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tv   News  Al Jazeera  February 6, 2014 12:00pm-12:31pm EST

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welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. these are the stories we are following for you. sochi security, the u.s. warning of knew threat. mauerless, hundreds of thousands of people waiting for their lights toment come back on. >> and a controversial trial beginning in florida a white man accused in the shooting death of a black teenager. the case now in court. ♪
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>> opening ceremonies for the 2014 winter games are set for tomorrow, the olympic torch now making its way through the host city. but security is still a concern, and rory challands has our story from sochi. >> some of the preparations here have come to the wire with armies of helpers and volunteers putting the finishing touches to the games. but an unwelcome security development, a warning from the u.s. government that bomb-making equipment could be smulg smuggled on to planes in toothpaste tubes. >> translator: this information is being checked. if confirmed this means our security services are on alert, and this information allows us to say that the security of the olympic games, and the city of sochi will be provided properly.
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>> reporter: it has been 6.5 years since the 2014 host city was announced. >> the city of sochi. [ cheers ] >> reporter: and russia celebrated, but since then there has been more bad news than good with tails of construction delays, corruption and security concerns. despite all of in are as ma as the there are still plenty of russia russians who remain skeptical. just over half of the russians thought that holding the games was a good idea, whereas 47% thought that the overspend was due to corruption, but the games have a tendency to win over many
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of those hard hearts. >> translator: in we beginning it wasn't as excited as iment am now. now you can really see the is changes. >> translator: these events date of birth .happen every day. i want my children to be proud of our country and to have something to remember. ♪ >> translator: russia is well aware it's time to shine has come, and that these games have to be note perfect. rory challands, al jazeera, sochi. 9:00 pm right now in sochi, russia. the clock ticking now, less than 24 hours to go. the u.s. navy is sending two ships to the area as part of the security preparations. we'll have more on that later. there are scattered power outages across the country. in pennsylvania more than a half million people now sitting in the dark.
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the weight of the heavy snow snapping power lines, maria ines ferre reports from exton, pennsylvania. >> reporter: i'm standing in front of west chester university. this is where the red cross has set up its main shelter. the red cross expects people throughout the day and this evening. some stayed in shelters last night, others hunkered down in their homes with blankets and candles. this country alone, about 160,000 people are without power. the utility companies say it could take days before they get power back in their homes. one of the big challenges is not only the trees down, but also the ice that formed along the power lines. utility crews have been getting help from other crews from out of state. hundreds of workers from chicago have come here to help, the governor from pennsylvania has declared a state of emergency,
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and he has asked people to state off of the roads. >> maria ines ferre in exton, pennsylvania, your old stomping grounds. have they seen the worst? especially the cold? >> the cold is here now. that's about it. storm is gone. the storm has cleared out, if you don't have power or heat, you don't like to see numbers like this, down in the 20s. and even colder here in the next few days. right now it is dry, just waiting for all of those crews to get caught up with all of the downed lines and -- trees and power lines. behind this we have the cold air coming in. some light snow, winter weather advisories that will continue to push to the south. bitter cold ark lick air coming
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down again. the west coast is where we talk about our next storm. california is seeing the drought continue but all of a sudden this pattern changing a little bit, a nice line of moisture coming right into northern california, washington, and oregon, so blizzard like conditions in washington in oregon. winter storm warnings are in effect along with watches. there is that rain and snow that we're expecting. and this will lead to another storm on the east coast, but the latest information looks like it is just a bit too far off the coast to get any sne but in the del mar peninsula. unemployment is the lowest in 5 years. john terrett is on capitol hill
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and there are about 1.7 million people who want to know what the time line for the unemployment benefits bill? >> they have put the vote off until 2:00 because they can't get the bipartisanship on the floor. he is re-upped ever year, except last year by the do-nothing congress. and about 1.7 million americans are now struggling. this bill put together by reid of rhode island, and [ technical difficulties ] >> they won't for anything that increases the deficit. harry reid came to the senate
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floor this morning, encouraging republicans to lump on with the democrats on this to avoid cloture. and he said in their heart of hearts republicans really don't want to vote for tensioning this long-term unemployment. >> any no vote on extending unemployment benefits is a no vote, because they don't want to extent unemployment benefits. >> a lot of pay are saying why are they paying retroactively, well it's because a month has already lapsed, and they know people are suffering out there. jack reid, center from rhode island who has drawn this up, says it's not what you think what is happening here. a lot of work has been put into this, and there's a lot of work
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trying to make it happen. >> this was not a my way or the highway. this was trying to find a bipartisan pathway, and we're still searching. >> so we shall see. they have called a vote for 2:00 this afternoon. three republicans were with them last time around. they need at least five. if there is a vote, that will avoid cloture. and then, dell, it can go to the house. >> john terrett on capital toll hill. john thank you very much. talks between the pakistani combovment and the -- taliban taking place. it is hoping the talks will need to an agreement that will end the fighting that began in 2007. those talks now set to resume sometime tomorrow.
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the u.s. is trying to help resolve the ongoing crisis in the ukraine. hours after a protest leader claimed he was tortured and forced to confess he was spy. >> reporter: arriving to tell his story and answer the doubters. about -- activist said he had been abducted, and tortured for eight days. >> translator: they cut my ear off, it was very painful. they placed the cut piece of ear on my forehead, it was very scary. they pinned me to the wood with something like nails. it was very painful and i couldn't move. at that time i was in so much
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pain that i was asking them to kill me, because i couldn't standing it anymore. >> reporter: when asked who they were, he hinted at foreign involvement. >> translator: these people were speaking only russian. i had the impression they were from the russian secret service. also i knew they were professionals. >> reporter: ukraine's government has cast doubt on his story, but doctors here backed him up, and the foreign minister is calling for an investigation. >> we can make some assumptions, we see the story, we listen to the story, i talked to him myself two hours. we see what he looks like, and these issues should be checked at least. i cannot prove who did that, and there was torture definitely, but there are symptoms -- there is really information which
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cannot be neglected, that's my point. it should be investigated. >> it is now four days since he arrived here in the lithuanian capitol. in the meantime his case has already galvanized support inside ukraine and further afield. when we come back on al jazeera america, the city in the shadow of a volcano, what it is doing to stay safe in the case of an eruption.
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>> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep.
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>> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. >> i'm on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. >> in new orleans... >> seattle bureau... >> washington... >> detroit... >> chicago... >> nashville... >> los angeles... >> san francisco... >> al jazeera america, take a new look at news. returning to our top story, the security situation at the winter games in sochi, russia. the u.s. warning about exclusives that could be placed inside toothpaste tubes, and russia is vowing the games will be sief. tim crockett joining us from
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atlanta. why would officials discuss something specific, like explosives being placed inside a tube of toothpaste and yet not cite a specific threat. >> well, dell, with any threat of this nature, agencies are likely to be dealing with incomplete intelligence. so it's far better to issue a warning more general in nature, especially when there is risk of loss of life than to sit on that information, waiting for the final pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. >> tim there has been a lot of concern leading up to these games, specifically following the two twin bombings. but is it because we are leading up to the games, and there is so much attention being placed on sochi? or are these threats out of the ordinary and different from what we might see in a olympic season
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like we're going do? >> obviously with these games being situated so close to a hot bed of activity, it is to be expected that these threats will be issued, and more threats are likely to become. we can't take any of these sort of threats too likely, but not all of these threats are have any real substance behind them in the sense that an attack is planned. some of these organizations and terrorists will use deception and threats to create panic, fear, and perhaps hope to divert some of the resources of the security to deal with assessing and mitigating those people. >> a lot of people say you tipped off the terrorist's hand. from your standpoint which is better, giving out the
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information ahead of a perceived threat or sitting on the information and not telling the public? >> well, i think anyone in that sort of position will not want to be sitting on information that could prevent loss of life, while trying to tip the terrorists off, they have a certain amount of tent. they are working their own sort of plans. so it's probably better to get the information out there, have many eyes and sources of information that could perhaps help catch the terrorist prior to an sent taking place. >> and tim are we looking at two specific zones of interest here, in one sense rich sha saying the olympics will be safe, but then there are the soft targets outside of sochi. so if you are an american listening right now, grade the olympic security zone itself, and also grade the area outside
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the so-called ring of steel. >> well, it's obviously impossible to try to safeguard the entire region. resources have been directed to this ring of steel to keep the games and those associated with the games, and visiting with the games sort of safe. so i think an attack on an actual olympic venue is most unlikely. although a small attack will have a level of effect. but i don't think we can disregard any of these sort of threats. something could happen and may well happen further afield, but, again, it could be as far afield as maybe an attack in russia -- sorry, in moscow or st. petersburg. >> two navy warships stationed off of the coast just in case. what does just in case mean?
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>> russia is a big place, it's a fairly remote difficult area to get to. if an attack were to take place, i imagine the russian authorities and security services will clamp down and shut the place down, so getting people in and out will be extremely difficult, having those warships available is going to be critically important. and just having that just in case nearby, will offer a level of sort of reassurance and confidence to u.s. athletes and anyone else that may be attending. >> tim crockett in atlanta, thank you very much. >> thanks, del. opening arguments are set to begin today in a trial that is now being compared to the trayvon martin case. 47-year-old michael dunn is charged with murder in the death of 17-year-old michael davis.
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natasha ghoneim is in jacksonville, florida, and what are some of the other details of this case? >> reporter: well, del, it was november 2012, and the defendant, michael dunn, pulled into a jacksonville gas station. he was in town for his son's wedding. he pulled up alongside an suv with four teenagers. he says the music was blaring. and he asked the teenagers to turn the music down, initialally complied. and then they turned the music back up. he said the teen threatened to kill him, he thought he saw a gun, he shot eight times into the suv, four times as the suv was backing out of the gas
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station, and police never found a gun in possession of the teenagers. >> what do we know about the jurors in this case? >> i can't quite hear your question. can you repeat that, del. >> what do we know about the juries? >> we don't know a lot, because we could not be in the courtroom during jury selection. were 12 jurors with four alter nates. ten women, six men, and that includes three black women, and five white men, they will be sequestered during the duration of this trial, del. >> natasha ghoneim, thank you very much. ♪
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there are solid gains taking place on wall street today. right now the dow is up 154 points. strong earnings reports and positive data on unemployment encouraging investors. sony saying good-bye to tv. it says it will spin off its television unit and will cut its pc division. duncan doughnuts is reporting a 3.5% sales increase in the quarter. it is raising its stock dividend from $0.04 to $0.23 a share. we will have live coverage of the key january jobs report tomorrow at 8:30 right here on al jazeera america. when we come back on al jazeera america, fining the silver lining when you live here underneath a volcano.
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welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm del walters, here are your headlines at this hour. as the olympic torch makes its way through the city of sochi, the department of security issuing a warning that toothpaste tubes could be used to transfer material to make bombs. more than a half million people are still without power after a winter storm blew through a large part of the country. it could be days before their power is restored. that storm also shutting down highways, schools, and grounds thousands of flights. a rare violin stolen has now
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been found. it was taken after al-monday was tasered in a parking lot. and tomorrow marking the 50th on anniversary of the beatles landing at jfk in new york. it was their first visit to the us. thousands of fans greeting the fab four. in a rare interview, al jazeera america caught up with ringo star to talk about that moment. >> we had landed in new york; that we were in america was nothing far out than that, because all of the music -- we were in our 20s, anyway. we were all lads. it was incredible. but i felt even on the plain, new york was pulling us down. come on. come on. and i had a great down. ringo will share more of his
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memories tomorrow at 8:00 am on al jazeera america. in the democratic republican of congo, armed groups continue to occupy a city. and they have exposed that city to yet another unpredictable threat. >> reporter: this mount is ranked in the world's top ten most dangerous volcanos. it sits next to a city of about a million people. a lava lake constantly smolders. experts say it could erupt at anytime. >> it's dangerous because it is only 20 kilometers from the city. and quality of the lava is very fluid, so when it starts erupting, the flow of lava will be very fast. >> reporter: he studies rack formations and seismic movements to try to understand the
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volcano's activity. he shows equipment used to measu measure tremendousers. rebel groups ash the volcano, mean it is not safe for the researchers to go there and do their work. the government is now flushing all of the armed groups out of the area, but still has a long way to go. around the volcano is still not safe. and failure to predict an eruption could be devastating. hundreds of thousands fled to neighboring rwanda, about a third of the city was destroyed the last time the volcano erupted. it destroyed everything in its area, and made its way down here. it destroyed everything in its
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wake, but if you look at the rocks left behind, you can see the bubbles and holes from where it was boiling and simmering. but a lot of the city has actually been rebuilt using this as a construction material. the volcano is everywhere. this man makes building blocks from lava gravel mixed with cement. >> translator: on the one hand we like it, because the materials can bring wealth, but on the other hand it is bad, because it has destroyed everybody's homes. >> reporter: another nearby volcano resulted in 2011, but didn't cause any damage. meanwhile this volcano keeps bubbling. and thank you for watching al jazeera america. i'm del walters in new york. "the stream" is next.
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and a reminder for updates throughout the day, all you have to go is go to aljazeera.com, where the news continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week. right now it is 9:30 in sochi. >> i'm lisa flesher, and you're in the stream. we ask if the city is setting a course that could end racial profiling in america. >> wajahat ali is here bringing all the social media throughout the show. h

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