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>> and now "bbc world news." >> explosions or salvation? europe's leaders prepare for a summit to save the euro. the technology that could keep aircraft flying even in the worst volcanic ash clouds. welcome to "bbc world news." i'm david eades. also in the program. a is for america and asia as sesame street heads for pakistan. and the two manchester clubs get ready for a new future which they are not happy about. hello. the french president warns of

an explosion. the president of the euro zone is criticizing treatment of fellow euro countries. build as a summit to determine the survival of the single currency. there are meetings taking place left, right and center building on to the meeting in brussels. tim geithner is meeting the new italian prime minister holding a news conference now, and weaver going to listen in. we're just getting the sound sorted out for the news conference. timothy geithner whose been on something of a whirlwind tour urging speed of action and

thoroughness of action in reassuring the markets of taking the necessary steps particularly for the european markets being ready to intervene and help where necessary. and the colonel of the franco german plan, a plan which would impose much stricter and semi automatic financial sanctions on those economies that don't stick or attempt to stick or stay close to sticking to the budgetary criteria laid out for them as members of the single currency. many see that as the fundamental weakness of the euro project which despite having a growth and stability pact from the start, it's never been fully and correctly implemented. that goes as well for germany and france as it does for greece, spain, portugal, some of the countries which are at

the moment facing the most difficulty. here's the press conference. >> i will definitely have a number of discussions with him over the next few months. we are planning a visit to washington, the white house, and this will be another opportunity to exchange our opinions and i do hope it's going to be a very profitable relationship. >> well, you put it on the sense that it's not coming over that easy in terms of the translation there from the prime minister and timothy geithner. this is one element in the

buildup. mr. monty will be headed to brussels shortly and mr. geithner home, i guess. in the meantime members of the european people's party grouping in the european parliament are gathering, trying to forge a common standpoint, a common position to take with them up to brussels. and christian phrasier, our correspondent, is there. >> they will be the most decided days in the euro zone's short history. but if 11th hour negotiations are still to be had, they will be had here. timothy excite they are in is here at the end of a grand tour of europe. and was meeting the spanish prime minister whose government will be backing far-reaching changes to the liz bin treating. on the evening of their arrival the french and german sent a letter to the president.

it's a blue print to a new treaty with mandatory penalties for those who break the policy and committing all governments to strict rules, and also the british prime minister has vowed he will block any changes that threaten the city of london and will go their own deal drafting a treaty outside the existing treaty. the stakes could not be higher. they said predicting the end of the euro is not inconceivable and the man who drew up the license ban treaty said maybe greece will have to consider leaving the euro zone altogether. >> what are the best chance of the greek people of the nation to get out of the situation by

now? is it to use -- [inaudible] russian currency or is it to -- the current currency? >> it is tough to see this as anything but a battle of the big european powers in but each country will exact its own price. "bbc news." >> well christian frazier is there. the business perspective here. the markets have been bubbling at the moment. we're waiting to see which way they will go, all building up to the weekend. >> the markets have been riding relatively well on the hopes that these summits and meetings, and there's a lot of them today that they will deliver the big bazookas to hopefully see an end to this debt crisis. asian markets were down today

more off the back of disappointing machinery orders out of japan. we're seeing from that particular reading. markets remain relatively higher. but very cautious. the meeting we saw with that package there we just saw, very, very important to the likes of merkel and sarkozy, because germany said it's not going to back down from ratifying the treaty. they want a tough policy and so they can basically punish certain euro zone countries if they overspend. but trying to convince some of these conservative euro politicians to go along those lines is tough. that's what they hope to do before they arrive in brussels. more on world business report in about 20 minutes, also mixed messages out of china. saying yes, we support europe

but downgraded france. >> thank you. obviously throughout the course of today and the next couple of days, we will be following this very intently indeed and bring you some of the language of the fiscal compact. and bringing you that and other terms throughout the course of our output here on "bbc world news." so do stay with us. >> to russia as vladimir putin said most russians do not a repeat of the political unrest that's broken out in neighboring countries such as ukraine, kyrgyzstan and others. since the russian power opposition groups said there was widespread fraud in the elections. our correspondent explains the significance of vladimir putin's remarks. >> it's a mixture of carrot and

stick, on one hand he holds out the possibility of dialogue but then states opposition are in the minority and says if people abide by the law, they should be given the right to express their opinion but if someone breaks the law then the police should enforce the law and says some of the protesters who are on the streets pursue selfish political aims but the majority in russia do not want the protests to develop like neighboring states saying chaos and blames hillary clinton who had dismissed the parliamentary election as neither free nor fair and says she was too quick to do that and that her

comments gave signal to opposition members and said there was a foreign state who was trying to influence the political situation in russia. so quite firmly he's taken the line that it's the west to blame for stirring things up. >> yes. certainly come out fighting. and sometimes it's difficult press to gauge real views. >> it is. just a couple of interesting papers. not many interesting pictures today, but an interesting headline that says police has beaten all records and opposition making the point that nearly 1,000 people, protesters have been arrested which is a record, the paper says, and this is the government newspaper. here you see a picture of a computer and it's a very interesting interview with a police general about how social networks, something has to be done about social networks and that they are a potential

threat, he says, to the foundation of society. now some human rights campaigners reading that this morning say that will signal a crackdown of social next here in russia. >> it's not often you can say this, is it? manchester united out of the champions league quite so early. >> hasn't happened since 2005. but yes, a bet of a shock of their defeat. didn't see that coming. we were more worried about manchester city in the friendly elite. disappointing on the night tharnede star players didn't really perform and called out. the captain of the man u. hobbled out with a knee injury. he could be out for a few weeks. that is another blow and the others couldn't produce the performance they were required. but it was symptom atic of

their campaign, disappointing and weak. so they are in the euroleague and not the champion's league. their reaction -- >> i think it's a big disappointment. out in the first round. it's -- like they say in french. we feel very sad tonight. but we deserved to go out, because [inaudible] and we -- against man antiquea. i think it's not about tonight. it's about the whole competition. we throw away that. >> to deal with disappointment. it's -- produces motivation many times, so -- feel this

way, but we have to go with it. >> mmm. well, that's one side of manchester crying in their beer. and then there's the other side crying in their beer. >> and the premiere leaders we've been talking about them because they have been playing fantastic football yet for the champions league, they suffered inconsistencies as well. now there was a competition mathematically that they had to win. and hope -- as it turns out natalie won so despite 10 points manchester city were knocked out in the fist round. but they were pretty philosophical about what happened. here's what he had to say. >> i think usually with 10 points, all the teams go to --

always -- 99%. by this group was not enough. i think the one-point more than us, and that had to go through. i think that we did some mistake, maybe. but with 10 points, usually you can go to the second stage. >> so you think we can talk about the change in the guard of late? because the italians have done really well this year. >> and the italians have not done so well in the champions' league. so this year you could make that argument again. so the friendly league, chelsea struggled. afterwards ironically, so there's going to be a little bit of a shift. but we don't think we can read too much into that. >> heavy fighting has been taking place in mogadishu.

we're not too sure that the stage the degree of casualties, but let's get some more on this now. and will ross, our east africa correspondent joins us from nairobi. can you give us a sense of how bad this is? it looks pretty fierce. >> yes, we understand the fighting began at around dawn and lasted for about four hours. as you say, difficult to get casualty numbers at the moment. but it was certainly some of the fiercest fighting that's taken place for several months, probably since august when most of al-shabab left the capital of mogadishu. now the government forces are saying al she bab attacked the government and african union peacekeeping missions and the government and a.u. troops then went on the offensive and we

understand the area is now calm and in the hands of the government and they said six al-shabab fighters were killed and there were some concerns because the troops were useding heavy artillery and there was concerns that would put the civilians in great danger, but they said the area was actually not heavily populated and there weren't heavy civilian casualties, but it's hard to verify this information. >> there was a bit of a spike again in violence. i don't get the sense that we have had this day in and day out recently. >> well, there has been a change of tactic by al-shabab. as i said most of the fighters left the capital in august and the governments were celebrating saying al-shabab was being defeated. but we now know many of the

leaders didn't leave. they simply melted into the population and during the latest a few days ago when a young man was questioned by the police. he was pulled out of the vehicle and as soon as he got back in the car he detonated a bomb and several policemen and civilians died. but this is the first fighting between the different sides that's been sustained and fierce since august. >> thank you, very much. and thank you for watching "bbc world news" with me, david eades. coming up in a moment, we have new technology for you, and it may mean volcanic ash disruption becomes a thing of the past. a court in america has sentenced the former governor of illinois rod blagojevich 14 years in prison for corruption. that includes trying to sell president obama's old senate

seat. the judge says the harm wasn't measured in the value of money but in the erosion of government trust and he was arrested thee years ago and denied any wrong doing but in the hearing said he had only himself to blame and the judge said his apology came too late. >> as crimes go trying to sell a u.s. senate seat, particularly the one held by barack obama is very audacious indeed, but the opportunity came up when barack obama was successfully elected president at the end of 2008. now under the rules thatment the illinois governor at the time rod blagojevich had the opportunity to appoint the next senator for the remaining period for the next two years or so until that seat came up for election itself. that was last year in the midterm elections, so that's exactly what he did and that's what got him into trouble along

with several other charges which are now convictions in which he used his office to foote his campaign funds and help various businesses and people to expedite what was their official business. >> now china has executed a female head of a gang land prostitution ring. she was convicted in 2010 of luring hundreds of women to beauty as long as or hotels and then forcing them into prostitution. she and her sister seesed the women's identity cards and invariably ruined their reputations. >> and 2 1/2 years in prison, joe gordon was accused of posting online excerpts from a banned byeography of the king. thyland does have strict laws regarding material considered

insulting to the royal family. >> and using a computer to switch on the giant light institution known as the world's biggest christmas tree. it's in italy and not actually a tree but a display of lights laid out across the mountainside and many of the town people watched the video via video link as he was able to watch this from the comfort of the vatican. just to say if you want more on any of the stories you're seeing in the bulletin hang on to "bbc world news." or go to www.bbc.com/news. and we have more regarding the euro crisis, so do take a moment if you've got one. hello, i'm david eades. this is "bbc world news" and these are the headlines. crucial talks for euro leaders,

can merkel and sarkozy convince the rest of the euro zone that a debt crisis deal is going to be good for everyone? as protesters call for vladimir put on the quit, he warns the dangers of political unrest are to be disputed elsewhere. now in the battle between human and nature there are times nature seems to win hands down. take the volcanic ash. airlines were left counting a huge cost. scientists are fighting back claiming they have a device to prevent that. >> when this icelandic volcano went on a tear, it looked like the end of the world and by the passengers affected by a week of canceled flights, it felt like it, too.

so imagine if there was a way to monitor eruptions and keep flying? europe's most active volcanos. this has been buzzing over it for weeks collecting ash cloud data. >> this is a situation any pilot could face. knowing there's volcanic activity in the region but not knowing how dense the ash clouds are, this canness density and help the pilot navigate through them. >> it's being funded by easy jet and the technology is being investigated. it would look like this. >> at the moment no aircraft has a means for detecting ash in flight. we have a flight but nothing onboard the aircraft. so it's a big change.

it's almost like the change that happened when we had weather radar. >> we had now we know the levels of ash where they were extremely low. had we had this technology on the aircraft i'm sure 90% of the airlines would have been open. >> iceland's reporting intense activity at an even bigger volcano. no one knows when it will erupt but they know it will. at mount etna, sicily. >> relations between washington and islamabad are in something of a crisis at the moment. but children in pakistan are about to be introduced to an american favorite, a locally produced version of sesame street. the u.s. aid has committed $10 million to the project over the years. ♪

>> meet the cast of pakistan's sesame street. elmo is here. but he is surrounded by new friends. a pakistani village has been created on set full of local characterize and local concerns. here is rally, star of the show. cricket mad, energetic and curious. she looks to kirum for help, daughter of the school village teacher, the 12-year-old who plays kiram says the puppets are like family. >> i am telling them a lot of stuff, and they are learning from me. >> and do you think the children that watch the show will learn a lot? >> they will learn a lot and get more educated and go to

school. >> the programs show hopes to strong female lead will win over the schools in society. >> in generally, in schools they have the girls take a step back but in seeing ronny, she is the captain of the cricket team and not afraid to ask questions. i hope children will relate to that and take courage and start to see that. >> the theater company behind this production know about courage. they have been bombed by militants in the past but want a brighter future for pakistan's children. >> in the scene being rehersed here now rani is asking where does the sun go at night? the programming to answer a lot of questions children ask and provide basic language and math skills. the americans have made a very big investment in all this

hoping it will also teach lessons in tolerance. >> make sense of international news at bbc.com/news. >> funding was made possible by f new york, stowe, vermont, and holu newman's own 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? >> baseball baseball baseball was presented by kcet los was presented by kcet los angeles.