>> this is "bbc world news." funding for this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. >> union bank has put its financial strength to work for

a wide range of companies, from small businesses to major corporations. what can we do for you? >> and now, "bbc world news." >> another day of strikes hits depreast as parliament plans for more austerity measures. mounting pressure and running violence in the streets of athens as the strains of the euro crisis deepen. thailand admits it's impossible to protect all of bangkok following the worst floods in decades. welcome to "bbc world news." i'm david eades. also coming up in the program -- france's president, nicolas sarkozy, rushes to moat a very special v.i.p., his newborn baby girl. and why the football game turned ugly as two teams in the asian champions league come to blows.

>> hello. we've already had one day of strikes, demonstrations, and then violence. police in the greek capital are bracing themselves for a second day of the same, as parliament looks now ready to seal its second round of spending cuts. let's have a look with parliament in the background there. already mass ranks gathering as parliament prepares for more votes on cuts, which are the cause of the bitter divisions in greece. people taking to the streets, not just in athens, but elsewhere in the country as well, in vast numbers as they seem determined to do what they can to protest against any further economic pain. well, our europe editor, gavin hewitt, is in athens at the moment. gavin, you've seen the troubles, you've seen the demonstrations. there's not going to be any letup here, is there?

>> no, david, there isn't. i mean, it's a very noisy event, as you can probably hear. tens of thousands of people got up pretty early and headed down to the parliament here. the unions say 200,000 people were on the streets of athens. certainly it was one of the biggest demonstrations ever yet today, and there was clearly some violence. i think the difficulty for the government is this -- they may well get the votes tonight to push through these new austerity measures, but in the face of this, can they really implement these measures? i'm standing very close to the finance ministry. over the last few days, that key ministry has been occupied, and i think that is the question for the government. can they really deliver on their promises when such a significant part of the population clearly is not prepared to put up with further austerity? >> it's a great point for focus, gavin, but just one piece in a much bigger picture,

we've got the leaders of the european union gathering in brussels to see if they can crack, in any way, this euro debt crisis. what chance do you think? >> i think they may make some success in agreeing the goals of what has to be done. working out the details very, very difficult. i think we've seen that in the past 24 hours. president sarkozy, chancellor merkel met in frankfurt. they have differences over how and whether to increase the firepower of the main bailout fund, what they call the efff. there are also differences over how you recapitalize europe's banks and also greek issue here has not been resolved. the biggest you hear is this -- it's not so much the austerity measures, but all the time greek debt is going up. what's going to happen to that debt? is there going to have to be a fold at some stage with

international investors taking a big hit? i heard somebody saying to me at the g-20 last weekend, europe still has to explain what it is going to do about this crisis right here. >> gavin, thank you very much indeed for now. it's a long day ahead in athens, and we'll be right across events there on "bbc world news" throughout the course of the day. looking also, of course, of all the ramifications of that, sally is here with me now. let's just look ahead to the meeting at the weekend for a moment, because we had the sarkozy-merkel attempt to bridge their divide, going nowhere it would seem. >> well, we also at that meeting with christine lagarde, the head of the i.m.f., so there was a lot of big hitters there in that premeeting as a prelude to the weekend. what hope? well, there has to be hope, because this is another -- this meeting, again, is before the g-20 meeting, which is on

november 3 as well, and those people at the meeting will expect europe to have come up with a solution. >> markets are a gauge of hope, what are we getting? >> not very much hope, i have to say. we saw a lot of movement yesterday, because there was a thought that, yes, something would happen, that they would come to an agreement because of that meeting, because of nicolas sarkozy's dash to frankfurt. that hope does seem to evaporate. we saw a bit of a selloff late last night, and then the asian markets. and then also, if you look at the markets now, you'll see in europe, the ftse is down 1.1%. the italian stock market, the one at the bottom, down 1.6%. yes, they're down, they're not down by a massive amount, but you can see the volatility. you can see the nervousness of the investors. that's what we've seen literally since about july, where we've seen that huge volatility. any little piece of information just sends the masses heading for the hills. >> it's also in a band, isn't it? >> well, it's creeping slightly

down, that's the worry. >> sally, thanks very much indeed. to the thai capital, a place braced for rising water levels as the government has now admitted it cannot protect the city entirely from the country's worst floods in decades. put this in perspective -- a third of the country's provinces are underwater. our southeast asia correspondent, rachel harvey, has traveled to one of the worst affected regions just north of bangkok. >> this is the main street of the city, thailand's ancient capital. now swamped. beyond this point, cars are no use at all. we transferred to a navy patrol boat heading upriver deeper into this flood-drenched province. the sailors spot something, a red flag marking a house where a family is stuck, a family with a 2-month-old infant. the navy hands over some milk before moving on.

there are more people to reach, more aid to be delivered, and only the smaller boats can negotiate this terrain. we make our way along what used to be a side street, heading for a road bridge. helping hands appear over the concrete barrier. it's hard to believe, but out there is actually a main highway. it's called the asia highway. but it's completely disappeared underwater. this bridge is the only bit of dry, high ground now. and if we just move up in this direction, here are the piles of supplies that the navy has just delivered. it's mostly food, essential supplies. and unbelievably, there are people who've been living on this bridge for three weeks. they could leave by boat, but they don't want to, preferring to stay close to their homes and neighbors. >> i can't get supplies to where my house is. everything is taken before we get to it.

there are still people living over there, so i need to find a way to get some of this food to them. >> communities cut off by the rising waters, these people are living on the upper floors of their partly submerged homes. others have decided to move to safety, but they need a better alternative than this. the british charity she will perbox is providing tents, but finding places to put them has been tricky. >> this is just water everywhere, incredibly difficult when you've got to pitch a tent to find an actual piece of land to put it. the water is just coming up, and, you know, this situation is changing all the time. >> the first family settled into their unfamiliar but welcome new surroundings. they're likely to be here for several weeks, perhaps months. the water shows no sign of receding. rachel harvey, bbc news, thailand.

>> nato peacekeeping troops have confronted angry ethnic serves near a disputed crossing on the border between kosovo and serbia. the troops used tear gas in an operation to remove road blocks put there by the serves. the kosovo government, dominated by ethnic albanians, is trying to assert its authority in the north where serves remain loyal to serbia. there were clashes in july when police tried to deploy on the border. the u.s. secretary of state, hillary clinton, is expected to stress the importance of reconciliation with the taliban as she holds talks in kabul with the afghan president, hamid karzai. he's expressed his frustration with the process following the assassination of several key afghan leaders. u.s. officials say that ms. clinton will s going to try to improve the relations between the two countries. our correspondent, quentinsomerville, told me the thrust of today's talks is

likely to be about the taliban. >> they want the engagement to continue with the taliban. if that engagement was really taking place on a meaningful level, and that's a very big question, but as you say, she says she's here for a reality check. there is a feeling that the international community needs a reality check here, because the solution to this war, as most people seem to accept, there has to be political engagement with the taliban. well, that whole process was dealt a huge blow with the murder of the former president, who was blown up by a taliban assassin with a bomb in his tur tin. ran anee was leaving that process, and he was killed. that just left everyone, including many people here, including president karzai, to say, is there any point in talking to the taliban? he certainly seems to have lost faith, not complete faith with direct talks with the taliban, but actually the people we need to talk to are pakistan for sheltering the taliban. >> we've got a line from hillary clinton also on terms of any talks with the taliban,

she said, we are increasing the pressure on the taliban, saying that the 10-year insurgency, the militia can either be part of a continuing future or face continuing assault. that's how hillary clinton is spelling out the situation in afghanistan. now, an expert on the drug said to have killed michael jackson has been giving evidence in los angeles. the doctor has told jurors that jackson's doctor, conrad murray, carried out flagrant violations in his use of the anesthetic, propofol, to help the singer sleep. dr. murray denies charges of involuntary manslaughter. you remember these pictures from yesterday. a single monkey is still on the loose after the shooting of wild animals in the u.s. state of ohio. police killed, in all, around 50 animals. they escaped from a private zoo. among them, 18 rare bengal tigers, 17 lions, and a number of bears. it's thought the owner of the zoo set the animals free and then shot himself.

now, europe's plan to roll out its long-awaited satellite navigation system, galileo, has been delayed by 24 hours. two slathes will now be sent in orbit from french guyana on friday. the project's been criticized. it's taken a long, long time to get this passed, and it is way over budget. and another day late. but we have an almighty scrap. >> yes, one heck of a chop. we shouldn't say, but we actually quite like, because it's part of the drausm football. it's not to be encouraged. we're talking about the asian champions league, first leg game between the qatar team. we can show you what happened, because the basis is an injury to a player in the box. let's have a look at these pictures. ball goes out of play there. in the penalty area, this is the replay. he gets injured accidentally, but it is quite brutal. >> yeah, it hurts every time,

doesn't it? >> it certainly does. the convention is the ball is played back and the teams reset themselves. on this occasion, they decided to score the goal that gave them a 2-0 lead. of course, the korean side was very unhappy about this, and a lot of fisticuffs broke out. it all turned very, very unpleasant indeed. but technically, of course, the al saad didn't really do anything wrong within the law of the game. >> it's all ethic, isn't it? well, this isn't, but what led to this, a lack of ethic here. >> it is convention in football whenever there is a bad injury. you tend to pass the ball back to the team that had the ball. you generally reset yourself, and then you go again. they didn't do that, and that's why the punchup happens. but we'll have to see what the outcome is from the asian football federation over the next few days. >> ok, thanks for that. i want to bring you pictures

from sirte in libya, gaddafi's hometown, and the scene of a huge amount of fighting in the course of the last few weeks, as the forces with the interim government have tried to break the will of those last gaddafi loyalists. well, these are scenes of celebration. there is a sense coming from one of the leading figures that they are spew the last day possibly of the fighting and even a claim that we will announce that sirte is free, that's the words of one of the colonels of the misrata brigade. it's been a long time coming. there's been the most intense resistance in just one pocket, really, of the city. we have sort of been here before, thinking one more push would be all it would take to clear the town, and that has not always been the case, but very clear indications here of

celebration in sirte. celebrations of a different kind now. it's for french president nicolas sarkozy. he's still got a real headache, but to relieve that strain, he's been in paris, rushed back from that meeting, because his wife has just given birth to a baby girl, and this morning, the president had a chance just to nip into the curtain again and see his little daughter, in the midst of a very hectic schedule, a quick pop into the rather plush hospital in paris to say hello. and hugh schofield is following, no doubt, the minute-by-minute account of where sarko was when the baby was born and how many times he's seen her, hugh. >> well, i think he was here twice now. i think we need to sort of

recalibrate a little bit. france is france. this is not a royal wedding. this is not a kennedy-style royal birth. it's not a kennedy-style birth either. so the attention given to this, it's pretty low key. i mean, i'm going to show you the newspaper. they don't particularly like sarkozy, but there's not one mention of the birth. the more right wing paper, it's not on the front page, it's on the back page. this is not a country where they make a point of marking these events with great fanfare. if anything, there's a tendency , both by tradition and by law to sort of separate themselves from the public. so yes, there's interest, and yes, of course it's been on the radio, but it's not this mega event that's sort of driving, bringing the country to a standstill. >> well, i'm getting excited about this, but they'll still be wanting the opinion polls,

won't they? he sort of needs all the help he can get at the moment. >> yes, but again, this is sort of subtle, becausey got to play this carefully. if there's any sense that he's trying to milk this for his electoral advantage, then of course he'll rebound to his disadvantage. he's got so much start for parading his love affair with carla bruni and looking so happy when the rest of the france was so miserable that he just cannot do that again. auto top of that, he's become much more reserved. he's listened to the advice of his counsel, as we said, retreats into the elysee so much, certainly don't put your private life on display. you've obviously got that message. on top of that, carla bruni said she will not even let her

baby be photographed, so this will be discreet and modest. there will be some fallout with public opinion because you can't have a baby and it not look good. you know, you do come across as a normal guy, and his great problem is not being seen as a normal guy. so there will be fallout, but he'll have to play it very carefully. >> ok, hugh. thank you very much indeed. you're watching "bbc world news" with me, david eades. plenty more still to come, including, from president to see royalty, the controversy surrounding the moment when queen elizabeth met australia's prime minister. >> thousands of people in bolivia's main city, la paz, have welcomed a green of indigenous protesters who march against the controversial road project in the amazon. protesters say they won't go home until the project itself is scrapped. the bbc's correspondent has this report.

>> they paraded like heroes through the streets of la paz. people were there to meet them. >> we're arriving thanks to god, who has given us the energy and soon we'll be at the scene of the government. >> in order that they respect our right to life and the existence of the indigenous people. >> one resident said not even the pope had received such a festive reception in bolivia. but the indigenous march has much more serious intentions. they say they're here to save their way of life from the government's controversial road project. after 65 days marching, indigenous protesters have finally made it to la paz. they're right now in the heart of the government, right behind me, the presidential palace,

but they say they will not meet evo morales, and he'll scrap the project altogether. the protesters have endured fatigue, heat exhaustion, and cold weather. and last month, hundreds of police officers violently tried to halt their march from advancing towards la paz. but president morales insists the highway is needed to integrate the poor indigenous communities with the rest of the country. the protesters are determined to stay in la paz until he changes his mind. >> this is "bbc world news." the headlines this hour -- a second day of a general strike is taking place in greece as the parliament meets once again to put in place more austerity measures. there are reports that libyan

transitional government forces have captured the last positions held by gaddafi loyalists in sirte. and that is the story we're sticking on to the moment. i want to take you back to pictures that we've been getting in from sirte. you know well enough what a battle it's been over the course of the last few weeks to try to remove the remaining gaddafi loyalists from what is, after all, gaddafi's hometown, a city of some 70,000 people who have known over the years the significance of being the hometown of colonel gaddafi himself. so, little wonder the fighting has been fierce, but the message coming out at the moment seems pretty clear that the forces believe they have now shut off, removed, dealt with those last few pockets of resistance coming from gaddafi loyalists. in fact, they were chanting, go and tell gaddafi that libya is

full of real men and not cowards. so the picture is one of celebration. this is unconfirmed at the moment, and let's just remember, it's been a long time coming in terms of fighting here. this seemed to be the final push and turned out to be just another major push, so you can see from these pictures, there's a celebration and a sense that perhaps this job here is done. while that does seem it's all over across libya, certainly not, it does mean that perhaps these last main symbolic holes that gaddafi could say he has within libya would be out of his hands, once again, in the hands of the transitional national government. so potentially we have here a very key moment in the conflict in libya and perhaps in the reemergence, the effort to rebuild the country under the

auspices of the national transitional council. there's plenty more no doubt to come from sirte. let's go on now to -- we'll call it a minor row. it's broken out over how the australian prime minister greeted queen elizabeth. the queen on her 16th visit to australia, and the prime minister, julia gillard, who's been a republican, was there to greet her as she landed. the issue is this, the curtsy, or rather, the lack of it, more of a gentle bow there. but she didn't curtsy. some people in the australian press describing that as disrespectful to her majesty. the prime minister has defended her greeting, saying it was entirely within protocol. >> the advice to was very clear, that in terms of dealing with the royal family, whether you want to curtsy, whether you want to bow is a question for you that they, you know, are

happy with what people art are -- the people are comfortable with. as i greeted the queen, she extended her hook, and i shook her hand and bowed my head. >> our correspondent is duncan kennedy. he gave me a flavor of the sort of reaction they've been getting. >> what's become known as inevitably curtsy-gate. the self-styled queen of ethic has described what julia gillard did as a kind of wobble. she said it was hilarious, it was also rude and shameful, that she should have shown more . and jewel gentleman gillard is -- julia gillard is pro-republican. she's very much in favor of a republican. i think it wouldn't go down too bad well her supporters if her

opponent didn't find it somewhat exceptional. >> it's a long time since i've had a referendum on whether to stick with the royal family or become a republic. what is the overriding sense these days, duncan? >> they came within shouting distance of getting their republic, but it was firmly beaten off. the latest opinion poll is 55% of people are in favor of the monarchy, and only 34% are in favor of a republic, which is -- which hasn't been as low as that in 23 years. >> duncan kennedy. just want to bring you back once again to the pictures that we have coming in from sirte, from tripoli, where, of course, there's been one almighty battle to try to retake the city from remaining gaddafi loyalists. the message that we're getting from the town now of some 70,000 people is that that battle is complete and that gaddafi loyalists have been rooted out and that this is now

in the hands of forces loyal to the national transitional council, the interim government. more on the website, more here also on "bbc world news" throughout the day. >> funding was made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. newman's own foundation. union bank. and shell. >> this is kim - about to feel one of his favorite sensations. at shell, were developing more efficient fuels in countries like malaysia that can help us get the most from our energy resources. lets use energy more efficiently. lets go.

>> union bank has put its global expertise to work for a wide range of companies. what can we do for you? >> bbc world news was presented by kcet los angeles.