Man accused of driving into a crowd of protesters at a white supremacist rally james fields jr faces life in prison if convicted of the first degree murder of heather higher that all happened in charlottesville in august those are the headlines the news continues right here on aljazeera keep it here counting the cost is next. Hello im come on santa maria this is counting the cost on aljazeera the weekly look at the world of business and economics this week the mouse and the fact its one of the biggest media shake ups in recent history of disney buys out Rupert Murdochs twenty First Century fox but the story goes deeper than that its about how we consume all this entertainment content and how our new habit of watching the internet rather than the t. V. Is impacting the corporate landscape or is it the other way around also this way why is there no opec for gas well there is an industry body the Gas Exporting Countries Forum will ask secretary general whats determining the price of gas also look at the issue of Net Neutrality who really owns the internet who has the right to control our access why it matters so much. So it is the big media merger to name synonymous with on Screen Entertainment and by the sounds of things this will be no mickey mouse outfit the Walt Disney Company is buying up the entertainment business as of Rupert Murdochs twenty First Century fox in a landmark fifty two point four billion dollars deal if its approved it will be a union of hollywood heavyweights but this is also about survival of the fittest disney and fox both need to strengthen their offerings because as you all know we dont just watch the t. V. Or go to the movies anymore that why the story to come after this from john hendren. In a move that would reshape the Entertainment Industry large parts of what belong to twenty First Century fox would become the property of disney were getting quite Quality Content were getting global reach were getting access to new technologies were also getting great talent there while there is risk associated with this whether you look at the price or whether you look at the regulatory side or whether you look at the complexity of integrating companies the size that risk was well worth taking on the marriage of fox and the mouse is priced at fifty two billion dollars but it still needs the approval of any trust regulators in an email to disney employees chairman and c. E. O. Bob iger called it a historic move forward for us one that reflects a rapidly evolving media landscape brands from Rupert Murdochs fox empire included in the deal or Twentieth Century fox film and Television Sky b s b the National Geographic channels the f. X. Networks star india and its streaming service the aim of this combined company is to create even more high Quality Content and then to distribute it in ways that consumers prefer and consumers demand in todays world and we think that this combination is going to enable even more that disney expects to save two billion dollars in cost savings analysts say that will likely come at the expense of shrinking or even eliminating the hallowed Twentieth Century fox studios the cellular home to classics such as the sound of music. Was. In the very first Star Wars Film with the hulu service it will let disney take on Netflix Apple Amazon Google and facebook in the rapidly expanding realm of online video the massive deal is not a foregone conclusion the u. S. Justice department recently said eighteen t. s bid to acquire time warner is unlikely to be approved without major changes that signals that plan pacts like this could also have to pass intense antitrust scrutiny before they become reality. Joining us from london now Mark Mulligan hes a media and Technology Analyst and the founder of Media Research thank you so much for your time disney and twenty First Century fox theres almost not enough suppose halves to say how big this deal and this company will be or the interesting thing is its all about your perspective so in the media world yes absolutely huge but in the tech world you know the combined entity is still far off the likes of facebook and google and amazon and i think thats actually the point you know that it does mean folks are realizing that with the growth that youre seeing within the tech majors versus Media Companies the only chance theyve got of even being on the same lap of the races of these guys is by being a combined entity but are they really good i mean are they competing obviously in these online world but they still in a company like facebook or google is very different to disney which which has so much history and makes the content its primary thing is to make the constant. Were already seeing google making its own content brad is a starting point and there will be more t. V. Which is a t. V. Proposition which is taking on the mainstream and more will become a really big deal weve got facebook making original facebook probably bidding on sports rights an extra year google potentially been in sports rights next year amazon already look at a bit of sports rights all of these companies are going to be going right at the home turf of disney and fox and weve seen with the likes of netflix and amazon you know these are companies which have come from nowhere to be absolutely major player grabbing the emmys in the awards in the kitty market share in subscriber count what weve seen at the moment is a battle between distribution and content saying always to be content is king but now we see that the distribution the Big Technology companies thats where the power resides i think we need to look at the disney folks there within that context do you reckon they can foot it in this marketplace now given as you just i mean you just mentioned amazon t. V. And netflix is one but theres so many of these streaming services now is there a place for disney within that. Were certainly seeing a degree of maturity in the streaming market in the big markets in the the u. S. Weve got more than one hundred million video subscribers and had dozens upon dozens of Different Services but they still move faster not the growth in this market in or even in the u. S. But you know you look elsewhere so many markets across europe in the americas and asia are still really just getting going so this is a market which is a huge amount of growth left to me yet at the challenges is if you are worried one company who makes one set of shows you know how to be good those shows are is just one set of shows so if youre going to really have rallied to your end users you either need to make sure that its so so compelling we need to mix it in with the stuff which is why when we see the likes of h. B. O. Doing its own in its own Video Service it looks so much narrower and shallower than what you get on netflix is the thing there mark everything weve talked about is dependent on having a decent Internet Connection and we all know how frustrating it is when you dont have one. This is actually a major issue here isnt it making sure that people if theyre going to have access theyve got to have the internet in the first place absolutely in companies not netflix have got incredibly smart at this and one of the things that theyre greater is migrating people away actually from mobile viewing to t. V. Centric viewing you know the majority of people who sign up for netflix on mobile will after a number of months be mainly watching to a t. V. Set you know so there is a real recognition from the streaming companies of the need to get people you know away from the less reliable mobile networks into the home market but theres a much bigger challenge at the moment which is with just looking like were going to have new regulations on Net Neutrality in the u. S. What that essentially means is the telcos who provide the Internet Access are going to be able to decide which services they want to perform well and which not so it might be that you know telco x. In the u. S. Has. Launch its own Video Service and it decides if anybodys watching netflix is going to get a really small amount of connection so however good your broadband connection is netflix is always going to underperform and thats potentially one of the most worrying developments thats facing streaming services of the moment and is that just a u. S. Issue at the moment or is this something people all over the world should be concerned about the whole Net Neutrality debate has been going on for you know more well more than a decade but normally what we see is that when regulations get put in place in the us then we end up seeing versions of them making their way into the solution across europe and in the region so its a very contentious issue is one where local governments and regulators or have their own viewpoint but itll be a very important precedent set at the u. S. Does go down this route final thought for you then martin and this is getting a bit philosophical but go with me on this because as were talking about all this it just makes me think about this internet saturation yes you made the point that netflix is trying to drag people towards their televisions but really phones Tablet Computers it follows us everywhere and i wonder about your thoughts on that saturation and what its doing to us especially is it progressing just so fast. Yes its a really good question when what the attention economy where all these different. Social media and everything that we can get on our devices is competing for attention in everybodys trying to get a bit of attention to to get to suspend time with content the services its resulted in. Filling up our time much more than we used to one of my favorite statistics of the entire digital live is from the National Swedish Statistical Office when theyre looking at the activities most cannibalized by Digital Media and the number one activity most kind of lies is staring out of the window you know so we really are get to a stage where were spending less time being mindful of spending less time reflecting were spending much more time swallowing the information around us and i think well see the most dramatic societal and Cultural Impact among the gen zinni thats the the young millennial born in this millennium or one would say were tweens and teens theyre the ones who grown up from the playground with snapshot with instagram their entire lives has been this continual feed of information so i think thats when were going to see the real impact of whats happened with the the tension economy bursting at the seams. Again fascinating talking to you and i must remember to go and look out the window again thanks for joining us pleasure. Now on that note its interesting to hear a form of facebook executive now saying social media is quote ripping society apart. Who headed facebooks user growth from two thousand and seven to two thousand and eleven expressed regret over his past and building the tools that he says are now destroying the social fabric of how Society Works he recommended people take a break from social media saying addiction to it is a global problem well heres the response from facebook has not been at facebook for over six years when joe mouth was at facebook we were focused on building new social media experiences and growing facebook around the World Facebook was a very Different Company back then and as we have grown we have realized our responsibilities have grown to now were going to mention this next topic in our interview a little bit earlier Net Neutrality and this week rules protecting open Internet Access have been repealed by the u. S. Government the changes could mean large corporations can pay the Internet Service providers to prioritize their websites and even block their competitive neutrality advocates worry this all could lead to censorship and increased Internet Access costs castro has more on that from washington. Opposed to the repeal of Net Neutrality rules in the u. S. And making their voices heard on the streets of washington protesters in the end were not loud enough to sway the vote of the federal Communications Commission your car was your reason were still i dissent the Commission Voted three to two along partisan lines to undo the obama era regulations that the chairman called burdensome and unnecessary it is not the job of the government to be in the business of picking winners and losers in the internet economy we should have a level Playing Field and let consumers decide who prevails Net Neutrality rules essentially prohibited broadband providers in the u. S. From speeding up a consumers access to some internet content over others even if web sites were willing to pay for the advantage the idea was to preserve the internet as a public resource for all protester randy call and says the rules have protected her nonprofits ability to reach an online audience this in an email out to gazan people and from their green on one point three million around the country and in places around the world and that was only possible through having a free and open internet that like all our cards and the strength of our ideas could not be blocked arse stopped just by the size of our budget never before has a debate over the intangible connections of the internet sparked such public passion more than twenty million comments were received by the f. C. C. Prior to thursdays vote and now at least two states have said they will appeal the commissions decision but youve got of course just and youve got Congress People youve got millions of people who are in your corner and we will achieve internet you quote the internet wallabies Net Neutrality. We will win at the end of the day Internet Companies have said they have no immediate plans to change consumers experience but now that the Net Neutrality protection is gone it remains to be seen how long the industry will put equality over revenue potential. And still to come on counting the cost how households in greece turned their power bills into checks from the Power Company and they did it with more than a little help from the sun that story still to come. On the news this week it seems one way to survive retail armageddon is to engage in some Retail Therapy stuff to video the c. E. O. The european more. Has said Online Shopping has its limits and physical stores will never go out of fashion and hes putting his money where his mouth is. Which has high end malls from paris to helsinki is bidding fifteen point seven billion dollars to buy a strangers westfield the deal is approved will create the worlds biggest mall operator in the u. S. It was the final policy amazing for Federal Reserve chief janet yellen and the central bank would raise rates by a quarter of a percentage point while also raising its forecast for u. S. Growth in twenty eighteen to two and a half percent that is well above septembers estimate of two point one percent the new fed chair Jerome Powell takes over in february also many ways in for president trumps tax bill to passenger legislation so a lot to watch in the u. S. Economy in the next year and here in the middle east state oil firm addinall crazy eight hundred fifty one Million Dollars through an initial Public Offering of a ten percent stake in its distribution unit the listing is part of a strategy by the u. A. E. As well as other gulf nations to privatized Energy Sector assets dont forget the listing of saudi state owned oil giant saudi aramco which is slated for twenty eighteen it is likely to be the Worlds Largest i. P. O. Do you know it is there even in these days of Renewable Energy how we generally still talk about oil before anything else and opec meeting or decision for example it is still a big deal and often a consequential one but now Gas Producing countries like russia and iran have laid out what they think is the future of their industry for the next two decades and its looking pretty strong remember natural gas is used for everything from heating to Electricity Generation and its a lot cleaner i went down to the headquarters of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum here in doha to catch up with dr Mohamed Hussein a daily the organizations secretary general. Ok thank you dr daley its a pleasure to talk to you thank you for joining us today as i said to you before we get into the outlook i do want to deal with the. That as a citizen lazy characterization of this is the gas opaque its not quite like that can you explain for a viewer whos not familiar with the form how it works and how it differs well our organization is functioning quite differently than than opec because its a platform to Exchange Data information and also to foster the core the nation amongst the various countries of member countries. And to have a common understanding of what is happening in the in the gas markets what are the challenges and opportunities and how we can address them in harmony and this is quite different from just putting kowtows on production of quotas on exports so you dont influence prices as such well or in the so should i say in the same way that opec influences oil prices yes can you elaborate actually. Here we do support the policies that would secure the supply and stable supply and demand and we do encourage the countries to invest and to contribute to the sustainability and stability of the market so in that way we think that we would be contributing to the interest of the member countries in having a fair price and being able also to have enough revenues for investment have you had a desire to get into that. Realm of of courses and production numbers and the like a little not been any kind of desire for that because i guess that the going through the market can ism and. This level of coordination is a working and is going to work in the future and we have some other organizations and other energy of the additions that they are doing the same and theyre influencing the market valuables so lets talk about the outlook then lets lets just start with the short term well as you said last year we had several developments which have affected the long term trends of energy in general of course and gas also in particular one was the u. S. Policy u. S. A new Administration Policy towards energy and the towards fossil fuel which is affected and of course as a result of that we predict that it is going to be in favor of gas that we have also the new Energy Package of europe. Again that is going to affect this we have the thirteenth plan of china these are all very major developments that is affecting the long term trend as well as we have some announcements which are very important one of them is catherine ounce meant to increase thirty percent of his production second one is the more progress in the development of southpark gas of iran iran we also have some announcement from egypt that the whole field is going to be on a stream much sooner than that so the production and algeria as well we have some announcement so all together from the supply side and from the policy side we have some new developments that is going to affect the long term trend. What is the picture in the v. If i frame it in very basic of supply and demand very good let me just tell you a few figures of the main drivers of this energy and gas you know what is happening is that in the next twenty three years up until twenty forty we are going to have one point seven billion people more people in the world in twenty three years in just twenty three years were going to have seven hundred seventy million more cars theyre going to have seven hundred ninety million new homes and the people of the world on average are going to be eighty percent more wealthy actually the g. D. P. Per capita on average of the world is going to increase eighty percent so all together they are these are very strong drivers for demand of energy other renewables they was attractive and they Wind Energy Solar energy im wondering how gas looks stacks up against them well actually in comparison with the renewables of course renewables do not have any emission and gas has some emission but you know in general when we compare them the efficiency of gas is very high the c o two emission of gas is very low compared to or oil and cord we should not forget that. Now the dominant energy that is being used by the world is poised then followed by cord so these two are the dominant energies and will remain to be one of the main energies in the whole world i should also say that in the next twenty three years although the share of the fossil fuel is going to diminish and come down but it is going to be around seventy five percent so now we are dependent on fossil fuel for eighty percent and even after twenty three years. We are going to be dependent on them and seventy five percent so this is why gas is very important as we can switch cool with gas or so reduce the other there polluting energies with gas we are going to mitigate the c o two emissions that any pleasure talking to you today. And finally for you some good news out of greece for so long it was all about debt and Economic Hardship but during that long recession greece underwent rapid growth in the use of solar energy and it means the country will now meet its emissions targets under the paris Climate Change accord reports now from laughable greeces Solar Revolution came from the countryside forty two thousand homes like this one turned their power bills into checks from the Power Company by selling electricity back to the grid to pensioner phillipos are you know plus an extra nine thousand dollars a year have made a difference then as its my pension all over again without it wed be pinching our pennies in this economy it means i can help my children my daughters in school my son is unemployed my wife doesnt have a pension over five years household installed three hundred and seventy five megawatts of generating capacity equivalent to a midsized power station and thats not counting farmers who turned over their land to larger Scale Production or industrial installations in solar and wind power both of which greece has in abundance but the government quashed this revolution in twenty fourteen strapped for cash it cuts the rate at which the grid bought power from homes from fifty five cents per kilowatt hour to under twelve cents but twenty fourteen law effectively removed households from the Renewable Energy market until then more than four thousand homes would install solar panels on their rooftops each year but in that year the number fell to just sixty three and it has never recovered. A new bill now aims to bring the Solar Revolution to the cities where more than half the population lives by encouraging groups of five or more homeowners to install solar panels but the twenty fourteen rate cut still haunts people like voto whose proceeds fell by half. Im not sure whether the broken promises of the past make it possible for investors to go forward today were talking about an investment of about seventy thousand dollars the bill quotes a guaranteed Purchase Price but theres also a clause allowing the environment minister to change that price can someone trust that after an entire solar economy collapsed because of a law greece still depends on fossil fuels for two thirds of its electricity thats because its power stations burn imported oil and lignite coal its only abundant native fuel but lignite use has hove in the past ten years while renewables have doubled to thirty percent of the Electricity Supply if policy is consistent greeks have shown they will reach for the sun and that is our show for this week but remember you can get in touch with us you can. Use the hash tag a j c t c when you do or drop us an email counting the cost of aljazeera docked next is the address you can also head online to aljazeera dot com which takes you straight to our page individual reports links and entire episodes. And is it for this edition of counting the cost on Canal Santa Maria from the whole team thanks for joining us the news on aljazeera is next. This is a boon for point people right now and technology there is so much going to help people its phenomenal thanks for calling i read this is there and what are you looking for today we get to assist the client with their day to day tasks and give them more independence and freedom dispose architectural yep that sure is a tomato exploration process was amazing in a way we have that Technology Available to us techno this tour. We understand the differences. 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