supreme court the press was defined then legally as any kind of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion it seems almost quaint now to imagine a world in which information and opinion are freely published without the government or politicians interviewing intervening in that process whether you were in moscow or minneapolis why then are we seeing the persecution of whistleblowers and the journalists who publish their stories more than ever the director of whistle blowing and source protection that expose facts just erratic recently told newsweek there are 2 ways to clamp down on a free press you target the sources the new target the journalists and publishers and according to the columbia journalism review the journalists obsess about trump's rhetoric the media itself has under covered this growing threat perhaps this is because it does not fit neatly into a narrative after all the trying to began under the obama administration whose justice department prosecuted at least 8 espionage act cases more than any previous

administrations combined and this week the intercept is taking heat as the 3rd whistleblower that's worked with the publication is indicted under the espionage act according to the intercept quote following a dangerous path of the obama administration the trump administration is continuing to use the as me and i tracked to prosecute whistleblowers who enable journalists to uncover disgraceful immoral and unconstitutional acts committed in secret by the us government it makes one wonder who is really on the side of truth and truth and justice why journalism is under attack from within. so let's get to the source of the matter and start watching the office. the. real that would. like you got.

welcome everybody to watching hard times have a listen joining me today to make sense of these latest news stories we're try because so professor of journalism georgetown journalism professor christopher james thank you so much for joining me great to be here so i look a few weeks ago just to start a few weeks ago the reporters without borders put out its annual report on press freedom index and the u.s. ranked 48th out of 180 countries which you know if you're like oh about small so bad but and it's fun to say it's just there was a we were numb we were 20th in $2009.00 and was so will gone back since then how did we fall so far so fast and what does it tell us about the path that

journalism is on well i mean you know if you want to be fair to obama we were probably lower than that when the espionage was act was passed i mean because of this and this is something with with an awful history. but 3 there it is the answer it's it's politics and paranoia on a government level and that's always going to dictate where we're going to be on that kind of a scale that's very scary because people sort of when you look at that you look at how far we've fallen and relation and how we're supposed to be making things better and we have more technology and more things open now the 1st. covers the publication of news but what's interesting is it kind of doesn't cover all the gathering of news and the techniques that are exactly this is one of those reasons why former new york times reporter james risin was hounded by the courts for 7 plus years to give up his sources because they sort of well you're not covered under this you're not covered by this do you think that the lack of protections for

journalists newsgathering actually like what they need to do not just the sort of real reporting of news which a lot a lot of you. is this something that either needs new laws do we need to do this or is this just indicative of we're not news gathering anymore we're just news regurgitating well i mean there are some distinctions there but i mean the bottom line is is that no there aren't those direct protections and you know even individual states might have shield laws for reporters but there isn't a federal one and so that's the basic way to get around it but in the end an intelligent judge and there are a few was going to say well what's the end product the end product is is still going to be a prior restraint so going to be censorship you know we have to look at that was was they so strict scrutiny no matter what prosecutors or a politician say so i mean there's always going to be that protection but it's nebulous and do you really want to back you really to back yourself against the

wall for that no you know it's scary but yes there aren't that many protections for newsgathering i mean sometimes you've got stuff like you know pepper or see with trespassing and privacy and stuff but we're really talking about a constitutional issue we're talking about hard news and that's one of the things that came up with with julian assange which take all the sort of private issues he has and just within the idea of whether he's a journalist whether he's a publisher or all of that sort of piggybacking on this idea that are in certain news gathering tech. mix aren't really covered by the press freedoms it seems to me that now this the case against him puts it into he's not a journalist he's a source and also they're sort of arguing that the acts of using encrypted messaging services or media drop boxes are criminal are those are things that are

needed for news gathering so how do we. how does your insolence of that they're going to be do people are always going to look at that kind of a balancing test i mean even when you look at daniel ellsberg i mean that material was taken you know there is a counter balancing countervailing interest for the public to hear about what their government is doing that is bad so you're always going to balance that together it's not necessarily going to be ok well there's a reporter's notebook in the 711 to rob the 711 and i pub because i knew he's going to leave it in there or i'm going to take encrypted stuff i mean there's always going to be that balancing test it's not going to be the sourcing was evil so it taints the whole thing that's not what's going on with the 1st amendment the 1st amendment doesn't say ok well how did you get it all right it's evil boom that's it the 1st amendment says how do you get it ok that's one factor that might be a little digging in the column against you but there are other columns we have to

balance here and that's where intelligent people can make a choice about what you know about how we protect sourcing in what's important to us as americans so you can sort of news gathering is going to change that you know there's a lot of things like you said encrypted messaging. and these things do you think that technology is going to get more technologically advanced in order to help journalists or you think will kind of go back into your old school ways to avoid all of that well that's hard to say i mean if you're looking at the way the government goes after people. journalists and just anybody who's uncovering information uncover it you know doing. basically expose and think pieces and trying to put stuff out there even if they're not a professional journalist or photo journalist or whatever they're always going to be in the crosshairs of things like say the s.p.

in a shack which you know that's a moving thing to i mean before it was it was used to attack. people just protesting a war wall disproove court said we can't do that unless they're actually literally about to hand people rifles to kill people you know and then it was used against other people trying to publish books and then daniel ellsberg now it's being used against you know whistleblowers who are like oh my god there's a there's a plot here to do whatever maybe i should meet with somebody but technically supposed to take the stuff but serial out of here or you know or show them how to get access to it so they can decrypt it you know though it's being used in that realm so it's hard to say i mean i think the technology is going to cut both ways it's going to be able to keep this data material of cordoned off for government purposes but it might the people who are employed to do that cordoning might say oh my god i mean this is crazy i got to tell somebody about this so it's hard to say

what's going to happen in that regard but what is going to happen is that there will be a government interest from their point of view and keeping stuff secret and zapping people who are trying to do that interesting well something else came up and you know news journalism this week and it was specifically those of us here at our table and it isn't much of an oddity for anybody watching at home for our to hear r.t. america had to be attacked by other members of the press the new york times didn't miss the chance to fill half a newspaper column with manipulated and even false narratives about the whole of r.t. america all because of a handful of reports on concerns some have regarding 5 technology it turns out the most paranoid about the new tag are the people selling access to it because dan cohen has more. conflict of interest might be an understatement for the new york times and its relationship with the telecom giant horizon the times those advertisements for horizon take a look at this one paid for and posted by of arisan but that's just the tip of the

iceberg this january with rising support we're launching a new journalism 5 g. lab at the time this lab is going to be based in our main news room and to work very closely with times journalists in new york city across america and around the world. it will partner with open innovation group and get early access to 5 g. technology and equipment during tobin has been on the new york times board of directors since 2004 until 2009 she was verizon the vice president and chief financial officer after her retirement from horizon to open was given 3 and a half $1000000.00 and then signed a year long consulting contract that paid her a whopping 120 $5000.00 per month as for the articles experts on 5 g.b. ryan fox spent 15 years at the national security agency and was a computer analyst in the us army now he's an executive at the cyber intelligence

firm new knowledge the very same firm that rand what its own internal report called an elaborate false flag operation in the 2017 alabama special senate race and then there's molly mchugh a new conservative think tank or unregistered foreign agent who once wrote that fighting a new cold war would be in america's interest so whose interest is this article serve the american public or corporate shareholders reporting in washington or t.v. . so. you know where 5 is 5 or 6 conversations and the whole of the station and now we're all back to this subverting democracy it's like when we talked about fracking it was because they wanted to raise oil prices apparently you know and this whole thing about the new york times article is very ugly there is a lot of ugliness that at personally i was wondering what do you think of the press or what well i mean you know i 1st i thought it was a bit you know it was

a bit i guess you could say yes i mean you know you have your proof or whatever you want to call it a date and let's go. this is the whole thing is bizarre to me. most of the article was was quote was basically an attack on or to you about other things. it had nothing to do 5 g. . and then even explain 5 g. terribly well and that's supposed to be the big deal i mean if you want to do legitimate reporting about 5 g. you know there are a variety of things you can talk about i mean there is the whole the f.c.c. this whole thing is going to be a mess in terms of of that whether you're serving minority communities rural communities with that there are still people poor people who got basically 3 g. or less right so i think that yeah i mean so you know this whole thing was just out of out of left field i don't understand it i think they need to take a look at themselves in a mirror the ombudsman needs to do something here somebody needs to trigger that

maybe somebody from our could call because i just i just don't get it i just do not get it and again it's it basically was bootstrapping the attack with other attacks on other issues. you know and i don't understand i want it as and we're always easy it's just sort of throw everything at us it's like oh it must be all of the swing where we might not get you know rise and might not make an extra buck thank you so much. but it is it's bizarre welcome to the world thank you so much for joining me here professor at georgetown university christine thank you so much . as we got a bright pop watchers out to get let us know what you think of the topics we've covered on facebook and twitter here at r.t. dot com coming up over 180 countries all agree this out poisoning with plan a can't guess what one didn't want to be figured out and 2 koreans managed to prove to the world that is not only possible and that the whole state to watch in the.

southwest the c.e.o. and his attorney the name for you get a coke or one who knows a little bit. more which is. there's a rule they give to you they go out to those who know people it's you posting it's me it's you know it's true. that's the thought of you.

if you ask you that printed it out that you give. tax ties or financial survival guide stacey let's learn a salad fill out let's say i'm the troika and you're a police grease come back up the fight c well street spot thank you for taking. on the story that's right if you looked at slavery. this footage is unique because there's a tribal lands on normally off limits to the public eric's allowed in because he's live is personal don't. people here know him simply as door to eric

he's rich famous some always on the move sailing yacht some flying aircraft that. he's considered one of the best neurosurgeons in brazil. that's happening. are you so soon. going to busy doing that nothing's going to the good the population likelihood is going to keep people calm a zone. of

all the horrible things we're putting into our environment plastic maybe the worst and any united nations agreement signed by 180 governments around the world hopes to curtail. the coming plastic disaster the conference's of parties met for 2 weeks in geneva during which they agreed they reached an agreement titled the basil convention on the control of trans boundary movements of hazardous waste in their disposal roughly translated it means that the days of dumping plastic and toxic waste in poor countries during the effects on our oceans is done only once way back up in the agreement the united states which is the top world exporter of plastic waste is not part of the deal and actually argued against a claiming it would adversely affect the trade in plastic which. is kind of the point joining me now to break down the problem with plastic is watching that's when

producer devon springer thank you so much for joining me so. here we are representatives of almost every country we get $180.00 plus there's only so many countries world they meet they meet in geneva they sign this pretty important agreement what are the details and what what does that mean that the u.s. i understood the u.s. wasn't actually part of this and could devote it but they actively argued against what what does it mean that they didn't try what does that say well yeah so like you said over $180.00 countries actually $187.00 in the world there's only about $194.00 so to put that into perspective that's almost every country on earth that signed this but the u.s. and a few small islands really so the details of the agreement are pretty straightforward right they spent 2 weeks in meetings and there's backing of about 2 years worth of meetings that have taken place on and off for this specific agreement the agreement

target specifically plastic waste trade but trade a sort of this is a diplomatic way of saying dumping or soling of trash right so what actually takes place is that developed countries across the globe in north tend to dump their plastic ways onto the shores of. countries like malaysia india sometimes they sell it to them other times they actually just done it without permission all right so international laws actually are pretty fuzzy and grey in this area and so the laws surrounding consent for receiving trash especially plastic waste that's one of the hardest to break down yeah are really not catching up where they should be so that's what this sort of aims to target. but despite the us not signing it's still impacts the us heavily right because now that every single country in the world almost signing this they now have permission to refuse consent so they can now say we actually don't want your trash before the process to say that was very difficult

especially for a smaller and weaker countries then the very good that is even and that it was illegal for a larger more powerful country to dump toxics hazardous waste in another country just because they're right exactly another thing to another interesting aspect of this is that every country despite political differences and political ideologies or organizations sign this right so this actually could have been a world unifying moment now you know a few months ago china actually decided to stop taking large portions of u.s. trash and since then analysts have actually found out that in the shores of poor countries now but trash is the trash piles of doubled and tripled since then in just about a year's time right so we're seeing there's a global impact von hernandez who's actually from the break free from plastic campaign he put it really brilliantly in sort of an interview he said quote this is crucial this is a crucial 1st step toward stopping the use of developing countries as

a dumping grounds for the world's plastic ways especially those coming from rich nations so again this is really important because it kind of looks at how the entire world works when it comes to trash and what ends up on people shores and yeah and it shows it's like those of us who buy things like those of us in much richer countries. that are much more like sort of quote unquote. we get lots of we get a lot of this. and we buy a lot of this stuff and just sort of we got a minimum minute left what extent has plastic actually impacted our environment well i can just run down there some of the data for your own network i mean plastic has been corrosive to our environment and specially the oceans so in us a point estimate of 8300000000 tons of plastic has been produced since 1950 to put them in respect of those 200000 eiffel towers beyond that we've had millions of animals who've been killed yearly over 700 species of marine life facing extinction placer consumption today is 21 times what it was

a few decades ago and we have 12700000 tons of plastic oceans yearly which is a the equivalent of 70000 blue whales just to put that into perspective that's all that's and that's the thing we've not only made it so it's toxic for these animals and these animals and people really get the ocean why it's so important and i it's sort of boggles my mind that we don't realize that those big whales little things and then the whole cycle of life means that we all get to live and it's the whole process and that is exactly are we on 187 other countries know that and hopefully what we're doing is sort of moving into an area where we can actually get we're going to only hope so really get there. thank you so much watching the media producer social media producer and springer thank you so much for joining us. more than 3 football fields long and on a collision course with earth the asteroid. has been of great concern to nasa

scientists who fear the big rock causing big problems for earth if it has but it looks like we get this might survive the asteroids fly by of earth. because john had it with a story. feb 15th 2013 an asteroid streaks across the sky over russia the fireball explodes before hitting the ground but the shockwave a quick to around 440000 tons of t.n.t. blows out windows for over 200 square miles an estimated $1600.00 people are injured mostly from broken glass that asteroid was about the size of a small house the one we're talking about today is almost 20 times larger and it's hurdling right towards earth nasa scientists have dubbed it a post office as in egypt xing god of chaos it's a $1100.00 foot wide behemoths that will make what is called a close approach to earth on april 13th 2029 or friday the 13th in 10 years

this is a simulation of the asteroid trajectory it was 1st spotted in 2004 nasa says the asteroid will pass within 19000 miles of earth so it's not expected to pose a threat but that it is within range of the many satellites and other spacecraft orbiting the planet and it is close enough that scientists are already discussing sending out missions to space to study the god of chaos asteroid up close and it'll be slowly moving across the sky it will be about as bright as a meteor bright star and so this has not happened before in my lifetime bob berman a.k.a. sky man bob is a well known author and astronomer he said that while the pope this is not expected to hit earth in 1020 or even 100 years don't write it off just yet. our parliaments gravity is going to change the orbit of puffiness so that the next time it comes

and april of 2036 that could hit us at that time it's not likely but it could be this and that could be catastrophic some scientists say an asteroid a poster says size equivalent to about 3 football fields could wipe out an entire city a pope this is representative of about $2000.00 potentially hazardous asteroids or ph a's according to nasa none of them have a real possibility of hitting earth but scientists are always on the look out and nasa says it will gain important scientific knowledge studying a post office that could one day be used for defending earth from say the kind of asteroid believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs some 65000000 years ago or threatened global extinction in the movie armageddon. what do we do now that we can detect these threats wouldn't it be good to do something about

it and we could with with maybe 5 or 10 years preparation we have not yet done that but meantime well it's going to be very exciting 2029 i don't know about you but i'm looking forward to it so mark your calendars on april 13th 2029 the god of chaos asteroid will move across the sky starting around 6 pm on the east coast of the united states by 7 pm it will be gone at least for another 10 years anyway for our t.v. i'm john harvey. when violinist won here and join thing or kim song me on a stage at the shanghai oriental art center in china it wasn't just to perform a song my mother taught me by divorce back it was simply to change the world you see want your engine as from south korea and kim song me as north korea. the 2 met in beijing last year and decided that by performing together they could help

promote a lasting peace on the korean peninsula and speired by the 1999 founding of an orchestra to bring arab and israeli musicians together for the 2 performers said practicing together show them how alike they really are kim song me as the 1st north korean singer to be sent abroad and this concert marks the beginning of what will undoubtedly be many meetings between citizens of the 2 nations as unification seems closer than ever. that's our show for you today and remember everyone in this world were not told were loved and the right to tell you all i love you on top of the law list keep on watching the hawks and have a great day and that. i . i.

i. 2014 no bloody revolution. the demonstrations going to be relatively peaceful political protest to be increasingly violent. revolution is always spontaneous or is it you know you're here to up what if i mean you i live with but you would leave me in the new belief that i'm here let me go to the. president recalls the events of $24.00 g. and. those who took. invested over $5000000000.00 to assist ukraine in these and

other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy. let it be an arms race. spearing dramatic development only loosely i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful ready. to sit down and talk. please come. back on it and let's see.

if they do anything they will suffer greatly we'll see what happens with the rug the u.s. president another warning shot after it stopped complying with some of its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal with donald trump secretary of state currently on his way to russia on a mission to thrash out a solution to the escalating crisis. but it's all a brand a u.s. police raid on its former embassy in washington d.c. a violation of international law with activists in the compound saying they are trying to prevent and takeover. a u.s. military school publishes a decades long.