which unionists don t like because it, in effect, puts a border down the irish sea. now on bbc news, here s hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. the rupture in relations between most of europe and russia since vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine has left european governments scrambling to end their dependence on moscow s oil and gas. it turns out there was another arena in which europe had become dangerously dependent on russia space. without russian rockets and other space know how, europe s short term space plans are now in disarray. my guest isjosef aschbacher, director general of the european space agency. is europe destined to be an also ran in the space race? josef aschbacher, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you for having me. let s start where i started in that introduction your relationship with russia. it has exposed, has it not, the war with ukraine, the degree to which you ve had to sever ties with the russian space agency? it s exposed a d
are now in disarray. my guest isjosef aschbacher, director general of the european space agency. is europe destined to be an also ran in the space race? josef aschbacher, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. thank you for having me. let s start where i started in that introduction your relationship with russia. it has exposed, has it not, the war with ukraine, the degree to which you ve had to sever ties with the russian space agency? it s exposed a dangerous overreliance on cooperation with moscow? i mean, it is true that with the invasion of russia in ukraine, it was a wake up call for many of us in ukraine, it was a wake up call for many of us in the energy sector, in many other parts, that we suddenly have a war in front of our doors and also in space. and in space, what actually happened is exactly the same as in many other domains. the heads of states and heads of government of many european countries were encouraging everyone to embrace russia, to work with russia, get ru
brexit has been the great unmentionable so far in the selection. but tonight keir starmer called for closer ties with the eu. louisville just that and what can the party s social media campaigns tell us about the state of the race. good evening. welcome to newsnight, home to analysis and interviews. who would have imagined at the last election that the towering presence of brexit would hardly register as an issue half way through the next election campaign? it has not gone away as an issue, itjust seems to have been parked by all the main parties. ..for now. but tonight the labour leader, sir keir starmer, whose ming vase strategy started by saying as little as possible about britain s exit from the european union, has under the bbc s questioning given the fullest account of how a possible labour government would approach this thorny issue. we will be exploring that with the head of labour s pro european bloc, and the conservatives new approach to the election leaning in to d
Whether 70 years on, pakistan can claim to be a country at ease with itself. And the bongs of big ben why they will fall silent next for four years. Next week for four years. And coming up in sportsday on bbc news, Cristiano Ronaldo gets a five match ban for pushing the referee who sent him off against barcelona last night. Good evening. President trump has condemned the White Supremacists and neo nazis who took part in the weekends violent demonstrations in virginia. One woman died when a car was driven into a group of people who were protesting against the far right march in charlottesville. Donald trump has faced criticism for failing to speak out in the immediate aftermath of the attack. But this afternoon, he said racism was evil and those who caused violence in its name were criminals and thugs. 0ur North American editor jon sopel reports. Vacation suspended, the president Return To Washington this morning from his holiday to meet the director of the fbi and the Attorney General
by the fact the european space agency is a group i believe i m right in saying of 22 nations. 22 nations, yeah. ..dominated by the european union nations i think 19 of your members are eu nations and i think your biggest funder is the european commission. so, one of your big problems is that another key player in the agency is the united kingdom. well, it s brexited. it s no longer in the eu. that means it s semi detached from some of the programmes that are part of your remit. you ve got this massive bureaucratic problem. nasa and the us doesn t have to deal with that, china certainly doesn t have to deal with that, and you re never going to overcome that, are you? if you think that everything is gold that glitters on the other side of the ocean, then you re wrong, i m sorry to say, because nasa also has its own bureaucracy and timing. it s not so much that the us has no problems, it sjust that their problems aren t on the scale of yours when it comes to bureaucracy. china has