workers around europe protest government cuts. france is given a two week deadline to obey yield -- two of the european rules on freedom of travel. welcome to "bbc world news." coming up later, relatives of the tract miners in chile celebrate as the rescue operation reaches a key point. there can be only one winner on the night, or can there? the communication calamity on "australia's next top model." the talk from intelligence sources is of a major al qaeda plot on the scale of the mumbai attacks two years ago. western agencies say they have uncovered the early stages of a plan aimed at european targets thanks to surveillance of militants in waziristan. strikes by unmanned american drones have been said to reach their highest intensity in six years. >> could the mumbai model of attack of 2008 be repeated in europe? the plot uncovered this summer would suggest it could be. small, well armed teams of gunman move between buildings slaughtering civilians. the plan detected in its early stages is still being tracked. for al qaeda leaders, this is a different tactic. why the change? >> it is obvious that mumbai will have given security planners cause for thought. my understanding is that quite a lot of work has been done to look at this in the context of a wider initiative to look at the security of crowded places. >> the plot has been traced to waziristan, in pakistan's tribal areas, where much of al qaeda's leadership has been hiding since 2001. tipoffs by informants have revealed details of contacts in europe. they are coming under pressure from both the pakistan military and from the cia's unmanned drones. there is a perceived heightened threat from al qaeda and its affiliates. >> al qaeda continues to be committed to high-profile attacks targeted at the west, including europe as well as the homeland. >> france is on heightened alert. the eiffel tower was evacuated for a second time yesterday after another bomb threat. the biggest worry for the french is thought to be north african militants. in britain, the government has kept the national threat level at severe, its second-highest, meaning a terrorist attack is thought likely. neither a tax more arrests are -- attacks nor arrests are expected soon. >> workers have taken to the streets across europe in protest to austerity measures being imposed by national governments. there have been demonstrations in greece, ireland, and italy. tens of thousands travel to brussels to march on european union headquarters. in spain, there is a general strike. >> large crowds were on the streets in madrid this evening supporting spain's first general strike in eight years. the message repeated here and elsewhere in europe today was no to austerity. before dawn, workers were trying to prevent buses leaving the transport depot. spanish unions wanted to shut down the capital and demonstrate that the people were against spending cuts. columns of strikers marched around the city center. when they found stores that were defying calls for a general strike, they pushed inside, insisting the owners closed for the day. the police often intervened, but the shutters came down. strikers argue that working people were seeing their benefits cut to pay off debts caused by the banks. >> we spent 100 years earning the rights we have as workers in this country. i do not think the first thing we need to do is lose them. the banks should be the ones who pay for this crisis. >> one bank needed to be opened with a metal cutter. strikers had glued shut the doors. this man said protesters had the right to strike but not to prevent him working. these women taunted the strikers, saying they wanted to work. the impact of the strike was limited and a government minister told me that if necessary but they would reduce spending further. >> that is the first priority. something more is needed. we will do it. for the moment, we do not see any necessity. >> in brussels, thousands of protesters from all over europe joined a march against austerity. even while they were marching, the european commission was announcing tough proposals to punish countries that ran up large debts. >> we have learned the hard lessons of the financial crisis. now i see in member states a great deal of awareness for the need to take all the measures to avoid excessive deficits, to avoid the huge debt levels. >> in spain today there was anger over cuts, but we found many others resigned to an era of austerity. europe's day of protest is unlikely to lead to a change of policy, either here in spain or across europe, because europe's leaders are now committed to reducing their deficits, mainly through spending cuts. gavin hewitt, bbc news, madrid. >> 80% of humans across the world live near rivers that are under threat, according to a new study. it also finds that around 3.5 million people in the developing world live in areas where access to clean water is not guaranteed. the researchers accused developed nations of failing to address threats to water sources and urge poorer countries to invest in water infrastructure. the italian prime minister has won a vote of confidence in the lower parliament. his center coalition had a vote of 33. that could allow him to stay in office until 2013. india has launched a nationwide biometric id scheme. details of more than 1 billion citizens will be on line in the central basis, the biggest in the world according to the government in delhi. the french government and the european commission have been at loggerheads under the deportation from france of hundreds of from migrants -- roma migrants. the european commission has given the french government two weeks to change its mind or it will be referred to the european court of justice. james robbins reports. >> president sarkozy ordered the clearance of roma camps back in july. he said they had become breeding grounds for crime, prostitution, and child exploitation. more than 1000 were deported from france, most to bulgaria and romania. the european union just as commissioner has announced further investigation of french actions and the country's insistence that there were not discriminatory. it could lead to full legal action. >> the commission has found that france has not properly applied in its french law the procedural guarantee which are foreseen for all e.u. citizens in the european directive. that is why this needs to be corrected. that is why we have acted. >> the main complaint from brussels is that france is not guaranteeing the freedom of movement of the citizens and does not incorporate those rights in french law. france argues it can deport those who are judged a public security risk. the roma argue the european commission is doing too little to protect them. >> i am not surprised by the fact that the eu is for the moment extremely weak in the process of decision taking. politicians from brussels have to understand they have no right to take compromise. any compromise regarding anybody, even sarkozy, means abandoning principles. principles have no right to die. >> this issue has certainly poisoned relations between france and the european commission. a few weeks ago, commissioner reding compare french actions to mass deportations by the nazis during the second world war. >> this is a situation i have thought europe would not have to witness again. not after the second world war. >> the french president was infuriated. >> everyone here was deeply shocked, especially given our wartime history, and these words were deeply wounding and insulting to my fellow countrymen. >> the european commission has stopped short of immediate legal action over the treatment of room migrants, but brussels is threatening legal sanctions against france if the country does not fall into line within the next two weeks. james robbins, bbc news. >> it signals a historic change in notoriously secretive north korea. it looks likely to be a gradual transfer of power from the leader, kim jong il, to his youngest son. kim jong un gained new duties. he has still not been seen in public. we have been probing the mysterious silence from p'yongyang. >> only in north korea. so far, just a couple of still photographs have been released from the party congress, this one so why you cannot really see the leader, kim jong il, in any detail. maybe that is the point, if he is obviously s.e.c.. the other picture shows the delegates with some of the leaders at the front. kim jong il's sister who has just been made a general is there, but his son, kim jong un, is not. this is north korean television tonight. the extraordinary thing is that nearly two days after the opening of the main party conference there has still been no coverage of it on television. why not? here is the main south korean news agency. they are trying to work that out. the agency's political analyst does not believe the leader is too sick to be shown on television. he thinks it is just north korea's reluctance to give out information of any kind. when a television pictures of the leader's son, kim jong un? >> the north koreans know that the outside world thinks it is weird to have three generations of the same family running the country. that is why i think it will build his image up at home through a propaganda, and only when he is established as a leader in his own right will the present him to the outside world. >> the only official pictures to have come out of north korea since the party meeting closed show enthusiastic citizens through early on message. >> the party meeting was a historic event, and the korean people highly proclaim our respected general as general secretary of the workers' party of korea. >> if it had been official policy to praise the leader's son, that man would certainly have done it. it is clearly going to take time to build up kim jong un as his father's successor. >> stay with us if you cannot on bbc world news. still to come -- a fifth of the world's plant species are now in danger of disappearing forever. first, she is said to be one of the most photographed people on our planet. a new exhibition of formal photographs document the life of britain's queen elizabeth in pictures. many were taken by her late sister's husband, the photographer lord snowden. >> on her right, mr. anthony armstrong jones. >> he was a society photographer who took pictures of the royals and then became one. tony armstrong jones's wedding to princess margaret was the society event of 1960. although he was not a member of the royal family, lord snowden continued to work as a professional photographer. alongside his documentary work, he was often called on to photograph the queen. many of his photographs have been included in a new exhibition, but the graphic portraits of the queen. here is an image of the monarch and her husband in the kind of formal pose you might expect, and the queen caught by a range of photographers' in less orthodox surroundings. the photographs in the exhibition truck the queen's life from her childhood. snow then photographed her regularly from the late '50s. this was a photograph of that wound up on postage stamps. this was for her 80th birthday, taken at lord snowden's home. >> she goes out of her way to help make it easy. i try to do it as simply as possible. >> many of the pictures project powerful images, from cecil beaton's photograph on coronation day to snowden pep latest photograph of a more relaxed monarch who seems to be enjoying a joke. the photographer shares the view of many an amateur. >> it is all luck. i am always relieved that they come out. >> the latest headlines this hour on "bbc world news." security agencies are saying they have uncovered what they believe is a major terror plot against european cities. there have been street protests across europe in protest austerity measures and government spending cuts. one-fifth of the world's plant species could be in danger of extinction. the biggest threat is the clearing of rain forest for farming. a major study led by the royal botanic gardens in london comes ahead of a conference in japan next month where they will discuss why targets for conserve in nature, including plants, keep being missed. >> they are the foundation for life on earth. plants provide oxygen, food, fuel, and medicine, but one in five species is estimated to be at risk and research calls to save them. if you have to dress for extreme cold to see how scientists have been fighting to keep plants for extinction in the underground freezer rooms at the underground see bank in sussex. they are gathering samples urgently, knowing how rapidly plans are being wiped out. researchers have gathered nearly 2 billion seeds stored here at -20. it is a race against time. these seeds are from a tree in pakistan that simply no longer exists. the big worry is the sheer speed with which plants are being lost. >> it was kew gardens in london that led this assessment. 4000 species were studded. the results are alarming. >> one in five species are plants that are threatened with extinction, but not everyone of them is going to disappear tomorrow. they are in the chain leading to that outcome if we do not deal with it. that is our challenge. >> another great tree bites the dust. the clearing of tropical rain forest is the single biggest reason why so many species are threatened. the plants from forests have lead to treatments for malaria and dysentery. other potential benefits could be lost before we know about them. >> each plant is potentially a cure for a disease that has not yet become a problem. it is all about potential that is locked up in millions of years of evolution. we are looking at throwing it away in a generation. >> there are moves to save the forests, deals to pay developing countries to keep their trees standing. researchers are getting ready in case those moves fail. they are collecting tiny samples of dna. the hope is that future science can find a way of bringing plants that are now extinct back to life. david shipman -- shookman, bbc news. >> rescue teams in chile have reached a key point in trying to save workers who have been trapped underground for almost two months. relatives who are maintaining a constant vigil at the site were told the diggers have make 300 meters. the man may be pulled up nearly a month ahead of the official schedule. our correspondent is at the san jose mind. he said more legal action is being planned. >> criminal proceedings have already started against the mine owners here. what we are hearing is that tomorrow civil proceedings will start. i have just been speaking to the mayor of caldera, a town 20 kilometers from here. four mares have gotten together to represent 27 of the families here. they are going to demand at least $1 million for each family for the suffering they have had west being underground. i said to her a million dollars -- is that enough? she said that is the absolute minimum, but they are wanting to start the process now. the complication is the company which owns the san jose mine is going to be filing for bankruptcy for this particular mine. how that affects any compensation and any civil litigation is unclear. just to pick up on that high moment last night, a few moments , the drilllan b rig in the middle of the picture, reached 300 meters. that is symbolic. it is not even halfway down. but things are really maturing. when they hit that 300 figure, all the sirens sounded. everyone came rushing up the street and started shouting support for these rescue teams. we are learning so much more about how this rescue operation is continuing as well. we have daily briefings from people saying they have communicated with the miners as they clear rubble up from the bottom of the drill as it falls down. then the drillers can carry on working. i have been speaking to a specialist position, a sports physician, who is helping the miners keep their muscle tone together to be prepared for being pulled up in that rescue capsule. the miners apparently are doing down there.ym he is sending them videos of himself. the miners have said "do you mind getting a pretty woman? we would find it a little easier to follow this routine if we had a pretty girl to look at." >> nigeria marks 50 years of independence this week as the country faces a defining presidential vote. democracy is gradually taking root. traditional rulers from local village chiefs to emirs in the north exert tremendous influence. in our survey of nigeria at 50, this program. >> this is one of the most powerful traditional rulers in nigeria. he was not elected by popular vote, yet no politician is wise to seek office without his blessing. the race is on in cano as politicians seek a popular mandate, but it is the backing of rich and popular benefactors that is the key to success. away from the royal court, it is election season in nigeria. the question is how much power and influence these traditional rulers have on the electorate and the choices they make during the election. over the years, under both military and civilian rule, the power of these chiefs has steadily been eroded. how had they continued to take on so much influence? >> it is always behind the scenes. one institution shows discomfort or displeasure. the electorate read the signs and go along where the judgment is. that is not what will be said openly in the media. it is just there. the telling signs will always be there. the people will always follow through on what the troubled institutions want. >> the history and institution of this place dates back centuries and has not changed. emir granted as a special audience. >> we do not influence people to vote for anybody. all we do is to ensure that our subjects do abide by the rules of the election. we will appeal for them to follow the rule. there should not be any discrimination or instability politically. >> nigeria has seen turbulent times throughout its half century of independence. so often, its traditional families have remained a bedrock of stability. despite all its different cultures and religions, they are a source of unity. bbc news, northern nigeria. >> just for mentioning, you will find more coverage of nigeria's 50th birthday on the bbc news website. lots on their including an article asking what it means to be nigerian. finally, the perils of live television. you have to feel for the presenter of "america's next top model," and for the winner who was halfway through her acceptance speech before it became clear there had been a mistake. our australian correspondent reports. >> the winner and australia's next top model for 2010 -- >> two models. tens of thousands of viewers watching at home. a live television mistake that will soon be seen by millions on the web. >> it is you, kelsey. >> she thought she had just been awarded the coveted title of australia's next top model. there were fireworks, the promise of fame, even a victory speech. >> i want to thank the crew and the judges and sarah. without them, there would be no show. this is crazy. >> the 19-year-old was about to become fashion's latest victim. >> i do not know what to say right now. i am feeling a bit sick about this. >> the bearer of the bad news -- sarah murdoch, daughter-in- law of media baron rupert. >> it is a complete accident. it is amanda. i am so sorry. i read this wrong. >> it is all right. >> in a country that has just produced its first hung parliament since the second world war, this vote had been so close there had been a miscommunication between the producers backstage and the presenter on it. the crown was transferred to the rightful winner, amanda. kelsey had to make do with a cash consolation prize. australia's top model for only a brief few moments, but at least the recipient of 15 minutes of fame. nick brown, bbc news, sydney. >> more of that online at bbc.com/news. we are on twitter and facebook as well. >> hello and welcome. >> see the news unfold, get the top stories from around the globe and click to play video reports. go to bbc.com/news to experience the in-depth, expert reporting of "bbc world news" online. >> funding was made possible by the freeman foundation of new york, stowe, vermont, and honolulu. newman's own foundation. the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. and union bank. >> union bank has put its global financial strength to work for a wide range of companies. what can we do for you? >> there is one stage that is the met and carnegie hall. >> o, that this too, too solid flesh -- >> it is the kennedy center. >> check, one, two. >> and a club in austin. >> it is closer than any seat in the house, no matter where you call home. >> the top of the world, and i'm there, i'm home. >> pbs -- the great american stage that fits in every living room. your support of pbs brings the arts home. >> "bbc world news" was presented by kcet, los angeles. >> susie: it's time to get aggressive about fixing the economy. so says this voting member of the federal reserve. >> we want to get back to full employment. if we're going to do that, we