macedonia first and give you an idea what's happening there. this lingering low pressure system and waves of other low pressure system have caused days of severe weather in southern europeenching waves led to widespread flooding in macedonia and could for flooding defenses wednesday and winds damaged a structure in pompeii, a world heritage site and the rain will persist into the weekend. you can see the damage and devastation that comes from the consistent persistent rainfall. we see here the low pressure system in the western mediterranean. the influence a lot larger as it brings all the moisture further east and into the balkans and italian peninsula. we are not only seeing rainfall but also strong thunderstorms popping up with the system. gusts up to 120 kilometers an hour possible with snow up to 70 centimeters. we can't rule out isolated tornadoes and flooding is a problem and will continue to be a problem through the day. we are seeing a cold behind the low and snow in moscow and through thursday. in north america. new york and new england states see flurries through the day as low pressure system is departing from the area but still driving cold air. another low

of this flooding greece macedonia, bulgaria, all dealing with the major water problems here because of this weather pattern that we have seen in the southern portions of europe. and we are going to see even more rainfall as we continue on into tuesday, another low pressure system has developed in the western portions of the mediterranean. and that combination of cold air wrapping around and then bringing in the collision with the warm air, that's when it's going to really pick up steam and bring rain into the italian peninsula and also into the balkan peninsula. we're looking at areas of up to 80 millimeters of rainfall in the next 72 hours. that may not sound particularly impressive but when you already have land that's saturated with water and rivers having problems when it comes to the rain this type of amount over this time period could be a serious issue. it will drop really quickly in some of these red-shaded areas where the rain is dropping really quickly and that could be a problem. on top of that we're dealing with severe weather, strong gusts and strong thunderstorms with the heavy rainfall especially on the western coast of the balkan and italian

with the situation in ukraine, moldova belarus and in some of the countries of south eastern europe macedonia, et cetera, et cetera, you can see what enormous source of stability that was which enabled us to take the next step which was to join the european union as the political and economic integration of europe. so that all three were linked and all three were i think the most important thing that happened on the foreign policy front, and we all owe him for that. >> and let me say that trip that you're talking about first lady hillary clinton gave a speech at radio free europe, and that was a very important signal. and i have to say i have no greater pleasure than being able to announce the secession of the czech republic to nato in prague, and president havel was there. it was really amazing. i think we have to -- >> thank you both. >> one more quick question. my follow-up on the last question but i wonder how you would explain the success of the czech republic from the velvet revolution to develop a thriving democracy, a dynamic economy to join the eu? is a something in the spirit of the