>> tonightn "worldfocus" -- high-level talks,the u.s. secretary of defense, the u.s. national security adviser d e specl envoy george mitcll all head to israel next week. reportedly to talk about settlements aniran. wildfires bze across outhern europe.

thousandshave been forced to flee and at least six firefighters have ed. last-call, in britain, they are an iconic lol watering hole that changes in social bits, not to mention t econom are fcing pubs to close at the rate of52 a week. amecans aren't t only ones tting the road this mmer. tonight we take youo rsia to find out why driving has become so dead and what's being done to put the brakes on a naonal problem. >>from the world's leading reporters andanalys, here is what's happeningrom around the rld. this is "worfocus." made possible, in part, by the folling funders -- > good eveni. i'mmartin savid. tonight 're going to look ahead to next week and in o of the oba adminisation's biggest forumolicy change, h tget israel to golong with washington' plans for the middle east. sml cracks have emerged in the

relationship between the united states and isrl, mostlyover the ise of israeli settlements on the west bank so next week, the obama adminisation is putting iael frnt and center, sending three gh-ranking offials there -- secretar of dense rbert gates, national secuty adviser jim jones a special envoy george mitchell what t do about ir is also expected tbe high on t agenda. "worldfocus" producer has our "lead focus" tonight. >> rorter: the settlement issue will be front an center wh george mitchell arrives the region suay for talks betweensraelis and palestinis. just this week tensions betwe the united ates and isra have risen over the plan buding of some 20 apartments for jews in predomintly arab eastjerusalem. oof ben is editor-at-large at rael's hireaatnewspaper. >> what we hear from sources is there has beeprogress in tryinto, not resoe the issue,t least fding some way to push it ase so thatt will

not be -- for negottions betweenhe israelis and the alestinians. >> o subject that israel and the united states he greater agreent on is the need to halt iran's suspectednuclear weapons program. the u.s. secretary defense secretary robets gate and national securitydviser jim joes will both numberrg nnext weweek,k,anexweek,resumab coordite theheir approach to iran. aloof en, says it is significant for a couple o reasons. >> o it is an opportuni for the govement to fix the most -- some i disagreements wit the oba administration. mostpecifically on the part of iran, we ve sent in recent weeks the tter cooperatio and understandi between israel and the obama admistration on how to deal with iran othe nature of the iranianthreats. and onexample of the stability of the nation is t'46 down of the israeli rhetori

vis-a-vis iran. >> reporter: speaking in argeina called iran the bigges sponsor of worldterror. >> theiggest problem of our region is of cour iran. ifhe iranians will aieve nuclear capability, we will see a azy nuclear arms race in our gion. and it's t threat not only for israel, it's a threat f entire world. >> how to respond to ran's nuclear ogram is again making news. this wee u.s. and israeli officials have boarded a test a planned missile defense shield for israel. for mo on an, we're joine by rdesman for the strategi and internional studiesn washington, d.c. thank you for coming back. >> pleasure. >> we haven't hea a lot lately about the possibility that israel mig attack iranian nuclear sites. sohere downing the israelis are in thinking about that? >> it's cerinly a constant eoccupation. it'sebated at the political

level. it's debated in israeli think-tanks and ctainly it's subjt of planning by the israeli defense rces. and whi it may not have bee visible, israels sent submarines through thesuez canal a a gesture. it had egyptian permission do that and the rean that's importanis there are some indications thatsrael is armingts submarines with nuclear armed missil. >> wel, the obama administration deed it represent a policy change. vice president biden said recently, the u.swould not stand the way of an israeli attack on iran. how significant thawas? >> we, it seems to haveeen xa serious misstatement. because t chairman of t joint chiefs had said just th opposite. the secrety of defense had said theposite. t secretary of ate had said the opposite. and i tnk theroblem is -- whatthe vice president may have been saying i that the nited states cant block an israeli atta on iran. it cannly discourage it.

but we've sent mixed signals and giventhe sort of impettus at israehas to atack. at can be very dangerous >> and ere was a rert recently in the london times" that the director of themassoud had met wi saudi officials and that the saudi his grand perm toilgz use their airspace for any attack on iraq. do you thinkhat's really likely >> to put bluntly wouldn't regard anything in "t london times" as bein as anything as an irrespoible tabloid journal. th is not the newspaper of 20 yearsago. it's made up one defen story after another. the saudis have denied this. the flight patterns almost certainly would mon a somewhat different diection. and sau arabia in any cse is notoing to confront a full-scale israe attack. this crdible? no. >> an presumably wuldespond to any atcks. so what kind ofesponses would you expect to see? >> it has a ve limited,

relatively ineffective air force. its radar systems, its air defense stems are in general, very old virtual obsolete. it hasome modern russian missiles which are clustered ound its most-important points. but they're very short nge. it might be able to get some kind ofttrition o an oncomi israeli attk, but the fact is it would probably d more to sperse what it hashan to try to successfly defend. anthony cordesman thank you veryuch for joining us today. >> thank you. >> and now to afghanistan, where itat least two more americ servicemen were killed today in a july attack. july has been the deadliest mth for u.s. and na forces in the afgn war. day's attack raiseshe death tollor american troops this month in afghistan to at least 37.

from europe today, there re dramatic pictures othe wildfires that had bn sweeping through several mediterranean counies. in southern ain, fires thrtened several neighborhoods forcing several hundred residentses to flee their homes. and thenn the french island of corsica, fireghters struggled to contain fires the that have already consumed thousads of acres. the fires are bng fueled by record heat wa across southn europe also from europe, there was moreroubling economic ne toda the british government reports that britain's ecomy sanked by nearl 1% ithe second arter of 2009. worsehanconomists were expecting. still, that is better tha the first three months of e year when itfell nearly 2.5%. ben king of ithas this report. >> reporter:or one copany, at least the recessi is denitely over. like most businesses,he wind screenpecialist au glass was hit by the acute ownturn at the start of the year. bu they've bounced back. hiring more th 0 peoplever

the past fmonths. >> well, it's been an interesting six months fors afterairly slow startf the ear, which reflectedhat was happening in the general ecomy and articularly the tomotive trade. we've had a ally much better, muc healthier few monthsin the summer. stimulated by a lot of the work that we've been doing on our brand. >> repter: their sales' pitch is recession-friendly, fix the crack in your wind screen early, they say, and you don't have to eplace the whole thing lat on. but those less adapted tohard timesaven't fared so wel the enomic output fell by near 3.8%. lot worse an economists had been pecting. the average estimateas -- but is still a bigmprovement on the first quarter of the year wch output fell 2.4%. the worst fige since 1958. ecomists werexpecting a better number tis qrter because business survey suggesting improving confidenc and sing orders. >> it may just that the ls

betweethe improving surveys in t official data are takin a little bit longer, but concern mt be that there is a more fundamentaloss of momentum. i think whater scenario materializes, growth is going to be anemic anthe recovy is going toeairly bumpy so we're absolutely not through theorst ofthis. >> reporter: today's figure will maklife diffilt for the chancellor his budget this ar was based on a full cost that the economy would shnk by 3.5% by 2009. criticsaid it was optimistic at the type. this data makesit look even more so. the road ahead is now unceain. optimistic pundits still tnk gwth could return laterhis year, but after oday's news, it oks a little less likely. >> that was bening of itn. we umight think wi all of the d economic news these ds, a lot opeople would be seeking solace the old-fashioned way at their neighborhood pub. but even the bar business hasn't

been immune to the fallout of global economic process. nina fromtn report its last-call forany at the reveer english institutio. >> reporter: e pubused to be the corner stone of british life. butow are becoming familiar site. 6,000 brewies have closed in the last ceury. and today more d news for pubgoe. the rate of closures is the fastesthat the uk has seen since pub numbers have been tracked. in 2006, two pubs were closing eve week. in 2007, that number rse to 27. and now the uk is closing 52 pubs ery week. the total number o pubs in this country has dropp by nearly 205,000 in thelast 12 mths to a totalf around 355,000. this says an awful lo about incomes, jo insecuty and financial insecurity in britain's householdst the

moment. the reason they're not gng to the pubis not cause they dn't like the pub, it's becausehey fl they ne to hang on to their cash. >> but back in the 19th century it was theub where people went when times were tough. backin the mid1900s there was one on every street corner. thendustrial v brought together large numbe of me in factories who would worknd drink togeth. it as the pub whre they preferred to be. >> our homesere kind of ld and dark and you wouldn'teally end time there unles you were eating d seping. and in the last years or s if you thinkabout the 1920s withi a space of ten yea weot centra heing, electricity and things like radio a home. sthe home stuffad beco ch more of a pla whre you wouldpend your leisure time. >> repter: and why pubs were popular in t 20th centy, for decades they remaed a male prerve. as two pubgoers today told us. >> if you go back to the '60s, '70s whene were young and our

girlfriendsould not dre going into a pub on tir own and ordering a drink. they would always wt or have to b with a male to in, which is you know contradictory when you think aut the way that the modn world works. reporter: up until t 1970s, in many ps unaompanied women weren't allowedto order over a pint. it was a sin that wom were probably known as prostitutes but now pubs a female-iendly places. in fact, many have changed beyond al reognition. pubs and winegoers will compete for space in thes highstreets and tse are ples for women too. you can hav a glass of chardonnay, cha to your friends, or even order a bite to eat d it's these pub the on that have diversied into food and provi a vertical drinking ve president th drinng, that are doing wel >> pubs themselves have change if there going to compete because society's tastes

ha changed. un people are drinking less ber than the used to be. people wt to go to places with their children and so the old image of this sor of beer-oented, male-oriented pubyou ow we have to move on from that. reporter: community style bs have been in decli for over a century. so shou we be worried that a few more are closing? pubs ve always mirrored site' needs. these days drinkingt home is cheaper so thoseubs that will survive are those that offer more than a pint. >>ain techey of itn. trning to latn america the deposed prident of honduras, zell wrmanuel zelaya. why wherhe was surrounded by mob reporters anrotesters. sa it will arrest him if he ters honduras without permsion and has oder the people off the streets here in the border. ul rell the former leader's

retu returned -- >> translato i ask that all of my countryme who want toeet me at the border be allowed me do so. the mitary shouldalk to the people of honduras. >> for more honduras yocan visit ouwebsite to hear from "worldfocus's" own peter eisner. peter spent many yearsas a correspondt in central amica. just go to wldfocus.org. it isow time for our friday round nabil whic we look back at so of the ek's top stories. answering se questions of yours, on submed by twitter. and one moreop take want to hear about,ecretary of ate's hillary clion's trip to asia. the war in afghanistan as caalties mount so of our

allies and raising qestions about w the war is bei fought. and nally take a closer look at viceresident joe den's trip to ukrne and geoia. and justhat was he doing there? we areoined once aga by dan rather t former lotime anor of the cbs "evening ws" and by ian bremmer,the presidentf the politic research and csulting firm euras group. nice to have both of you back. >> anks good to be back. >> stt with ghanistan. ore american casualties today. thiis the deadliest mont the war has bee going on now for nearly eight years. and i think the questi that many americans are askg, just whe is it going? >> nody knows. and thatincludes the psident d his top advisers. you hav to see it as one battlefield, afghanian and pakistan. we're engaged, we the united states, mostly on one portion of tattlefield in ghanistan, t you must see this as afghanistan and pakista as one soar as the battle to achie ur goals there. >> een most amicans to see us fighting in one plac and that is afghanistan. >> and that is were we are

mostly> made very important point here that the talibannd their allies, including al aeda, are fighting a traditional guerrill warbased on t mayo model, which i when the enemy strong, retreat.

when the ene gets rung out, harass. en the enemy gets weak, atck. so the marines who i thnk have done a outstanding job hel province. they're very well trained. theyut the emphis more on soft power than on firepower, but they're fed with the situatio kbiep they get strong, the emy disappears. anytime they ge strong or isated in a smaller unit, they get attack. >> buthen does this r become a political liabili for the president? >> rig now, it is a political liability. it's his war. he made it so. that is during thecampaign. he preached the gosl of -- de-emphasize iraq, emphasize in. it's his war to w or loe. h just doesn't know h to win it. >> i think it's not a polical libility yet because h top ten iorities are all domestic d they will be and that will get the air time as long asthe recessn is as deep as it presentlyis a also until theu.s. ts the big 1,000 killed in afghanistan,

not at 100 t. and fnkly i know that part of theback of the envepe number of how long ges thinks that he can continueto go in afghastan is before they hit those helines. >> all righi want to mo onto secretary state, hillary inton, her trip to asia. she began th trip b saying the united states s not going tofocus on north korea. she sort of made that equation ther like a spoiled chi getting too much atteion. then spen the rest of the trip talking about north korea. what goes onhere? and does at do us any good in this relationship? >> think t. i'm surety secretary of state would argue otherwise. t north korea is an extremely definite place to get any handle on at all. and by the way things have developedhis meeting in asia about north rea, i think that the north koreans walk out the winners at least in short and medium term. >> did sretary of state clinton not expect acss so well this journ? >> i think s's had a difficult time over the last few months, frankly. she theinjury. d the ran policy has gone

oba's way but not so much ers. that's been commented on. and now north koa. look, these are difficult foreign policy problems. he bush administration didn do very well. obama'sot either. and hilly clinton getting goed into it by t north oreans, calling her, says sort of betwe a schoohild and a -- the onlyob clearly tat you would wt to have in north korea i being a speechwriter for kim ong-il. >> any. >> you know notng else that y would want to do. >> the free rgn to criticize anybody in the west and cll them ridulous names >> and back there. >>nd oneore thing to keep i minthe background of this is kijong-il is ill, very ill from all report that they have a successor in place, one ohis sons. but it makesit very, vry difficult to do any business at all with the nth koreans. >> at do th want to b left alone ding this period? no, well, they want to be left alone in termsf the power play in that part. buthey want to fail as a power in theirregion. and they're very determined. thy're veryasmarand very difcult. and he madehe pont, that secretary of state just h a

difficult time, notust with theorth koreans, but rit across theboard. itas not en a goo past six months forher. raises the questio of holong she wil stay? i'm n predicting she won't ay the full obama rm but it raises the uestion. >> let's mention real quickly. we had vice president joe biden. he was in the former soviet republiukraine and georgia. what was he doing there. >> the united stes has been tryi. hillary clintotalked about it. at was a rather successfu moment forer when she m with russianoreign minister. she said that she wanted to reset the relationship between the united stat and russia. but the meetings that obama had in moscowwere, a best, miling. theeeting with medvedev went well. >> a flowup to that. >> it's a bit of followup to that because the united stat is still committed to its relatnship with georgia and ukraine and t russians see it as a zero sum me. 1?$7 will not get nato out at anyte. because the eopeans will top

it is frohappening. but theydoant to show. want to show th the u.s. is still actually committeto theseuys on the ground >> dan,you said that ukaine's the key to russia. >> none could surve. and that's part of r problem. part of --no doubt what was in the heavy background of joe biden's ip the. and ma one other pot, and that is i agree that i think that the trip didot go wel, the president's trip to russia. what we do't kn yet is whether any scret agreements any meadia minds, the russian, i believe said to him, isten, we have helped you in ghanistan, we've lped you time and te again, we're not getting anytng for it. l we get isrouble for it. andthat's right at the core of the continuing problem of u.s./ssia relations. we'll have to least leave it there. dan rather,ianbremmer, thank you both. >> good to be wth wro. >> you thank you. for more on afgnistan, you can watch dan rather's port

"t rd on imam beeb" on the cable network hdet. n russia, at leas20 people have been kille another ne injured in a crash betwe a bus and a gasolin nker. the accident hppened in the sohern russia city o rosdonovan. footage t scene shows reue worrs removing the injured. officialbelieve the tanker truck veered into the bus. any issue of traffic deat in rssia is a seous o. theecent rert by t organition where economic cooperation and developmt named russi as the wot in traffic fatalities among 30 countries surveyed. as our partn abc australia reports,ussian officials are hoping that a graphic new ad campaign will mak a ifference. >> repter: evgeni uck is retning to the road in moscow where his close friend nilai

wa killed in 2007 the 22-year-old was racing another r,pparently reachi speedsf up to 160 kileters an hour when it all went horriblwrong. >> he didn't see the pked car. he crashed into i it'sxactly he. >> reporter: the car he'deen racing so crashed and its two occupants died as wellp. those thre killed in just one accident were among more than 33,000eported deathsn russia' roads in 2007. a recent study for e orgazation for economic cooperation an development has found that among its 30-mber cotries, russias the worst for road aths. driving exrts say there are many reaso for the apalling atistics. one i the of the road. they may be the butt of jokes websites butormer parliamentarian and te head of the group, called the movent of russian motorists, victor mel

ken says they are no lughing matter >> translator: if u drive througrussia, youwill see that oy about % to 10% of roadare up to modern standards. >> reporter: another reaso cited is tt driving lawshave been too x and e fines too low. the government has be toughening up the laws and increasg fines. targing key areas sh as speeding and drink driving. the authoriti havelso tried to shock drive into changing the ways. a series o confronting tvds have been made, but they've rarel hit theublic ey with theajor state-run stations reportedly rfusing to airhem bcause they we too brutal. russian motorng expert say at to bring aut real change to the country's driving culture and to save many morelives, the government has to do mo than tighten the las. italso has to ensure that the police properly enforce them. one of the major problems, experts say, has been

corption. with officers being bribed to turn a blind eye to those breaki the law or trying to extra money from ivers who have doneothing wrong. the traffic police force they argue, needs an overhaul. translator: when the road police are unprofessional, when there's bn badly corrupted the problem of sorting out this mess with their help is like extinguishina fire with petrol. >>eporter: evgeni fls that channg russia's driving cultur will be slow and painful as many more sufferhe fate of his friend. ott, "lateline." >> you are out on t road this weekend, we hopethat you and your loved ones staysafe. at's "worldfocus" for a friday ght. rememb, you can always catch "worldfocus" onlin anytime at worfocus.org. we hopyou have a goo weekend and we'll look for youack here on monday. until then, ha a good night. > "worldfocus" is me possible, in part, by the follo funders --

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