live from moscow our top stories terror returns to iraq the country is rocked by the worst violence since the u.s. withdrawal as a way of obama trying to see more than one hundred dead. it's resurgent. syrian government statements that chemical weapons won't be used in its internal conflict create media scare stories to the hype on whether stockpiled might be deployed to get better. and fears of the eurozone debt contagion is reaching its economic powerhouse germany after moody's lowered its outlook to negative rated members of the monetary union. now are to talk to foreign policy analyst and author

john her about the security issues that the u.s. and its nato allies are failing to resolve. they are pm leaders are trying to pull out of afghanistan and we'll see what the french president is trying to do how do you think that will affect the need to operations in afghanistan and maybe the alliance of nato in general well from the point of view of a military planner of course they're not going to be very happy about that they rely on these commitments made by nato partners on the other hand from my point of view it might accelerate the push for a diplomatic slash political solution to the situation in afghanistan we have been trying for the last decade to solve the problem of afghanistan militarily and it hasn't been solved and that's not to say that it's going to be easy to solve the problem diplomatically or politically or economically but we haven't really

invested the time the energy the money into that side of the equation to try to find some stability some political stability in afghanistan that's going to be the real charge over the next couple of years my hope is that the withdrawal of french troops dutch troops canadian and australian troops that will actually lift the diplomatic solutions higher on the agenda of the united states and its partners that many might argue that it's not the natives responsibility to boost the economy of afghanistan specially at this time it isn't nato has responsibility of course nato is responsible for ensuring an overall security for the country within which there can be economic growth within which there can be political stability. nato of course has been involved in things that go beyond strictly speaking its military capacities in part because nato realizes that if you look around after the end of

the cold war there aren't a lot of military missions to be engaged in so nato has perforce looked at other possible operations whether it's delivery of a or it's dealing with post. crisis situations natural disasters etc environmental situations so nato has been looking at that but right now at least for afghanistan that the focus has been on the military but what i'd like to see with the reduction of nato forces in afghanistan i'd like to see the other actors in the situation to step up to the plate and not just the united states and nato but it really has to be a regional solution you have to involve jacket skag russia should be on at the table there should be discussions with iran and with india as well and this is a regional problem all of these countries have had interest and continue to have interest in afghanistan they should also be playing a role in trying to find some kind of solution but ten years after the presence of

nato in afghanistan i mean it didn't seem to improve many might even i get that the taliban and caught up problems are even greater now than they were ten years ago how do you think they can balance this and they kind of and the economic stability at the same time well i would i would say that the situation for al qaeda has definitely not improved. numbers very few at this point in afghanistan. more in pakistan overall a huge presence and whatever presence al qaeda has it's largely not not region any longer it's shifted to yemen to other parts of the world. taliban yes of course the taliban has basically responded by either going into hybrid. times of greater nato bombing and attacks or when nato retreats a little bit goes on the offensive but the taliban has both its military and its

political side we have had and we've been trying from washington to engage the taliban to set up a kind of negotiating office for the taliban those are continuing the pace it's not going to be easy and it hasn't been successful i mean so far in anything up in. pakistan you talk a lot about the involvement of pakistan agreement between the u.s. and the nato alliance with pakistan over their supply route to afghanistan. how do you see that in fact the operations in afghanistan global a military point of view of course the supply lines are very important it's cheaper to go through pakistan in many cases it's safer and so having pakistan on our side is critically important but at the same time we have to look at why pakistan and you know close down those operations pakistani government felt that our kind of violating its sovereignty and any number of occasions not as violating sovereignty

but actually killing pakistani soldiers mistakenly but whatever they were unhappy with that and they continue not to be happy with that so if we're going to have pakistan as an ally we have to seriously address their concerns about sovereignty issues i think we have a larger discussion a regional discussion that involves pakistan as a autonomous actor goes somewhat toward their goal of being taken seriously as a sovereign state it is a sovereign state with interests in the region many class send let city to benefit this this system has to the west and maybe you are even well. it's tough to talk about capabilities when it comes to missile defense because as a system it hasn't been the most successful system that we've put forward from a military point of view a consistent. they fails in terms of its tasks as cost overruns there have been several recent reports from the g.a.o. of various academic institutions calling into question the entire system

nevertheless europe has committed several countries of course turkey has committed poland italy to at least have some role to play in this defense system only a radar capability. nato is scrambling to kind of find the money for this because it's going to be an extraordinarily expensive system and the europeans have only pointed up a small portion of that and you know at a time when the united states is desperately looking for ways to cut military as much as five hundred billion minimum i think state yours is going to be tough to to find support both here in the united states and in europe for a much more robust missile defense system so i think nato is trying to put a the best possible face of what is still a contentious issue and that's not even taking into account russia's opposition to defend the scientists you were referring to even said that they should scrap key

parts of the whole system but. there is complains that this system doesn't even protect us rather it protects europe you know well there are a lot of systems that we have in place that have dubious you know feasibility a dubious value i mean just look at the tactical nuclear weapons we maintain still in europe if you look at the range at which those nuclear weapons would strike they only would strike within europe itself barely might cleaning brought in might touch kaliningrad and that's it why do we keep them there they have no military utility whatsoever we keep them there for outdated cold war reasons why do we maintain a missile defense system well in part because of the. cold war legacy we started this program in the cold war we still have this idea that somehow or protect the united states and western europe from a much larger missile threat but the specific missile threat from this is iran in

right now iran doesn't have a capability to to reach europe in any reasonable or sensible way so the missile defense system is really is of dubious value right now and i think that's why it's difficult to get buy in for it from our european allies they have a lot of things they have to spend money on and to think decades down the line when such a system would be both feasible maybe and usable maybe and useful maybe is a big commitment to have but that it costs us time russia opposes the system yes russia has been invited to participate if i were russia i would say look i've spent my money on this but that's another question so how do you think this will affect the relations between russia and meet on the future and maybe the u.s. even well i think missile defense is an unnecessary kind of. provocation shall we say for russia as nato expansion has been in the past we've of

course reached out nato has reached out to russia to sit down to talk to have agreements but for the most part this has been seen by russia as just kind of superficial what i think russia wants is to be taken seriously in any kind of security discussions you know across your range of course russia set up its own security discussions with central asian countries with china and so forth. i think that it would be useful for nato and the united states to say look we are now in negotiations with iran about its nuclear program let's continue know there's those negotiations expand those negotiations to address missile questions as well and deal with the missile issue that way in that spend so much money on missile defense which is of. dubious feasibility to begin with and start to address the range of issues that the united states and nato have with russia about a variety of different security threats which you know are serious and affect the

entire world whether we're talking about climate change or a thing about non-state actors and terrorism we're talking about nonproliferation these are serious issues that we have to be sitting down and talking about nato is an institution that has to find some kind of legitimacy twenty years after the end of the cold war it developed a kind of shall we say interim reason for being to go after rogue states so to speak to deal with the crisis in former yugoslavia more recently to deal with libya potentially to deal with syria but that really goes beyond what nato was designed to do which was collective security for europe specifically i personally think that the the recent summit was an attempt to get and they try to two years ago in lisbon to find some kind of rationale to keep nato going to keep a reason for spending so much money on this alliance and i don't think they found

one that seems very hard to find one thank you very much a say john. wealthy british style.

really happening to the global economy. did full storage a few years. before going global and now it's pulling my old. log

in. to the road. choose your please take your stand. to. make your statement. split the words. such as you point is true among. the. lines in the motion to be soon which brightened if you move on someone from phones to print. these from stunts on t.v.

don't come. terror returned such a real drop the country is dropped by the force and by that since the us withdrawal was a wave of bomb attacks more than a hundred dead. now it's a surge of. syrian government statement that chemical weapons won't remove from its internal conflict create media scare stories of hype on whether stockpiles mine for the boy or a referendum. and here's the bigger ozone contagion is reaching its economic powerhouse germany after moody's lowered its outlook for the negative for a top rated member terry. up next to me here with the latest sport.

either that or to mark the headline. take to your image the sun sports wise. that stands in time for my champions are big two one in the russian family. american dream pacts with champions track and field sports of the. head of the london games. fighting it all literally each court reveals his boxing idols to see as they have a place for his next spot in moscow in september. so let's start with football where rubin had been stunned in their premier league season opener is that two time former russian champ lost two one in course and went into the match on the back of a confident to move victory over the meet in the russian super cup earlier this month but they found themselves trailing just before the break is you remember the sand blasted home from the edge of the box and they strike a mate it's

a great as it converted a penalty fifteen minutes into the second half to restart a cold one goal for being just minutes later also from the spot they couldn't find equaliser as cousins are for the two one victory. although we did make some mistakes which resulted in us conceded those two girls and it took quite enough for to get back into the match but i'm still happy about the level of commitment of our players still mistakes just unacceptable. in the meantime hundreds of phones turned up to great mates united on the visit of the first visit to china rooted in its main interest was in meeting up with former chelsea striker didier drogba and. now with shanghai showing on there was great interest in the progress of. the best place to gather at the club and the united manager so out of status and searching for more. same two person is on the go and.

we think of potential. other problems terms of bringing other players in. so we're not. whining about it so is doing nothing but trying to bring other players to the club . in other news brazilian midfielder looks set to join english premier league side chelsea the deal is believed to be worth around thirty nine million dollars but had a medical with the blues the contract is yet to be signed but for now the twenty year old player who is that part of the brazilian olympic squad is totally focused on the upcoming football tournament in london. now is this. i truly have confidence in my work i believe that if i go to chill c. it would be a dream it's a great european club but my focus now is only the olympics and i need to perform

well there and later if it happens literally go to chelsea i return to internet and i will do my job anyway. now with three days to go before the start of the summer games in london the olympic flame of great britain has reached a high city tennis. on and off tasking part acting as an olympic torch bearer the world number four passed the torch to and now the international tennis star venus williams why the three time olympic medal when it passed it to former england international footballer michael owen and i.o.c. executive board member sergei volkov also played a part in the procession. this is. movement of which he united the people of his different religion. different language it through sports through lympics the people always together this is fantastic unique power of. a splinter of

pressure on the russian a women's volleyball team a surrogate chinnock of a face with the challenge of bringing home their first gold since nineteen eighty eight. the women of the soviet union were well used to dominating competition at the net winning for gold from ninety six. the eight to nine hundred eighty eight but they've been deprived of the best spot on the podium since then unable to rise above second place in one thousand nine hundred two two thousand and two thousand and four the team finished outside the top four in the ensuing two thousand and eight games in beijing this year russia fielding one of the veteran teams in the games with an average age of twenty eight six players on the team also participated in either greece or in china the squad also monks the most physically imposing was seven players measuring taller than one hundred ninety centimeters cuba are sure to be amongst russia's main rivals the country taking the baton from the saudi union

by winning it all in barcelona atlanta and sydney two time gold medalist china and the star studded two thousand and eight winners brazil could also prove troublesome for the russians but the likes of thirty one year old you could syrian a gun of all will be banking on their big game experience when they arrive in london only to go in the middle of the vote was a weighty time world champions so we've played in pekin peak much to the full i participated in finals twice before we had a subpar outing in beijing so i think this is the perfect chance for us to win it all they see in a few other russian players have been there and done that which could serve as a game breaker in their opening preliminary round match against great britain the hosts along with turkey will be making their olympic debut in their july twenty ninth clash so a squad of seasoned veterans primed to bring russia back to its former glory as they see the country's first gold in twenty four years uganda gorski r.t.

. staying with the big flat six competition does not start until the third of august the american trucking through it's called is already in britain preparing for the games american athletes have traditionally dominated olympic track and field action so these huge expectation on these men and women as most of the reigning olympic and world champions will complete their spring to troll clements is due to run the opening leg in the men's four by one hundred meters relay race the twenty seven year old is still without another big medal but is pretty confident of success. around the first time in the sixty four win in the starling is really about for sixteen if you can help in the first season you pretty much can put your team in a good position and be in the drabble your team got to be confident in your thought and nor do i know you can. put the team in the best position and. you know that my team believe in me and being first in my gear. in the meantime jamaican

super springs are you saying bolt has made his way to madame tussauds in the british capital just in time for the olympics the fastest man on the planet has been recreated in wax and will stand next to him because it's such as jessica ennis and tom daley joined sporting greats past and present from. italy to ronald and david beckham. using gold as one of the most celebrated actually off it all for its current time and he has got five world championships three limping medals under a spell to be delighted to the name to happen now in the attraction but more importantly our guests have to question to see him so it came up again and again in our research that we currently do and he is now actually new traction i think he will be a perfect addition to what we have here already. finally boxing where heavyweight champ and vitali klitschko is due to defend his w.b.c.

title against german my no child here in moscow in september but in the meantime r.t. took the chance to ask the elder klitschko brother who he considers to be his idols of the ring. begin his chance to prove my boxing skills against a strong opponent strong as a boxer in my career there are four games so strong. against a strong. box who is. good boxing skills. i means so many so many punches in the fight saying for them for linux for great experience what i have. experienced gives me. for my future fight. personal opinion he was so one of the greatest fighter. ever

one of the strongest for the same as mohammed ali the same level as mike tyson let's lose. him huge fan of. sure or a learner and for me he was one of the best good movement good correction. great technique and. great fighter ever. like a high mentally like. mike tyson but. probably personally. unbeatable two greatest if you put it all together skills old walking skills. you have to feel that and decide right now is it more than to leave the sport. i hope i hope i find some. time point where right i point.

when i do it. make sure i know i'm forty and mostly young sportsman but anyway. my blood of war and. we were right a good performance inside flight and many young boys doesn't help or. to beat me many of them promise but i can do it. well that's all for me for today kate partridge well behaved so i signed with more sports news from around the globe for you good bye. well. it's technology innovation all the developments from

around russia we've dumped the future coverage.

the sky.