28/10/2013 BBC World News

Hello, this is BBC World News. New evidence of secret US surveillance

on a massive scale in Europe and Japan. An EU delegation wants

answers in Washington. A British security firm accused of

shocking abuse at one of South Africa's most dangerous prisons.

Why did this car crash into a crowd into Yan and square in the capital,

Beijing, killing five people? -- in Chapman Square.

And Lou Reed, the former Velvet Underground front man, has died aged

71. Hello. There's no end in sight to

the US spying scandal. It deepens with fresh allegations emerging at

the scale of secret monitoring of other governments. Spanish media

claims the National Security Agency monitored 60 million telephone calls

there, and that was in just a month. The government in Japan is quoted

with saying the NSA wanted Japan to monitor each Rafa to and from China.

It is a request Japan declined. All of this as EU delegates are in

Washington to seek answers. Yesterday they protested outside.

Today, a delegation from the European Parliament's Civil

Liberties committee is meeting in Washington to discuss America's

legends of aid and is. As they speak, revelations continue to

emerge. In Germany, one newspaper has quoted a senior National

Security Agency informant. He claims that the news intelligence service

was eavesdropping on Angela Merkel in 2010. The paper claims Obama was

briefed about the phone tapping operation, a contradiction to

reports he told Merkel he had no idea about the buck -- about the

bugging. A Spanish newspaper says it collected data about 60 million

phone calls in just one month in 2012. On it goes. In Japan, media

there have reported that the NSA asked the Japanese government to

monitor a communication cable. However, Tokyo refused. For now,

leading German politicians are demanding that Germany should

abandon EU-US trade negotiations, at least until the issue is resolved.

I joined by the BBC security correspondent to discuss the

implications. 60 million phone calls in just one month. It gives you a

sense of what the NSA is trying to do here. A very ambitious, very

secret programme and till now. In a sense, it is obvious that you are

not listening to the content of those 60 million calls. It is

different to the interception of the calls we were talking about with

Chancellor Merkel in Germany, where it appears that the NSA was

targeting her phone to be intercepted and to listen to the

conversations. In Spain and France, we are talking about the meta data,

the detail about the call records. It isn't the content of the

conversations, but which phones are connecting with other phones at

which times. It creates a huge database. The US now does this with

its domestic calls going abroad. That was one of Edward Snowden's

renovations. It can look for patterns, it can look for who is

calling Pakistan or Yemen. It can look at who is calling which

suspicious number. But the fact that the US is doing it will worry a lot

of people. Another question is how much the European governments really

know about this. The Americans have suggested this is all part of

counter-terrorism, and they get leads about counter-terrorism which

are then used to keep Europe's sake. I'm not sure everyone in Europe will

be convinced that that justifies the way this is being done, though. Let

me pick up on the volume of the stuff. This has been released by

Glenn Greenwald, who has released it to a Spanish newspaper. He is one of

the three who have been involved in harvesting all this amazing amount

of stuff. What are the figures? 50,000 documents for Britain alone.

It is 58,000 British documents, according to the British documents.

-- British Government. We don't know how many NSA documents are out

there. This could go on for years. It could. The complexity of the

documents means that finding information in them is not

straightforward. More may come out based on what those who have the

documents decide they want to release. This can go on and on. It

could reveal more and more, and cause more diplomatic upset for the

United States at it is revealed who they are spying on. In some cases,

it is very serious, particularly in Germany. Thank you.

The giant British company, G4S, has been suspended from managing a

maximum security prison in South Africa amid allegations about the

abuse of inmates. Our correspondent is on the line from Johannesburg.

What is being said about this situation? An investigation by the

BBC and the Wits justice project have discovered allegations that

electric shocks were used against inmates at the Mangaung prison as a

form of punishment, and also that anti-psychotic drugs were injected

forcefully against people's will, in order to control prisoners. The

South African authorities have temporarily taken control of the

prison. They say conditions there are shocking and out of control. The

current acting head of the correctional services is

Nontsikelelo Jolingana. It is quite shocking the allegations that are

coming to the fore. It is shocking, but we are investigating, and then

we can see what is the appropriate intervention. What are the

government is saying? What is the status of the G4S contract? It has

been temporarily suspended. G4S is halfway through a 25 year contract.

As well as the electric shock treatment mentioned there, there is

concern that anti-psychotic drugs may have been administered illegally

at the prison. The lawyer acting for a number of prisoners who claim that

they were abused and injected in eagerly talks to us. There is a

culture of doing things that are constitutionally unacceptable. There

seems to be a systematic process of effectively doping prisoners with

drugs to keep them compliant. These are all being administered in

voluntarily. My clients are complaining of a number of symptoms,

such as locked jaw or spasms of the neck. I have one client who is

permanently paralysed now. What other allegations are being levelled

against G4S? Those are the main ones. The sense that they lost

control. I have been speaking to G4S's head of Africa operations,

Andy Baker, and he insisted that they run a world-class operation and

they have not received any concrete evidence of abuse. He has questioned

the credibility of the prisoners, and of the dismissed security staff

who were sacked after an illegal strike, saying their credibility is

in question. We had a period of about eight days of violence, which

included a riot, several stabbings of our waters, and it was a

difficult environment. We maintain control, and this was an illegal

strike, which forced us to remove 331 of our employees, which left us

a little bit stretched. If we are presented with evidential support of

some of the statements being made, we will look at it comprehensively.

So at this stage, you are not ruling out the possible to that this was

happening? It is difficult, in this environment, with so many people and

so many moving parts, to categorically state that there has

never been somebody stepping over the line. To my knowledge, there's

never been an abuse of this type of nature. Andy Baker told me he

expects G4S to be back in control of the prison in the near future.

Thank you. Let me take you to an unprecedented

site in the heart of the Chinese capital, Beijing. This is of a

burning vehicle which crashed into a crowd of people and then caught fire

in Tiananmen Square, literally next to the wall of the forbidden is it.

Latest reports say five people died. More than 30 others, including

tourists and police, were injured. Our correspondent explained what she

saw. They were driving in two Tiananmen Square into the square. We

were attempting to use our video camera from our car to get some

shots of where this incident took place. We were pulled over by police

and detained for about 20 minutes. This was just on the edge of the

square, where they checked our identification before we were

released. When we drove back through the square, all of the screens that

had been hiding the scene of this incident had been removed, and

tourists had returned to the square. It is almost as if this incident

never took place. It was a fascinating moment. Within about 20

minutes, it seemed that the square had been cleaned up. What do you

think happened? At this moment, it is very difficult to tell. We know

there were three people inside this vehicle. One could argue it was an

accident, someone lost control of a car, and happened to have an

accident in a very unfortunate part of town. Others could argue that

this was a planned incident. This took place right on the edge of

Tiananmen Square. It is a very politically sensitive area in China.

It is the scene of 89's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, and since

then, many disgruntled protest as have returned to the square in order

to voice their opposition of the Chinese government. The fact that

this incident took place right on the edge of Tiananmen Square, right

under the portrait of Chairman Mao that hangs over Tiananmen Square, it

seems very serious indeed. We are not hearing any official account

from the Chinese media get. Thank you. You are with BBC World News.

Still to come - stars of the rock world called it the end of an era.

Lou Reed, the former Velvet Underground front man, has died aged

71. Let's move on to a massive storm

which has been hitting northern Europe. At times, the winds have

been at hurricane strength. It has been lashing it in, parts of France

and the Netherlands. Two people have been killed in Britain by falling

trees. There have been power cuts affecting many people in the

Southwest -- the south-east of England and northern France. In

Central London, a crane collapsed onto the roof of the government's

Cabinet Office. It forced the Deputy Prime Minister to cancel his monthly

press conference. This report now on developments in southern England and

northern Europe. In the early hours, powerful gusts

flatten age three near Plymouth, part of a trail of destruction, as

the storm surges across the south of the country. Fallen trees, damaged

homes and crushed cars. Homes were flooded, thousands of properties in

the region are still without power. Pounding waves along the south coast

announced the storm's arrival laced -- late last might. Gusts of 90 mph

were the Isle of Wight. Rescue teams battled conditions searching for a

14-year-old boy, who was feared dead after being swept to see in East

Sussex. Millions of commuters faced disruptions. Many roads have been

closed or blocked. Air passengers could face problems too, with around

130 flights cancelled at Heathrow Airport. Rail services are running

at reduced services. Falling trees and debris have caused major issues.

South of the river, we have seen more than 30 incidences of Lyme

blockages with trees blown down. In one case, a train was hit by a tree.

There may be some hope in sight. The storm is in, and as the rush-hour

goes on, it will take its strongest winds further east, with further

potentially damaging gusts of wind and disruption. By the end of the

morning, it is gone, and the weather starts to quieten down. The storm

may be passing soon. We will have to wait longer to learn the extent of

the damage it has caused. This is BBC World News. America's

ambassador is summoned to meet Spanish ministers to answer

allegations of spying by the US National Security Agency. New

evidence has emerged of secret US surveillance in Europe and Japan.

A British security firm is accused of shocking abuse at one of South

Africa's most dangerous prisons. The trial has started in China for three

activists arrested for asking for more transparency. They have been

charged with illegal assembly. They gathered a dozen people at their

apartment block. They aren't furled a banner calling on the president to

make Chinese officials disclose their wealth publicly.

The video has refused to run. Let's move on to scientists who say they

are building a clearer picture of what causes Alzheimer's disease. An

international team of researchers has found 11 new genes, links to the

development of the condition. It is the largest study yet, which the

charity Alzheimer's research UK said it could significantly increase

understanding of the most common cause of dementia. Our reporter was

asked about Alzheimer's disease and where this fits in to generating new

knowledge. We know that brain cells are dying and that it happens ten

years before you have any symptoms. Why they are dying, nobody knows.

What this study has done is looped and 17,000 patients with

Alzheimer's, it has compared them. We all have a genetic code in our

bodies. It is what makes us different. Instead of just comparing

our facial structure, they are comparing genetic codes, what makes

people more likely to get Alzheimer's. They find these

differences and try to work out what they are doing. These new genes

bring a total of 21 genes. Different hotspots in the genetic code. One of

them is the immune system. They do not know precisely what it is but

why brain cells are dying, it seems to be important that the system is

involved. Let me bring this together with the news we reported a few days

ago which was peer-reviewed research suggesting they may have found ways

of stopping brain cells dying, link this with that study. This study is

looking at what is actually happening in the brain in people

with Alzheimer's disease, why are those cells dying? We know that

brain cells are dying. The other study was able to stop cells dying.

They did not know exactly what was happening. They were working at two

different ends of this tree. One was looking at what Alzheimer's was

doing and the other was stopping the cells dying. If they could meet

together you're getting close to being able to solve it. We will try

to return to the trial in China. Three activists arrested for

campaigning for more financial transparency for government

officials. Grimy and polluted, one year into China's new era, there are

no new freedoms. Instead, an intensifying crackdown. The three

activists on trial face years in jail. They were unknown, minor

figures before now. Their families said they have been singled out,

made an example of. Their crime was to call for government officials to

publicly disclose their wealth. The mother of one of the activists shows

her anger to the police. She said officers had taken away key defence

witnesses ahead of the trial. This is the first trial of President Xie

Jin Ping's crackdown. This woman's mother is one of the three in court.

She was concerned about excess expenses of government officials.

They want to make them declare their assets. She says, when senior

officials call for a crackdown of corruption they are seen as good,

when ordinary citizens do it they are arrested. When the president to

go for a year ago some hoped the new younger leader might bring reforms.

He has launched high-profile crackdowns, one on corruption and

another on government critics. Public anger at corruption is

growing. This protest was in Beijing earlier this year by a group. It is

what inspired the activists. These campaigners were arrested. So was

this man, a lawyer and the leader of the movement. They style themselves

as a peaceful, public campaign for change. Our society is rotten and

ridiculous, he says. We need brave people to stand up. With this

crackdown, the president is starting the -- certainly stamping his

authority on China. He is going further than his predecessors to

rein in threat to the Communist Party. The fear is the focus on

stability means pressures and discontent are growing. The tributes

are being paid to Lou Reed, the former Velvet Underground front man

who has died aged 71 after complications over a liver

transplant. He was a singer and songwriter and performer whose work

influenced generations of musicians. Lou Reed initially found fame with

the Velvet Underground in the 1960s. The group's combination of

emotionally powerful music and complex yet accessible lyrics did

not produce much commercial success, but in musical terms, it was

ground-breaking. Credited with being instrumental in the development of

punk and the alternative rock scene of the 1970s.

He and the band also came to the attention of Andy Warhol, who helped

produce their first album. Throughout his career, he paid

tribute to his contribution. Everything I do is from the outside,

and if it had not been for Andy, who knows whether I would have had a

chance to do anything? I owe everything to Mr Warhol. Thank you.

After the Velvet Underground went their separate ways, Lou Reed

embarked on a solo career. His 1972 album Transformer, produced by David

Bowie, included walk on the wild side.

The controversial subject matter brought him a new wave of fans.

Although the subsequent albums were experimental, he said the important

thing was to move people. For me, any good song stimulates some kind

of emotion. What other thing is there that makes people get up and

dance? You cannot hold it in your hand, it is sound. How does sound do

that? In the UK, his only number one came when he had a range of other

artists performed perfect day for a BBC promotional film. He will not be

remembered for chart success but as one of the most influential chart

musicians of the last 40 years. Few did more to shape music.

Finally, it is only a few days until Halloween. Parents across America

are dreaming up novel shapes for their hollowed out pumpkins. One

father of two is a master of the art, carving hundreds of intricate

designs. He has been describing how he does it and how to get the best

from your pumpkin. The magic of a pumpkin is it is this ephemeral art

which is only available for one night only. I have been carving

pumpkins along with my family. I started in 1998. I take a picture

and I trace it onto the pumpkin using tracing paper. Sometimes you

see a pumpkin and you know exactly what it is. I found one a few years

back and I carved it. Or if I'm looking for one I will find one

fairly round that will look like something from Star Wars. This is a

monkey, and I am making here on its face. Some after a leak easy and you

can do them and 45 minutes. I have spent over 30 hours on them before.

It is called a shaded patio. You either take the skin off, leave it

on or cut all the way through. There are three colours. When people come

around the neighbourhood with their kids dressed up, they are looking to

escape, they want to see Spiderman, they want to Seawolf man, they want

to see princesses, fantasy figures. The biggest mistakes people do when

the biggest mistakes people do when they carve pumpkins is not get thin

enough on the inside. As soon as we are finished, I want to take a

picture of the pumpkin, and put it on the website. It has been a great

way to build an archive overtime of what we have done every year. My

favourite story, I was in Romania a few years back, I was doing this

event in this place, and this gypsy guy from northern Romania comes up

to me, he does not know me from Adam, he said that he carved one of

my patterns. My wife puts up with it, because how else do you get to

spend a month round the table with your family? It is a time for family

and friends to come over, have a terrific time, you get a little

better every year. My daughter started karting when she was five,

and she is pretty good now. It is great family time. We look forward

to it every year. I hope he enjoys pumpkin soup, which

is great. Finally, fresh allegations of US spying. Spanish media is

publishing claims that they monitored 60 million telephone calls

in Spain, and that was just in one month. The details come from the

papers and Edward Snowden. Goodbye.