♪ >> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ hello, this is the al jazeera news hour, live from headquarters in doha and coming up, in the next 60 minutes the iraq government and baghdad. they claim control of the port city and is blaming russia for sending tanks into ukraine. taking their dispute over territorial waters and looking

for a resolution. let the games begin and 2014 kicks off and brazil gets things off on a winning note. ♪ welcome to the program. iraq is in a state of crisis. towns and cities are falling to fighters from a group that calls itself the islamic state of iraq or the isil and the human rights chief says he is alarmed by the reports of executions and displacement of half a million people. now, the al-qaeda group is progressing south, taking towns including suadia on the main road to baghdad, the group is in the second city of mozel and decrete in the north and they control the city after the iraqi

army fled and isil and tribal groups seized cities in the province earlier this year. half a many people have been internally displaced. here hundreds of civilians are trying to enter curdish part of iraq 40 kilometers away and many come from ethnic and religious minorities and feel sectarian attacks. these pictures show isil fighters parading through the streets with weapons captured from security forces. the iraq army has all but deserted the city. this is in baghdad overnight on what you see today and what is going on. >> reporter: i with tell you the baghdad operations command and tasked with bringing security to the city have

unveiled a new security plan and calling it enhanced security plan. what does that mean? they are putting in more and more check posts both on the perimeter of the city and within the city itself. they are also putting in increased mobile patrols and the ker curfew begins at midnight and end at 4:00 a.m. and securing the green zone, the green zone is where the u.s. and uk embassys are located and clearly they are worried about some sort of threat against baghdad. they have not said explicitly this comes as a result of isil march on baghdad but i think it's safe to assume they are taking it seriously and taking measures. >> it is the commanding control center for isil fighters and they certainly want to make sure that they can control everything from there. what do we know about the situation and the operations of

isil for the moment? >> reporter: what we do know is the isil operations are changing one from a military to now a civil duty. what they are doing is they are setting up a provisional council to run the city on the areas in the province they control and they are starting to pay civil servant salaries and have not been paid in a number of months and they are paying salaries and asking people to come back to work, to jobs, to start to live their lives like they have not before. that is one of the statements they have issued. so they are moving from this idea of taking over the city to actually running the city. there also seems to be an ideological divide between what isil fighters actually want and some of the fighters who joined the group under their banner want and iraq and syria was part of that. however the group that is actually controlling this right

now has said, and this is not an official statement but what we have been hearing from people in the city, said they want to march on baghdad and regime change in baghdad and want to take over iraq and not establish an islamic state and this is coming through within the city and right now the city is calm and they are trying to run it as best they can. >> that situation is developing and coming through the day and this is from baghdad. security concerns in iraq prompted the united states to relocate to contractors based there and president barack obama says he is considering all options to help the iraqi government. . >> iraq is going to need more help from us and more help from the international community. so my team is working around the clock to identify how we can provide the most effective assistance to them. i don't rule out anything.

because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadist are not getting a permanent foot hold in either iraq or syria for that matter. >> reporter: more from washington d.c. >> reporter: the message from the administration developed over this is first they were keen to emphasize they wanted to build the capacity of iraqi forces to fight back the advance of isil fighters and they urged prime minister malachi to be inclusive in his role. as they developed we heard many options were being considered and we heard this from secretary of state john kerry. >> we are deeply concerned about what is happening in iraq and not concerned at waiting. we are providing assistance. we are in direct touch with prime minister malachi and leaders at the top level. i just completed phone calls now with people in iraq and i know the president of the united states is preparing to make key

decisions in short order and as he made clear earlier, options are on the table right now and at the appropriate time i'm sure you will hear from the president. >> the white house quick to emphasize boots on the ground are not considered but later in the day an anonymous official told "the wall street journal" air strikes were considered in the short term and the back drop is increasing criticism on capitol hill from republicans and many who are supporters of the original invasion of iraq who argue that the decision by president obama to remove u.s. troops led to this crisis in a irak however when pressed they are not specific about what specifically they are asking the administration to do.

there is at least one voice on capitol hill that has caution and levin, chairman of the armed service of the senate and how much they are willing to fight and pointed out many of these problems stem from the original u.s. invasion in 2003. >> they are negotiating to secure the release of dozens of citizens in iraq and 80 people including diplomates and children were kidnapped. >> translator: the most important thing is to reunite citizens with families, i have spoken to the wife of a general and so did our prime minister and talked to all the families and informed them on the latest situation. >> translator: there aren't any negative reports on their health. we continue to negotiate and we are making great effort. >> reporter: after spending five years as a taliban prisoner of war bowe has returned home

and will receive treatment there and be reunited with his family and he was handed over two weeks ago part of a prisoner exchange in exchange for five prisoners held at guantanamo bay. afghan forces are on high alert after the vote and abdula who survived an assassination as tempt last week is expected to defeat the opponent and concerns in taliban attacks could affect voter turn out and we have more from a province from a taliban stronghold in afghanistan. >> the only way in or out of the capitol city of the province is through checkpoints like this one, operated by the afghan national police, all vehicles are searched and so too are the passengers. it's part of increased security

ahead of saturday's presidential runoff and the taliban promised to attack polling stations on polling day and this area is particularly at risk, although less than an hour from kabul the group has brought influence here. the colonel is in charge of the forces responsible for keeping voters safe here and tells us he is confident the poll will be held without incident. >> translator: our plan is clear, they want to create insecurity and disrupt the election but we are prepared for it and security forces are on high alert and the people will be protected. >> reporter: but with over 22000 polling stations to secure across the country it won't be an easy job. afghan security forces did well in the first round and there were no major attacks and voters in record numbers and in the past few weeks there is an increase in taliban violence and people are concerned the runoff there look different.

last month the taliban launched the so called spring offensive and there have been a series of attacks across the country including assassination attack against one of the presidential candidates. but food vendor says the threat of violence won't stop him from voting and noticed fewer people in the streets in days leading up to runoff he says he wants to cast his ballot for change. >> translator: security situation here is not very good but i'm definitely voting, i want peace, i don't want war anymore, god willing the new government will bring afghanistan peace. >> reporter: with polling stations like this one showing evidence of the resent fighting, peace for many afghans may feel a long way off even with a new president. al jazeera in the province, central afghanistan. >> ukraine's government says there have been many casualties after it launched defensive against separatist fighters and

the minister says government forces began the operation in the southeast city at dawn. kiev now says it reclaimed control of that port. meanwhile ukraine is accusing russia of helping rebels move tanks to the east of the country. from donsk in eastern ukraine kim has this report. >> reporter: this video cannot be independently verified but claims to show a t 72 tank in the ukrainian city. this tank ukrainian is from russia and they say three russian tanks are now on ukraine territory and two are under attack by ukrainian troops and they say they seized the tanks from a warehouse and say they have not received any help from moscow and kiev has not accused the kremlin of sending the tanks but they are blaming russia for failing to fight enborder controls and separatists say kiev is the aggressor.

>> translator: our government calls us terrorists and separatists and now they brought tanks, aviation and self propelled artillery weapons and half thousand people and today or storm are preparing to storm the town. you see people are walking around, we are here to protect families. >> reporter: they put the might to gain control of the east from pro-russian separatists and the demand, the first town the ukrainian troops have successfully taken over the commander told us morale is high. >> translator: during actions against terrorist in most of the districts, the town was recaptured from bandits and skoundels and let's call them monsters and the city liberated. >> reporter: the army still has work to do and they are being shelled nightly and pro-russian separatists still control some border posts and meanwhile the new post says he is making

diplomatic end roads and spoke by phone to russian putin to bring peace to the east and reports of russian tanks entering ukraine territory could make talks going forward very difficult and i'm in donsk. >> we will go live in donsk. a lot of overnight action, tell us where you are and what you are seeing. >> reporter: well, i'm outside the command is enter of the separatist and it used to be the local administration until it was taken over by the separatists several months ago and here the russian flags fly high above the building and around 10:00 last night a device was detonated underneath this vehicle. you can see the massive amounts of debris around me but the intended target was a vehicle parked just over here to my left. you can see the scorch marks on

the ground. on board a mini bus over there were body guards and the self appointed mayor of the separatist region. here on the ground you can see two small craters and the implication was this was a sophisticated device and immediate suspicion fallen on ukraine special forces. in the last 24 hours the ukrainian antiterrorist operation has made some significant gains and say they destroyed two tanks that were reportedly brought over the border from russia into separatist-held parts of the region. they also say they managed to destroy several army personnel carriers and other pieces of military equipment and also confirmed they managed to seize control of at least three other motorcades bringing supplies across the border to russia to help shore up support for the separatists. so some key movements in the

last 24 hours. >> of course news of this clash in the city there is a very important port city. >> reporter: absolutely. well, the fighting in the last few hours or so has somewhat come to an end in the city here, the fighting had moved to the south and we stand on the coast of the azif sea and they have been fighting separatists led by a chetchen commander and have hosted the ukrainian flag above the administration building in the sense here. it looks like ukrainian forces have the upper hand for now at least. >> we will see what happens there and you will be following events for us in eastern ukraine and for the moment thank you for joining us. more to come on the al jazeera news hour including the elephant poaching epidemic and the findings of an alarming new report on the ivory trade. plus going out on a limb and we

meet the dancing in the u.s. brazil gets the world cup campaign off to a perfect start and the action in the game from croatia coming up. ♪ the football world cup is well underway in brazil with the host nation celebrating a win against croatia in the opening match but protests continued in south palo and rio as brazilians express anger about the cost of the event and we are in south palo and sent this report. >> reporter: ♪ [chanting] the craziness started earlier, hours before kickoff, fans arriving at the stadium in south

palo, 7 years after awarding the largest spectacle, the first answer to the question, would they be ready. early indications outside the stadium were positive but hours before kickoff several kilometers from the stadium fewer than 100 world protesters trying to block the road to the stadium or disbeersed by police and they say the spending by brazil is unjust. in rio similar, ugly scenes repeated themselves but there too the protests involved only a few hundred people. despite the shocking images they don't tell the story of the day as the brief and small clashes provided no major disruptions. closer to game time and all over the country people in this rio community began to gather for the party in celebration as a national team is called here. back at the site of the opening

game, a wave of yellow. >> brazil is going to win 3-0. >> reporter: the tournament kicked off with a spectacular opening act with international celebrities and dignitaries and fans watched on. by night fall under the bright lights the host proved why they are the favorites. working out their early jitters before settling down to business. boring out of the stadium now and obviously very happy despite the first goal by croatia brazil won and beyond that this is the opening of the 2014 world cup here in brazil. >> reporter: al jazeera in south palo. >> we have more from rio. >> reporter: it's impossible to accelerate the excitement and

the joy that brazilians feel when their team wins a football match especially if it's the inaugural game of the world cup, the first time in 54 years the world cup is held here in brazil and it has problems as we all know but right now here in the neighborhood of rio thousands of fans are for getting all that at least for now and the neighborhood has a 36-year-old tradition of watching matches and brazil takes part and tens of thousands of people and when the game is over the party continues. especially if brazil has won and people are angry at the football association and government for the enormous cost and waste in their view of hosting the world cup. but in this part of rio people put aside their faith long enough to let their passion for football kick in. >> and people in france have

taken part in what is being called a flash mob picnic, approximately known as the white, and they are dressed in white and it's the 26th years the event is held and perfect weather and we will be told the location any moment before the event begins. great weather in western europe and i would hope in my home city of chester in the northwest of england everton what are the chances? >> lovely day today with pleasant sunshine. and highs of around 22 degrees. so not bad at all, i'm sure you will agree. no sign of any rain in the forecast. look at satellite and you see largely clear skies across europe and pressure on the chart and a lid on the atmosphere and suppresses the cloud and this is in the hometown of chester. warm sunshine to the southeast and could be the warmest day of the year for the southeast of

england, 26 celsius in london and france 25 and one or two showers up to ireland and northern ireland and europe in the continent showers into italy and balkins and that remains the case as we go on into saturday. i think the showers across central parts could be rather more extensive but 31 celsius in rome is not bad between the hours. a touch cooler for the uk through saturday, temperatures kickback to 21 degrees and winds coming from a northly direction and one or two showers creeping into northern france for a time. heading toward the weekend it's fine, dry and sunny and hanging on to warm weather in chester. >> thanks very much and they will be happy in chester. not quite chester but south asia let's go to hundreds of indians

protesting in new deli on a water shortage as a heat wave continues. parts of north of the country are experiencing their temperatures in more than 60 years and led to a surge of water and electricity. the government has cut street lighting and air conditioning in some public buildings. staying in the country there has been a protest over the deaths of six steel workers. they were killed by a gas leak at a government-run steel plant in the state on thursday. demonstrators are accusing managers of negligence. china and vietnam taken maritime dispute on territory in the south china is sea to the u.n. and the standoff is over an oil rig which the chinese moved to waters in the islands and accused each other of aggression and vietnam and the philippines all claimed ownership of a group of islands in the south china

sea and they are thought to be rich in mineral deposits and unexplored oil and gas reserves but earlier this month they moved the fuel off the coast of vietnam having a standoff in the waters and rob mcbride sent this report from the south china sea. >> reporter: we are on patrol with the vietnamese coast guard and hotly contested between vietnam and china and an oil rig in the area over a month ago and led to confrontations between vessels from both sides and also active patrolling like this, the vessel we are on is now heading toward the zone where the oil rig is. with us are other vessels from the vietnam coast guard and expecting to come in contact with chinese vessels who will try to prevent them getting closer to the oil rig. there have been a number of

clashes in resent weeks, vietnamese accused them of ramping vessels and the chinese say they have been ramp several times in this dispute and there are lots of shipping in these waters at the moment, both vietnamese and chinese as both sides try to assert territorial claims here. >> thailand says an interim government will be set up by september and it's the clearest timeframe yet on a hand over of power since last month's coup and it was necessary to restore order and at least 28 people dead. since then the military has been trying to introduce political reforms and crack down on politicians opposed to the coup. a high-speed ferry from hong kong crashed off the coast

injuring 58 people. life boats were sent to rescue 200 people after it hit a coastal defense structure and it's the third crash this year on one of the world's busyist ferry route. this is the al jazeera news hour and an african solution to a global problem and women in kenya are turning trash from the ocean into treasure. plus fueled by ambition u.s. students trying to drive the eco car revolution and still ahead in sport the san antonio spurs trying to over throw the miami heat. do stay with us. ♪

♪ welcome back and you are watching the al jazeera news hour and these are top stories, fighters from the group known as the islamic state of iraq are continuing their push towards baghdad and they have already captured several towns and cities and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. three people have died in an explosion in donsk in eastern ukraine and the interior minister says there are casualties after government launched an operation in the eastern port at dawn. and it has been a long night of celebration in brazil after the opening victory against croatia in the world cup. now back to our top story the worsening security situation in iraq, forces in northern iraq say they are on high alert against the isil armed group.

al jazeera's spoke to one of their commanders in the kurdish region. >> reporter: there have been some fighting between the kurdish borders in iraq and members of the isil and happened on wednesday evening in the town of shingar on the outskirts of mozel. according to a kurdish commander the iraqi soldiers evacuated the bases of those two areas and so they decided to move in to make sure none of the military hardware fell in the hands of the isil. that is one of the main concerns here for the kurds especially in area where there is a sizable kurdish community and according to the commander this happened also in cook. >> translator: i want to confirm there has been no fighting at all between us and isil. there were reports we controlled the hall now. that's not true. we have beefed up our forces and

took over some of the bases, evacuated by the iraqi first division and warned us they were leaving but we also found empty bases and took over the bases to secure them but i want to make clear we never pushed the iraqi army out. >> reporter: the kurdish forces on high alert but this commander tells us this is only in self-defense positions in areas where there is a sizable kurdish community. as i say so far there have not been as farmly by baghdad to come to the rescue. >> translator: until now we haven't received any official requests for help from prime minister malachi, the agreement in iraq is any such request must come via official can't channels and prime minister itself and the requests we got were from local army officers or the staff but this is not legal so we don't consider this an official request. >> reporter: meanwhile the flow of people leaving here has

slowed down a little bit, out of the estimated half a million that are actually fled over the past few days, 300,000 have already made their way inside of the kurdish region. this is a major concern for the authorities here. >> we have a professor of contemporary middle east history and joins me in the studio and nice to have you back again and they earlier said on the news hour what he is seeing in baghdad according to authorities was heightened level of security and the grown zone being more tightly secure than normal. yet the government or the authorities are saying this has nothing to do with what is going on in the north of the country, hard to believe really. >> actually it's hard to believe. it was expected yesterday that the government will have some measures related to baghdad and security of baghdad in particular. and i look myself on some reports from the media to speak on the fact that authorities in

baghdad have taken seriously from yesterday noon. so basically it's hard to believe that this is not linked to what happened in muslim. the government is worried about what happened and they have to make sure they are secure especially with the letter sent by the speaker of the department of al-qaeda or the isil when they actually mentioned baghdad is the second so basically it's a message this is a respondent. >> everybody had time to digest what happened on thursday, malachi did not get his state of emergency and the americans are saying we might help you. i mean, how do you assess that relationship between both the iraqi government now and the u.s.? >> i think there is something that happened and you can compare what happened in there, for m xa, a few years ago where basically france intervened immediately to face mali and

what happened in baghdad in the last 24 hours proved the united states does not want to be involved in iraqi and they are worried. and if there is something from the united states it will come as a result of the internal pressure on the administration. we found a lot of criticism to the administration and how they handled the iraqi issue and why they withdraw early from iraq and all of this know, obama administration has to response quickly. obvious he mentioned, president obama that an option is on the table, however, it's not clear when this will be used. especially we see that there is progress on the ground from isil which basically makes all of the regional players worried about all of that. >> we will see what happens over the coming hours for the moment. thanks for joining us. >> pleasure. >> thank you. flip-flops, one of the largest

pollutants in the indian ocean and tons of rubber shoes and waste wash up on kenya beaches each year and they are working with a group of woman along the coastline to literally turn the trash into trez and from kenya's southern coast catherine sent this report. >> reporter: it's nottard job for the women at theest coel island. every morning when waters of the indian ocean recede the women from the tiny village walk to the shoreline to collect garbage the ocean left behind. and she leads the group whose daily struggle is to get a meal on the table for their families. >> translator: we decided to do this because ocean and beaches are have dirty. what can we do to make this better. we decided to collect flip-flops and make ornaments to sell. >> reporter: it's not just here. garbage end up on many parts

along the coastline. when the tide is high water comes all the way here and then it leaves behind piles of garbage from countries that share the indian ocean and there are bottles from tanzenia and there are lots and lots of flip-flops. these are the second largest pollutants of the indian ocean after plastic. in a few hours the women's task for the day is complete. and they collected a fraction of what is left here. back in their backyard they clean the flip-flops from countries and make trin trinkets and some end up in the capitol and there is a company where the women transform them into art. these products are sold in the u.s. to homes. >> it's really about using

trade, a trade-based solution to the problem of global pollution. and in the ocean. and this is really an african solution to this global problem. >> reporter: and so here in this shop they do their thing, they have a solution to protecting the beaches and reducing poverty. catherine with al jazeera in the south coast. staying on there the poaching of elephants is rampant and the international treaty to protect wildlife eccemployee takes shows more than 20,000 elephants killed in africa last year and major seizures of ivory was constated before leaving the continent last year and it may be a significant drop from the

50,000 kilogram mark the year before but there is an alarming up ward trend in resent years and the first time of ivory siege in africa exceeded asia and there are 80% of other seizures and we go to john the secretary general and joins me now from geneva and thank you for joining us. what is your initial impression about the figures? are you pleased that they have slightly reduced over the years or is it still worrying that the figures are really still so high? >> yeah, we are involved in a serious fight here with trans national organized criminal gangs and in some cases rebel malitia and winning this fight is going to take some time. there are to sides to today's report. on the one hand the number of illegally killed elephants remains far too high. on the other hand we see that the sharp up ward trends of the

past few years levelled off and suggests we are starting to do something right but we have to keep the pressure on to really drive these trends down because the illegal killing remains far too high. >> making sure those trends do see a lowering so to speak in regards requires or needs the help of governments to help you in your work, which areas of the globe, so let's start with africa, which part of the continent is doing a good job with trafficking and which part of the continent are not? >> over the past year we have seen east african states, uganda and ken da stiff up efforts and that is in the figures you just shared with your viewers namely the number of large seizures of ivory that are now taking place on the african continent primarily within east africa rather than asia and this is very positive.

these organized criminal gangs are savvy and looking at angola and west africa and look at egypt as alternate routes to get the contraband off the continent and we need a collective effort and all hands on deck and need to focus not only on east africa states but increasing on new states that have been targeted. >> some new states you are talking about, it's a 38 page, your report, and talks about middle east as the united and katar and how they will stop the trade and what they got from people trying to bring it in illegally and what is your impression of how the gulf states have performed? >> again, we see transit routes that need to change. transit routes were identified as thailand and vietnam and malaysia and malaysia took significant, additional effort here as a transit state. what we see is organized crime gangs start shifting routes and

shifts to the united dubi and katar and provide information to say what they are taking as a transit state to make sure they intercept the contraband. >> we have to leave but thank you for joining us from geneva. it has been two months from the school girls were kidnapped and carrying out attacks since it was form in 2007 and people are losing faith to tackle the problem and we report now. >> reporter: members of the main opposition party, the all progress congress are getting ready to hold their national convention on friday. the convention is a start of the process to select someone to run against president good luck

jonathan when national elections are held in february. they have been holding hundreds of election strategy meetings like this one all over the country. they say president jonathan and the ruling party, the people's democratic party are incompetent and failed to solve major problems. >> very clear to everybody now whether in the north or in the south, whether christians or muslims, whether rich or poor, the only alternative we have today is this and we have a ship that has been especially sent for months and this is on sentiments and ethnic sentiments dividing the country. >> reporter: ruling party denies such accusations, defe defeating jonathan will be a challenge and won every election over the last 15 years and hold

most seats in parliament and control the 36 states. but opposition say many people lost confidence in the ruling party because under it life has gotten hardy and poverty increased, corruption out of control and violence is devastating, parts of the northeast. in particular attacks by the armed group boko haram like this one in may. the group killed thousands of people since it started fighting in 2009 and the 200 girls they kidnapped in april have still not been found. >> politics of nigeria is not issue based so a lot of politicians there is no ideology, it's all about grabbing power and grabbing resources and if they can do that through being part of the ruling party and abandoning what is supposed to be the opposition platform, a lot of politicians rarely do that and that is a huge challenge for building a

strong opposition in nigeria. >> reporter: but the opposition say that won't happen and want to get in power and soft -- solve problems and hoping they will vote for them and not the ruling party when they cast their ballots last year, al jazeera. defects to the u.s. last week after performing in puerto rico and it was for the careers and not political. and we are in florida. ♪ life best lived on the stage for these young dancers but a career can be fleeting even in the best of circumstances. the young men and women who recently defected from the cuban national ballet may not have been prepared to leave their home but ambition led them to the u.s. and they consider it the land of limitless artistic opportunity. >> artistic and the freedom for

yourself and also to the artist because this is very important. you have freedom and you can have everything. >> reporter: 23-year-old sanchez says he has been thinking about defecting for the last few years, as one of the lead dancers in his company he said he earned $29 a month and the standard pay for other dancers was $19. >> translator: i feel sadness and anger i have to leave my country for a better opportunity. >> reporter: sanchez wants to dance with a premier ballet company in the united states. his fellow dancer shares this dream. the 21-year-old talks about how defecting was a last-minute decision and her friends told her they were defecting and asked if she wanted to flee as well. she had only 24 hours to decide. >> translator: i was the last one to leave. i was so sad because my parents

didn't know about this. i had to leave my family because i couldn't grow as a dancer. >> reporter: she came to the u.s. with no money and not even enough dance clothes and trying to come up with a way to pay for $200 pointe shoes and they found a temporary refuge with the ballet of miami and guest performers at the program in weekend but beyond that the company has no money to hire them. the artist director says in the ten years of its existence it has helped 20 defectors from the island and a cuban exile himself is proud of that and the ballet has excellent preparation and if history is a guide he is confident the u.s. will give them a bigger stage to flourish. i'm with al jazeera in florida. still ahead we got all of the sport including brazil world cup against croatia plus.

>> andrew thomas with soccer and the team on paper is the least likely to win the world cup. ♪ r

is justice really for all? welcome back to the news hour, the u.s. government teamed up with 15 university to develop model cars that are better for the environment and drivers and tom ackerman has more. >> reporter: the chevrolet malibu one of the work horses has been getting a glamorous make over, 15 different make

overs and each vehicle remodelled by students from u.s. and canadian universities and competing for the best built, redefined vehicle in a third year of a competition called eco car. after students made final adjustments together in the garage and gunned the engines on the high speed michigan test track they will go to washington d.c. and find out which school came on top. >> improving fuel economy and maintaining the performance and safety and attributes of the vehicle. >> reporter: the cars are retrofitted as plug in electric hybrids with the batteries displacing bio fuel, ethanol and even in one case hydrogen. innovations are not all under the hoodz and are replaced with gesture recognition software. >> if you stick out your hand it will notice your hand and you

can swipe to the right to the track or go down to pause the music et cetera and things like that to improve the safety. >> reporter: as the next generation of all motive designers the students are getting extra insight beyond their learning in the classroom. >> they have input not only from the textbook and theory but also from experts in this area. >> reporter: the team effort says engineering ph.d. candidate catherine has provided her with other valuable insights. >> the engineers get a full kind of view of how do you interact with people that are not engineers because that is a skill you have to learn well. >> reporter: the third and final year for the government-funded competition to use the malibu and next year they graduate to a new challenge, turning the powerful high performance chevrolet camero into a sports car. time for sport and here is robin with it. good to have you along.

it was not perfect but the three points were all that mattered as brazil opened the campaign and stole the show in 3-1 defeat of croatia and we report on a dramatic match in south palo. ♪ initially it was croatia who had the early chances in their group a clash that early pressure resulting in a goal in the 11th minute. and the miss kick confusing brazil's defense and marcello producting the ball in his own net. oscar almost immediately had a chance to equalize and they made this fine save and then we got the two sides of brazil's star striker and namer and the barcelona man was there by the mid fielder and then he went up

the other end to score the equalizer and making the goal one all at half time. brazil took the lead in the second half thanks to a rather soft penalty decision, and he stepped up, not the most convincing penalty but it was 2-1 all the same and oscar made the game safe for the host with a goal in the 90th minute, the perfect start for brazil and sarah with al jazeera. >> sports correspondence dents lee weldings watched from his base in rio and says once the win dies down the brazil players will know there is lots of room for improvement. >> and a phrase that is used in braville translates as brazil played bad but they won good and that pretty much sums it up, for me that is all they really needed to do. brazil had to win the game and when you consider the amount of pressure the players and the coach were under, you can see the relief from the president's face when brazil managed to come back into the game.

it just meant so much from everyone from government level to the people of brazil who are desperate to win the world cup tournament after the concerns they had with the financing of it, they actually won it for the first time and no one has won't more times than brazil and they want to win this and you have to get off to a winning start and the performance at the end was bad and not convincing but it doesn't matter and they can build on that if they have the points. >> the biggest game in brazil on this friday the 13th we will see reigning champion spain take on.netter lends and spain is one of the tournament favorites after winning the last two championships and won the last six world cup games and netherlands and they made it past this stage in the last world cups. >> translator: i'm not a fortune teller and not saying we are going to win, i never done

that. sometimes you predict things but in this case you are playing world number one. we will do everything we can do be the surprise of the tournament. >> translator: we are flot aft -- afraid of anyone and players are extraordinary and not here for the past but what we will do in the future. >> reporter: the netherlands and then chili and a dark horse and play australia. i think it's fair to say the favorites for the game on paper they have the weakest team in the tournament, a win or a draw against chili would be a huge achievement as andrew thomas explains from sidney. >> reporter: a joke was doing the rounds at one of the last training sessions been they left australia and the team's official world cup slogan is hopping into history some

journalists there thought the only way australia's team would be hopping would be home. >> we have too many advanced bookings and i think we will be back all right straight after the third game. >> reporter: 32 teams in the world cup use they are the worth and they brought in youth and with that inexperience and in the group stage they are facing tough teams in the tournament and chili and 2010 runner up the netherlands before the defending champions of spain. >> a challenge for australia and they are not expecting a win let alone get out of the group. >> reporter: leading brazil and the players joked about their prospects. have you had a dream where you are holding the cup? >> i would be sitting here lying

if i said i hadn't. >> coffee cup. >> since arriving in brazil there has been a bit more optimism and they lost a friendly against croatia and narrowly and it was 1-0 and the rest of the match was played well and the training is as planned and rumors of injuries among chili players and anything better than a loss would be a shock, this sort of up set australia's players will be hopping for >> al jazeera will have a brazil 2014 update show each day at 1540 gmt and it's on the air five hours from now and join us from the news from brazil and around the world and guests and stories at 1540 gmt, the spurs on the edge of clinching the title from the miami heat and it

was 107-86 point in game four of the finals with the heat. and leonard once again the star for san antonio and scored 20 points and 14 rebounds for 3-1 lead and a win at home on game five on sunday would give the spurs the 5th nba cloud. >> i want to thank the spurs basketball and moving the ball and playing how we have be enplaying all season and like to do an extra pass and we did that and right now we are clicking. >> we are in a position where it is about making history. but all we can do is worry about game five and worry about sunday first and go up there in a hostile environment and we were able to steal one in game two and get another one and go on from there. i do know the numbers and it's never been done before but you know we feel we are still a

confident bunch even though our heads are lowered and of course being down 3-1 and losing two straight games at home and it's human nature but we have to go out and play on sunday. >> reporter: and a round of 65 for germany giving him the first round lead at u.s. open at the pine hurst in north carolina and the approach to 14 led to one of four birdies on the back line and german under par and three shots clear with a group of four players and two under and 2010 u.s. open winner mcdowell. big story for a brazil 2014 section on our website, al jazeera.com/brazil 2014 and there is a live blog from rio and latest reaction from players and coaches on our website as well. that is it. >> thanks very much robin and you are watching the al jazeera news hour and we will be back with more news in a little while. please stay with us.

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