16/12/2013 BBC World News

Hello. This is BBC World News. Our top stories: The United Nations

launches its biggest ever appeal for global ales -- global aids to help

victims of the conflict in Syria. We live in Iraq, where more people

have been killed by deadly bomb blasts.

The jewels are being held across to India to mark a year since victims

-- since the victim was gang raped on a bus in red -- in Delhi.

Welcome. After nearly three years of civil war in Syria, the United

Nations is launching its biggest ever appeal for aid. It is asking

for a staggering $13 billion in total, around half of that earmarked

for the crisis in Syria. A new study suggests four out of

five people there are worried food supplies are running out. The price

of bread is five times what it used to be. In the last half an hour, the

UN's High Commissioner for refugees has been speaking at a news covered

in Geneva. He insists the situation is a tragedy and the international

community must help. It is essential that Syrian refugees

are not to perish, drowning in the Mediterranean to get to Europe. It

is essential that policies are established. It is essential that

borders are open for Syrian refugees and mechanisms are in place, and

that resettlement and humanitarian programmes are increased in relation

to the present 15,000 vacancies that were offered. Our appeal to

international solidarity is also an appeal to what I consider the most

dangerous crisis for global security for the Second World War. For more

on what conditions are like inside the country, achieve international

correspondent has been to a food distribution centre in Damascus. --

our chief international correspondent. Syrians are queueing

patiently in the bitter cold here in the centre of Damascus.

All of these Syrians have had to flee their homes because of the

fighting. Some of them tell us they have been displaced for more than a

year. The men do not have jobs and the women are worried about their

children, who do not have warm clothing as a harsh winter sets in.

They are having to rely on the United Nations World Food Programme

for items like rice, cooking oil and lentils to feed their families in

the coming months. I have come here to speak to the country director for

the World Food Programme, Matthew Hollingworth. These are families

that a year or two years ago would have been living a pretty good

life, employed and doing well. Today, they have been made homeless

once, twice or three times, which is why they are now looking for support

from organisations at the World Food Programme, to give them the basic

food needs for their family. Is this is the human cost of the war? We

believe there are 3.6 million people desperately in need of assistance

from agencies such as ours. We are working with 27 local charities

across the Syrian Red Cross and a number of international

organisations to reach these people each month. We know it is frequently

not enough. People do not have enough food, they do not eat

frequently enough and when they do it, they are eating food which is

not of a good quality. Let's get some more of the day's

news. The President of South Sudan has blamed soldiers loyal to his

former deputy for an outbreak of fighting on Sunday night.

The gunfire is reported to have died down with a substantial troop

presence on the streets. Two Lebanese soldiers have been shot

by the Israeli army, which said it detected suspicious movement on the

border are as earlier. An Israeli soldier has been killed in a sniper

attack. Protest and vigils are being held in Delhi today to mark the

moment when a 23-year-old Indian student was gang raped on a bus. The

attack and the student's death sent shock waves through India and around

the world. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest against

the casual attitude towards violence towards women. An author was

speaking at the Indian high commission earlier, and is with me

now. Thank you for coming in. Tell us what your sense is of where India

is on this? This case absolutely shocked the country. It did, partly

because not enough people in India talked about violence against women

there. The case has certainly meant that the media talks about the issue

much more, but I don't think people across the country are talking about

what is going on in their country and don't recognise the scale of the

problem, and how things are getting worse. Why is it getting worse? What

evidence do we have? The number of rapes have gone up a lot. It is

partly reporting. Yes, as women feel more confident, and there is more

pressure on police to record them. That's true, and because of the

coverage, more women have come forward and talked about it. There

are other reasons it is getting worse, because, for example, one of

the reasons men don't want to have daughters is the fear of the cost of

dowry is and raising the girl. There are charities that say that sex

selection services and abortion services are getting cheaper, even

in rural areas, so the level of young girls against boys dropped and

keeps on dropping. There is a problem not just of violence... You

are talking about the whole of society's attitude towards women.

Let's talk about what happened a year ago, which was incredibly

scarring. Now, Indian women are visible, they are going out to work,

in a way that previous generations didn't. They were at home, and

therefore more protected. Certainly in urban areas, there is more

employment for women and they are more visible. There was a strong

feminist movement who have protested against this. The culture is

liberalising, but it means that there is a backlash against this as

well, for example people who are saying that the woman was raped

because she was out late at night and was wearing western clothes, and

was hanging out with a guy. There is a conservative backlash. You have

several different countries existing at the same time in several

different time warps, and you can't expect the country to change

overnight. Obviously, that does not justify what has happened. The other

big problem is whether the police and the judicial system will see a

crackdown on this sort of attack. The government has changed its law

since last year, for example on acid attacks and casual sexual

harassment. But the problem is, the police is not strong enough in

dealing with violence against women. There is a broader cultural

problem too. It isn't just that. For me, violence against women goes

across the border. Girls being aborted before they are born, girls

being killed at birth, girls not being raised properly in India. The

level of mentality for young girls is much, much higher than for boys,

because families are simply don't take girls to hospitals when they

are ill. -- the level of mortality. These problems are endemic when they

are growing up, so it is not just the problems of gang rapes and

murders. It is a broader cultural shift that is necessary. Thank you

for coming in. Iraqi security forces say they've

retaken control of the City Council headquarters in Tikrit after it was

stormed by gunmen. They say they've released about forty hostages.

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 24 people have been killed in a wave of

attacks. In Mosul, militants are reported to have gunned down 12

people on a bus. A series of bombs in and around Baghdad have killed at

least nine. Meanwhile, four men armed with explosive belts are

reported to have been killed by security forces after breaking into

a police station in the town of Baiji. Our Arabic correspondent in

Baghdad joins me now. Thank you for joining us. Tell us why you think we

are seeing this wave of attacks, and tell us a bit about the detail we

have on what has happened. Can you hear us? As you said in the

introduction, those attacks have been in various areas of the capital

Baghdad, mainly in the centre and the south of the city. And there

were two separate attacks that have taken place in another district.

More specifically, north of the city of Tikrit, the former president of

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In the morning, after the attack of the

suicide bombers against the police station, there has been, less than

an hour ago, another similar attack to the council of the city, where

four armed men, after detonating a car against the fortification, the

outer walls of the building, have stormed the building. They have

detonated themselves, their belts, their explosives, killing two of the

guards. One of the members of the City Council was also killed. That

is the reason for what seemed to be two co-ordinated attacks in the same

region this morning. As to why these are happening in such a manner and

at various times, they go up and down, is anybody's guess. Sometimes,

the attackers wanted to address a political message of some sort to

the authorities, that they can strike at the heart of the symbols

of authority, of central government, when ever and wherever

they like. Some people, even officials, who until yesterday were

close allies to the Prime Minister, are starting now to talk about

failures in gathering intelligence and processing the information the

authorities have amongst the various security arms of the state. Combined

with the fact that the police and the Armed Forces are not the best,

despite the millions of dollars that have been spent on equipping and

training them. There's also been waves of what is called the

amalgamation of forces, which means that some of the militia men who

were on the payroll of political parties, up until yesterday, have

been brought into the central command of the army or the police. I

don't know whether you can hear me, but we are out of time on that.

There is a slight communication problem with Baghdad there.

It has been a year since the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo

Abe, was elected, and launched an ambitious plan to revitalise the

world's 's third-largest economy. There are three arrows to his

policy, which includes cash injections and structural reforms.

How has it said, on its first anniversary? We have been finding

out. I have come here to a suburb of

Tokyo, to a restaurant that I read about on the Internet. There is just

something a little bit unusual about this place. This is the star waiter

at this restaurant just outside Tokyo. He brings towels, beers, and

even food. A monkey just served me! Only in Japan! Still, monkeys are

not the solution to a shrinking workforce, especially when wages

need to go up to get the economy going. This restaurant -- this

manager has brought his staff here, and Shinzo Abe wants managers to

reward their staff with pay rises. Our industry deals with raw

materials, he tells me. We have not felt a positive impact yet, so I

cannot raise wages at this stage. The owner is grateful for this

monkey's help. They even answer his phone. But a pay rise? Well, they

will not understand if they receive money, he says, so instead, I give

them delicious food. I give them the best bananas and the best apples.

Better quality bananas and apples. I think that the monkeys, that is a

wage rise! The owner still needs to dash the monkey still needs to clear

up. To earn that pay rise, more still needs to be squeezed out of

Japanese workers. That becomes harder and harder to do for the

Japanese. It is a hard days work when you are a Japanese monkey

waiter! stay with us, much more to come.

This is lovely, I promise - the adventures of a sleeping baby. We

visit the fantasy world of Wengenn. The world stage and screen has been

remembering the Irish born actor, Peter O'Toole, who has died at 81.

He made his name in the classic David Lean, Lawrence Of Arabia. He

became known as much for his private life as his personal career.

David Lean's epic, Lawrence Of Arabia. We need what no man can

provide, we need America. It turned a jobbing actor with piercing blue

eyes into a global film star - the ultimate dashing hero. He played

Hamlet on stage, post for arty photographers and starred in a

succession of Hollywood movies. I want a son. We could populate a

country town with concrete girls and all your sons. All my sons are

bustards. He was also a renowned hell-raiser. In time, the drink

threatened to destroy his career and the man himself. A return to the

London stage as Macbeth in 1980 was a fiasco. But by the time he played

the alcoholic journalist Jeffrey Bernard, he had given up the booze.

I remember opening my eyes to find myself in bed with Barry Brogan. A

great jockey. He ended his career playing versions of himself. Frail,

but still full of life, as he played an ageing actor. Everything all

right? Peter O'Toole, who has died aged 81

in hospital in London. A giant statue of Nelson Mandela has

been unveiled today in Pretoria, South Africa's first post-apartheid

president was led to rest yesterday in his home village of Qunu.

Yesterday, President Jacob Zuma unveiled this statue. Today is a

public holiday dedicated to reconciliation in South Africa.

This is BBC world News. The United Nations launches its biggest ever

appeal for global aid to help the victims of the conflict in Syria.

South Sudan's president says his supporters have stopped a coup

attempt by disgruntled soldiers. Prosecutors in Indonesia are asking

for a 16 year jail sentence for a British woman who has admitted drugs

trafficking. Andrea Waldeck, who is 43, was arrested in a hotel room in

East Java after smuggling more than a kilo of crystal meth into

Indonesia. She used to work as a police community support officer in

the UK. Our correspondent joins me live from Jakarta. What are the

details? As you say, the prosecution has asked for a 16 year sentence for

Andrea Waldeck. The maximum sentence for a crime that she has allegedly

committed, versus the death penalty. The lawyer has told us that they

objected to the sentence, they are calling it too harsh because she was

merely a victim in this crime. She was not the mastermind. She was

coerced to bring the drugs into Indonesia. But the prosecution said

that even though there are factors that worked in her favour, such as

her cooperation with the police and throughout the court proceedings,

the prosecution said what she did was harmful to society and went

against the Indonesian government programme to fight illegal drugs.

One thing to point out is that what the prosecution demanded today is a

good indicator of what the judges will deliver in the next few weeks.

There have been rare cases where the judges actually ended up delivering

a much later or harsher sentence than what the prosecution demanded.

And when will the verdict be delivered? It will be in the next

few weeks. Court is now adjourned and the next hearing will be after

New Year, when the defence team will get a chance to argue their

objections against this 16 year sentence to mad about the

prosecution. After that, the prosecution will have another chance

to argue why they think the sentence that they demanded was right and

then there is a panel of three judges who will get to decide, and

they will take the prosecution's demand into consideration but will

also take into account how Andrea has been perceived in court. The

fact that she has shown some more as, that she has been seen as being

honest and willing to take responsibility for what she has done

will probably help her case. Thank you very much.

South Korea's president has warned that the situation in the North is

grave and unpredictable, following the execution of the man widely seen

as the power behind the throne in Pyongyang. Jang Song-taek was the

uncle of the leader, King John Manning -- Kim Jong-un in, until he

was dragged out of a meeting in handcuffs last week. I spoke to our

correspondent and asked how worried the south is. It depends who you

talk to. The South Korean government has made it clear they are on high

alert. The trips have been told to be extra vigilant. The South Korean

president has, more than once and said that relations between the

Koreas are likely to be unstable. If you look at what image the North is

trying to project, it is one of great stability. The North Korean

leader, just a day or two after the execution, and the announcement, was

seen making his ordinary public appearances. He was visiting

military and commercial sites. The North Korean state media is also

reporting on those visits and trying to emphasise and trumpet the

achievements of the country over the past year, about all of the

construction that has gone on and trying to highlight the positive

aspects of the country has achieved. In much a message of stability and

continuity from the North. -- very much a message. In the south, there

is fear and instability. What more has been spoken of in terms of why

the execution was carried out? Lots of speculation, but no clear signals

yet about what might be going on in the corridors of power. The worry

here in South Korea is that it might point to greater upheaval, greater

instability at the heart of the regime, that this was not just one

man who had done something wrong but that this points to splits or a lack

of unity at the heart of North Korea. Of course for a nuclear armed

state that is secret and predictive unpredictable, that is a great worry

in the region. Watching your baby sleep is a magic

experience when you marvel at the innocence of new life. But not

everyone would use those hours to capture their sleeping Chad posing

in fantasy word worlds. This is what Queenie Liao has done with her baby

son, Wengenn. The creations have been published in Thailand under the

title, Sleeping Baby. It is fairy tales and children's

stories from my tattered which have give me ideas to try out. I try to

use as much colour as I can. I want to make it look like a children's

book with a real-life person. What is your name? Wengenn. I took all of

these pictures two years ago when he was slipping. Now that he is a

toddler, I have taken pictures of him being awake. I am going to use a

blue bed sheet as a background. I start with a very simple background,

like a piece of cloud and the sun, and then gradually I make my own

twist and make it more sophisticated. The materials are

mostly clothes, books and toys. I use skirts as a moon, for a snake,

socks for fish, and even toilet paper and dollar bills. Everything

has to be done before he takes his nap. After he falls asleep, I put

him into the background and paint. He did wake up from time to time.

When this happened, I simply put down my camera and played with him.

I did not see any reason to rush because the last ones were when he

stepped -- the best ones were when he was sleeping peacefully. My

favourite photo of the whole series is this one, on the cover of my

book. This picture reflects my dreams and my hope for my baby,

Wengenn. I want to see him reaching his dream. I think this is the best

way to show my love. This is also a wonderful way to keep track of his

gross. I take a lot of pictures because they grow fast. This is a

work of love. I think parents and children will treasure it for ever

in their life. Queenie Liao. We are all smitten

with those pictures. In the last few minutes, the draw

has been made for the last 16 of this season's Champions League.

Bayern Munich take on Arsenal. I will be back tomorrow. Goodbye.