and the meters are going to wake up and start talking about the real cause is. coming up on our t.v. it's no surprise that the american people have little confidence in washington and now our lawmakers have just changed a requirement that allows them to bury details on who pays for some of their travel more on this change and transparency just ahead. and net providers from around the globe are suing the u.k. government thanks to edward snowden leaks the tech companies are now going after the british spy agency g c h q for snooping more on this tape coming up. and a major victory for anti fracking activists in new york the state court agreed that cities and towns can ban hydraulic fracturing within their boundaries or in this

legal battle later in the show. it's wednesday july second five pm in washington d.c. i'm manila chan you're watching r.t. america ukraine has tentatively agreed to a second ceasefire after a four way talks between sure germany france russia and the kiev government happened today in berlin more talks are planned for this weekend to hopefully end the crisis that has dragged on for months artie's peter all over has more from the meeting in berlin. the german foreign minister said that there was a clear understanding that a ceasefire was needed following the recent violence that we've seen bush is sort of a love for the old said that their inability that there had been violations on both sides during the previous ceasefire he called on any peace that comes from this

agreement and he knew ceasefire should be used for meaningful dialogue and dialogue only. it is if the cease fires were to be used to regroup forces on either side to realize the part of the ukrainian president's plans which we had grievers the regions about for example that the opposition has to be dissolved armed or not i laid it all chance of a bit and this would be course of action that i would categorically reject i think it would also be very bad indeed for a neighboring country just allow for of was also asked if russia had any influence over those fighters in the east of the country he said there was possibilities for russia to influence them but stress that these people fighting to defend their land defend their families in the cold on the ukrainian officials from kiev to respect the new cease fire exit saying that this was incredibly important that there was no fighting no violations of the cease fire so that meaningful dialogue could take place that was our teens peter all over and the iraqi government is now in session

and things are looking bleak thirty eight minutes into a meeting to form a new government yesterday sunni and kurdish members of the iraqi parliament bailed they refused to return because the shiites failed to nominate a new candidate for prime minister or endorsed the current prime minister nouri al maliki for a third term the sunni and kurdish blocs have stated they would not put forward their nominations until the shiites revealed there's now while the goal seems to be to create an inclusive government kurdish leaders are taking the opportunity to push for their own independent. state must suit barzani the leader of the kurdish regional government told the b.b.c. quote everything that's happened recently shows that it's the right of kurdistan to achieve independence from now on we won't hide that that's our goal it's not me who will decide on independence it's the people barzani says he will hold

a referendum on kurdish an append of within the coming months and with the parliament at a standstill isis breathing down the neck of baghdad and at least twenty four hundred deaths in just the month of june many both inside and outside of iraq are worried that the country may be on the brink of collapse a collapse that many say has its roots in the u.s. military's involvement in the region here's our tears marina port nial with more all over the arab world america has left behind its military footprint but i believe america is exceptional in part because we have shown a willingness through the sacrifice of blood and treasure to stand up not only for all the narrow self-interest but for the interests of all america's exceptional armed forces have invaded afghanistan and iraq dropped bombs on libya pakistan and yemen and reportedly trained rebels fighting to overthrow the government in syria.

directly leading to the insurgency in iraq who are extremists have now declared their own caliphate done enough to just say that we are exceptional one way or the other the reason we can point to emerge from exceptionalism is because we've done exceptional food and we do exceptional food. we have to live up to that standard but time and time again washington's eagerness to involve itself in foreign conflicts has fueled six tarion divisions creating an exceptionally dangerous circumstance the us policy unfortunately lately has destroyed and made a mockery of the many you know what they have done in libya what they have done to you and continue to do what they've done in iraq. and. it is something that. doesn't jive with claiming any kind of exceptionalism and yet in each case

washington has washed its hands of any responsibility the united states of america is not responsible for what happened in libya nor is it responsible for what is happening in iraq today in the absence of u.s. military action iraq is warning that it could ask the wrong to carry out air strikes against the hardest group isis that could throw a wrench into the works of american foreign policy potentially having to rely on an adversary to defeat a threat that washington itself is blamed for incorrectly creating. green up or not you know martin. and the international community continues to cry foul over u.s. spying on foreigners but today the u.s. government independent privacy watchdog reports it's not so bad that the program is legal the privacy and civil liberties oversight board released its long awaited

report on the constitutionality of the provision that allows the n.s.a. to read the content of e-mails and other communications of foreigners and under the condemnation of civil liberties advocates it states that the program has been valuable and effective in protecting the nation's security and producing useful foreign intelligence but. calling it constitutional doesn't protect the government from international judgment look who was caught in the latest blow back arizona senator john mccain his visit to india today was overshadowed by reports that the u.s. was authorised to spy on india's new prime minister narendra modi's political party back in two thousand and ten mccain canceled a news conference outside india's foreign ministry today after a senior u.s. diplomat was summoned by india to discuss a report published this week by the washington post it says national security

agency leaks from edward snowden show the n.s.a. was given approval to intercept information on six political organizations including the bar retired gen not a party which came into power when modi was elected prime minister back in may and according to the report india was also one of the hundred ninety three countries that the u.s. surveillance court approved the n.s.a. to spy on and internet companies are fighting back not only going after the n.s.a. itself but also its partners archies polly boyko brings us more on how i s.p.'s are facing off with the u.k.'s intelligence agency. the u.k. government is effectively being sued by a group of internet service providers they come from a number of different countries including the u.k. the us and germany now it is reportedly the first time that an internet host has gone to court over a ledge government spying now they say that g.c. h.q.

is using malware or malicious software as it's in order to break into then and spy on their customers communications online now legal action is going through a very special london course it's called the investigatory powers tribe you know and it's their job to look into claims. complaints over the misuse of government surveillance now you can imagine that this court's caseload has got someone in the wake of the edward snowden revelations and of course later this month they going to be looking into complaints from human rights organizations the way that social media sites like facebook and twitter have been targeted by g c h q now two m.p.'s have also sued the u.k. government through this court over claims that their communications were monitored

as well so as i've just said in the wake of the edward snowden affair with the public debate still very much taking place over a mass government surveillance these fresh and unprecedented legal moves from the internet service providers are unlikely to be the last that was artie's poly boyko and nervous new yorkers are all waiting on governor andrew cuomo who must decide whether to up hold the state wide moratorium on hydro fracking earlier this week new york's highest court ruled that local townships and cities have the right to prohibit drilling within their boundaries by. the governor to decide on. giving that discretion to them new york governor andrew cuomo inherited a fracking ban from his predecessor david paterson when taking office in two thousand and eleven the moratorium bans fracking which is a controversial way of accessing natural gas and shale rock by pumping water sand

and other chemicals into wells at very high pressures there has been some pushback over the environmental effects of fracking including recent reports connecting the procedure to earthquakes in oklahoma opponents to fracking in new york state fear that if cuomo lifts the state wide ban the decision to frack would fall to local municipalities creating a potential patchwork of towns that would allow this process this will no doubt be a very difficult decision for cuomo as energy industry proponents say they will bring many jobs and companies to the state now i was joined earlier by deborah goldberg attorney at earth justice dot org she successfully argued on behalf of the new york town of dryden when they were being sued by north energy petrol and nat gas company i first asked her about governor cuomo stance on fracking. i don't really know how governor cuomo will decide but i certainly hope he will not

terminate the environmental review process right now we have no way to meter to the point where we understand fully what the health impacts of this industry are going to be and one would certainly hope that he would wait until the evidence is in front which is just beginning to come in a peer reviewed studies before he makes any decision with respect to oil a gust of element in new york state and now obviously you prevailed in your case defending the dryden dryden's opposition to fracking against nourse what was your argument how did you how did you get the win. well there's a long standing tradition in new york of local control over zoning it's been recognized in the constitution it's been recognized by the courts and all the towns are trying to do is to use that power to define how wind is going to

be used within their borders they had never allowed any kind of heavy industry and the oil and gas industry was trying to tell them that they were entitled to a special treatment special exemption from that the court didn't buy it the court said that state law which does regulate the technical operations does not reach to the land his authority and the town still have that longstanding power to regulate land use now as you as you just mentioned the research behind the effects of fracking still remain pretty limited how hard was it to argue that fracking is bad for house and bad for the environment against very some sometimes very obvious economic data that says that it will bring in money to the economy. well that isn't really an issue for the case the case is not decided on policy grounds it's really a very strict legal question about whether state law trumps the local law and what the court found was that the two different legal regimes could work together

harmoniously the state could regulate the technical operations and activities and processes of the industry and the localities could regulate the the land use and therefore if they had the power to protect themselves from what those impacts might be by keeping the oil and gas wells outside their borders and now if all of these smaller communities have fracking bans but the state wide moratorium is dropped by the governor what would fracking look like across new york and does earth justice still look at this as a small win well we think this is a big win. we think it's huge that the communities will have the right to use their zoning powers to keep heavy industry out of their borders these are towns that have sustainable businesses like wineries or tourism industries

agriculture and they do not want a huge industrialization and there and there are in the area. it's you know it's possible that the industry will try to move into towns that have not adopted these provisions. but you know as information comes in from other states from colorado from pennsylvania from wyoming where there's very intensive gas development everything we hear just gets worse and worse and so now the towns know they have this option there might be some additional activity there they know that you know they no longer have a threat of litigation because the court of appeals has given them the right to go forward with these local measures so well if these cities and towns can prohibit drilling within their own boundaries how will this play out in these local community it's could say one farmer say guests to the drilling and the other farmer his neighbor says no well not if they're in the same town i mean the town will

decide what. the lenders regulation is for the whole time it's possible that there could be one town that excludes heavy industry from within its borders in another town that doesn't and that case there could be wells in the town that doesn't exclude the industry and there could be impacts that go over the borders after all air missions pollution doesn't respect municipal badri and there are there could be recourse by people who are affected by the adverse impacts caused across borders but they would not be land use control those would be different sorts of legal protections so just the work here if if say one town did allow for fracking to come into their town and let's say well you know as far as private ownership goes one one neighbor against the next if in that town they're allowed to to drill what it

boiled down to neighbor versus neighbor could it be something like that. well that's how it is in in many parts of the country right now there are places where it's permitted and people don't want to lease their land and it does that neighbor against neighbor in his family you know members of families against each other people have different values some people really care about the long term sustainable use of their land and some people want to make a quick buck and get out and. differ different people have different choices to make but it's definitely tearing many communities apart because people care about different things right now it's about the power that these industries have within the state and within the u.s. as a whole do they do they have a lot of a lot of weight to throw around a new york city or new york rather well they have a huge amount of power and enormous wealth in this matter just to essentially buy

them sions from every major federal environmental law that otherwise would govern heavy industrial activity they also are extremely active within state legislatures and in many states. the state representatives simply will not step up to the place because they're very much in the pocket of the industry that's why these local letters are so important there's this huge gap vacuum. for protecting local communities and local people don't step up there's often very little protection from higher levels of government great thank you so much for your insight that was deborah goldberg attorney at earth justice dot org thank you so much my pleasure. and a brand new quinnipiac university poll says president obama is the worst president since world war two and that's according to quinnipiac thirty three percent of the

respondents thought obama has been the worst president in modern times followed by a close twenty eight percent naming president george w. bush and surprisingly only thirteen percent of respondents said that richard nixon was the worst but this next poll comes as no surprise congress's approval ratings are continually low at present there at the lowest they've ever been on record take a look at these poll numbers year over year since two thousand and twelve congress has continued to lose three percentage points in their overall approval numbers twenty twelve thirteen percent twenty thirteen ten percent twenty fourteen down to seven percent and we've mentioned this before but not since the advent of these congressional ratings in the early one nine hundred seventy s. when gallup began tracking congress have the poll numbers ever been this low and no wonder as congress continues to disappoint the american people the house as six

committee has discreetly altered its disclosure requirements for congressional members making it that much harder for both the press and the average person to verify spending r t is a mirror david brings us more on this development. well government watchdog groups and some democrats are outraged this week over a quiet alteration of reporting requirements on congressional trips this is specifically in reference to trips funded by outside groups what we're learning is that the house at the committee without any public announcement dropped the requirement that lawmakers must include information of any privately sponsored trips in their annual financial disclosure forms now to be clear lawmakers would still have to seek at the committee approval for these trips and disclose them publicly through the website of the house office of the clerk tom roston ethics committee spokesman says that this change was not meant to minimize transparency

and that he says it was merely an attempt to eliminate a redundant reporting requirement because the travel information lawmakers must file online is even more detailed than the financial disclosure forms however many people are balking at this quietly made change they say it removes a convenient way for reporters and other watchdog organizations to keep its have on the free travel of members because historically financial disclosure forms are where reporters go to find that information one organization citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington has already weighed in on this with executive directors saying that this is a blatant attempt to avoid accountability the only americans who would possibly be in favor of this change are members of congress the idea that this is a change for efficiency sake is ludicrous at the same time house minority leader nancy pelosi vowed to take action she said while the committee's aim was to

simplify the disclosure process congress must always move in the direction of more disclosures not less if the ethics committee does not act and we will call upon the speaker to allow a vote on legislation to reverse this decision watchdog. patients now say that lobbyists are beginning to find new roof falls after a two thousand and seven ban on funding congress members travel and that has contributed to a growth in privately funded trips according to a congressional oversight group alleges storm last year members of congress took about nineteen hundred privately paid trips with a total price tag of six million dollars here's a breakdown of some of the most expensive trips made last year the american israel education foundation paid about thirty two thousand dollars for representative mike ferguson to go to israel and meet with government leaders additionally representative john raymond garamendi received an all expense paid trip to south

sudan and tanzania to view u.s. investments in different health projects that trip came in i just over forty thousand dollars but the largest sum was doled out for rep mike mcintyre almost fifty thousand dollars for the representative to meet with defense industry officials in australia these were all very expensive trips and all cases the sponsors were not only covering the travel of the congressman but also their wives and it's that kind of information that reporters and government oversight group say will be harder to keep tabs on once this change goes into effect reporting from capitol hill amir david ortiz. all right so team usa is officially out of the world cup after last night's heartbreaking defeat have belgium but one person on team usa has become a national superstar goalkeeper tim howard he was sixteen he had sixteen saves in the team's losses but that's the most by any goalkeeper in

the past fifty years of world cup play so since the world cup began in brazil's him howard has been getting tons of attention for his defense ability and p. . all taken notice so after last night's match ended someone briefly changed the us secretary of defense's with a pedia page to say tim howard now holds that job secretary of defense and that's not all there is a white house petition seeking to have a ronald reagan washington national airport here in d.c. changed to to me our national airport howard told the media he's flattered by the attention and the entire team usa noticed the support they had from their home country. and before we go don't forget to tune in at nine pm for larry king now tonight's guest is the actor tony goldwyn from the hit series scandal and in

a preview of what's to come here's larry asking tony about his t.v. movie role in outlaw prophet. the national weather service in mount holly new jersey has issued a severe thunderstorm warning four hundred county in northwest new jersey north central bucks county and southeast pennsylvania until six thirty pm at five twenty one pm national weather service doppler radar indicated a severe thunderstorm the storm was near when moving east at fifteen mph this storm is capable of producing quarter sized hail and damaging winds in excess of sixty miles per hour the severe thunderstorm will be near french down in milford around

five thirty pm sergeant still around five forty five pm sandbrook around five fifty pm flemington in clinton around six o five pm glen gardner around six ten pm in a day when the high bridge around six fifteen pm this is a dangerous storm if you are in its path move interest to a sturdy building and stay away from windows when it is safe to do so report severe weather to local law enforcement or to the national weather service a severe thunderstorm watch remains in effect until seven pm wednesday evening for northeastern pennsylvania a severe thunderstorm watch also remains in effect until nine pm wednesday evening for delaware and northeastern maryland and new jersey and southeast pennsylvania repeating a severe thunderstorm warning has been issued until six thirty pm for the following county hundred in new jersey and box pennsylvania.

last july the center for investigative reporting issued a shocking report about doctors sterilizing about one hundred fifty female inmates in california's prisons from two thousand and six to two thousand and ten all without approval to do so inmates and prison advocates assert that the women work or worse into being sterilized by the prison medical staff who were targeting women for tubal ligation whom they thought were likely to return to prison and now almost a year later the california state auditor found that the practice was being carried out as late as last year and if he were for the auditor's office reveals that almost a quarter of sterilization cases did not give consent physicians didn't sign consent forms that guarantee the inmates knew they were about to be sterilized they

violated wait period requirement inmates were not allowed witnesses of their choosing conversations about the sterilization process went undocumented and none of the procedures were authorized by an oversight committee all of this flies in the face of the law the audit found that inmates who were sterilized had all been pregnant five or more times before the procedure most of the women tested at less than a high school level of reading with about a third of them reading below the sixth grade level and a sizable chunk of the requests for the sterilizations came out of one doctor's office the office of dr james hi rick dr heinrich told the center for investigative reporting that the money spent sterilizing inmate was a minute. compared to what you save in welfare paying for these are unwanted children in other words these sterilizations sound pretty targeted and that's

what's not being discussed in this case everyone is focusing on how screwed up our prison systems are and they are very screwed up but this story goes beyond our prison problems into the land of eugenics when you've got people being coerced into sterilization by doctors who say they're doing it to save money on welfare that's eugenics regulated breeding and population control we've seen eugenics before states used to have eugenics boards that sterilized people they deemed fit for procreation north carolina is in the process right now of compensating victims of their eugenics board which was shuttered in the one nine hundred seventy s. people like to think such social abominations as eugenics are a thing of the past but now here we see evidence of eugenics today and yet if you say the word eugenics people will call you a conspiracy theorist but when people are actually conspiring to sterilize citizens.