>> this is "bbc world news." funding for this presentation is made possible by -- the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu newman's own foundation and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to know your business. offering specialized solutions and capital to meet your growth objectives, we offer expertise and tailored solutions for small businesses

and major corporations. what can we do for you? >> and now, "bbc world news." >> the owners of the stricken italian cruise ship point the finger at their own capt.. they say human error may be to blame. we will be live at the scene of the accident as the search and rescue mission is suspended after the liner slips further into the water. >> hello and welcome to gmt. i am george alagiah, with a world of news and opinion. also in the program -- the nigerian government compromises in a dispute over fuel prices, but the army takes over protest sites. the judiciary versus the government after challenging the

prime minister. >> it is midday in london, 7:00 a.m. in washington, and 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon on the tuscan coast in italy, where the search and rescue mission has been suspended for safety reasons. several passengers are still unaccounted for, but the focus is shifting to how the disaster could have happened in the first place. until this weekend, this kind of image was strictly for hollywood. the ship's owners are not ruling out human error. first, this report. >> this morning, rescue efforts continued. a desperate search for those still unaccounted for. divers in both along side the whole and other emergency crews now scaling the deck, which is now almost vertical. it is a difficult and dangerous task, even with the ropes and pulleys. new amateur video footage shows

the terrifying ordeal of passengers wearing life jackets, waiting to get off the ship. [inaudible] other pictures showed passengers on a rescue boats. behind them, the cruise liner in the dark. some of its lights are still on. the survivors arriving back in britain -- tears of joy and relief. they are reunited with family and friends. one of the last to be rescued from the ship -- she had written a letter to her mother in case she did not make it. >> when it became horizontal, i have about a meter to step either way. the thing about when you are considering whether you're going to survive or not -- you are worrying that other people are worrying about reyou. >> james thomas waited for an

hour before he was rescued. >> i called my mom. i said, "i just need to tell you -- i just need you to know -- just for my own sake." my mom asked me if i was scared. i've never been so scared in my life. >> at a news conference, the company that owns the vessel says it passed inspection last november and that the captain was highly skilled and have all the relevant qualifications, but human error cannot be ruled out. >> [speaking foreign language] >> the ship's master, capt francesco schettino, told italian television that he was not to blame. italian authorities carrying out the investigation have seized the vessel's data recorder. they're trying to establish why it took the route that it did.

>> let's take you now to the scene of that disaster. you can see the ship. we are being told it slipped further in the water. listed the latest from our correspondent, bethany bell, who is on the island of giglio. what about this search and rescue mission? once we understand the ship started to flip -- >> we understand the ship started to flip. there are very choppy waters. over the last few days, it has been calm. today, the wind is up. they say it is just too dangerous. they have evacuated the rescue workers from the wreck. until now, there have been coast guard vessels and divers. may have been scouring the ship

and the areas above the water -- they have been scouring the ship and the areas above and below the water, searching for any possible survivors. at the moment, that has been suspended. they say it is just too dangerous to operate. >> as a matter of the till, when you say the search and rescue teams are going beyond the water, there are divers involved in what is presumably very difficult conditions. >> very, very difficult conditions. we were just speaking to one of the divers who described how difficult it is. you can imagine this great hope of a vessel -- great hulk of a vessel. they are trying to get through of rooms. maze now the water is more turbulent. also, there is dangerous slip fitch. they are trying to see how far

the ship had sunk. >> while the rescue mission goes on, now the focus on how this could have happened. >> yes. we have heard in the last hour or so from the ceo of the cruise company. they were saying that they are pointing the finger of blame at the captain, saying that he appears to have made an unauthorized deviation from the ship's programmed route. they say they will give the captain of the legal representation he needs, but they are very much suggesting that it is his human error that has caused this accident. the captain himself has denied any wrong doing. he has currently been detained. he is being questioned by italian prosecutors, who are trying to get to the bottom of what caused this tragic incident. >> we will leave it there. thank you very much. now to some of the other stories making headlines around the world.

pakistan's government, which is already locked in a battle with the military, has come under renewed pressure, this time from the judiciary. the supreme court has issued a contempt notice to the prime minister yousuf raza gilani and ordered him to appear before the court on thursday. he could face charges of his government blocking corruption cases against president zardari and other senior politicians. joining me from islamabad is our correspondent, aleem. you have the judiciary versus the government. this is a constitutional crisis. >> it would appear so. the government says it is on pretty solid ground. it says it has not reopen the cases against president zardari because the president has immunity. nonetheless, a dramatic day. most of the attention was just a short distance to my left at the supreme court.

earlier in the day, the court decided -- instead of handing this issue back to parliament, for example, it decided it was not going to let prime minister gilani off the hook. now the focus has shifted to the building behind me, the parliament. mp's are about to vote in what amounts to a confidence motion. >> what is the likely outcome in that case? >> in this case, the government has played it very cleverly. they have not called a confidence motion. prime minister gilani said he was there because of an election, because of the democratic process, so you decide whether you want this democratic process or not. that is what they will be voting on -- on parliament and democracy. he may well win it. even if he gets through this crisis with the supreme court

right now, pakistan is in a situation where its three major institutions are at each other's throats. they're very worried that the big challenges that this country is facing are not being dealt with. >> and not just people in pakistan are worried, but people outside pakistan are worried about this. this is a country where there is a very powerful insurgency after all. >> absolutely. people are looking to pakistan when they want to make progress across the border in afghanistan, as well. pakistan is a key player in terms of stability in the region. there has been debate about whether there should be external intervention in this crisis over here. we have heard from hillary clinton in recent days. she has said that they support the democratic government. she has said they support a democratic civilian government, but these are internal pakistan

problems. certainly, those players will be worried about the potential, for example, of a military coup. >> thank you very much. arab league monitors in syria have seen a group of prisoners released as part of a general amnesty. release has been granted for crimes committed during the uprising, but it is not clear how many people have actually been freed. a bbc reporter in damascus said some of those released admitted they had nothing to do with the protests. sudan has acknowledged that it has confiscated some of the oil exporters from southern sudan. it says it has not paid any of the $6 billion it owes to the pipeline. the issue will be discussed on tuesday during a round of african union brokered talks. election monitors in kazakhstan have said that the recent parliamentary polls failed to basic democratic principles. it says it should have allowed

more general parties to participate. the snap election was won by the ruling party with 80% of the vote. still to come on gmt -- the search for life. but in the antarctic. we take you on the mission looking for climate change clues frozen in time and ice. >> the silent film "the artist's" has won the golden globe for best musical or comedy on sunday night. other notable winners include "the descendants." george clooney was awarded best dramatic actor. meryl streep was best dramatic actress for her role as margaret thatcher. these awards are seen as a barometer for the oscars. >> a long line of a-listers for

round 1 at the annual awards season. ricky gervais was invited back to present despite upsetting everyone last year. >> the hollywood foreign press has warned me that i in sold any of you or any of them or cause any controversy -- that a fight in sold any of you or any of them or cause any controversy, i will be invited back next year. >> in the golden globe goes to "downtown abbey." an award for kate winds would started. a good start for british talent. in the film category, there was no real runaway winner. "the artist" picked up three awards. "the descendants" with george clooney picking up best actor and the film, best drama.

meryl streep's performance of margaret thatcher went down a lot better year than it did in britain -- better here than it did in britain. >> there will be plenty of sequence and paparazzi from now until the end of february when we have the oscars. bbc news of the golden globes in beverly hills. >> goodluck jonathan has made a concession to the strikers who brought the country to a halt last week over the cost of petrol. he has reinstated some of the subsidies. the unions have said they want the fuel subsidy back. >> lines for fuesl as protests continued to threaten the economy. >> we do not know what's going

to happen. >> the spark to the unrest was the action to the fu subsidies. the president announced a partial -- >> [speaking foreign language] >> even this concession still means that petrol will cost a lot more than it did two weeks ago. in such a fevered atmosphere, it may not satisfy the protesters. the president is blaming the crisis on other political interests, rather than on the government. >> beyond implementation [inaudible] to promote anarchy and

insecurity. >> to try and stop more demonstrations, the army and the police are on the streets onlagos in force -- streets of lagos in force. years of corruption have made people cynical about their rulers. this is a genie that will be hard to put back in the bottle. >> this is gmt from "bbc world news." i am george alagiah. the headlines -- the search for survivors has been suspended on the cruise ship that ran aground off the italian coast. rescuers say the vessel is still slipping into the sea. nigeria's president goodluck jonathan has partially rescinded fuel subsidies protests after subsidies against rising fuel prices. let's catch up on the business news. aaron is here now. i want to go back to the

stricken ship. i know it is still a human story. there are still people and accounted for, but there are business implications. >> we have been looking at the carnival cruise line and the implications so far. this is the largest cruise ship operator in the world. it runs 11 brands, including the costa concordia, the ship that sank over the weekend. carnival share prices have fallen around 20%. more than $1 billion has been wiped out the company's market value. on top of that, the company has said that this particular disaster could cost them $19 million. experts say this could not have come at a worse time for the industry. this january to march period is known as a season where the industry collects more than 1/3 of your leave bookings. i ask an expert if this will have the impact. >> it very much will. most of the market is in the

northern hemisphere, especially the united states and western europe. those are the areas where people will be thinking right now about going on a cruise. the crucial thing about cr uises, it works on 100% occupancy. your gratuity helps pay the crew's wages. >> simon also told me in the interview that they might be looking at how big these mega ships, some of them holding over 5000 people. >> let's go back to old faithful, the euro crisis. you have the imf and the eu making sure agrees is doing what is supposed to be doing. greece is the word once again. >> yes, eu and the imf are on the ground today in athens

making sure they are sticking to those austerity measures. here is the problem, george. greece's future financial future depends on all these people who hold greek debt. the problem is, those talks have fallen apart. needless to say, this week is very important for greece. here is why. >> they are trying to get the deal in place for the restructuring ahead of the ministers of finance meetings next week. the real deadline is coming up sometime in march, where greece has to roll over about $14 billion of existing debt -- rol. >> that's the key question once again. we will be sitting here tomorrow, wednesday, thursday, and friday talking about this. >> thank you. british scientist in antarctica

are preparing to drill into an underground lake two miles beyond the ice. they will send a probe into lake ellsworth to uncover what they hope will contain new forms of life and clues about climate change. >> the surface temperatures can plummet to minus 30 celsius. heat from the core of the earth keeps the water spree from ice. scientists have successfully delivered more than 70 tons of equipment that they will need when they make their first attempt next september. they plan to drill a hole through the ice. they will lure a specially developed titanium program to gather water and sediment samples. almost all the components have been designed from scratch at the university of southampton.

a critical element is cleanliness. bacteria must be prevented from entering the lake at all costs. >> essential to be clean is our equipment. everything has to be absolutely pristine. >> the lake has not been disturbed for at least 125,000. scientists open may contain life forms that have never been seen before. despite 15 years of planning, they will only have 24 hours to retrieve samples before the better conditions seal the drill ho once again -- drill hole once again. >> let's go back to our main story, the grounding of the cruise ship, costa concordia. 15 people are still missing. with me in the studios, rose.

she worked as a dancer on costa concordia. thank you for being with us. if you do not mind, i would like to go back to the moment this disaster struck. what were you doing? what did it feel like? >> i was at the bar on deck 5. there was a terrible groaning noise, which we now know is us scraping against the rocks. we pulled back the curtains and we rocked for the land on the porch light of the -- the port side of the ship. obviously, we have our duties in case of an emergency. we got to our station. >> that is interesting. there has been some questioning about the extent to which the crew and so on were trained and

carried out their drills. i had not realized that you as an entertainer -- you are still part of the crew. you are part of the emergency drill. >> there's an a limited crew on board. we have to fulfil other roles, as well. there are limited resources. it is necessary to use us. >> you immediately knew what to do. i realize it might be difficult to comment on this. you knew what you had to do. what did you do? >> we waited for the announcement. we know the code words and what they mean to us and what operation we perform. >> was the code were delivered? >> we had the blackout before there was any word.

we did not have to take any action. we were told to keep calm. >> you hit rocks. there was a blackout. everybody was panicked and confused. as a crew member, you were waiting for a code word, which will then mean you have to go and do something. did you or did you not hear that codeword? >> i decided to go back to where the area of the ship where i would need to be in the event of an emergency. i decided to go there to be ready in case we were given an announcement. i have not been given an announcement. we waited. >> i'm not trying to be an investigator here. as far as you're concerned, you did not actually hear the code word deliver on the public address system. >> not initially. initially, it was announced as an electrical fault. >> let's leave that to one side.

you went to take up your new role as someone who is there as a member of the crew tried to help people did what did you see? was their total panic? >> there was panic among some people. just confusion. people did not know what was happening. obviously, we were awaiting instructions. my role is to give one life raft to each person. >> were you able to get some people onto a life raft? >> when the abandon ship signal was given, we went to our stations. i could not see from my station. we were too close to the water. i move my life raft up to the port side of the ship. we waited there. i did my roll call. i tried to keep the instructions clear.

when there was an announcement to proceed to the life raft -- they proceeded to not the usual route, because the could not go that way. >> how are you feeling now? has it sunk in, what you have been involved in? >> not at all. >> we all wonder what we would do in these positions. you own your family presumably -- you phoned your family. >> once we arrived. once everything had calmed down. a phone was passed around. >> thank you very much for being here with us. thank you very much. thank you. that's all for the moment. stay with us othere is plenty m.

>> make sense of international news. bbc.com/news. >> funding for this presentation is made possible by -- the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu newman's own foundation and union bank. >> at union bank, our relationship managers work hard to know your business, offering specialized solutions and capital to help you meet your growth objectives. we offer expertise and tailored solutions for small businesses and major corporations. what can we do for you?

>> "bbc world news" was presented by kcet, los angeles.