tv News Al Jazeera October 20, 2013 5:00am-5:31am EDT
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. home again. nine men held hostage by syrian rebels for more than a year arrive in lebanon. in return, two turkish airline pilots kidnapped in beirut are free. [ ♪ theme ] the question remains over a third piece of a puzzle, a group of women prisoners held in syria. >> also coming up - stage of merge si in australia
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new south wales where there are over 100 bushfires >> damaged and dying - children affected by lead poisoning - rush for gold. >> this violin bought for a titanic $1.4 million. >> complex hostage release deal involving three countries is part done. nine lebanese men held for more than a year are back in beirut. two turkish pilots abducted in retaliation have been freed. there's no word on the fate of dozens of women held by the syrian government. andrew simmons is in beirut and sent us this. >> 530 days after their capture a chaotic emotional homecoming for nine weary men who thought they may never get out of syria alive. nothing like a formal handover
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to their relatives. one woman is overcome and collapses. lebanese security could not hold back the rush of people wanting to embrace their loved ones. some of the freed hostages didn't have to walk. >> the relatives are in the crush. they have waited since may last year for the breakthrough. there have been false alarms. but this is a reality now. >> this woman, with a bunch of red roses searches for her father in the confusion. he is outside on the shoulders of his son and another family member, addressing the crowds, saying they had been on the religious visit to a shia shrine in iran, and that had protected their lives. >> translation: we visited the shrine of imam leader. with his protection our lives were saved. >> another freed hostage tried to describe his relief. >> translation: i thank god because i felt that i would
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never see my family again in my life. particularly in recent weeks when there were raging battles taking place around us. in the beginning they treated us well. but then it was really bad. in the last few months they imprisoned us in a room where the temperature would reach 50 degrees. the doors were constantly closed. in istanbul the two turkish airline pilots kidnapped in a reprisal were being reunited with their families. no chaotic scenes, but plenty of emotion and grad attitude for negotiation -- gratitude for negotiations brokered by qatar. one was not amused by their captors. >> translation: we were not treated badly or exposed to physical violence. if that was the case we wouldn't
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have arrived home. >> back in beirut, celebrations from the city where the nine set out a year and a half ago. questions remain about the identities of the armed groups that kidnapped the turkish pilots and there's uncertainty about how, if or when assad's regime is releasing women prisoners, a demand made by opposition fighters who held the lebanese. this, then, is essentially a three-way swap. on the one side the nine shia muslims captured in syria by sunni rebels, suspected of being hezbollah fighters, helping the regime - something they deny. in retaliation two airline pilots abducted in bay rult. why turkish - they back the syrian rebels. the third element. more than 100 female prisoners held by the syrian government to
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be released. that's a concession. let's try to clear this up with omar al saleh. these women, who are they, why are they being held and when or if - will they be released? >> well, these women are activists in the syrian revolution since it started over 2.5 years ago. some of them were held before the revolution started for blogging or writing anti-regime blogs and posts. so these are what we know about the female prisoners. now, as we speak, david, there is great deal of confusion and conflicting reports. we are not even sure at this stage that the women, the female prisoners are released from damascus. let me give you an idea of what the activists are telling us.
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a syrian activist close to the northern storm brigade, the brigade that used to hold the lebanese hostages says they were expecting at some stage last night to release a statement to the world to say what happened. according to that activist, about 126 female prisoners will be released and they will be moved to turkey. is a second activist, a separate source telling us they'll be released from damascus. they were still in syria. a great deal of confusion, conflicting reports. we are not sure if they were released in the first place. we need to wait and see. >> that's omar al saleh. >> activists in syria report a car bomb has gone off in hamas, and may have been targetting a government checkpoint. there's fighting between the
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army and rebels. syrian state tv is reporting the explosion, saying the car bomb was planted by what it calls terrorists. breaking news - a date has been set for a long delayed peace conference aimed at bringing the syrian government and its opposition together. that is according to the head of the arab league. peace talks will go ahead in geneva, the geneva ii talks. russia and the united states have been trying to convene the talks for months. from the head of the arab league, november 23rd in geneva for geneva ii. >> state of emergency has been declared in the australian state of new south wales where firefighters are battling massive bushfires. forecasters are predicting stronger winds and higher temperatures in the next few days, which could make conditions worse. more than 200 homes have been destroyed. andrew thomas has more from
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springwood, to the west of sydney. it will get worse. temperatures which had been predicted to fall look like they'll rise. the winds are predicted to pick up. the worst conditions when you have already got fires burning. now it's relatively cool. the hot change was supposed to have arrived. i think it's been delayed a few hours. there were concerns overnight into monday and tuesday. the temperatures and winds will pick up, and the chance of rain, which was a little in the forecast a few days ago disappeared entirely. that's terrible news for the fire and the reason the state of emergency has been declared. barry o'farrell, premier announced that a state emergency was necessary so people could be ordered to leave their homes, rather than suggested they should leave their homes, and gives emergency authorities permission to enter a building and demolish a building if it's
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in the way of a firefighting effort. not a small increase in the alertness of the authorities, it's a big step up. they are saying the fires could be the worst that new south wales has seen since the 1960s. that gives you some idea of what sort of fears there are for what might be to come. already 200 houses destroyed in the big fires that swept through on thursday. and those look like they could just be the beginning. >> two convicted murderers who got themselves out of prison using fake documents are back in custody in the united states. joseph jenkins and charles walker have been freed from different gaols in florida. prison officials were fooled by false papers reducing their prison terms. the men were arrested without apparent incident >> the u.s. bank jpmorgan chase is to pay a word $13 billion fine to settle investigations into bad mortgage loans. that is according to a source
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close to the negotiations with the u.s. justice department. the sale of over valued mortgage securities was a major cause of the 2008 financial crisis. we'll talk to elise cooper, financial analyst in london joining us from there. this is to settle a claim about overvalued mortgage. this is the civil side of things and there's a criminal investigation, i think, going on. >> well, first of all, we don't have the full details of the settlement. it's news source, the "new york times," "the wall street journal," "bloom berg", it looks like it's a $13 billion settle: $9 bill on of that is fine, and $4 billion will be for helping home owners who got into difficulties. the $13 billion is $2 billion bigger than a couple of weeks ago. the two key things on the settlement - again that we don't know because we don't have the
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details - they are will jpmorgan admit wrong doing and the second thing is will jpmorgan then go on to face criminal prosecutions? they may want to do a deal that reduces - that gets rid of all the criminal liability. so those are the two key things that we await from the deal. >> you would have heard the story that the head of jpmorgan, diamond, would do a deal with eric holder to drop criminal charges, and holder is alleged to have said, "no way." >> exactly. we don't know. that may be what the $2 billion bought him. it goes back to the subprime mortgage crisis. it was to do with banks giving home owners - people the chance to pie -- buy a house, giving them completely unpayable mortgages, like 10 times the sally. jpmorgan and others - they are not alone - they packaged poor
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quality mortgages into investment products and sold them to their clients, their investing clients. the big deal - the deal here is that the view is that jpmorgan knew the mortgages were never going to be repaid but sold them as higher quality investment products. that's what the fine is for. >> you say $4 billion may go back to the people who suffered by buying the fraudulent products. the rest of the fine, if it's $13 billion, presumably that will go to the government. will it go to offset the cost of bailing out the people in the first place? >> well, i presume partly. i mean the interesting thing is that this - if it is this big, it will be the biggest ever fine. i mean, this is a truly humongous number. if you look at some of the libor fines, hundreds of millions of
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pounds and jpmorgan's previous fines - they have a reputation for this. their fines for the london whale trading is about a billion. so a $13 billion settlement would set a record and is truly a huge, huge number. >> louise, thank you very much. louise cooper talking outs of london. >> coming up on the program - a legacy two years after the death of gadaffi, libya faces a security crisis. >> trying to bridge islamic caps. education against the odds.
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these are the top stories on al jazeera: nine lebanese men held hostage by syrian rebels for more than a year have gone back home. >> two turkish pilots kidnapped in retaliation were freed as part of a complex deal. no word on release of dozens of women in syrian government gaols. >> a state of emergency has been declared in new south wales where firefighters are battling massive bushfires. stronger winds and higher temperatures in the next few days could make matters work. >> jpmorgan chase will pay a record $13 billion fine it settle investigations into bad mortgage lines says a source close to negotiations. it was the sale of overvalued securities in part that was blamed for the 2008 financial
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crisis. two years now since former libyan president muammar gaddafi was deposed. he ruled the country for 40 years. libya finding itself facing massive political insecurity troubles. earlier this month their leader was abducted in the capital tripoli for a short while. the military police head was shot dead two days ago. let's explore it with political analyst joining me in the studio. how bad is it in libya? >> it's a mess. the worst part about it is that it could and might actually get worse. shorthand - news reports pictures as if it's an opposition versus government. it's more complicated than that. that makes it worse.
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meaning there is no - you know, bunch of good and bad guys or some opposition, and officials that can work it out. the worst part about that, david, is that various factions - and there are various factions and coalitions, tribalual, islamists, regional - they are not only fighting amongst each other and the government, they are within the government and parliament. for example, one block is in the defence ministry and the other interior ministry. a number of blocks in the parliament represents fighting blocks in the country. quite a mess. >> how could it get worse? >> well, what we have now is a number of tensions going on, and some clashes. it could descend into civil war. we have a bunch of militias stronger than the military. the military is week. the central state hardly exists. you can witness days of no
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water, for example, in the capital. the revenues are down 10% from before... >> down 10% or 10% of what they were. >> they are 10% of what they were. they are down 90% from muammar gaddafi. in a sense the country is running out of money. it is quite a peculiar security situation that might descend into civil war. on top of it you have fighting militias that are not about to give up their power in any shape or form without violence. >> anyone strong enough or anyone with enough will, perhaps, to try to turn this around. is it almost impossible? >> there is a central government. there was elections. there is parliament. the problem is it is not powerful enough. it doesn't have the necessary police and military trained ones anyway, to be able to handle the
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crisis. now, there has been procrastinations in the past on behalf of the government and france and others who were supposed to train them. the training and the make-up of the military was a problem. the militias were a major obstacle to the making of the military. that is the worst spot. with the federalists in the east wanting autoon omy and tribal areas in the center, bringing them together will require libyan effort, it will require regional and international efforts. >> a long way to go. that's our senior political analyst. lead poisoning - it affects thousands every year, particularly children. the world health organisation says there are ways to reduce the riskses and wants action to eliminate lead in point. lead exposure is estimated to contribute to 600,000 cases of children with intellectual disabilities every year.
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children being particularly vulnerable because they absorb four to five times as much lead as adults. children at the highest risk are the young, and the very poor. we have this report from nigeria's zamfara where children have been affected by led pointing because of mining. >> this is a 4-year-old. she has lead poisoning and is around more than 1,000 children who come to this rural clinic for treatment. her mother, karima, lost two children. >> she has fevers. every time it gets worse. memories of my two dead children come back. i'm afraid of losing fatima. all the children have the same symptoms. >> the village sits on gold reserve. in the rush to extract the metal
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unskilled minors came home in clothes contaminated with lead, contaminating the households. it took three years to act. so far doctors without borders for medecins sans frontieres success fully treated 1,600 children in aid villages. hundreds of children are not as lucky. this village lost 200. life is getting back to normal after the clean-up. doctors from medecins sans frontieres are faced with a task of treating more than 1,000 cases. >> the aid agency helping the children is warning that the problem is bigger than thought. >> there are more villages in the area affected. they have not the capacity to
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take care of all villages. there are 30 villages identified in which msf is not working, which suffer from lead poisoning. >> treatment for the children is expensive and take time. it could take five years of visits. >> for karima and others, the discovery of gold in their community is a curse. the only concern is nursing their children back to health. with so much activity at the goldmines there's a good chance that the situation will get wors worse. >> myanmar's opposition leader called on the european union to change the country's constitution before elections in 2015. aung san suy kyi met the european commissioner jose
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manuel barroso in brussels. myanmar's constitution blocks aung san suy kyi from becoming president because it blocks anyone whose children or spouses are foreign nags ails >> pakistan's prime minister nawaz sharif is on his way to washington for talks with president obama after the u.s. released $1.6 million in aid to his country. the relationship between the u.s. and pakistan is intense. pakistan outraged at an assault killing osama bin laden and the killing of pakistani soldiers by u.s. air strikes. >> in the maldives opposition supporters are protesting after the police stopped a re-run of the legislation. former president mohamed nasheed, who left office in suspicious circumstances led rallies in mali. they intervened because of a supreme court ruling. it's the second attempt to hold an election in the last six weeks.
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>> the self-proclaimed philippines sultan whose followers invaded sabah tide. >> jamalul kiram iii died of organ failure. he described himself as sultan of sulu after a group of islands in southern philippines. before colonial times his ancestors ruled over parts of the philippines and malaysia. >> now, there is one lesson that's missing in schools in the philippines, according to parents. it is the lesson of religious equality. muslim groups believe their children are missing out. >> this teacher teaches with a renewed sense of purpose. this, despite getting paid $18 a month. she left a higher paying job to teach arabic language to the
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poor muslim kids but says this job is more rewarding tra >> translation: i'm willing to teach for free. i choose to teach here because the children here need me the most. >> there are around 17 muslim philippine children who go to school. they are taught the curriculum. all the schools rely on private donations, orphans from philippine muslims and other organizations. the funding is barely enough to pay for the teachers and develop the facilities. >> the population of filipino muslims is around 5 million. there's only about 40 islamic schools across the country. a majority are like this - poorly funded and in need of government support. >> the philippines is the bastian of capitalism. more than 85% of the population
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are roman catholics. the consent is the norm. there has been decades of rebellion against the government who say they ignore their cries of quality and justice. despite that, the government has made life for many muslim and say the government needs to start with education. >> it's for the government to support the muslim children. because, you know, muslim community living in a christian environment. >> marginalisation is a reality the students accept. many hope that education may help the children rise above the situation. >> australia's most famous landmark the sydney opera house celebrated its 40th birthday. thousands were there to mark the
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occasion. it was designed by a danish architect and took more than 14 years and $100 million to build. more than 1 million pieces of tile coat the exterior. the aboriginal dances gave performances near a massive birthday cupcake. a violin believed to be played on the "titanic" as it sank was sold at auction for $1.4 million. it was owned by the bandleader, a victim of the disaster. andrew potter reports. >> corroded by the ocean and no longer playable. it's what the violin represents that makes it of huge value. the initials stand for wallace hartley. he was band leader on the ocean liner "titanic," which so famously sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. wallace hartley and his bandmates played to comfort passengers as the ship went
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down. it's thought this was the instrument he used. >> it represents bravery in human nature the way the young man and his colleagues, and all the people on the ship stayed and fulfilled their duty. >> it represents a substantial investment for one collector, after going under the hammer at auction. >> 900,000 - going. >> $900,000 british pounds, that's $1.4 million, four times the expected value. >> it's not about the cash. it's about what it is. it's the most iconic there is. it's history, it's a brave man. the money is secondary. it is a very valuable item, no doubt about that. >> the violin was discovered in an english attic in 2006. there has been fierce debate about its authenticity. the auctioneer is adamant it's
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