23/09/2014 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today with me Philippa Thomas.

A major escalation in the American-led war against

Islamic State militants and against fighters linked to Al-Qaeda.

The US leads Arab allies in air and missile strikes against Islamic

State targets in Syria, at least 120 militant fighters have been killed.

We are going to do what is necessary to take the fight to the terrorist

group for the security of the country, the region and the entire

Some of the 200 missing Nigerian school girls,

A warning on climate change from the head of the United Nations.

Ban Ki Moon tells world leaders in New York, this is

Also coming up, grim testimony from survivors of

They tell the BBC that smugglers chopped off the hands of migrants

And Marilyn Monroe was always playing a role but now has a new

President Obama says the support of Arab nations in air strikes

on Islamic State targets in Syria, makes it clear to the world that

It's reported that at least 70 IS militants

and 50 other al-Qaeda-linked fighters were killed in the first

The US confirms that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan,

Bahrain and Qatar took part in or supported the strikes.

Warplanes, drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles were used to hit

targets in cities including Deir Al-Zour, Aleppo and Raqqa, where

The Pentagon says it launched strikes from warships

in international waters, hitting targets

including training compounds, vehicles and storage sites.

When President Obama said that there would be no safe havens

for the Islamic State, this time he meant it.

Overnight, the US might was unleashed on the

Sunni extremist targets in Syria from these ship launched cruise

missiles, to fighter aircraft, to drones, and, critically, the

participation of the air forces of a number of other Arab countries.

And in the clear light of day, the flattened buildings, the rubble,

the twisted metal and chaos, the evidence of what had unfolded.

And that coalition of Gulf states in Jordan was something that

the president stressed when he spoke at the White House this morning.

Last night on my orders, America's Armed Forces began strikes

The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that

Above all the people and the government in the Middle East are

rejecting ISIL, standing up for the peace and security that the people

And one other country with an interesting role in the

The country's representative at the UN was given the heads up

but officials here are keen to stress there was no negotiation.

We did not seek the regime's permission.

We did not discuss targets, they say.

What is clear is that Syria did not stand in America's way.

And that is because the Assad regime has come under sustained attack

The Sunni extremists have taken vast swathes of land, so much

so that the city of Raqqa has become the effective headquarters of IS.

And their playground, too, by the look of it.

That explains its targeting in the overnight air strikes.

The raids coincided with Islamic State parading its British

hostage, the freelance journalist, John Cantlie, reading under duress

Senior US politicians seem content to call

Awful, vile, a cancer, an insult to our values.

But such petty insults don't really do much harm to

the most powerful jihadist movement seen in recent history.

But one notable absentee from this joint action against the jihadists

David Cameron, who is in New York ahead of the UN General Assembly,

has issued a statement saying that he supports the strikes, and will be

discussing over the next couple of days what else the UK can do.

But the Pentagon, which released these videos

of the attacks, has for the moment the vital support it needs.

The strikes marked a new chapter in the military action. What is its

legal basis and how long could they continue? Our diplomatic

correspondent has this analysis. A bombardment out of the blue. It is

not to mask this bombing but the US air force with Arab allies. Critics

will call at another US led military intervention in a foreign country

without UN Security Council approval. But the fanatical

followers of the so-called Islamic State use barbaric methods and they

are seen as a threat that could envelop the whole region in chaos.

I'm worried that today's strikes were not carried out by the Syrian

government but the government was informed and the people helped. The

strikes took place in areas no longer under the effective control

of their government. These attacks are the strongest international

responses -- response yet to the Islamic State network. Led by the US

but also involving Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab

Emirates. Most of them also taking an active military role. The aim was

to degrade key areas in these shaded zones controlled and supported by

the extremist 's. This strikes themselves were carried out by

fighters, bombers, and one man drones, plus dozens of missiles and

massive barrage is. They get a wide area, including Raqqa, and IS

stronghold. Targets included training camps, and even a finance

centre used by the extremists. It is thought IS disburse some of its

fighters and weapons in anticipation of the attack. Ironically, the

Syrian president could benefit from this turn of events. Only a year

ago, his government was the potential target of US strikes but

now the Americans are taking on some of his enemies for him. It is

inevitable that air strikes against Isis will help the Assad regime,

that is an unintended consequence. You have to do that sometimes. What

of other unintended consequences? Curbs on the Turkish border say they

are worried that IS fighters are coming their way to flee the air

strikes. The refugee crisis that, already hundreds of thousands

strong, could get worse. It was back in April that more than

200 school girls from Chibok in Northern Nigeria were abducted

by Boko Haram Islamists. It caused worldwide outrage and

sparked a social media campaign. Well, in the past hour there's been

a dramatic The Nigerian Defence Ministry has

confirmed to the BBC that some of the girls are now in

the custody of the Nigerian army. But he has now retracted that

statement and said that although some girls are in the Army 's care,

these are not the missing schoolgirl is that we were all thinking about.

Let's try to clear this up. Can you tell us what we know? Yes,

well, the story broke on Twitter initially. Some independent Nigerian

newspapers saying that they had information that some of the girls

were now safe in a military barracks in another city. The BBC managed to

get through to the spokesman for the Nigerian military, and he confirmed

that some of those girls were now safe in the military barracks. We

then reported that but within a few minutes, he called back to retract

the statement. He said there were some girls that have now reached the

barracks and they are safe, but he said categorically that they are not

from the same group. And this seems to imply there are more girls,

possibly, that have been taken by Boko Haram van we knew about -- than

we knew about. We know that many more have been taken. The abduction

of well over 200 schoolgirls, 219 of whom asked or missing, that hit the

international headlines, but there have been many attacks over the past

two or three years in which some people, including girls, have been

abducted by Boko Haram, and I have interviewed some in the past, prior

to this recent attack. There are more being held, and while the focus

is on those girls, the attacks are continuing on different villages.

And the abductions are continuing. So it is a terrible situation at the

moment in the north-east. And although last week there was some

good news from the Nigerian military, as they were saying they

had some success against the Islamist extremist group close to

the city of my degree, some towns are still in the hands of Boko

Haram, and more people are being abducted each week. I know you will

stay across the story for us, thank you for joining us live.

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

The World Health Organisation is warning there could be

Ebola has already killed almost 3000 people across West Africa.

A prominent academic from China's Uighur minority has been

Ilham Tohti was a vocal critic of government policies in the troubled

The Spanish government has withdrawn its controversial plans to limit

The conservative Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, said the governing

Popular Party had not been able to reach agreement on the proposals.

Two Palestinian survivors of last week's refugee boat sinking have

told the BBC they saw smugglers deliberately ram the boats, and

then chop the hands off those who clung to the sides of the vessels.

300 to 500 asylum seekers died in the incident off the coast of Malta.

The Maltese Prime Minister says this is mass murder.

This is a detention centre, not a dream destination.

It's where those rescued from the sea off Malta can end up.

And despite the trauma of an uncertain future,

Thousands died in unsafe and overcrowded vessels.

The BBC was allowed to meet three survivors in what has

A crime the UN says that cannot go unpunished.

Earlier this month, Ibrahim, Manon, and Muhammad paid smugglers

They left Gaza, ordered a boat to Egypt and then, in

the Mediterranean, they were ordered to switch to a smaller boat.

When the captain refused to stop, Mamon tells me, the smugglers rammed

Around 150 people below deck drowned straight away.

When someone tried to cling to the smugglers boat, Mohammed says, they

They also laughed as the boat went down.

This grim account of lives lost at sea has been backed up

by the handful of other survivors now out in Greece and Italy.

What they say happened has been judged to be credible by the

United Nations and by the Maltese government.

Day in, day out, year in, year out, the Maltese military is having to

rescue migrants from the inhospitable sea.

The government in Malta wants a Europe-wide

response to people smuggling following this latest tragedy.

That's something you wouldn't even imagine in a movie, let alone

And this is murder at sea? It is.

Back at the detention centre, where their freedom is on hold,

those who cheated death at the hands of smugglers live with the

horror of what they witnessed and are hoping for something better.

Idyllic and alluring for holiday-makers,

the Mediterranean Sea is proving increasingly treacherous

There are more migrants, there are more deaths, there are no

World leaders are being asked to make bold pledges to address climate

change at a one day summit in New York.

Opening the gathering of a hundred and twenty world

leaders, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said climate change is

The meeting is intended to build momentum for a new global treaty

on reducing greenhouse gas emissions next year, although both

Here's our science editor David Shukman.

From the melting of the ice in the far north of the Arctic...

To the rising sea level threatening low-lying countries like Bangladesh.

To the fear of dust storms and droughts intensifying in the

Climate change is described by the United Nations

Climate change is a defining issue of our age.

Today, the UN called a special summit on global warming.

There's been deadlock in negotiations.

Maybe some Hollywood stardust would help?

I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems.

I believe that mankind has looked at climate change in that same way.

As if pretending that climate change wasn't real would

The smallest islands say this is a matter of survival.

But pleading for help hasn't really worked, so young mother from

the Marshall Islands in the Pacific tried a poem to her baby poem.

They say you, your daughter and your granddaughter, too,

will wander rootless with only a passport to call home.

Then her daughter was brought on stage.

It's not often a baby gets a standing ovation at a UN summit.

Getting anywhere on climate change has always been a struggle.

The talking started back in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio.

That year, emissions of carbon dioxide totalled

By then, annual emissions were running at more than 32 billion

tonnes and the treaty only covered a few dozen countries anyway.

By the time of the Copenhagen summit five years ago, which tried and

failed to reach a global agreement, emissions were more than 34 billion

This year, they are set to climb to more than 40 billion tonnes with

no sign yet of a cut which climate scientists say should happen soon.

Carbon dioxide swirling above America, Europe and China.

Some countries, cities, and companies are cutting emissions

But the UN wants a global deal next year although there is no

The actress Emma Watson has been targeted online, with anonymous

"trolls" making threats to release nude photographs of her.

The threats follow her address to the UN on gender equality,

in which she called on men and boys to identify themselves as feminist.

The former Harry Potter actress, who's now a Goodwill Ambassador

for the UN, spoke about her own determination to be equal,

Winning at choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently I am among

the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too

aggressive, isolating and anti-men. Unattractive, even. Why has the word

become such an uncomfortable one? So Emma Watson was talking

about embracing feminism, A good time, we thought,

to talk about Marilyn Monroe - one focus of a new book called

Women In Dark Times from Jacqueline Rose, who is the new Professor

of Gender Studies at Cambridge. Marilyn Monroe, reading some of your

book about what she had written, she was so conscious of the path she had

to play and anguished about the fact there was so much more to her own

thoughts. One of the genius of Marilyn Monroe is the fact that so

many parts were a send-up of what she was meant to be, a kind of clown

who got compared to Charlie Chaplin in her day by being so witty and

exposing what was wrong with the images she was supposed to be

portraying. In a way she hated doing what was expected of her and she got

control of Fox Studios, she got direct script control, so she was

very feisty, but she was even more political than that. She was utterly

transgressive, she slept with Jews, Communists, Montenegro's and other

women, so she was way ahead of her time in that sense. -- Communists,

black people. She phoned a club where Ellis -- where Ellis

FitzGerald was not allowed to play and said if you have her on I will

sit in the front row. She said in her diaries, actresses must have no

mouth. She knew that absolutely but she was not really interested in the

public she was supposed to be interested in. She said she was not

looked after, cherished and love as a child, so that gave her an

understanding of the poor, the week and be vulnerable, and the only

people she wanted to perform for word the people in the trailers and

working in the factories. -- were the people. She did seem so at home

with the glittering lifestyle. She was a very contradictory woman, but

that is an important point of feminism that we don't ask women to

be perfect. She said in her journals, my body is my body, every

part of it. She also knew that she internally suffered, but she was

abominable, that she could not control everything. -- that she was

vulnerable. I am not directly comparing Emma Watson and Marilyn

Monroe but she is talking about feminism, Emma Watson, saying I

don't want you to define my body, I don't want you to control me.

Because she has made this address she is being threatened with nude

photos being released, there is a backlash. There is, and in a sense

nothing has changed, the link between female vulnerability and the

need to behave a certain way, and the misogyny and rage that is

released when you about that. There has been progress by women but the

relationship between women's sexuality and their assertiveness

and their right to speak out and the way that people, especially men,

hate them if they do, we have not got to the heart of that yet.

Earlier we spoke about the women abducted in Nigeria and we know that

some of those may have been sold on as slaves, we know that this is

still happening today, keeping women down. We have rarely seen a period

where violence against women is so brazen, from FGM to rape during

wartime, Jimmy Savile, women are read more -- are more at risk from

domestic abuse than war, disease, cancer combined. We are seeing what

hatred of women can do and we need a feminism that goes to the heart of

that and tries to understand that. Marilyn Monroe was amazing because

America off-loaded on her the demand to be perfect, she had to be the

perfect ambassador of new American capitalism, she had to ferry it

across Europe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and in many ways she was a

very unhappy woman. It is as if she is giving UAW message, look at what

a nightmare America is giving me and I have to live it. -- a double

message. The UN refugee agency says that

Turkey urgently needs help to deal with the Syrian refugees who have

crossed the border fleeing from the danger of ISIS. Today we have more

from the border. Age is no barrier when the

desperation to flee is so strong. More arrived today, Syrian escaping

the trauma of the ISIS advance. The youngest were terrified by the

experience. Turkey is a safe haven under strain, struggling with over

130,000 refugees since last Friday. Most border crossings have been

closed as Turkey tries to stem the flow. Those who fled welcomed news

of the air strikes on ISIS, hoping it could at some point allow them to

return home. The Americans must bomb, he tells me, because ISIS are

killing us. This man was a teacher, he has been here since the weekend

and he says the military action is a rare piece of good news. I feel

happy, I want to say I am grateful and joyful to America and her

partners. I am so happy. Could the US and its Ali is -- its allies by

the lightning advance of ISIS towards Turkey? The militants are

dangerously close to the border and with waves of people coming every

day perhaps that gave with waves of people coming every

final push to strike. Humanitarian agencies have set up agencies to --

clinics to deal with the crisis. Many here suffer from dehydration,

and some have entered the world as refugees. TRANSLATION: Nobody

expected the war in Syria to last more than three years. Nobody

expected that more than 300,000 refugees would come. Yesterday we

had two doctors here, now we have six. Meanwhile the political

had two doctors here, now we have continues, a stand-off between

had two doctors here, now we have and Kurds, people

had two doctors here, now we have year Civil War. The refugee

had two doctors here, now we have brought the test -- hostility back

to the surface. Can the military action they wanted halt the march of

the Islamic State? That is all from World News Today

macro. The fairly settled weather looks set

to continue for the next few days. Tomorrow there will be rain in the

forecast, especially in the southeastern