>> this is "bbc world news." funding of 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? >> and now, "bbc world news." >> the trials and highly secretive world of the vatican. and accused of stealing documents, giving them to a journalist. >> hello, love and to "gmt." also in the program, the president of georgia concedes defeat to the billionaire opposition leader.

does this need a tilt by and for russia? the search for survivors in hong kong in a collision between a boat and a ferry continues. midday in london, 7:00 a.m. in washington, 1:00 in the afternoon in vatican city, where pope benedict has returned from holiday to find his former employee on trial, which could lift the lid of the inner and secretive world of the back -- vatican. a controversial book largely based on the documents that were stolen claims that there were power struggles, defamation campaigns, and allegations of corruption at the highest levels of the church. allen, in a sense this case is

as much about the catholic church and what goes on inside of it as it is about the fate of this man. >> certainly, this is one of the world's more secretive institutions and has been made desperately uncomfortable with this whole process. remember, earlier this year for weeks on end it found details of its inner workings being strewn across the italian media. the man charged with having been responsible for handling those documents to journalists is none other than the pope's butler, and this had been thought to be an important day in this whole legal process. he had been scheduled to testify in the court room for the first time since his arrest,

but there is a very strict vatican news blackout on the proceedings and i just could not tell you yet what he said or did not say. before the procedures began, prosecutors claimed that he had confessed, that he had admitted to leaking these documents because he said he saw corruption everywhere in the church, in his words. perhaps he has been framing that kind of defense throughout the course of the morning. >> we will have to wait and see what transpires in court, but this comes after things light the child abuse scandal. how damaging has this been for the church? >> there was one very serious sounding the credit the beginning from one senior figure in the vatican.

the first was that they had allegedly found corruption in the vatican. but there was another lesson later with a besieged the pope to stop him from being shunted aside, sent abroad to expose this kind of corruption. obviously, that sort of thing raises all sorts of questions about the way that the vatican manages its business. i have to say that the rest of it tends to be much less dramatic and interesting. it tended to be revealing of a certain deal of power struggling and maneuvering, backbiting amongst senior figures in the vatican. more like office politics, stuff you get in any large organization. having said that, the vatican would like to think that it is not just any large organization,

they like to think of themselves as the center of a large moral universe and felt uncomfortable with that aspect of their interior being shown to the outside world. >> let's take a look at the other stories making headlines around the world today. an outspoken critic of the chinese authorities sparked international condemnation after he was jailed. he was denied the right of appeal based on a tax find imposed on his company. 30 years ago, left and in general [unintelligible] himself a sikh led a high- profile operation against

militants. sunday, he was stabbed in the neck by four men with long beards. the president of columbia has prostate cancer and will have surgery on wednesday. he says he will not take a leave of absence from his duties as head of state. police in hong kong have arrested six crewmembers and the incident happened near the island of lombok. the boat sank within minutes of the collision. >> the search and recovery operation continues after hong kong suffered one of their worst public transport disasters in recent memory. this is all that is left of the passenger vessel.

the owner was not on board, but the employees were on the company out in to watch for -- fireworks when it collided with another boat. 120 people were on board when it sank. dozens did not survive. the government claimed that numerous obstacles were what prevented the passengers from escaping safely. survivors have been taken to hospitals across hong kong. the cause of the accident, which took place over a long holiday weekend, is still unknown. officials have said the priority is to locate all the missing passengers. >> the president of georgia has conceded that his party has lost the parliamentary elections. he said it was clear that the opposition party hadary majorit.

their leader, the country's richest man already, had declared victory. it is the first time in their post-soviet history the power changed hands without a resolute -- revolution. he said he did not agree with the policies of the green coalition party. >> you know that for us, for me, this news was fundamentally unacceptable and remains so. there are deep differences between us and we think that their views are completely wrong. but this is how democracy works and we respect that very much. >> we are in dupont -- tbilisi. tell us a little bit more, damien, about this new man in charge. >> as you say, he is the richest men -- one of the richest men in

georgia, but he is also one of the richest men in the world. #153. named as a philanthropist for years here. he burst on the the scene years ago and about to overthrow the government. when he got into politics, everyone was quite skeptical. they now have 80% of the seats in parliament with no credible opposition. it is likely he would be able to oust this powerful ruling party, and it is what he has done, partly thanks to a scandal that broke a few weeks ago where prison guards were seen abusing prisoners. arguably, that is what ousted the ruling party from power. >> some of the reports we're getting is that this will now

mean a tilt away from the west and towards russia. is that how you read it? >> it is very hard to say. he himself is a bit ambivalent about this. he gets asked about this a lot. he is accused of having links to the kremlin. some suspect him even of being a stooge about -- vladimir putin. he denies all of this. he says that he sold his businesses in russia and portrays himself as a crowd georgian. it must be said that even though he wants to keep the pro- western, pro-nato course i and georgia, he says at the same time he wants to reestablish links with russia. four years ago they avoided a war. he says he wants to really

reestablish links together again with moscow, which many georgians support. they think it just makes sense. from a western perspective, it is difficult to see how you rely on both, wanting to join nato, taking part in missions, but that might be a difficult bridge to combine. the other problem is that there are members of the opposition coalition who do have anti- western, anti-coalition views. >> thank you very much, damien. the high court in london, lawyers are challenging the extradition to the united states on health grounds. it is being seen as a last ditch attempt to avoid being sent to the u.s., where he faces

accusations of kidnapping. the bbc for the spares -- for affairs correspondent is that the high court for us. we seem to have had quite a few less the thames, as we keep calling them. what is the basis of this latest appeal? >> it is on health grounds. a couple of weeks ago the european human rights court had their final say. that four other serious terrorism suspects could be sent to the u.s. to face trial. certainly, a british government officials thought there would be no reasonable grounds to act. the last reasonable grounds that they have are his health. they want this stop so that they

can have a stand on, they say that his health is rapidly deteriorated in and has been since 2004. they say that the mri scan it may establish that he is not fit to stand trial in a prosecution. if that were the case, it would be oppressive to extradite him to the united states. it is a very strange argument, but if you cast your mind back, the government ruled that pena shea was not fit to stand trial. in relation to the other

suspects, their argument is the same one for many years. the the u.s. has no jurisdiction over those crimes and they should have been tried and convicted in the uk. a complex case that i do not think will wrap up any time soon. it could move into tomorrow or even farther along based on the shape of things. >> still to come, we are in south korea looking at a different kind of learning. conveyor belts. workers in northeastern france occupied the site of two arsenal missile steel furnaces on monday. they met in paris to decide their fate. the first had been out of

operations since last year. >> they are the last blast furnaces, once the crucible of the french steel industry. now they are to be shut down definitively. the steel tycoon has decided that the floor of the plan is surfaced on requirements. demand has dropped by one quarter since the start of the economic crisis. the decision was formally announced at a meeting in paris. some union members tried to break in to the meeting but were stopped by police. they said it was a black day for french industry. >> today it is official. it will be remembered in the history books. the have just announced a definitive closure of our

furnaces. lorraine steel will never be melted in the rain anymore. and you want to take responsibility. >> the news means that more than 600 jobs are to go. the company did make one concession, but there is little hope. across france, the economic outlook is grim. every day brings to more layoffs. now part of the french historic industrial heartland is joining the statistics. bbc news, paris. >> this is "gmt," from "bbc world news." accused of stealing sensitive

documents in a trial, set to shed light on the highly secretive world of the vatican. the president of georgia admits defeat to a billionaire opposition leader in parliamentary elections. jamie is here now for a catch up with business news. let's start with jpmorgan and their massive lawsuits. seems to of happened a long time ago now. and bear stearns never got over it. >> you mentioned ancient history, but there have been repercussions. we really should remind ourselves what was going on in the early 2000's. bear stearns at that point and many others were bundling up mortgages that they knew to be rubbish.

a 60% of the loans being bought by these companies were 30% behind on their payments when they bundled them up. they sold them as first class aaa. it is that the flexion in these allegations at the heart of these things. whether this actual case will work is a moot point. this is what allison of the ig index said. >> do you feel that the target is not the focus should be? he will have real problems to process through. looking at this in a cynical way, this is not at the behest of working groups set up by the president and we are only one month or so away from those elections. certainly, it will appease some people that retribution might be dished out.

>> clearly, something we will have to watch. we know that this airline is in trouble. >> they are grounding the planes for some two days. what is really at risk is there license. the have to keep those airplanes flying to maintain their life since. that is the big risk at the moment. striking over, some people can leave before the patients march, but aviation is warning about safety compliance as they cannot guarantee that all those airplanes are safe at the moment. basically, the government does not have enough money and is cutting back. there could be foreign investors around and the cause of the latest rules by the government, foreign investors can now invest in domestic carriers.

there is one other aspect, the owner of the standard said the company may raise cash elsewhere. >> the other thing that has swinging around is that he is in talks to sell and we do not know if it will satisfy or not. really, they have pledged a huge stake as a collateral to the bank. he needs to build a stake in that. >> of course they did not mention the reason he has to do that is that he has to keep the state deeply in debt. >> more than half of the great barrier reef in a australia has disappeared in the past quarter- century.

scientists say that the loss has come from a variety of factors. duncan kennedy reports. >> it is the world's largest coral reef, hugging 2.5 -- 2,500 kilometers. more than half of it has been destroyed over the past 25 years. cyclones account for 25% of the destruction, the rest attributed to the crown of thorns starfish. 10% of the damage has come from was been called coral bleaching. a result of global climate change. >> if nothing else changes, the outlook looks bad. we just had a paper published suggesting that over the next 10 years we would see further

reductions by half. >> the australian government says they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to protect the great barrier reef, but the united nations says that they risk losing the world heritage status, turning this into not only an ecological disaster, but a financial and political one as well. >> they are now visible through google, but are these pictures about to go from being an up-to- date window on an aquatics masterpiece to a collection from an archive of a disappearing world? >> the education system that is a national machine turning up highly motivated students, what happens if a child does not fit the stereotype?

our correspondent has been taking a look at a very different side of south korean education. >> to be successful in south korea, students need a obedience, discipline, and an insatiable appetite for study. at this alternative high school, success is measured slightly differently, in happiness. here the curriculum offers board games as well as mathematics. if you would never give away with this in a normal korean school. this is where they come when they fall off of the education conveyor belt. the teaching here is everything the traditional schooling is not. a would-be chefs with a troubled

past. >> there were too many regulations of my old school. i had trouble sticking to them and i got angry. i used to bully and fight with other kids. that my parents got angry, so i ran away from home and i would get into other bad things. >> here he says the teachers are not only more relaxed, but crucially they teach at the rome pace. -- their own pace. a recent government reports suggested that almost half of the students had considered quitting. with more than 80% of them entering higher education, it is getting more pressure, not less. many students say that it is getting harder to compete. that the unemployment rate of monks young people is twice the national average.

many students are worried about what all these years of study might actually buy them. 60 years ago, education here was patchy and many successful entrepreneurs never finish school. >> i never went to high school because my father could not afford to send me. there is a great place for alternative schools. when she became a student in her 50's, an unexpected second chance. the principal said that his is a south korean school without competition. everyone can come here, everyone can graduate. it may not fit their national image, but in a country that unsuccess, it raises -- bent on

success, it raises important questions. >> that just about wraps it up for this section of "gmt." we have plenty more to come in the next half-hour, so do stay with us here on "bbc world news ." we are taking a short break. >> make sense of international news at bbc.com/news. >> funding for this presentation 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 understand the industry you operate in, working to nurture new ventures and help provide capital for key strategic decisions. we offer expertise and tailored solutions in a wide range of industries. what can we do for you? >> "bbc world news" was presented by kcet, los angeles. presented by kcet, los angeles.