G8 summit: Global warming vs geopolitical cooling?

The G8 Summit this week, geared up to discuss global warming – but in contrast, it was "geopolitical cooling" alongside the widespread protests that made headlines. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s fiery broadside at US plans to deploy an anti missile defence system in Eastern Europe caused a stir. But is Putin following a international or domestic Russian agenda? Helen Seeney put that question to Duetsche Welle’s Moscow correspondent Bill Gasperini.

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Just how useful are G8 summits? What do they achieve? Are they worth the huge amounts of money paid out for security and infrastructure?  Two Network Europe correspondents have different views on the worthiness of the G8. 

French electors are going to the polls for the third time in less than two months to vote. The first round of the parliamentary elections is on Sunday. France’s new President, Nicolas Sarkozy, is hoping that his right wing UMP camp will win a majority, or else he will have to appoint a leftwing Prime Minister, who will then form a leftwing government. But opinion Polls indicate that’s very unlikely. Why? 

Twelve years ago, Dutch troops were supposed to protect the Muslims in Srebrenica, but the UN-declared safe haven was overrun by Bosnian Serbs in 1995. Some eight thousand Muslim men and boys were killed by their captors after the fall of the town, Now relatives of those who were massacred in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica twelve years ago are suing the Dutch state for compensation.