the other top stories this hour -- the big heathrow halt. industrial action next week at one of the world's busiest airports, we'll have a live update. and the big retailers open up in india, but traditional markets are affected. >> ok, let's cross live to tahrir square in cairo. the egyptian capital, showing you what's going on there. protesters are hoping that big numbers of people will join them in tahrir square after friday prayers. crowds again remaining in the square overnight, despite the former prime minister has agreed to form a new government after talks with the ruling military council. life to my colleague, lyse doucet. it certainly appears as if they are getting more support. >> well, friday prayers is taking place right here in tahrir square, because i can see right in the square behind me, they're all kneeling in prayer. of course, the player is very political. they're chanting "god is great," but they're doing it in a place where they're surrounded by huge, new banners, some of them saying leave, leave, the military must leav

we haven't actually reached the busiest part of the day for gatwick and heathrow. >> at heathrow, everything relies on everything working 100%, and we've been blessed by a beautiful blue sky, no weather problems, so the fact there seems to be enough staff on duty is assuring things are working ok, but any other glitches will change later in the day or a number of aircraft will develop problems, problems keeping them in their parking places, that will cause problems. fingers cross the we're not going to see that. >> a quick word about the unions and the airport industry. do you think today marks a watershed in the role they play? >> not necessarily. airlines and unions are frequently at logger heads. unfortunately, it's an industry with low or zero profit margins. there's been a lot of changes in terms of organization and working practices. that's gin a lot of attention. of course, this is completely out of the hands of both the airport authority and airlines, being a government-related issue today. >> john, thank you very much indeed for joining us. the story isn't yet told here at heathrow,

heathrow is asking airlines to fly their planes in half full. without further action, a riveting passages could face delays of up to 12 hours so long as they could not be safely accommodated. this woman is flying to colorado on wednesday. british airways have warned her that she might face delays and have offered to change your flight. >> very angry. we have worked hard all year to pay for the holiday and to go and enjoy it our snowboarding trip and to spend 12 hours in heathrow is not the way we plan on starting it. >> here is what she is up against, striking unions represent more than 1800 border patrols. they say not a single member will turn up for on wednesday. other civil servants are being brought in. by 9:00 a.m. on wednesday, almost 100 long-haul flights and 22,000 passengers have already landed. the problem is that it operates at 98% capacity which gives it almost no room for maneuvering. even a moderate disruption can quickly turn into something worse. the border agency had said that there was robust contingency plans to replace strik

>> fears grow london's heathrow airport could grind to a halt next week. it is midday here in london, 7:00 a.m. in washington, d.c., and 2:00 in the afternoon in cairo where at least 100,000 protesters are again gathered in tahrir square demanding the departure of the military power. kamal gonzuri's forming a new government reports of this have not stopped the fury. we go live to our correspondent who is in tahrir square. what are you hearing from the square right now? protesters are adamant that the military council must go? >> indeed, that's the overwhelming feeling here in the square. it is loud and passionate here. but it is also peaceful. that's the key thing. the crowds have been building for an hour. we have about 100,000 people in the square by the end of the day . if this passes off relatively peacefully, the ruling military council will breathe a sigh of relief because that will be deemed as not conducive to holding parliamentary elections on monday. the big gage danger is if there is a -- the big danger is if there is a resumption of violence or

heathrow em cowboy airports appear to be going well. >> we will love solve the problems of our economy by hammering down the living standards of 6 million public service workers. >> the strike will not achieve anything. it will damage the economy and cost jobs at a time when british -- britain cannot afford that. >> hello, welcome to "gmt." coming up in the program, a diplomatic storm in tehran. the ransacking of the syrian embassy. what consequences? and bringing a positive note to the community, the power of music to inspire young children. hello, it is 7:00 a.m. in washington, 8:00 in the evening in beijing, midday in the u.k., where an estimated 2 million public-sector workers are taking place in the biggest strike in the country in 30 years. the unions have called for the action to make the government contribute more towards pensions. around 400,000 paramedics, nurses, and health care workers are staying away. in england alone, close to 90% of schools have closed as the teachers' union is walking out. there are delays, but barred nearly as bad as being -- as were feared, at the ai

because of border controls untrained people have to be drafted to check people's possible sat at heathrow airport for example a lot of public sector work is interesting the old women and i'm joined by two of them here this is pretty and tim rich thanks very much for talking to us and we'll pose teaches pretty this this start with you as a female worker will will these changes to your pensions mean t v well. if you not have to work until in my late sixty's early seventy's i can't imagine being in the playoffs and my thirty five year old as a seventy year old woman i hear teaching p.v.t. as a farmer school teacher and doing my job as best like i'm able to do now and also the cuts and the contributions have been cut to our pensions as well what we have to food. for dinner holidays and things i'm not able to do now as my career is starting out and the slogan that you old operating on stays in the pension schemes will make you pay more i work longer and get less at the ends of it simmered it this comes to you and ask you the government is constantly saying there is no money and that's the reas

so far, the people here at heathrow airport tell me it's not so bad. thatqueues for immigration lines airport so bad. this was a strike that was expected. so some of the airlines yesterday did pull back on some of the flights coming in and out of heathrow today. british airways tells me they did not cancel any flights. things are as normal. we don't expect that to last for long, especially with the immigration workers being one of the groups that have walked off the job. the owner of the airport says there could be some queues up to two or three hours, but as of now, things are pretty calm. the larger issue, as you say, pension reform, something other countries are dealing with as well. this is unprecedenteded. teachers, health care workers, many unions who don't normally strike are all off today with this 24-hour strike. so 2 to 3 million people could be off the job today, something britain hasn't seen for a generation, though it is expected that it will be peaceful marches through london later today and then people will get back to work tomorrow. but

. >> more international passengers flying to heathrow than anywhere else. next wednesday, they may face gridlock. industrial actions caused problems here before these planes are grounded during a dispute in march last year. they're asking airlines could fly planes half full during the strike. arriving passengers could face delays of up to 12 hours, so long that they could not be a safely, dated and would need to be held on arriving aircraft. sarah is flying to colorado on wednesday. that one person that she may face delays and have offered to change your flight. >> we have worked hard all year to pay for the holiday, and to go and enjoy our snowboarding dress. to spend 12 hours in heathrow is not the way we wanted to start it. >> she is up against striking unions representing 1800 border controls staff. not a single member will turn up for work on wednesday. immigration staffing levels are expected to be less than 50%. almost 100 long-haul flights and 22,000 passengers will already have landed. the problem is that it operates a 98% capacity, which gives it

but as the passengers have been arriving into heathrow, we are told it's been okay.e later in the day. but we've had a long time to plan for this strike, carol. so transportation not affected. you know, people, especially tourists in america, certainly used to underground strikes, tube strikes, bus strikes. this is not one of those. this is much more fundamental. these are people who don't normally strike. teachers, workers at hotels -- sorry, at hospitals, people who work at the archives and libraries. these are people who don't strike. the union tells us, in fact, that more women striking today than ever in the history of the uk, carol. >> jim boulden reporting live there london this morning, thank you. >>> a busy day in the news world. coming up at the top of the hour, today is day one of hearings involving the man who shot president reagan back in 1981. a judge will soon decide whether john hinckley jr. should be released from a mental hospital. >>> and right after the break, entertainment headlines. actor daniel craig has a few choice words for the kardashian fa

i think you actually turned around in your car as it sped from heathrow airport to london because yourd about this massive tornado back in the united states that had killed over 300 people. and your natural gut instinct was, sod this royal wedding. i'm going home to cover what is to me a more important story. i thought that was a very interesting barometer to the brian williams' news sense tp tell me about that. >> i wasn't doing it for any gallantry or headlines. i didn't think anyone would ever really know that i had arrived in london. i was at baggage claim, piers. i had done "nightly news" the night before. i'm a bit of a weather buff. i always have the weather channel on in my office. i had seen an f-4 or 5 tornado approaching tuscaloosa. i came out in the newsroom 6:15 eastern time and said that's a college town, population of 110,000. but by the time i went to jfk to get on my british air flight to london, we took off at 8:45, the veil had come down over tuscaloosa, no communications, no news. but 5 1/2 hours later on the baggage claim at heathrow and my blackberry is going wil

. >> london's heathrow airport has asked airlines to cut by half the number of arriving passengers to deal with the walk-outs. the unusual move came amid fears that a strike by border agency and immigration officers may cause delays at passport control. >> the governor of fukushima prefecture will ask to decommission all nuclear reactors in the prefecture. >> translator: the reconstruction plant will call for the scrapping of all reactors. it calls for the safety of younger people for the revival of fukushima prefecture. >> the governor also said the prefecture will do its best to create jobs for people currently employ eed at nuclear plants. he is the first to call for a full decommissioning. japan has ten and four were cripples in the march 11 earthquake and tsunami. tepco has already decided to decommission the four damaged reactors. they will consult with authorities about what to do with the remaining six. >> they aim to make a final decision by the end of the year. >>> britain ordered the closure of the iranian embassy on thursday. the british foreign ministry is quoted as sayin

the threat of strike at heathrow airport did not materialize after most immigration official showed up for work. >>> germany's unemployment dropped a record low in november. the figures show the jobless rate sank by 0.1%, 6.4%, the lowest in 20 years. 2.7 million people were out of four, 24,000 fewer than in october. >>> the unemployment rate in the 17 member european union has risen to a record, 10.3%, leaving 16.7 million people out of jobs. italy and spain had the highest jobless numbers. >>> germany's labor market is doing ok compared with the last of europe -- with the rest of europe, but we asked what pitfalls he sees it. >> i am seeing the massive consolidation and packages in spain, greece, so on, are stalling the economic activity in the euro area, and that explains why the numbers of unemployed are soaring so much. europe is in a difficult situation, and we must do the utmost to stabilize the area. >> and back to you. >>> a court in belarus has found two men guilty of a bomb attack in the capital minsk and has sentenced them to death. 15 people died and scores were injured in

. >> he would ask me to go to heathrow airport. and follow ms. prince harry's girlfriend, and follow her to where she was going. on a number of occasions, she would be picked up and that would either go to clarence house or they would go to an address out in oxfordshire. and then i would be monitoring them to see whether there was anything further developing. >> many royal surveillance jobs were referred by client goodman, the royal correspondent who was convicted of phone hacking i 2007. but derek webb as he was never told the source of any leads. >> i have never had a phone myself. i do not know anything in relation to hacking. i realized that hacking was now a big business in relation to what was going back, but i never knew about it at the time. had no knowledge of it. i was never told by not one journalist peter than ever tone be they obtained by phone hacking. >> derek webb says he was also dispatched to trail prince william. >> prince william came out with kate, followed by the royal protection vehicle. i followed the royal protection vehi

viewers are travelers and in the wake of what is happening with these are strikes in london london's heathrow airport could be poised to have major setbacks major delays major cancellations some warnings that people could be standing in the immigration lines up to twelve hours as a result of staff shortages more details on that on our website artsy dot com well i still have for you this hour here on our growing pressure here is economic sanctions against its former allies syria including all the weapons deliveries. that our government has reached the end of the road. and among the mind all victim russian investigators say britain's prime suspect in the two thousand and six radioactive poisoning of x. k.g.b. agent alexander litvinenko in london was himself a poison of bipolar. britain has ordered the closure of the iranian embassy in london and the expulsion of its stuff after the u.k. evacuated its own diplomats from the islamic states capital the announcement comes after militant students stormed the u.k. compound in tyrone but hundreds of hardline protesters massed outside the building befo

after a fine solo run the feat increases the pressure on three sports under its heathrow as well as his fourth league defeat in twelve games not taking sides for points behind leaders manchester city well it is early days but there is growing speculation dutchman gives healing could end up with some sort of role in chelsea the former in russia coach told r.t. yesterday he's looking for a move back into the game and although he took glowingly about the emergence of russian side and she is a force in football dutch journalist chelsea is the more likely option but what i know is that rivals go for they were a very good period in england the moment i do enjoy it very much a living being so. you have still see there's a lot to do a chelsea i think. to redevelop the team and that's i think that's. something he likes very much to do i think if abramovich wants him to do wants him to work for him i think he won't he will do it. tennis roger federer and rafael nadal have got off the winning starts at the end of season worlds or finals in london although both hands are work harder federer the def

because the poster controls other untrained people had to be drafted to check it was possible that heathrow airport for example a lot of public sex workers interesting lee are women and i'm joined by two of them here this is pretty and stim rich thanks very much for talking to us and your piece teaches pretty does this start with you as a female worker what will these changes to your pensions mean to you well. you have to work until in my late sixty's early seventy's i can't imagine being in a close and i'm thirty five year old a seventy year old woman i hear a teacher p.v.t. is a pharmacy teacher and doing my job as best as i am able to do now and also the cuts and the contributions being cut or pensions as well i won't be able to afford. to afford you know holidays and things are not able to do now as my career is starting out and the slogan that you all operating on stays the pension schemes will make you pay more and work longer and get less at the end of a similar has come to you and ask you the government's constantly saying there is no money in and that's the reason these pension cha

some of it includes school government buildings and even the heathrow airport.r plans that pay more while working longer to ease tensions. >>> herman cane will decide in a couple of days if he will continue to run his campaign. in a speech last night in michigan, cane did not address the allegations made by a woman in georgia that she and cane had an extra marital affair. however he did tell his staff he is reassessing his campaign. it follows three others by three other women. once he was tied with mitt romney, a new poll shows mitt romney with 26% followed by newt gingrich with 23% then herman cane a distance third with 9%. >>> 45-year-old charles hill was shot and killed by bart officers in july. this is surveillance video at the civic tender station. they say he was brandishing knives and an attorney said hill did not deserve to be shot. >>> your time now, an alleged gunman in the san leandro area, they are accused of driving up to a group of shoppers and demanding money and jewelry. there was a fistfight with the victim, christopher morel low falling to the

london's heathrow comes in third. including long walks between gates and parking messes.ome say just getting out takes longer than taking an international flights there. if you haven't purchased tickets yet for thanksgiving, it's not too. there may be cheaper tickets than months ago. >> air fare does tend to go up again about two weeks out of the flight. >> and experts say airlines do offer great deals. the seats usually get released on tuesdays. so signing up is key to taking advantage of the quick sales. >> and to presidential politics a poll gives newt gingrich an edge. a poll shows gingrich ranked at top choice of the independent voters. gingrich gave 24% of the votes compared to 20% for mitt romney. and this also looked at likibility on that question, romney leads with 29%. and perry gets 14%. gingrich, just 9% on likibility poll. and thanks for joining us for abc 7 news at 4:00 and you can talk bit on apc 7 news. the news at ak continues right now. >> there is an emotional chancellor addressing students about the way police pepper sprayed protestor autos a show of s

some of the places affected, include schools, hospital, government offices and heathrow airport. government is urging more negotiations say a walkout achieves nothing. >>> if you like to travel, you might want to consider visiting vienna. a consulting group ranks the austrian capital as the world's top city to live. it's followed by auckland, new zealand and munich, germany. according to the survey, the worst place to live is baghdad. >>> 8:16. in just about ten minutes from right now, closing argue mountains are due to begin in the civil lawsuit against former b.a.r.t. officer, johannes mehserle. jury deliberations are also expected today in the case followed by kenneth carruthers. he claims johannes mehserle and four other officers used excess serve force when they arrested him -- exesive force -- excessive forewhen they arrested i had. and back in july, 45-year-old charles hill was shot and killed by police. you are looking at surveillance video. officers say hill threw a glass bottle at them and he also had knives on them when he was shot. >> the lawyer for hill's fall said h

. >> reporter: some airports like london's heathrow have already removed the scanners because of complaintsbout invasion of privacy. but they're still being used in united states and tested in airports around europe. >> i travel quite a lot. >> reporter: south african tina teart has been through the body scanner several times in america. she says the cancer concern will make her think twice now. >> definitely. definitely. >> reporter: u.s. radiation expert dr. david brenner says the scanner can deliver up to 20 times more radiation than previously thought, potentially increasing the risk of cancer. but scientists at england's health protection agency says the scanners are safe for flyers to pass through, as many as 5,000 times a year. >> reporter: they say the amount of radiation you get while flying is more than you would get in two or three trips through the body scanner. >> reporter: many doctors call the radiation worries an overreaction. >> you are at higher risk driving to the airport by a long shot than any risks you may have of cancer or even deaths from that particular machine. >>

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international travelers are being told to expect long delays at heathrow. >>> a big day for the millions of people taking the high cholesterol drug lipitor. pfizer's patent runs out today. other companies can start making less expensive generics available. pfizer says more than 17 million people have been prescribed lipitor to lower their cholesterol. >>> you're accustomed to banks judging you based on your credit. they're dealing with a downgrade in their credit rating. christine romans is in new york for us. we're not talking about any banks. big banks are getting a look. >> yeah. i'll tell you something, here's the interesting thing. you get a downgrade of america's big banks and they're all up in trading because of this big, huge market surge. you can see the dow is up 400 plus points. that's because the fed and a bunch of central banks came in and said they were going to keep the oxygen flowing in the global banking system. they were going to keep money flowing so that no one was going to have trouble borrowing money overnight. that's because of the european crisis. that blunted the

heathrow airport likely to be hit the hardest.riving and going through customs will feel the worst of it the plan there to keep those people sitting on planes while immigration officials work through the long lines. it is travel on the ground that is the story in germany. antinuclear demonstrators blocking some railroad tracks by sitting on them. they are protesting a train hauling nuclear waste from france. that train entered western germany today, this morning, after riot police removed activists from the rails. it's on a way to a controversial storage site. we're told other demonstrators threw molotov cocktails to police and set a vehicle on fire. nuclear energy has been unpoplar in germany ever since fallout from the 1986 chernobyl disaster in ukraine drifted over the country. he served on the front lines in iraq and came home with the scars of war. but that didn't stop him from claiming victory on "dancing with the stars." what a top military official now has to say about the wounded warriors big win just ahead. plus, we'll t

this is coming out of london heathrow. visibility down to one-third of a kilometer.alking one-tenth of a mile. make sure you're checking ahead with your local airline if you're traveling out there because foggy conditions through parts of northwest europe. let me show you yesterday. this is actually coming out of london. you're looking at members of the arsenal club. they're actually jogging in the foggy conditions. and you're looking at more photos coming out of central parts of germany. you're looking at some of the birds enjoying the start of the morning. as i show you on the satellite, overall once we get this fog mixed out of here, we'll see a lot of sunshine returning as well as for france and toward the east. stormy conditions through the mediterranean sea. now i leave you with video actually coming out of south america. this is actually out of buenos aires. what you're looking at there, this video was taken yesterday out of buenos aires because there were lots of cancellations with flights because of volcanic ash coming from the volcano in chile. the problem

departure time will be 11:00 a.m., with air force one scheduled to arrive at london's heathrow airportternoon. >> since london's not in the middle of the atlantic, hopefully the president was not relying on these videos for too much geographical intel. other cia videos were designed to prime president reagan on soviet politics, on soviet media portrayals of the united states. there was also this totally awesome one on this soviet space program. look at this one. >> as it has evolved over the years, the soviet space program might be described as something with a dual personality, a jekyll and hyde, so to speak. that is, it exists of two parts. one that is highly visible and acceptable to the public, while the other moves in a sort of shadow land and is cloaked in high secrecy. >> a dual personality, jekyll hyde, and one in the shadow land. reagan liked that particular video so much, he wrote in his diary, he wrote, "saw a cia classified video on the soviet space program, they are much farther ahead and their main effort has been militaryized. here's how he learned that. >> since the ear

thames and explore all the options that make the hub status with the exception of a third runway at heathrowright here in london we will work with the mayor of options on river crossings regarding silver towne and support the extension of the northern -- could bring 25,000 jobs to the area. for the administrations in stalin the bleeders and wales and northern ireland will get their share and working with the link between in the m 4 in south wales to north of the border. this all amounts to a huge commitment of overhauling the physical infrastructure of our nation. and we will match it by overhauling the digital infrastructure. the government is funding plans to bring that to 90% of homes and businesses across the country and extend mobile phone capacity to 95% capacity to a great at economically vibrant countryside but our great cities are the heart of the regional economy and we will help bring world leading broadband and wi-fi connections to ten of them including the capital of all four nations. we will go with the 22 enterprise zones already announced with two thirds in the like a sure co

board of personnel, they come under a civil service union, and it looks like in fact the airports -- heathrow has not been affected. it has not happened, but the government has made contingency plans to bring embassy said in to deal with potential destruction. -- bringing embassy staff in. schools are closed, routine hospital operations being canceled -- we know that. and there is a certain amount of disruption going on across the country. by the evening, we should be able to know in terms of numbers how it is affected -- affecting day-to-day living. what is clear is there is anger. we will see what actually materializes by the end of the day in terms of support. host: you also wrote earlier this week about 30 trade unions will join the strike on wednesday. wanted to find out if there is going to be any sort of discussion between the government and these trade unions on how to fix this situation and deal with the pensions and get everybody back to work. guest: absolutely, negotiations have been going on since the start of the year. nine months to negotiate this pension situation dared the gov

. >> you got that right because, as you mention, the airports, there are also delays at heathrow.ready canceled flights into london and we assume out of london, as well. immigration officials also on strike. travelers being warned to expect to wait in line for up to 12 hours if they need to get their passports checked. >> let's go live to erin mclaughlin. she's on the phone live from london. this is all about the same storyline we have been hearing around the world, erin. that is governments tightening their belts and people are the ones that feel it and people are not hthat happy about it and that's what's going on with public workers here in the uk. >> exactly. i'm here in central london where thousands of public sector workers looks like are marching towards a central area where they plan on rallying against these government tension plans. part of the tensions, quite simply, the government wants public sector workers here in the uk contribute more to their pension and to work longer. union leaders are saying that government proposals worse off, christine. at a time when they ha