>> the amount of anger here, you can see tensions between the two sides... >> is venezuela on the brink? fault lines al jazeera america's >> ground breaking... >> we have to get out of here... award winning investigative documentary series venezuela divided on al jazeera america good morning. welcome to al jazeera america. i am morgan radford. these are the stories we are following just for you. secretary of state john kerry arriving in the middle east to meet with egyptian officials and address violence in iraq. plus these are the school girls who avoided boka haram. we will tell you how they have been coping. people in the united states are protesting those are supposed to protect their cities.

the islamic state of iraq in the lavant is making major gains in iraq as they advance towards baghdad. rebel fighters took over three more towns just overnight as well as the strategic border crossing with syria. there is a fluent situation at iraq's biggest oil refinery in baiji. the iraqi army sent 50 military tanks to haditha. the objective seems to take over ramadi. al jazeera's omar asala has the latest. >> their movement is all across western iraq. isil controls the eastern area. it gives them apply route.

they took it without a fight. the army there withdrew their forces. the government here telling us that the withdrawal was tactical to allow them to regroup and launch an attack. the latest we know that the fighters are surrounding haditha, and the army is sending reinforcements. ramadi is the key capitol of anbar province. remains understanding isil since january. so, i think the isil was trying to reinforce their positions against the government forces there. now, further east to at a time had hadin prove incident, they took the area north of takrit. there is fighting on the outskirts of that area. interesting development in mosul. isil fighters are destroying -- have destroyed, rather, a statue for virgin mary outside the church. they didn't harm the church.

however, they knocked that statue down. in the last 48 hours or so, they knocked down few statues for poets and artits. their their electricity and fuel, their people there are suffering and saying that they are very short and they desperately need it. >> the leader of neighboring iran, komeni is speaking out against the united states. he says we strongly oppose the intervention of the united states and others in the domestic affairs of iraq. the ayotollah sedrak and the people would be able to end the crisis themselves. the iranian government did say it would consider lending military aid for the shia-led government in baghdad secretary of state john kerry visits egypt where he met with the country's newly elected president. john terrett joins us from washington, d.c. john, good morning to you. thanks for joining us. >> good morning. >> what did john kerry have to

say speaking of the other john? >> indeed. john kerry turned up in egypt. we knew he was going to the middle east. turns out to be the capital, cairo and he is having three meetings with the new incoming president. also the foreign minister and the head of the arab league. secretary kerry's message to the e summations is that the united states recognizes they have been through a difficult transition since the arab spring and that there is a desire in washington for that transition to be successful. he says egypt is a strategic partner of the united states and the immediate term and the long-term. you know, morgan, it's not all sweetness and light. secretary kerry pointing out at a time cumbriansment of journalists and ngos including three staff members being held and demonstration laws as well. in the past hour, secretary kerr has given a news conference in which he asked about iraq. he pointed out in the u.s. view, dealing with isil is important

right now in case they become a base, a haven for terrorism in the future. >> john, given the delicacy of this transition, what is kerry's next move? he is going to europe after that, as well. et meet nato members in the heart of europe. his job on this trip is to deal with local and international politics. here in washington, somebody else has been speaking out because the israeli prime minister is in town,bingbing netanyahu with a two-tear message, the main part of which is don't let iran get the bomb. he was asked on an nbc program today about the issue inside iraq and he said, take the action you deem necessary to counter isil in iraq but don't let iran dominate iraq in the

way that it has syria and lebanon in recent years. here he is appearing this morning on "meet the press." "what you are seeing in the middle east today, in iraq and in syria is the stark hatreds between radical shiites and rad itcal sunnis led by al-qaeda and isis and others. both of these camps are enemies of the united states. when your enemies are fighting each other, don't strengthen either one of them. we c weaken both. the worst outcome that could come out is that one of these iraqis, iran, would come out with nuclear weapons capability. that would be a tragic mistake. it would make everything else pale in comparison. the israeli prime minister. we hear from president obama tomorrow in an interview record odd friday. he will say it's up to the iraqi leadership to pull the various strands of their politics together to try to bring peace to the country. >> john terrett, thanks so much

for being with us this morning. staying in the middle east, a verdict in the trial of three al jazeera journalists who, as john terrett just mentioned are jailed in egypt. >> verdict is scheduled to be announced on monday. mohammed fat any and peter greste have been detained since december. they are accused of collaborating with the muslim brotherhood. barn bephillips has their stoab you are watching closely the trial of the staff. >> it has resonated far and wide that journalism is not a crime but in a free society, reporters need to be able to speak to all sides. the men in the cage have already paid a heavy price in defense of this right. peter greste, mohammed fatmy and b bahami mohammed. they have been behind bars for 176 days. he job description authorities accuse of them spreading lies, having linx to what they call a

terrorist organization. across the world, many disagree. many have spoken out in defense of the al jazeera team. >> we would like to live in a world where we can go about our legitimate, lawfully business without interference as anybody could, as a doctor, a lawyer, anybody could and should be able to do. it's not democracy. it's about the simply freedom not saying journalists are above the law, not saying there are special rules for journalists but in this instance, instances like this, if they are doing their job legitimately, people should not be obstructed in the course of doing that and put in prison. it's crazy. >> campaign events have taken place in at least 30 countries around the world more than 69,000 people have tweeted using the hash tag, freeajattach. they have sent out over 181,000 tweets. those tweets have reached more than 74.4 million twitter

accounts. >> the al jazeera campaign has attracted enormous support from people all over the world. but the challenge for any social media campaign is to translate success in the virtual world in the real world, to turn all of those retweets and online petitions into actual pressure of people in and positions of power. after all, even the most famous of tweeters baaing the most honorable of causes don't always come out on top straight away. campaigners helped peter greste family raise 58,000 signatures and they feel it made a difference. >> egyptian authorities respond. the feedback we have heard from the families are that knowing they are there with thousands of people behind them gives them the strength that they can actually go in and have the conversations, know that they are backed up by thousands of people. >> baha mohammed and peter wait for the court's decision. they and supporters all over the world feel this case has already gone on far too long barn baby

phillips, al jazeera. >> al jazeera rejects all charges and demands the immediate release of its journalists. israeli troops killed two palestinians today in their search for the three missing israeli teenagers. army officials say a man approached soldiers in an intimidating manner at a hospital in ramala says they received the body of a man killed in overnight fighting between palestinyaz and israel soldiers. israel has been conducting raids in the west bank in their search for the boys who went missing near an israeli settlement. hamas which operates in the west bank has neither confirmed no way denied any involvement. >> a new round of violence claims ten lives in nigeria. boka haram men raided several villages. the communities targeted are close to where 276 school girls were kidnapped in april. 57 of them have come home since. andrew simmons reports. >>. >> these are the school girls

who managed to avoid capture by boka haram fighters. their classmates are missing. the pain shows. but somehow, they are preparing for their final exams. their teachers believed talking about what happened helps. >> we have had to run out of the room. . >> their school principal is here. she has lost count of the number of appeals she has made for the release of her pupils but she is not giving up. >> there is nothing i can say to plead with them. sisters, daughters and granddaughters. there should feel sympathy for these innocent girls and release them. >> all of the girls have been brought here to the state capitol not just for their continued education but, also, for better security. their teachers say they are doing well manage to go relax and concentrate on studies

despite the fact that they are away from home and they don't know what's happened to their classroom friends. >> those with close friends missing are getting more distressed by the day. >> it's painful that we are separated together with them. they want to help us to find one of our mates for us, please we are asking to help us, please. >> but no one has a positive answer. more than two months after their friends went missing. and the state government is trying to get schooling back to normal. >> those words immediately resume. we see relocate these students and provide security and continue with our normal schooling. >> there could be nothing normal for these girls right now. only the safe return of their friends would make that possible. andrew simmons, al jazeera,

madugery, northeastern nigeria. >> pope francis has another message this morning, this time to the entire world. speaking in saint peter's square this morning, he urged christians to work together to ends any and all torture and yesterday, the pope visited the southern italy region of cabria, which is a move i can't stronghold where he denounced mafia crimes and asked printingsers to repent. coming up next, drug deception. we will tell you about the pharmaceutical companies now in a fight to counteract the counterfeit industry. protesters in north caroliincom income taking a stand against police brutality.

. >> today, one of five troops killed in a friendly fire incidents last week, the 19-year-old body arrived yesterday in chicago and will be

buried tuesday in his hometown of mckenna, illinois. hundreds of undocumented immigrants detained in texas will be transferred to california. nearly 300 central american my grants will be flown to san diego and to el sent tro for processing. the government hopes this will ease the pressure on texas boardser patrol agents. officials say they are overloaded with illegal crossings and since october, the texas boarder patrol arrested over 170,000 people, all who were trying to enter the country illegally. meanwhi meanwhile, demonstrators took to the streets of albuquerque saturday to protest against police department and city leaders all who they say allowed an excessive amount of police violence. a report. though protesters are now calling for reform. >> it's been called the albuquerque spring. this, the latest mobilization against a city leadership accused of allowing police to kill with impunity.

a u.s. department of justice says the majority of fatal shootings by the albuquerque police department between 2009 and 2012 were unconstitutional and that officers were being taught that violence was normal and desirable. >> you hear my son scream maybe two minutes later, he was dead. >> mike gomes'sson was fatally shot by a police officer here in 2011. the officer was cleared although alan was unarmed. >> they are badges and a license to kill. i love my son. he was a good kid. he didn't deserve to die. >> albuquerque police were judged to have killed civilians posing minimum threat. >> it was the shooting death of a schizophrenic homeless man here in the foothills out, out skirts of town that cat lied months of protests. >> despite james boyd expressing fear he will be shot, he sur renders. an officer fires a stun grenade. boyd reaches for a knife and is

shot several times. he was pronounced dead a day later. thomas grover has a collection of videos like this. the department of justice said a culture of airgression exists at the department. >> came as no surprise to grover who served on the force for eight years before becoming a civil rights lawyer. >> you had this sort of hyper militarization, both in the form of conduct and in armament that is not really consistent with policing. >> the city and the government are in a long negotiation on reform. both the may ors office and the police department declined to be interviewed. there is skepticism several damning reports and pledges of change have come and gone in albuquerque over the years. the rating killing only increased. the police officials have been accused of excessive force and resisting change. the protesters say they will ensure this opportunity is not missed and that they will march until there is justice t al jazeera, albuquerque new

mexico. >> reports of live anthrax at the center of disease control. samples were sent to a lab and with very few safeguards currently in place, 84 workers were exposed. scientists spent 24 hours trying to kill the bacteria and luckily no one is sick or has died. an investigation is still underway. speaking of health, the world health organization estimates that 10% of all drugs sold worldwide, they are actually fake. the counterfit drug business is worth about $75,000,000,000 each and every year. the phony medicine is often dangerous, killing more than 100,000 people. tom ackerman visited one lab that's helping law enforcement get fake drugs off of the streets. >> the hormone rick roberts must inject himself with every day keeps him alive. one prescription he did refilled at a san francisco drugstore could have killed him. >> i asked the pharmacist, i said, i have had this stinging, and there seems to be an issue

with the amount of the water in the packaging, and he just looked at me and said, you should go home you should check and see if you got some of the fake stuff. >> roberts is one of the victims of counterfeit drugs, more commonly sold over the internet but in some cases, finding their way into reputable retail pharmacies. in this lab at the headquarters of pfizer, the world's biggest drug company, more than a thousand suspect samples from north and south america are tested each year. they have either been seized by law enforcement agencies or bought by the company's own undercover agents. >> they will actually go out and pose as patients or consumers and go out and actually make purchases from individuals on the internet. >> allegation different color blue. they are very close. >> to even an experienced eye, the bogus packaging can look identical to the genuine product. pfizer scientists can usually spot the counter fits but then comes chemical analysis of the

samples. >> we see in some. dosage farms they don't put the active ingredient ever. sometimes they will put it in but at the wrong level. sometimes, they will use the wrong active i need greetient or a mix. >> under the new law, every drug sold in the u.s. would eventually include a marker to trace its origin and tracking through its supply chain. around the globe, it's a case of bier be very aware. >> you've got to stay within the system that's safe because of the regulations that are in place. if you go outside of that system, then you are going outside of the safety net that's there for you. >> there is no reliable safety net in southeast asia and africa where almost one third of the antimalaria y'all drugs tested have been found fake or ineffective. so, drug companies and u.s. government agencies have been donating hand-held devices that can perform chemical analysis in the field. more tools to prevent unsuspecting consumers from falling ill to the agreed of the

counterfeiters. tom ackerman, al jazeera, gratin, connecticut. >> coming up on al jazeera america.... >> i am rob reynolds in the redwood national park on a report to the new threat to these ancients trees.

>> good morning to you. welcome back to al jazeera america. live from new york city. i am morgan radford. the isil is closing in on baghdad. rebel fighters took over three more towns. this all just happening overnight as well as a strategic border crossing with syria. the iraqi army responded by sending in 50 tanks to the town of haditha. two palestinians were killed during israeli raids. the israeli army has been searching for three teenagers who went missing earlier this morning. >> the pope has denounced

torture during saint peter square. yesterday, at the denounced mafia violence and. >> california's redwood trees are in danger all because under the cover of darkness, thieves are sneaking into the national park and then they are cutting off and stealing parts of those trees. al jazeera's rob bennett reports on the burl bandis. >> geoff and laura denny are approaching a crime scene, the victim: extremely elderly long-term resident was attacked in the dead of night. his assailants mahmoudlated the victim with a chain saw. this is the victim of the attack, a towering ancient redwood tree. >> what we got behind us is an old redwood tree that's probably 700 or a thousand years old maybe. >> the chain saw-we'lleding thieves were after these, red wood burls, knobby lump that grow on the sides of the trees.

>> burl is a type of wood that's valued by woodworkers. each piece can fetch up to a thousand dollars. burl bandits have defaced dozens of trees so far and more crime scenes likely remain undiscovered. >> every time we discover one of these big burl cut sites, it's shocking. >> the rode to red wood national park is lined with shops selling car carvings, bowls and slabs cut from burl. the shop owner says he never buys illegally cut wood. >> my opinion of them is that they need to knock it off because it is hurting my business in the long run. >> two alleged burl bandits have been arrested so far. >> we were able to match burls had been cut from one of our sites to a gift shop. >> one man has been convicted of felon theft and vandalism and faces jail time. >> burl banditry is a recent phenomenon but so is the

attitude of reverence toward these trees. when the first settlers came to this area in the 19th century, they saw the red woods not as irreplaceable wonders of nature but as lumber. >> down they come, some of the world's oldest, biggest and tallest trees. >> this 1940s educational film celebrated redwood logging in triumphant tones. by the 1960s, 95% of all old growth redwoods were gone. in light of that sad history, today's burl bandits hurt more than trees. >> when you come in to a place like this that can be described as contacts he'athedral like an this desecration, it hurts the soul. >> history, rangers say -- this tree will likely survive. they are counting on public awareness to foil future burl burglars. rob reynolds, al jazeera, redwood national park, california.

. >> good sunday to you. i am meteorologist ebony dion watching rain coming down into parts of texas. dall dallas, it has been a wet start. light rain but notice the rains starting to get a little bit heavier as the addition turnants rotates. more isolated activity is expected as we get into late this evening. here across the midwest, we started with some soaking rain coming across parts of nebraska and into iowa. it has tape evered off here into nebraska around the omaha area. we have been right in 2010. two batches of rainfall but now the heaviest of the rain off to the north of des moines and pushing off slightly to the north and east. watching this area for the rest of more flooding as heavier downpours are going to be associated with slow-moving storms. we could end up with an additional one to 3 inches. a number of places across this region have received up to 5,

even 7 inches of rainfall within the last 24 hours. so that's only going to add to our flooding risk. we have a flash flood woven across southern areas of minnesota and western areas of wisconsin and much of iowa dealing with the flood threat. in addition to heavy wrong fall, storms will be a good bet as we get into the later part of the day, minneapolis, watch at that and oklahoma city and push a little further east as we get into monday. so chicago has been fairly dry after storms went through the area on saturday, but now we have a frontal boundary moving in. lots of moisture already in place as the frontal boundary approaches overnight tonight and into monday, a stormy start to the week for you. looking decent across the northeast. high pressure is in firm control. we are seeing a mix of clouds and sunshine and a number of the bigger cities but not really expected to see much in the way of rain today outside of a spotty shower around d.c. and baltimore. things will be changing as we hit the into the middle of the week. slow moving front moves into the region.

>> will bring wet weather into the bigger cities of the northeast by about wednesday. morgan back to you. >> we will try to stay dry. thank you for watching al jazeera america live from new york. i am morgan radford "listening post" is coming up next featuring isi in iraq. stay tuned . ♪ >> hello. i am richard ginsburg at the listening post. this week, iraq, the seekual. isil is gaining on the ground. who if anyone controls the story? al jazeera reporters behind bars in egypt, one released, three more to go. from the ashes of the old rise the voices