19/12/2013 BBC World News

is needed and not to do so diminishes the notion Hello. This

BBC World News. Our top stories. The growing threat to children from

polio. Why hard-won victories to eliminate the disease are slipping

away, especially in refugee communities.

Life in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenyan, I have seen first-hand the

enormous vaccination campaign under way to stop this polio outbreak.

European finance ministers agree new measures to prevent bank failures

and remove the survival threat for those in trouble. Disappearing,

never to be seen again, the Syrian government is using enforced

disappearances to terrorise its civilians. It could constitute a

crime against humanity says a UN investigation.

And, blast off. Leaving Earth for one of the most ambitious space

explorations ever. A five-year mission to map a billion stars in

the Milky Way. Polio is the most feared childhood

disease in the world. It is incurable and can cause irreversible

paralysis. Until recently, doctors believed the polio virus had almost

been wiped out, just as smallpox was before it. Now, the United Nations

is warning that an outbreak in the Horn of Africa threatens a new

global resurgence of the virus. There are three main strains of

polio. They generally spread in areas of poor hygiene and

sanitation. One in 200 patients faces irreversible paralysis. It

mainly affects children under five. Sometimes this can happen within

hours of contracting the virus. Polio is endemic in three countries:

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Cases have recently emerged in

Syria, but especially in Somalia. The World Health Organisation says

there have been 183 cases in Somalia so far this year. That's more than

the rest of the world combined. Many of those affected by this

outbreak are refugees, which makes it harder to control. The Dadaab

camp in Kenya houses around half a million people, mainly Somali

refugees. There's a huge emergency vaccination campaign underway, to

prevent the disease spreading still further.

Here, and in hundreds of places across the Horn of Africa, help

workers have been setting up makeshift vaccination posts, and

urging people to come and get vaccinated against polio. I have

seen and heard stories about the human impact of a polio outbreak in

this poor, ill-equipped region, and spoken to officials about the effect

an outbreak here has on global attempts to eradicate it.

Patiently, they wait. And there are millions. Globally, polio has nearly

been eradicated. Code that goal be unravelling in one of the poorest

places on earth? What is happening in the Horn of Africa is an

emergency. Almost as many cases this year as the entire world last year.

These are just a few of 34 million people the UN says it is trying to

vaccinate by the end of the year. And so, when it is their turn, each

child gets two drops of oral vaccine, and for extra protection

and injection as well. With predictable results. This father has

had all 15 of his children vaccinated. TRANSLATION: The risk is

massive. Our children would not be able to work for themselves. But,

for some, it is already too late. This gifted football player has had

to give up his education as he can no longer walk to class. Because of

this sickness, I cannot proceed to school, it is very hard for me.

It is fighting and famine in this region which drive the outbreak. In

neighbouring Somalia where it began, conflict against Al-Shabab

voters stopped vaccination teams reaching areas. Thousands have fled.

And so, in the Horn of Africa, people weakened and uprooted, create

a hotspot for polio. The UN fears a global threat. If we don't stop it

here now, it will spread to neighbouring countries such as South

Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, and beyond our borders. Which is why it was

very important to have a rapid, aggressive campaign to wrest it

right here. So now, in the Horn of Africa, and

urgent reminder to get vaccinated. Turnout rates have been higher but

it is too early to say whether this outbreak has been stopped, and what

it means for the global fight against polio.

These massive vaccination campaigns have been co-ordinated across

countries, and structured ever since the first cases of polio appeared

back in May. They have been doing these campaigns every month. Now,

the UN says in the Horn of Africa they haven't seen any case since

October. That is the good news. But they have to get to six months free

of new cases before they can declare this outbreak is over.

Vaccination is one thing. We can see the conditions people living in. It

is also about the poor conditions where polio incubates, how much of

that is a challenge as well? Take a look behind me. People live

in really bad conditions. I have had a tour of this area. Looking at some

of the places where people are living. These are the better

shelters. They are wooden frames, tin roofs, tarpaulin on the side

provided by the UN refugee agency. Still, people are all together in

small places. There is no sanitation. There is one standpipe

for all of these families in the compound. Animals are running

around. It is not clean. That can aid the spread of polio which is

spread through waste matter of humans. If you ingest it, you could

pick it up. Sanitation is definitely something that agencies are

increasingly thinking about. This week in Dadaab, I met one lady from

the UN agency whose job is to think about sanitation, how to create a

cleaner environment for people. I have to say, right now, the intense

focus is on vaccinating as many people as possible. The UN is trying

to reach 34 million by the end of the year. In these five years --

five days, 510,000 people, that is the urgency, to vaccinate them as

quickly as possible. The next step is how to keep this under wraps

going forward. After months of difficult

negotiations, European Union finance ministers have agreed on a common

set of rules to regulate banks in the eurozone. The idea is to prevent

any future banking problem turning into a full scale economic crisis,

and to prevent the tax-payer having to foot the bill. Emily Thomas has

details of the deal. An era of taxpayer funded bank

bailouts is coming to an end. That's the idea. It took more than a year

of hard bargaining but, just before midnight in Brussels, the Eurozone

finance ministers agreed a new system to regulate the banks. It is

a joint European institution called the single resolution mechanism to

decide whether and how to shut down failing banks before they do too

much damage to the economy. The cost will be covered by a 55 billion

euros fund phased in over ten years, financed by the banking industry.

The system is expected to be operational from 2015. The deal has

been met with optimism by EU finance ministers. TRANSLATION: The Finance

Minister 's can be proud to have fulfilled the role in giving the

heads of states and agreement of high quality, good for the citizens,

good for financial stability, one that fulfils its mould breaking the

vicious circle between financial crisis and sovereign debt.

I think what we are building up here is the right contribution to further

stabilising financial markets. The ministers had been under intense

pressure. They needed to produce a deal for EU leaders to approve at a

summit which starts today. After that, the proposal will go to the

European Parliament for what are also expected to be tough

negotiations. The European Space Agency has

launched a mission it says is one of the most ambitious in the history of

space exploration. The Gaia space telescope, which is being

transported into orbit on this Soyuz rocket, will produce an

unprecedented three-dimensional map of our galaxy, the Milky Way, by

measuring the movement of a billion stars. It blasted off successfully

from French Guiana. What will it see and callous? With

me is the BBC's science correspondent Jonathan Amos.

What will it tell us? You have a smaller version of it. This is a one

50th model of the spacecraft. It is about 20 centimetres across in my

hand, but this would be about ten meters. That gives you a sense of

how big it is. In here, we have a couple of telescopes. Underneath the

telescopes, and enormous camera detector. Think of a sensor chip in

your phone you take pictures of -- pictures with. Ten megapixels. This

is 1 billion pixels. Imagine a camera that powerful. This is inside

the spacecraft. That is amazing. It will measure very precisely the

positions of the stars, how they are moving across the sky. If we can do

that, we can get 3D markers and make a time-lapse movie, and run that

forwards to see how the Milky Way will develop in the future. And we

can run it backwards as well, to see how the Milky Way came into being.

They think it cannibalised lots of little galaxies. What we see are the

remnants of the ancient meals that our galaxy had billions of years

ago. This will be sitting on a platform 1.5 million kilometres up

there. It is a very long way. Further away from Earth, you can get

out of its shadow and into a very stable environment where temperature

is always the same. This big disk on this model is a sun shield. Imagine

you have a ruler to measure something. You don't want the ruler

to be heated up and called down. That will expand and contract. Derek

was taking off a couple of hours ago. How long before it is

operational and we start getting those images? They have come off the

top of the rocket, it is flying through space. To get 1.5 million

climate is out will take a month. Then they will measure for about

five years. Then you will get the data.

Amazing pictures. Stay with us on BBC World News, still to come:

living in poverty and daily discrimination.

That is what life is like on the margins of society, we have rare

access to a Roma village in northern Romania.

There's growing concern about a crackdown on dissent in Egypt. The

authorities have arrested liberal activists for defying new

restrictions on public protest. The government, put in place by the

military this year, maintains that Egypt is on the road to democracy.

Orla Guerin reports. This is where it all began, in this

square in the heart of Cairo. As you can see, it is back to normal now.

It is surrounded by traffic. Grass has been planted here in the

centre. There used to be rows of tents here full of activists. These

days, it is a place where people come to sit and chat and gather.

Sometimes to pose and take photographs. But this is the place

where crowds came in January 20 11th to sweep away the long-time military

ruler Hosni Mubarak. The crowds were back occupying this area in July, to

get rid of the man elected to replace him, Mohamed Morsi. He was

removed by the army. Now, it is not so easy to have a protest here, or

anywhere else. A new law means you have to get permission. Head here is

a monument which was unveiled last month by the authorities. This was

built to commemorate those who were killed getting rid of two

presidents. It has been destroyed once already. By activists who said

the authorities did the killing, and they had no business commemorating

their own victims. And now it stands as a kind of testament to the deep

divisions in Egypt. But there is one man who unites many

Egyptians and, believe it or not, he has even been immortalised in

chocolate. You can see him his face. He is the army chief, and he

became enormously popular after leading the coup which removed

Mohamed Morsi. Undoubtedly the most powerful man in Egypt today. The

owner of this shop says her chocolates are among the best

selling item in the place. You can see he's wearing various different

uniforms. These days, you can even get themed pyjamas. The owner here

says, if the general stands for the presidency next year, and many

believe he will, that she will even make a chocolate election poster.

Many experts are addicting if he stands he could win by a landslide.

You are with BBC World News. The latest headlines: The growing threat

of polio in the Horn of Africa. Doctors warn it poses a threat to

children in the rest of the world. Eurozone is discussing a new deal

which will prevent the taxpayer from having to foot the bill if they have

to bail out banks again. The United Nations is just accusing

the Syrian government of being responsible for thousands of

disappearances. They call it a sustained campaign of terror against

its own people. Human rights investigators say most of those who

have been detained are never seen again. In many cases the families

are too terrified to find out what has happened to them. Let's go to

the BBC's image and folks in Geneva. That report has just been published.

What are the headlines from it? The headlines are that from the start of

the conflict in the spring of 2011, there has been a systematic campaign

to disappear people who have posed a threat to the government. It started

with men aged between 16 and 40 on demonstrations. Then it moved to

anyone who might have just the faintest connection with the

opposition. Bennett has moved to reprise all disappearances in

villages where the operation has been active. The evidence from the

campaign, much of it comes from former army officers who have

defected. They have a clear view of the policy inside the military. What

the investigators says this serves to terrify the population. Families

who enquire about what has happened to a are detained themselves. It is

a way of making sure, trying to ensure the population stays quiet

and does not protest. They also make the point that some opposition

groups have also been violating human rights. Yes, they do. They say

that has increased in the last months, the taking of hostages for

example, in return for money. There is also a report from Amnesty

International saying some of the opposition groups are committing

human rights violations. I think we have a picture in Syria that if you

are detained, your chances of being well treated very slim. Let's not

forget that the body which supposed to visit people detained in

conflict, the International Committee of the Red Cross, has

basically been prevented from doing so throughout the conflict in Syria.

Thank you for that update. In Russia, the president Vladimir

Putin, has described his bailout for Ukraine as an act of brotherly love.

He denied the loan had anything to do with the mass pro-European

demonstrations which have been taking place in Kiev. TRANSLATION: I

will be very frank with you, don't take it as an irony but I often use

the term or other nation or sister nation. The situation in Ukraine is

difficult. So if we say sister nation, we should do what family

members do, we should support our sister nation when they are in dire

straits. This is the number one reason why those decisions were

taken. I'm joined by the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget

Kendall. What was your impression, particularly some of the odd events

which took place in this meeting. What I found interesting was this

gathering of journalists, the way that people were holding up placards

of their region or newspaper on it, to try and get the attention of the

press secretary or the president. After awhile, you see why they did

it. It was a bit like petitioning the Czar, as if he was the man who

could solve all their problems. Although probably his PR advisers

thought it would be good and make him look like a benevolent leader

who listened to the worries of the people, there were quite a lot of

questions who came from people of remote regions of Russia, the far

east for example, which painted an appalling picture of how they lived,

factories on the verge of going bankrupt, towns where they are

worried about their jobs. One woman said she checked with the local

authorities and they only had cold for three days and the temperature

had dropped 30 degrees. Mr Putin replied by saying, I will look into

this. He took notes will stop you could understand why everybody

wanted to waive their placard. But a country which 20 years after it

launched its cells on the path of a market economy, still has towns and

villages were the only way they can see out of their predicament is to

appeal to the leader in Moscow, that is pretty dysfunctional. Meanwhile,

there is the leader of Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian president is

on air talking about how the deal with European Union is on the table

but very clear from President Putin about what the deal will be in his

view. It was the top question in President Putin's conference and

there was more than one question. Simultaneously in Kiev, the

president was talking about it on their television. President Putin

said out of sisterly brotherly love, they are part of their family. But

he also said he had made it clear to the Ukrainians, if they went with an

European agreement then lots of trading Russia would close and that

would be terrible for industries, especially in the east. President

Yankovic said there were no contradictions between what he had

done with Russia and the course for any kind of European integration but

he said his cabinet would be looking at the Russians' alternative customs

union and see if there was any part of it they wanted to join which

those people protesting on the square in Kiev will not like very

much. He said their actions were revolutionaries. He said there was a

warning to the West not to meddle in his country's affairs. I think the

president in Kiev is still taking questions. Thank you.

Across Europe, there are an estimated ten many Roma people. A

large number live in poverty and they face daily discrimination.

Their plight was highlighted when a Roma couple in Greece were accused

of abducting a young blonde girl called Maria. One of the largest

Roma populations lives in northern Romania. Our correspondent has had

unique aspect on community there. I first meet six-year-old Samuel in

the laboratory of an abandoned copper factory on the outskirts of

town. Samuel lives in a single room with his grandparents and eight

cousins. In the hallway, his neighbour is sniffing paint thinner

while Samuel and his cousins play. For decades, this was one of the

most polluting factories in Ray mania. Yet it is now home for 160

Roma families including 245 children. Until last year, Samuel's

grandfather, a street cleaner, was raising all nine of his

grandchildren. The community has lived here for 20 years but the land

is not theirs. Like Roma people across Europe, there have claimed a

right to settle on public land. With anti-Roma sentiment running high,

the families living here were issued with eviction notices and the

demolitions began. The mayor made the demolition of

this community and other one is his number one campaign promise for

re-election. He was re-elected with 86% of the

vote and is now the most popular mayor in Ray mania. Five minutes

from the centre of that settlement is another one. As I make my way

around the building, I meet Rebecca. Although she is ten years old, she

is not going to school. Her grandmother says she was turned

away. The authorities say there are no

restrictions on Roma children accessing mainstream education. The

lack of schooling, whether by parental choice because of the

system remains a big problem for this community and any chance of a

better future. Back at the factory, I meet Giorgio's daughter-in-law,

17-year-old Roxana. She was 12 when she dropped out of school.

I ask her what she will do in the future.

Other news at this hour: Anstey International say nearly a thousand

people in the Central African Republic were killed in attacks two

weeks ago by mainly Muslim militia. Homes were looted and set alight in

the capital. That is despite the presence of international

peacekeepers. Two men who were released from the international

defence -- detention centre in Guant?namo Bay have been flown home

to Saddam. Finally, the Stradivarius violin

which thieves tried to sell for $160 has been sold for much more than

expected. The 300-year-old violin was stolen from the sandwich bar in

Euston three years ago. It was recently recovered from a house in

the British Midlands. Thank you for joining me, goodbye.