the book. today on our t.v. rolling out the red carpet for the world's geo political heavy hitters as g eight foreign ministers meet in washington but we're not as interested in their official agenda so much as what's actually being discussed behind closed doors will tell you what they might be deciding and how it could affect you. and what was once counted as a major step toward international cooperation may soon be dead in the water literally scientists are planning on sinking the international space station on the bottom of the ocean so we'll multinational collaboration go down with the station will explore. plus internet privacy advocates may have won the battle over sopa and

people legislation but the war over cyber rights is far from over tell you about the latest bills that are aimed at your computer freedoms. it's wednesday april eleventh four pm in washington d.c. and christine you're watching r t. well as always it's a big day here in washington foreign ministers from each of the group of eight countries are here meeting at the blair house to be to begin setting the agenda for the annual g. eight summit taking place in camp david and a little more than a month from now countries include the united states russia britain canada france germany italy and japan and the expenses house on some of the world's biggest geopolitical issues from the violence in syria the economic crisis in the eurozone and of course some of those concerns about iran's nuclear program. a north korea's

planned launch of a rocket which some say is disguised as a missile test or counting yang's as a miss putting a satellite into orbit so all of these are problems that are expected to be discussed they will most likely be on the public agenda for next month's summit but with such important leaders all together in one place we want to talk today about some of those things that are a little less in the limelight some of the potential backroom deals that may be up for discussion since politics after all at the end of the day is more about money and power than anything else are you correspondent liz wahl is live for us now with a great sound of some of those lesser known but still important items that could be central to syria liz let's talk about what is what else you think might be talked about well that's right kristie well we know what is on the public agenda it's expected that they're going to be talking about syria especially in the wake of recent events doesn't look like a resolution is possible anytime soon doesn't look like either side is going to abide by the terms of that cease fire but of course that is what is on the public

agenda but it's more than likely that they're going to be talking a lot more than what is on that agenda let me tell you christiane i would love to be a fly on the wall a few streets down here at that blair house to hear what really is being talked about behind closed doors but what's on everybody's mind these days is the economy and it's hard to imagine that eight of the world's most powerful leaders are going to get together and not discuss the economy but christine wanted to take a moment to talk about what this group really is the g. eight they are the eight world's the world's most powerful and richest countries and so this is the g. eight not the g. twenty so right off the bat were leaving out countries like india like china like brazil and these are emerging economies that have been that are playing an increasingly more significant role in the world stage but are struggling to be on the same level as these countries that are traditionally and historically more powerful but we are living in a. and a changing world. but also on its take

a look at the policy that this group has promoted and passed and if you take a look at their track record austerity is something that they have promoted if you remember the widespread protests that erupted in greece people taking it to the streets protesting the very policies that this group was pushing through saying that these pushing through us gerrity measures was contributing to high unemployment rates even dragging on the recession so. a lot of controversy not everybody is on board with the policy is that the g eight push is saying that countries that are not part of this elite exclusive exclusive group it's not in the best interest of everybody and even of the average citizens within these countries certainly we remember some of the negotiating that was going on to deal with greece as you mentioned and one of the most outspoken voices to help deal with that was of course german chancellor angela merkel germany of course in the room here in the

right a lot of people say that some of these policies of austerity really do benefit some of the more powerful countries as opposed to some of those lesser emerging ones it's not of course just the economy there are conflicts brewing in the middle east certainly last year at this time the war in iraq winding down now the talk has already started about the next two years and what it will take about a drawdown in afghanistan talk a little bit about not all of these countries that are there today are involved directly in the wars but certainly it does behoove them all the sort of be on the same page in terms of what happens going forward talk a little bit about that that's another thing i wanted to bring another thing that this group has pushed its funding these wars abroad funding the war in afghanistan funding the war in iraq. today here we are ten years later not a clear victory trillions and trillions of dollars pumped into this war massive amounts. loss of lives on both sides so here we are today very

vulnerable very unstable situations in both countries so today many people are wondering if these wars were worth it and so as it goes on for c.n.n. politics and what they say is to follow the money and and that in politics that's what it's about it's about money and it's about staying on top and it's really our case that it is about spreading goodwill and democracy and poverty stricken places like africa and if you can recall kristie in the controversy surrounding the venue for this event just a couple not too long ago it was announced originally it was supposed to this event was supposed to the g. eight summit was placed in chicago president obama's hometown but very abruptly and very suddenly they announce that they're switching at the venue to camp david in maryland not too far away from here

a very private secluded area. well we don't know for sure but there's a lot of speculation that it's because of the plans there were massive protests planned on the doorstep of the g. eight summit some are speculating as to whether or not the reason for the change of venue is to avoid these protests might not look the best for president obama have these widespread protests going outside of this very high profile summit especially in times of the election season yeah i think those are really good points chicago certainly a lot easier to get close to the venue i know i covered g eight back when it was in georgia it was in sea island and all the protests were in savannah which was about an hour and a half away and no matter what the protest will always happen but it is oftentimes i think it's an important point a question of how close they are to some of these world leaders actually meeting making these big decisions it's an important subject to talk about not just what's on the public agenda but what else is out there are to correspondent was wall. now

there are some examples of various countries across the geo political spectrum coming together for a common goal a common mission perhaps one of the most tangible examples is the international space station now we've got a video from just a few weeks ago of the automated transfer vehicle an unmanned cargo spacecraft docking to the space station check this out. st peter's. and the eighty three delivered water oxygen food and clothing to the crew and i'm not talking about a few souvenirs two hundred twenty pounds of oxygen six hundred twenty eight pounds of water pretty incredible but alas all good things must come to an end and there are reports out there that the funding for the international space station will be cut as soon as four years from now space on arms or project manager is here in studio to talk about these changing tides in space and let's talk a little bit about kind of what's going on with this program of course it's

supposed to be overtaken by commercial venues and you know they've also talked about letting this international space station fall to the bottom of the ocean at the end of its life i think in twenty twenty seven what do you tell the kids i mean you can't go to any museum in the country where there's not you know air and space museum where there's not a model of this international places where you tell these kids that this is just a relic from the past we have this high screen to be here again it's we have this belief in america of a solution build something you should toss it away but i don't really think anyone serious wants the taurus this permanent home and space into the ocean it's just too much of a as you say a wonderful example of cooperation be we just starting to use it you talked about opening the doors to commercial mail companies have a company a lot of people now have companies that are doing things on the station so we're just beginning to get the utilization out of the station and there's no finer

example of russian america working together than this station and for those reasons alone you just don't toss that away and you know a lot of people say you know this is an embodiment of the achievements of humanity and i want to put a couple pictures up there is a very recent picture of a nighttime photo taken from the i assess of moscow here that is pretty cool picture i think and then we do have another photo of the a.t.v. docking so just lots of. really really interesting stuff but i do want you to talk about the commercial aspect of this from what i understand as i mentioned twenty sixteen the date when commercial contracts for space x. and orbital sciences are scheduled to take over the resupplying of the international space is a break in sound. so it's all good news ok nasa has determined that in lower earth orbit where the space station is we should be more commercial we don't need the government to design things develop things and so nasa is a customer and nasa has turned to space x.

an orbital sciences and said you know want to build your own rockets we want design them will be a customer and you send cargo and we're hoping that space x. is launching in a few weeks and by twenty sixteen they may be launching crew space x. but. space x. is going to start in a few weeks launching cargo and it's a whole new era at that point nasa is a customer that's as a customer for stuff that i'm doing on the station with utilization and research and it's not designing it's not competing against the private sector so this is really a wonderful time so we see it starting immediately and i don't think anyone believes the station is going to come down by two thousand and sixteen i think it's up there for decades and decades because it really is an incredible feat of engineering what about commercial flights for people i mean we've been hearing about this for quite some time now when does this get off the ground and i want to ensure they let me check you right we're waiting on virgin galactic survey should branson in there

keep saying it's coming soon and coming soon and that's a sub orbital but it does get you to space and and waiting and space x. wants the passengers to space and right now the monopoly remains with the russians and so hughes and i just don't know when it's going to happen it's going to it takes a long time only three nations have sent humans to space and their companies are trying to do it and that's a big difference so we got to be patient but we were i know we were talking about this all that before the show but was. what would be an incentive for a company to go to space to set up camp a business where you sell your company is that if you can see a return on your investment if you have governments acting as price to murders companies will go to space in the past the government would design develop operate the way we do anything so we want to go to the moon not only to do something wonderful but because dare i say you can make money if nasa is willing to say we'll pay you to put four people or four hundred people in the moon for six months you

have companies going so we just have to get into that mindset that you could have capitalism not just in low earth orbit why is that what kind of companies i mean would you for see would bring their business to. ok pharmaceutical research growing different cross the seas and materials in the reduced gravity on the moon maybe you set something up on the far side that really can look with scientists i'm sure you could get scientists that are in antarctica today to jump on a rocket ship and spend you know five years on the far side of the moon so it's about doing it because it's feels right that's what we do so you're not talking about a lawn aren't going to the moon quite yet. but if we send all the war months to space. that you would have to do it was over there i think there are three and i do want to play a little game of compare and contrast because i mean you're very optimistic you don't see the space station and anytime soon but the funding for it and i have seen several tear jerking stories for example about the end of the shuttle program how

empty investment kennedy space center is these days there is a shift in opinion about the need to shift resources to earth as opposed to sort of the you know back during the space race things have changed so what we're going to say ok so i would just want to compare and contrast when we talk about what is deemed important in our society today we see a whole lot of money for example i'll say at the pentagon. it has put on the trillion dollars towards the after thirty five the joint. yeah the joint strike fighter that's expected to cost a trillion dollars much more than they anticipated but. why that and not more resources to go and say it's not just because. i believe it more resources i believe massa has a high enough budget i think eighteen nineteen eighteen billion dollars is enough how they spend that money is a different story we've got to get smarter we've got to stop the course of overruns

if the program is not working right you've got to you've got to have the political will to say you know what maybe this women are ready to do this right now so it's not so much we're not spending enough money on civilian space we just got to get smarter more commercial is what i humbly believe we've got to be more clever and frugal in how we spend that money and if it's not right doesn't work cut it more international cooperation is important you look at working with the russians on space station and how much time and effort and funding that's a so really it's not comparing how much we're spending here and here i can't do that i can only say that nasa is beginning to spend its money more wisely and we've got to get smarter kind of like we're with every program in this country right now it would work better and benefit more people if the money was spent not i thank you very interesting space entrepreneur jeffrey manber thank you for being here on this show. well there's been an unmistakable shift in the landscape when it comes to the

privacy you have when you use the internet there was a time though it's becoming a little more difficult to remember and if you look for something online whether it was the price of a hotel or a new pair of shoes that's where it stopped oh now things have changed now you'll be garaged with ads for that hotel or those shoes and plenty more now the internet gods know your interests what you listen to what you download and what you post online is also now no longer for your eyes only but where does it end and how do people feel about not only online marketers but the government watching your every move laurie harkness with a resident that posed that question to several people that she spoke to in times square new york city. in the name of national security governments around the globe are trying to pass legislation that allows them to monitor censor and disrupt people online are you ok

with that bespeak let's talk about that for national security reasons i wouldn't object to that bazza that's the case isn't it yeah it should be legal so you trust them to use that power wisely. i haven't think about it but i think so yes. you know that does make a difference. maybe if you're in the u.s. or some other place that might feel different yeah exactly security reasonable privacy also counts so for me it's. picks up is going to find out regardless anyway so let's look at it so you don't mind i'm looking through your e-mail i have nothing but they're going to find it important so my e-mail but it's your e-mail and it's your life and they don't have any way to look true i agree with you on that. but. it's hard to explain i guess you know it's just the nature of the world where you have to. have some type

of power you know what i mean. we just have to try to let the right person that's where you get the chance that's where you have a ballot you know that's where you go to you vote and vote for somebody who you think you can trust part of it i could say and why they're doing it but i also don't want them to get too much into you know our personal business you know yeah it's a tough car it's a tough call it is do you think that's just the way it's going and you know as a society as we move more on line it's inevitably on lines going to be not so free yes i google video you think about that when you go online that someone might be watching all the time but more and more hackers and stuff like that so that was my biggest concern not the government not the government because they're probably already looking. but they're not. you think it's ok for a government to monitor its citizens the bottom line is before you post anything on line you might want to consider who could be listening.

well there's plenty of legislation out there making it more and more difficult to use the internet freely and certainly privately so on and international scale there's acta the anti counterfeiting trade agreement that was signed by twenty two out of the twenty seven e.u. member states but there is starting to be some pushback from the european parliament with a lot of people having a change of heart about actually ratifying it now we also saw here in this country the online about how those blackouts online helped to kill sopa the stop online piracy act and people are a paper the protect ip act but there is plenty more out there that poses a threat to online privacy and free internet i want to bring in greg how she's associated with the online hacktivist group anonymous he's in boston massachusetts . greg i guess we'll start a kind of specifically let's look at sis the cyber intelligence sharing and protection act and go for the global online freedom act this buzz seems to seek to regulate domestically and go far seems to prevent businesses from here in the u.s.

from cooperating with some of those more repressive governments what's the breakdown grade behind some of the conflicts wording here in these pieces of legislation. like you said it's much more of an international scale and it's much more. for the law enforcement to utilize all this technology to spy on us basically go through is you know i think actually a really important piece of legislation that will attempt to stop us based companies from spreading knowledge ease it's used to inhibit people's human rights and i think that's a very important piece to this whole puzzle and the other big piece to go for that's really important is forcing all of these big internet companies actually display clearly to their users what type of information they gather and who they share it with. there are a whole lot of people who look at fifa for example and they say you know what is no

different this is so quick to point out what do you think i mean is the government actually going to succeed in making i think all the sopa i don't think they are i think just like with so you know the people are going to rise up go to the streets you know just this weekend in paris there's going to be on saturday another protest against act against so against all of this cycle legislation and you know on june ninth there's going to be a global sort of protests against it so i think right now the people are pretty committed to stopping this and i think that will shine through just like it did with the first round i think it's interesting that you mentioned sort of what's going on in other countries i'm wondering if you even know this but when you compare what some of our lawmakers here in the u.s. want to do how does that compare i mean are there other countries where the lawmakers there say you know what i don't want to just be left alone they should be allowed to do whatever they want on the internet you know germany has had a pretty good record of trying to protect users privacy a lot more you know when you look at various lawsuits against companies who have

violated people's rights online or who have done things that are you know against. germany has been one of those countries that's really thought or the people. well what about i mean you mentioned sort of the backlash against people here in the u.s. and some of those online blackouts that really helped bring awareness to people who had no idea that there was any sort of legislation like this even in the works but what about what comes next i mean is this something that people have already forgotten about that this is not their number one issue i think a lot of people have forgotten about it and you know the thing that needs to happen is the ones who have a need to come up and get those people involved and you know all these big companies that stood up at one point need to stand back up you know there is an actual group of companies. that includes people like google and microsoft yahoo you know all of these big companies that it was a few weeks ago that act or we could be i should say that actually came together

for the blackout and those people need to get you know their resources back together and make it happen again or it was their support that really threw in the international press which then got the general public well i've got to say right here in d.c. and really around the country when when you hear about this legislation when you hear about this need to give the national security agency the f.b.i. the government more power it's always in the name of the same thing it's always in the name of cyber security a lot of people say you know the internet is the future of terrorism is there a legit national security concern. here or i mean is this totally blown out of proportion what do you think i think it's blown out of proportion i mean yes there's a legit concern but you have to balance that concern you know jim i want to ask you of the council of europe you know said this perfectly i think policy goals should not be used simply to protect outdated business models and

a lot of these laws they're trying to pass are doing just that and they're using the fear tactic you know national security to convince the general public that these need to be passed. now one of the faces of this movement sort of on the other side has become former senator chris dodd now the head sort of lobbyist for the head of the motion picture association of america he doesn't think that that is necessarily dead he thinks that there's a possibility that some other firm is going to come what's the answer here because a lot of these movie companies and music companies they say they do spend a whole lot of money to make a product and when it simply pirated so easily without any sort of consequences they say you know this is wrong so is there a better way is there an answer that's not being explored yet absolutely i mean you've got a prime example right in front of you you know i went to jail for copyright infringement i was a pirate in the ninety's and one thing that i've stated you know even though it's

all now i'm not like subscriber i'm a hoopla subscriber a subscriber if you provide the materials in a format and some kind of mechanism that is simple to use at a good price people will pay. it's as simple as that and instead of actually spending the time and effort on that these old outdated business models are they're using the law they're they're attempting to subvert our freedoms in ways that we're not going to allow when what they really need to be focusing on is research and development and coming up with new methods to get our data to us i mean the biggest one is when you hear you know the next studio this decided to pull out of netflix well what's going to happen from that is people like me aren't going to be able to find your movies on the services that we pay for anymore and we're going to turn to the only other way we have to get them sitting in our chair at our house which is piracy it's up to them to provide us their material their content in ways we want to consume it at this point you know it used to be that we just had to accept

whatever they gave us that's changed and they need to update with the times i think that's a really important point a lot of people just didn't want to see the internet kind of craze move as fast and as far as it has but you're right i mean whether people like it or not it's going to continue to go in that direction so they're going to have to think of ways i tunes of course another example i think that you didn't mention just your prediction great for what you see as coming out next in terms of online privacy. i see they're going to keep continuing their past or trying to pass after so and all these other wonderful laws and i'm hoping they don't get passed laws like go for do good because you know the global and great america is important and i think that people will actually rise up to the streets again just like they did last time especially across europe which was just huge amount of ego and will stop it and if nothing else we know all these new fun acronyms in our head. life in d.c.

great house internet activists also c.e.o. of the local a c o company thanks so much thanks coming up next on our team capital account let's check in with laura lister to see what's on the agenda say more on what you got for us i christine central banks are all over the place today so we're really going to delve into how much they have attempted to paper over the problems in the economy from the u.s. to europe and how much they have bailed and why this is a sustainable to continue this way i mean what really is the end game that's what we want to get to speak with lou rockwell about ethiopia which people are going to if it's going to step in and try to alleviate europe's debt problems as we think spain being the real problem now ok there you have been soaring into scary territory that other countries need to bail out once they reach here in the u.s. everyone's asking again about q.e. three as we hear more news coming out from the fed and of course lou rockwell a great guest never misses his words he has a lot of things that much lauren and for us here on the news that's going to do it

for now but for more on the stories we covered go to you tube dot com slash r.t. america or check out our website. u.s.a. and you should of course follow me on twitter you can find me at christine. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for langley you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture . if. me please. if. you.

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