toght on "rldfocus" -- > the g-8 wrapsp withorld leads divided about how to fix the glob economy and the environment. thpresidenthen meets with the pope and heads for africa. in antication of the presidens trip, residents ghna are thrled to host the first official visit by the first african-american president. >>they can turn a two-hour

drive into l-day wait. now, israel has remoed 140 them tonight, a look at what that means for palestinian binesses and isrli security. >> and on our weekly rndtable tonight, nikita crucev's daughter you won't have say aut what she had to say abt russia's president dmitry medvev. from th world's leading repters an analysts this is "worldfocus." made possible, ipart, by the foowing funders -- od evening. i'm rtin savidge. aseaders of the world's major industalized countries andat their summit meeting in italy prsident obama challenged his counrparts do much more to help delop nations to del with hunger d he succeeded getting them to mmit to $2 bilon to the effort. the president tol a news conference how he understood hung in very personalerms. saying that he had learned

lessons from family members still livg in nya, his faer, you'll recall was bo there. he said, they, themselves, e not gog hungry but live i villag where hunger is al. the esident at the summit and beyond, that's our "lead fos" tonight. reporter: presint obama again ok the lead in pushng the nation's at the g-8 summit towds agreement. today he made apersonal plea to help feed the world's poor. the major industrialized untries commted $20 biion to a n food securit initiative t help the world's mo vulnerable nations. that's more than the previously discussed figure $15billio t president said day's pledgwas on top of previous promises. although, some nws reports suggested otherwis notg that the global economic isis had hit the developi world especial hard presidt obama said the actas com many poor countries ha experienc food riots. >> we've got100 mlion people who drped into furer dire

poverty as a consequence of th recessn. we estimate that a billion people are ngry around the globe and so wealthier nations have a norma moral obligation. >> reporter: tod's food agreent is seen as a victory r obama. his scorecardor the rest of the summit is xed. deal on climate change was obama's other majorgoal. he was ab to convince the natio to agree t a limitn a rise in the rld's temperature. the major industrialized nation also agree to cut tir carb emissions by 80% by t year 2050. still, he couldn't convince the wider group to go along th that targefor redung emiions. oppositionas led by the so-called g-5, a group of importantregional playershat cludes brazil, china, india, mexico and south africa. obamacknowledgedhe growing importance of such countrs. >> for us to think we can

somehow dealith some these global challengesin the absee of mor pwers like hina, india and brazil, seems to me wrongheaded. >> repter: afterwts the presidenin the rome with pope benedi xvi. the two greeted ea other warmly. this despite their dierences over issues like stem cell research and ortion. and re on the present's meeting wi moment today we are join by the reverend drew christiann. editor in ief of the national catholic weekly magazine published by t jesuits. father, good tbe with us. >> good to be with you, martin. >> le's talk about the significancof this meetig. washere real importance to it or was a courtes call on the part of the president? >> i thinkt's an importt meetingor two world leaders in ich tually esteem one anotr. the pope has reached outo president oba from the day afr his electio in the president's ove, he

called him prior tohe -- or just after the election. i think it was a really remarkable thing. and theresident i thnk has very special teem for the pe and fothe catholic church ad the good does aound the rld and would like to see in this meeting wheth they can collabate more closely on ost of world issues. >> throughout a few occasionsin his papacy the pope has bn caughtp in controver. and since y met with members of the adminiration before today's meing with the pe, were they concerned at all about that? did it form any way, what this meeting was going to be? > they explained thathe president hielf explained that this looked like a meetng that are heads of government and the head of sate or t government because you have common interests andommon concerns and you so have some differensut also that h respected e holy fath as the lear of 1.2 billion cathols around the worldho had enormous influen for good in the world and he wanted to -- he

want to show that he values the caolic contribution to world peace, justice and development. >> the president is no catholic, but you said tt he shows a great understanng of at it is tobe catholic. >> yes, he showed a lot understanding in o meeting with him eaier -- last week, rather about cathoc social eaching. >> where does that come om, you think? >> well, i think it comes as hi days as a cmmunity organiz in chico. when waseading the shop's efforton the peace pastora of 1993 which double the nucle weapon's policy and i thi from there,e began to really -- he rtainly knew the econom teaching and rhaps the organizing th union of chicago where catholics were motivad and catholics were teaching to let him read it b he certainly said to him, imself, it had a great impreion on him and it helped rm his social attitu attitudes. earlier this week then jus asthis g-8 summit was getting under way, the popeissued what

some might sayis a prey radil thinking on the global economy he. i presume it time to come out just as these world leaders were gathorg that verysubject. >>well, i don't think it was iginally timed here event. i think people had anticipated for an anniversary in '07. it took thing to get it ready and i thi this was the riht time to deliver it an it had more punch as result. some of the teaching is rather radic. he talks about an ecomy of gratuityor grace and of communi. and i think by thate means he thinks business ought to keep in mind all ofhe skeholders thatre involved in the busins and they're flourishg as well ashe flourishing of the stock holders. father christnson, thank you ry much. >> tha you, martin. go to be here. >>from italy, prident obama fw onto africa to the western frican nation of ghana, which was chosenecause it has bome as "the new york time described it, model of democratic devepment and rule of law inegion that struggles with both.

it's oba's first trip to subyou isarran africa as president. and hear from yevon from al jazeera glish. somethg of a homecomin >> reporter: t message reads wauba,eaning welcome in akah one of ghana's main languages. the country is preparing fothe arrival of u.s. presidentbarack obama and e first lady, michelle. bu millions of africansill be watchingative son whose father was rn in kenya returni home. ghans exted about thevis. >> i saw geat and i also el h being alack afrin, a black a person to be president of america is great. >> i'm elat because he's a black it's fir black american president in africa. and no oter couny than ghana. so i'm hpy, i'm happy that one of ourown is visiting.

>reporter: gha's former presidentxplain idea president obama is choosg to visit ghana overany other african countrs. >> he's comi to ghana as a acon of good govnance of democratic practice andhat he wants to come here to encourage other countrin africa to go in theirection of ghana. reporter: in 2008 millio of ghanians bid in a bitterly president election flowed by a roff. not theortf postelection violence as acstomed to seeing in africa. the ruling party graceful conceded defeat to the opposition. west africa's abundance of natul resources and the recent dicovery of oil here in ghana is also thought to be a factor bend president obama's trip. and another worry fo washington, t grong influence of limmistic

extremist oups includingl qaeda in the hn of africa. when president obama takes to thepodium at thi internation conference on satury many wi be expecting toear about a new rection in u.s. forei policy towards africa, especially issues such as aid, whichany still have set backhe ntinent. an therade policies which disadvantage afrin businesses and producer the sort of issues many ordinary africans are cncerned about, alon with at presidt obama can do to endan endemmic corruion. an issue he recent addreed with an interview with the website, allafrica.com >> for many yea we made excuses about corrupton or poor govnance, that this was somehowhe consequences neo colonialism or the west s been oppressive or racism i'mot a b -- i'm not a believer i excuses. >> reporter president obama wants to create a rationship

based on greaternd more equa partnehip with africa in return foretter governance. so the continent can realize the extraornary potential he believes hold yvonne, al jazeera, ghana. president obama pla to visit a hospit and i the weather holds fly by helicopter to appoint on the coas where slaves were shippedrom ghana. china's dole dealing wit a devastating ethquake. it happened in the southwest unon provie. and the size was moderate6.0 the dame was widespred. chi's media said 18000 buildings collapsed and another 5,000 were damaged. it said more th 400,000 have been dven fromheir homes. one person was reported kied and 325 were injured. and in western today, muslim uighurs defied a ban on

attending friday ayers as ethc tensions remain high i xinjiang provinc the mosques were opened aer residents demanded thathey be allowed in. a small grouch uigrs bega a rotest march but police quickly ved in to break them off. inese authories now say mor than 180 people were kled last week in rioting tween uighurs and the han hinese. the cotry's majority ethnic group. as ameran force begin to scale back in aq, there is growing concern whether th country can hold itself togeth. especiallin northern iraq, where ethnic tensio and violen are increasing. the kurdish region had is rch in oil and gas has taken a bold step towd greater autonomy, at least according to "theew york times." with little notice inlmost no publ debate, the par reports, iraq's kurdish leaders are pushing ahd with a new constitutionor the semutonomous region. a step that has armed irqi and americanofficials who fe the move poses a newthreat to the countrs unity. it goes on to say that americ

plomatic officials who have said that the potential with a confrontation with the kurds haers merged as a thrat as worrisome to iraq' fate as the remnants of the insurgencies. > elsewhere in theiddle ast, israel's nation security adviser saying that israes willing to spt the golden heights with sia, but not withdrawcomplely. isra captured that territory from syr in he 1967iddle east war. syria, maintains tt peace will be psible, only if israel withdraws entirely. but they -- the iaeli official who is quoted by al herara newspaper ys israel cannot withdw because it needs the golden ights for strategic and military rsons as well as for water, landscape and wine, as he put it. wi discussion under way on how to revive the pce process, israel h started to make movement easier in the west bank bypening orasing checkpoints and road blocks. the latest move camethis week whensrael said that a mar bridge connecting the westbank to jordan wouldnow be opened 24 hour a day accommodate more

than palestinian cmercial acvi activi. the checkpointwere put in placto stop terrorism but they ve also made movement extremely difficult, as hear in this report by matthew clman of israel' medialine. >> reporter: palestian cars waiting for securty inspection at israeli checkpoint near qalqiliya. there are more th 600 road bcks scattered through the are that means dozen of vehicles can be backed up for hours ju trying to get from one palestian town to another. sotimes wasting a whole working day. juda jamal runs t ho land company for agricultur mketing in inestment. he sys it's almost impossib to prect when hisarmers can deliver their produ. >> cannot predt. have to stay in the cube withoutanything. instead ofouknow taking your products, we have to be patient and take i in 12 hours, for

example. >> reporter: under pssure from the amerin government, israel sa it h removed 1 obacles in the lastyear. making it easie for palestinian to move around. >> we have crossings in which every week we arrest someone,e stop somne carrying an explosive bolt s body or enades or trying to smuggle bults. we are really trying to make it as easy as possib. eachecision whether to keep a road block or toemove it i actual only goes toith one thing which is the curity of litations. >> herat main entrance to jerrio, palestinian drivers used have to wt anything up to a couple of hours while iseli soldiers check their paperwo and now the checkpoint has be removed andhey can drive straight rough the west bank. >> we have to wait an hor, half an ho sometimes,sometimes two hours. sometimesore. you can just turn arnd and you are trapped insde until they change their mind so it's good that itis opened. >> repoer: he is the chief ecutive of the waus group.

aajor palestinian logisti compy. he says t removal of the road blocks is just a bluff. >> at happened in the last two weeks that they took over some of the checkpoint but not otally. i mea not for the wholetime. in the rth. t's been back now within two eks it's been back. >>eporter: most palestinia agree that the only long-term solution is a complete withdrawal of israeli foes. this is matthew calman reporting fm the dialine from jerricho in the west bank. from afri tonight a follow-up on yesterday's story abo strict muslimsharia law in salia. today it was reported that insurgents hadbeheaded seven people accused of renouncing islam or for spying for th s.-backed transitional govnment. it was desibed ashe largest mass execution since ilamists malia 2 1/2 yes ago.n the rights group amnesty

international sa the execution broht a patte of torture and unlful killings by the a shabaab milit. > on this eek's roundtable scussion, we are going to depa from our ual format and talk about a singl topic of this untry's relationship with russi that relationshi evolved this week as thewo countries agreed to deeper cuts in their nuclear arsenals. and as president obama met with his russian counterpart dmitry medvedev and wit prime minister vladimir putin we're joined tonight. th james. and nin khrusheva. associa professor at international aairs at the news school her in new york and granddaughter of e late soviet premier niki a khrushchev. welcome tthe two ofyou.

assessing with how thi summit nt this week beeen th prident and the russian leadersh there. nina, how do youthink it went? >> think it went very wel. there w a whole range of policy issues thatwo leaders agreed on. nd even the meetingith the prime minister, now prime minist vladimiputin and barack obama went well. i mean tere was no contest. >> lot of people were looking at that, right? that was the crucial meeting. >> i thought it was crucial meeting andt was very civi it was very cordial. barack obama made a lot of effort to backtrack his earlr comment thatladimir putin is one foot in the cold war in the past. and anotheroot in the present. he said that, yes, he's -- >> is that a mistake? >> i tught it was amistake. really thought tt that comment was aistake and it was atrange one to be put forward right before the meetin but notheless, i don'think it affected much and the meeting wentwe d both leaders we very coral.

alough i don't think that they are ing to, you know, call ch other on holidays and weekends. >> jim, wt do you think? >> well, i think that the one foot statemt wasn't a -- statement but not particularly importa. because both pty his decided that they wanted to have a constrtive summit at least from perception if noin a lot of substance. >> this didn't seem to be tt there was a plan and they executed that >> actly. d on both sides, theygave speeche that sort of courted theay towas a good summit. but in reali except for about three thins, all of which were relatively easy to get, somewha of a reduction in nuclear arms ich russia really needs. an asumtion of miliry to military relations. except on a few things like this, the big issues, the ones where we have profound diffences were left for another day. >> uh-huh.

nina, let me ask you is. when we talk about a family relationshipwe might say who wearshe pants in the family? when it mes to the russian leadership, who is actually in control? >>ell, it's a question th everybody's asking and y know myperceion and very unregional in this thatladimir putin ithe one who is wearing the pants and dmitry medvev is a very nice first lady. and he's very ceremial. he's very cordl. >> he dresses wel >> he dressewell. heooks very put together he speaks well. so he's a good spirit lady for russia. only appropriat that we have leader and then a an who is executing thatosition. >> andim, do you think that putin's ju sort of positioning himself to run again? >> i don' know about that. let's just take the present. he doesn't need to r again. he is in crge. if you look what ppened agin before the suit, all the maj decisions and the tricky

ones, lik conflict ineorgia andhethere're going too for t w.t.o. membehi and not made by putin and made b medvedev. at the summit, the breakfast meeting between obama and putin was farmore substantiv than anthing else that occurred, in terms of a discussion. and obama got e treat of his life inetting a one-ur ecture from putin on all their interests and l criticisms and complaints. so i think there no qestion about w's in -- also i was told the story oce that when thewo of them go international mtings together, tin does all of the talki d medved is a notetaker. i tnk that tells you all. >> i want to askyou, this nina. aftethe collapse of the sovt union, it seemed that the was a reat lovefest between the united states and russia. and espeally between our peoples. all thateems to hve gone to he wayside now. and that, ion't know, russian seem disenchanted wi the u.s.

is tat an accurte erception? why i that? high thi it is an accurate perception. andyou know, remember that before '91 when the soviet union collapsed, iwas a closed country. so the only way we the siets ew about the united states and the west was from --eady from europe. it was jammed byhe soviets. so the whole idea in the soviet union was that if the state, if the authoriti tell you that somethi's horrible, it must be good. because you never trust ur any of th and so it must have been ood. and you know when freedoms came out, all of a sudden eerybody was embracing them. but then freedom is a very difficult thingo do. it's a very diffilt choice. aot of personal espoibility. and ssians are not used to tha russians real -- i mean the wholeerticalollower that we scussed last time and when you have kreml down,s something that has en part of russian political system. not just th soviets he but

for centurs. and i don't think that russia hasoutgrownthat. d, therefore, you know, the unid states this does all of the -- a lot of talking. that you know, freedoms come with a lot of -- with a lot of problems awell. and russia don't want to have those problems. >> jim, you think it's jst a matter that we realize we're very different peopl >> in 199's decade from the russian pnt of view was viewed as a disastrous era in which they became very vulnerable and were greatly weakened. they had something ak to our depression in the '30s and they felt that we tookdvantage hat. that we started todismiss them as a power, exnded nato and other things. putin cos in and backed by hi oil pres, he brin the stability and secuty to russia like it had not known for some time. he's a very popular man. thatay begin to succeed as this economic recession takes old but he's been very popula he ma the decision thatthey were getting nowhere try and integre with the west and it wasn't even rally in their

interest. that they should review as a separate world power. akin to the united stas. and china. anthey staed a campaig not ly of bcoming more separate, butsing-- oil. so you have anti-amecanism in russ at a very hig level and the campai that putin launched and the russian view tt we took advange of them forbout a dade. >> na, i want to finish something thate talked about a few years ago, raise a lot of eyebrows, thessue of race president ama in russia. doou continuing had an impa? and if o, how di it have an impt? >> i don't thi so. i was watching the summit ver closely. and i think that back obama was ken much for what h really was, as theresident of the united states. i n't think if he were ite and blue-eyed,t would have had --it would have been a different reaion. probably ife weredick cheney, whicwould represent a mch more familiar to th more

russian power. which strong, strong man, then e reaction could have been different. i mean as you knowenry kissinger is t mst popular olitician than sfwhooums youe also saying 's not an issue so much of bck and white per se. >> it's the isu of otherness. ut i think that lukewarm reception the public receion of president obama w ot because he was her, he was black, anything else. it was because heas the american president. talkative ameran president. anrussians are very nonide nonidealisticabout their potics. nina khrusheva. thank you,oth. >> thank you finally tonight, one last story welike this week that we wanted to squee in before we go. it's from australia from the town of bund anun. bundy for short. not far from sydney. concern about this bottled water and the carbon ftprint that theattling and then the

transportatioof it left behin so the town decided to hold the vote on coming the fist town in australia t ban the sale bottled water. the community eting was he. some400 people showed up. and they voted with just two peoe against the idea. now tey'll sale usable glass bottles at people can use to get their own wat on tap. not only th, waterfountains, that's right, water fountains will benstalled in town. imagine tht. and that note,hat's "rldfocus" for this friday evening and for the week. if you missedny of the week's shows you can also find them on ap at our webte. that's worldfocus.org. i'm martin savidge in new york. asalways, we tnk you very muc for joinng us. we'll look f you back here on monday andnytime on the b. until then, have a gat monday andnytime on the b. until then, have a gat weekend. -- captions by vitac www.vitac.co

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