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>> kofi annan in make or break talks to save his syrian peace plan. the u.n. said even children were killed at point-blank range. hello and welcome to "g.m.t." with the world news and opinion. also in the program, at least 10 people killed in a new earthquake in northern italy 10 days after the last major earthquake. friends of norway self-confessed mass killer gives evidence in court. one says anders behring breivik wanted to look more arian. -- aryan. it's midday in london. in damascus, the international

peace envoy kofi annan meeting with the president described as a make or break attempt to save his peace plan. it saves place against the backdrop of many are calling the massive houla. children were shot at point-blank range or stabbed. in france, condemnation has turned to action with the syrian ambassador will be expelled. >> kofi annan said his talks would be serious and frank. plain speaking behind closed doors but it may be sometime before the real outcome is known. the first official account that he supported his peace plan though it currently is in tatters. mr. annan has to come away with something tangible if he is to have a hope. domestic -- houla gave a warning of what the future may hold if

kofi annan fails to break the cycle of violence. revulsion continues to echo around the world to convey its anger, australia expelled two syrian diplomats. other countries are expected to follow. >> seeing the bodies in houla and they were appalled. appalled the regime could organize the execution, the killing, of men, women, and children. >> on the ground, the houla massacre has done nothing to halt the violence. parts of the third biggest city are still being bombarded. flashes in many other places of both sides disregard a cease-fire that's become a fiction. the rebels free syrian army warned after the houla massacre it would only call off its attacks if the outside world intervene to halt the carnage. the massacre has given fresh momentum to anti-regime protests

in many parts of the country. it's also led the strike and commercial shutdowns in a number of towns and cities, most crucially for the first time in the old city of damascus, a sign that the merchant classes may be turning against the regime. every day, more protestors and security forces personnel killed in the violence or being buried. if kofi annan leaves damascus without persuading the regime to take the bold steps of peace he's looking. there will be many more such funerals. >> let's take a look at some of the other stories making headlines around the world today. an earthquake measuring 5.8 magnitude killed at least 10 people in italy and burying several others under rubble. the quake struck around 9:00 in the morning local time and was

centered 40 kilometers northwest. we can go to live in modena in italy and our correspondent. every time i look, the death toll seems to have gone up, mark. what's the latest? >> well, it happened earlier and now it is reportedly 10 people that have been killed. it was a factory that collapsed. but we just had another trimmer just five -- tremor just five minutes ago. it seems the aftershock to be continuous almost every couple of hours since the first major strike. but this morning, the earthquake at 9:00 a.m. quake was the largest and it brought along destruction which is rising at the moment. >> it's as far as field like

places like milan? >> absolutely, it's in tuscany and towards venice. it was felt quite widely, the quake. >> and given that there was this quake nine, 10 days and a couple of years ago, i suppose the evacuation procedures were well practiced? >> well, i was at the factory earlier and everybody was being sent home from the factory but primarily because of the close count and they wanted the parents to look after the children as well. the people are out in the streets again in modena. things returned to normal very quickly and people were going about their daily business, but now, people were out on the streets again after the tremor. i don't know the magnitude but it was shaky for quite a few seconds. >> we're looking at the pictures while we're talking, mark, as some of the emergency workers,

but looking at those pictures, one gets the impression there are going to be people whose workplace will not be fit to go to and indeed whose homes were not fit to go into. >> people are wondering when it's going to stop because it's been continuous for over a week. and people have been trying to live a normal life here at the moment but there's been another tremor coming along, a mild one keeping the stores open. but with this major tremor this morning, places are being shut down. people are trying to continue their daily life and it's very difficult and people are wondering when is it going tend to. >> thank you, mark. apologies for that line, a little bit crackly. nato said they killed one of the mosts influence figures in the country. it is one of al qaeda's second

most senior leader in afghanistan. he commanded foreign insurgents and directed attacks against collision -- coalition and afghan forces. he was killed in a taliban -- small province. in denmark, two brothers have been arrested on suspicion of organizing a terrorist attack. one of the men was detained at his home in the town -- and the other as he arrived on a flight in copenhagen. a concrete act of terror has been averted. and a large pink dimon is being auctioned in hong kong -- diamond is being auctioned. it is the biggest of its sandind it is expected to fetch more than $8 million. the other comparable stone belongs to britain's queen elizabeth.

to europe now where fresh protests have erupted in cairo square. a mob said one of the two candidates due to contest the presidential election run-off. it came hours after it was confirmed that the last prime minister to serve under the current would face in the muslim brotherhood. >> the flames look powerful but in the end, only part of the campaign headquarters was damaged. whoever the attackers were, also ripped up his election posters and threw them on to the streets. the attacker revealed the intensity of frustrations among those who feared a return to the old regime. people have learned that their country now faces a runoff election between two candidates. the one on the left is a former

prime minister. and he is due to face the muslim brotherhood in the second round. he came here for the revolution to win, said this man. if the other wins, that means the revolution is over. the election results through many people off to the streets and into the square where the revolution was born. for some, the anger stems from wanting anything other than the muslim brotherhood to win. though many want calm to be restored as well. is this democracy? if morfi win, we will not do anything. we will respect what people vote, he says. elsewhere like here in alexandria, protestors wanted the other contestant to win. out, out, they chanted.

the revolution will not die, they said, as they marched towards the poster of the candidate. people who took part in the revolution find they have no one to support. they still not pulled together a political movement of their own. though with three weeks until the second round, the remaining political forces have to go and persuade people that there is something go and vote for and make people feel that they're not excluded. "bbc news" >> as china's economy continues to thrive, so does its building boom. urban skylines such as beijing are attracting the world's top architects. some are now questioning whether china is sacrificing too much of its heritage. >> china cities are constantly

changing. as this economy is boomed its skylines have soared. beijing is now at the cutting edge of architecture. this is the capital's latest offering. a futuristic office building symbolizing the new beijing. the billionaire behind the project is amazed by the pace of change. >> the thing about the urbanization in china is it happened so fast and before people realize it's already all gone. so i think the speed has surprised people with the newly-built buildings and at the same time, the destruction of the old ones. >> if the last 10 years, more than half of beijing's old neighborhoods have be demolished. to make way for office buildings, shopping malls and apartment lofts. this is the battleground for china's development in the last

decade. its cities have been transformed all in the name of modernization. but now people are saying that more must be done to protect the country's past. this is the latest area for demolition. john is an activist. he spent the last decade documenting the destruction of old beijing. >> beijing -- this is a city of history but we now have no culture left. >> there are pockets of preservation. this traditional beijing alley way is now a major tourist draw. i like it here, she says. we don't have anything like it in my hometown. the hard cash often trumps heritage. for beijing, it's about finding the balance between the old and the new.

martin patience, "bbc news," beijing. >> and still to come on "g.m.t." . so here's a question. could these replace this? our cashless correspondent. whether mobiles really are a smarter way to pay your bills. increase canned level offense radio activity from last week's fukushima accident have been found in blue fin tuna off the coast of california. the fish would have picked up the contamination while swimming in japanese waters. here is our correspondent. >> months from the fukushima nuclear accident, radio activity has been found in one of the pacific ocean's most iconic fish, the blue fin tuna. while the accident could have had a far worse outcome, it

stopped the importing of some fish. during the battle to bring the systems under control, large volumes of contaminated water brent the fukushima reactors into the sea. 15 samples of tuna caught as far away as the northern measure coast shown traces of the pollution. >> we contrasted the radioactivity in the blue fin tuna with in the radioactivity in yellowfin tuna, that also lives in the pacific the yellow fin were collected at the same time at the same location of san diego in august of 2011. but the yellowfin tuna ten to be more residential fish. so they don't swim across the pacific so their radioactivity was background level. so by comparing the blue fin and the yellow fin, we could conclude uneequivalentically

that the blue fin tuna had to have come from japanese waters. >> scientists will continue to monitor the pacific tuna. they're a highly valuable fishery with thousands of tons landed for consumer market. researchers also want to check other my trispecies like sharks and turtles. >> this is "g.m.t." from "bbc world news." our top story. the united nation says most of the people killed in the syrian town of houla included children with some early executed. let's get some more now on that main story. the events in syria. jim muir has been following that story. he's in beirut for us now. quite a lot happening, jim. just very quickly on the

diplomatic front. we know france is about to expel the syrian ambassador and it looks as if germany too. >> that's right. the australians kicked out two syrian diplomats and others are expected to follow to really show a concrete form to discuss what has happened. fewer than 20 of the 108 known victims and there may well be more, 10 more were found yesterday were killed by shell fire -- were sell fired and all the others were hacked to death or found at close range. it is a massacre in every sense of the world. that is why there is this wave of tangible revulsion going around the world. >> all right, jim. thank you for that update. thanks very much. let's catch up on the business

news. let's start with spain because the figures for the 22nd month in a row, retail sales are down. >> yeah. i'm keeping a very close eye on spain for you, george. they're not good numbers. retail, very important for the growth of any economy. for the month of april, biggest drop on record. i'm comparing april this year to april last year. they dropped nearly 10%. 22 months in a row, george. that is a surprise. people are not spending. one in four spaniards don't have a job. 16-24-year-olds don't have a job. and the recession still bogged down. and the recession, the second since 2009. and the banking worries, banka, the fourth largest in the country needing $24 million bailout. the borrowing cost hovering at 6.5%. and all of this despite the fact that the prime minister called that emergency press conference

yesterday to try and calm the market that hasn't worked and here's an even bigger worry. all of this bad debt weighing down on the spanish banks could get worse. listen to this, george. >> if you look at the backdrop in spain, you've got recessionary conditions, 25% unemployment and non-performing loans which are probably going to increase the reason is that property prices in spain have dropped 25% from their peak. and with the recession, there's no sign of that ending yet so the whole environment seems to be getting worse and there's a lot of speculation out there that over the next two years, spanish banks would need a lot more money. >> it's a warning? >> absolutely. they need an awful lot of money, where is that awful lot of money going to come from? that's the question. >> takes a lot of people to spend it. make or break moment for that. >> you hit the nail on the head. they've got there between the board members of the company and

the shareholders, an annual general meeting. we say make or break because they really -- it's a company and let's not kid ourselves in financial worry. earlier this year, thomas set up shop because of bogged down with all that debt. the company has faced a downturn in consumer spending and tough competition in that market. early this year, they secured a $2 billion loan package but it's just not enough and that's why they want shareholder permission to sell five of their spanish hotel operations to lease back 17 of its aircraft. they hope to raise about $380 million from all of that. it should give it a couple of years of breathing space while they try to revitalize the company and what's what the experts are telling me he's what they need to do. they need to return to its route. >> thomas has lost its way, it's as simple as that. it watched many big companies and they lose their sense of

direction. and it's expanding into all parts of parts on the world which it really has no business being in. it should concentrate on delivering great vacations at good prices with a brand that people trust. >> later this week, we're going to get their numbers from a winter period. >> all right. thanks, george. the trial of the norwegian mass killer, anders behring breivik finding out if there were any early signs of vemism. -- extremism. his acquaintances are giving information of his trial. we're beginning to get a more intimate picture of breivik. >> yeah, that's true. this is the first we hear from people who knew him very well. they went to school with him and they were in touch with him

right off until a few weeks before the twin terror attacks in july of last year. but just before the court broke for lunch here, we heard from a friend who described how breivik became a bit of a recluse towards 2006. he moved back home to his mother and spent a lot of time playing online computer games. friends tried to go around, getting him to come out and socialize more and in the end, after a few years, he started socializing more and the friends were also going to go and visit him at the farm where we now know he was preparing his car bomb. he said it was not a good time and that they could come back with him after the 22nd of july. >> and one of the friends talked about how he was rather preoccupied by his appearance and wanted to look more aryan i think was the expression. and he went to quite some lengths to do something about it. >> yes, that's right. they witnessed described him as

very vain and at one stage even had an operation on his nose. he had called his nose iran before himself and he wanted a more aryan nose. he's been described as somewhat feminine. he was wearing makeup, the witness said and so we're getting a very intimate portrait of breivik here now. >> ok. larceny, thanks very much for that update. -- lars, thanks very much for that update. >> now banks and phone companies are working together on apps that you can leave your wallet at home altogether and use your mobile phone to pay your way. we asked our technology correspondent to try living without cash and card and here are the results. >> so here's a question.

could these begin to replace this? there are more and more apps now available on mobile phones allowing you to pay for things or pay friends without having to take money out of your pocket. and i'm going to try and live for a few days without spending any money except from my -- via my phone. i loaded on to my phone two mobile fun services. both allow you to text cash to other phones. plus, i tried some other apps to pay for coffee. two cap cheaneys, two skinny lattes and a water. my phone will do the coffee and team. this guy doesn't take mobile money. but i've come up with a solution. anthony here is going to pay and i'm going to pay him via the mobile money app. let's see how long it takes. ♪

[laughter] >> we're not doing well. give up? >> and go somewhere else for coffee. >> one thing is a whole range of apps that lets you book taxis and mini-cabs from your phones and have it charged directly from your credit card so let's try this right now. pick me up here. of course once you start using one of these, the apps, it's rather too easy to spend money. ♪ but finding shop that would let you pay by phone proved almost impossible. we have found a few retailers that developed their own app but let you pay direct from your phone and this is one of them. i've got a couple of sandwiches and i'm finally going to get a coffee for my friend. well, did that work? >> yes, it did! >> excellent.

i should say i've been trying to do this for several days, live without cash. i have found that cards will get me most places. but actually mobile money from this phone just isn't working. too complicated. far too few people use it. nobody understands it. needs a lot of work, yeah. >> and before we take a break, let me give you a quick update on the question of syria. it turns out that britain's foreign ministry it will be expel three syrian diplomats following france, germany and australia who already have done so. stay with us here on "bbc world news." there's plenty more to come.

>> make sense of international news at bbc.com/news. >> funding was 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.