19/05/2014 BBC World News

The top stories. South Korea plans to break up its

Coast Guard is the president apologises for the ferry disaster

that left hundreds dead. TRANSLATION: I could not sleep in

anguish, thinking of the pain that many students who have not bloomed

yet. The final was possibility is placed on me.

Serbia and Bosnia call for international help to rescue people

trapped by the worst flooding since records began.

An evacuation is under way in way in Vietnam as paging brings its

citizens home following a wave of anti-Chinese riots.

And, how one artist is writing in the sand to express her feelings

about her homeland. Hello, welcome.

South Korea's president has announced plans to break up the

Coast Guard in the wake of the ferry disaster. More than 300 people, most

schoolchildren, died when the Sewol sank. She formally apologised for

the sinking and said that a new safety agency would handle any

rescue difficulties. She has made a tearful apology, but it is a month

on, why has it taken so long? That is a question that a lot of South

Koreans will be asking. She has apologised before, personally, to

families, but to make this national address does appear to come rather

late. It looks like a damage limitation exercise, her party and

approval rating has taken a huge hit in the polls, her approval rating is

down from 70% to below 50%. In this address, she has tried to show that

she is in tune with the public mood. She had tears in her eyes. She has

also tried to offer changes, the breaking up of the coastguard

agency, but also, talking about the problem that Koreans are aware of,

the collusion between big business and government and bureaucrats. She

is proposing some concrete measures which will try to get to grips with

what many people see a fit with the problem. It is a desperately sad

event, so many people on board, still 18 people whose bodies are

missing, the ship is still under water. Yes, the death toll is

approaching 300, there is a fear that some of the bodies will never

be recovered, because the ship went down in very fast currents, and some

of the bodies were found quite a long way away. The reaction has been

an extraordinary show of collective grief in South Korea. People are

asking, how could this happen in such a developed country? Although

she is talking about the Coast Guard, and a lot of people believe

the real cause was the shipping company and the collusion with

bureaucrats and regulators, who allowed it to be overloaded, who

allowed modifications to the structure, which seem to have

destabilised it. It went down in coastal waters on a routine trip,

the weather was not especially bad. At least five people have been

killed and dozens injured in a car bomb attack in northern Nigeria. The

blast in Kano targeted a popular restaurant strip in the mainly

Christian area. It has previously been targeted by Boko Haram, and it

comes a day after Nigeria and its neighbours agreed to coordinate

action against the group. It was a fairly powerful car bomb,

not much left of the vehicle, other than the engine, that is the power

of it. A lot of injured people taken off to the hospitals. Boko Haram has

hit Kano before, and car bombs are a popular choice of the use of force

by the fighters, the Islamist militant group. Kano had been pretty

quiet for over a year, there had been a fairly strong security

presence there, there were vigilante groups and self defence groups set

up following other attacks, and there have been some terrible

attacks there in recent years, the biggest of which, at the beginning

of 2012, more than 150 people were killed in a series of attacks across

the city. So Kano has seen terrible bombings before, but people there

will be very worried, because they had thought that their city was

again safe. Any update on the fate of those missing girls, and

generally, the international response and the Nigerian government

response? Not a word on whether there has been any progress on

locating them. The latest information is that this British

surveillance aircraft is on its way to the region. It will be based out

of the Ghanaian capital, and over the next two days, it should begin

to fly over the north-east to help in the search for the missing girls.

They are believed to be held in the dense bushy areas of the north-east.

Some people will say that the aircraft really would have been very

useful when the ministers were driving these girls around the

north-east in trucks, that is when it would have been easy to locate

them and see the movement of these vehicles moving the gills around the

north-east. But even if the aircraft manages to locate them and the

position where they are being held, it will be difficult for any

military operation by the Nigerian forces to go in and rescue them, so

some people are still pinning their hopes on a negotiation, an agreement

to try to release some of them. A large international aid operation

is under way in Bosnia and Serbia following the worst flooding there

since records began. The River Slava, which flows from Croatia,

through Bosnia and into Serbia, burst its banks after the equivalent

of three months rain fell in just three days. The town of Obrenovac

has borne the brunt of the flooding. More than 35 people have died and

thousands of people have lost their homes. Helicopters sent by the

European Union and the United States and Russia have been trying to

evacuate people from the area, local volunteers are also helping to

distribute food, clothing and water. We have already seen tens of

thousands of people having to leave their homes, both in Serbia and in

Bosnia, also reports of eastern Croatia, flooding there. There is a

massive effort, emergency services from those countries, but there has

also been cooperation. You will see flags from

from those countries, but there has also been cooperation. You places

like Macedonia and Slovenia, joining in their former Yugoslav countries

in these rescue efforts, as well as wider efforts from the international

community, planes arriving from Russia, the EU, the United Nations.

My guest lives south of Belgrade, he told me about the flooding outside

the capital. Outside the area and inside and in

the West, they are even bigger. Some areas are not in danger, but the

whole area is a disaster, and those people are in chaos, they suffered

from a huge earthquake three years ago, and they are now suffering from

floods. What else could be facing them? Escaping from Kosovo, an

earthquake, then floods. One man, his clothes were all in mud, is wife

was crying, looking at the furniture being given away. We have got

pictures, the water looks pretty high, how high are the waters? What

are people doing? Are they just leaving completely? Are they trying

are people doing? Are they just to rescue their belongings? It is a

huge mess. They are going back home. They are trying to save what is

possible to be saved. Most of those people are trying to take any

belongings from their homes, but it is mostly ruined and damaged,

belongings from their homes, but it unfavourable condition. How much

help you getting from the government? It is a huge disaster,

and it is obvious there is a lack of organisational skills amongst the

authorities. People say it would organisational skills amongst the

silly to complain, but you decide to help.

silly to complain, but you decide to people being evacuated, where

silly to complain, but you decide to they going? They mostly have

relatives around, and there are a couple of centres. They are getting

all they need in their centres, drinkable boards, hygiene, and

something like food, they will be more than grateful for that,

especially in these areas that have no roads at all.

The first defence witness has started giving evidence at the trial

of the former Bosnian Serb military commander that, ditch. He is on

trial in the Hague, accused of genocide, crimes against humanity

and war crimes committed during the conflict in the 1990s. The witness

gave evidence on the use of snipers in Sarajevo. He denied that his

soldiers had access to rivals with magnifying sites.

In other news, the Libyan government has called for an end to military

action following a weekend of violence which culminated in the

storming of the parliament building in Tripoli by a heavily armed

militia. Two people were killed and more than 50 injured when the

attempted coup happened. They are calling for those responsible to be

prosecuted. Two Chinese workers in Myanmar have

been kidnapped by anti-mining activists. A statement said the

men, working for a subcontractor, were taken from a region in the

north of the country on Sunday, along with a Burnley 's colleague.

Three people arrested in Turkey by police investigating the mining

disaster are facing a charge of causing multiple deaths. They are

among 16 people still being questioned by the prosecutors. The

expression and fire on Tuesday said carbon monoxide into the tunnels,

claiming 300 lives. Stay with us, much more to come.

Concerns carved in the shifting sands, why one artist fears Crimea

could be slipping through her fingers.

The president of South Sudan has told the BBC his country faces

famine unless the current conflict comes to an end. Speaking on Hard

Talk, Salva Kiir said it is -- said the central aid agencies are allowed

to work freely. He has accused his colleague of increasing tension

between the peoples. The World Food Programme director

said it is no longer a question of said it is no longer a question

whether people buy of hunger in South Sudan, it is a question of how

many. He is concerned that your government does not understand how

serious this is. We understand. It is not our making. It is a man-made

disaster. This is why we won the war to stop, so that we allow the

humanitarian access. The population is going to face one of the worst

famine that has ever been witnessed in South Sudan. This is the time

coming. You are using the word famine? Yes, people will starve to

death. You sit here is the president and you tell me that you believe

your people are facing famine? How do you feel about that? Is that not

something which suggests you have failed? Do you want me to deny that

if this thing continues, there will be no famine? I cannot deny it.

Facts are facts. We have to stop this fighting so that we save the

people's lives, so the people do not die. Of hunger.

The South Korean national coastguard is to be disbanded because

of its failure to save more lives in last month's ferry disaster.

Serbia and Bosnia call for international help to rescue people

from inundated areas after the worst flooding since modern records began.

Two Chinese passenger ships have been in Vietnam, to evacuate Chinese

Hundreds of people were taken out of Vietnam by sea - more than 3,000

Two Chinese workers were killed and more than 100 injured

when a number of Chinese-owned factories were attacked

in the wake of a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

With me is Giang Nguyen from the BBC's Vietnamese Service.

Why has a dispute in the water escalated to a problem on the land?

I think first of all, in Vietnam, as we all know, from scenes at the end

of the Vietnam War, the relationship with the northern neighbours China

have not been very smooth. There have been some clashes, military,

and also a border conflict in 1979. 25 years later, now we have a

dispute over the place where the Chinese moved in to what they think

is their waters, to set up an expensive oil rig. And that has

caused a lot of anger within Vietnamese society. It has also

affected parts of the government. They want the Chinese to move back.

So, they feel this is Chinese aggression? Yes, that is the way

they see it. And then the riots last week cost a number of deaths. Last

weekend, people in Vietnam, they were demonstrating in London, in

front of the Chinese diplomatic headquarters, or embassy, or

consulate, to protest against what they see as Chinese aggression. Now,

the Chinese have sent in ships to bring about 3000 workers from a

particular factory in the centre of Vietnam, to go home. Are there are a

lot of Chinese people working in Vietnam? We do not know the exact

figure. The problem is, a lot of Asian companies, like from Taiwan or

Hong Kong, they have had factories in Vietnam, but then they bring in

Chinese workers to work for them, because they share a common

language. And the Vietnamese do not like it, they want a job for

themselves. So, a we will have to leave it there. Rochdale indeed.

At the start of the year, a safe "baby hatch"

was opened in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, giving parents

a place to anonymously abandon children they couldn't care for.

Just six weeks later, the government had to close

the site, after it was overwhelmed with 262 children - all of them

Our correspondent Celia Hatton travelled to Guangzhou.

If all had gone according to Plan A few weeks ago, these parents would

have given away their only child. The child was born with serious leg

and spinal deformities, with a large hole in her mouth, making swallowing

difficult. Every day she grows thinner. With no money and no

government health care, this couple faced a heart-wrenching choice -

hold onto their daughter or hand her over to the state, where, in theory,

she would receive treatment. They decided to take her to an

orphanage. TRANSLATION: Nobody

orphanage. away, at least she would have a slim

chance of life. I wanted to away, at least she would have a slim

after her myself, but my husband asked, what if our daughter dies

because we cannot care for her? Fate intervened. Overwhelmed with sick

infants, the local children's home stopped accepting new babies just

hours before the family arrived. So the child stayed in her mother 's

arms. But she is far away from a cure. The abandoned children living

in this private foster home in Beijing face a very different set of

circumstances. Local orphanages send their most serious cases here. This

boy is recovering from a liver transplant. In many ways, these

children are the lucky ones. They have access to top notch care. But

these kids have also lost a lot as well. Many will never know their

biological parents, that is because most children in China are abandoned

with slips of paper listing only their birth date. On the streets of

Beijing, this father is determined to keep his family intact. He has

launched a rare public campaign, pledging to

launched a rare public campaign, life for anyone who can fund

launched a rare public campaign, a bone marrow transplant is her only

launched a rare public campaign, hope, and a donor

launched a rare public campaign, But her parents cannot pay for the

$96,000 operation. But her parents cannot pay for the

from all my relatives, I But her parents cannot pay for the

I died, But her parents cannot pay for the

because more people would care for us. This couple are relieved that

chance kept their daughter with them. But now, this couple is

relying on luck, like many other families, to keep her alive.

Vladimir Putin has ordered troops currently stationed near Russia's

border with Ukraine to withdraw to their permanent bases.

In a statement issued by the Kremlin,

Mr Putin is quoted as announcing the end of military training exercises.

Russia has made similar statements in the past, only for NATO to

Tensions remain high in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian militia

like these here near Slaviansk continue to enforce road blocks.

Several pro-Russian demonstrations were held over the weekend

in eastern Ukrainian cities, where some groups are calling

Later this week, Vladimir Putin is flying to Beijing to try to secure

Russia's economy is heavily reliant on exports of oil and gas,

but its main customer, Europe, wants to reduce its use of Russian

energy, especially since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine.

Our Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, has more.

Many economists will tell you that the recipe for a sustained,

successful economy is simple - do not put all your eggs in one basket.

In other words, diversity is the key. Have an economy which is based

on a lot of different things, for example, manufacturing and

agriculture and farming. They be new technologies, IT and software? And,

for some countries, tourism is a very important source of income. But

diversity is not something the Russian economy is known for. Russia

has placed all its economic eggs in one basket. It is heavily reliant on

one thing - exporting energy, selling its oil and gas. Most of

that has been going to Europe. In fact, gas sales to Europe generate

80% of the revenue of the Russian energy giant Gazprom. But now there

is a problem. Tension over Ukraine means friction with Russia's main

customer. European governments are already looking to reduce their

dependency on Russian energy. Now, that will not happen overnight, but

it is pushing Russia to seek alternative markets and new

customers. So, if President Putin can clinch an energy deal with

Beijing this week, very soon, Russian gas could be heading to

China. It is an agreement the two countries have been talking about

for years, but they have been unable to agree on the price. If it is

signed, that would be good for China, which has an insatiable

appetite for energy to feed its growing economy. And it would allow

Russia to turn around to the west and say, you do not want our energy,

that is fine, we have found someone else to buy it. Russians have been

scrambling to finalise the deal with China, because they know that

serious cracks have emerged in Moscow's relationship with the West.

Now from eggs to illustrate the repercussions of the Ukraine

One Ukrainian artist, Kseniya Simonova, is using her talent with

sand and a light box to make her own protest against the violence which

As a person of art, I never thought of weapons and war as a way to talk

to each other. Never. After everything that has happened, my

only message is love. Whatever it is, Ukraine, Russia, Venus, Mars,

Jupiter, or the moon, is, Ukraine, Russia, Venus, Mars,

Jupiter, or the really, for me, it will still be an amazing place, my

beloved city, the city I will never give up. And I will always be happy

here, whatever country it is. When I looked at the events which happened,

for example, in the West parts of Ukraine, or actually anyplace, when

I occasionally see the news, I get upset. First of all, as a mother,

because I have a son, and I cannot see him as a person who is engaged

in violence. I am sure that all the mothers, of Ukraine, of Russia, of

anyplace, they do not want to see their sons and daughters to be

engaged in these things and to be killed. I am trying not to watch the

news but of course I know what is going on. We are people, not

monkeys, not dogs. We are given the greatest treasure of language. We

always should speak. We are all brothers - and sisters. For me,

things like this are horrible. We have beautiful Ukrainian songs, on

which I create sand animation. We have varying cresting Tatar songs,

which I use as well. And we have an amazing Russian heritage, with fairy

tales, on which I create this animation, too. I am just trying to

show the diversity of us. We should look at each other very attentively

and understand that each of us is a person who carries the great

inheritance. Absolutely amazing, still dazzled by the work of Kseniya

Simonova there. Some news coming in from South Korea of an explosion on

a subway station, south of Seoul town, which has apparently left 11

people injured. Much more coming up on BBC News throughout the day.