at a surprisingly small price. new all-in burgers™ with free refills of fries that never end. seriously, they never end. and it's only at applebee's. get a free $10 bonus card when you buy $50 in gift cards. hello, you're watching "gmt" on "bbc world news." i'm lucy hockings. our top stories. there is still a huge danger that ebola could spread around the world. there's the warning from the united nations as it fails to meet its own ambitious target on safe burials and patient isolation in west africa. >> many people doubted they could be achieved. we knew we needed to set and pursue ambitious targets to get this disease turned around. pepper spray and batons used to control protesters in hong

kong. it's the worst night of violence since the demonstrations began two months ago. the video causing a media sensation in india. two sisters fight off young men on a bus using their belts as the other passengers sit back and watch. also on the program, aaron is here. still not good news for europe's third largest economy. >> italy confirmed it is still in recession. it's now been three and a half years of going backwards. yes, businesses, they're not investing. consumers are not spending. so we're going to find out if this bloke can still meet his promises, his promises to cut spending, halt a rise in unemployment, and of course, boost growth. it's 7:00 a.m. in washington, midday here in london, and also in freetown, where the head of the u.n. mission tackling ebola says there's still a huge danger that

the disease could spread around the world. the warning from tony banbury follows news that he has failed to meet his ambitious targets to control ebola. in october, he launched a plan to try and slow the outbreak across west africa by december 1st. the aim was to isolate 70% of these who have been infected with the disease. then to safely bury 70% of the victims in the three worst-hit countries. the u.n.-led ebola mission gave itself just 60 days to achieve the targets. but, by the december 1st deadline, only guinea is on track to meet them. the inclusion of safe burials in that target shows just how important it is, but it's also dangerous. our correspondent andrew harding has been speaking to grave diggers in sierra leone. >> reporter: the burial team is hard at work here at the municipal graveyard in the center of freetown. they've just brought in by my reckoning eight more bodies.

that's just over 20 today. yesterday it was 50. you get a sense looking around here of the almost industrial scale of this ebola crisis. we've been talking to some of the grave diggers, volunteers, many of whom say they lost their job perhaps in the fishing industry, at the port because of ebola. they've now come here, partly they say to help their country, and partly to earn a little bit of cash. this is a dangerous job you're doing. why are you choosing to do it? >> because ebola stop us. i'm a seaman. i've been to sea. because of ebola, no job. that's why i prefer to do this job. my family has abandoned me. my children have abandon me. that's why we have come here to find solution. >> we love our country sierra leone. we want this kind of disease to go out of this country. our resources, our business, our things are going behind.

>> reporter: in the background, you can probably see the bulldozers. they've been hard at work, too. this cemetery has already run out of space so they're clearing through a rubbish dump to try to get extra ground because everyone knows this crisis is still out of control here, so there are going to be many more burials to come. >> andrew harding there. let's take a closer look at those failed u.n. targets. 70% of ebola patients would be isolated and under treatment by december 1st. according to figures recorded by the world health organization, a month ago, only 23% of cases had been isolated in liberia, and in sierra leone about 40% of cases had been isolated. figures for safe burials in both countries are just as low. our international development correspondent mark doyle spoke to the head of the u.n.'s ebola response team. >> we've succeeded or we've exceeded those targets in many cases. probably even most places we've exceeded those targets.

but there's some areas, including here in sierra leone, in freetown, in port loco where we are falling short, and those are the areas where we need to really focus our assets, our capabilities. those are the priority areas. we have to work hard to bring assistance to those areas where we're not quite meeting them. >> but can i put to you that you told the u.n. security council -- there was no nuance to what you said. you said, within 60 days of october 1st, 70% of all those infected must be under treatment and 70% of the victims must be safely buried. and if the outbreak is to be successfully arrested. now, have you reached those 70/70 targets? >> in many places, those numbers are significantly exceeded. so it's not 70%, it's 95%. in some cases, 100% we're at. and so in some districts, we're doing great. in other districts, the situation is very bad. and that's where we need to focus our efforts.

>> mr. banbury, i don't understand why you won't be very clear about this. is it a problem of giving the wrong message? because everybody knows that your challenge has been absolutely enormous. and maybe the targets you set were a bit too high. >> i don't think the targets we set were too high at all. they were very, very ambitious. many people doubted they could be achieved. we knew we needed to set and pursue ambitious targets to get this disease turned around. we've been very successful in many, many areas. of those 62 districts, the vast majority, for sure, we're exceeding those targets. not in all the districts. >> mark continued to talk to tony banbury and you can see more of his response on our website and a look back at how the world's outbreak of ebola began. just log on to bbc.com/news. let's bring you up to date with some other news in. the last hour, two explosions have ripped through a crowded

market in the nigerian city of maiduguri. the city is at the center of an insurgency of islamist militants from boko haram. this latest attack comes a week after two female suicide bombers targeted the same area, killing more than 45 people. partial results from elections in moldova show that pro-european parties are edging out those with ties to russia. russian groups got about 40%. the election has taken on wider significance with the unrest in neighboring ukraine. a spanish football fan has died after a fight broke out on sunday outside atletico madrid's soccer stadium between its supporters and those of the visiting team. the man had to be pulled out of the freezing river near the calderon stadium. the spanish football league said it had tried to postpone the

game at the last minute, but it hadn't been possible. protests in hong kong turned violent as police moved in to clear demonstrators from the street. they hosed down pro-democracy activists who were trying to surround government offices. demonstrators then clashed with police in some of the worst unrest we've seen in the last two months. let's have a look at how we actually got to this point and why. in august, china announced it would vet all the candidates for the 2017 election of hong kong's new leader. in response, protests kicked off in september, and at their height, demonstrators took over central hong kong. in october, there were talkings between the government and student leaders, but they failed to resolve the crisis. and from november, police have been moving in to clear the protest sites. let's bring you the latest on those clashes overnight and what's happening right now. we can take you to john sudworth, who is following this from hong kong. what led to this escalation?

>> reporter: well, this was a direct attempt by the students themselves to escalate their protests, as they call it. i think born partly out of a sense of frustration, that after these two long months of these sit-ins, these blockades, these protests in a number of sites across hong kong, they have got absolutely nothing to show from it. no compromise from beijing or from the hong kong authorities, and they say now that this is part of a new strategy of taking the protests more directly to the heart of government. yesterday evening, they were trying to march on the offices of hong kong's leader, the chief executive c.y. leung, and it's there that they met with police. so i think on one side, the protesters, you have this growing sense of frustration. but on the other, on the police side, i think you have this toughening resolve, certainly not to let the students take any

new ground. and obviously somewhere there, you have an immovable object and an unstoppable force and some people suggest that we may now be looking at the beginnings of the end, and this may be used as an excuse by the authorities as the start of clearing the main protest site in the heart of the financial district. >> we can see that main protest site. we've got live pictures coming in. and it does seem, as evening continues, that it is quite quiet. quiet calm there at the moment. on the whole, what is the big opinion like in hong kong? how much support do the protesters now have? >> well, it is worth making that point, lucy. all along, these have been overwhelmingly peaceful protests. the main site has the air of a sort of festival. a kind of canyon of skyscrapers is how it's been described.

there are speeches, debates. there's artwork on display. and in many ways, this has been, in all senses, a peaceful campaign of civil disobedience, but there have been around the edges, particularly as the authorities have tried to clear some of the sites elsewhere in the city, these outbreaks of violence. public opinion, i think it's fair to say, is waning. this was always a divided city. there were many who from the start felt these protests were futile. they were very unlikely to win any sort of concessions from beijing. but as they've dragged on, as more people have been inconvenienced, i think the support is ebbing further. >> john, thanks for the update from hong kong and for more on what's happening in hong kong, do go to our website as well. more background for you, reaction to what china's media is saying about the demonstration. so fascinating to log on to take a look. we've compiled it all for you on the website, bbc.com/news. to india now, and a rather

remarkable video of two sisters confronting a group of men who were allegedly sexually harassing them on a bus. here's the video that has gone viral on social media. this is an incident that happened on friday, but it was recorded by another passenger with a mobile phone. it's not yet clear how the incident began. police do they say they have arrested the three men, who have been charged with assault. you can see the girls there taking off their belts and hitting these men. and i think what many people are picking up on is the fact that the passengers on the bus are simply sitting by and watching what is going on. let's take you to our correspondent in delhi, who is looking at this for us. it seems that this has really caused a media storm. lots of discussion and debate? what is that focusing on, the fact that the passengers sat by, or the actions the girls felt they had to undertake to get these men to back off? >> well, both.

i've seen comments about the fact that this still continues when you're using public transport in india, women are often harassed verbally or physically. in this particular case, one of the sisters has said that the man inappropriately touched the other sister and that's when they started shouting at him and they took off their belts and started trying to hit him. they were trying to ask for help from other passengers. but now we're hearing reports that the only person on that bus who tried to help them out was actually a pregnant woman who was also on it. what the government has decided to do is that they have decided to also suspend the driver of the bus and the man who was issuing tickets, because they believe that the driver should have actually taken the bus and gone to a police station and helped the girls file a complaint there. >> there has been so much attention really on young women and how they are treated in india, particularly after that young woman died after being

raped and assaulted on a bus. if you are a young woman going out and about in india, you done have the money perhaps for a taxi. do you have to be worried about getting on a bus to travel? >> well, it's not a dangerous situation, lucy, but the fact is that it's very common to be harassed. you might find somebody passing a comment on you. in some cases, it can be worse than that, like somebody could actually touch you inappropriately, as is what happened in this case. and therefore women do have to be quite careful. it's not necessary that you get attacked or assaulted in a way where you get very grievously injured, but it is true that harassment is very common. >> and has anyone spoken to these young girls yet? do they feel empowered by the am of publicity there has been recently perhaps to take their belts off and attack these men? >> well, one of the things that has happened because this video went viral online and there was so much media attention to it is

that the three men have actually been arrested. they were arrested on sunday evening. also what we're hearing is that the women might be given a bravery award from the government. but from what i've been hearing them say, they feel that in a way, this should sort of encourage more women to take on their assaulters, to take on the people who harass them and to not sit quietly and listen to it or worry about it. but they also feel the way people behaved on this bus, where nobody actually came out to help them, that is something that is startling. that's where the country as a whole needs introspection. >> thanks for joining us. the video that's gone viral and causing a media storm at the moment. do stay with us on "bbc world news" still to come, the rise of iraq and syria, neighboring countries like jordan are now worrying they can be at risk.

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let's take you straight to live pictures we're getting in now from turkey's capital ankara. vladimir putin is in town. he's meeting his counterpart recep tayyip erdogan. this is the new presidential palace in ankara and they have really begun to town it seems in terms of the pomp and ceremony there, welcoming vladimir putin. he's there to boost cooperation. turkey is russia's second-largest trading partner, and they've got some pretty big ambitions in terms of the meeting that's taking place today. let's bring in mark lowen, who's our correspondent in turkey. mark, it looks to me as if he's receiving a very warm reception there, because what an ambitious aim, tripling bilateral trade. >> reporter: absolutely, lucy.

at the moment, the trade between the two countries equals about $35 billion a year. they want to boost that to $100 billion by 2020. so an ambitious aim there for this bilateral summit state visit between the turkish and russian presidents. you can see there the enthusiastic welcome by the turkish authorities as vladimir putin was driven in to the new presidential palace. a very controversial building. well over $600 million to cost. it has a thousand rooms. silk wallpaper. lots of marble inside. there were thousands of trees brought in from italy at a cost of 8,000 euros per tree. and it was built on protected forestland, despite 30 legal challenges. the pope was there. now mr. putin is the second high level visitor to arrive. they will talk about trade. they'll talk about energy. turkey imports 65% of turkish energy imports come from russia.

they will also talk about tourism. over four million russian tourists come here every year. but there are tricky subjects as well. turkey has been at the forefront of opposition, calling on him to go, and turkey also supports the annexation of crimea, for fear of the safety of the ethnic tartar minority there in crimea. so they will try to talk about openly what benefits the relationship, while keeping the tricky topics at bay. >> indeed. mark, thanks for joining us from istanbul. we leave you those live pictures. you can see president erdogan and president putin there. president putin on a state visit to turkey. we will continue to keep you up to date if we get any developments from there. australian police have urged the mother of a dead baby girl found buried on a beach in sydney to come forward. the body was found by two young boys buried under 30 centimeters of sand. the discovery has left australia

reeling. it is the second case of an abandoned baby in sydney in a week. as the bbc's jon donnison now reports. >> reporter: over the weekend, a grim discovery on a sydney beach. police say the baby's body was found by two young boys digging in the sand on sunday morning. it was buried around 30 centimeters dip. >> two young children reported it to their father who was nearby, who in turn contacted police. police turned up a short time later and established a crime scene. >> reporter: the police don't know how long the body had been there, but initially they said it was too badly decomposed to determine the age or sex. they've since concluded it was a baby girl. officers have appealed to the mother to come forward, and have been contacting maternity wards in local hospitals to see if they can trace her. it comes just a week after an unrelated case where a newborn baby boy was found alive after being dumped in a storm drain in the west of the city.

remarkably, police believe the baby had been there for five days. the child's mother has been charged with attempted murder. the circumstances of this latest case are not known, but police clearly think one possibility is another newborn baby may have been dumped by its parents. jon donnison, bbc news, sydney. the swiftness and brutality of the rise of islamic state has left much of the world horrified. and for neighboring countries, the threat is more immediate. the worry perhaps is could they be next. jordan has joined the international coalition against i.s., but in its southern city of mann, supporters declared their allegiance to the caliphate. authorities have arrested dozens since. could this country already overwhelmed by millions of syrian and palestinian refugees be at risk? our middle east correspondent quentin sommerville reports.

>> reporter: dozens of flags for the islamic state flying high, not in iraq or syria, but in jordan. they declared the southern city of ma'n their new fallujah, another i.s. capital. today, things are calmer. but people here know that on their northern and eastern borders, the islamic state has never been closer. the islamic state's flag didn't fly for very long here. the protests were very quickly put down. since then, the jordanian government arrested dozens of its members. but you don't have to go very far here to find support and fundraising for the islamic state. it's particularly the young and the poor here who are drawn to i.s. after friday prayers, i met omar, an islamic state believer, and i asked him how he could justify the murder of british and american hostages. >> translator: the simple response is it's right to torture and behead them.

this is how we take rights back. we do not refer to the u.n. they are faithless. and this would be blasphemy. we use shari'a law. >> reporter: surrounded by a crowd, he felt no need to hide his identity nor temper the brutality of his views. >> translator: it is only the beginning. the worst is yet to come. islamic state will not answer to a sinner and disbeliever. whether they were journalist and/or the military. we have no loyalty to these sinners. they started this were and they will pay for it. >> reporter: he has encouraged young jordanians to fight in syria. close to al qaeda, he believes in jihad, but says i.s. doesn't represent islam. >> translator: men who love jihad want to do it all over the world, but syria is especially atrackive because it's close

jordan. but we are against anything that contradicts islamic teaching and principles. the goal of jihad is not killing nor beheading. it's solely to spread islam. >> reporter: jordan's borders aren't about to be overrun. along its frontier with iraq, they've deployed reinforcements. but the threat from the islamic state is real, says the country's interior ministry. >> do they pose a threat? they pose a threat to the world. they don't pose a threat to jordan by itself, but being the physical proximity, the geographical proximity, they do pose a threat, more than other nations. >> reporter: jordan has joined the international fight against i.s. the danger on its home territory suspect from i.s. fighters, but from the militants' ideas, and those it's struggling to keep at bay. quentin sommerville, bbc news, ma'n in jordan. >> we've just had news through the world food program that has

announced it is suspending critical food aid to more than 1.7 million syrian refugees in neighboring countries. this includes refugees in jordan, lebanon, turkey, iraq, and egypt. it says that without food aid, many families will go hungry this winter. do stay with us here on "gmt." plenty more to come, including the business in the next half-hour. mmm, a perfect 177-degrees. and that's why this road warrior rents from national. i can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. and i don't have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. and i don't. and national lets me choose any car in the aisle. control. it's so, what's the word?... sexy. go national. go like a pro.

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hello, and welcome to "gmt" on "bbc world news." i'm lucy hockings. in this half-hour, how safe is it for teenagers to play contact sports? a new study shows changes in the brains of young american footballers after just one season. even though they didn't suffer from an obvious concussion. fire! >> and with preparations already under way for a huge reenactment on the 200th anniversary of the battle of waterloo, one central question is still to be answered -- who will play the part of napoleon?

also on the program, aaron is back looking at the european push for cheaper space rockets. >> it's the modern age commercial space race and europe wants a slice. eu politicians are meeting this week to approve a new generation of lower cost rockets to compete with the chinese, the americans, and the indians. but we have one space expert who tells us europe has an awful long way to catch up. after playing just one season of american football, some teenagers have shown abnormalities in their brains. similar to the effects of mild traumatic brain injury. that's despite the fact that players were not even concussed during the year. according to a small study. this week on "bbc world news," we're taking a look at the risks of head injuries in many sports,

beginning today with american football. figures suggest that at least one in four retired nfl players will suffer from some form of dementia. that is twice the expected rate. bbc sports' alex south reports now from new york. >> reporter: hit after hit after hit. it's part of the allure of american football, a sport that comes with a serious health warning attached. the national football league has estimated that it will have to pay out around a billion dollars to thousands of former players who have claimed compensation for concussion injuries. it's now expected 28% of retired players will suffer from alzheimer's, making former nfl players nearly twice as likely as the general public to experience some form of demen a dementia. despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to former players, the nfl's concussion problem shows no signs of going away. it's estimated that more than 150 players will suffer a

concussion of some sort by the end of this season. you'd think that would concern the current generation of stars, but you'd be wrong. >> it's part of football. you're going to get hit, no matter what. because the other side is going to be paid to hit you. >> i think they've overswung the boundary. football's been around for a long time. everybody's fine. so we'll just keep going from there. >> yeah, football's football. you sign up for this stuff. we know what we're getting into. we wear the equipment for a reason. >> reporter: the culture of every contact sport is to play through injury. the nfl is trying to protect their talent after head injuries, but admit changing perceptions isn't easy. >> the players want to play, and i think that's true whether you're talking about nfl football players or kids playing in pop warner or girls playing soccer, whether it's putting large posters in the locker room to work with the players to make sure that they appreciate and recognize the science and symptoms of the injury, those things are important and that culture change doesn't happen overnight, it takes a little bit

of time. >> reporter: in this sport, there will always be collisions, which means there will always be concussions. the question is, what is america's appetite like for a game that can leave many in their 50s broken. >> it's just part of the game. you take that out, the game's over with, honestly. >> these guys, they're making big bucks right now, but all the money they have isn't going to help them with their brain later on. >> tackle football is a man's game. let the man play. >> reporter: so it doesn't seem life changes for the nfl, but the nature of the sport remains and america continues to watch in record numbers. alex south, bbc news, new york. >> doctor. willy stewart joins us from glasgow, a neuropathologist and one of world rugby's key advisers on head injuries. thank you for being with us. i guess we can understand that the injuries people suffer in rugby and american football are very similar, but what did you make of this small study that suggests that for teenagers,

after just one season of playing american football, we're seeing some changes in their brain? >> yeah, i'm familiar with that study. that's a study that's published in the journal of neurotrauma, but has been reported for some months before. actually, it's one of a series of similar studies, largely on small numbers of athletes from a variety of different sports, including soccer or association football, looking at athletes over the course of a season and what kind of abnormalities might develop in their brains on very, very detailed brain imaging. and what they've shown is over the course of a season, you can see very subtle changes in the brain. subtle but nevertheless present changes in the brain. i think our challenge is what does that mean? what does that mean to the players at the end of a season, but more importantly what does it mean many years down the line? so the challenge is going to be to take on an off lot more research and look at far, far higher numbers. but it's intriguing. >> when is the brain at its most

vulnerable? at a certain point, you've got kids playing touch rugby, but then they start to tackle. is that perhaps happening when they're too young? >> well, first question, the vulnerability of the brain. the biggest concern we have is of not so much in the young people, the long-term risks of dementia, but of a really catastrophic outcome after even a trivial brain injury, which is where the brain controls. sometimes second impact syndrome. and that can be really catastrophic. lead to death. and that is a phenomenon which is virtually unique to young people and adolescents. that's what we're really trying to protect young people against. not so much the risks of dementia down the line, we're very keen to do something about that, but in particular the risk of this catastrophic outcome. >> just to interrupt you there, how much does putting a helmet on a child help them? >> none at all. if anything, it might be counterproductive. the helmets are fantastic for protecting the skull, but

utterly useless for protecting the brain. they provide no protection to the brain whatsoever. there is a suggestion that putting helmets on kids is counterproductive because it encourages them to lead with the head and protects them from the pain that might stop them doing that. >> so in your professional medical opinion, should we be looking at changing the rules of rugby and the rules of american football to protect players' brains? >> i think the first thing that we need to do is look at the injury itself. so when people have had an injury, look at how that injury is managed. how is it recognized? how is it managed? for kids, it's simple. recognition -- as soon as somebody thinks they've had a bang in the head, that's enough, they should be removed immediately and not take any further part. now, once we get better with recognition and we realize that the numbers of concussions may be at a level which is higher than we anticipated, then we question, should we think about the rules of the game. is there something in the game that we could change to make it safer. i'm no expert on the rules of

american football, but i understand american football in the past few years has actually gone some way to trying to reduce the risk of head injuries in the sport quite successfully. they've reduced the number of contact sessions in training. brought the kickoff forward so there's less of a charge at the ball when a kickoff is taken. and they've reduced the number of people in the flying wedge to try and reduce the incidents that the body is colliding. so whether we need to look at other sports, let's see first of all what the concussion rate is like, manage concussion properly and then to think about the rules. >> thank you for joining us from glasgow. aaron is here with the business. you play rugby? >> no, nothing as serious as a head injury, i think. but i did try rugby in my senior years of high school. broke my thumb on the first day. i thought all these years i've been racing and swimming in tennis, i'm going back to swimming and tennis. rugby, you can keep that. how do you say mamma mia in italian? >> it is italian? >> let me explain.

hello there. it might be fair to say that rome and italy, they've seen better days. we're talking about europe's third largest economy and it continues in trouble. because its latest gdp, the wealth of the country, figures out this morning confirms that italy's economy shrank. continued to go backwards. 0.1% in that three-month period. the third quarter certainly raising questions over whether this man right here, prime minister matteo renzi, can meet his promise to cut spending whilst boosting growth and halting the rise in unemployment. you may remember, because just after prime minister renzi took office in february, the government was predicting -- they said back then yeah, we're going to grow. we're going to grow by nearly 1% this year. how wrong they were, because we now know that italy's economy is expected to shrink by almost half of 1% this year. this is according to the latest european commission forecast. and all of this compounds the

fact that the italian economy has been stagnant since 2008. in fact, enduring three recessions since then. still in one right now. professor john weiss is at the school of economics in rome but today he joins us from our studio in sheffield. great to have you on the program. we're close to three and a half years in recession at the moment. it makes you wonder, when do you start calling it a depression? but italy, this is a chronic illness, isn't it? >> yeah, it is, unfortunately. you cannot get the economy back on its feet without pumping money into the economy. i think this is something that is one of the hard facts. you cannot demand a number of measures that restrict spending and at the same time expect that the economy is going to take off. this is a big challenge for renzi and anybody in power sitting on his chair. >> i guess you also can't get an economy back on its feet if you've got businesses and consumers who have no confidence

in the government. they have no confidence in the economy. so that means businesses don't invest, and consumers, this is a big problem. consumers are not spending. >> that's true. consumers are not spending. they are kind of leery about spending their money because they don't know what's going to be happening. they have seen too many promises being made. on the other hand, businesses wan to see the light at the end of the tunnel. i think the game that they're playing right now is hoping that by building up their reputation, in terms of passing that stability law that they're now discussing in congress, that this is going to build some credibility for the government, and this is something the government is going to show to foreign investors and to the european authorities. this is their bet right now. >> you mentioned government spending. i'm just wondering about a couple of other key points that this government, this prime minister must do. because you're also looking at a country that has, like japan, an aging population. so all of its -- it relies on the youth to generate the

economy. but the youth, what is it, 43%, 44% youth unemployment. is one of those key points changing the labor laws? >> yes. for sure you cannot offer jobs for public spending and that's something we have realized long ago. foreign investors want to see some stability. they want to see some lost past. right now, this is what everybody's waiting for. do they have the strength to empower these changes? >> all right, your ear piece just fell out. but that's okay. you ended on a good note. we thank him very, very much. professor john wyse. just weeks after its dramatic coup in landing a probe on a speeding comet, europe's politicians are hoping a

last-minute deal to provide funding for a satellite launch vehicle, basically the rocket, which will ensure europe's commercial race into space. space, of course. we've been talking about it a lot on this program. it is seen as the next big frontier for business, but of course, launching satellites remains not only complicated, but a very expensive process indeed. the threat of competition from american companies like space x and the extraterrestrial ambitions of both china and india has led to a degree of soul searching in europe. so can europe catch up? let's have a listen to what one space expert told pe a little earlier. >> i think the main challenge is to have a more adventurous approach. not reinventing the old wheel, but to find some new wheels. when it comes to the areas of commercialality, we don't seem to be able to generate the

vision to do the new things that would actually break out into a truly commercial work. it is 90% politics. it does not make commercial sense or economic sense on any level and technically it is -- for where we are now if the world, it is a solution. it will be locking europe for the next generation into what effect ily is still the 1960s approach to how you launch things. >> there you go. let me touch on a couple of other stories making headlines around the word. uh-oh, not again. lufthansa has cancelled half of its flights tomorrow and tuesday. some 150 due for yet another strike. 150,000 passengers, mostly on short hall flights within germany and europe, face that current or this current disruption. europe's biggest airline wants to phase out an early retirement scheme that pays pilots up to 60% of their final salary from the age of 55. not bad if you can get it. the price of oil -- boy, it

continues to plummet. u.s. crude has fallen below 65 bucks a barrel for the first time since july 2009. the news, though, as boosted airline stocks. they're loving it. shares in australia's national carrier quantus, and the highest level since june of last year. investors say oil prices are set to fall further. and today, it's monday. yes. but it's cyber monday. if you thought you'd seen the back of retail mayhem after last friday, black friday, think again. because today is expected to be one of the busiest days for online shopping before christmas. a survey for royal mail suggests ten million britons will start their shopping on what's become, as i just said, cyber monday. lots of money being spent. falling oil prices are not really helping. it now takes more than 52 rubles to buy a single u.s. dollar.

a low currency -- certainly hasn't been reached since i think it was 1998. today's fall of more than 5% amounts to the biggest one-day slide in 16 years. ouch. makes things much more expensive for russians to buy. lots going on. follow me on twitter. tweet me. i'll tweet you right back. you can get me @bbcaaron. going to get online today to buy anything? good bargain. >> there are bargains to be had. >> i think we're expecting the total today about $700 million. >> huge. do stay with us here on "bbc world news." still to come. on world aids day, charlize theron talks to the bbc about the u.n. campaign she's involved in to eradicate hiv/aids completely by 2030.

i'm lucy hockings. the top stories this hour. the u.n. warns ebola could still spread around the world. and it's indicated that a self-imposed deadline to control the outbreak of the deadly virus in west africa has been missed. police clash with protesters in hong kong in some of the worst violence since pro-democracy demonstrations began. it's world aids day. a chance to remember the staggering 35 million people living with the virus. the united nations has set a goal of eradicating it completely by 2030. it has the support of charlize theron. >> we have a window now. a window of opportunity. the next five years, if we don't accelerate, if we don't maintain

the same momentum, we will certainly be regulating that one, because we could miss the opportunity to completely control this epidemic as a public health trade. if we do it, we will be able to save by 2030 almost 21 million deaths. we will avoid that. avert maybe 28 million new infections. >> do you think hiv/aids will eventually be eradicated through outreach, through the education that you talk about? or will it ultimately be science? will it be finding a cure for the disease that finally kills it? >> i don't care, i just don't think we can sit back and wait on a cure. i think it would be very, very dangerous to expect that to be the answer. and also just because we've come so far in understanding that when you do change human behavior, it has a tremendous

impact on people becoming not only hiv positive, but living healthy hiv positive lives. >> and do you think part of the education then is to reach out to those people who are anticipating a cure and who are believing that there will be a cure one day, and therefore perhaps complacent? >> yes, i think what we need is to avoid complacency. we need to continue and to educate, to give knowledge. because almost 75%, or 72% of young women said they don't know etch the mode of transition. 66% of the boys. so we need to continue to share information, knowledge, awareness like charlize was talking about. >> and you are yourself a tool in this. you a famous face. >> that would be very naufoff i

lot of places. >> a hollywood face. one we know and we've seen on the big screen. >> she's a voice. >> what do you see your role as being? >> you know, i honestly don't sit and contemplate exactly what that would be because i don't -- all i know is that you make time for the things that are important to you and that you're emotionally tapped into. and for me to come from a country like south africa, the highest infected hiv population in the world, when you know it's completely preventable, to see the kind of suffering, unnecessary suffering that's happening there, it's not -- it's a no-brainer for me. my hope is that one person can look at me as a normal person and say, if she's worried about what's happening to children in south africa, then maybe there's something to look at. then, who knows?

next year marks the 200th anniversary of one of the major events to have changed the face of europe. at the battle of waterloo, the british duke of wellington finally defeated napoleon bonapart. it's not without controversy. who, for example, will play the part of napoleon? chris morris reports. >> reporter: shooting a 3-d movie in the belgian mud. not far from the actual site of the battle of waterloo. the film will become the centerpiece of a new museum. opening next year in time for the 200th anniversary of a battle that changed the course of european history. the highlight of the commemorations will be a reenactment of the bat itself, and everyone wants to be involved. >> 169 guys in uniform, ready to

fight, and to enjoy the moment, of course. >> and do you always play a frenchman? >> yes. >> reporter: you lose every time. >> yes, and more specifically, in waterloo, yes. >> fire! >> reporter: battle reenactment is big business and it doesn't get much bigger than waterloo. people come from all over the world to take part. these are pictures of last year's event. hundreds of horses and cannons, and 5,000 participants all individually screened. attention to detail is everything, and 2015 will see the biggest reenactment of waterloo ever staged. it's good for the local tourist industry, of course, but one big question, who will play the starring role? napoleon might have lost to

wellington and his allies, but he remains waterloo's iconic figure. this french reenactor is playing the role in the film which will be screened at the new museum. but competition is fierce. for next year's big event, there could be a pretender to the imperial throne. >> translator: no, you're wrong. i am the real napoleon. i am not an actor. and i am happy to be here among my troops to lead the battle. >> reporter: but i hear there is an american napoleon, too. >> translator: the emperor napoleon is french, sir. >> reporter: a decision on who gets the napoleon job will be released soon, but an american playing napoleon on the 200th anniversary, that could be the final gallic straw.

chris morris, bbc news, waterloo. a reminder of our top story, the head of the u.n. tackling ebola says the disease could spread around the world. he's failed to meet his ambitious targets to control ebola. thanks for being with us on "gmt." up next, "impact." you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends. three jobs. you're like "nothing can replace brad!" then liberty mutual calls. and you break into your happy dance. if you sign up for better car replacement, we'll pay for a car that's a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. and you want to get an mba. but going back to school is hard. because you work. now capella university offers

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