocking crime he committed against his

daughter. It was a mistake, he tells me. I made a big mistake and I do

not know what was going through my mind. His family says his actions

were calculated and he plan exactly what happened at the river. The man

has confessed that he did come here at the dead of night and when he

came here this river was flowing much faster after heavy rains. At

this spot he threw in his daughter and the divers have now given up

finding her body. Why did he kill her? His wife, who saw the whole

thing, said he had been threatening it for some time. Since our first

daughter was born, he was not happy and wanted a son. He said, if I had

another daughter I would kill the first child. When I had another

girl, that is what he did. She was screaming in the water but when I

tried to save her, he beat me. The mother says she was threatened with

death herself if she reported what happened. After several days, she

now has. A culture across this region has meant girls being killed

because their families wanted boys. Human rights groups in Pakistan

accuse law-enforcement agencies of not taking it seriously. Police are

already undermining the case. How can a mother who sees someone else

throwing the daughter in the river just leave quietly and not report it

for a week? He may be behind bars now and he may have admitted to

killing his daughter but there are no guarantees that this man will be

punished for what he did. The terrible plight affecting a family

in Pakistan. Stay with us on ABC news. Still to come: Oxfam warns

that European austerity programmes news. Still to come: Oxfam warns

risk pushing another 25 million into poverty. Plans are in place to build

a new sewer under London to stop millions of tonnes of untreated

sewage going into the River Thames. 30 feet below the City of London, a

world a few people only ever see. These sewers were built in 1860s

were a triumph of Victorian engineering, draining rainwater from

the streets and waste from people's homes. If you walk down these

tunnels there is quite a bit of head room and this forms what is a 20,000

mile network in London. The sewers are under strain and they

increasingly deal with the daily age of waste and storm water. This is

raw sewage from half a million homes and businesses. When the level gets

too high it overflows and that is why we are standing in the overflow

area. When that happens, the sewage will come pastors at the weight of

50 tonnes as second. That is the weight of 30 family cars. It is not

consistent for a world leading city to be using its rivers as an open

sewer. We need to build a project that will intercept those flows and

take them off to East London for treatment. Thames Water once to

construct a 50 mile tunnel 200 feet deep. There will be 24 construction

sites. It is an engineering megaproject and will cost £4.2

billion, and create the biggest network of its kind in the northern

hemisphere. Some who live nearby are worried. The amount of waste that

will come out from the tunnel would be astronomical. We want a clean

river but this is proving to be an ineffective way of doing it. What we

know is that they are promising to build something that won't work. It

will add £80 a year to customer's Bills but some environmentalists say

it is not needed at all and they want more things like this to deal

it is not needed at all and they with the heavy rain before it even

enters the sewers. It attracts water by itself. A lot of that water would

actually be sent back to the atmosphere rather than going down

the sewers. Thames Water says modernising this Victorian network

would lead to 9000 new jobs. The end result would help to create a

cleaner environment but critics will ask, at what cost? This is BBC World

News. The latest headlines. Russian President Vladimir Putin has written

to the American people urging them not to back military action against

Syria. Key talks between Russia and the US are due to take place in

Geneva, later. US satellite images appear to reveal North Korea

restarting a nuclear reactor. Here in the UK it's been announced that

Prince William has left the British military just a few weeks after

becoming a father. He is second in military just a few weeks after

line to the throne and finished his final stressed that shift on

Tuesday. He is now focusing on royal duties and charity work. Let's find

out more what that means. Alan royal correspondent is at Kensington

Palace. They won't become fully fledged full-time Royals yet, but

this is a big change? Yes, I think it's a step for Prince William,

almost a baby Prince George Stapp, along that path towards embracing

his destiny, to become the king of the UK and the 15 other countries

where currently Queen Elizabeth is the head of state. We are now in a

transitional 12 months. We know William has given up his military

career and would have found that hard. His three years as a pilot in

Wales were very, very rewarding for him and he spoke once to the BBC

about how you couldn't get a greater calling in life to save people,

which is exactly what he did. The thrill and the enjoyment of a job

for him was the fact he was doing it thrill and the enjoyment of a job

on his terms, he got it because of his ability not because of who he

was. So that is ending. Now we're in a transition period for 12 months

for the family while he does some more royal work but possibly, given

that the monarch is 87, he may carry out investitures, ceremonies where

people receive awards and acknowledgements for this service to

the country and he may take on some of that and do more charity work.

Particularly conservation. In the last couple of months, we would hear

an announcement about other public duties he may take on. That's what

is Workman at the moment, to work out what that could be. It is not

being a full-time role, what's he doing with the rest of his time?

That will be the question people will ask. He is moving into

Kensington Palace in the next few weeks to an apartment which has been

restored and done at £1 million spent on the renovation at taxpayers

expense. What we will see over this 12 month period is a bit more royal

work, some charity work, may be periods of times with charities and

then come in the New Year, they will announce what is public duties are.

It's not a new challenge Royals are facing. If you look at Prince Philip

back in the 1940s, there was a suggestion should go down a coal

mine for a month, but that never went beyond the drawing board. The

1960s, the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, he wanted to work in a

factory but that was dismissed. There were suggestions he could

become an ambassador to France, or Governor general of Australia, and

those ideas were ultimately dismissed. Royals have always

wrestled with this issue of what to do to occupy yourself and what will

you miss doing now is to look at the options. But he is now slowly moving

towards embracing the ultimate destination of becoming one day the

Kings. We couldn't resist showing the baby pictures whilst we were

talking. Peter, thank you very much indeed. A Canadian woman has been

arrested in Colombia after trying to board a plane with a fake pregnancy

belly stuffed with cocaine. Police say the tourist caught the attention

of an anti-narcotics officer during a routine pat down search. Laura

Westbrook reports. They thought they had seen it all. But Colombian

authorities say this is the first time they are caught someone trying

to smuggle drugs act like this. The Canadian traveller was preparing to

go to Toronto telling officers she was seven months pregnant. That,

during the regular police pat-down, customs official noticed her belly

was cold and unusually hard. TRANSLATION: The anti-narcotics

squad and police arrested a 28-year-old Canadian citizen Tabatha

Ritchie, trying to smuggle two kilograms of cocaine out of the

airport by faking a pregnancy, attempting to fill officers. Upon

further inspection, they discovered the woman was attempting to deliver

up to $60,000 worth of drugs. Her pregnant bump, a latex belly prop,

the anti-narcotics department is now trying to find those who made it.

Officials say more than 870 foreigners are being held in

Colombian jails, mostly on drug charges. If the Canadian market was

social worker is convicted, she could face up to eight years behind

bars. -- the Canadian social worker. The international aid charity Oxfam

has called on European governments to reverse their austerity

programmes. The charity claims the policies risk pushing another 25

million people into poverty in Europe in just over a decade.

Oxfam's Max Lawson joins me now to talk about the report. What are you

saying here exactly? Austerity in Europe is not working. Oxfam are

more famous for working in Africa, the poorest countries in the world

and we didn't expect to ever talk to you in 2013 about people not having

enough food to eat in the UK or thousands and thousands of young

people in Spain facing no future. We need to see action in Europe to

combat austerity because it's not working. Your claims are

far-fetched. You are saying should the UK to follow Bolivia's struggle

to recover, the gap between rich and poor could become greater than in

South Sudan. That is a ridiculous claim because you're talking about

very wealthy people in London, aren't you? The numbers are very

clear that inequality is shooting up in Europe and, yes, it's about that

top 1%... There's so many measures of inequality but if you judge

between the richest and poorest, of course it's going to be very wide in

some European countries because of the wealth at the top. The important

thing is the trend so inequality is rising rapidly across Europe, and

not just Oxfam, but many have said in the UK we could return to

Victorian levels of inequality is relatively soon so it's not a Sox

fan saying that. More rich people are making money from the recession

was the poor are suffering. You are making money from the recession

can't be anti-wealth creation if you're only going to measure

inequality because Londoners become an international hub for the rich.

That's a completely bizarre statistic to in this report because

people in other parts of the world are much lower levels of basic

wealth than Europe. We're talking about the gap between rich and poor

and many, many economists all agree that inequality in the rich world is

going in the wrong direction, returning to levels we haven't seen

since the 19th century, and, yes, it's about wealth creation. If it

only at the very top, we are not seeing the jobs, decent work for

ordinary people in Europe, the recovery isn't helping anyone. The

richest 10% in Europe are much wealthier now than they were before

the financial crisis. It means not just Oxfam is staying this, but it's

a serious problem in Europe, of growing inequality and not something

which should be belittled at all. OK, thank you for joining us.

Africa's population of vultures is under threat because of illegal

poaching of elephants and rhinos. Poachers have been poisoning the

animals' carcasses to prevent the sight of circling vultures alerting

wardens. A single incident can lead to the death of hundreds of birds.

Nomsa Maseko reports from a conservation project in Magalisberg

in South Africa. From these mountains they approach.

Step-by-step, the vultures cautiously hone in on a meal of the

day. Their job is to clean the flesh off the bones that nature leaves

lying around. There are less than 10,000 of these King vultures left

in the world. And its human activity which is threatening their numbers.

When you see the role that these birds played in the ecosystem,

fighting over the carcasses of dead animals, it's easy to see why

vultures get such bad publicity. But the threat to their existence is a

real worry. And the problem is getting worse. Over 600 rhinos have

been poached in South Africa this year. Poachers lace the carcasses of

poison killing the vultures so they don't act as a signal to game

wardens. At this sanctuary, they are trying to help. We are going to type

this bird with a piercing. This poisoned bird will be let back into

the wild soon as it recovers. But staff fear they are fighting a

losing battle. All you need is the one poisoned rhino, one poisoned

elephant, and you wipe out 600 vultures. However, during breeding

season, it's not only the 600 vultures which consume that carcass,

but potentially there checks as well, so you are looking at 1200

poisoned birds in one incident. And it's not just the vultures

suffering. People don't realise the important ecological role these

birds play and if they disappear from the environment, we will feel

the impact of that, there will be a number of human health issues. We

know that from Asia. Rabies has increased exponentially, 40,000

people dying of rabies in the last increased exponentially, 40,000

two years because the vultures are no longer present in the

environment. PJ is in safe hands for now, but there are thousands more

like him out there facing extinction in the skies above southern Africa.

Just before we go, I want to mention in the skies above southern Africa.

some news coming into us from Iran. The new convoy that envoy has said

Iran will cooperate with the UN to overcome existing issues once and

for all. But comes into us from Teheran. This is BBC World News. We

are back throughout the day on BBC News. Thanks for being with us.