20/08/2014 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today with me, Daniela Ritorto. Widespread

international condemnation as an American journalist is beheaded by

The murder of James Foley was shown in a video released by Islamic

State. They say he was killed in retaliation for US airstrikes.

They claim out of expediency that they are at war with the United

States or the West. But the fact is that they terrorised their

neighbours and offer them nothing but an endless slavery to their

After a week of calm, there are explosions again in Gaza and

Southern Israel. Airstrikes and rocket attacks restart; talks

Also coming up: living with the neighbours - A new study shows

modern humans and Neanderthals coexisted ten times longer than

The man regarded by many as the father of modern yoga,

B.K.S Iyengar, has died at the age of 95.

We'll find out how he popularised yoga in the West.

Hello and welcome. International leaders have expressed their horror

and disgust over the beheading of American journalist James Foley by

Islamic State fighters. In the last hour, president Obama said he has

spoken to the family offering his condolences - and described the

killing as an act of violence that's shocked the conscience of the entire

world. The killing was filmed and posted online by the militant group.

It appears to have been carried out by a man with a British accent. He

says the death is in retribution for recent US air strikes in Iraq. The

40 year old photo-journalist had been missing since he was abducted

in Syria two years ago. This report now is from our International

Correspondent Ian Pannell in Washington. It does not show the

full video, but you may find some images from it distressing.

He eventually turned his lens to the crisis in Syria. A country that has

taken the lives of more journalists than any. He was kidnapped by

militants in the north of the country. Last night, the Islamic

State released a horrific video appearing to show James Foley being

beheaded. It is too graphic to show. But the killer appears to have a

British accent. As a Government, you have been at the forefront of the

aggression against the Islamic State. The film is addressed to

President Obama, with a threat that a second American captive will be

killed if US air strikes continue. America's bombing campaign against

Islamic State fighters has halted their advance. Iraqi and Kurdish

troops are taking back some territory. The group formerly known

as ISIS, is still advancing across northern Syria. Now, American

intelligence officials have just said they have verified this video.

James Foley's life stands in stark contrast to his killers. They have

rampaged across cities and villages, killing innocent, unarmed civilians

and in cowardly acts of violence. James Foley, seen here working in a

little, is one of tens of thousands of people to have died at the hands

of militants, rebels and above all, Government forces. He was aware of

the dangers of being held captive, having been held in Libya. No matter

what ethic you think you have, you know, it is never a worth it. In a

statement, his mother, said: friends of James Foley said they can

only imagine what it must have been like for him. He was a lovely guy. A

professional, he knew what he wanted. He was not a chance. He was

very professional. James Foley went to Syria to draw the world's

attention to a tragedy that has been largely ignored. President Obama

tried to keep America out of this conflict. That no longer looks

tenable, as US officials said fighter jets and drones have

conducted more air strikes. In the words of a former deputy head of the

CIA, this is the Islamic State's first attack against America. It

will not be the last. Jim Foley's parents spoke to

journalists at a press conference a short while ago and said they think

of their son as a martyr. It is horrific. I mean, people can

die in lots of different ways, but this way was the most horrific. It

haunts me that he, how much pain he was in, and how cruel this method of

execution is, as opposed to others. It testifies to his courage. He was

courageous to the end. The parents of James Foley.

British intelligence services are working to identify the man seen

beheading James Foley in the video. The masked militant has a British

accent. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, described the murder as

'shocking and depraved'. Our Political Correspondent Ben Wright

The crisis in Iraq has come closer to home. The beheading of an

American by a man believed to be British brought the Prime Minister

back to Downing Street. He shortened his holiday to lead the

Government's response. Ministers and officials from across Whitehall met

in number ten. In the last few minutes, David Cameron gave his

reaction. It is an act of murder. Murder without any justification. We

have not identified the individual responsible on the video. But from

what we have seen it looks increasingly likely that it is a

British citizen. What we must do is redouble all our efforts to stop

people going and take away passports of those contemplating travel, to

arrest and prosecute those who take part in this extremism and

violence. To take extremist material of the internet and do everything we

can to keep our people say. We are brothers from Bangladesh, Cambodia,

Australia, UK... British jihadists in Syria. The Government says around

400 British citizens have left the UK to fight for Islamic State. One

counter extremist think tank says the Government must do more. It is

increasing. We know that a significant number of British

Muslims are fighting in the region. The Government has no strategy to

combat nonviolent extremism and to prevent it from becoming violent in

the first place. The murder confirms what the security services and

ministers have known for many months. The conflicts in Syria and

Iraq are magnets to some radicalised British Muslims. The questions now

begin. Did intelligence services know about this man? How can the

flow of British jihadists be stopped? What can Britain do to

tackle Islamic state forces in Iraq? There is work that needs to be done

with communities across the UK to support families and parents in

trying to stop the recruitment of youngsters, first of all to a

radical ideology here in the UK, or indeed travelling to be trained by

ISIS or other jihadis forces in the region. In Iraq, RAF planes are

being used in surveillance of Islamic state forces. The UK's

transporting arms from other countries to Kurdish fighters, known

as the Peshmerga. The UK might decide to carry out air strikes on

Islamic State forces. The United States already is. The Government

has ruled out putting British troops on the ground in Iraq. UK soldiers

might help train the country's army. One of the problems in the

Syria and Iraq crises is that these are words of the soul of modern

Islamic Middle East. Nothing the Government can say can counteract

that. A lot of young jihadists see this as their sacred duty. While the

Government rattles with the problem of British Edison 's travelling

abroad to fight with Islamic State, it is concerned about their return.

-- British citizens. With me is Peter Neumann . He's

Professor of Security Studies at King's College London where he's

Director of the International Centre Thank you for coming in. This is a

nightmare scenario for British security forces. We can tell that

from David Cameron's cutting short his holiday and convening an

emergency meeting of the Cabinet. It has been taken very seriously, this

British element. Yes. We believe that 400 or 500 British citizens

have gone to Syria over the past few years and there is concern that they

are doing bad things in Syria and Iraq but that the May return and

subsequently become involved in terrorism in the UK. Let's talk

about the choice, if you think it is that, of a British accented man,

some would go as far as to say it was a deliberate choice to have him

on the video, delivering this message. My personal theory is that

they... The most important thing was to have a man speak to the American

public. There are not that many foreign American fighters inside

Iraq. Probably in the location with the hostage was being held, the only

English big around was a British person. It could have been an

Australian. There are a number of them over there. Being ported things

to have the message delivered in an English accent so that news media

across America would pick it up. You have studied radicalisation. What is

it about ISIS that is attracting these young men? Particularly from

Western Europe and Australia. Not so much the United States. What is

attracting them to go there? There are a couple of things going on.

There is the thing about adventure and Brotherhood and potentially

becoming a hero. That is attractive, especially to younger men. There is

also the more serious message, the idea of genocide. Bashar al-Assad is

killing your brothers and sisters and you must come and defend them.

There's also this exciting and positive prospect of building a

caliphate, being involved in something really historical.

Something that people in 1000 years will still be talking about. That is

very attractive to some people. I want to pick up your point that

there are fewer American Muslim men going over there. Why is that? There

is a mundane fact that it is more difficult to travel to Syria via

Turkey from America. Also, for a number of years we have observed

that very few Muslim Americans have become involved in violent

extremism. Many argue that American Muslims are better and do better in

American society. That it does not quite exist in the same way in

Europe. Perhaps that makes them less susceptible to the message of

extremists. A fascinating insight. Thank you very much for coming in.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country's operation is not over in

Gaza. This comes after renewed violence on both sides. At least 20

Palestinians have died in the last 24 hours. That is according to local

officials. Hamas says the wife and child of its most senior military

commander is among the dead. The commander himself is still alive.

A huge turnout for the funeral of the wife and infant son of the top

Hamas military leader. Many carried the green flags of his Islamist

group. This was a show of support and defiance. Earlier, medics

directed bulldozers, as Hamas policemen kept watch at the site of

Israel's deadly attack. This pile of dusty rubble is all that is left of

a house where relatives of the head of Hamas' military wing, Mohammed

Deif, used to live. It was hit by Israeli airstrikes overnight. Hamas

says this was an assassination attempt. Today, Palestinian

militants fired rockets into southern Israel. The Iron Dome

defence system was back in action. But still, some properties were

damaged. Meanwhile, the Israeli military says it hits doesn't

offsite is across Gaza used to launch and store missiles.

Hardliners in the Israeli cabinet now want a wider operation against

Hamas. We have to fight it. And it takes

patience. You know, the Second World War went on for six years. We have

to persevere. We have to beat this group of evil terrorists.

About 2000 Israeli reserve soldiers who had been sent home are being

recalled. All of this has thrown Egypt's efforts to broker a longer

term ceasefire deal into jeopardy. The refusal of the Israelis to give

the Palestinians their rights and freedom and open the borders and

lift the siege and implement the past agreements, make the

Palestinians continue to stand in front of the Israelis and resist and

defend their people. In Gaza, tens of thousands have been

left homeless after the recent fighting. Some are camping out in

And they face greater uncertainty with the renewed violence.

Now a look at some of the day's other news.

There've been clashes between police and protesters

The demonstrators were angry about their neighbourhood being

quarantined due to the Ebola outbreak.

Police fired tear gas and eyewitnesses say residents

Heavy fighting continues to be reported in rebel-held areas

of eastern Ukraine, with street clashes in both the two separatist

More than 2,000 civilians and combatants have been killed

since mid-April, when Ukraine's government sent troops to put

It's reported that a Russian aid convoy into Eastern

In Pakistan, thousands of opposition supporters have marched on

parliament demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

The two key opposition figures - Imran Khan and a cleric, Tahir

ul-Qadri - accuse the government of vote-rigging and corruption.

Iran's reformist President Hassan Rouhani has

suffered a political set-back with a decision by parliament to impeach

The Science Minister Reza Faraji-Dana - who is also in charge

of the country's universities - angered conservatives by deciding to

re-admit students expelled after the anti-government unrest in 2009.

Critics say he also tolerated student publications that questioned

Islamic teachings and promoted sedition and riots.

With me is Amir Paivar from BBC Persian Television.

The on. Now this has been the lead story. In this minister and what has

he done? -- thank you for coming in. Was one of the most reformist

members of the President's Cabinet will stop and linear reformist is

relative. You take him back 15 years and put him in the former

President's Cabinet, the same statement would not apply. All he

did, as you referred to, was to admit students that had been

expelled from university, readmit assessors forced into retirement

under President Ahmadinejad. But also, what triggered this

impeachment was that his ministry started investigations into a list

of 3000 PHD and postgraduate students, who allegedly had received

state scholarships to study overseas without going through the process of

selection. As it happens, the MPs who initiated the impeachment had

some relatives and family members on that list. So is there a little bit

more internal political intrigue going on here than just a straight

fight between conservatives and reformists? You're right. We should

look at it on a macro level. This is the last episode in a series,

whereby those loyal to Ahmadinejad are clearly picking up a fight

against President Rouhani. This started with campaigns against

journalists, foreign or domestic, and now they are pointing the finger

at the key minister for President Rouhani. This is a fight against the

president. And he is a -- in a difficult situation. He has branded

himself as a moderate but if he does nothing he will lose popularity with

voters, and if he does something, this will go back to the same fight

we had under previous presidents, and that is not what President

Rouhani once. Wonder if this impeachment could have happened

without a nod and a wink from the Ayatollah? Definitely not. Every

other analyst we have been talking to today, they have said it could

not have happened without a nod from the supreme leader, and he has

himself been criticising the higher education ministry's record in the

past year. He is the man who has the last word on everything in that

country. As always, fascinating to talk about Iriney in politics. --

Iranians. A new study suggests that modern

humans and Neanderthals co-existed in Europe ten times longer than

previously thought. It was thought Neanderthals died out

around 500 years But it turns out that

the two species lived alongside each other in Europe for up to 5,000

years and even interbred. Our Science correspondent

Pallab Ghosh reports. Tens of thousands of years ago,

Europe was home to an ancient species of humans. The Neanderthals.

They are now extinct. Researchers have gathered there remains to find

out why they died out. Some scientists believe that our species

hunted them out of existence. But a new, more accurate dating of

hundreds of samples, published in the journal, Nature, has changed

their view. The research tells us that modern humans arrived in Europe

thousands of years earlier than people had previously thought.

45,000 years ago. That is when we first met the Neanderthals. It was

thought that they died out soon after, around 5000 years after we

first arrived, and it turned out that our species quits listed for

much longer, around 5000 years. And in that time, our numbers increased

bugbears gradually faded away. -- our species coexisted. Until 40,000

years ago, they disappeared completely. We have discovered a --

that we can rule out a rapid extension at the hands of our

species. Instead, these populations lived almost side-by-side for almost

5000 years, giving the possibility for the exchange of ideas and

culture between the populations. So why did the Neanderthals eventually

die out? They are hunting the same animals and collecting the same

resources, wanting to live in the best caves. There will be economic

competition. We walked the earth with Neanderthals for thousands of

years, but in the end, they could not compete with our kind and they

were finished off by a harsh cold spell 40,000 years ago.

Fantastic pictures. The man considered the father

of modern yoga has died in India. He's described as a visionary,

the man who made yoga accessible to beginners through his books,

popularising it in the west. He practiced yoga for eight decades

and could still do a headstand for more than half-an-hour until last

year, when he became seriously ill. He once showed off his skills

for the BBC. Why did you start yoga? I was not in

good health. I was suffering from tuberculosis and it was no medicine

in those days. How many years have you been doing it? 50 years. I

believe and yoga is meant to be a therapy of mind and body. What do

you get out of doing this? You can see that all the parts of the body,

the muscles and joints, all of the nerves, 96,000 kilometres of blood

vessels, they are all exercised by these movements.

Isabel Jones Fielding is an Iyengar yoga teacher and joins me

Thank you very much for being there. I'm wondering about your thoughts

today. I know you have been taught by him and his daughter and

granddaughter. We are deeply sad. It is a great loss. Particularly for

the family, because he was a charismatic individual, and a

father, a grandparent as well as a teacher and Guru. I

father, a grandparent as well as a focus today on his legacy. So I am

thinking about what it is that focus today on his legacy. So I am

has given me and all the thousands and thousands of students across the

world. Let's talk about that legacy. It is hard to think today, with yoga

everywhere and anywhere, that it was once not like this. It once was seen

as very much a fringe activity. Yes. One of the things that BKS Iyengar

has done is the broad yoga to the West in 1950, and enabled people,

old or young, disabled or athletes, to access the system. -- he brought

yoga to the West. Through a transparent method, of very high

quality. It is very clear through his writings and the teaching. He

was also a bit of a trailblazer in terms of teaching women. And again,

that is something that might be surprising. When I'd go to my class,

it is 80% women, and yoga was once just taught to men. It is hard to

imagine. I would never have done yoga had it not been for Iyengar.

And you can imagine, in those early days, how difficult it was to do

things that were against your position and class. Iyengar was a

Brahmin, and he started to teach untouchables. He received quite a

lot of prejudice for teaching women and untouchables. I'll wander, and

there would like your thoughts, has it become a little too exercised? --

I wonder, and I would like your thoughts. Is it still a process of

discipline and spirituality as well? Yes. They think sometimes people who

start at the beginning they approach it from an exercise perspective, and

then it creeps up on you. This system is highly complex and

detailed. You might find yourself focusing on your little toe, or even

the shoulder blade, and how it might move, and this kind of focus that

you bring to your practice is kind of like a meditation in action. So

the level of precision and understanding in the body that is

Iyengar has brought us, and the depth and quality of that, it takes

our minds away from the daily shopping list, let's say, and takes

us into our bodies. And when we are there, we are in the moment. I will

leave it there, exactly, in the moment. Thank you for speaking to

us. My thanks to Iyengar for my yoga practice. That is all from us today.

Good evening. The coldest weather tonight will be across the southern

part of the UK. There is more cloud coming down from the north overnight

through tomorrow. That will bring quite a few showers.