>> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm richelle carey. here are the stories we're following for you. out of prison and free to speak his mind. former billionaire is taking aim at the kremlin. the ruling government trying to take control. thousands of refugees find sanctuary in the u.n. compound. searching for survivors after a major train derailment in kenya's capital of nairobi. a massive credit card breach, more fallout and how it will affect your holiday shopping.

former russian oil tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky vows to help others in russia. thanked angela merkel for helping are secure his police. he was jailed for over a decade in prison. he is reuniting with his family. seemed to be a fairly wide reaching press conference. he covered a lot of ground, a lot of topics. what would you say some of the highlights were? >> well, what an amazing 36 hours mikhail khodorkovsky has had since arriving in by berlin. the press conference was quite chaotic at times.

they didn't expect quite so many to show up. he thanked those who helped secure his freedom, one of those people were the german chancellor angela merkel. he was taken by surprise then found himself coming here to berlin. he said he wanted to fight for the freedom of those other political prisoners and he was also asked about going back to russia. and this is what he had to say: >> translator: mr. peskov press secretary to the russian president, said that nobody prevents me from returning to russia at any time. fortunately today, i don't have guarantees after this, i will be able to fly where i want for different reasons. >> so emma, he said he did not see politics in his future, but

he did seem to express an interest in still wanting to use the political clout that he has, if you will. >> reporter: yeah, absolutely. i mean mikhail khodorkovsky has become such a figure head over the last ten years it's unlikely we'll see him sprear from view altogether. i think he said the political struggle was not for him. what he'll do over the coming days, the coming weeks, the coming months, we do know he has a year belong visa to spend in germ are any but for the short term his priority will be spending time with his friends and his family. >> emma hayward, live in berlin. thank you so much. the world's newest country, south sudan, in the battle against the militia, the united

nations is evacuating all its noncritical staff. as many as 500 people have already been killed there but fewer and fewer people are left to observe the casualties. al jazeera spoke to the former vice president who was ousted last summer when the militia took control. people are rallying for his leadership. the ruling party, and i believe these two organizations, the ruling party and the, made the people, insighting fighting, now is dividing the country, it's best he leaves. i believe that they can make him leave. >> dr. are do you want to take

his place, do you want to be president of south sudan? >> yes. >> hara matassa has more from juba. >> i think the main thing is the escalating violence. the town of bor, the information minister says it's completely in control of the rebels. they are hiding in the bush, he says another concern is the soldiers are defecting from the army. there's one group that's recently defected heading towards the border to join these rebels. he says we have no way of telling you how many people have died. there are bodies in the street. we don't go in because we don't have control of that area. something should be done soon to try and end it. there have been a lot of people, a lot of diplomats in and out of juba trying to get the peep to meet, they're meeting with

president here and other politicians, i think people still think or hope that political dialogue is the way to resolve this crisis, but you speak to the people on the ground, and what's happening in south sudan, look at mozambique, this is the pressure the country has to take. but they want things going back to normal as quickly as they can. they tell each other this is the fight between two leaders. we must not start hitting each other. they're wondering which way to go next. >> after a train derailment in nairobi. are at least six people are injured earlier we spoke to our correspondent rai ufnlt rvetionaga on the scene. >> at the scene, on the one hand you have the train company

officials saying the government had repeatedly warned people not to have these so close to the railway line and therefore, being crushed to death, on the other hand you have residents of the area telling me that this is a very old railway line, that when they see the lines, the trains coming through, they appear very wiggly and unstable and especially there is very poor maintenance or repairs done to these lines and therefore that's who they are blaming. the blame game is going on as workers are essentially laboring here, trying to still lift off those two wagons that have slipped off the lines to see if there are any survivors or fatalities crushed under the wreckage.

police in bangladesh have charged people after a fire that called 110 people, result of poor safety precautions. the couple who owns the property are among those charged and could face life in prison if convicted of negligent homicide. president raul castro of cuba says all reforms must map with a sense of -- must happen with a sense of order. home cinemas and salons have been closed soon after they were opened. castro says he wants a better relation with the u.s. but not willing to change policies to do so. up next, canada's military says it seized whun,000 pounds of heroin -- 1,000 pounds of heroin at sea.

and the continuing severe weather that challenges holiday travel. and chase bank helps control the massive data breach at target stores last week. things we can do fix education in america. >> the united states has education apartheid. that's the facts. >> talk to al jazeera with m. night shyamalan.

>> welcome back to al jazeera america, i'm richelle carey. rlings demanding vur demanding r yanukovych, protestors vow to stay on the street for as long as it takes. jennifer glasse joins us live from kiev with the very latest. jennifer, these protests have been going on for weeks. i understand the crowds have died down a little but still quite a few people.

what's happening now? >> reporter: well, the crowds richelle are thinning out. we saw thousands of people gather on independence square, the fifth sunday in a row we've seen that. an indication that the pro testings are still going -- protests are still going on. the opposition that spoke to the crowd say they hope they will celebrate new year's here, they want to start a new people's movement across civic organizations a people's organization called the independence movement here, to try to keep the momentum going, i think that's really the problem richelle what will happen next. some of the pro testingors are very -- protestors are very tired, very haven't heard anything against the government against the progovernment stance that these people want. they want to see some reforms.

the country's economy is in a terrible state, unemployment is very high. there's a lot of suction disin gas and -- subsidies in gas and ukraine's economy can't compete. they haven't seen that. how that is going to move forward, whether these peaceful protests will continue to have any traction here is still unclear. nevertheless, the people here have -- opposition leaders here have asked the people to stay here through the new year and into 2014, richelle. >> jennifer glasse live in kiev, thank you very much. at least two people are dead after powerful storms swept through the midwest yesterday. the storm prediction center says there are more than thrend cases of -- 300 cases of damaging winds.

jelelah ahmed joins us. you predirkted this and it is here. -- you predicted this and it is here. 350,000 people are out of power in toronto, airports, on the roads, folks are really advised not to travel. look at this, a beautiful sight. you can see the ice coating the trees but what happens when the ice hits the trees and it stays there, it weighs down the limitation quite a bit. in addition to that whenever you get that on the leaves you can have a lot of weight and then those trees can fall down onto power lines and that's what's causing the power outages across east central and mid atlantic today. central portions of louisiana were under a tornado warning. all throughout the afternoon yesterday and you can see the damage here. damaging winds sweeped across central portionest of louisiana,

ripping ooff the sides of buildings. arkansas into eastern texas as well. the front that produced all of that rain, all of the damaging winds continues to ease its way into the southeast, atlanta, southern portions of pennsylvania. you can see that band of ice right here, swaying across that area, continuing to bring ice into toronto into portions of buffalo, back into new england, maine, new hampshire and vermont, i-95 is going to be quite treacherous. stay off the icy roads if you can. behind the frontal boundary, a lot chillier central portions of the plains, fargo, tulsa, only 24°. because it's so cold on the back side of the front, lingering snow showers into lubbock, texas as well. the heaviest of the snow, pushing in, erasing some of the heat that we're experiencing

across the southeast all the way into the northeast. before doing so it's going to dump heavy rain all the way into detroit into indianapolis. four to six inches of rain in total. atlanta reaching a high of 81. new york city expected to climb to 73. the record is 63. back to you richelle. >> jelelah. urge thank you very much so much. claire davis, 17-year-old who was shot in the head by karl pierson, davis family issued a statement saying this: it is with unspeakable sadness that we write and say that claire has passed away. although we have lost our precious daughter we will always

be grateful for the indelible journey she took us on over the last 17 years. we ask that you give us the time to grief the passing of our daughter by respecting our right to privacy. chase, debit card, move affects 2 million chase card holders. starting today chase is temporarily limiting atm withdrawals to $100 a day and debit card are withdrawals into $300 a day. chase asks its customers to go into the branches for further withdrawals. data out of nsa hands. >> they basically said the information is important but where we keep it, may be up for

debate. so that's an important i think a very important milestone for those that thought it is devastating to the nsa. i disagree. i think basically what they said was this information is a vital part of our counterterrorism effort to keep americans safe. we don't think they should keep it in a vault, they should spread it back across the phone companies and have the don't mandate. >> do you go along with that? >> here is my concern. privacy groups reject the notion that the government mandate the phone companies, less safe than the configuration that we have. >> canada's military says it seized a thousand pounds of heroin at sea. a canadian naval ship intercepted the ship this week, part of a 20-nation fleet to combat piracy.

the drugs were said to be worth more than $100 million. in indonesia, running waters is a luxury for many. but those who get tap water often cannot drink it. it's an agonizing proposition, whether to trust water or not. why the country's water is undrinkable. >> something many take for granted but for this woman it's knot a matter of just turning on the tap. this mother of five struggles every day to find drinking water and after buying six gallons she barely has enough for her daily consumption. >> translator: we pay around think, 40 cents for three gallons. this means we pay around one quarter of our income to water and this is only when water supply is good. otherwise it is even more expensive. we have to queu th queue the why

and not even sure we'll get it. it's an essential part of life and good health, but for many indonesiaians, it may be too dirty to drink straight away. this is the source of her water and millions of others in jakarta. after being processed by water companies it reaches only 40% of households in the capital and it's still undrinkable. the government and water companies admit that aging equipment and facilities polluted rivers and mismanagement are the main reasons why many indonesiaians have no access to drinking water. >> if you talk about mismanagement i don't want to comment. but i do want to say that we have lived up to our targets. we have doubled our customers in 15 years but the government has not given us enough usable water sources. >> so even indonesiaians who

have access to tap water complain about its quality. they say it's often unusable for cooking food, washing clothes, let alone for drinking. and despite paying one of the highest water tariffs in south asia, something as crucial as water was onever a priority. >> translator: if you ask me, why it has not been fixed, the water system should have been fixed 30 years ago because it was already old then. the problem is classic. it comes down to a lock of positive allocation. >> the government aims to supply clean drinking water to all indonesiaians, in 2020. but as least people are hopeful they won't have to depend on source he like dirty rivers

anymore. clark with south korean officers in riot gear. police use tear gas too force their way into the headquarters of a militant labor group to take custody of over 100 union leaders. more than 6,000 workers walked off the job two weeks ago to protest a possible government plan to privatize south korean rail system there. coming up: doctors in france have just conducted the most advanced artificial heart transplant.

agls welcom. >> welcome back to are al jazeera america. i'm richelle carey. here are the top headlines. russian prisoner mikhail khodorkovsky spoke out earlier.

thousands of occupants of south sudan, donald booth is in the war torn nation to help bring an end to the conflict. a bomb exploded on a bus near tel aviv. in germany a demonstration turned violent on saturday, when 7,000 people gathered to protest the election of a leftist educator. fireworks at police officers, german police say 22 officers were injured in these classes and that an unspecified number of protestors were also hurt. thousands of people in pennsylvania have gathered to sing christmas carols and grant a final wish to a dying girl. ♪ >> delaney brown just turned eight years old and she has a rare form of lew cee leukemia.

cps doctors have given her days to live. to lift her spirits, they gathered outside her home to sing classic christmas songs. >> different stories from mother has posted regularly showing her strength her courage her humor. all she wants is carols. we can do that. >> she had chance to talk with country music star taylor swift, on friday made possible by the make a wish foundation. some of the riskiest operations to perform. but surgeons in france have fashioned an artificial heart that could one day replace the whole thing. an artificial heart designed to sustain the body for five years. surgeon implanted another one in a man's chest on friday. they said so far he's doing

fine. >> translator: the patient is doing very well, getting betters every day. i saw him just before coming to see you. we're talking to him, he's recovering, he's resting. we are recovering things little by little. >> doctors designed the heart to reduce side effects by using cow tissue to connect the high tech device to the patient. >> as you will have understood the great advantage was the biological material which was used to try to minimize clotting. that's the first aspect. and another aspect which is very important is all the systems in this heart because it adapts in real time. >> house of people die every year while waiting for a heart donor. the artificial heart aims to change that. it weighs almost a kilo, almost three times the weight of a

normal heart. at the cost of $250,000 it's almost out of reach for most people. the implant fits 90% of men and only 20% of women. the company is working on a smaller one for women's. human trials have finished. three more patients will receive the heart in the coming month. barbara angopa, lnches. >> the makers of the heart say i.t. could help up to 100,000 patients in the u.s. and europe. the problem: each one costs upwards to $200,000. >> well, it's a very mild day across the east coast. all the way from savannah, georgia all the way to new york city. the temperatures we are expected to climb to a high of 73° in new york city today. the record is 63. normally at this time of year we should be in the 40s.

that's a testament to just how warm this is, after all this warm air pushing off of the gulf of mexico. pennsylvania expected to climb to 67. columbus 69 is the high today, predicted, the record is 62. strong line between the warmth and the cool air. new york city to albany, that's a distance of 150 miles and look at the temperature difference here. we have an ice storm making its way across portions of the northeast and it's extending back from portion e-of michigan into new york and canada as well. ice accumulations along i-95, this could cause power outages in addition to pulling down trees and power lines. we want people to be careful. these warnings go on through later tonight. if you are traveling along i-95,

take it easy. back to you richelle. >> thank you for joining us. for updates go to our website, aljazeera.com. that works is in trouble. our digital producer, ra raj is here, and most people are familiar with detroit's crisis, but chicago's is whooshes. >> people have been