>> hello and welcome to the news hour. we have the top stories on al jazeera. u.s. secretary of state john kerry flies into a diploma diplc row as france accuses the united states of spying on its people. controlling a bush fire in australia seems to be working. and living near the

fukushima plant told to leave and may not return for years. and more on children in uganda. hello, france has condemned the u.s. spy program that has reportedly intercepted the phone records of millions of its citizens. france foreign minister has reported that the national security agency secretly monitored 70. million phone calls over a 30-day period. it comes after revelations that the u.s. has a vast spying program that french prosecutors are already investigating. france, in fact, is not the only country to voice concern. mexico has called for an investigation into allegations

the u.s. spied on its president. >> i've summoned the u.s. ambassador. he will come to the foreign ministry this morning. we have known about this since june and we needed to take action. it seems we need to take it further so it won't happen again. >> what are we expecting from the u.s. and france? is there going to be a diplomatic fall out because of these allegations? >> well, i certainly think there will be very chilly relations for a while at least. belowhether or not this causes a significant riff between the countries, we're not sure, but there has been alarm from

hollande. they knew that the americans were carrying out this type of surveillance, but what is knew is the extent of which it has been carried out. 70.3 million phone calls and texts as well. obviously there is no hope of sifting and examining each one of those. but according to reports there would be certain key words that would set off alarm bells in the security agencies, and then they would be examined further but certainly the ambassador to france has arrived to be told of france's displeasure. that mee meeting is over, we dot know what took place.

it was in private, but we can be sure there was strong diplomatic language use there had. and john kerry will brief colleagues on matters in the middle east, but one could make a pretty good guess later on if he holds a press conference he will be asked about these latest revelations. >> you're right. let me ask you about the reaction from the french public themselves, if they've been spied on by the u.s. spying agency. >> reporter: well, president hollande is playing his cards close to his chest. i think he's leaving this one to his foreign minister for the moment. but of course it goes to the heart of u.s. relationship with its allies, and as yo you were saying earlier they spring from

edward snowden, the contractor who has been offered safe haven in russia. the information is still having rrepercussions. we asked the french people how they feel about the spying. they feel that if people from under suspicion perhaps they should have had their calls looked into, but what they object to is a broad sweep of ordinary citizens, they also object to the fact that this was carried out without the knowledge of the french government. >> tim, thank you. that's tim friend reporting from paris. egypt's interim prime minister has condemned an attack

on a coptic church in cairo. that happened during a wedding ceremony on sunday. dominick hane reports. >> reporter: the attackers open fired without warning. their target were a christian congregation at the church of the virgin mary. the people had been attending a wedding and just leaving when the gunmen arrived. >> we came running hysterically. when i arrived there was a woman sitting on a chair. she had lots of bullet wounds and blood coming out everywhere. and there were people around her. including a child who had been shot in the neck. >> reporter: this was an attack on the entire country. >> what happened is an insult to egypt, and it's not directed only to the coptic christians.

we're destroying our own country. just imagine what people will think when they here something like this happened. we're an internationally known church. >> reporter: coptic christians make up 10% of egypt's 84 million population. in recent months dozens of church versus been attacked scenarios the country fueling tension between the christians and majority of the muslim population. it's understood that the church of the virgin mary had been left unguarded for several months. officers will now increase their patrols outside churches following this attack. dominical jazeera, cairo. >> dozens of students are protesting for a third day confronting security forces in cairo sunday and 50 people were

arrested. there are also demonstrations. foreign ministers from the european union are meeting in luxembourg. these foreign chiefs will discuss the use of chemical weapons and humanitarian crisis. one of the smaller provinces. it shares a board with syria. 170,000 people live here and almost half of them are syrian refugees, but some turks are worried about the impact that is having on their lives. many are also nervous about al-qaeda-linked rebel groups in the area. >> it's a danger. al-qaeda is a killer organization. >> we are worried. al-qaeda.

>> reporter: this is a road that leads to the syrian border. beyond this turkish village border post parts of northern syria have become a stronghold for al-qaeda, the islamic stakstate: there was fighting y five kilometers from turkey. the fighters say they're strong and well equipped. this rebel calls on people to join their call. the armed group is powerful and reaching out to residents. giving free meat to the needy and displaced during the muslim holiday. al-qaeda link group like the nusra along with other groups want to control the turkish border and syria say turkish

government backs these groups. now a group a syria affiliated with al-qaeda is just a few kilometers from here and that worries the turkish government. he said the accusations are baseless and says that the al-qaeda groups near turkey are not welcome. >> this threat is a security one for all border provinces. of course we have a security fear. that's why we're tightening our measures to the highest level. terrorism attacks innocent people and intelligence and military are working really hard. >> reporter: the war in syria are already causing a lot of problems for turkey but now as different armed groups including al-qaeda continue to

make gains its border, turkey security may be at risk. >> meanwhile syria's military has killed a rebel leader. rebel forces say he died in fighting with government forces in the village, and he was among the first generals to defect from bashar al-assad's army. there have been several attempted to assassinate him. newly released security camera appears to show kenyan soldiers loos looting shops. some are seen carrying bags. at least 68 people were killed by the al-shabaab group, and people are still waiting for the results from the government i. >> here in nairobi the westgate

shopping mall is less a shopping mall than a grave. the photos are painful reminders of what happened here. >> she's my aunt. >> reporter: jerry brought her son and daughter to westgate for a treat. since then james has heard nothing. now he's full of unanswered questions. >> they didn't predict, now they're hiding from us, which is wrong. we need to know if the bodies are there. we need to do a ceremony of burial of our people. but they're not doing that. >> reporter: one month were westgate and we still know very little of what happened since the shooting began. police and military did their best to rescue people in what now seems a well-intentions but

tragic event to contain the crisis. new silent video shows four relatively gunmen hunting down and shooting anybody they can find. this doesn't look like a well coordinated military operation, more a random attempt to create as much bloodshed and fear as possible. the new video seems to raise far more questions than it answers. if there ou were only four men,w is it that the government was telling us that there were as many as 15, and how were they able to fight off the kenyan security here for almost four days. a former intelligence officer, he believes the government should have seen westgate comi coming. >> they were aware of possible attack. we didn't seem to be prepared.

we didn't seem to be preparing for it. they don't seem to know. >> reporter: the government has losits inquiry but they have not released any information about what happened inside. >> coming up at this news hour we take a look at europe's reliance on nuclear power as united kingdom plans to build it's first nuclear site in 20 years. and a ceremony held for dozens of my grants who died off the coast. and the drawing for the world cup playoff. >> the firefighters in australia fear a massive mega fire will be

formed in the weather forecast is correct. more hot and windy weather is expected which could sound the flames around sydney. 2,000 firefighters are fighting dozens of fires. >> the weather is getting worse from the point of the fighting fires. it's getting hotter and windier. notebly windier in the mountains west of sydney. the big concern two or three already huge bush fires burning across the blue mountains might joan for what some are calling a mega fire, and that could pose a serious risk, giving authorities even the right to enter and demolish houses in the ways of fighting the fire. we have the deputy of controller here. what is the priority of your guys. >> the fire started on thursday,

and it's now monday. that's four days. we have 200 volunteers working on the area as well as salaried staff. we're making sure that the fire stays where it is short of the weather coming on wednesday, and that weather could push the two fires together and could create a larger fire and call on certain weather conditions to force the fire to run towards the edge of sydney. >> thank you very much. so the suburbs of sydney could be under threat. tony abbott also went out as a firefighter. a very grainly image. he didn't take a tv crow with him, but he's anxious to show that he is one with his firefighters and this is a serious significance situation that he's personally involved

with. >> meteorologist: there is a chance of the odd shower pushing over sydney buts not going to be much useful rain coming in. the weather has moved over new south wales. we're looking at the temperatures, 32 degrees celsius. and wednesday is the big day where conditions are set to worsen. conditions will come in from the interior, and the top temperatures of 4 degrees celsius. we may see things worse before they get better with temperatures falling to 22 degrees celsius. hopefully that should help. we have weather making its way towards japan. we have typhoon san francisco. we expect it to reach tokyo about the latter part of this week, and that could well cause further flooding in an area that

is already struggling with floods. similar conditions across the other side of the pacific. mexico with flooding across a good part of mexico. we have huge raymond that could cause further problems here. >> thank you. it may be years before people can return to their homes near the site of japan's damaged fukushima nuclear plant. the cleanup of the most contaminated towns is way behind schedule. experts have delivered their preliminary findings in the clean-up of the site. >> reporter: recent months has seen constant scenes of set backs. the inspectors from the atomic agencies made it clear that their assignment was to look at affected areas nearby. the latest of the plant is for

the next team of inspectors. >> the government of japan and the agency announced that another follow-up mission to the on site of commissioned activities will be deployed in thininthe last quarter of this r 237 he spent a week talking to japanese government and people in the fukushima prefecture. they were impressed with the strategy but needed to be constantly evaluated. tepco announced that six of its employees had been sprayed with contaminated water, ground water has leichted from the reactors

and had spilled into the sea. >> the worst one everyone was looking at is number four. number four they emptied after several years of operation from the core one month before the earthquake, and they put it in a fuel tank. then the earthquake happened, then the explosion happened. that future is a mixture of uranium and plutonium. >> the report said clean up in some of the most contaminated towns is so far behind schedule that residents would have to wait up to three extra years before they could return. >> well, despite the disaster the british government is making plans to build it's first

nuclear plant in the country in 20 years. they looked at at plans where the plant will be built in the southwest of england. ministers say it will help secure the u.k.'s energy supply but critics warn that it could push up household bills. we are' live from london. we'll talk about the bigger picture from the deal, but the critics are saying that it could push up household bills, and it seems that critics are mostly concerned about that. is that the case? >> they're concerned about the way energy price versus risen sharply for the homeowner. but this means that household

bills are at risk rising rapidly. they're under obligation to pay it off twice the price than it took to create the energy. so the government is guaranteeing this for 30 years. that means that the house owners, the tax payers who buy the electricity are at risk throughout that period. >> right, and john, just before we came to playing the report from japan in fukushima in fact, and you saw the disaster there. ever since this germany has decided to phase out nuclear power. italy scrapped a nuclear program. why is the u.k. going down this route at this particular time? >> reporter: well, the u.k. made the decision in 2002 not to go with nuclear power. and then in 2006 it completely changed its mind and went for

nuclear power and from 2006 there has been steady and irreversible commitment from various governments to commit to nuclear power. once you turn that switch it's very difficult to turn back from it. on the u.k. because of its plan of sectors between renewables and nuclear, and coal taken out becaus.the intervention of the e is a last-minute sticking class that is going on here because we had a major investor, the big gas company pull out last year from this particular plant. it pulled out 30% of its investment out of the plant, and the government then had to scramble to find every overseas investor, the chinese.

>> speaking of the chinese, we know they're in on this deal. what should this mean for future projects when it comes to the u.k. and opportunities for chinese investors to get in on more projects? >> reporter: well, the only country in western europe open to development is the u.k. and of course the chinese are looking not only to invest in french plans, the chinese are interested in a french government project, but the opportunity is there for the chinese to whether their own nuclear plants. there is no transparency between the british government and the chinese, and we know this is a chinese company. we know that chinese companies are very much safeguarded and protected by the chinese government. there is not much transparently and openness, and the concern is chinese standards, bear in mind

fukushima are the standards to protect the british aisles. >> thank you. thousands of children in east africa suffer from a disease called nodding syndrome. no one know what cause it is but there is no cure. one group of children are showing improvements. >> reporter: walter can no longer talk and he can barely eat. he's 12 years old but the growth of his body and brain is completely stunted. he has nodding syndrome. it's only found in certain parts of east afte africa. there is no cure and eventually it kills. his sister grace has it, too, most of the time she's too weak to come out of the hut. their parents don't know what to do. >> it's very difficult to look at these two children. as a mother it's unbearable. i hope for any kind of support

from any well-wisher. with that fact i feel useless and i think eventually they will die. [♪ singing ] >> reporter: just a few kilometers away it's a completely different scene. these children also suffer from nodding syndrome but they've been coming to this center every day for a year. the improvement in their health is astounding. they are given basic education, balanced meals, and the staff help them to wash every day. >> some came in who were not talking, now they can talk. we have some of them here. you, you can see them. some could not play. now they're now jumping and kicking. they were not having smiling in their faces. now they laugh. >> reporter: but they're still not cured. nodding syndrome get its names because victims suffer seizures that look like they're nodding.

staff are trained by doctors how to handle them. medicines to a handle epilepsy help but the drugs alone have a limited affect. the whole program of daily actives at the center is cruci crucial. it was set up by two american doctors. they run a charity for nodding syndrome victims called "hope for humans." nodding syndromes has baffled medical expert. but children here appear healthy and happy, they're getting what all children need, balanced meals, exercise, education and hygiene. that suggests that nodding syndrome so devastating plus be because of the broader context of extreme poverty. the government provides services for children with nodding syndrome but with much lysias.

for most it stills causes great suffering and eventually death. al jazeera in northern uganda. >> you can catch the second part of our investigation in the mysterious nodding syndrome on tuesday when we visit doctors from the center of disease control to learn more about their research and to find out if a cure is on the horizon. we'll tell you why a full trial is pending for the men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks in the united states. plus the what is the future of the right wing israeli party. and the brawl during an argentinian football match, that's coming up later

>> hello again. the u.s. ambassador in paris has been summoned over reports that the national security agency has spied on numbers of french citizens. it was described as unacceptab unacceptable. egypt's interim prime minister has condemned an attack on a coptic church that left four people dead. gunmen on motor bikes fired at a wedding party in cairo. no. australia attempts to stop four blaze fires from blending seem to be working. hundreds of homes have been destroyed.

let's return to our top story. in the u.s. national security agency accused of spying on millions of french citizens, the nsa has been in the spotlight for many months. the scandals started in june. that's when british newspaper "the guardian" worked with the u.s. contractor edward snowden. he revealed prism a surveillance program giving nsa access to central services including google, google denies involves. it's been reported that nsa has been receiving information from british spy agency and has paid more than 100 millions dollars to that british agency and the nsa has monitored phone calls, text messages and e-mails from almost everywhere with only

canada, australia and new zealand explicitly exempt. they claim they receive meta-data, that's the connections and not the message. but they have accused the nsa of violating international law. france and germany demanded answers and recently mexico has labeled the spying unacceptable as well as illegal. let's go to live to washington. it's really the extent of these latest allegation that's nsa has been spying on 70 million french citizens that has people very shocked. >> well, i think probably volume of the electronic data involved in this may well be surprising.

the fact is that the program is rooted in the collection of information and electronic information including telephone calls and internet information geared towards what is happening around the world, and that's the purpose of the program. >> and so far let me ask you if you have seen any extraordinary valley from this nsa program? has it revealed anything to you so far? >> well, i mean, the nsa collects signals and intelligence, electronic intelligence, and it's focused on collecting information from around the world. the u.s. justification for the potential military action against syria, it was, in fact, the monitoring of phone calls among the syrian government and syrian chemical forces that was given as proof of the government's link to the

chemical attacks outside of damascus. this is one example of how electronic eavesdropping overseas can help. also i would say that the french have a similar capability, and france and the united states are intelligence partners. to the extent that the united states comes across information that is of security interest to the united states, but also security interest to france. it is in their interest to exchange information. in connection with the boston marathon bombings of this year, it was the russian government who came to the united states government who said there are two citizens in your midst who have security concerns for us, they have security concerns for you. you might check these guys out. this information that one country may acquire could be of benefits to the other. >> the french are coming out and

saying it's unacceptable that the united states spies on 70 million of its french citizens. what do you expect the fallout to be? >> reporter: well certainly it is politically awkward when some of these intelligence activities do come to light. in terms of the u.s. program and the controversy that you did highlight that exists here it is what the intelligence community calls hops. you gather information on someone of concerned attached to a telephone number and you're able to do three hops and that quickly gets you into hundreds of millions of phone calls or electronic records. we look at--we react to the terms millions. but in a world where you are billions or trillions ever electronic interactions going on on a regular basis, it's volume is surprising but that's an indication of the capability that only the united states has but other countries have to

glean through electronic information looking for the needle in the haystack that hell's that you there is a security issue going on. >> that's p.j. crowley speaking to us from washington. funerals are being held in sicily for the hundreds of migrants whe who died when their boats sank in earlier months. let's go to sicily where most of the migrant versus been buried. >> reporter: well rather than a funeral this is just a commemoration ceremony. as you can see behind me it's all under way. it's expected to start in about a half hour, and it was meant to commemorate the many victims who died in some of the worst ship wrecks in the last few weeks,

where in total almost 400 people died. well, this of course is a far cry from the state funeral promised by the italian government. that's why many around hearsay this is too little too late. >> reporter: as they often do on sunday, they visit their family mausoleum in the local cemetery. this time they have flowers for the dead they have never met but are buried next to their closest relatives. they offered a burial plot to a woman and her four-year-old child, two of the hundreds who died in the ship brea shipwreck october 3rd off the coast of sicily. >> they would have been forgotten if they were buried elsewhere. no one would have left a flower o.this way i'll be able to say a prayer for them when i visit my

grandfather. >> reporter: they are now part of a few given a dignified burial. almost all of the 400 who died in the chip wrecks were buried, they were given a somber ceremony and all that is left behind to mark them are numbers on a wall. >> reporter: on monday preparations were under way for a controversy ceremony to commemorate the victims of the tragedy, an event with government representatives but no coffins. >> this shows the difference between our local population who rolled up their sleeves to help and a government which makes grand statements with little concrete contribution when faced with tragedy. in the meantime tens of my grants arrive every day on the coast of sicily, undeterred from

becoming another number in the islands of cemetery. >> what exactly is italy doing to prevent future tragedies such as this? >> reporter: well, the italian government has promised that it will the fleet that is employed to intercept vessels and carry migrants that mostly come from the coast of libya. they promise to triple the number of vessels that to patrol that part of the mediterranean sea that is the champio channelt separates libya and sicily. also they have been appealing to europe to help out because italy and malta say they just cannot deal with the increasing influx of migrants towards italy. but the ceremony has been under

criticism for a number of reasons. for instance, we have heard that there is a number o who are comg down to the ceremony, they say they found this disgraceful. among the dignitaries from the government who are invited and were invited there is also the ambassador to italy. what they say is that the oppressive government like are the consequence of the reason that some of the reasons why people try to take that perilless journey to italy, and too many times in the last few weeks end up to their dead. >> thank you. that's reports from sicily. let's go to lampedusa, simon, where the boats in fact, sank. >> reporter: that's right, and

things here have taken a dramatic turn. let's not forget the survivors, they're still here. they're stuck here in the lampedusa detention/registration center, whatever you call it, and they're very upset. they're upset they weren't invited to the event in sicily this morning and today they have taken matters into their own hands. they've broken into groups of 50 each mostly men and protested in two locations outside of the town hall and the gates of the detention center, and blocking the road, demanding that the italian authorities pull their finger out and start processing them, and of course, they wanted desperately to be at this event in sicily where so many of their friends and families will be commemorated. subsequent to that they didn't go back quietly to their detention center. they have just conducted, we

don't have pictures of this yet, unfortunately, their own ceremony. all the trained survivors well over a hundred carry flowers. it was calm and dignified, and they performed their own ceremony on a rocky headline just a few hundred yards from where i'm standing, muslims and christians together praying, some clearly distraught at the loss of their friends and family before flowing flowers into the sea and conducting their own ceremony, because as you say, they were not invited to the main ceremony. >> that's reports from lampedu lampedusa. a suicide-bomb attack on a passenger bus in russia, 24 people on board the bus when the that explosion happened. we're there live from moscow with more on exactly what

happened, david, on that bus. >> reporter: let me first update with you the latest figures i've got. the number of dead is now six. there are 32 injured, seven to eight of those are on the criticacritical list and they do include a young people. this shows a very dramatic scene. it was obviously a very powerful explosion. it blew off the road cars that were right next to the bus, and the investigative committee say that it definitely was a suicide-bomber. they have found the documentation of the woman who was responsible. they say that they have her name. she is a native of pakistan. she was at university here in moscow, and there she met and married a moscowavite.

they went down to the north caucus, and i, andthat's where d in the low level undeclared war that is going on between the fighters in the forest who want to create an emirate in the northern kauscus. this means that the husband of the suicide-bomber is now on russia's most wanted list. this is a very serious incident and it will be taken very seriously here. >> that's david chater reporting from moscow. >> the sports news including a former u.s. open champion, we'll

tell you how he did it in just a few minutes.

>> cultural orthodox justs in israel face an uncertain future following the death of their leader. >> reporter: when the spiritual leader of israel's peter died hundreds of people joined the procession. the party's traditional support

base are still trying to work out what direction they will take under the leadership of a controversial figure who lacks the credential of ray buy yosef. some say it's crucial that the party get back in the coalition government. >> i think we need to be in the government so that israel doesn't start resembling copenhagen where jews we believe in the torah and practice our religion and it's important that the next generation inherit that identifidentity for us. >> reporter: the party has been influential in the israeli government but currently in opposition with benjamin netanyahu teeming up with other right-wing parties instead.

>> reporter: rabbi yosef helped to turn israel into an international force. now wonder how it will change the government. >> forcing ultra orthodox men to join the army rather than study. >> you have the secular anti anti-government. >> reporter: so as they try to strike a deal with the government he risks angering ultra otterre orthodox. >> pakistan could be about ready to receive $300 million from the

united states. it was blocked when the relations worsened after the killing of osama bin laden. they've asked to resume payment. after talks with secretary of state john kerry, they are due to meet with president barack obama on wednesday. they have urged world powers to help pakistan resolve its dispute with india over kashmir. >> it's part of india. we cherish it, we value it, it's part of the description of our identity, and our sense as a nation. there is no question of anybody, anybody interfering with this idea, and i think the united states of america snows this very well.

>> five men accused of planning the september 11th attacks in the united states are due back in the courtroom. they're being held at guantanamo bay in cuba. what has held up the trials and what are the key legal issues. >> reporter: 17 months after the arraignment of the five men accused of plotting the september 11th attacks, there is still no trial date. that's due in part for the hearings in guantanamo bay. >> all sides are worried about the legitimacy questions and make sure whatever happens here fairness is achieved to the maximum extent possible. the quirky response to that is things are going much slower and calls into legitimacy this longer pace is to insure. >> reporter: prosecutors will ask the judge to start the trial on september 22, 2014. they argue too much time is

being wasted on what they consider irrelevant defense motions and justice needs to be served for the nearly 3,000 people killed on september '11. however, defense lawyers say they're required to do everything possible to save their clients' lives. they want to see all communications between the bush administration and the cia about the defendants, the captured, and the torture they suffered. plus, the lawyers want to the government to stop monitoring their meetings with the defendants. >> then there is this request, defense lawyers want all the information the government gave the producers of the movie "zero dark thirty." they claim hollywood knows more of how the defendants were tortured than they do. from the very beginning the defense lawyers have called to dismiss the case.

>> the best part of why has has taken so long is we're walking through each issue very carefully because everyone realizes the eyes of history are upon them. >> reporter: trying to balance the rights of the accused with the government's right to hold them accountable. no easy feat. >> reporter: the playoff draw has been held for the final stage of the 2014 world cup qualification from europe. there are 18 still in contention. portugal has drawn sweden and usain has drawn frequence, greece wil against owe mania, ad iceland against croatia. the winners will advance to brazil. mexico's campaign has been

plagued by upheaval and has seen just two victims. but their four coaches in six weeks think they can change all of that. miguel herrera is tasked with leading the side into a two-leg playoff in new zealand next month. mexico is in danger of missing its first world cup since 1990. >> the truth is we have a big commitment and we take full responsibility. withouwithout a doubt we'll be e world cup, and we'll try to do it the same, better or a lot of better in this task that we have been given. >> another coach fighting for his job is the egyptian bob bradley. after advancing to the final of the african champions league. the national team is still reeling from a 6-1 loss in the first leg of their world cup playoff against begunga north america. bradley doesn't know if he'll

still be in charge for next below's return leg. >> if it's left to me i will be with the team because we have been together throughout this period with a dream, and it's important that we can stand together one more time. it was a difficult day. many factors came together, certainly nerves, emotions, the field, the referee, for me most of all the players who love egypt so much. i think the pressure of everything that has happened in this country the last two years was great on this day. when you put it all together it was too much. >> totthan seeing a hefty fine after the match against aspen villa. assistant referee david brian was struck on the back of the neck that did not require treatment.

it overshadows spurs 2-0 win. and townsend's first premier goal for the club. >> yes, obviously it's not great to see. it should be avoided completely. i think it touched the lines, so situations like this don't have a place in football. and i sincerely hope it doesn't happen again. >> there is no love loss between boca juniors and cruz in the argentinian leagues. boca were awarded a minute in penalty time. you it seek several minutes for the sides to be separated. the defending goal by lucas candido, the 19-year-old making just his fourth start, but he set quite a standard for himself that was his first-ever goal

that secured a 1-0 win. tommy haas has won the austrian open. the 35-year-old germany was 4-2 down in the deciding set in four straight games. and it's his second title in vienna. simpson has claimed his first title since 2012. the american produced a 5-under round of 66 in las vegas. it gave him a six-stroke victory and it's simpson's fourth career victory. >> i feel like i've gotten better. i just hadn't gotten a win. i was close at hilton head, but

nice to finish the year off with a "w" and get back to hawai'i, the ducks beat the dallas, the veteran team started off the scoring for his 678 career goal. the captain had a goal and three assists to lead the ducks to 6-3 victory over the visitors. and it's the champion's best ever start to the season. over in winnipeg, the predators beat the jets 3-1, sending it's winning streaks to five games energies columbus the blue jackets end it's losing streak. with a 3-1 win snapping the canucks 14-game line. that's all your sports for now. >> stay with al jazeera. we're back for a moment with the

day's top stories. stay with us.

>> this is al jazeera america coming to you live from new york city. i'm del walters with a look at today's top stories. same-sex marriage is now the law of the land in new jersey. only moments ago we learned that governor chris christie has dropped his legal opposition to the issue. >> i declare joseph and orville to be lawful spouses in the state of new jersey. [ cheering ] >> mayor corey booker doing the honors just after midnight. the first same-sex couples to tie the not at newark's city hallen funerals are being held in baghdad for victims of a deadly suicide-bomb attacks. 55 people were killed when an explosive ripped through a b