11/01/2016 World News Today

This is BBC World News Today with me Karin Giannone.

Our top story: tributes for one of the most influential artists

David Bowie - icon and innovator - dies of cancer, at the of 69.

In a career which spanned 6 decades, he kept re-shaping his music

An aid convoy enters the besieged Syrian town of Madaya where forty

thousand people were facing starvation.

Also coming up, a legal first in Spain, as Princess Cristina

The death of David Bowie has come as a shock to all but those

For 18 months he was struggling with cancer.

His death brings to an end the life of one of the most inspirational

music performers of the last 50 years.

He didn't tend to describe himself as a musician -

As he proved through video, film, fashion and of course, his songs.

In the first of our reports tonight our Arts Editor Will Gompertz looks

Here is a special man. Screwed up eyes, and screwed down her style.

David Bowie, 1972, and his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust.

I am only using rock 'n' roll as a medium. I don't think it had been

voiced before. I wanted to be the instigator of new ideas. Turn people

on to new things, new perspectives, to be a catalyst.

Born David Jones and brought up in the suburban London, he restyled

himself and in 1969% at his strange world of alienation and ambiguity.

The older generation will be amused. And rock fans dismissive. But

teenagers in bedrooms were transfixed. At last, somebody who

understood them. He would try things. People laughed

about his cross dressing, but he wanted to know what it was like. I

had so much admiration for him. And he had that very clever thing of

creating a persona on stage, it was fantastic, because when he had had

enough of that person he could bring another one on board.

He made plain his artistic modus operandi in 1971, with Changes.

It is like looking at an actor's films and taking clippings and

saying, here he is. That is different from most rock

stars. I am not a rock star. I am not in

rock and roll. A performance artist, he became

transfixed with the idea of creating character actor character. Ziggy

Stardust, becoming the Thin White Duke. A number one in America

followed, and transatlantic success for a bizarre British export.

You get the strangest reactions. Some people said I would be scared

sitting talking to you, that you would bite my neck, a very peculiar

thing. It is what you want I suppose. And

what do I see my? A working actor.

That's right, and it is very good. Nothing will prepare you for the

impact of his first, to performance in the man who fell to Earth...

He was an actor who started out as a mime artist. In 1976 he took the

starring role in an arthouse film. He moved to Berlin and made a

trilogy of critically acclaimed albums with Brian Eno.

# Ashes to ashes... He was often at the forefront of

change, from raising gender issues, to the video age. A new decade, and

a new romantic look. Let's Dance, a massive international success, but

he was not happy. Artistically, it was my lowest

point. Over the past decade he retreated

from public life but continued to make records and pursued creative

collaborations. He released his final album, Blackstar, last week,

on his 69th birthday. Innovative, surprising, and, in anticipating his

own death, visionary. He was a truly great artist, to the very end.

David Bowie was born in Brixton, south London and today fans have

been leaving flowers and lighting candles next to a mural

Whether it's New York, where Bowie lived or Berlin,

where he wrote some of his most famous tracks, people have been

talking about how he influenced their lives.

Our Arts Correspondent David Sillito has been listening to reaction

# To the girl with the mousey hair... I just loved his music. I

loved him. He was more than an artist. He

superseded that. He was a real person, creative. Brixton, his

birthplace, Berlin, his creative escape. And this, the place made

famous by a legendary album cover. This is the spot, isn't it? You can

still see the gaslamp. And for most of us, this is as close as you ever

really got to David Bowie. But for his fans, these images, the words,

to be played at maximum volume, he was like an alien that arrived in

strange clothes, was an even stranger sexuality. And what he did

was sort of give people a mission to live life differently.

He probably saved my life. Just through his lyrics and songs and

attitude. I was a troubled teenager. I actually appear on this record. He

has been part of my life since meeting him in 1967. So it feels as

if a major been -- meeting him in 1967. So it feels as

knocked away. Among the tributes, Paul McCartney, and the man who

helped create some of his Paul McCartney, and the man who

mind you now, he said, I Paul McCartney, and the man who

note seven days ago, it said, thank you for the good times, Brian. I

realise now, he was saying goodbye. Our North America correspondent

is live in New York David Bowie How people took the news?

It was as the Golden globes were winding down and the after parties

getting under way. Then they heard about the death of David Bowie,

Ricky Gervais was amongst the first to say that he lost a hero. One of

the DJs responded by simply playing back-to-back David Bowie music.

Celebrities were sharing their forts all night. And fans responded

spontaneously, in some cases by heading to Hollywood love --

boulevard, which has become a makeshift memorial, taking flowers,

lighting candles, leaving, in one case, a little pink alien toy. Lots

of glitter is scattered around the ground, there are even a couple of

miniature whiskey bottles and some lighters. Celebrities have been

saying things like... Well, the music industry responding. One of

the great producers of today said that he was a great innovator, truly

creative. Kanye West, David Bowie was one of my inspirations, he gave

us magic for a lifetime, and Cher, briefly, saying she was devastated,

she had a little symbol of a broken heart and said, the legend is gone.

We can see on the screen those tributes being laid. Peter, thank

you very much. Bowie spent a number of years

in the '70s living in Berlin - he also created a number

of albums while he was there. Today, the German foreign ministry

credited Bowie with helping to bring Our correspondent Damien

McGuinness is there now. The reason that was said is because

the anthem of Berlin, effectively, as the song, Heroes, he wrote it in

a studio right beside the Berlin Wall, it is the story of a couple

who are beside the wall, he played in that song ten years later in

1987, when Berlin was still divided, to a concert of 70,000 West Germans,

right by the wall. On the other side, hundreds of east Germans

gathered together, shouting, tear down this wall. Within two years, as

we know, the wall had come down, and Germany was reunified. So the song

became the anthem of the city. Behind me you can see hundreds of

locals gathering in front of the flat where he once lived. He shared

the flat with Iggy pop, just imagine that flat share. For him, Berlin was

creatively very important. It was a transition period from Glam rock,

make-up, wigs, to something more serious, and for critics, more

musically credible. As you quite rightly said, it was here in Berlin

that he wrote and produced his three, probably, most respected

albums. The Berlin Trilogy. That is why he is so close to the hearts of

many here. One woman I spoke to said she was devastated and said that

David Bowie is Berlin. And I suppose, like all the places

this news has been received, the shock. Nobody knew was coming.

That is right. I spoke to loads of people this morning just outside the

flat who said they had no idea, they were really tearful. People who had

grown up with his songs. Younger people who felt inspired. Because

this is not just a retro- style just thing. You have so many young,

creative musicians who come to Berlin today still thinking about

David Bowie, he has this magical attraction towards Berlin, and

there's this myth around the city as a creative, decadent place, he was

very much a part of that and is still a part of what rings young

creatives to Berlin, especially musicians.

Thank you very much. One of the most famous

tributes to David Bowie - when he was still alive -

came nearly three years ago from the International Space

Station, from Commander Chris Hadfield, with his own version

of Bowie's "A Space Oddity." I got the reaction of Commander

Hadfield to the death of Bowie. I was so sad this morning to wake up

to that being the first piece of news I read when I looked at what

has happened overnight. To have celebrated his creativity, his whole

life, a sickly, the whole span of my adult life I was listening to his

music, so it is an irretrievable loss. I'm just delighted that I got

to be a little part of everything he has done.

You said that many people were moved by the words, goodbye, Starman. How

did he inspire you? He recently had a travelling exhibit

that all the way around the world. I am from Toronto. He was in Toronto.

I had always had an inkling of his creativity and originality, but it

was only when I walked through that exhibit, right from when he was a

young teenager, right through his whole life, the fearlessness of his

creativity, the relentless desire to create and to invent and to

reanalyse things were in evidence right up until this last couple of

weeks with the release of his last album. And just coincidently, over

the holidays, I watched Lazarus, a song from the album, he knew he was

dying, yet it is poignant, artistic, creative, original, and

awe-inspiring. So I had great respect for him. And all the things

that he did. The more you turn over the more usage is how deep a person

he was. Then came this incredible fusion of

Space Oddity and your real experience on the space station. Why

did you make the video? Usually I would not have but with

social media there was a clamour all around the world from people who

heard that there was a musician recording in the space station, to

make a version of that song. It is true it audacious, really, he is

such an original force, to cover that... But I thought, well, I am

here, this is unusual, it is new, I will just do a vocal cover. But

before we walked on the moon he wrote Space Oddity, 1968. When I

sang it and listen to my voice, it surprised me. Like somehow he had

wrecked most what it was going to be like. -- he had a recognised. It was

almost transcendent, I could feel what he had been thinking when I

sang it in that race. That really brought home the event, I thought I

would do my best to make a video of it. The response from around the

world was amazing. medical supplies and blankets has

arrived in the besieged Syrian town An international aid convoy carrying

desperately-needed food, medical supplies and blankets has

arrived in the besieged Syrian town Food distribution will continue

throughout the night. 40,000 people there have endured

a blockade by pro-government forces Aid is also being delivered

to the villages of Foah and Kefraya - where 20,000 people have been

trapped since March. Here's our chief international

correspondent, Lyse Doucet. Aid finally arrived in Madaya, with

thousands at the barrier of the entrance to this rebel held town.

And this is why. Look at what we are eating, this woman cries will stop

the cry for help was filmed by activists. We cannot verify it. At

the UN says there are credible reports of people starving to death.

Food, blankets, medicine, being unloaded in warehouses tonight. The

same ocean is now under way in northern Syria. In two villages and

the government control. That was the deal. In this conflict food is being

used by all sides as a weapon of war, civilians paid a heavy price.

Images said to be of Madaya's emaciated children raised alarm in

many capitals last week. This is now the face of Syrian suffering. The

aid will help ease the crisis but it is not enough.

We know there are 40,000 people around the city urgently needing

food assistance. We are taking in supplies that should last a month

but what we really need is access to guarantee this situation does not

happen again. The glories will keep moving if

there are no more delays but missions like this are urgently

needed across Serie A -- the lorries. For the half million live

in desperate conditions currently getting no aid at all.

News that is just in, Leo Messi as one world Player of the Year. -- has

won. He finished ahead of Ronaldo and the Brazilian star Neymar, who

also plays for Barcelona. The interior minister

of the North Rhine-Westphalia state in Germany, Ralf Jaeger,

said that recent arrivals in Germany were among the suspects

in the New Year's Eve attacks by the cathedral and railway

station in central Cologne. Police in Cologne say they believe

further attacks which happened on Sunday, this time on six

Pakistani men and a Syrian, may have been co-ordinated

in advance on social media. I am joined by the chairwoman of an

organisation countering far right extremism, I asked her what some of

the repercussions of the attacks have nine for refugees.

We had to deal with a problem that we have with those immigrants and

the projection of the Society of the Germans, German society, or to

refugees and immigrants in general. So we have to deal with the problem

but we are not allowed to generalise what happened to every refugee that

is in Germany. What are your thoughts on how you

deal with this situation? I think that Germany has to learn

how to handle conflict. This is a society where everybody likes to

avoid conflict. Since the refugees came in and we have of the conflict

on the table. We have to deal with it. Germans are not really good at

dealing with conflict. We have to learn not to generalise, but to

notice that we have... And it is possible to have problems with

immigrants, not everybody is a good person.

Princess Cristina - the sister of the King of Spain -

has appeared in court on charges of tax fraud.

The case centres on the business activities of her husband -

who's accused of embezzling public funds.

She is the first member of the Spanish royal family ever

Our Europe correspondent Chris Morris reports from Mallorca.

Arriving for her day in court, Princess Cristina, six in line to

the Spanish throne, now charged with being an accomplice to tax fraud.

Alongside her, her husband, a former Olympic handball player. His

business activities lie at the heart of the case. Inside the courtroom,

Princess Cristina is one of 18 defendants. Prosecutors say millions

of euros in public funds were diverted from a charitable

organisation into a firm owned jointly by the royal couple, they

both firmly denied wrongdoing, but could end up in jail. The symbolism

of putting a royal in the dock is hard to overstate. This trial may be

a sign that the years of impunity for the powerful are coming to an

end. And it is not just about what is happening here. Across Spain

hundreds of politicians at various levels of government are under

investigation for corruption. Many Spaniards feel that the system is

rotten to the core. A small group of protesters outside court, but things

will begin to change. Just this needs to be the same for

everybody. Rinses or no princess. The money they stole, they have to

give it back, because it is ours. It is all a long way from this, the

royal wedding in 1997, at the height of Princess Cristina's popularity.

Last year her brother, King Felipe, stripped her of her Duchess title

when it was confirmed she would stand trial. For the next few

months, the eyes of Spain will focus on what happens in this courtroom.

Stay with BBC World News -- in a few moments we'll

have a special BBC Programme looking at the life of David Bowie.

For now we end this bulletin with some of his incredible work.

HEROES MUSIC: HEROES. By David Bowie.

Hello, the next few days will feel colder than of late. There will be a