foreign policy friction looms over the french president's maiden visit to moscow for high level talks and debate. syria iran will be differences of opinion between france and russia to be ironed out and coming up i've got the details. of the sixteenth is set to end his papacy with his successor inheriting a catholic church rife with sexual abuse and corruption allegations. and as the saying goes you should know your enemy but both israeli and palestinian press restrictions are making generous work and knives increasingly difficult. to. live from our studios here in moscow you know with r.t.m.

character. tough talks are expected in moscow later on thursday as president. hosts french leader francois hollande divisions over syria and iran remain the key points of foreign policy discord. sean thomas is covering a lot made an visit to the russian capital. these two leaders are meeting to discuss many things including the trade relations and improving relations between the two countries but the main focus for russia specifically is international incident specifically iran and syria and what's happening in mali as well now while this is first visit to russia it is not the first meeting between the two leaders the two clashed earlier this summer when they were discussing syria in particular where the said that a precondition for any success in syria would be for bashar al assad to leave the country to be ousted. saying that this is not necessary and that actually the only

way for success in that country is diplomatic relations and to talk from all sides pointing to the situation in libya saying that there was military intervention in libya and there was the ousting of moammar gadhafi but the situation there is not stable currently and trying to not have a repeat of that situation in particularly on the subject of iran francois hollande backs e.u. sanctions aimed specifically at preventing iran from having any sort of a nuclear program. and saying that sanctions aren't efficient they don't really achieve their goals and actually has gone as far as to say that iran should have the right to have a nuclear program although it should be peaceful and it should have stronger oversight by the. differences of opinion there that are expected to be hashed out in these thursday meetings as well now on the subject of mali while russia does support the u.n.

and does support france being in mali for this particularly mission he has said in the past that it is the situation in policies in libya and syria that has allowed it to the destabilization of the situation in mali and so hopefully they will be discussing at that as well now one thing back january in. or you may remember there's been some tension between france and russia specifically gerard depardieu our famed actor who basically was given russian citizenship because he didn't want to pay the high taxes that were being proposed by france while lines of ministration so some tension there as well all of this to be sorted out some very interesting talks later on today from thomas there well as france continues to support the syrian rebels some analysts say there's no solution to the conflict as long as the militants feel they can fight on with foreign backing. this is just called free of politic we know this from for centuries ago international politics is the way. things happen it's not about the people so and if they really

wanted to help the syrian people they should have. sought a political settlement from the beginning and now we're entering august third year of the conflict and they continue to fuel this conflict by bringing weapons and money to certain part of the opposition and it's just getting worse and worse there are options to find a political settlement and bring some parts of the opposition that is willing to find a solution and discuss with the regime and get syria out of this is stronger but unfortunately unfortunately are some players on the international scene who say one thing and do something different if really really interested in finding a solution and stopping the bloodshed the first thing to do is just stop funding and stop drinking weapons beyond use and then it would be obliged to sit at the table if this is not this isn't made by the international players i don't see how

it's going to stop. pope benedict the sixteenth is set to retire later on thursday becoming the first pope to abdicate in six centuries so he wants to exit public life and remain hidden to the world believes his successor to be named next month to redeem the church's reputation following a string of child abuse and corruption allegations. reports now. he has received a rather walled warm standoff from the people as on thursday people have poured out onto this street set by the vatican on to st peter's square when the pope did his last drive by in the pope mobile of course a lot of people came to see that thousands upon thousands and then of course it's also it was also the when the cardinals have arrived in rome in order to prepare for the selection of the new pope and that is going to happen actually rather soon because unlike in previous times cardinals do not have to wait for certain period of humility after the recent poll but has died and basically that was one of the major changes that have been that the sixteenth has put forth before stepping down

but first you have to understand that this entire situation is not something that catholics are used to the last time this happened was six hundred years ago a lot of people are wondering exactly why it ended at the sixteenth has decided to resign and of course you have to remember the vatileaks scandals the recent scandals involving sex abuse committed by the catholic priests of course there are also accusations of the fact that the church was led by a man who is over eighty years old and of course a lot of people in the attic and are about the same age as the pope that again there is oxidation saying that people in this particular steer in the vatican really have been behind the times and they have in the light keeping out of with the changing world a lot of the experts that we have spoken to said that the catholic church now has completely lighted over the fact that there is a lot of a lot of a lot of people who do consider themselves christian but at the same time they choose to go through the voice they choose to have their own sex and of course you have you have to understand that there are also a lot of gays out there who do consider themselves christians and catholics all of

these are rather burning issues for the catholic church to consider a lot of experts again when we spoke to them said that this is something the cardinals will have to keep in mind when choosing the new pope no more exactly what kind of legacy pope benedict the sixteenth least i will kind of issues the church has to deal with here's my report it's the law is doing the job for pope. the sixteenth come friday he'll retire to seclusion and prayer while in the vatican there's a feeling the real work is only just beginning it's not just about selecting a new bishop of rome some say but the very future of the catholic church the catholic church is undergoing a very important crisis it is a crisis at two levels it is a government crisis and it is a crisis of the believers. in the last year or so the world was focused on the government crisis in the vatican to korea pope benedict was a pope who is

a great intellectual i think you're a theologian but he has not a strong hand to lead the victoria he has not the temperament of a governor so there was a lack of leadership which culminated in the great scandals of but the leaks far from the splendor of the sistine chapel a closer look at the recent events in the vatican to highlight disillusionment and frustration with the church once all about i distanced myself from the church when i became an adult when i started talking about what had been taught and was specially after all the scandals broke out in the catholic church and i realize that it doesn't represent my spirituality benedict the sixteenth may have been the first pope with a twitter account but many argue this measure alone was not strong enough in appealing to the masses and there will be no more tweets once pope benedict the sixteenth steps down now this is the age of transparency the age of the people the churches should be properly screened they'd be. considered sacred she went.

to great assets on the rebound now you see that it would be to be really the problem of the media they're really working on lisa's doing to change many things about the church for people of gabrielli of this inability to face up to and much less to punish those who may be responses. for tainting the image of the church is the deciding factor in abandoning catholicism. there's another scandal with a girl who disappeared in the vatican twenty years ago and they say they found her remains. police sort of leading the investigation here but instead of helping them . and on top of all those cases of pedophilia with this is just disgusting the list of controversial events involving catholic priests or vatican officials reads like a tabloid reports of sex abuse pedophilia accusations allegedly corruption and

possible ties with the mafia while the media especially in italy has been having a healed day with the scandals the vatican either stayed silent or rebuffed all accusations but those things may be looking rather grim for the seat of st peter's at a first glance there's still a chance the catholic church can make a comeback. with the church really splitting. but then came out strong be strong with a come to reform because. the power. of the church is the spiritual but in spite of that reality relations have left me wondering if the holy see has been blind the world is rapidly changing and that the catholic church has failed to keep up pace sure it has seen

a fair number of ups and downs as well as scandal in two thousand year long history but there is opinion that perhaps taking on pleasant development sweeping it under the carpet and filling it with people going for secrecy is a tradition better left in the past in rome. well david lorenzo director of a group called the survivors network of those abused by priests doubts the new pope will bring much change the vatican. i will say that clearly the sexual abuse crisis during his. entire pontificate has probably weighed heavy on his mind he said some nice words but there hasn't been a lot of really true action we've heard apologies but what is the real action we've had we know of many many bishops who have covered up these crimes and not only it covered it up but they tried to cover their tracks he told he required that all of us cases go through him so he's well aware of all of these abuse cases and yet he's

done nothing to stop it or nothing to stop the bishops from covering it up for the next pope i have i don't have a lot of hope these cardinals were all appointed by pope benedict and his predecessor john paul the second and they're just the same they're they're all cookie cutter guys and they're going to do the same thing that those two but what could be done is one they could be open and honest and reveal all the personnel files of all the credibly accused priests they could publish on their website the names. of all the credibly accused priests not just those that are living but also those are dead. later in the program we report on the latest developments in the case of the u.s. army private bradley manning accused of hiding sensitive leaks as washington someone's a navy seal. there

are twelve cities in the united states in which half of the people with hiv aids lives within a year of my dad no sense of he turned over six to two percent of those patients i diagnosed with this is a problem that frankly is substantially preventable but was not the big elephant in the room and nobody wanted to talk about they were really good public health campaigns that people were really focused on this problem you certainly should be able have a lot less. suffering. wealthy british. market . find out what's really happening to the global economy with.

the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. welcome back israel has closed off the main supply route into gaza a response to recent rocket fire from the strip the first since november conflict

and the tensions rise in the region finding their work times. affected by the ongoing standoff. and those trying to spread light on the situation coming under pressure from both sides of the divide. november last year israel and gaza are at war and in the middle of it a gaza journalist reporting he for you to an israeli newspaper it was the last major story some rami would write for the hebrew priests a month later gaza's reading hamas party banned palestinian journalists from working with his radio media accusing it of being hostile tel aviv refuses to recognize hamas and regards it as a terrorist organization and a magnet for mother i do not understand this decision unfortunately i feel that our struggle will have less meaning if we do not speak to the israeli media and make them here on message sami feels he's on a personal crusade to help both sides better understand each other when his nine

year old daughter was hit by an israeli missile it was his israeli editors who arranged for her to be bought across the border and treated and it was in the newspapers that he published his anger and anguish over israel's bombardment of gaza israeli to how to me and israel is using the media in its war against us in this war journalists are under attack they want to kill all our words and reports that prove that there were no crimes in gaza is that their father has a half in the attack is coming from both sides of the order of israeli journalists today are banned from working long hours are dying but ironically it's not a must but tel aviv that stops them deeming it too dangerous for them to report from there in gaza is a very scary place for israeli of some a masked people came to my palestinian cameramen in gaza they gave him twenty five thousand dollars and we told him that the next time that the jewish is going to enter gaza please tell us where it's going to be a route with a car we're going to kidnap both of you and take you take him and it really is you

overheard him over is among a handful of his wage earners who'd regularly work in gaza but after his government made it illegal six years ago his station employed gaza based palestinian journalists now because of hamas is ruling even that has become impossible. very problematic decision from us for a lot of other decisions that the hamas made i think that the problem of normalization in. connecting trying working with the israeli media the result is that the only reports of even gaza that are those hamas sanctions are not particularly promising in one of the recent human rights watch report that accuses hamas of harassing assaulting an arbitrarily detaining journalists israel too has come under fire for deliberately targeting reporters and media houses affiliated to him us during his last war gaza israel fell twenty places in the two thousand and thirteen world press freedom index due to the actions of its army in the

palestinian territories these two journalists are where sami because he speaks of mice he engages his radio audiences. because you spend so much time in palestinian areas with few israelis days to trade the media blackout does little to shed light on the fate and future of ordinary gazans it also perpetuate stereotypes on both sides of the border that have done nothing but breed mistrust and hatred policy on our team television. after are holding our army private bradley manning in jail for more than one thousand days without him being convicted washington is finally released some documents on the case the twenty five year old faces numerous charges including aiding the enemy for the actually leaking the thousands of u.s. diplomatic cables to wiki leaks prosecutors are likely to call the navy seal involved in the raid that killed osama bin laden to prove al qaeda benefited from manning's leaks or journalistic kevin stoner says it's puny attempt to shift the

focus. the fear here i think is that you would be sensationalizing the proceedings and it would not it would make it nearly impossible for manning to have a fair trial it just because we'd now be talking about terrorism terrorism and terrorism and get away from the fact that he is charged with the offense of releasing the information and they don't have to show that terrorists received and this will continue the obama administration is ushered in this era of of pursuing whistleblowers and making certain that they are prosecuted and they go after them zealously in a manner that they do not go after other individuals that's been the thing i think is the most particularly striking is you can have private contractors you engage in weapons smuggling like like the blackwater executives or you can have bankers that engage in financial fraud and they are pursued as jealously as whistleblowers iran has left the door open for more nuclear negotiations with international mediators

with no solution following talks in kazakhstan the sides decided to meet again in april tehran held discussions as a turning point for the well powerless offer to ease sanctions and now the country to keep some of its highly enriched uranium well global strategy analyst henry man lefferts says despite the small step forward this distant lack of any real progress . the critical issue for the iranians and i think this is where they perceived a slight and i stress slight movement on the u.s. side is in the recognition of their rights their sovereign and their treaty base rights to enrich uranium what that does is not solve the problem but it allows a process to go forward of negotiations and suddenly go she ations over how much the united states and other key parties are going to allow iran to exercise its rights as iran continues. to to go forward and speak to a program in the rest of its in the west of its ways that it's amassing missing

real power in the middle east the united states and particularly its allies israel and saudi arabia will be increasingly uncomfortable with that and i don't know for how long they will be constrained both those allies and their friends here in washington constrained by this these these negotiations because these negotiations are not really intended to resolve the problem it may be something that is delayed for another year but i think we are if we don't change our policy in some fundamentally ways we're on a trajectory toward toward war with iran. now while it's take a look at some other news from around the world the leader of italy's five star movement which came third in the country's genuine election has ruled out a coalition with the center left describing the head of the democratic party pierre the usual sonnie as a dead man talking the former comedian claimed he would not support any new government all political parties participated in the election race with none of them gaining enough seats to govern leaving the country in

a political deadlock italian public demonstrated a strong n.t. of sturdy sentiment during the election even prime minister monti's party with a minority of votes in both the lower house and the senate. the libyan government is the un to lift an arms embargo imposed during the twenty seven uprising that brought down market after his regime plans were announced by the prime minister as tripoli desperately seeks to rearm its military which has been struggling to take control of the country since the fall of gadhafi militias containing many former rebels hold on to the power on the ground across libya's vast territories. during tough economic times the luxury of restaurants and dining out often gives way to convenience foods and a recent survey released in the u.k. shows that's the case for many struggling families with children in particular suffering from a poor diet ati's andrew father investigates. my many households in the u.k.

are feeling the pinch at the moment but it's starting to have an impact on children's health because a survey this week says that if you get away from that the lunch box of a child at school you're likely to find this junk food it is the cheap option of like the traditional value to talk more about this is brian back from the royal college of pediatrics and child health thanks for joining us the results of this from the children's future us it's alarming isn't it and certainly is because the problem of a thread like banters although it might fill you up it doesn't do you any good so there's about a thousand calories or you just the book in the park in the first that some person some of the things the child has that for the lunch as opposed to having a healthy nutritious mom's going to truly struggle to do well is a field that if you do find them a book on the map or derek is being a problem bigger than the capacity to solve it that's what we have a new career an obesity epidemic so it's incredibly important even if farms are

feeling the pinch to try to forgive the children stuff like this so much time and if you eat something like this you really are just going to struggle to be a decent performance in school and you believe that the government is doing enough to address this problem but i think over the last few years we saw the introduction of nutritional standards in schools in england a much helped a lot because it meant our child was guaranteed of having the right kind of says that britain is the right kind of reminiscent of the right kind of food if they were having a school lunch and actually school lunch is the healthy option it is better than the privileged one fortunately over the last few years the standards have been brought back up and a lot of the new schools the academy schools are not covered by those need to make sure that all schools have and they're also planning issues out there because we're at a school here in london and right next to the school is a take away restaurant that's roy i mean books the road is temptation the wrong kind of ten years before but nothing wrong with you occasionally trying to be real of course but the reality is that too many kids are eating the wrong kinds of food too often and it's very difficult to resist but if on every street corner. you have

to study for the first drop three so we've called to your school in the forty's ok brian thank you for your time well the department of education has commissioned a report into trying to improve standards in schools it is currently digesting the information from that report and we won't know exactly what action will be taken for a little bit more time but what we do know is that many kids were not be facing an appetising lunch ada in many schools under a farmer. under. now dozens of designers have taken up the call to sketch out their vision of what the president of the team that putin's new though should look like and on our website we've picked the most i catch in designs for you you can head there and choose the one you think best suits the russian beat up. on the u.s. has officially labeled an environmental activist group struggling to protect whales in the pacific as pirates find out what that now means for the so-called and the way it is online. coming up

a shorter hair on our team he traveled to russia as far north to enjoy the staggering beauty of the northern lights stay with us. wealthy british style sun. the time to. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds

a report on our. i've got a lot of messages from our t.v. viewers who are very concerned about drones living under skynet is not the american way and many are concerned about their safety and privacy congressman ted poe has introduced a bill that may address some people's concerns about drones this bill is the preserving american privacy act which clear fice how the government can use these drugs so basically the act adds bureaucracy to drone usage in order to restrict it in theory protecting people's privacy. the thing is that one side is arguing for drone usage and the other side for bureaucratic restricted drone usage but what about not using drones to spy on americans ever no drones should be used on american territory period and overseas they seem to breed more terrorists than they kill saying that there are only two sides to this issue for drones and well kind for drones is absurd congressman paul if you would please be so kind as to change

the name of your legislation to the drones are an acceptable form of tyranny act i would be very grateful to you sir but that's just my opinion. not everyone can say they've been on top of the world's bugs if you're in russia you could have better chance than most there are only eight countries on the planet that stretch above the arctic circle and this is one of them. if you go to the royal sport you can see the most spectacular light show on a.