15/09/2014 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today with me Daniela Ritorto. A show of unity

in Paris. 30 countries come together to

promise whatever means necessary to fight Islamic State militants in

Iraq. 500 migrants are feared dead after a

shipwreck near Malta. Two survivors say traffickers sunk it

deliberately. Also coming up: The British Prime

Minister, David Cameron makes a plea to people thinking of voting Yes to

want by ripping your country apart, you don't get change by undermining

your economy, and damaging your businesses and diminishing your

Shakespeare and Poland - how a

radical design of a new theatre in Gdansk aims to revive a dramatic

A big international meeting in Paris has

wrapped up, aimed at broadening the international campaign against

Islamic State. So, what did they decide? Well foreign ministers from

30 countries signed up to help Iraq fight the militants "by all means

necessary". One notable absentee from the talks though was Iran,

whose leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, poured scorn over the

international coalition. He said he personally rejected a US offer to

cooperate. Iraq's Foreign Minister expressed "regret" that Iran was not

invited to the conference. The murder of David Haines at the

weekend, the third Western hostage to be killed by the group, has given

a new urgency to formalising a unified strategy against the

militants. They're now threatening to kill a fourth - a British aid

volunteer - as our security correspondent Frank Gardner reports.

David Haines, murdered. The recent beheading of these three Western

hostages by the so-called Islamic State has helped Alvin eyes world

leaders -- has helped focus world leaders. Britain's Home Secretary is

where that the life of this dish hostage lies in the balance. We have

to do what we can stop -- the life of this hostage from Britain lies in

the balance. The challenge for those countries

lining up against Islamic State is considerable. The shaded parts of

the map sure the territory it now controls. 6 million people are

believed to be living under the rule of IS. The CIA estimates it has

30,000 fighters. The Government of Iraq feels most threatened. This

terrorist organisation has killed elderly people, children, men and

women. It aims to establish a state which is a base for further action

in the Middle East and throughout the world.

John Kerry has spent the last few days racing around the Middle East

forming an alliance against IS. The strategy for confronting Islamic

State involves not just Iraq and groups in Syria, it is also pulling

in all the neighbouring Arab States. The seam-macro two as a threat to

them as much as it is to the West. -- the sea IS as a threat.

He will Islamic State react? They have been hurt by US strikes but do

they have a head and plan? IS wants to draw Western involvement further

in order to block them down. Caught up in this is a taxi driver. He was

kidnapped delivering aid to refugees in Syria. Islamic State have

threatened to behead him. As I mentioned earlier one notable

absentee from the talks in Paris was Iran - it has not been invited to

the conference and has rejected But could this global effort

to fight Islamic State work Iran is fighting IS. Probably more

than any other force right now. Iran backed various militias in Iraq.

They have been involved in some fierce fighting. What is going on in

Iraq and Syria is already immensely tangled. This new fight graphs

another layer of confrontation and difficulty onto all of that. There

are all kinds of contradictions and potential mishaps for the future

inherent in everything that is happening.

With me is Ayham Kamel, Director of the Middle East and North Africa

Iran was not invited to those stocks that should it have been? It was

problematic. -- Iran was not invited to those discussions. Should it have

been? Overall not having Iran, one of the

cord forces fighting IS on the ground, is in negative, but it is a

complicated issue. It is, located on many levels. Let us talk about what

came out at Paris today. How satisfactory was at? The slogan is

an animated campaign. The reality is there is a clear line. Everyone is

hedging. Everyone is watching to see what sort of a campaign we get and

what sort of reaction we get from Islamic State. One key issue is that

Islamic State has support across the Middle East. A small minority, but

one that can be very violent. We are talking about Iraq, but the

calculations for cilia are different and complicated. If IS is driven out

of Northern Syrian tones, who is there? President Obama is hoping

that a moderate force will be treated in time to fill the vacuum.

The president nor is the cilia leg of the strategy against IS will be

more complicated than the Iraq one. -- the president knows that the

Syria leg of the strategy will be more, located. We are in for a very

coveted as picture and one that can destabilise. What about the point

that was touched on, that IS is gunning for a fight with the West.

Are we taking that studiously? I do not think anyone has considered the

repercussions of this. This will be a more Western type campaign. Part

of the Palace conference is to give it a broader vision, Arab

participation, silly participation. -- Sunni participation. The problem

is that IS will be here for up to four years to come. There are no

easy solutions. A German man has gone on trial in

Frankfurt, accused of being a member Prosecutors say Kreshnik Berisha,

whose face has been blurred for legal reasons, travelled to

Syria last year and fought with the The 20-year-old, who once played

for a Jewish football club, It's the first such case to

come to court in Germany. More than 400 people

from the country are said to have travelled to Syria to fight

since the conflict began. Several hundred migrants from Africa

and the Middle East who were trying to reach Europe are feared to have

died over the past few days. Up to 500 people trying to

reach Italy are believed to have lost their lives when their boat

sank near Malta on Thursday. In a separate incident, the Libyan

navy said dozens of African migrants drowned off the Libyan coast

after their vessel sank. Exhausted and dejected. But they are

the lucky ones. Rescued after two vessels outsized. -- after two

vessels capsized. In a separate incident it is thought that up to

500 people may have died off the coast of Malta. Two survivors have

told the story. These latest disasters could put the number of

people estimated to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean this year

close to 3000. The organisation sees 100,000 people have been rescued

since January. The Italians say they have picked up thousands of migrants

this weekend alone. We can speak to Leonard Doyle,

spokesman for the International Organisation

for Migration based in Geneva. Can we try to firm up some of these

numbers? What we know, and has been widely reported, is that 200

migrants died off the coast of Libya. But much more serious,

because of the nature of the incident, is what we are learning

from eyewitnesses and survivors to the incident off the coast of

Malta, and which we are feeling that 500 migrants may have died, there

are vessel having been deliberately rammed. We are talking about 700

lives lost in a couple of days off the coast of Europe. That is a

disaster. It is more than a disaster because of the callousness and evil

that has been behind it. These traffickers take a large amount of

money from these migrants who are seeking a better life and fleeing

from war and horrible situations in their own countries. Men, women and

children. They take money from them and the puts them in vessels that

are not safe and now they seem to have deliberately sunk a vessel.

What is being done to try to stop these tragedies? Do we go after the

people smugglers themselves? There is always push and pull factors with

asylum seeking. We need to take on board that the statistics collected

worldwide are showing that the number of people dying in migrations

in America is going down sharply. In safe is your it is practically zero

deaths. In the Mediterranean it is nearly 3000. -- in the South Asia it

practically zero deaths. It is also a question of what is happening in

the environment of Europe. People coming from North Africa where there

is war and disease and a collapsing economy. The issues we are facing in

Europe seem to be more severe. Our governments doing enough? Italy is

the brunt of this. It is not just a question of having more vessels at

sea. It is why other people fleeing their countries? Why are they

allowed to fall into the hands of traffickers. There are

responsibilities on the other side as well. Europeans have their

responsibilities and they seem to be a weird of them, but it is not

resolved. But on the other side of the Mediterranean there are also

problems. before Scotland votes

in the independence referendum. Today both the Yes and No

campaigns have been busy In the last hour, British Prime

Minister David Cameron made an impassioned appeal to the Scottish

people to stay in the Union. But Scotland's First Minister

Alex Salmond has been focussing on the economy, dismissing fears

about the country's future. Will Scotland prosper? For business

leaders and their customers, that simple question is at the heart of

this campaign. It took 35 years to build up this wholesale business in

Glasgow. The boss says times have been tough recently, and

independence would herald a boom. We would be much better off, we have

more natural resources than anywhere in Europe in Scotland. We would be

much better off as a country, and I want to leave a legacy behind for

the next generation to come, so that they will live in a prosperous

Scotland. Earlier today, he and other business leaders joined Alex

Salmond at Edinburgh airport. The message, not all firms are worried

about the prospect of a Yes vote. What we have demonstrated today with

some of the most serious business people in Scotland, creating tens of

thousands of jobs, is that there is very substantial groups in Scottish

business who see very substantial groups in Scottish

from an independent Scotland. With the world watching, the battle for

business is in full swing, as both sides try to persuade voters that

their vision for the economy is the strongest. This evening, the Prime

Minister arrived in Aberdeen to hammer home his message. Warning

that independence would mean the end of British pensions, passports and

the pound. Making up Lido rectally to Scotland's voters about the

consequences of voting Yes. It would be the end of a country that

launched the Enlightenment, abolished slavery, defeated fascism.

The end of a country that people around the world respect and admire.

The end of a country that all of us call home. And, in the shipyards of

the Clyde, where the British Empire was launched, many workers are

worried. Scottish shipbuilding has been sustained by Royal Navy orders,

and the staff fear for their jobs of Scotland says Yes. We have a

complete understanding, clarity and plan of what will happen in the

event of a Note, in order to revitalise shipbuilding in the city.

We simply do not know what the future would be. Very soon, all will

become. The bustle will be over as the people of Scotland will quietly

make their choice. Now a look at some

of the day?s other news: Troops from 15 countries, including

the US and other NATO members, have begun a military

exercise in Western Ukraine. Meanwhile, six people have been

killed and 15 wounded in shelling around

the rebel stronghold of Donetsk The United Nations has relocated

several hundred of its peacekeepers in Syria to the part of the

Golan Heights controlled by Israel. The move comes two weeks after

fighters from the Al-Nusra Front, a Syrian rebel group

affiliated with Al-Qaeda, kidnapped more than

40 members of the UN force. have been found on

an island in Thailand. Authorities say they believe

the young man and woman, who were both in their 20s, were

attacked and killed on Sunday The local police have blocked

all boats from leaving the island in the hope that

the culprit is still there. It's nearly eight years since

the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko

was murdered in London. The chief suspect in his killing

has made his debut as a host on

Russian television today. Andrei Lugovoi presented a

documentary series called Traitors. where that's what critics

of the Kremlin are being labelled. Our Moscow correspondent

Steve Rosenberg reports. To British police, he is the prime

suspect in the killing of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

But back home in Russia, he is set to become a TV star. From today,

Andrei Lugovoi has his own series, called Traitors, all about Soviet

citizens who betrayed the motherland to the West. Andrei Lugovoi denies

murder, and Moscow has refused to extradite him to the UK.

TRANSLATION: Treachery is always a good subject, not just to Russia,

but Britain and America as well. We know you had your own traitors. As

long as there is confrontation between us, there will always be

traitors. Russia's between us, there will always be

to think so. Last month, live on television, Vladimir Putin announced

to think so. Last month, live on that there were people in Russia

prepared to betray their country's national interest. The Kremlin has

also warrant of a fifth: threatening Russia from the inside. State media

have employed the freeze, national traitors. But why? With Russia under

have employed the freeze, national increasing pressure from sanctions

and increasingly isolated from the West, the temptation for the

authorities here is to look for traitors and turncoats and fifth

columnists, in other traitors and turncoats and fifth

out the enemy within to deflect criticism of home. This history

teacher has been a vocal critic of Russia's intervention in the

Ukraine. But she was astonished to find herself portrayed on national

TV news as a traitor, along with several pop stars and politicians.

It is much easier to rule when you have enemies, and everybody can

unite against these enemies. You can always explain the crisis arising

and shops looking empty and so many terrible things happening because of

this enemy. She can see that Vladimir Putin's Russia is not

Stalin's Russia, where people were sent to the gulag. But criticism

here is still equated with treachery, and Russia are still

searching for scapegoats. In a couple of months? time,

Europe's Rosetta spacecraft will attempt its audacious and

historic mission to land on a comet. It's no easy task and scientists

have been explaining how they're going to go about it, identifying

the safest place to touch down. A strange, barren world scene in

greater detail than ever before. It is hard to imagine that comet might

have helped life start here your honour. We are no closer than we are

now closer to seeing if that is true. No one knows if this is going

to be possible, but the extraordinary feat of touching down

on a comet, first dreamed up 20 years ago, is now within sight. This

mission is at a critical phase, flying alongside the comet, but also

planning to send a landing craft on to it as well. An incredible

challenge. Let's take a closer look at the biggest danger. The surface

is totally unknown. Some parts are extremely rough, others smooth, they

may turn out to be soft and quicksand. For the Rosetta

spacecraft orbiting the comet, the plan is to release a landing robot.

Hopefully, this will descend on touchdown in the right area. The

tiny craft will need to get just enough sunlight to charge up its

solar panels. Too much sun, and it will overheat. If all goes well,

scientists will get the first chance to work out what a comet is really

made of. Whether it really did bring the building blocks for a life here

to Earth. It should land about your .Mac the landings at -- the landing

site is not to be the safest areas. There is no rush to get ready. We

have only just seen in the last two weeks images of where we are going

to land, and how to make all the calculation so quickly. This is

absolutely the most difficult things to be scientists have ever tried to

do. This animation makes it look easy, it is expected to happen in

November. If it works, we will get the first pictures from the surface

of one of the strangest objects in the solar system. And maybe learn

something about our own origins as well.

Just extraordinary! The link between

Poland and Shakespeare But in the 17th century,

the Polish city of Gdansk was one of the main destinations

for travelling English actors. Now a new theatre hopes to

revive that tradition. Kasia Madera went to

Gdansk to have a look. The works of Shakespeare were so

popular in this part of Holland -- Poland but this black brick building

stands on the site of a 17th-century Elizabethan playhouse. The original

was built for the travelling English actors who would come every summer

to perform in Gdansk. We are standing on the site of this theatre

where English players performed, his plays were performed here. It is a

historical site, and the whole idea of having Shakespeare in Gdansk is

not a crazy idea, it has strong historical significance. But

today's performers have one big advantage. This is the only theatre

in the whole world with an opening roof, to give theatre-goers that

authentic Shakespearean experience, come rain or shine. It takes three

minutes through the roof to fully open. The technology of the roof

comes from history. Elizabethan theatre was open. Wouldn't it have

been easier to do a sliding roof? If you want a sliding roof, you lose

the experience of the inner space. The inner space now becomes double.

The theatre has famous supporters. Prince Charles is an honorary

patron. And Paul and's most celebrated the Rector. -- and Poland

was Mac most celebrated director. TRANSLATION: They will show their

interpretation of the place. Shakespeare has returned year, this

is beautiful. The curtains will be raised, as will the roof, for the

grand opening at the end of the week.

Thank you very much for watching World News Today. That's it for the

programme. The weather forecast is coming up next. Goodbye from me and

the team. Today, parts of central and eastern

Scotland get hold of a lot of