>> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler. here are tonight's top stories. senators are debating how to handle cases of sexual assault in the military. new york's chris 10 gilibrand is pushing to take cases out of the chain of command. the pentagon says nearly 30,000 military personnel reported sexual assault last year. the u.s. and afghanistan have reached a tentative deal on the u.s. presence in afghanistan. after next year secretary of state john kerry say troops will continue to train and assist afghan force he after 2014.

afghan leaders will discuss the issue tomorrow. the medal of freedom award, today's honorees compludees incd loretta lynn, ernie banks and bill clinton. america tonight is up next. i'm john siegenthaler. i'll see you here at 11:00 eastern, 8:00 pacific and of course you can get the latest on aljazeera.com. >> on america tonight: the absolute punishment for a 1977 serial killer. joseph paul franklin's last-minute stays of execution

reversed. almost tonight. the sweet crane. same sex marriage becomes the law in yet another state. >> there is no straight or gay marriage, there is only marriage in the state of illinois. punishing its own preclur. and camelot and civil rights. 50 years since the assassination of john f. kennedy. why some called his legacy lack luster. >> he just wasn't the hero that we thought him to be. >> good evening, everyone,

thanks for joining us. i'm adam may, joie chen is on assignment. we have a lot to cover. a 16 year sentence, in a final effort to avoid his death sentence franklin's attorneys argue the drug use would violate the country's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. due to the dwindling stockpile of lethal injection drugs? that's the issue we've been highlighting on america tonight. on tuesday the judge granted a stay of execution. she found that franklin's lawyers use of pentobarbitol gave unusual pain to death. missouri injected franklin with

the lethal dose of the controversial drug. which was a first for missouri. franklin had been on death row for 16 years. one of franklin's victims was 13-year-old dante brown shot dead in cincinnati back in 1980. tonight we are joined by la von evans, the junger brother of dante evans brown. still so sorry about what happened to your brother. i would like your reaction to the execution first. >> you know we're excited. you know it's been a long time wait. so it's a burden off our -- it's a burden lifted off us, we're really excited about that. we -- >> la von, 33 years in fact. this was a very long wait. what was it like for you and your family and your mother to go through this waiting for justice to be carried out? >> it was a long wait and you

know like last night we thought it was going to happen at 12:01, 1:01 our time and then we get the call saying there was going to be a stay or something. so i was very disappointed. i have been waiting, i was happy that my mom and my auntie was her to witness. it took 13 years. that was a pretty long time. >> your brother was 13 when he was killed, with a 14-year-old friend at the time. you were just as i understand three years old. what do you remember about the day your brother died? do you remember that or were there stories passed on? >> yes, i got memories of that. my brother and my cousin they were 13 and 14 and born on the same day, june the 23rd. so they was cousins. they was best friends and cousins and i was seven years old at the time. >> let's not lose sight of the

crime. they were completely innocent victims. can you explain for the viewers what happened to them? >> they was walking from the store, going to the store coming from my grandmother's house. they was just going to the store. and my brother and cousin was walking and joseph paul franklin, he was up on the trestle, train trestle and shot my cousin first which would be durlain, my cousin fell down and my brother ran and then he hit my brother in the hip and then he came back again and shot my cousin and he came back again and shot my brother. my cousin darryl, he got killed instantly. >> was it the same for your brother, though? he actually suffered in a hospital for anumber of days, didn't he? >> yeah, yeah, yeah, he was fighting for his life for three, four days. >> shot by a deer rifle.

what do you think about this debate, that people were saying joseph paul franklin would suffer from this injection? >> i really don't care about it. justice was done. 33 years, they did what they did, he did the crime and trying to pay for it now. i don't care about the drug or whatever. i wish i was there, i wanted to be there, i wish i could have shot the drug up in him. >> you wish you could have done it yourself? >> i wish coy have done it myself. >> we want to change directions here. the stabbing of craigh des by his own are son.

aaron alexis unsuccessfully tried to get help from the virginia and in the state senator dees his son aunt received a mental health evaluation the night before his attempted murder suicide. he was turned away we learn because the state had no beds. the claim that was denied. >> gus dedees, spied the troopers and first responders efforts he did die at the scene. >> the death of gus dees is investigated as a murder-suici murder-suicide. state senator craigh dees was stabbed several times. >> his son, austin c. dees had

an altercation at the dees residence. dees was able to leave the scene on foot and as he was coming down the hill he encountered a cousin who lives nearby. stopped and picked up senator dees and drove lix t -- him to e residence and residue ceur attended to the senator. dees left his school about a month ago. he was one of four children and the only son of craigh dees. he helped his father with his political campaign. senator craigh dees condition is listed as good. but he faces more than recovery. >> if he recovers and i'm sure he will, he still faces the loss

of his son. that's the hardest part. >> the treatment of mentally ill is a problem in virginia and virginia is not alone. donna fuller, what is going on here with the treatment of mentally ill, is there a complete breakdown of the system here? >> where do we want to start? we have 50 years of failed mental health policy, we haven't been taking care of the mentally ill for a long time and we keep seeing symptoms of this. and this you know, a young man who was taken in, for an evaluation, he clearly had some symptoms of some kind of a mental illness. we don't know what it was. we still don't have a lot of facts, a lot of details. but they have four hours to decide whether to keep him in a hospital. and they, you know, for whatever

reason they don't have a hospital bed for him. and so they can get a little extension. but basically, they have to let him go if they don't have a bed. >> they don't have a bed for him. how common is this, where a person goes for treatment and they're turned away in the country? >> the local picture, the big picture is we have eliminated more than 90% of the hospital beds in this country in the last 50 years. at the same time the population almost doubled. we didn't need all those beds, because we have better treatment, better community facilities for people but the fact is: we don't have enough beds. the psychiatric community says we need 50 beds per 100,000 people. the fact is we have 14 beds per 100,000 people. that's the same we had in 1850. 19th century hospital system.

>> pete are earley, sounds like plaidness actually when you hear these statistics. the same amount of beds as back in the 1800s. >> that is one of the barriers the lack of beds. i'd like to mention that the attorney general in virginia, 200 people that were dangerous, in that state, were streeted, that's the term they used, streeted, and when i heard this news, i was so upset. it happened to me about. my son was psychotic. i took him home, he had tin foil wrapped around his head, to keep the cia from watching his thoughts. he broke in to take a bubble bath, he got arrested.

and that has happened in this country. we have turned the jails and prisons into our new asylums. people with schizophrenia and bipolar disease, the los angeles county jail, not even a treatment facility. that's outrageous. craigh dees a man with money and influence who has run for governor, he didn't have the influence? >> i'm going othrow this at both of you right now. we have been to virginia tech, in virginia they went through promises, newtown, and when is something finally going to be done? >> people like my son after five

hospitalizations finally got the help he needed. he's doing great. people can recover but to get them to recover, they need services. if you look at virginia for example, like you said after virginia tech they passed 42 million in new money and the next year, they cut 50. if you look at the virginia mental health boards what they want to do, it's not about mental illness, it's about intellectual disabilities. everybody is ashamed about mental illness. >> we've got to wrap it up. doris. >> the fact of the matter is, we have the people who end up in the middle of these tragedies for the most part are people that can't access those services. they don't know they're sick. we need better treatment laws, we need to use the laws we have.

we need to stop closing hospitals, we need to make treatment possible for people who are too sick to seek it themselves. >> the treatment advocacy center doris ful err and pete, thank you for joining us for this conversation. after the break, we're on the hard court, a hidden danger. >> whether it's basketball or any sport, there is a leading cause of accident, i'm loir jane gliha, why a typical sports physical might not diagnose the problem but a simple medical test would.

>> from concussions to heat exhaustion, there are dangers lurking on the playing field for student athletes and sometimes they result in deadly consequences. this issue has been highlighted on america tonight over the last few months and tonight we put a spotlight on a hidden danger, sudden cardiac arrest, it is the leading cause of death for among high school athletes.

a study shows schools can easily provide incidents if they would take simple steps. ploirnlg gliha has this report. >> 17-year-old albert martin worked on perfecting his jump shot. >> if he was here today he would be at the park playing basketball. this is a picture of him in the basketball team -- >> tracy dixon says you couldn't miss her son on the courts. he was 6'5", and had a size 13 shoe. >> he was always the biggest appoinboyin his class. he would be the biggest one. biggie, that was the name that stuck with him. biggie. >> although he was large growing up during his senior year he dropped 90 pounds which helped improve his moves on the court. >> he decided i guess, in order

to be quick and fast i start losing some weight. he cut down on the junk food, sodas. >> it was albert's first game of his senior season. he had just made a layup when his mother arrived. >> i walked to the bleachers and sat down. i glanced at the score board and they were really losing, i hope they come back. >> but the score would never change. there would never be a come back. >> i turned around, seeing somebody on the floor like they're having the seizure. is that my son on the floor, i run over there, i said biggie, mama here, mama here. he turned over on his stomach like he was trying to get up. i was like don't get up don't get up don't get up. >> i was on my desk and i heard the aed go off and when i heard that i came running in here and

everything was already -- had already land happened. albert was you know already down. >> principal risa clay raced to albert's side. he had a weak pulse. >> i just did, you know, are what -- what anybody would do. and i started to help. you know you don't think in that situation, you just act. you just want everything to be okay. >> by that time the paramedics had came, they scooped him up and put him in the ambulance and then we met them at the hospital. i saw the machine flat-line. that was it. you know, to see him laying there, and no more albert, no more hugs, no more smiles. no more nothing.

>> al beth martin suffered from hypertrow figure cardiomyopathy. or enlarged heart. sudden cardiac arrest, it was the leading death among pr high school athletes. >> dr. jonathan drez ner iner ie team dock for for the seattle seahawks. >> things like head and neck injury, heatstroke and heart issues represent about three quarters of the death on the playing field. >> 89% of athletes survive if they receive prompt cpr. >> stand by, preparing for a slok. >> a shock from an automatic

external defib ridicul ridicule. defibdefib ridiculedefibrillatol berth's before it's too late. >> most of the athletes who die on the field who have a heart condition have no warning symptoms. if we have an evaluation that is based on predominantly asking them whether they have any symptoms, we will miss an athlete at risk. >> because he passed nearly all his physicals, she never thought to take him for an ekg.

>> a tree, a redwood, tall just like albert. the boy she knew as biggie. >> he did see me before he closed his eyes. so yes he knew i was there. >> just a simple test, america tonight's lori jane gliha. switching gears now, less than two weeks since the supertyphoon struck the philippines. many of the dead are still unburied. it seems like an unlikellikelyly pilgrimage. joie chen reports from makta air base in the philippines. >> moving through crowd like a rock star.

ask chief warrant officer wayne phillips is in charge of the list that everyone wants to get on to. travel to guian, tacloban. aid flights. >> pleading for seats they know what they will find on arrival. their destinations are the very studies that hurricane haiyan leveled. most of those waiting for rides here left their homes for brief refuge in cebu. now for all things they want to go right back. >> it is hard in this island of desperation. yes they do have choices about but all of them are bad. over and over the same story is

told. irwin barras, his brother and his parents, took a rough military flight from guian. >> what did you tell them? that's okay, most of us were okay but it was like our ancestral house was damaged. and bus most important to tell them that we're okay. that's why we called. >> they must have been very relieved. >> yes, of course they was very relieved. >> the scene at home is getting out of hand. >> some people there are starting to get crazy. >> what does that mean? >> they're scared of losing food, of starving to death. they're telling theirself that that even they survived the storm. they don't know if they can survive the hunger.

>> but less than 24 hours later with no tarps available and only a box of krispy kreme to cheer his girlfriend, the family is headed back. >> why do you want to go back? >> our grandfather is still in guian, who can we do here? there are so many people unemployed, it's like if we're there at least we can get some relief or something like that and we can rebuild our house, slowly like that. >> but it's your home. >> yes, it's our home. >> tito abosao is a community leader in guian, he picked up some medicine but he needs to go back immediately. >> my family is there and i'm a political leader, and i want to serve, continue serving my people because i don't want to leave my constituents,

especially in this time of crisis. >> and there's zeni tr crurvetionino who is taking her sick mother and their children from their wrecked home in tacloban to manila. >> i have no house no food. >> no house no food? >> no water, no medicine for my mother. so i will go to manila. >> and you have a brother there? >> yes, there. >> but she'll head back to tacloban to protect her home as soon as she can get there. >> many people in tacloban broke into the house and every day the water. >> the people, the houses are broken into and people want your water. >> yes, i love my tacloban country. >> it's so beautiful. >> yes. >> but it's a painful memory especially in the grim confines

of the evacuee shelter, the way station where the survivors have a small chance to rest, to regroup and to try reconnect, even if they face the worst possibility, that some loved ones may be lost forever. it's clear they face a long journey back to restoring their lives. but they travel with a typical philippine expression at their lips. mahala na, we don't know how this is going to turn out but let's give it a shot. >> that's america tonight's host, joie chen reporting from the philippines. ahead on america tonight. he was accused of preaching over his own son's same-sex wedding. we're going to talk about that coming up next. more us and global news than any other american news channel. find out what happened

and what to expect. >> start every morning, every day, 5am to 9 eastern with al jazeera america.

de. >> now a snapshot of stories making headlines on america tonight. a taste of freedom for kennedy

cousin michael skakel. there is a bond hearing for the 53-year-old who has already served 11 years. the judge granted skakel a new trial and prosecutors are appealing that ruling. a pastor for discovery church, he found bibles filed under physics. the 95-year-old evangelist billy graham is in the hospital. he recently celebrated his 95th birthday. with 900 people. same sex couples now entitled to marry under the law, making the state the 16th to

legalizing same sex marriage. attended by chicago mayor rahm emanuel and a crowd of 2,000 supporters, same sex couples can start applying for marriage licenses in june of next year. >> with the governor's signature, illinois goes on record. there's no straight or gay marriage, from now on there's only marriage in illinois. it's a very different story in pennsylvania, a methodist minister is facing expulsion for his support of same sex marriage. a jury convicted reverend frank fisher from officiating at his own son's same sex marriage in 2007. he has 30 days to submit to the

church's are antigay are stand or be expelled. >> we are proud to stand with pastor frank. >> and the reverend frank schaifer. first off, i would like your reaction to your church's ruling of 30 days to change your opinion or else you are going to be defrokd. >> it was a totally unexpected ruling. i expected quite honestly to be defrocked. i expected my credentials to be taken yesterday as i was very honest to the jury. i addressed the jury and said if i'm going to be a united methodist minister tomorrow,

i'll are minister are to everyone, i will not refuse to anyone. i thought that was it. and i was very surprised to hear this ruling that they gave me 30 days to reconsider. basically. and so now i have 30 days to think about whether there is a way for me to uphold the covenant of the church which includes this provision in our church law that i cannot legally or you know by church law marry same-sex people. and at the same time, you know, make a commitment to the lgbt community. so somehow if i can't find a medium there, a balance there, i'm going to have to say to them look, i just can't do it. my conscience doesn't allow me. i just have to surrender my credentials. >> so why would you think they would even bother giving you a

second chants. you are very firm in your conviction that there should be marriage equality for all people. you would have to go out there and say the church is absolutely wrong. do they think you're going to change your mind? >> i think what happened here is that the jury was aware of the fact that the whole world was watching. not just the whole methodists world but the whole world. there had been quite a bit of media coverage on this issue and i think what they did was actually very smart. instead of defrocking me, they knew i was a plan of conviction, i'm an honest man and was very up-front with them. they basically deferred their decision onto me. >> tell me a little bit about your son's wedding. you officiated in massachusetts in 2007. did you know back then that this controversy would soon follow? >> no, i had no idea. i mean when my son cd me to perform his wedding first of all

i felt very much honored and joyful about that. it was a very private ceremony. this ceremony took place in a restaurant in cohasset massachusetts, about 300 miles away from the local church that i minister at. it was happening in a restaurant. not a church. we kept it private. there was no public announcement about it. and i just informed my superiors that i would do this wedding but i never spoke about it in my congregation. so for almost six years, nobody really knew about it until somebody found out about it if in my congregation and filed complaint against me. >> you are saying in your congregation found out about it. i have seen online, on petitions, people asking that you goat stay in that church.

>> yes, and that feels really great. i want to say thank you to all my supporters, they have really made a difference and given me the courage that i felt in the courtroom as well. yes, it is true, there are also people in my congregation that are not in agreement with what i did. and look, i can't judge them. you know, they feel very passionate on the issue as well. and so i -- you know i just have to take it as it is. it is what it is. and here we are. >> i want your opinion really fast, we're almost out of town. here we are, hawaii, illinois, there is momentum, public opinion about same sex marriage. religious many of them still behind this. >> yeah, i think that's part of the problem. society is changing so fast on this issue that the church can't keep up with it. and that's why it's important

for our church and other churches to open the dialogue and discuss these matters and let the lgbt community be heard and their pain over this discrimination that they have experienced for many years. it needs to come out and dialogue has to happen and hopefully that will then bring change. >> well certainly some other religions are opening their doors, the methodist not being one of them, frank schaeffer, thank you for joining us. the investigation into suicides and the stop-smoking drug commandix. her life became unhinged after she started taking chantix. i. >> i was screaming crying, threat thing suicide,

threatening to jump out of a moving car. the paramedics had to tie me up put restraints on me. >> dr. michael segal, doctor at boston university's department of public health. >> we know that chantix has effects on the neurotransmitters in the brain. it's not surprising that a drug like chantix could have effects on bernlt and have effects on -- personality and have effects on suicidality. >> adverse effects associated with chantix. my investigation right here tomorrow night on america tonight. still to come, our 35th president 50 years after his assassination. what legacy did john f. kennedy leave behind?

>> friday, marks the 50th anniversary of president john f. kennedy's assassination in dallas, texas. kennedy is remembered of course for the historic manner in which he died. no one will forget where they were at that time. but we wanted to take a look at the momentous things he did before he died. five months before, kennedy gave a stirring civil rights speech from his office, that would be the groundbreaking civil rights act, and how kennedy came to make that speech and because many say he was reluctant to

embrace. >> i could understand that martyrdom sort of elevates anyone. and the nature of his death as a kind of sacrifice to all of us lifted him up. but at the same time, i couldn't understand why so many people elevated him as highly as they did. he was a good figure, but not a great figure in my view. and was disappointing in many, many ways. a lot of people do think that he is the second great emancipator. people speak of him in civil rights in the same breath as abraham lincoln. but he doesn't deserve that mantle. >> kennedy was not a righteous person. kennedy knew i think on civil rights what was right and what was wrong. but he was a very practical

pragmatic politician. so i think it's all well and good for us to look back 50 years later and say why didn't kennedy act more quickly as the civil rights caichts wanted him to do. i think are president kennedy's pragmatism was probably the right way to approach this very difficult issue. >> i accept the nomination of the democratic party. >> kennedy talked about the need for civil rights for, at that time, negroes, as they were called. but it was not something that he mentioned typically out on the campaign trail. >> so he didn't want to go too strongly for civil rights because he didn't want to alienate the south. but he didn't want to defend desegregation because he didn't want to alienate northern

liberals. >> it was a very careful straddling the fence. >> ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. >> it is almost impossible today to go back more than 50 years and think about a south that is racist virtually to its political core. and so the president comes into office, aware that every, every influential congressional committee, particularly in the house, dominated by a southern segregationist member of congress, racist. it's a very tough time to come into office. >> and his response on civil rights was basically to go back on all the promises he'd made during the campaign. >> he said when he was brought into office that he could eliminate segregation by the stroke of a pen.

people kept sending him pens because there were apparently no pens in the office that he could do this. >> what if he were to say i'm going to send a strong civil rights bill to the congress? but he didn't do that. he worried about the rest of his domestic agenda in the united states congress, which he worried would be bottled up if he completely disrupted the sowrnsowrnl segregationists rigf the bat. >> i feel he might have felt he could navigate the waters, move the south without a violent explosion. >> the first big challenge that president kennedy faced in civil rights were the so-called freedom rides. these occurred in the spring of 1961. >> they felt that was the only way to get the attention of the

kennedy brothers. in many ways they were right. when those awful things of violence against the freedom riders took place that the kennedy brothers did actually try and do something to intervene. >> bobby kennedy, the toarnl general, sent john siegenthaler to try to help, once the buses got to the south. >> in that moment half dozen men turned me around, they said who were you? >> i said get back, i'm from the federal government. one of them hit me in the head with a pipe. i'd never been knocked unconscious before. the president and the attorney general, their best hope was that the freedom rides would end. there was no way to protect them. >> even bobby didn't want a large kennedy presence in this venue because the right wing would accuse them of interference in the south and

the left wing would accuse them of not doing enough to help the cause of civil rights. so the kennedys saw the freedom rides as a really a no-win ride for them, really. >> following the rides that accompanied the are pr first negro in american history. >> that really circulate have been the moment when kennedy got tough. he said you know the game is out. >> ross ber burnett was going to stand firm against the federal courts and then president kennedy who was now being forced to step in as the chief enforcer. >> and i didn't put them in the university but on the other hand under the constitution i have to carry out the orders. >> this was an opportunity for him to be really clear cut, really tough to say there is a federal court order in place and we are absolutely determined that it should be in force.

but what actually happened they kept on negotiating these deals where james meredith would be admitted on a certain day and at a certain time ross barnett would renege on that deal. >> threatening violence. >> kennedy has to belatedly introduce federal troops, by then a number of people had been killed, a situation that was almost out of control. my contention would be that since he seemed endlessly flexible, those southerners bleefsouthernersbelieved that h- >> i'd like to get your help in doing that. >> finally, barnett backed down and james meredith was admitted

to the university of mississippi as the first african american. >> they faced police clubs and electric cattle prodders. >> the summer of 1963 was reaching a boiling point in the south. >> young protesters being attacked by german shepherd dogs, and young people being targeted by those high pressure water hoses by the firemen. those were all of things. >> i know by jfk's reaction to the hoses in birmingham and the children being washed down street, he was horrified by this, he thought this was not the way things should be and this pushed him a little bit. >> this was morally repugnant to president kennedy. he couldn't stand by and be the bystander. he had to do something. >> the time had come for the

president to say, enough is enough. we must have a law. black people have endured enough. and the president personally worked on that speech until, almost until it was time to go on television and make the announcement. >> good evening, my fellow citizens. >> president kennedy was very calm, very cool. but there was a certainly emotional quality to what he was saying, because it seemed to personal. and what he was saying was the following: integration giving blacks full equal rights with whites is now a moral issue. >> we are confronted primarily with a moral issue. it is as clear as the constitution, the question is whether all americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities. whether we are going otreat tower fellow americans as we want to be treated.

>> i remember saying, i never thought i would they're there president of the united states say things in this kind of way. this was the strongest expeech ever made by an american president on civil rights to my knowledge up to that time it was wonderful. >> i was home with my wife listening. i think we cried a little. >> if an american because his skin is dark cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if can he not vote, for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and freeze life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed, and stand in his place? who among us would then be

content with the counsels of patience and delay? >> that's a very pointed statement for an incremental prag mattispragmatist to make. president kennedy's speech in june of 1962 was a turning the point for himself personally and politically and it was a turning point for the civil rights movements. >> another turning point for president kennedy's position was his are religion. shive sits down with cardinal mccarrick. >> i remember some of the church people saying he may have gone too far. he played down the relationships that a religious man should have to his religious principles. but i think he wanted to make it very clear, that they weren't

electing a man. they weren't voting for a man because i was a catholic and not noting against him because he was a catholic but because he was a certain kind of american who believed in a stern kind of principles. >> a lot more on kennedy and cardinal mccarrick talks about his recent trip to the philippines where he celebrated mass in a devastated ta cathedral, had. and stay tuned on al jazeera, on the assassination of jfk, 50 years later. still to come, taking civil rights to the bank. that's coming up next.

you.

>> timely tonight, a new transaction in india where the country is taking steps to empower women. a new bank opened in town this week for exclusive clientele. al jazeera's karisma vias, on a new tradition that puts women

first. >> she studied to be a teacher but opened this shop in mumbai ten years ago, she did it without a bank. >> they think if they give a loan to a man they will move forward in life. but women, will they pay back the loan? they don't trust us. >> to are are change these attitudes, a bank staffed mostly by women for women. the government invested $160 million in the venture,. >> this bank will be industrial in bringing them to the formal channel. plus it will inspire them to explore their own entrepreneurial skills. this will be focused on

empowering women. >> millions of women across india work and run their own businesses, but they find it difficult to save because 26 of them have an account. it makes it difficult for them to get loans. economists say this has to change. studies say when women are earning and saving, their children are healthier and they live longer. the communities also are more prosperous because of the increased literacy and the country also benefits because of the economic growth. women's rights campaigners is a it's crucial for women to have financial opportunities. particularly in countries like india where millions live in poverty. >> and many of them have some kind of an enterprise or some kind of a business that they run out of their home. so having the ability to build

up capital and build up assets is essential to reach out of their marginalized status. >> the bank is planning to open more than 33,000 accounts in its first year. they hope it will help tens of thousands of women to take control of their lives. >> this bank is one small step towards improving the condition of women there. that's it for america tonight. if you want to comment on our show, just log on to al jazeera/america tonight. for all of us here on america tonight, good night. qorvis coms

welcome to al jazeera america, i'm john siegenthaler, here are the top stories. senators are debating how to handle cases of sexual assault in the military. kirsten gilla brand is pushing for legislation to take it outside the military chain of command. others are fighting to keep them in the process. >> there's an agreement about troops in afghanistan, allowing them to stay behind after 2014. the deal with afghan president hamid karzai calls for soldiers to assist in training, but not take on combat roles. the u.s. and other world powers are in geneva discussing the nuclear