13/12/2013 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian

refugees are left exposed and at harm from a harsh Middle East

winter. Amnesty criticises Europe's attempt to help the needy as

pitiful. We have a special report from one refugee camp in bitterly

cold Lebanon. The world's big powers have not been able to stop the war

in Syria, perhaps that is not so surprising, but surely sorting out

this problem should be much easier. 100,000 people pay their respects to

Nelson Mandela as he lies in state but now his body is removed from

public view, thousands who had missed out are disappointed.

Concerns about stability in North Korea after the country's second

most powerful figure is executed. If you can read any of these works, you

will know it is Esperanto. We speak to a fluent Esperanto speaker who

looks after an impressive collection of its literature.

The suffering for Syrian refugees fleeing violence has been bad

enough, now nature has heaped even more misery on them. Hundreds of

thousands of Syrian refugees are facing an exceptionally harsh winter

storm and freezing temperatures in the Middle East with no more than

flimsy tents for shelter. Human rights organisation Amnesty

International says Europe should hang its head in shame for failing

to provide a safe haven. There are 6.5 million people displaced inside

Syria. This is how the numbers of refugees stacks up. According to the

UN Refugee Agency, 838,000 have fled to nearby Lebanon, living either in

tented camps, unused buildings or with friends and family. More than

560,000 Syrians are believed to be in Jordan. 540,000 have sought

refuge in neighbouring Turkey. In Iraq, more than 200,000. Our Middle

East editor Jeremy Bowen is in Lebanon where he spent the day with

refugees in the Bekaa Valley. No working taps, Noel Wells, only

snow. And then here collect it to melt it into water. However bad it

gets here, their families still have to drink. An extended family of 20

live here in a refugee settlement in the Northern Bekaa Valley. They have

a small still but they do not have much would so they were bringing

pieces of a plastic rug. The area around the store is quite warm but

the fumes of burning plastic hang heavy in the air. This is no place

to be a child. It is a much worst -- much worse place to be a baby. Two

sisters in law and spend their days goes to the small stove with their

newborn sons, around one-month-old. The babies have the cold. Their

mothers are trying to breast-feed but it is hard because they are

undernourished, living each day on one bowl of lentil soup. They mix

some baby formula with the melted snow water. This baby was born

without a hand and his mother says he was delivered by a midwife and

has never been seen by a doctor. She has been told an operation could

help them. He could probably have an operation but I don't have any money

to take him. The family seem to share a lot of love but they are

close to destitute. Because of the cold and lack of water, this is all

that a bucket of melted snow mix. They have not watched for around two

weeks. Most refugees in the Bekaa Valley live in informal settlements

as the government does not allow the huge cans that have been built in

Jordan. Aid is haphazard. In all the settlements there are children who

have no shoes or a winter clothes. They often smiled but they look

cold, undernourished and on the edge of the list. The world big powers

have not been able to stop the War in Syria and perhaps that is not

surprising but surely sorting out this problem should be much easier.

What it needs most is a mixture of political will and money. The fact

that these people are still living like this in the third year of this

crisis suggests there is not enough of either. Big sums of money have

been donated to help refugees but very little has reached here. These

are resilient people and local aid workers say the camp is no better

and no worse than others in the area. The humanitarian crisis caused

by the Syrian war is growing and eventually. A bitter day was

becoming another freezing night. The body of Nelson Mandela is no

longer lying in state. Officials say an estimated 100,000 mourners filed

past his body in the capital, Pretoria, the very place he was

sworn in as Africa's first black President in 1994. Not everyone was

able to view his body, many were turned away. Final preparations are

now being made in his home village of Qunu for his funeral on Sunday.

Huge disappointment for those who did not manage to see Nelson Mandela

lying in state? That is right. Night has fallen here and you can see the

Union Buildings floodlit behind me. This very imposing centre of

government for South Africa and it was here during the day but tens of

thousands of ordinary South Africans queued for the third day of this

lying in state which is now over, and many thousands had to go home

disappointed because they simply would not have reached it before

because of the day. Most of the day was very dignified. Singing ebbing

way to silence as people approached the point where they could look for

the last time into the face of Nelson Mandela but that those denied

the opportunity, there was of course frustration and sometimes anger.

On the last day of lying in state, the patience of some was beginning

to wear thin. They feared they would never get to pay their respects to

their dead leader. A policeman called for calm. Then a gap was

forced. The younger swept through. It was a brief moment of drama,

could be contained by police. There were no serious injuries but all of

this indicative of the powerful feelings evoked by the death of

Nelson Mandela. APN that here transcends all divides. We wanted to

maybe push inside so that we could be able to go and pay our last

respects to him. A government minister acknowledged many would not

get through. If the numbers are too big, there is nothing we can do

about it. We do not have to apologise because that is the way

the situation is. 500 miles to the south of his birthplace, the

military practice their flyover Sunday's funeral. Preparations here

are gathering pace. This is the convoy that will carry the body to

its final resting place. Away from the formality of the state occasion,

these ANC members remembering a man who was to them not a global icon

but a local hero. There are small impromptu celebrations of Nelson

Mandela's live in place across South Africa. Here in his home region, the

sense of anticipation ahead of Sunday's funeral is particularly

intense. This is one of the poorest parts of South Africa, the place of

deep anger over government corruption, the failure to deliver

on the promises of liberation. For people like this widowed mother of

five children, Nelson Mandela is exempt from limb. Do you feel proud

that he came from here, from this place? I am proud, so proud, she

tells me. As the day ended, Nelson Mandela was leaving Pretoria.

Tomorrow, the man who led South Africa to freedom will make the last

journey to the place of his birth. Tomorrow, Saturday, but very

poignant journey for Nelson Mandela's body will begin here in

Pretoria when he is taken to be put on board that aircraft to take him

from the airbase down to the Eastern Cape, all the way his grandson will

be talking to the body of Nelson Mandela, telling him, according to

tribal custom, exactly what is happening. He will be telling his

grandfather, we are now going on a flight down to the Eastern Cape to

begin your journey home to your homeland in Qunu for the

preparations for the funeral on Sunday.

There is international concern tonight about the stability of the

secretive state of North Korea after the execution of the regime's second

most powerful figures Jang Song Thaek. He was the uncle by marriage

of the country's leader Kim Jong Un. It's reported he was shot by machine

gun after being found guilty of treason. South Korea says it is in a

heightened state of readiness. This is the man who sought to bring

down the North Korean regime, the once powerful uncle of the country

's young ruler reinvented as a criminal and a coup leader. Facing

this military court before his execution. His crimes of plotting to

seize power, the most serious of North Korea could muster. His old

influence and proximity to the North Korean ruling dynasty only

underlines the message delivered with his death that no wonder, not

even family, is immune. The state news agency described him as worse

than a dog and a traitor to the nation for all ages. Who was the

dead man? Jang Song Thaek was powerfully placed in North Korea's

ruling grip. He was married for decades to the sister of the former

ruler. He died two years ago, passing control to his young son. He

is now a broadly purging all opposition. News of the execution

told of a man responsible for all North Korea's ills, its corruption

and economic failure. A despicable reformer, too close to China and a

warning to all those who hoped for change. Just over 100 miles away

here in the South Korean capital there is worry about what North

Korea will look like without its elder statesman. Jang Sun Tech was

seen as being too close to its leader to colour but there is a new

generation of rising and it has just proved it will do whatever it takes

to stay in power. He has to realise that once a terrorist stops, he has

to bring home the goods. If people don't have jobs or security, who

else has he to blame? Jang Sun Tech has already been edited out of

official documentary is all stop his story rewritten by the countries

powerful propaganda machine but many believe that story reveals far more

about the fears and floors eating away at the heart of the regime.

Tomorrow Egyptian authorities will announce the date of the referendum

on the new constitution and after that they will be a period of 30 to

90 days for either parliamentary or presidential elections to be held.

Ever since the removable of Mohammed Mercy in July there have been a

string of car bombs and attacks. Before we came on air, I spoke to an

adviser to Egypt's interim President and I put it to him that a

democratically elected President had been replaced by a military backed

one. That is not a precise reading of what happens on the 30th of June.

That was a fully fledged revolution by people who were against the

fascism represented by the Muslim Brotherhood that came into power

probably through the ballot boxes but intended to rule Egypt by

confiscating the whole democratic process and that was very clear on

November 2012 when we had the constitutional declaration of the

Muslim brotherhood. You felt that justified the actions of the

military in Egypt to intervene and remove those people from power? What

has happened is that we had an impeachment process of a President

in a very nonconventional way in a popular way that people came out

onto the streets, asking this President to leave office and to

have an early presidential election. I will not get into the

figures with you because opponents say the figures were much smaller

but even though we thought there was popular support for his removal,

there is popular support in the country for him and the Muslim

brotherhood movement. Can you afford to write them out of the script?

this is not a precise estimate of their presence in Egypt's. They are

one factor of the society and we would not say it goes beyond 5

million of the population. That is a lot, can you ignore that? It is

actually the other way round, we want them to not ignore the other 85

million. They are the ones who are not including the Egyptian people.

What they call anti-government demonstrations, we know they are

anti-future demonstrations. The Egyptian people has tried to set

clear road map to the future which is very democratic and having a

constitutional start and having that in the way that the Muslim

Brotherhood has tried to deprive the Egyptian people from having the

dream of the Democratic progressives and state. Do you accent you have a

PR problem. Look at the demonstrations we saw in support of

Mohammed Morsi and in Alexandria we saw women as young as 15 given heavy

prison sentences. They have now been allowed to leave prison but they say

they were not doing anything wrong. That is not good for you. Let us

agree that we have a propaganda machine that is taking typical

events that could happen here in London, it happened here at the

University of London. We have someone who wrote in chalk on the

floor of that university and she was prosecuted for vandalism. If that is

the same case that we have young ladies as long as -- as young as

this land is -- as young as this youngster at the adversity of London

doing vandalism and destroying private property and when they were

prosecuted through a legal system that is exactly the same rationale

that this young lady at the University of London has been

prosecuted, we cannot say that it is an act of tyranny versus attack act

of the rule of law and in both cases it was the rule of law. In Egypt's

you now how to ask for three days notice if you want to carry out a

protest against the government and you might not be given the

commission. The demonstration law here in the UK asks you for six days

for permission which is pretty much the case. In some cases you would

not get permission in the UK. Are we comparing like with like? You have

got hundreds of supporters and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in

detention and you have human rights organisations say they have been

arrested... More precisely we have leaders of that organisation

instigating violence and acting violently and it is very clear and

it has been declared by the public prosecutors. That was the adviser to

Adly Mansour talking to me just before we came on air. Violent

protests have erupted in Bangladesh after the execution of the Islamist

opposition leader Abdul Kader Mullah on Thursday. At least three people

were killed when demonstrators clashed with police and set fire to

houses, shops and vehicles. Abdul Kader Mullah was hanged on Thursday,

for war crimes committed during Bangladesh's war of independence

from Pakistan in 1971. Despite the violence crowds also took to the

streets of Dhaka, to express their support for the execution. Here's

Andrew North in the capital Dhaka. Bangladesh on the edge. Islamist

protesters on the streets of the capital. The police retaliate with

massive force, wildly firing handguns and rubber pellets as they

try to regain control. The Islamist came and they had sticks and

petrol, this man said. They pulled me out of my car and burned it, look

that is my car. Police water cannons were used to put out the fires of

the demonstrators had already disappeared. Pop-up protests like

this are a hallmark tactic. It is just after Friday prayers and

already the kind of trouble that many feared has begun. Two cars have

been set alight here and the police and the fire brigade are trying to

put them out. Extra riot police are being brought in now. There is a

sense that this could start to spread across the city. Clashes have

already spread outside the capital. Several deaths and injuries have

been reported. The violence was sparked by the execution of an

Islamist leader, Abdul Kader Mullah. He was convicted for atrocities

during the war of independence but during a much criticised trial the

Islamist are calling for a strike this weekend. Bangladesh is braced

for more violence and there are increasing doubts that elections

promised for next month will happen on time.

American media outlets are reporting that a former FBI agent who was

believed to have been held in Iran for the last six years was working

for the CIA on an unapproved mission. The US National Robert

Leveson went missing during a business trip to Iran in 2007. The

associated press foundation suggest that a team of analysts from the CIA

with no authority to run spy operations paid him to gather

intelligence for them. He has been missing for six years. The CIA has

no comment on any claimed links between him and the American

government but the report suggests that the CIA paid his family $2.5

million to avoid a public lawsuit and disciplined ten veteran

analysts. In 2010 his family was sent a video of him looking frail

and asking the United States government for help. I have been

held here for three and a half years. I am not in very good health.

I am running very quickly out of diabetes medicine.

Within the last our reporters have questions the White House official

spokesman about this case and the spokesman stressed that he was not

working for the US government at the time that it disappeared. Robert

Leveson was not a US employee when he went missing in Iran. There is an

ongoing investigation into his disappearance so I will not comment

further about what he may or may not be doing in Iran. I will not fact

check every reference made in the story that you speak of and we feel

it was highly irresponsible to publish it and we urge the outlet is

not to publish out of concerns for Robert Leveson's safety. I will also

not say anything that will further harm our efforts to bring him home

safe, which has been our goal for the years he has been missing. Since

he disappeared the US government has vigorously pursued and continues to

pursue all investigative leads, as we would with any American citizen

missing or detained overseas. We continue to be focused on doing

everything we can to bring Bob home safely to his family and this

remains a top priority of the US government.

If I said to you saluton, it's estimated that up to two million

people around the world would know what I was saying. It means hello in

Esperanto. It sounds a little like Spanish perhaps a touch like German,

but it was the brainchild of a Polish linguist, Ludwig Zamenhof,

who designed Esperanto in the 1870s to be a neutral, international

language. This Sunday is Esperanto Book Day.

So we are joined here to talk about Esperanto by Olga Kerziouk who is

Curator for the Esperanto collections at the British library

here in London. Hello. Cannes one. Oh, Cannes one, I

can say that much! Why did you decide to learn this. I was born in

the Ukraine and when I was 15 years old I got very interested in a book

about a traveller who was blind and he travelled the world and I was

absolutely excited about this and that is how I learnt about

Esperanto. How easy is it to learn? It is very easy but you still need

to put some effort, as with every language. One of the reasons that it

is easy is that the words are similar if they denote the same

thing. Let us look at this one word. They are all similar whether they

mean cottage or house or mansion. It is very easy to learn because

grammar is very easy. You learn the roots of words and you learn the

system of prefixes and suffixes. How widespread is it? We think only 2

million speak it globally. It is difficult to say because you cannot

say, people started and then stop and then continue and we only know

about people who are members of these international associations for

Esperanto. Be honest, how many people have you sat down and gone to

a restaurant or a club or something and started chatting to someone in

Esperanto? Yes, well, some people have a star and you can see that

they speak Esperanto. It was very popular in previous decades. I used

to have a green star. You are not wearing it now! Yes, I forgot. It

used to be more popular than now. I wanted to put it to you that

basically English is Esperanto, it is the language of aviation and

business, do you need Esperanto? Yes we need it because it is beautiful

and easy and not everybody can spend years and years learning English.

People do other jobs in their life and it is also if you care about

linguistic justice. What is Esperanto Book Day? We don't have

much time. The man who created Esperanto was the first poet and the

first translator. So you have lots of books in the British library that

have been translated into Esperanto? Yes, this book was originally

written in Esperanto. It is translated into English from

Esperanto. And just say happy birthday in Esperanto. Hello.

Saluton. the rain is really swamping Scotland

through the afternoon. That rain is on the move ended the evening it

will push to the south and east and eventually clear the south-east by

dawn on Sunday. A reasonable start for many but there is another area

of rain are pushing up. It could bring it gusts up into the far north

of Scotland.