tonight on "worldfocus" -- the g-8 wraps up with world leaders divided about how to fix the global economy and the environment. the president then meets with the pope and heads for africa. in anticipation of the president's trip, residents in ghana are thrilled to host the first official visit by the first african-american president. in the west bank, israeli checkpoints, they can turn a two-hour drive into an all-day wait. now, israel has removed 140 of them. tonight, a look at what that means for palestinian businesses and israeli security. and on our weekly roundtable tonight, nikita khrushchev's granddaughter, you won't believe what she had to say about russia's dmitry medvedev. from the world's leading reporters and analysts, this is what is happening from around the world. this is "worldfocus." made possible, in part, by the following funders -- good evening. i'm martin savidge. as leaders of the world's major industrialized countries and at their summit meeting in italy, president obama challenged his counterparts to do much more to help develop nations to deal with hunger and he succeeded. getting them to commit to $20 billion to the effort. the president told a news conference how he understood hunger in very personal terms. saying that he had learned lessons from family members still living in kenya. his father, you'll recall, was born there. he said, they, themselves, are not going hungry but live in villages where hunger is real. the president at the summit and beyond, that's our "lead focus" tonight. >> reporter: president obama again took the lead in pushing the nation's at the g-8 summit towards agreement. today he made a personal plea to help feed the world's poor. the major industrialized countries committed $20 billion to a new food security initiative to help the world's most vulnerable nations. that's more than the previously discussed figure of $15 billion. the president said today's pledge was on top of previous promises. although, some news reports suggested otherwise. noting that the global economic crisis had hit the developing world especially hard, president obama said the time to act had come. many poor countries had experienced food riots. >> we've got 100 million people who dropped into further dire poverty as a consequence of this recession. we estimate that a billion people are hungry around the globe. and so wealthier nations have a moral oshgation as well as a national security interest in providing assistance. >> reporter: today's food agreement is seen as a victory for obama. his scorecard for the rest of the summit is mixed. a deal on climate change was obama's other major goal. he was able to convince the nations to agree to a limit on a rise in the world's temperature. the major industrialized nations also agree to cut their carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050. still, he couldn't convince the wider group to go along with that target for reducing emissions. opposition was led by the so-called g-5, a group of important regional players that includes brazil, china, india, mexico and south africa. obama acknowledged the growing importance of such countries. >> for us to think we can somehow deal with some of these global challenges in the absence of major powers, like china, india and brazil, seems to me wrongheaded. >> reporter: afterwards, the president met in rome with pope benedict xvi. the two greeted each other warmly. this despite their differences over issues like stem cell research and abortion. now for more on the president's meeting with the pope today we are joined by the reverend drew christiansen. editor in chief of the national catholic weekly magazine published by the jesuits. father, good to be with us. >> good to be with you, martin. >> let's talk about the significance of this meeting. was there real importance to it or was it a courtesy call on the part of the president? >> i think it's an important meeting for two world leaders in which mutually esteem one another. the pope has reached out to president obama from the day after his election. in the president's move, he called him prior to the -- or just after the election. i think it was a really remarkable thing. and the president i think has very special esteem for the pope and for the catholic church and the good it does around the world and would like to see in this meeting whether they can collaborate more closely on a host of world issues. >> throughout a few occasions in his papacy, the pope has been caught up in controversy. and since you met with members of the administration before today's meeting with the pope, were they concerned at all about that? did it form, in any way, what this meeting was going to be? >> they explained that the president himself explained that this looked like a meeting that are heads of government and the head of state or the head of government beve common interests and common concerns and you also have some differences but also that he respected the holy father as the leader of 1.2 billion catholics around the world who had enormous influence for good in the world and he wanted to -- he wanted to show that he values the catholic contribution to world peace, justice and development. >> the president is not catholic, but you said that he shows a great understanding of what it is to be catholic. >> yes, he showed a lot of understanding in our meeting with him earlier -- last week, rather about catholic social teaching. >> where does that come from, do you think? >> well, i think it comes as his days as a community organizer in chicago. he began at the time when cardinal was leading the bishop's effort on the peace pastoral of 1993 which double the nuclear weapon's policy and i think from there, he began to really -- he certainly knew the economic teaching and perhaps the organizing chicago where catholics were motivated and catholics were teaching to let him read it but he certainly said to him, himself, it had a great impression on him and it helped form his social attitudes. >> earlier this week then just as this g-8 summit was getting under waythe pope issued what some might say is a pretty radical thinking on the global : economy here. i presume it was time to come out just as these world leaders were gathering on that very subject. >> well, i don't think it was originally timed for this event. i think people had anticipated for an anniversary in '07. it took this long to get it ready and i think this was the right time to deliver it and it had more punch as a result. some of the teaching is rather radical. he talks about an economy of gratuity or grace and of communion. and i think by that he means he thinks business ought to keep in mind all of the stakeholders that are involved in the business and they're flourishing as well as the flourishing of the stockholders. >> father christiansen, thank you very much. >> thank you, martin. good to be here. from italy, president obama to africa to the western african nation of ghana, which was chosen because it has become as "the new york times" described it, a model of democratic development and rule of law in a region that struggles with both. it's obama's first trip to sub-saharan african as president. and as we hear from yvonne from al jazeera english the people of ghana are viewing the one-day visit as something of a homecoming. >> reporter: the message reads "akwaaba," meaning welcome in akan, one of ghana's main languages. the country is preparing for the arrival of u.s. president barack obama and the first lady, michelle. but millions of africans will be watching a native son whose father was born in kenya returning home. ghanians are ecstatic about the visit. >> i feel great. and i also feel him the being a black african, a black person to be a president of herkis great. >> i'm elated because he's a black -- the first black american president. in africa. and no other country than ghana. so i'm happy, i'm happy that one of our own is visiting us. >> reporter: ghana's former president explains why president obama is choosing to visit ghana over many other african countries. >> he's coming to ghana as a beacon of good governance of democratic practice and that he wants to come here as to encourage other countries in africa to go in the direction of ghana. >> reporter: in 2008 millions of ghanians voted in a bid in a bitterly president election followed by a runoff. not the sort of postelection violence as accustomed to seeing in africa. the ruling party gracefully conceded defeat to the opposition. west africa's abdance of natural resources and the recent discovery of oil here in ghana is also thought to be a factor behind president obama's trip. and another worry for washington, the growing influence of islamic extremist groups including al qaeda in the horn of africa. when president obama takes to conference center on saturday many will be expecting to hear about a new direction in u.s. foreign policy towards africa, especially on issues such as aid, which many still have set back to the continent and the unfair trade policies which disadvantage african businesses and producers. they're the sort of issues that many ordinary africans are concerned about, along with what president obama can do to end an endemic corruption. an issue he recently addressed with an interview with the website, allafrica.com. >> for many years we made excuses about corruption or poor governance, that this was somehow the consequences of neo colonialism or the west has been oppressive or racism. i'm not a bit -- i'm not a believer in excuses. >> reporter: president obama wants to create a relationship based on greater and more equal partnership with africa in return for better governance. so the continent can realize the extraordinary potential he believes it holds. yvonne, al jazeera, ghana. president obama plans to visit a hospital and if the weather holds fly by helicopter to appoint on the coast where slaves were shipped from ghana. china's dealing with a devastating earthquake. it happened in the southwest yunnane province. although the size was moderate, 6.0, the damage was widespread. china's media said 18,000 buildings collapsed and another 75,000 were damaged. it said more than 400,000 people have been driven from their homes. one person was reported killed and 325 were injured. and in western china today, muslim uighurs defied a ban on attending friday prayers as ethnic tensions remain high in xinjiang province. the mosques were opened after residents demanded that they be allowed in. a small group of uighurs began a protest march but police quickly moved in to break them off. chinese authorities now say more than 180 people were killed last weekend in between rioting uighurs and the han chinese, the country's majority ethnic group. as american forces begin to scale back in iraq, there is growing concern whether that country can hold itself together, especially in northern iraq, where ethnic tensions and violence are increasing. the kurdish region which is rich in oil and gas has taken a bold step toward greater autonomy, at least according to "the new york times." with little notice and almost no public debate, the paper reports, iraq's kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region. a step that has alarmed iraqi and american officials who fear the move poses a new threat to the country's unity. it goes on to say that american diplomatic officials have said the potential with a confrontation with the kurds has emerged as a threat as worrisome to iraq's fate as the remnants of the insurgency. elsewhere in the middle east, israel's national security adviser saying that israel's willing to split the golden heights with syria, but not withdraw completely. israel captured that territory from syria in the 1967 middle east war. syria maintains that peace will be possible, only if israel withdraws entirely. but they -- the israeli official who is quoted by al harare newspaper says israel cannot fully withdraw because it needs the golden heights for strategic and military reasons as well as for water, landscape and wine, as he put it. with discussion under way on how to revive the peace process, israel has started to make movement easier in the west bank by opening or easing checkpoints and road blocks. the latest move came this week when israel said that a major bridge connecting the west bank to jordan would now be opened 24 hours a day to accommodate more an commerciaactivity. the checkpoints were put in place to stop terrorism but they have also made movement extremely difficult, as we hear in this report by matthew kalman of israel's medialine. >> reporter: palestinian cars waiting for security inspection at an israeli checkpoint near qalqilya in the west bank and a favorite route for palestinian suicide bombers on their way to attack israelis. there are more than 600 road blocks scattered throughout the area. that means dozens of vehicles can be backed up for hours just trying to get from one palestinian town to another. sometimes wasting a whole working day. judeh jamal runs the holy land company for agricultural marketing in investment. he says it's almost impossible to predict when his farmers can deliver their produce. >> you cannot imagine, you cannot predict. we have to stay in the cube without doing anything. and instead of you know taking your products, we have to be patient and take it in 12 hours, for example. >> reporter: under pressure from the american government, israel says it has removed 140 obstacles in the last year. making it easier for palestinians to move around. >> we have crossings in which every week we arrest someone, we stop someone carrying an explosive belt on his body or grenades or trying to smuggle bullets. we are really trying to make it as easy as possible. each decision, whether to keep a road block or to remove it, it actually only goes to with one thing which is the security of limitations. >> reporter: here at the main entrance to jericho, palestinian drivers used to have to wait anything up to a couple of hours while israeli soldiers reach the checkpoint. their paperwork and the checkpoint has been removed and they can drive straight through the west bank. >> we have to wait an hour, half an hour sometimes, sometimes two hours. sometimes more. you can just turn around and you are trapped inside until they change their mind so it's good that it is opened. >> reporter: odeh shehadeh, he is the chief executive of the wassel group. a major palestinian logistics company. he says the removal of the road blocks is just a bluff. >> what happened within the last two weeks that they took over some of the checkpoints but not totally. i mean, not for the whole time. for instance the one in the north. it's been back now within two weeks it's been back. >> reporter: most palestinians agree that the only long-term solution is a complete withdrawal of israeli forces. this is matthew kalman reporting from the medialine from jericho in the west bank. from africa tonight a follow-up on yesterday's story about strict muslim sharia law in somalia. today it was reported that insurgents had beheaded seven people accused of renouncing islam or for spying for the u.s.-backed transitional government. it was described as the largest mass execution since the islamists were driven from power in somalia 2 1/2 years ago. the rights group amnesty international says the execution sent a broader pattern of torture and unlawful killings by the al shabaab militia. on this week's roundtable discussion, we are going to depart from our usual format and talk about a single topic of thh russia. that relationship evolved this week as the two countries agreed to deeper cuts in their nuclear arsenals. and as president obama met with his russian counterpart dmitry medvedev and with prime minister vladimir putin. we're joined tonight by two russian experts. james hogue. and nina khrushcheva. associate professor at international affairs at the news school here in new york and granddaughter of the late-soviet premier nikita khrushchev. welcome to the two of you. let's begin with sort of assessing with how this summit went this week between the president and the russian leadership there. nina, how do you think it went? >> i think it went very well. there was a whole range of policy issues that two leaders agreed on. and even the meeting with the prime minister, now prime minister vladimir putin and barack obama went well. i mean there was no contest. >> a lot of people were looking at that, right? that was the crucial meeting. >> i thought it was a crucial meeting and it was very civil. it was very cordial. barack obama made a lot of effort to backtrack his earlier comment that vladimir putin is one foot in the cold war in the past. and another foot in the present. he said that, yes, he's -- >> is that a mistake? >> i thought it was a mistake. i really thought that that comment was a mistake and it was a strange one to be put forward right before the meeting. but nonetheless, i don't think that it affected much and the meeting went and both leaders were very cordial. although i don't think that they are going to, you know, call each other on holidays and weekends. >> jim, what do you think? >> well, i think that the one foot statement wasn't a -- statement but not particularly importan because both parties had decided that they wanted to have a constructive summit, at least from perception if not in a lot of substance. >> this didn't seem to be that there was a plan and they executed that. >> exactly. and on both sides, they gave speeches that sort of courted the way towards a good summit. but in reality except for about three things, all of which were relatively easy to get, a somewhat of a reduction in nuclear arms which russia really needs. an assumption of military to military relations. except on a few things like this, the big issues, the ones where we have profound differences were left for another day. >> uh-huh. nina, let me ask you this. when we talk about a family relationship, we might say who wears the pants in the family? when it comes to the russian leadership, who is actually in control? >> well, it's a question that everybody's asking and you know my perception and very unoriginal in this that vladimir putin is the one wearing the pants. and dmitry medvedev is a very nice first lady. and as a first lady, he's very ceremonial. he's very cordial. >> he dresses well. >> he dresses well. he looks very put-together. he speaks well. so he's a good spirit lady for russia. only appropriate that we have a leader and then a man who is executing that position. >> and jim, do you think that putin's just sort of positioning himself to run again? >> i don't know about that. let's just take the present. he doesn't need to run again. he is in charge. if you look at what happened again before the summit, all the major decisions and the tricky ones, like conflict in georgia and whether we're going to go for the w.t.o. membership and not made by putin and made by medvedev. at the summit, the breakfast meeting between obama and putin was far more substantive than anything else that occurred, in terms of a discussion. and obama got the treat of his life in getting a one-hour lecture from putin on all their interests and thier criticisms and complaints. so i think there's no question about who's in -- also i was told the story once that when the two of them go to international meetings together, putin does all of the talking and medvedev is a notetaker. i think that tells you all. >> i want to ask you, this nina. after the collapse of the soviet union, it seemed that there was a great lovefest between the united states and russia. and especially between our peoples. all that seems to have gone to the wayside now. and that, i don't know, russians seem disenchanted with the u.s. is that an accurate perception? why is that? >> i think it is an accurate perception. and you know, remember that before '91 when the soviet union collapsed, it was a closed country. so the only way we, the soviets, knew about the united states and the west was from -- ready from europe. it was jammed by the soviets. so the whole idea in the soviet union was that if the state, if the authorities tell you that something's horrible, it must be good. because you never trust your government. and so it must have been good. and you know when freedoms came out, all of a sudden everybody was embracing them. but then freedom is a very difficult thing to do. it's a very difficult choice. it's a lot of personal responsibility. and russians are not used to that. russians really -- i mean the whole vertical follower that we discussed last time and when you have kremlin down, is something that has been part of russian political system. not just the soviets here but for centuries. and i don't think that russia has outgrown that. and, therefore, you know, the united states that does all of the -- a lot of talking. that you know, freedoms come with a lot of -- with a lot of problems as well. and russians don't want to have those problems. >> jim, you think it's just a matter that we realize we're very different people? >> in 1990's decade from the russian point of view was viewed as a disastrous era in which they became very vulnerable and were greatly weakened. they had something akin to our great depression in the '30s and they felt that we took advantage of that. that we started to dismiss them as a power, expanded nato and a few other things. putin comes in and backed by high oil prices, he brings the stability and security to russia like it had not known for some time. he's a very popular man. that may begin to recede as this economic recession takes hold but he's been very popular. he made the decision that they were getting nowhere to try and integrate with the west and it wasn't even really in their interest. that they should be viewed as a separate world power. akin to the united states. and china. and they started a campaign, not only of becoming more separate, but using -- oil. so you have anti-americanism in russia at a very high level and primarily because of the campaign that putin launched. and the russian view that we took advantage of them for about a decade. >> nina, i want to finish with something that we talked about a few days ago. raise a lot of eyebrows, the issue of race. president obama in russia. do you continuing had an impact? and if so, how did it have an impact? >> i don't think so. i was watching the summit very closely. and i think that barack obama was taken much for what he really was, as the president of the united states. i don't think if he were white and blue-eyed, it would have had -- it would have been a different reaction. probably if he were dick cheney, which would represent a much more familiar to the more russian power. which is strong, strong man, then the reaction could have been different. i mean as you know henry kissinger is the most popular politician than obama now. >> you're also saying it's not an issue so much of black and white per se. >> it's the issue of otherness. but i think that lukewarm reception or the public reception of barack obama was not because he was other, he was black or anything else. it was because he was the american president. talkative american president. and russians are very nonidealistic about their politics. nina khrushcheva. thank you, both. >> thank you. finally tonight, one last story we like this week that we wanted to squeeze in before we go. it's from australia from the town of bundanon. bundi for short. not far from sydney. they were concerned about this, bottled water and the carbon footprint that the battling and then the transportation of it left behind so the town decided to hold the vote on beming the first town in australia to ban the sale of bottled water. the community meeting was held. some 400 people showed up. and they voted with just two people against the idea. now they'll sale reusable glass bottles that people can use to get their own water on tap. not only that, water fountains, that's right, water fountains will be installed in town. imagine that. and on that note, that's "worldfocus" for this friday evening and for the week. if you missed any of the week's shows, you can also find them on tap at our website. that's worldfocus.org. i'm martin savidge in new york. as always, we thank you very much for joining us. we'll look for you back here on monday and anytime on the web. until then, have a great weekend. "worldfocus" is made possible, in part, by the following funders -- -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

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