22/11/2011 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today with me, Tim Wilcox. Too little, too

late? As violent protests continue in Cairo Egypt's military leader

insists there is no going back on democracy. We are only here to

serve the nation and God. The armed forces fully reject these attempts

that are trying to harm the armed forces. Where to put Saif Al-Islam

Gaddafi on trial? Libya says it will not hand him over to the

International Criminal Court, but it says it has to be involved.

Party politics divide Washington as Republicans and Democrats again

fail to agree on how to cut America's debt. Coming up: The boom

in illegal gold mining in Colombia. We have a special report on how the

lucrativeOf business is good for the Mafia.

And famous for his music, but should the Sex Pistols' Johnny

Rotten be remembered for his Hello and welcome. In the face of

growing unrest in Egypt and in a dramatic attempt to placate

protesters, the leader of the country's Military Council, Field

Marshal Hussein Tantawi, has agreed to hand over power to a civilian

president by January last year. He agreed to accept the resignation of

the Prime Minister's cabinet and replace it within days. Let's go

live to Lyse Doucet to joins us from Tahrir Square.

Today the organisers called it A Million man protest. Today's

demonstrations were the biggest since their historic protests in

January and February that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. Now the

same chance are going up from the square, calling for the President

to go and also Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to step down. Even

when he spoke to the people of Egypt he spoke to these protesters

saying he has no intention to remain in power, but the square

said leave, lead. There has been a constant wail of ambulance sirens,

a measure of how many people are being injured in these running

battles. This report is from our Middle East correspondent.

They are carrying the dead. In the square they celebrated a revolution

not so long ago. Today was the biggest demonstration so far in

what they are calling the second revolution. As a protest build up

on the edge of the square there was relentless confrontation. Egyptians

are furious with the way the military are running the country.

The police fired round after round of tear gas and gunshots. The

motorcycles are bringing in more casualties by the hour. The crowds

are growing in the square and the military rulers of Egypt have no

new ideas, no answers to this crisis. At the field hospital I met

a 37 year-old doctor originally from Luxor. He is bitterly

disappointed to find himself back on medical duty in the square just

as he was nine months ago. thought everything was beautiful

and our country was heading for democracy and everything would be

fine. I never expected we would stay all this time without change.

Everything is the same. We have the same regime. I have lost hope. I am

very, very disappointed. Finally after days of silence the Prime

Minister emerged to make a desperate appeal. I beg you, I beg

you, put your country first, please go back home and let things come

down. And then the commander himself, Field Marshal Hussein

Tantawi, head of the military cancelled that now rules Egypt made

a rare television broadcast. He insisted the military do not want

to hold on to power. Parliamentary elections will go ahead next week

as planned and presidential elections by the middle of next

year. The military, he said, only had the interests of the Egyptian

people at heart. So, driven by the huge demonstrations, late in the

day the Army have finally started making concessions, but will it be

enough? These protesters want an end to military rule right now and

there is no sign they are about to go away.

In a country of 80 million people many would have watched and

listened to this rare speech by the field marshal. It could be a speed

that divides Egyptians outside the Square, but Egyptians are now

saying the military has given us a road map for moving ahead and the

countries should move on. But here in Tahrir Square where people are

huddled around car radios to listen to what he said, many are saying

they cannot move on unless they are certain Egypt at last is moving in

the right direction. We will keep an eye on all the developments.

The wrangling over where Colonel Gaddafi's son aside up his man will

stand trial continues. Libya's justice minister says he will not

be handed over to the International War crimes Tribunal. The ICC's says

they must be involved. Saif Al- Islam is currently being held in

Zintan. Caroline Hawley sent this report.

These pictures were filmed in southern Libya shortly after Saif

Al-Islam was captured on Saturday, a major prize for the militia men

who found him. They promise you'll get a fair trial. Saif Al-Islam

replies he does not know where he will be held prisoner, in Libya or

outside the country. In Libya he is told. His captors show the cameras

this applies he had with him during the weeks he spent on the run after

his father's regime was toppled in August. He also carried with him a

warning, that the country would see new divisions and the former rebels

now in charge would bring no good to Libya. TRANSLATION: Regarding

the people of Benghazi or Misrata, you consider them your brothers,

go-ahead, but just give them a couple of months or one year and

you will find out the reality. Please do not deny it on the day

Saif Al-Islam was taken prisoner he did not warn you of that. He is

being held in Zintan where he was brought shortly after his capture.

His whereabouts remain a closely guarded secret as the process of

bringing him to justice is discussed in Tripoli between the

new Libyan authorities and prosecutors from the International

Criminal Court. Luis Moreno-Ocampo had wanted to see Saif Al-Islam in

court in the Hague, but he now seems to have accepted a blunt

message from the Libyans, that Saif Al-Islam will be tried in the

country where he committed his crimes. If they prosecute him here,

we will discuss with them how to inform the judges. Saif Al-Islam is

billed as he was blown into Zintan and he is likely to face a long

wait before Libya is ready to give him a proper trial. -- filmed.

In the Gulf state of Bahrain around 3000 protesters have clashed with

police in the city of Sitra a day before the findings are released of

a human rights report into violence between Government and political

activists earlier this year. That includes the convictions of 20

Medix accused of helping the protesters. They say they were

forced into confessions and are currently on trial -- on bail.

Zeinab Badawi has been speaking to one of them, Dr Nada Dhaif, and she

asked if there was a fresh opportunity. Personally I am not

very optimistic about it. Why not? I do not see how the Government,

how the king is going to hire somebody for a fact-finding. I

believe it should be an independent committee and not appointed by any

party, not the opposition or the Government. The authorities say

there were doctors who occupied the hospital in the capital. Were you

amongst them? That is the accusation against you. Of course

not, I have nothing to do with these charges. I was very shocked

the first time I learnt about these charges was when I was at the

military court. When I heard the judge telling defendant number sat,

I was No. 12, is charged with occupying the hospital, with

weapons, I just could not help it, I laughed. When you get so shocked

and then you do not know how to react, where did it come from? I do

not even work there. You were not there? I was not there. And you

have been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Exactly. But you have been

granted an appeal. We appealed in front of a civilian court and we

were sentenced in a military court. But we were happily in a civilian

court. Do you have any idea how your appeal will go? Will your

sentence be reduced or thrown out? That depends on the report of the

fact-finding commission. It depends on what comes in it and what it

says. If it is critical of the authorities, what is the

implication for you? We are clear and free to go. Dr Nada Dhaif

speaking to Zeinab Badawi. In Tunisia where a popular uprising

read to the fall of President Ben Ali in January and sparked a wave

of unrest across the Arab world the new constitutional Assembly has

held its first session. It was elected last month with a

previously banned Islamist party getting the most seats. They will

be writing a new constitution to pave the way for elections.

A special, so-called Super congressional committee in the US

has failed to agree on how to reduce the Bast Government debt.

Made up of six Republicans and six Democrats it had been asked to

reach a deal on how to cut more than a trillion dollars from the

Budget. There are too many Republicans who have refused to

listen to the voices of reason and compromise that are coming up

outside Washington. They continue to insist on protecting $100

billion of tax cuts for the World visits to -- wealthiest Americans

at any cost. At this point they simply will not budge from their

position. What is the scale of the US debt crisis and what are the

implications of Republicans and Democrats failing to reach a deal.

The national debt is now running at more than 15 trillion dollars. The

committee's failure to agree means automatic cuts should now take

effect in 2013. The automatic cuts amount to one trillion dollars,

equal to the annual national output of South Korea. Half of that burden,

$500 billion, is expected to fall on defence and national security

spending despite their already facing a $450 billion reduction. As

this is not set to take effect until January 2013, lawmakers can

appeal them. President Obama said he would veto any attempt to do so.

Let's go to Washington. The national debt is roughly equal to

the US economy. They have had three months to sort this out. They

cannot do anything. They really cannot. The whole idea was if you

put people in a room with no distraction, with a fast track,

they would come to some decision and that is completely wrong.

Republicans would not get off keeping the tax rates are low for

the wealthy, Democrats would not get off entitlement programmes and

keeping programmes like health care for the elderly and the poor. They

wanted to keep those programmes as his, which is very difficult. They

never really got any closer to that and that was the stalemate. We are

looking at political gridlock and presumably this is a live issue

right up to the presidential elections. In terms of the

automatic cuts, where do they kick in and can they be challenge?

you notice President Obama chose his words carefully. He said he

would have vetoed turning off those automatic cuts. That is different

to changing them. Republicans in Congress and some Democrats are

expected to want to change them for less than the impact on defence.

The Pentagon has said they cannot afford any more cuts, so that will

be a huge political issue and that will be the main battle in 2012,

trying to lessen the impact of the issued defence cuts in 2013. Could

it potentially affect America's credit rating yet further?

credit rating agencies are very careful in what they say, but they

are expected to keep the credit rating at the level that it is that

as long as these cuts do not go away, the 1.2 trillion dollars in

cuts mandated. As long as that deficit reduction happens, we do

not expect to see a credit downgrade, although we did not

expect to see one last time. It is kind of an enigma to everybody, but

that would be another huge stumble for an American political system

that seems to have lost its way You have got people trying to work

for the public good, but always falling back on to party political

prejudices. I was talking to some political folks this morning, no

one is willing to fall on their sword. That is the overarching

message we hear from both parties, no one is able to fall on their

assault and do what is right. All the political figures are staring

at a problem they know it exists. They saw trillion -- trillion

dollars worth of debt recently. Everyone knows what he's to be done

and no one wants to do what. That is what we are living with him

watching 10. It is frustrating to be bolder political figures saying,

what is going on here. It is a spectacle of sorts and has been

over the last couple of months. Thank you.

Let's return to our main story on this edition. While the Arab Spring

appears to be progressing in the country which was the catalyst for

the revolution, what has gone wrong in Egypt to have sparked a second

spontaneous uprising in recent days? Let's go to Cairo and speak

to our correspondent there who has been following the Arab Uprising.

Some of the protesters demands have been met seemingly, but is it too

little too late? I was in Tahrir Square and it is packed. People are

still there, they are not leaving and there seems to be

disappointment. They won more, they expected more, but they did not get

it. They were looking for an immediate end to military rule, but

they got a transferred to a civilian power by July at the

earliest. There was a big gap between what the protesters are

asking for and what the military was willing to give. That said, I

expect the concessions will go well with the majority of Egyptians. We

might see a disconnect between the hard core of protesters who want to

stay until they get exactly what they want and other Egyptians who

want to see a Writtle -- return to normalcy. They want to see

elections on Monday as originally to a job and to continue the

transition. That cap -- that gap will be interesting to see.

there are also a disbelief about the military's role of are the last

few months and their perceived to have been wanting to play on to

power at all costs? The military has woefully mismanaged Egypt's

transition. They have used many of the same authoritarian tactics as

the old regime so that is where a lot of disillusion and frustration

has come in. Sometimes even worse. Amnesty International says they

even exceeded some of the torture and brutality of President Mubarak.

That is a remarkable thing, in some ways they have been worse. When

they came to power on 11th February, they promised a tradition -- a

transition in six months and we are nine months into a. They are

comfortable holding power in Egypt. That is the reason all of this

happened in the first place, the unwillingness for the military to

give power to a 7th -- civilian elected leadership. How will they

persuade people to get involved in this National Salvation government?

Will there be the appetite to join that, or will they be seen as

stooges of the military, whoever puts their name for? That is the

big risk for any political party thinking about Cabinet ministers

now. If they go away and that government is not popular and there

are more protests here and elsewhere, that is exactly what

people are going to be saying, that these are sell-outs and stooges.

Any political party that is considering that and balancing the

costs and benefits will have to think long and hard about whether

this is worth it. Do we want to wait until things stabilise?

Briefly, how have the last few months changed that inherent

respect Egyptians traditionally have had for the Army in the past

50 years? A couple of months ago, there was an opinion poll which

suggested that the military had anywhere between 80 % and 90 %

approval ratings. Recently, that confidence has dipped and people

are starting to wonder, is the military good at managing the

country? I still think there is a general respect, and we have to

distinguish between the military as an institution and the ruling

military council which is made up of around 25 senior members of the

military. But I think you are right to point out that there will still

be that respect to the institution, not necessarily to the people

around those in power right now. Thank you for joining us.

Some other news. Pakistan's ambassador, Husain Haqqani, has

resigned. It follows disputed evidence that he asked the United

States to help in training and the power of the military.

Noun Chea, the No. 2 Leader Of the Khmer Rouge, has been giving

evidence on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. He gave a

long statement defending his actions when millions of Cambodians

died. He called the victims traitors.

They have been protests in South Africa against the parliament's

approval of a new information law. Critics say the -- it is a major

breach of freedom of speech. Columbia has been battling

revolutionaries for decades funded through drug trafficking. While

cocaine production has been hit by eradication and arrests, illegal

gold mining is booming, so much so it has become a new line of

business for the local Mafia and armed groups.

For centuries, gold has been the sole of Colombia, the heart of its

myths and legends, the essence of its history and culture. It has

never been as important as today when the country's future wealth

and stability depends -- depends on mining this and other precious

minerals. High in the mountains were decades of war with violent

revolutionaries have been fuelled by drug-trafficking, gold is

becoming the new cocaine. It is almost industrial, but it is

illegal. This process can collect $1,000 worth of gold in a day. A

week ago, there were five for offering machines here. The

government is confiscating them as drug smugglers and local Mafia

muscle in on the business. The more successful we are against drug

trafficking, and we have been very successful, we have diverted to

other sources of funds, and one is illegal mining, especially gold. We

are fighting that because as the drug trafficking has tremendous

environmental consequences, so there's illegal mining.

There has been traditional mining here for centuries. The high price

of gold has drawn over 100,000 people into illegal gold mining,

tearing down forests and pouring Machrie into the forest.

TRANSLATION: We used to live off cocaine, but not any more. If the

government closes this down, tell me what we were live off? They

suspect the government also wants big mining companies to replace

them to make bigger royalties. Local Mafia had a powerful hand in

the gold-rush towns where there is This is worth nearly 50,000 US

dollars. For nearly 30 years, Colombia has

been torn apart by revolutionary groups and armed militia, all

funded by the illegal drugs trade. The government is winning out war,

but unless it acts quickly and effectively against the illegal

gold mining trade, the violence could spark again. Columbia's

ancient treasure could yet be a curse.

They were scrawled in marker pen on the walls of a central London flat.

You might think it is just graffiti, but one critic thinks the pictures

drawn by the Sex Pistols thing that Johnny Rotten can be compared to

cave paintings by early man. -- Sex Pistols singer. They were

the ultimate bad boy band. Controversial yet compelling. The

media loved to know them but they could not care less. -- loved to

load them. About most things. But Johnny Rotten was a bit upset

one day when he came back to the flat he then shared in central

London. He walked up these stairs and found that the others had given

the place a makeover. It wasn't quite to his taste so we got out a

marker pen and added his own finishing touches.

He drew a comic character -- comic caricature of up Sid vicious and of

his girlfriend, and off Malcolm McLaren, the ban's charismatic

manager. They are not unlike the Do loo -- doodles of a bored teenager,

but according to some archaeologists, they are of great

cultural importance. We know how significant punk was to that

generation in the 1970s. These paintings are relevant and

significant for their generation, and for that particular period of

history. That is the academic's point of view, but what about the

quality of the drawings? There are a lot of rock musicians that have

produced a lot of terrible art. The funny thing is that unwittingly,

Johnny Rotten has produced good caricature us. The story emerged

without his influence. Whatever the future holds for this collection of

drawings, there is little doubt that the time the Sex Pistols spent

in this flat will be studied by academics and enthusiasts for many

years to come. That is all from the programme.

Next, the weather. But for now, It did stay cloudy and BME across

the south-east corner, but for many we have sunshine around. The cloud

will break up across England and Wales tonight and gave a frosty

start tomorrow. That is something we have not seemed very much of

this autumn. There is a weather front moving in across parts of

Scotland so a different story here. Staying frost-free and it will be

cloudy and wet in the morning. You can see sunshine in parts of

England. There will be more cloud for the afternoon across northern

areas. Temperatures recovering to double figures after a load start.

Across the south-east corner, we have got some fine sunshine. A real

change compared to the cloud of today. Sunny spells across the

south-west and temperatures reaching 12 degrees. It will cloud

over across Wales for the afternoon, but some brightness holding on

towards the border and across parts of North Wales, we might see the

odd shower at the end of the afternoon. For Northern Ireland, it

will be cloudy and wet with a bit of a breeze. The rain is sinking

further south so the afternoon across the north-west Highlands

should be drier and brighter, but here we will see some showers.