>> 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 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.

>> time to wake up and assess the damage after the east coast of america suffers storm devastation. flooding for thousands of homes, no power or millions. at least 40 people killed as hurricane sandy continues. the tsunami has fallen by the wayside to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. have a banana. it could become a mealtime regular for many americans. staple foods may start declining. welcome to "bbc world news." also coming up in the program, disney meets garth evader. also, 5000 years since the paint dry the michelangelo masterpiece.

♪ >> thank you very much for being with us. the damage really is breathtaking. the challenge facing the east coast of u.s. to restore order is overwhelming. the mayor of new york said that sandy could prove to be the worst storm ever seen on that side of the u.s.. at least 40 people have been killed. president obama's battle with sandy is still very much alive. in just the last hour or so, there has been some indication of a return of normality. there will be extra flights as

well to assist stranded passengers. >> a second night in the dark for the city that never sleeps, the manhattan skyline just a shadow of itself. water is still everywhere in the subways and tunnels. above ground, the trains are not running either. >> this is a devastating storm. perhaps the worst we have ever experienced. our first responders have been heroic in saving lives. they are still conducting life- saving search and rescue missions and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. >> all day, people surveyed the damage, the worst of it in the boroughs like staten island. >> when they tell you to stay inside, stay inside. >> sandy is pushing in land, blizzards are paralyzing parts of west virginia and tennessee. president barack obama has

warned that the storm is not over. >> my instruction to the federal agencies have been not to figure out why we can do something, i want you to figure out how to do something. i want you to cut through red tape and bureaucracy. there is no excuse for an action at this point. i want every agency to lean forward and make sure we are getting the resources where they need to be gotten as quickly as possible. >> the president will be touring atlantic city and later. this is where the storm came on shore. barack obama is off the campaign trail for now, but in the cynical game of politics, the images of the president in command doing his job are invaluable. his efforts have been praised by a republican, chris christie. mitt romney turned his campaign stops in to storm relief events,

hoping to stay in the picture. >> i would like to ask those of you here today to think about making a contribution to the red cross or another relief agency. to help those that you can in any way you can imagine. >> but no one knows how the hurricane is going to impact the election in a week, especially if millions are still without power. the storm has caused some $20 billion in damages and $30 billion in economic losses. the floodwaters that poured into the subway will be the biggest obstacle to recovery. >> this vibrant, resilience city is going to try to regain a sense of normality the day. the stock exchange is hoping to reopen. as you can tell from the water in the tunnel behind me, there is still a long, wet road ahead.

>> huge challenges ahead, president obama will be making his way to new jersey in the coming hours to assess the damage for himself. speaking to an i.t. analyst in new jersey, ross, thank you for joining us. as the day breaks on new jersey, i guess the president is going to see a devastating picture? >> it really came out yesterday as well, seeing that devastating footage down south. i got to the hospital at 7:00 in the morning at monday morning and until 6:00 p.m. last night i have had no sleep. just trying to find my normal route home. it is pretty obvious that this is done a lot of damage. i saw quite a lot of trees and houses, people were in the streets clearing them.

>> were you driving or walking? >> i am about 20 minutes from the hospital. it took me 40 minutes to get home, yesterday. i had to navigate the small roads. i am not sure which way i will go to get home from the hospital. >> give us an idea of what it was like at hospital. we heard stories of one hospital having to be evacuated entirely. were you able to function? >> we were. we lost our on monday, but we had the back of generators with new ones installed. we kept them at all times. we were on top of the hill. we were fully functioning. our staff was down to a skeleton.

>> it sounds like you've got to the hospital on monday and from the point until you finish, you were more than pulling your weight. what was the sort of feeling? has it built up a really strong sense of community and working to help each other? >> yes, definitely. my boss, he was going to come in on monday night, he has a family and had to take care of them and he said that there were people in his community that lived in quite wooded areas, they were gathering together and sharing food, keeping each other company through the storm. >> well, for now, thank you very much. this may be an interesting route you have to take. let's go to mark, out and about in new york city. we can join him now.

still fairly dark, there is so little power. >> where i am in lower manhattan, there is no power. things have remained dark throughout most of the lower portion of the city. a couple of blocks for me, in a couple of hours, mayor bloomberg is going to ring the opening bell on the floor of the new york stock exchange. it was out for monday and tuesday, but now normal trading is resuming. >> i understand that airports are also preparing to open again, but basically the damages done? >> it is. two out of the three major airports that serve the new york city area will be back on-line, but one of the big airports, laguardia, is not. we do not know when that will be back on line. we still have buses running

again, but the subways remain out and we do not know when they will be back, seven of the subway tunnels remain flooded in the city. it is everyone's best guess as to when those back online. >> thank you very much. the japanese government has revealed that billions of dollars reserve for reconstruction following the disaster last year are being misspent. $150 billion were set aside for the rebuilding of infrastructure damaged in the disaster, yet a government order just now found a quarter of the projects being funded are simply not related to tsunami damage. a short while ago i spoke to bbc tokyo correspondent and he told me about the kinds of projects that are being funded. >> the list that has come out is quite extraordinary. i will just go down a few of them. building a road in distant

oconomowoc, prison vocational training with japanese subsidies and renovation of government offices in tokyo, fighter pilot training, semiconductor research, i could go on, and the list does go on. clearly lots of projects that seem to have nothing to do with reconstruction after the tsunami disaster. completely different parts of japan appeared to be getting a large amounts of money from this budget. >> any attempt to account for that? or is the government just saying that this is wrong? >> the japanese prime minister of a in parliament. he said "the and related projects will be run out of the budget, but some of the things have already been spent, so they will not be able to get that money back, but they are promising to stop this sort of thing happening in the future.

obviously it is difficult with a budget of that size, but the other thing that has come out over the last few days is how little is being done in the areas being damaged by the tsunami, how little building is going on there. >> a situation, then, where there is a vast amount of money being made available with hundreds of thousands of people -- i assume the popular response will be one of shock? >> if the problem that -- popularity of this government could fall in a further, it would be, but it is already at rock bottom. the japanese public already has a very low opinion of the current government. but yes, people will be particularly angry, and could -- including the people that remain displaced, living in temporary accommodations, their new homes

are not being built, towns are not being rebuilt. the bureaucracy of japan appears to be holding back the process of reconstruction. >> schools and courts in southeast india are being shut down in preparation for the cyclone. there are risks of winds gusting up to 110 miles per hour. a c surge and heavy rain, officials say it is likely to result in extensive damage to homes, causing power to black out and communication problems. a storm, a cyclone, a tsunami. >> it is still early, of course, but these expert catastrophe modeling companies are trying to put the numbers together, the destruction from hurricane sandy.

in half an hour i will be speaking to one of those such experts, but they are predicting a $7 billion to $15 billion in insurance. the markets have been closed for a couple of days, trading has been stalled. businesses have failed, etc.. we could be up to $50 billion. it could put a dent in u.s. economic growth. >> will we make that out over the months ahead? >> it could be, but the flip side to this, if you want to look at some positives, the u.s. construction sector has had a tough time since the downturn and are continuing to. there will be a lot of infrastructure rebuilding. the car manufacturing could actually get a boost out of this as well. an awful lot of cars are going to need to be replaced. that could make up for going

forward, construction, the car industry, it could make up for these losses. we will have to wait and see. >> rubbing their hands with glee at these terrible pictures. the economy, it is in the doldrums, thinking about unemployment anymore. >> just the worst. numbers came out over the past hour. 11.6% is the unemployment rate in the eurozone. of course, singled out again, spain, greece, just over 25%. we have heard this before, but you are almost looking at the creation of a generation of unemployed. it will be hard to get back into the job market.

more on parliament, but let me get this in, air france, it is ok, the posted profits, making a net profit of $300 million. >> says something about recession and the way that works. thank you very much, indeed, for all of that. that was an american accent, i think, from an australian? never mind. plenty more to come. shanghai, the economic powerhouse of china. are the chinese falling out of love? we will find out. the united nations says that opium populations have risen for the six -- sixth concern -- sixth consecutive year. gary lewis is the southeast asia representative of the u.n. office on drugs and crime and

is explaining what is fueling this growth. >> what is driving the growth is the combination of structural and incidental factors. we have grinding poverty, food insecurity in large parts of myanmar, where this is growing, coinciding with political instability that has somehow in recent months abated. more broadly, we have sitting next door the large consumption market in china, which has increased by 20%. >> joan of fishers also looking at the problems, in bangkok, in neighboring thailand, which has had their own problems with opm, but gone far to deal with it. >> if you look at the areas where these opium poppies are

being grown, they're both areas that have been riven over the past few years by ethnic conflict, conflict between the burmese military and various ethnic arms groups that have helped to create this environment of opium poppies been successfully grown again. for the last six years we have seen an increase in the cultivation area inside burma. yes, no underestimating the size of the challenge. a lot has changed in burma, but it will take a considered and concerted effort to tackle the problem. >> you are watching "bbc world news." headlines this hour, 40 people have been know to have died in the storm in the northeastern united states. tens of thousands of people have had to spend a second night in

emergency shelters. you are familiar enough with these, of course. bananas are just about the most popular fruit in the world, but they could be replacing some staples in the parts of the world affected by climate change. the report commissioned by the un security council says that the production of these foods will decrease in many developing countries and that bananas might make a suitable replacement. joining me from edinburgh is an agricultural scientist with the climate change and food security research program. thank you very much for joining us. first of all, that level of vulnerability to climate change, how sure are we? >> of course, there are considerable uncertainties, but those are the things that we get from the report, that the

temperature increases in a range. you can be relatively certain of what's coming. some of these changes we may be seeing to agricultural systems, to crop patterns, some of these things are already happening in the developing world. >> i can understand the rise in temperatures with bananas growing. do they fulfil the criteria for a staple in a diet? >> it is an example of the type of functions we could see that are already parts of east africa, southern africa. historically being a key staple, is becoming increasingly difficult in some places. farmers may be shifting to things like millet.

>> also things like cassava and cowv. not sure what that is, but could we become familiar with them? >> absolutely. they are quite resilient, they can result -- survive in fairly harsh conditions. of course, supplies are kind of shifting, from plants to livestock. east africa, southern africa, where cattle is one of the traditional livestock species is becoming difficult. people may be shifting over into goats, which is hardier and can deal with some of these increasingly difficult conditions. >> challenging times ahead. thank you, philip. next week, china begins the once in a decade handover of power

and this week we are taking you to a different chinese location every day so that we can bring you a series on the challenges the new leaders will be facing. we are in shanghai, the commercial heart of the chinese economy. their growth was once seemingly unstoppable across the country, but there are now growing concerns. >> the chinese leaders could choose one image to symbolize their decade in power, this might be it. the rise of shanghai has been dazzling. the building boom has provided jobs for millions of workers, pushing the per capita income well above 2000 u.s. dollars per year. but shanghai, the symbol of modern china in another important way as well, those who are growing rich here, who pay for apartments like this one, are acutely aware that the growing wealth gap is leading

to resentment and anger. >> the gap itself is getting bigger and bigger. some poor people are trying to make some sense out of it. fortunately we have a very strict and powerful government trying to control everything. >> but some economists argue that strong government is now part of china's problem. the over-reliance on big infrastructure spending, they say, is stifling innovation and distorting the economy. >> the government is becoming a problem, not the solution. they are too powerful. the people are getting a smaller piece of the cake. that is why the chinese economy is difficult to transfer to consumption driven. the people have really consumed.

>> it is not hard to find people who do not have enough to consume in shanghai. she shares a bathroom and kitchen with her neighbors. this city might be a success story, but it is also a reminder of the challenges that lie ahead for the next generation of leaders. >> 35 years after he produced his first star wars film, george lucas is selling the franchise to disney for quite a lot of money, $4 billion. it will see the release of another three star wars film, the first of those to come out in 2015. james burns writes for the official "star wars magazine," that the deal is a good -- that the news is a good deal. >> three more, at least? >> one fan described it as monumental as, getting carried away.

nonetheless, it is a change of hands, which can bring all sorts of things and to play. >> it can. george lucas has rather meticulously chosen his successor, kathleen kennedy. she has a pedigree of almost 90 films in her past. i think it is in safe hands. >> they know a good franchise when they see one. do you imagine, in a way, that this is now the future of star wars secured as long as can be conceived? >> there much so. a new film every couple of years, like james bond. beyond that, they said they would bring out a film every year. >> george lucas, sailing off into the sunset? >> he said that he would stay on in some ways as a consultant,

helping when needed. >> the vatican has said they may have to consider restricting the number of visitors to the sistine chapel, of all places. they say that the humidity and dust generated is in danger in the works of art. two members of the russian protest group, pussy riot, are still in prison, jailed for protesting inside of the russian cathedral. they called for the virgin mary to save russia from president prudent. many feel they do not deserve the sentences that they got. in san diego they have been celebrating halloween with a variety of treats. in joining pumpkins and polar

bears, as well as other halloween toys. you are watching "bbc world news." >> make sense of international news at 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 use their expertise in global finance to guide you through the business

strategies and opportunities of international commerce. we put our extended global network to work for a wide range of companies, from small businesses to major corporations. what can we do for you? what can we do for you?