>> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ >> our news center here in doha and london, this is al jazeera's news hour. coming up in the next 60 minutes, desperation in the philippines, people are still struggling seven days after haiyan destroyed everything they had. at least 16 people are killed dur progress tests in the libyan capitol of tripoli. protests over aledged war

crimes overshadow a top summit in sri lanka. along the stories we're covering in europe, including the excluded. the french town emgracing a people long pushed to the edges of european society. ♪ first to the philippines where seven days after the strongest typhoon tore through the country, thousands are still without food, water, and shelter. aid is being delivered, but it's not getting to the people who need it fast enough. the communications are still down, hundreds of roads remain blocked and airport runways have been damaged. meanwhile the task of burying the dead in mass graves has

begun, and there is still confusion over the death toll. over 3.5 thousand people may have died, but there are fears the real figure could be much higher. our teams are spread across the philippines. first this report from margo or tee ez. >> reporter: everything changed here seven days ago, and since then very little has. dead bodies still litter the roadsides while the living struggle for basic necessities. here people are taking carcasses from a butcher house. running water is now a prized

commodity. and petrol is in high demand. this sports coliseum was supposed to be a refuge. it is also next to the water, and haiyan created a surge that reached the coliseums third level. killing many of the people inside. pregnant with her third child, she says singing helps her cope. >> translator: if i think about what has hand, i feel as many i might lose my mind, so i sing so as no to dwell on it. >> reporter: the police inspector was brought in to keep the peace, but his mind is on his family just north of here. >> translator: it's hard being away from family. they are also victims of the typhoon. but this is my job it's okay.

>> reporter: many people are also beginning to worry about what lies ahead. >> translator: god gave it a second chance to live. i will do all i can for all of us to survive. we're all suffering here, even the rich. >> reporter: a crowd gathers at the coliseum's edge as another dead body surfaces. it's not many to see the future here, but many say they have to leave it up to god. >> earlier we are spoke to the spokesman for the philippine president. and he has admitted the government's response had initially been slow, but is now making progress. >> certainly we want things to be faster, but let me say this also, when there's been a lot of reports that it has been slow, and we will concede in the first couple of days it was slow.

the scale of this disaster was unprecedented more than anybody thought it would be. the first line of -- the first responders -- the line of first responders were themselves victims, so for example, the day after the storm, about -- less than 10% of the police force was able to go to work the next day because either they had died or their relatives had died. once we got there, the first thing we had to do was remove the obstructions from the roads. you can't get from point, a to point b if there is a collapsed tree or debris on the road. and the bulldozers in this town had been destroyed in the storm, so we had to bring them in ours. we're not making excuses, certainly that held up the process, but the process of distribution actually came quite quickly once that came.

>> one town could face months without electricity. veronica is there. >> reporter: the scene may look chaotic, but in the end this deep well accessible to all is one of the reasons this city has been more resilient than others. it's called drinkable water, which they have in ab a -- abundance. nevertheless the city has been ruined by haiyan. hundreds of people flock to this street so they can plug in to generator power from a generous hotel. they have even come from other towns so they can charge their phones. this is the only hotel that is fully functioning.

only the patients with the most serious injuries remain here a week after the storm struck. hospital administrator told us they took in three times their usual number of patients at first. the electricity they have come from two big generators. >> our ceiling, all of our ceiling at the levy went down with the wind, including electrical, plumbing, so this was really, really chaos. >> reporter: one of the main problems is damage at a power station. it will be another week before the company that runs it can even predict it will be running again. many of its workings have been effected by the storm too. >> our employees were effected. i think no one was spared from

typhoon haiyan. >> reporter: power lines are down everywhere you look. more than a thousand poles that held up the power lines have been pulled out by the sheer force of the wind of hifian -- haiyan. getting back to normal is going to take months if not years, and it is going to cost millions of dollars, far more than most here can afford. veronica, al jazeera, the philippines. and the town on the eastern island was the first to be hit by typhoon haiyan. as steph reports. >> reporter: this used to be a picturesque tourist town with a 16th century church as one of its main attractions. it's all gone now.

it's in the east of one island, which was the first to experience the fury of haiyan. >> only the [ inaudible ] almost [ inaudible ] and then -- >> reporter: what were you thinking? >> i think this is my first -- my first -- my last day of my life during the typhoon. >> reporter: the old city is totally in ruins. the place where the supertyphoon landed here first. the u.s. military is air lifting relief around the clock. also medical personnel from abroad are setting up field hospitals and people are queueing for hours be treated.

>> the sanitary conditions are not very good. there's no electricity, lack of running water, so the toilets are not functioning very well. people live in makeshift buildings with plastic sheeting or in the schools, so the national health authorities are really trying hard now to monitor. >> this man says he has not had any help except for two key lows of rice. although aid is coming in, he is still worried it won't reach him. >> i'm asking the help the whole world, and it must be directly given to the homeless people here. >> reporter: one week after the disaster, the people say their main feeling is one of intense sadness, for lives lost and an

ancient town gone forever. >> stay with al jazeera for the latest news. of course you can always head to our website at aljazeera.com. at least 16 people have been killed in the libyan capitol after gunmen opened fire on a group of protesters. hundreds of demonstrators took to the treats following a call for local clerics. sebastian, who could possibly be behind this attack? >> reporter: well, it's a bit hard for us to get a clear handle on. we know there have been a number of fatalities. there are conflicting reports. we have heard from two different hospitals that they have

received people who were killed in today's incident. there is a demonstration actually against the military. the military opened fire on the crowd, and there seems to be dozens of people wounded. we had meetings planned up for this evening, and the people we were planning to meet have canceled to stay within the house. this is really the latest in a series of incidents that have raised long questions about security in tripoli. >> okay. thank you very much. we can get more from the libya researcher for human rights watch, and she is also -- thank you very much for joining us. as i understand it, you were at the hospital when the injured were brought in. do you know of the number of casualties of people who were

injured? >> yes, thank you. i [ technical difficulties ] both in front of the hospital with lots of armed men trying to divert traffic, and the same thing was reflected inside the hospital, where i also saw lots and lots of armed men running around, totally overwhelmed hospital staff. i counted seven dead bodies, including one -- that of a girl who's face was completely blown away by heavy, heavy weapons. hospital authorities -- or the hospital workers are telling us that most of the casualties that we saw at least five were killed

with heavy weapon, including anti-aircraft weapons. when i got in under an hour ago, they had registered about 55 wounded, but there were scores of injured being brought in on stretchers. as i was there i saw people shot in the head with single shots. i saw people shot with regular shots and obviously a lot of chaos in the hospital. >> certainly very, very chaotic. however, just give us a bit of a background as to this situation prior to the attack and the protests today. was tripoli a very tense place? >> continuely has been tense all this past week, and your listeners might have heard there were clashes last week already between tripoli-based militia and militia from a commander

from [ inaudible ] was actually killed in exchange of fire. and that triggered clashes. it left many dead and several injured as well. an explosive devise just landed next to my house and there were heavy clashes for at least two or three hours, but still i think what hand today was unprecedented. i do not recall this level of violence since the end of the conflict here in tripoli. in tripoli i have not seen this level of violence since the end of the conflict. >> helen thing you very much for getting us up to date on the situation. some 200 demonstrators in

sri lanka have disrupted a visit by the british prime minister. they held up pictures of their family members who they lost in the civil war. he is in sri lanka for a meeting. we have more from the capitol, colombo. >> reporter: well a dramatic first day. shortly after the opening ceremony. the uk prime minister david cameron traveled north of the country. he was there to meet with political leaders and journalists who say they have been attacked since the end of the 26-year-long civil car.

his car was surrounded by people holding photos and letters of loved ones they say have disappeared since the end of the conflict, and wanted the uk prime minister to bring up the issue with the president. the president was due to meet with the media on friday evening. however, he pulled out of that briefing at the last minute. his spokesperson saying he was extreme extre extremely busy with other delegates, and the meeting would be rescheduled. but he has opened himself up to criticism that he doesn't want to answer questions. the war is never a place for children, but the sad reality is they have often been exploited in conflict zones. coming up, we speak to a child soldier who tells us how he escaped but why we'll never

forget what hand. and in sport we may not have seen the last of the cricket luj end. re action from mumbai later in the program. ♪ emergency aid has reached more than 40,000 people in the syrian province. more than 30 trucks from the un and others have delivered supplies. families and homes have been largely cut off from aid sup place since may of this year. elsewhere in syria, government forces have been shelling the southern suberb of damascus. and there's been a setback in the u.s./russian plan to get rid of syria's chemical weapons

stockpile. barbara tell us what happened. >> yes, a setback indeed. albania has rejected a request from the u.s. for the weapons to be destroyed on their soil. >> reporter: for a week they have gathered outside of the parliament tehran, demanding the government ignore the requests to destroy the chemical weapons on their soil. he said simply . . .. that will be a welcome decision here. >> i know exactly what it is, and what damage they can create if they can come in my country. we have not prepared to do this

kind of [ inaudible ]. >> reporter: and yet, six years ago, albania was able to destroy its own stockpile of chemical weapons left over from the communist's period. syrias stocks are much larger, and albania's experience made it an attractive option for the difficult task. norway has already been asked and refused. the decision isn't likely to have been an easy one. side with opposition upon or support an unpopular request from a powerful ally to destroy more than a thousand tons of dangerous chemicals. >> translator: no to chemical weapons, no to the hazardous substances poisoning the lye -- lives of our children.

>> reporter: meanwhile they will continue to try to work out how to eliminate the chemical weapons. the question remains, though, removed to where? jonah hult, al jazeera. twelve migrants have drowned along the western coast of greece. it happened near an island in the sea known for people smuggling. four children were among those who died migration remains a high die visive issue. in france some have predicted a looming surge in roma arrivals. they will allow their citizens to move freely around the eu, and many roma are expected to want to join the community

already living in france. france's population is estimated between 15 and 20 thousand romas. rather than pushing them out, one small town in western france is focusing on integrating roma jacky roland explains. >> reporter: this man has held down this job for four months now. it is a big achievement for him. as a roman immigrant in france, he is more used to asking for handouts than earning a wage. >> translator: before i had a job i was begging. that's the way it was. now that i have a job, i don't cause trouble. >> reporter: he and his family were among a convoy of 50 roma

caravans that arrived here. the local community was overwhelmed. but the mayor provided mobile homes for five families and persuaded neighboring towns to accept the rest. what is happening here is virtually unique in france. in most towns shortly after a group of roma arrive, you can expect the police to come and move them along. local volunteers have set up a cooking project that provides a small income for some of the women. they take orders online, and once a week they cook and sell a meal to people. >> translator: working here is good for me. i can earn 30 euros to buy food for think children. >> reporter: but the town has

already set a number of rules. one is that the roma must send their children to school, and another is everyone must learn to speak french. for local leaders this is vital if the romas are to become part of the community. >> translator: it is no different than any other migrant group who have migrated to a different town. of course it will take time. >> reporter: this is the next generation, and they already speak french like their classmates. >> reporter: the experience of this small town seems to contradict the theory of some politicians that the roma do not want to imma grate. it depends on the local community, the government, and the roma people themselves to

make it happen. all right. now it's back to doha. thank you. now china is relaxing its controversial one-child policy. couples will be allowed to have two parents if one of the parents is an only child. more now from andrew thomas. >> reporter: this isn't official abolition of the one-child policy, but it is basically the case, because given that the one-child policy has been in place since 1979 there aren't that many couples left in china of child bearing age that this doesn't apply now. in 1971 china couldn't afford millions more people. now it faces the opposite

problem. it has an aging population. and abolition of the labor camps also as a result of people's outrage. over the years it has been abused by local officials to throw anybody into a labor camp that didn't agree with whatever local policies were going on. i think both of these reforms, though, are a way the ruling communist party show that things can change without the need for political change too. stay with us here on the al jazeera news hour, lots more to come, including -- i'm here in the last natural estuary in the florida panhandle. and in sport, two of the

world's biggest stars compete for one spot. robin will be here with much more. ♪ al jazeera investigates a man with many enimies... >> they told me they did not find anything... >> ...dies with no medical explanation... >> no liver cirrhosis... no traces of cancer... >> was he murdered? don't miss, what killed arafat? tomorrow at 3pm et/12pm pt and sunday the rivieting conclusion... >> one other thing points to this being an assassination... >> killing arafat sunday at 3pm et/12pm pt on al jazeera america power of the people until we restore our freedoms a

welcome back. thousands of people in the philippines are still without food and water a week off it was hit by typhoon haiyan. emergency aid is arriving from all over the world, but rescuers are struggling to reach some remote areas. gunmen in libya have shot dead 16 protesters in the capitol of tripoli. more than 100 others were injured. hundreds of demonstrators have disrupted a visit to sri lanka. the number of child soldiers in the central african republic has almost doubled in the last year. the united nations estimates there are now more than 3,500

children taking up arms in the country. we have more from the capitol. >> reporter: in december last year, pierre was separated from his family. he thought joining rebels would help. he was 15 when he was recruited by sellca. but he soon realized he had made a mistake. >> translator: it's true i fired my weapon, but i don't know what i did or killed anyone. i saw people killed. i witnessed atrocities. i saw them silling civilians. it hurts me when i think about it. >> reporter: the un and local charities help get pierre out of the rebels in august. the un says there are still sh around 3,500 child soldiers in

the country. it admits there is a long way to go. we filmed several children in uniform at this government base in buah. it is clear that security forces still have children in their ranks. it's not just boys who join. 40% of child soldiers around the world are girls like sophie. she says girls are also trained to fight. >> translator: they fired rounds at us all the time to stop us from being scared. sometimes they would fire the blanks even when we were running or eating. >> reporter: girls also suffer from sexual violence. sophie was raped by her commanding officer. she is now back living with her family. >> translator: the children well us they are addicted to drugs,

they see killings, they smell rotting bodies. they are constantly in contact with blood, so they take drugs. sometimes the children kill people and when they leave the armed groups, the memories come back to them and they take drugs to forget. >> reporter: some are forced to join, others volunteer because they have no hope of finding work. either way their experiences will stay with them forever. this man was a child soldier for three years. he told my colleague about how he was recruited and the harrowing experience he underwent. >> at 12 years old the war reached my life and i started running from it, and everything

[ technical difficulties ] >> became the only choice we had left. >> so you were forced to become a soldier basically. was there a point where you were completely reconditioned? where you thought this is normal? this is what you have to do? tell us what it was like in these camps. >> yes, first of all you have to normalize a lot of things. the way people trusted each other is no longer the same. the community structure had collapsed, so you had to learn to adjust yourself to be able to live in this condition. so it becomes the only way to live. to buy another minute to be alive. when you are part of it, you can gain access to the resources

available. but it becomes a matter of survival. you learn not to allow certain emotions to come out to live day-to-day. >> who was forcing you, or was it the threat of death or indoctrine nation sessions? >> well, there are several ways. in my particular case it was the fact that if you leave, you will get killed. once you find yourself in these bases they will make sure -- and they made examples -- that if you did not do what you were told you could be killed. and there was also a rhetoric of revenge. when you join us, you can avenge the death of your families. you can make sure that what happened to you does not happen to somebody else. and of course you get addicted to the drugs, and you know this is a way to survive and you

become conditioned to that. there were some children who were indoctrinated differently. they were forced to inflict violence on their own families so they cannot go back to their own communities. >> did you kill anyone ourselves? and how do you deal with that? >> well, war is about killing people. every minute that you live in a war requires somebody else to die on your behalf. either you do that killing or somebody else does it for you. and if you are part of the fighting then you have to do the killing. now the first time you -- you shoot somebody, or kill somebody is the most difficult one to do. you have nightmares, you know you are descending into some sort of hell. but after a while it becomes your life, it reflects everything walks with that. so it became my life.

i normalize it, and that's all i saw every day of my life to the point where even if someone was killed in front of me. >> 40% of child soldiers are actually girls. tell me a little bit of what sort of condition that they exist in. >> actually, to me it's not necessarily a shocking thing. it is just something that has been left -- people haven't spoken about it for many years, because the idea of a child soldier, the boy with the ak-47, so that is where people's mind will go immediately. but there are also girls who go through the same training. in addition, they are sexually abused by the commanders and some of them have children during the course of the war and

have to care of their children after the war. when you rehabilitate girls, it's a different thing, because you have to deal with them more delicately so the sigma that society has against them is not left with them for the rest of their lives. also when you go to negotiate the release of children from fighting groups the girls are the last that commanders will give up. they are the most difficult ones to get out of the fighting, because they serve the role of fighters and the supportive roles such as cook, carrying things, and also of course the sexual favors, so it's very difficult to get them out. >> how has it -- let me back up and ask have you returned to a normal life? what does a normal life look like for you? what do you return to? >> well, you have - have -- slowly -- it's a

long-term process. it took many years for me to even learn how to sleep. so everything is -- you build new memories. you get taken into families, which i was adopted into a family in the united states and able to go to school, so i discovered other things about myself that i was capable of, besides what i had been conditioned to do during the war. so the idea of returning to normalsy continues even later in your life. you cannot forget. i think people think of normalsy of maybe forgetting what you experienced. you can't. you learn to develop it, you develop memories that go with the war memories, and refocus. once you have able to do that -- if i can say, then, you are back to normalsy. toronto's city council has

voted to trip the -- strip the mayor of some of his powers. joining me live from toronto is our correspondent daniel. daniel, they stripped him of some of his powers but they just can't seem to get rid of him. >> reporter: no, they can't. toronto has a mayor, they voted for him three years ago. he has another year left in his term, and if he doesn't resign or get carted off to jail, he cannot be fired. he is not an all-powerful mayor like the mayor of new york he has to work with his colleagues on council. as of today he no longer gets to appoint his own cabinet, and has

lost most of his emergency powers, so if there is a flood or fire or something they are not involved in that. they are also going to try to take away his office budget next week and give it to his deputy an appointmented member of council. they can only ask him to resign. he says he is not going to resign or get drunk in public anymore. he keeps saying he is sorry, he is sorry, but the scandal will not go away. it is the butt of so much humor across the world. >> daniel thank you very much for getting us up to date on that. returning now to barbara in london for more news out of europe. thank you. the growing pressures on the

earth's water supplies have been discussed during an international conference in the netherlands. the two-day summit wrapped up just a few hours ago. and they talked about ways to avoid future conflict. they said that there is a need for better cooperation, negotiation, and arbitration between countries, an idea that they called water dip massey. it's not just developing nations where fresh water shortages are having an impact. in the u.s. a water war between two states is threating an age

facing an ecological crisis. [ technical difficulties ] >> what we're going through now. so flipping burgers at mcdonald's is better than what it is right here. >> reporter: and it's the delicate nature of a place they call uncommon florida that has made it so vulnerable. what makes this bay so unique and when the fresh water meets with the salt water out in the bay, creating a unique environment. but in the last few years there has been a battle over fresh water from states north of here, and it's a fight florida is

loosing. the fresh water has long been locked in legal battles with alabama and georgia. environmental activists say the longer officials fight, the more damage is done. >> we're dependant on the fresh water for our industry. and when that goes, so will a billion dollars seafood industry in the gulf of mexico. >> reporter: most of the population earns a living from these waters. for community leaders like joe taylor it is now a race of time. >> it is really a labor of love for these people to work on the bay, and i hate to see that evaporate and go away because we weren't able to come to some

kind of common goals. >> many have survived hurricanes, droughts and oil spills and now they just need fresh water to flow. joining us live now from washington, d.c. is jay, who is a professor is of earth systems science. thank you for joining us here on al jazeera. it was interesting in that report to see the shortage of fresh water isn't just an issue in developing countries, but can happen in the us. i know you have done some research to see where water depletion is occurring around the world. so what did you find out? >> we used a nasa satellite called grace, and grace literally acts like a scale in the sky that can weigh the water inflows and outflows into a region or out of a region, so we

can track the regions [ technical difficulties ] >> we're seeing that the extremes are becoming more extreme. we're seeing more flooding happening in some regions, and more drought and more persistent

long-term droughts in other regions. >> this conference in the hague that just wrapped up, they spoke about water diplomacy. >> yes. >> i see you also speak about water management. >> right. >> what is meant by water management? drinking of course. but with a growing population, what else can happen? >> well, so, water is a resource -- it's a precious resource, of course, and our resources need to be managed. one of the main issues is that traditionally we have managed our surface waters and not our ground water. yet ground water is the primary source of water for about a third of the world's population, and without management, what we're seeing is this incredibly important reserve is being depleted at a rapid clip in many parts of the world.

>> professor thank you so much for joining us. >> my pleasure. now back to doha. >> thank you. sports news coming up with robin shortly, including -- >> i'm here in abbu dabby for the start of the world qualifiers.

♪ it's time for sport now. here is robin. >> thank you so much. the cricket world may have witnessed the last innings of

the greatest player. fans will now be opening that they are score enough runs for india to bat again. >> reporter: hundreds of die-hard cricket fans lined the streets outside the stadium here this morning to welcome the indian cricket team as they arrived for the second day of the test match. this was nothing compared to the rousing welcome that was received as he walked on to the cricket pitch this morning. the stadium was pull of celeb advertise, devoted fans, and of course his family cheering him on from the stands. it can only be described as a wall of sound that greeted him. cricket comment taittors mentioned that they literally couldn't hear what the person

next to them was saying because of the amount of noise and cheering going on. they wanted him to reach the milestone as he played his final match, capping off a 24-year long career. alas it was not to be. one of the greatest batsman in the history of the sport was balled out for 74 runs. at that moment there was a stunned silence that descended on the stadium. people were in shock for a moment, finally realizing that perhaps this was the last time they would see this wonderful, remarkable clicket player bat in his career. the consummate professional didn't miss a beat, he just slowly walked off of the stadium, pausing only for a moment to wave to his fans. india is still very well on

top today too. the west indians slumped to 43-3. if they don't reach at least 314 runs to make india bat again, that that would have been his last appearance. 16 teams with looking to win one of the six places to join the likes of india and australia in beg -- bangladesh. >> reporter: this is cricket's oldest rivalry, canada versus the united states. the first match back in 1844. there weren't quite as many at the 2020 qualifiers in abdabby.

>> there are like seven different countries represented in terms of background, so it is a bit tougher for us, but we have played for a while now, so we have that sense of pride. >> i'm originally from jamaica, living in florida now. so it's kind of hard to actually work for yourself and go out there and get the actual training that you would need. >> reporter: back in 1944 [ inaudible ] won by 23 runs. this time the u.s. prevailed. reaching the target with just one ball to spare. [ cheers and applause ] >> reporter: canada and the united states is just two of the sides here in the uae. all teams are battling for a place in bangladesh next year. while the hosts have not

traveled far, their players are. most are originally from the subcontinent. >> there are lots of [ inaudible ] we are playing, but then they have to join the group and keep working hard, and definitely love to have them on the team. >> reporter: they have made a good start by winning their opening match. the moscow drug test laboratory is facing suspension. the task force has recommended that the lab have its accreditation suspended because it is not sufficiently reliable. extensive security checks are being put into place for those wishing to buy tickets online.

organizers have pledged to make this game the safest olympics in history. >> obviously this kind of measure might stop some people to go to the olympics from other countries, but this kind of measure is there are people [ inaudible ]. let's get you caught up on the latest golf now. the swede is attempting to become the first player to win the fedex cup and the race to dubai in the same season. stenson followed it opening round with 6 under on friday. portugal hosts sweden on

friday. only one will reach the finals brazil. the top goal scorer will spear head portugal in lisbin. they have reached both the 2012 world cup, and 2012 european championships. france are looking for their fifth successful appearance in the finals as they get ready to face ukraine. france failed to overcome holding spain for the top qualification group, but are looking strong having won all of their last three matches. the other ties could' iceland become the smallest nation ever to qualify for football's biggest tournament

jeremy lin has made a triumphant return to the new york knicks. he became an international sensation, but is now playing for the houston rockets. he finished the game with 21 points. the chicago blackhawks have posted their fourth straight win in the nhl but had a tough fight. the scores were tied at 4-4 in regulation and overtime. forcing a shootout. securing the victory there. all of the day's big stories are covered on our website, aljazeera.com/sports. >> robin thanks very much. stay with us, for our viewers outside of the u.s., another

full bulletin of news right at the top of the hour.

welcome to al jazeera america, i'm del walters. these are the day's top stories. >> on this vote, the yays are 261, the nays are 157, the bill has passed. >> the house voting on permanent changes to the health care reform laws. some survivors getting out of the philippines, but many still waiting for relief. a michigan home owner facing charges of death in connection with the death of a young black woman. ♪