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what can we do for you? >> and now "bbc world news." clucks chinese dissident chen guangcheng fears for his safety and there are new tensions between china and the u.s.. angry exchanges between french presidential candidates in the. public television the "the scream" fetches a drawl jaw-dropping amount at auction in new york. and violence against protesters in cairo. and giving blind people the gift of sight.

chen guangcheng has requested asylum in the united states, saying he fears for its safety. he is currently receiving medical treatment in a beijing hospital. he left the u.s. embassy after nearly a week. secretary clinton is in the discussions with beijing. >> we understand that he is still at the hospital in beijing. he came out of the american embassy yesterday. a deal appeared to have been done. mrs. clinton received assurances from chinese authorities in regard to his safety and that of his family.

mr. chong went to the hospital. it appears that he has had a change of heart. according to a report, he spoke with his wife, who he met in the building. she told him that she had been tied to a chair and beaten by chinese authorities while he had been in the u.s. embassy. it appears in that moment mr. chong decided that he and his family needed to. go to to it is not clear whether or not he has spoken to american diplomats about this specific issue, but we have heard from officials. they say that they do want to speak to him to get a clearer picture as to exactly what he wants. >> martin, this threatens to overshadow the trip of the u.s. officials. >> that's right. hillary clinton said that china

and america to gather can solve all the world's problems if they did work together and they could go a long way in solving. some of solving they will be looking to china to support sanctions in syria as well as action around the diplomatic action. there will be much to discuss. in the past we have seen that both countries have a different take on many issues. >> martin, thank you. french president nicolas sarkozy and his rival francois hollande have traded fierce blows in a television debate, both accusing the other of lying. commentators say neither if managed to land a knockout blow. our correspondent is in southern france. what is the reaction today? correct plenty of reaction to

the titanic struggle last night. day after being gray for the past weeks. let me give you the setting. we are standing next to the amphitheater, 2000 years of history. it's the best example of an amphitheater in this part of europe. you should have a look at the aqueduct that goes over the river, on the internet. it is extraordinary. we are here because of last night's battle and because this is the region where they had extraordinary success in the first round where marine le pen had 6.5 million votes, but it was here that she finished on top. we have been into the villages and it's a pretty little village

where they voted in big numbers as well for the national party. the socialists are fishing for votes. the stalls are busy. in the last five years, the local economy here has gone flat. in 2007 the left of nearly half a first-round votes. the national party with 7%. this time they came out on top with 28%. the socialist vice president of the department is here to learn the lesson. >> people tell me they have had enough. they don't feel safe if. they have no money in their pockets. they are unemployed over 13%. 20% among young people. >> it is the kind of isolated village the party targeted around the country where the factories have closed and dissolution has grown.

>> this thing has gone -- a big difference. >> will you vote in the second round? >> its possible. i want to change presidents. >> 1/4 of the people who voted last week under the age of 35 turned out for the national party. typically they are white, working-class, many of them are first-time voters. they are disillusioned with the two main parties and motivated by a much simpler populist rhetoric of marine le pen. that message has become so popular that it has drifted into the political mainstream. two men who debated live on television last night are inspiring -- not inspiring the the wavering voters. marine le pen did not support either candidate. oshe has no interest in

during the president in lifeline, some say, it does not suit her ambitions. >> she wants to demolish the classic center-right of france and rebuild a hard right in its place that would be more powerful. >> rural france was built on traditional industries and all have taken a battering. they long for the old certainties here. anger is the theme of the election and a stalled is a close second. >> national and regional papers, this one that is the leftist, along this debate in modern history since the beginning of the fifth republic. the paper says hollande commanded sarkozy last night and

kept him on the defensive. not so in this right leaning newspaper, high tension. and the editorial, the ancients and the modern, it's their interpretation that mr. sarkozy is the future and that hollande is the old-style socialist who will not be good for the economy. and this other paper really sums it up and to abide sized chunk. here it says, it is never your fault, mr. president, i anm not your pupil. and this is the local paper. it shows where the national party got support in the country. it is an east-west divide. but particularly in the south.

this is the area and nearest italy and the north african countries, so there's a lot of immigration down here. some people tell me that when you look at the region, the south tends to be richer, they have problems with immigration because they are closest to the scene. -- the sea. in the north, their problem. problem. that is why the two parts of the reason have voted for marine le pen. dig in the north, their problem is unemployment. >> thanks very much. we have much more on the elections on our website. you can look at the candidates and what is the likely outcome depending on who wins and how the politics of france is changing. bbc.com/news. a gunfight between the mexican army and suspected drug gang members have left 12 people dead and that includes two soldiers. gunman used grenades and other

weapons ambushed the army. police and military reinforcements have gone into the area near the mexican pacific coast. the governor of the bank of england has said it should've done more to prevent the banking crisis. king said that the regulatory system has not worked properly. he says the british government should speed up reforms for the banking industry. news corp.'s board of directions is supporting rupert murdoch as company chairman despite the british parliamentary report into phone hacking that says he is not fit to run an international company. now the business news. ecb not likely to put up interest rates today? >> that's right. twice a year the ec council

meets in a city outside frankfurt. today it is topical, given all the information we have seen on unemployment figures. the country is struggling. we'd have mentioned the interest rate of 1%. not expected to see any change. another area where we don't expect to see changes on bond buying. that is something the spanish government in particular would like to see a the ecb jump back into because they have had to pay extremely high interest rates. if the ecb were seen to be buying bonds, that would bring down interest rate. in has in the past, but it has gone back up again after a few days. >> samsung is launching a new smartphone today. they are a big rival to apple. >> that's right. samsung has overtaken nokia as

the best selling mobile phone maker. a lot this evening in london. we expect the new hansa to be the official telephone of the olympics. that's why it's happening in london. -- the new handset. >> you will tell me next time how you have an official phones for the olympics. an emotional scene in northern england on wednesday evening fabrice appeared before his home crowd for the first time since going unconscious on the field. he was released last month from the hospital. now that story. >> this was a sight to many had feared they would never see. several weeks ago he was carried off the field close to death. fans were thrilled of his

return. he was clearly moved by the celebration. the stadium resounded for him, calling his name. >his heart stopped 78 minutes at night. his life was saved by cardiologists who came down from the stands that tonight. >> i am overwhelmed at the support i have got. i'm happy to be able to speak to people again. i'm just happy. >> will he return as a player? his manager says not yet, but he is moving in the right direction. bbc news. >> you're watching bbc world news. something to shout about. edvard munch's masterpiece gets a record price at auction.

voters are headed to the polls today in elections across england, scotland, and wales, and there's mayoral contests in london and other big cities of. the elections are seen as a test of popularity of britain oppose the conservative government's. both parties are doing badly in the opinion polls. now to our correspondent. >> just 85 days till the olympics, but there's another important race to be run before that starts. the one which decides who becomes the mayor of london. this is the incumbent, the conservative boris johnson. unashamedly posh, he is known for his sense of humor and accident prone personality. >> my friends, i give you the olympic clock. >> he has spent time overseeing olympic preparations, but

critics argue that apart from a few new red buses, he is not done much to change the capital. >> we are standing because we want to represent all london. >> livingston is an outspoken figure famous for his opposition to margaret thatcher in the 1980's and for his passion for news. mr. livingston has based his manifesto about a promise to cut transport fares. >> i cut the bus fares by 9%. >> but his campaign has suffered from headlines about his own tax affairs. that has led to charges of hypocrisy. boris johnson and ken livingston of larger-than-life characters. the race to be mayor of this olympic city is pretty unique. even so, the result will inevitably be scrutinized for what it tells us about the the border fate of british politics.

>> this is bbc world news. now the headlines. chinese dissident chen guangcheng says that he fears for his life, raising tensions with the u.s. as the high-level talks get under way. two men fighting for the french presidency accuse each other of lying in their only televised debate. coming up in sports, in a half- hour, all the latest from the eaugue. premier li as and rail madrid rejoices as they are led to the spanish league title. -- real madrid. times, thee over

nhl playoffs. that's coming up and 30 minutes. in egypt, two leading presidential candidates have suspended campaigning after 20 people were killed while demonstrating in cairo yesterday. the unknown attackers used rocks, firebombs, and shotguns. protesters retaliated, beating some assailants. our correspondent has been following events in cairo. >> seems to be a strange mixture yesterday, the attacks. there were some local people involved, locals angry about the demonstration that has been held, disrupting their neighborhoods. the widespread belief is in some way they must have had some official endorsement and maybe some government-paid thugs were in there or at least the government was turning a blind eye. we did not see the security forces turning up and separating the two sides for several hours. the mood today, the demonstrators are very angry.

there have been reinforcements to arrive. there was a big demonstration last night. the ruling military council are holding a rare news conference later today, who will no doubt want to reassure people that they will go ahead with the election as planned, the presidential election. they are pushing ahead with other plants. -- plans. but behind all this it was to do with whether radical islamist candidates could stand. what is the policy? >> this demonstration was about one of the hard-liners. he has been disqualified from the election. there is a wider fear that the democratic process will not go smoothly, but somehow someone behind the scenes is trying to sabotage the move to democracy. that's why now the demonstrators are upset about a wide range of egyptian society,

particularly liberal secularists. >> the fukushima 50 have never spoken publicly about the terrifying days after the tsunami-trigger nuclear crisis. our correspondent hazmat one of them to ask about to the moments the building exploded. -- has met one of them. >> i was in the earthquake- resistant control room building at the time. we had been feeling a lot of aftershocks. when the explosion happened, it was so strong i jumped out of my chair. at first i thought it was another earthquake. just one shake, so we wondered what happens. at the same time i saw on the television monitor that the nuclear reactor building and exploded. i guess it must have done huge damage to the facility, but i did not know if the reactor had

exploded and the radiation has spread or it was just the building itself and the containment vessel was intact. >> you felt you had to stay there to say japan? -- save japan? >> i don't know what went through everybody's mind at the time. we had been operating the nuclear power plant safely up until then. then we encountered this accident that would be in beyond imagination. we felt it was our responsibility to stop the radiation spreading. we did not want to cause any trouble to local area and the region. 40 years we have been running our nuclear power plant safely. we believe we have contributed to providing energy to the country. there had been a regrettable accident. operated inside japan and outside company to learn from it in order to run power plant's safety -- operators. as for the existence of nuclear

energy in japan, we need to discuss it widely in the future. i want to wait to hear what decisions the people make. >> the first u.k. clinical trial for an electronic eye implant designed to give back site to blind people have exceeded expectations according to scientists. two patients with a genetic condition were fitted with a wireless device in april and now they can detect light and even find white objects on a black background. >> we are working together with greta implant -- retina implant, which is a german company. this device has the ability to restore vision to patients who are completely blind from a genetic disease that affects mainly younger people. the device itself is very much like very electronicsfilm that

we implant in the back of the eye. we have a device that is 1500 pixels, similar to a rudimentary camera. the patients are able to use the device to see light and dark and make out basic parliamentary images. we are doing a clinical trial together with king's college in london. we want to know more about the device. want to know what the limitations are as far as the patients' use of the device and what the resolution is vacancy. we hope that we can then feed back to the company and help them develop more complicated devices in the future. we want to know how usefuls the how find the device and what they can use it for in terms of their vision. they need to learn to see again and it is a slow process. we are most interested in activities of their daily living, how these patients can do things they could not do

before as they were completely blind. >> five years ago they were an average family enjoying a list of holiday in the sunshine, but that changed when madeleine mccann disappeared. she would now be 9 years old and went missing from a villa in portugal. we have spoken to the parents. for taking time with us. if i could ask about the image people are familiar with, which is the age progression image. we can see behind you. when you first saw the picture, what do you think? >> relieved when i saw it. when we did the age progression previously, i probably was not in the right kind of place and when i saw the image i felt relieved and quite happy about it. i could see her in it. >> jerry, is it also in your

head that if she is alive living somewhere in whatever situation, that she might see this image? >> it has happened with other cases. usually when children have gone missing at an older age, probably what i think at this stage it is more likely other children will see her in this image. i think the children particularly look at the image in a different way because they're used to changing their hair and doing things. the image does not have to be an exact resemblance. >> one of the most recognizable images in the world -- edvard munch's "the scream." it has touched almost $120 million at auction in new york. >> i start the bidding at $40 million.

43 million already. 44 is bid. 45 in the room. 46. 51. 52. 56. $99 million. i have all the time in the w orld. [laughter] $120 million.o thank you. >> it has gone to an unknown bidder. before we go, an unusual way to see the sides of rio day janeiro. this man dropped out of a helicopter with a jet propelled wing around the city. it is the first time someone has flown this way around the statue of jesus.

he developed the device himself after becoming fascinated with light. that's all for now. much more on the web site at. bbc.com. >> 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 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?

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