>> hi everyone, this is al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. hold fire, a promise of a symptom an of fighting in the east. boys die after rockets fly in gaza. no money in congress, does the white house have any solutions? crumbling roads everyone agrees they need to be fixed.

and mistakes, jake ward takes a look at the sloppy handling of infectious agents. what it means for your health. and we begin tonight with a pause in the violence between israel and gaza. today the united nations convinced both sides to stop fighting for humanitarian reasons but not for long. israel agreed to stop strikes for five hours beginning tomorrow morning so food and aid can get inside gaza. palestinians also agreed to stop firing their rockets during that time. however, president obama said efforts to broker a permanent solution have fallen short. >> the israeli people and the palestinian people don't want to live like this. they deserve to live in peace and security, free from fear. >> today, four palestinian boys were killed while playing on the

shore. israel's military called it a tragic outcome and says it is investigating. united nations says 45% of casualties have been civilians. stephanie decker saw them running from the attack and witnessed the attack that killed them. >> it happened in front of our hotel, this is a hotel full of journalists. there was a small shack, probably 100 meters from where we were. i heard two explosions. i saw the small shack on fire. i took a picture. it shows four boys running away from where the shell hit. i heard another explosion. what appears to have happened, four boys were killed, their bodies were found further up the beach. one body was taken from a stretcher from that shack on the pier but certainly, it seems as though these boys were hit on

their way up the beach. i did call the israeli army and they said based on preliminary result the base of this attack was hamas terrorist operatives. the investigation is ongoing but we have been in front of that location for the past nine days. we've seen no rockets being fired from there and also in that incident there were no men fighting aids just children. a tragic incident that killed four boys. >> our stephanie dere decker frm gaza. israelis may get a chance to come out of their bombshell terse. the u.n. brokered pause is a schedule that begins seven hours from now and james bays reports. >> the u.n. is hoping this will stop for just a few hours. a vital pause to get humanitarian aid to help the people of gaza. but it will only bring temporary

assistance and tense diplomatic efforts are still underway to negotiate a ceasefire deal. >> weaver doing everything we can. i've been in touch with prime minister netanyahu and egyptian liters and others. >> at the last minute, the issue of gaza was added to the agenda. >> this is a conflict that will only end by discussion and by negotiation. >> everyone is deeply concerned about what happens. at the end of the day, we need a ceasefire. >> for us it is important to have as soon as possible, the finding the peaceful solution especially ceasefire on both sides but real ceasefire. >> the main point is deciding who should get the top jobs in

the european union. one of the top jobs is replacement for katherine ashton, in effect, europe's foreign minister. meeting israeli and palestinian leaders. here they are expressing concern about the mounting toll in gaza but any permanent cease fire will amount to diplomatic negotiations in the region. the last ceasefire wasn't properly negotiated with hamas. that's why those countries who have weight particularly turkey and are lebanon. >> the palestinian conflict in 2006, robert welcome. >> good to be with you john. >> let's talk about the role

u.n. played in this pause, pause in violence. how did they get this done after a ceasefire fell apart yesterday? >> the u.n. has a role to play in these humanitarian crisis, to send to the gaz civilians, i think the israelis understand from their side that blocking humanitarian aid to palestinian civilians would not be helpful to them either to them or in their military strategy. certainly hamas would like to be able to get some food and some respite to the civilians. so this is one of those situations that made sense. the u.n. was there to do it, in some cases the red cross to do something similar and they are going to get food and aid and medical assistance to those who need it so we should applaud the efforts of the u.n. there. >> don't you think this is the calm before the storm? >> it is a very temporary

ceasefire, i was quite surprised that hamas did not take van of the egyptian initiative. clearly hamas still believes that the conflict helps it politically and so it continues to fire the rockets and has turned down the egyptians which i think was a mistake on their part and is certainly sad for the folks that are trapped in gaza. >> this is a political crisis, this is a humanitarian crisis. talk about the public relations part of this, and how important it is for both sides to get their stories out. >> well, look, there's warfare, there's the launching of the rockets against israel, which israel has termed a crime against humanity and to the extent the rockets aren't guided and appear to be directed random rockets aimed at terrorizing

israeli citizenry, the israelis have a strong case that this is a terrorist act. the occupation of the west bank, that the attacks on gaza are disproportionate and therefore israel should have some legal liability, again this is the lawful angle to governments, nonstate actors like hamas. >> we just heard stephanie decker report on the strike by israelis that killed the palestinian children on the beach. when something like that happens what impact does it have on the negotiations? >> well, it certainly doesn't help. it inflames situations. number 1 it is a tragedy for the parents and the families of those kids. and that's the sad, you know, situation in these sorts of cases, there is collateral

damage. women and children are killed and that is a tragedy. i don't think there's any real argument that israelis are targeted women and children in these attacks but certainly they could have had bad intelligence, someone reading the drone feedback could have felt these were four operatives instead of four kids. this inflames the situation, it makes it more difficult for the negotiators to sit down and reach a resolution. so it's not a good thing. >> quickly you mentioned egypt. egypt is really right in the middle of this. what is in it for egypt to play a real to try and fix this? >> egypt borders gaza of course. and they certainly, the new egyptian government, president sisi certainly doesn't want to see kind of the spillover of either radical extremism spilling over from gaza into the sinai or into egypt.

egypt does have diplomatic relations with israel. so it's in its interest to find a ceasefire, to get this thing resolved. certainly it would enhance the sisi government and be a diplomatic coup for the new government if it was able to bring peace to the region. it would be a kudos for the new government. >> thank you robert for being with us. >> thank you. >> nick schifrin joins us now from gaza city once again nick's been working round the clock on this story. las early morning you were telling us about the rockets that were being fired and we heard them during your live shot. what's been going on lately? >> yeah, john, good evening. it's actually quiet at this moment. but in the last few minutes again we've heard rocket fire coming from gaza and also

strikes from israel. and it's a difficult time for everyone here. and the images that we saw today, especially on that beach, are extremely difficult to watch. they're really seared into the mind of anyone who sees them. but sadly as you suggest we've seen images like them before especially in gaza, especially difficult to watch when the victims are children. >> jamal aldiras is surrounded by his children, he has ten, but his son, one of his arms is missing. he and his son mohamed got caught in the cross fire between israelis and palestinian protestors. this became the most tragic image from the uprising. mohamed was killed by an israeli

bullet. >> mohamed was the one dearest to my heart. >> this is the downstairs room. >> downstairs the shrine to mohamed fills the wall. today, there is another son, mohamed aldura. this is the spot, israeli and palestinians. there is no sign what happened, the wall has long been demolished but you can see this road today completely empty. because people are scared of israeli air strikes. just a few seconds later about a mile away the israeli military struck a suspected rocket launcher. one 70 feet away, another 200 feet away. after a boom in the distance jamal's daughter admits she's scared. >> are you scared? >> for all gazans old enough this is the third israeli-gaza

conflict in six years. the home bears the scars. during israel's 2008 campaign jamal's kitchen was blown out. he has rebuilt but feels powerless to shield his children from another war. >> this is not the first time. >> reporter: he can't quite finish. he told me the wound created by his son's death bleeds at random, moments, and never happies. heals. >> children are the most important thing to palestine. as long as there is occupation there will be killing. >> reporter: as jamal was talking on a beach just a few miles away, four palestinian children were killed by an

israeli air strike. an image that may become as iconic as tragic as mohamed's. and tonight what mohamed's father says is that it doesn't matter that there's some controversy about mohamed's death. some israelis today are still insisting that israel did not kill him. what matters is that this violence continues to hurt and kill the youngest and most vulnerable, john. >> did i understand nick that there is a power outage just behind you that is carrying on tonight? >> yes, so what happened right before that story ended right there is that we had a big israeli air strike, about five or six seconds before the story ended and all of a sudden all the power went out. you can probably see absolutely nothing behind me because there is no power right now in gaza city. what you're looking at is kind of the northern half of gaza city. i'm not sure if the power is off

in the southern half, but certainly in the northern half it is and there's probably 200, 300,000 people living in these neighborhoods behind me. we'll investigate why that happened but clearly some kind of israeli strike has just taken away power from hundreds of thousands. >> you couldn't see behind you but the power came back in some of those homes. clearly we're going to have a repeat of some of the things you saw last night. and seven hours before what's supposed to be a pause in the violence. so let's talk a little bit about the negotiations. mahmoud abbas, palestinian leader, what role is he playing in the negotiations? >> i think it's important that everyone knows that even if president obama acknowledged before there was no permanent ceasefire, no one could find that permanent ceasefire the diplomacy continues. egypt is the main intermediary

between palestine and israel. going to fly to turkey to istanbul. today, hamas and egypt do not trust each other. egypt's actually to some officials hate hamas as much as israel hates hamas. because of that john any kind of ceasefire which really has to go through egypt is going to be much more difficult to find than in previous battles. >> i want to you look nick, are those flames behind you? >> those are flames. and just to give viewers a sense of how these things go, generally what we see are rockets leaving from gaza. and that's a particular sound, a very kind of sleek -- shriek

sound, those are followed by big deep booms, generally from f-16s. american made f-16s. they're israeli of course, dropping bombs on rocket launchers and sometimes on houses. that's when you get the fires you see behind me. right now it's an israeli strike on some kind of target. of course i don't know what it is in this particular moment and that's what we're going osee, you might hear the sounds of f-16s flying, the direction of the coast. as we have seen it's going to be a long night for the people of gaza. >> it has been a long night for you every night in the last couple of days. nick shirch, thank you. the -- schifrin, thank you. >> israeli army says it's targeting tunnels that hamas has

suspected of using as are smuggling for food and other goods for gaza civilians. paul beban reports. >> about the same area and population as philadelphia, but there are just three main ways in. two crossings are in israel and one in egypt. right now, all three are closed. so those underground tunnels are vital to gaza's economy but they are also in israel's cross hairs. israeli military footage taking aim at targets hidden deep underground. the israeli military says hamas uses tunnels to smug weapons, rockets, whatever it needs to fight in gaza and one goal is to take them out. >> the military mission is twofold. primarily to strike hamas. i would also say that there are other components like dealing

with terror tunnels. >> israel also accuses hamas of using tunnels as underground rocket-launching sites and ways to have raids into israel. now stretching into its seventh year, the blocked into gaza. >> we don't have food for our children. >> reporter: more than half of our people rely on united nations food aid. water is often contaminated, electricity is cut for hours at times, and medical supplies are scarce, shutting down scores of tunnels. >> translator: destroying the tunnel is really bad because it's the only source of life for many workers. >> reporter: unemployment in gaza hovers around 40%.

hamas and others say any aim at stopping the fighting will need to include unblocking the aid. israeli media has quoted a senior military official saying, one of the reasons israel is still considering a ground offensive is to find the tunnels had a can't be hit in the air. such an operation could take as long as two weeks. >> coming up border realities. white house indicates how they handle the illegal immigrants. congress sends a message to the cdc about safety standards.

>> philippine officials who have

been surveying the damage caused by the typhoon, thousands around manila are still without power. the typhoon is now moving towards china. kevin corriveau is here with that. kevin. >> we started watching it last week as it was in the western pacific. the storm system is moving away from the philippines. we're still getting some rain showers here. but i want to take you to manila, the storm as its was there. schools, government offices shut down, businesses shut down and as john said we have a lot of power outages across much of the low lying city. flooding was a major problem. tomorrow when things get better we are seeing a lot of people cleaning up across the region. the biggest problem over the next couple of days is where is this system going to go? it's over the south china sea, picking up a lot more energy there. the waters over south china sea is very warm, that is one of the

items you need to energize the storm. we think it is going to be equivalent to a very strong category 1 or category 2 if it were a hurricane here across the region. not only the rain and winds but storm surge up along the coast is going to be a major problem. then as we go towards saturday it is going to be northern vietnam that sees the storm coming in and going the flooding there is going to be incredible. back to you john. >> kevin corriveau, thank you. to another story tonight. president obama imposed more economic sanctions against russia hoping to end the conflict in ukraine. the president says he's freezing assets of some russian defense companies. he's also blocking financing of some russian banks and energy companies. >> what we are expecting is that the russian leadership will see

once again that its actions in ukraine have consequences including a weakening russian economy and increasing diplomatic isolation. >> now the presidential said today's action -- the president said today's action was necessary because russia should stop sending weapons to ukrainian separatists. debating legislation to tighten border security and stop the flow of underaged undocumented immigrants into the u.s. we get more from white house correspondent mike viqueria. mike. >> we knew the republicans opposed much of what the president wants to do in response to the humanitarian crisis on the southern border. the problem now democrats in rebellion for part of what the president wants to do. he wants 3.7 billion to send more border agents, beefing up security, expediting the

deportation. but that tranche of it that republicans are objecting. they do not want to see these children sent back to their homes to face more of thesemen athese menacing. says it would be inhumane to send them back. had words with the white house, received a very stern phone call we have learned. patrick leahy, the president pro tem pour of the senate, he drew parallels turning jews back to face the holocaust and what's happening on the southern border. let's listen. >> i also remind people of the time in the past around world war ii where this country

unwisely closed its borders to people who were fleeing the holocaust in germany. they came here, they returned back, sent back, many of them to certain death. >> reporter: now, it was the hispanic caucus that president obama invited here to the white house to try to talk them back. they are very angry with what the president wants to do. the president was also compelled to send him homeland security secretary, jay johnson, back to the alcohol. afterwards john mccain came back and said sending them back is the humanitarian thing to do and the only thing had a would deter the flood from the central america. >> i hope we'll act immediately in order to change that law. nothing is going to improve until the plane loads of children return to the country that they left, thereby costing

their parents and families thousands of dollars. then they'll stop coming to the united states. >> reporter: now, what about public opinion? the pew research organization john has a poll out today. 53% of americans the majority now say the government should speed up that legal process even if it means deporting these children back to their home countries. john. >> mike viqueria at the white house, mike thank you. come up next the road to recovery, democrats and republicans together work to fix the nation's infrastructure. but republicans are facing a roadblock. plus, back in power. syria's fiercely defiant president sworn in for a third term. fighting fat, trimming waist lines while watching tv. >> just a short while ago we heard a large air strike very close by... >> people here are worried that this already serious

situation may escalate. >> for continuing coverage of the israeli - palestinian conflict, stay with al jazeera america your global news leader.

>> this is al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler. a lot to cover this half hour. 200 days, one ever our jailed colleagues in egypt writes a letter from behind bars. what he's learning from this

experience. gridlock over the highway trust fund. why conservative groups want to stall the republican infrastructure plan. and completely unacceptable. the head of the cdc talks about the mishandling and blunders involving potentially deadly patpathogens. >> a plan to spend billions of dollars on road and transit projects has made it halfway through congress. the house voted for the bill yesterday but not everyone agrees it's the right idea or the right way to fix the country's crumbling infrastructure. david schuster reports. >> the proof is in the numbers. every year nearly 10,000 accidents are caused by inadequate roads and americans spend an average of 38 hours a year stuck in traffic. this week, the house approved 10.9 billion to keep the highway

trust fund running. that would let 100,000 projects keep going and 700,000 people working. but it's only temporary. >> under the current fix that they are proposing we're looking at another shortfall just next year and being in exactly the same position we're in today. >> reporter: while democrats and republicans recognize the country needs a long term plan to improve the nation's roads rails and waterways they're stuck on how to pay for it. the gas tax provides 34 billion of the $50 billion a year the government spends on transportation projects. right now it's 18.4 cents a gallon, the same level it's been since 1993. it has not kept up with rising expenses and more efficient cars that use less gas. house speaker john boehner voted for temporary fix but he says most republicans are not going to increase the gas tax in an election year. >> we're not going to get to a long term highway bill here over the next couple of months.

>> reporter: so lawmakers have cobbled together money for the temporary fix, customs fees, a project that fixes underground storage tanks that are leaking, and contributions to pension funds. another idea some republicans want is to cut the gas tax and leave paying for the roads up to the states. in the meantime this short term solution is the only one with bipartisan support and in less than a year the highway trust fund could be empty. david schuster, al jazeera. >> and joining us now to talk about this is barney keller, club for growth projects director. the club for growth was one of the groups that fought the extension of funding for highway trust fund. barney welcome. >> john thanks so much for having me. >> explain why you are opposed to the highway trust fund. >> well, we're not opposed to -- in general we are opposed to the principle of taking the money

from the states sending it to washington and are redistributing it back to the states. what we saw was a bailout of the highway trust fund. what david schuster session, doesn't cover the spending that washington politicians want to use it for. they want it for roads, bike paths, highway beautification, mass transit. this is not roads and bridges. this is what washington politician he want to hold on. the highway trust fund has been bailed out to the tune of $50 billion since the 2008 reauthorization. this is clearly a broken system that can't continue. we favor devolving the fund. >> explain how that works. how is a state and what if a state decides not to fund the road projects? i mean, as far as i can tell, trucks are a big way that you get all of the things that americans need, across the country. if a big state out west says

we're not going to fund those projects you aren't going to get the trucks through. isn't that what the federal government is all about? >> well, that should be up to the states. it would hurt the state's economic interest i bleach -- >> it would hurt the country. >> -- to not believe, all of those states would want to build the pipeline. when all the money is left up to the state there's more accountability and what do we need the 60,000 bureaucrats at the department of transportation to tell us how to fund these infrastructure projects. >> we have a difference of opinion. you say give the money to the states and let them spend it the way they want it -- >> the states should spend their gas tax way they want. >> even though montana is a tiny state that has a lot of highways that needs lots of bridges and roads, how should they pay for

it? >> they should pay for it with their own money. i don't know why it should make sense for one -- for someone in montana to pay for the district of columbia yah. >> paying for their roads and bridges there is probably [simultaneous speech] >> every state should -- >> i'm sorry go ahead. >> they shouldn't do that either. every state should fund their own projection. it -- own projects. send it up to washington, have a tbump of bureaucrats take 15% and redistribute it. [simultaneous speech] >> i mean i'm using montana but you could use north dakota or south dakota. small states, small tax base small populations, i would doubt that there is any way that you could put enough taxes on the people of those states to pay for the projects that need to be built. >> well, i think -- well first of all every state finances their projects a different way.

and i think that other states could -- small states like south dakota don't have to just raise the gas taxes. they raise property taxes -- >> i think that would go well in south dakota. >> right now state and local governments are already shouldering three quarters of their transportation infrastructure. why are we keeping the other 25% in washington? that doesn't make sense? why would you want local control -- [simultaneous speech] >> i'm just saying how do they pay for it and i got a feeling that the people of that state are going to say the federal government might help because the federal government has got an interest in whether or not the roads are good enough so the rest of the country can get the goods and services they need from big trucks. >> i think that every state has their own interest and when you have 50 states come together to create a federal highway bill funded by federal highway gas tax pretty soon you have spending that's out of control. because people say i have this

road in montana or mass transit in new york, that's out of control. you wind up with $17 trillion in debt and bailouts that are funded by gimmicks. the current system is broken and can't go on forever. we'll continue to bail out the highway trust fund. that's not what anyone wants. we support spending money on roads and bridges but not continuing to send the money through washington on this broken system. >> i think we need to get you back on and kind of expand our coverage on it. when you get down into the details it's a little difficult but we are talking about basic important issues that could affect americans all over this country. so i'm going to stop you here, let's get back to this and we'll have you on again and we'll do it a little more in depth, barney it's great to have you often the program, thank you. >> john, thank you for having me. i'll be on any time. events in the middle east, paul beban is here. paul.

>> the people of gaza could get much needed food and medical supplies during a five hour humanitarian pause and people in israel could have a break running for bomb shelters. scheduled for tomorrow at 10:00 local time. four boys were killed while playing on the beach in gaza. the military was trying to hit hamas fighters. the u.n. says at least 75% of the deaths in gaza have been civilians including 43 children. president obama said he supports efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire in the mideast, end the violence in the gaza strip. mr. obama said both the israelis and palestinians deserve to live in peace. and john president obama said the priority should be protecting civilians and avoiding further escalation. 227 palestinians and one israeli

have been killed. >> paul bee ban, paul thank you. a soldier kept taliban custody in afghanistan has hired an attorney. bergdahl was released in may after nearly five years in taliban custody. he's assigned to a desk job at fort sam houston. i asked him how he feels about his release. >> sergeant bergdahl is deeply grateful to president obama, for having saved his life. i -- you can just imagine, the danger that sergeant bergdahl was in, in captivity, with the group that can only be described as ruthless and unprincipled.

>> you said that some people are trying to vilify your client. in fact, some in his platoon have accused him of desertion. how do you respond to that? >> i've had an opportunity to talk to sergeant bergdahl, i'm going to have more opportunities to go over things with him. i think when people have more facts they'll be able to figure out what to make of the kinds of allegations that have been floated around. >> i mean these are people -- these are people who served with him in the military. and to call him a deserter, some people have called him a traitor to his country. what do you make of the debate that's going on about whether or not the united states should have even gone in to get bowe bergdahl, given the allegations that some made against him? >> well, i don't know that there's any real debate on that. i mean, the service chiefs, the

chairman of the joint chiefs, the highest levels of the pentagon have, to a person, explained, that it is long been american policy to not leave people in enemy hands if it's at all possible. you know that's not -- that's not something that we debate. that's a given. and it was a given long before sergeant bergdahl entered the army. or went to afghanistan. so you know, look. this is a great country. the first amendment, which protects among other things freedom of speech and if people want to exercise their vocal chords for whatever reason god bless them it's fine and you know the legal system will sort this out and wait, hold on. and the american people will sort it out. i think the american people have a pretty good sniffer for truth. for fairness.

and i -- i'm sort of an optimist and bear with me but that's where i am. >> no, i understand that but i also have heard some of the family members of -- members of the military who went to search for bowe bergdahl who were killed. and they have been some of the strongest voices who suggested that maybe it wasn't a good idea to rescue him. some have suggested that he was a deserted and a traitor. you know, you say there wasn't a debate but there has been in this country some strong voices who simply don't think it was a good idea to get -- to get him out. and you say? >> what i say is that the president of the united states and our military leaders made a decision to retrieve him. they did what had to be done. i'm not in a position to say, oh, the president could have struck a better bargain with the taliban or we could have held out for you know releasing fewer

people. that's not my involvement in this case. my involvement is to represent sergeant bergdahl in his legal issues with the u.s. army. >> i'm going to have much more of my interview with sergeant bergdahl's attorney eugene feitel, at 11:00. i hope you'll join me then. mahmoud abbabashar al-assads reelected. >> the state was set carefully. as president bashar al-assad arrived at his swearing-in ceremony. he seemed confident and eager to address his support base. the people who have fought for him, alongside him, and those who voted for him. this ceremony, to mark another

seven-year term, took place after more than three years of war. his message to his supporters: they chose the right side. >> translator: years have passed and some chance for freedom. you the syrians were the free men in the time of subordination and you were the masters when the time came to act. >> reporter: assad dismissed the syrian opposition describing them as stooges and terrorists. he addressed the regional and international supporters, their masses he called them. >> we will soon see that all the arab nations who have supported terrorism will pay the price very dearly. many will understand once it's too late. >> his speech today was a very much like a declaration of victory. he was like telling everybody that here i am. i'm still here. i have survived. all what you have done actually over the past three years have failed to bring me down. i'm going to serve as the

president for the next seven years. i had a popular mandate. the election of last year actually have renewed my legitimacy. and that was essentially the main message in his speech today. >> reporter: and as if he had already won the war, he promised reconstruction will start bethe independent of the year, reconciliation with syrians and to continue to fight receivables who he called terrorists. assad plans to rule for another seven years. as soon as he finished his speech, the opposition fired mortar rockets at a few districts in the capitol. while fighting raged in you towns and villages all over syria. the monitors on the ground in syria said since assad was elected in early june more than 3,000 people have been killed or

injured in the country and no sign the violence will end any time soon. rula amin al jazeera, are syria. >> today marks, accused of helping the outlawed muslim brotherhood, allegations that they and al jazeera strongly deny. today journal mohamed fahmy's family released part of a letter that he wrote from his cell. he writes, 200 days of confinement, have left me and my colleagues peter greste and baher mohamed, more directed than ever to fight this with silent protest. phil lovell has the story. >> they share the same opinion from cnn to bbc, from sky news to itn. journalists who are arrivals on an --rivals on any other day buo

support journalists who have been locked up for 200 days. mohamed fahmy, baher mohamed and peter greste locked up in egypt. false news was the charge something they and their employer emphaticallien the. >> our colleagues have been arrested for one day let alone 200, we call on the president of egypt to recognize this and send them home to their families straight away. >> staff are doing whatever they can to get their voices heard. this is a silent protest but the message from these employees is very loud, very clear. journalist is not a crime. as for the network, its official position remains unchanged. it continues to demand the immediate release of its journalists from prises on. >> they are all aware it could have been any one of us inside that jail cell in cairo.

wherever we are in the world, whatever the story we are covering, we are always thinking of peter, baher and mohamed, and for egypt to reverse their shameful decision. >> the free aj staff message is being retweeted, to make sure these men are not forgotten. >> the leader of egypt has himself expressed concern. why is he doing this? there is a lot of noise being made of this, and it won't go away. these men will stand as symbols for all people around the world who are imprisoned. >> bringing the men home and continue bringing the news without fear of being locked up. phil lovell, al jazeera, london. >> coming up our image of the day plus taking action, the cdc

says the mishandling of deadly pathogen is should never have happened. but it did. now what?

>> well, we're seeing some big changes in the united states in terms of the weather. what is happening is, the jetstream is making a big dip in the southern part of the united states. this is what it looks now. coming in from canada, it allows for cooler dryer air coming in from canada. ahead of the jetstream, a lot of severe weather and over in the west we're seeing a lot of rain. i'll get to that in a moment. up in the north we're looking at our temperatures falling, a lot of warm temperature as well. new england, new york, pennsylvania, flooding earlier this week but all that rain is pushing off and as the jetstream moves a little bit further to the east we are going to get a little bit drier and as well as a little bit cooler. across the central plains this evening we are looking at a lot

of active weather. first of all, the thunderstorms developing in colorado. in those thunderstorms, golf ball sized hail, as well as thunderstorms being developed here, outside of denver. the big problem is going to be the panhandle of texas. that's your national weather, your news is next. >> there's more criticism tonight for the centers for

disease control and prevention. after the anthrax last month, found areas contaminated with bird flu, using simple zip lock bags, the chairman called that sloppy and inexcusable. >> with the recent incidents we recognize the pattern at cdc where we need to greatly improve the culture of safety. i'm introducing features or the improve that culture of safety. >> our jake ward joins us. apparently no one has been hurt by these missteps at the cdc but talk about how risky these lapses are. >> well john i mean this is happening at a time, these revelations come out at a time when scientists are growing viruses in labs that don't exist in nature.

they're intentionally creating very, very dangerous strains, in order to get out ahead of how it is that nature causes these viruses to evolve into pandemics. it is an incredibly controversial and very dangerous practice and this week a new petition came out from the nation's top infectious researchers in the country. one of the scientists was dr. mark lipsich. i asked him are there any safeguards that would make it safe enough to create these very mutated and very dangerous viruses in the lab? >> when there is human involvement in research which there will be for the foreseeable future there is the potential for human error and the engineering controls and ventilation systems and security systems that we put in place can't work if someone takes the virus that they think has been inactivated, and doesn't have

those controls. that's the sort of human error that no amount of technology can fix. >> shouldn't we be trying to get out ahead of what nature can do to these viruses by simulating those kinds of changes in a lab ahead of time? >> so it's not possible at the present and probably won't be for many decades or centuries to predict which strains of flu are likely to become pandemic. so if someone goes in the lab, and works on a strain that they isolate from a bird, there is no reason to expect that the next strain that becomes pandemic will be closely related to that strain. almost everything we could do to study and find cures and vaccines for influenza is safe. because we could do it with milder strains of the flu, we could do it with subunits or proteins from the flu but not the whole strain. we could do it with strains that

are modified to be less dangerous or we could use computer simulations and other approaches. the only kind of experiments, of the many, many approaches to defeating the flu, that risks causing a pandemic is this creation of novel strains. >> well john, tonight, the future of this issue is even more up in the air than ever. the nsabb which is the one federal advisory board that is in charge of creating regulations of this stuff just dismissed the 11 of its members, which means we are creating scary viruses that our top researchers oppose and now the one body in charge of overseeing how that gets done has snisd its best david schuster dismissed its best experts,fully half those in charge. it is a scary situation. >> jake thank you. coming up on al jazeera america, 11:00 eastern time, helping or

hurting? plus, it is about protecting or snooping. why search engine google is going out to hire computer hackers. those stories and much more, 11:00 eastern, 8:00 pacific time. finally our picture of the day. more than 600 recruits are training for weeks. they will be deployed in the east to join the special ranks of battalions in kyiv and join pro-russian separatists. that's it for tonight, paul beban has the headlines right after this. l jazeera america

presents... holy money only on al jazeera america >> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm paul beban. here is tonight's top story. in gaza, israel and egypt have agreed to a halt in fighting. the so-called humanitarian pause is scheduled to last just five hours beginning tomorrow morning. there were dozens of strikers on gaza today, including one that killed four palestinian boys who had been playing on the beach. israel's military said the rocket had been targeting hamas fighters and called the deaths a tragic outcomes. 75% of the deaths in gaza have

been civilians nearly four dozen of them children. that's the headlines. "america tonight" with joie chen is next. remember you can always get the latest news at aljazeera.com.