it comes just a day after a gunman killed ten people in a suspected racially motivated terror attack at a supermarket in the city of buffalo. now on bbc news, dateline. hello and welcome to the programme, which brings together the foreign correspondents who write, blog and broadcast for audiences back home from the dateline london. it s been a convention busting week, this one a queen s speech delivered for the first time in 70 years by a royal other than the queen. two countries strictly neutral for 80 years, preparing to take sides. in northern ireland, a party in favour of reuniting the island of ireland topped the poll for the first time in the centuries since ireland was partitioned. to discuss all that and more, in the studio are brian 0 connell, former bureau chief in london for the irish broadcaster rte, eunice goes, portuguese journalist and university lecturer and newly created british citizen, and jeffrey kofman, who s been both a war correspondent and news anc
hello and welcome to the programme that brings together the foreign journalists who write, blog and broadcast to audiences back home from the dateline london. it s been a convention busting week, this one a queen s speech delivered for the first time in 70 years by a royal other than the queen. two countries strictly neutral for 80 years, preparing to take sides. in northern ireland, a party in favour of reuniting the island of ireland topped the poll for the first time in the centuries since ireland was partitioned. to discuss all that and more, in the studio are brian o connell, former bureau chief in london for the irish broadcaster rte, eunice goes, portuguesejournalist and university lecturer and newly created british citizen, and jeffrey kofman, who s been both a war correspondent and news anchor in canada and the united states. good to have you back with us. jeffrey, let s start with nato expansion. sweden and finland, finland s president, sauli niinisto, said on f
it is the route to autocracy, where you get to the pointl where you still have people around you but you pick - who you want, because they re reflecting your own views. - and so, his view of the world i mean, somebody obviously. didn t say to him, i hang on a minute. if you do that and you say. too many yes men and women. i mean, it s that s not complicated. i and, you know, that s what s happened in this case. - another interesting thing is that finland s border. with russia is, what?, 12,1,300 kilometres? | and the kremlin spokesman said the other day that they were - going to take what was it? strategic, strategic, military and technical- measures, which presumably means putting a lot- of weapons along the border, as they did with ukraine. but ijust wonder| what he s got left that ll cover 1,300 kilometres. given the losses the russians
i mean, it s that s not complicated. and, you know, that s what s happened in this case. - the other interesting| thing is that finland s border with russia is, what? 12,1,300 kilometers? and the kremlin spokesman said i the other day that they were going to take what was it strategic, strategic, i military and technical measures, - which presumably means putting a lot of weapons along the border, as they did with ukraine. - but ijust wonder. what he s got left. that ll cover 1,300 kilometers. given the losses the russians are sustaining at the moment. i wonder a couple of other points, you mentioned sacrifices the finns may be making. and sweden obviously still hasn t formally decided whether it sjoining. but they published a report on friday which was suggesting that there were good arguments for the swedish foreign minister saying that actually she felt it would make the risk of war less likely, because it raised the stakes
on to other countries further away. there are volunteers here from across europe. let s grab a quick word from robert, from the netherlands. tell us why you came. we are here with some friends and they were asking us to help bring people to families in the netherlands. that is a long way away. 12,1,300 kilometres. we are waiting for two more people and we will drive back. what could they expect when they arrive? these are families and they have families with space to give them temporary place to live. is it a long term option? no idea but in the netherlands they can stay for two years at least and work, so there is no visas necessary.