tv America Tonight Al Jazeera July 24, 2014 12:00am-1:01am EDT
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around 4:00 p.m. woods was on death row for murdering four people in 1989. those are the headlines. "america tonight" with julie chen is next. >> on "america tonight": [ bugel sounds ] >> united by an unspeakable horror. netherlands hofns victims of the downed flight as the answers are held up. due to further conflict on ukraine's border. a call to bring back our girls. international call hasn't been enough. what
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nigeria has done to help recover the hundreds of girls captured by boko haram. and he's not the boss but on d.c. streets he's still known as mr. mayor for life. washington april marion berry tells our sheila macvicar there's a lot more of our story than the fbi sting that set him up. >> it was a setup. for a come back. and good evening, thank you for joining us, i'm joie chen. we'll speak this hours of a growing tension on the russia-ukraine border of the continuing threats that have made a full investigation of the shoot down of malaysia air flight 17 impossible, of what has been learned so far.
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we begin honoring the innocence lost, the amsterdam to kuala lumpur flight were from netherlands. this small nation stood silent to honor its lost citizens. >> how does a nation mourn an unspeakable tragedy, a loss for which there are simply no words. the dutch answered with silence. early in the week, the dutch prime minister had set a day of mourning wasn't within our tradition. the last one was marked only when their queen died. but then this horror was far beyond any experience this country, barely twice the size of new jersey, has known either. children, mothers, whole families, lost together. the procession carried the first 40 remains, a second flight is due tomorrow. the pain will continue for months, while the investigation
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is underway. and forever, for the dutch. bring home their own with honor, with unity in their shared sorrow and with shared silence for their unspeakable pain. these are long and difficult days ahead. as the mourning continues, so does the urgent search for answers about what happened to malaysia air 17. the investigation nearly sty mid stymied by the being fighting on the border. sheila macvicar. >> the painstaking process of identification using dna samples from living relatives can begin. dutch officials have warned it could take weeks or even months to identify all the dead. and increasingly, authorities are convinced they do not yet have all the remains.
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that the bodies of nearly one-third of those on the plane are still unaccounted for. in australia, home to 37 of the victims, the prime minister said again today: they must be found. >> it's quite possible that many bodies are still out there in the open. in the european summer. subject to interference and subject to the ravages of heat and animals. that is the predicament in which we find ourselves. >> reporter: mow international experts consider the crash site too dangerous, the separatists too unreliable to guarantee security. only malaysian investigators are there with monitors of the osce. they have yet to uncover any of the debris. they feel there are still human remains in the fields. with every day that passes, with all the questions about how the
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plane was shot down, it becomes more urgent that the crash site is preserved. something that is simply not happening. >> what struck us is that we did not monitor any recovery activity in place. and as with most of the days, there was no security perimeter in place, either. >> reporter: complicating all of this renewed heavy fighting in eastern ukraine. kyiv has launched an offensive to regain the separatist east. the u.s. and the ukraine believes the russian military is using this base just on the other side of the border to resupply and train the separatists. they point to the massive buildup there visible in satellite photos in just a matter of weeks. the boeing's black box recorders have also made a journey from the hands of the pro-russian separatists to malaysian investigators to investigators in the u.k. investigators have been able to
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download the plane's voice recorder which will have recorded the last two hours of conversation, and ground control, it may have recorded the sound of an explosion and may have recorded the pilot's reaction. dutch investigators said the data recorder had not been tampered with and did contain valued data -- valid data but did not contain the answer he the families want: who did it. >> sheila is there any more information about the missile? >> u.s. authorities asserted again they are convinced it was a buk missile in eastern ukraine. they do not know who was in control of that missile but they have said their analysis at the moment and they said it again today, it is important that they said it two days in a row, this was not likely to be a missile that was not intended to bring down a passenger jet.
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not that it was an accident but that it wasn't intended to bring down a passenger plane. >> the fighting continues in this area, heavy fighting and in fact there are reports that other ukrainian aircraft came down. >> two su-25s were targeted at about the same area, flying at a much lower altitude than the passenger plane was. both hit with missiles and came down. the separatists claimed responsibility and said they carried out those hits with shoulder-launched missiles, so-called man-pads. they believe the shots that brought those planes down were shot from russian military controlled units. and so the battle goes on. >> so it could be a different kind of missile flawmped that case? >> -- launched in that case? >> exactly. it is a different kind of
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battlefield and of course all of those things is what is making the work on the ground so difficult. they can't be doing their work, their forensic work in the middle of a hot war zone. >> "america tonight"'s sheila macvicar. why every points of delay gets to the truth of what happened. allen diehl joins us, a former ntsb investigator and an author. you understand what's at stake here. increasing reports we're hearing that the investigators, observers from europe have seen evidence that material has been moved into other locations, indicating that there have been some change, what's being left on the ground at the crash site. >> obviously, joie, that's a problem. probably the biggest issue here is trying to find parts of the -- and evidence of the buk missile hit. >> yeah and explain why that is
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so important. other crash sites you're trying to understand where the fuselage was. in this case you wants more than that. you want to understand the fuselage and the projectile that hit it. >> absolutely. i think most people are convinced it was a buk missile fired by separatists. eventually we're going to end up probably in the hague, in the world court, trying the people that pulled the trigger. i worked on these fracture sites, i was also an air force official who worked on fratricides, and track it backs to the russians which are probably no mystery. if they are out there sanitizing the accident scene and removing the evidence or as much evidence as they can, that's going to make it complicated.
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fortunately, we have the black boxes and will provide evidence whether the aircraft was out of the war zone. at 32,000 feet it wasn't fair game for anybody to shoot at. >> is there anything you can learn looking at fuselage where they landed on the ground what position they were in where the burn marks are where the ballistics as it were on the fuselage parts or in fact in listening to the black box? >> well, both will provide evidence. clearly in this case i don't expect a lot from the black box other than like i said confirmation that that aircraft was not in the war zone which means there was some kind of crew coordination problem on the ground, in the missile launcher pad or in headquarters. we have seen this before. certainly the physical evidence on the ground will document that there was a missile strike, and the type of warhead was used, we know the type of warhead that this particular missile has.
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and i've actually had people send me pictures from the ground. and it looks to me just from pictures that this is a kind of fragmentation, it's called an expanding rod shrapnel, okay? these holes look -- they're small and round and that looks like an expanding rod warhead and that's the kind of warhead that the buk has. >> that is to say whenever they are allowed as much access as they need to the scene former ntsb investigator allen diehl, we preecial you being -- we appreciate you being with us again. hard talk from both sides in the latest middle east face off. key moment, as hamas spokesman speaks out, as the u.s. diplomat tries desperately to broker an end to the clashes. a u.n. commission investigating
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war crimes on each side, the united states voted no. the faa expanded its ban on flights in and out of tel aviv for another 24 hours. in gaza more than 700 palestinians have died in two weeks of fighting, that includes 166 children. more than 4500 people have been injured. the israeli army says three more of its soldiers were killed, pushing the israeli military death toll to 30, more than twice as many as were killed in its 2009 incursion. with a view in jeurm, here is -- jerusalem, here is james bays. >> before flying out of tel aviv, secretary of state john kerry had a meeting, the israeli prime minister didn't look particularly happy to see the press on this occasion.
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the u.n. secretary-general ban ki-moon said he had hopes of a conviction seafers, there was a plan for a ceasefire to be followed immediately by talks and negotiations about the underlying issues. that would satisfy hamas which has said there must be discussions about lifting the siege of gaza. but i'm told by one source that the israelis do not like that idea. they want the two issues decoupled. a ceasefire with no conditions first and then talks at a later stage. >> james bays reporting to us from jerusalem. despite the push for ceasefire explosions continue to rock gaza. al jazeera's nick schifrin jones us from now. nick for the first time we hear from a key hamas figure, what important? >> this is a statement read out of the press conference, where some qatar residents live and
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work from, what they have been saying from behind closed doors that at the have a certain kind of demand for humanitarian or permanent ceasefire, opening the rafah border crossing, to lifting the siege the wall around gaza in the east as well as the naval siege to the west and the sea, and opening borders, so israel will allow goods into gaza. not any thing that israel or egypt is willing to go into. it seems that despite all of john kerry's efforts the two sides are very far apart. >> holding firm lines on that. i wonder about the people of gaza with the heavy strikes continuing with their sense of fear and concern about all this do they remain supportive of hamas? >> yes, i'll give you a sense of what's going on for these people. one in ten almost are now displaced from their homes.
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not living in their own houses. and 40% of all of gaza is a no-go area according to the u.n, simply too dangerous for people to go to, sleep in or actually live in at all. so that is what is going on. if you talk to people there is almost unanimous support for the resistance as they call them or fighters who are launching rockets in israel. many publicly at least say that israel needs to be defeated or needs to be owned at the very least and the only way to do that is to launch rockets over the israeli wall into israel. if you get a sense that hamas has a strangle hold on people's abilities to talk. very few people are willing to discuss hamas, they make sure they are punished. they are very much against what israel does here and does on the border and they do want to see
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some kind of resistance to that. >> at the same time nick we hear that israel is pushing further into gaza, deeper into the south. >> yes, this is hon unis, right at the rafah border crossing. for hours today there was a huge fight between israeli forces and palestinian fighters, to the point that the ambulances that tried to get into that area, to evacuate some of the wounded, couldn't even get past a certain line there was so much shelling and so much fighting. but israel has remained or its troops have remained within about a mile or two of the border. they have not pushed further than that but joie, the air strikes the drone strikes the artillery strikes the tank fighting continues very far into gaza. >> nick schifrin, in gaza, thanks so much. next on our program, ireland's forgotten children, babies born
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to unwed mothers, sad truths about their brief lives. stories hidden away so many decades ago. the government takes action against a risk on the rails. a follow-up to our story about oil tankers moving across north america. >> it's politics as usual at the department of transportation. study, delay, don't act. >> there's more to it, just days after our report, a decision from the obama administration, how to safeguard against the next tragedy.
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>> cornell university president david skorton >> is a college education worth the price? >> discusses the purpose of college >> students allow yourself to dream... it's very, very, important >> and his post university plans >> the intersection of the sciences and the arts was very attractive to me... >> every saturday join us for exclusive,
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revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america >> you may have heard the disturbing story that reaches into a dark part of ireland's past. bodies of hundreds of of babies, the children of ireland's so-called fallen women have been found unceremoniously dumped, some in a septic tank, in unmarked graves, so too are more complicated parts of the tale. we learned more from al jazeera's lawrence lee. >> these women want to know more about who they are, and as well as helping the living they want to know more about the dead. they were all born at what was ireland's biggest mother and baby home,
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in the area of cork. this waste land which used to be home, they are taking the opportunity to discover nuns who buried babies who didn't survive. >> it was a solution, a way out for them, off they go, have a life. >> is that the reason the church would have found it appropriate to bury them in unmarked graves? >> i think so. >> dents in the earth and round raised areas. >> these are the particularly awful years ago in terms of death rates. >> hundreds of children died here, so they must be somewhere. >> you must hold someone accountable because there are mothers out there, siblings, cousins, who do not know what happened to their loved ones. >> since this is clear it could be happening all over ireland, the government has agreed to hold an inquiry.
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but no terms set. for anything you might see of the notional idea of perhaps hundreds of children's bodies being buried in the grounds of a mother and baby home, but the most extraordinary is that the survivors are having to do this investigation themselves. there is no one to help them. >> the former nun sister sarto still lives in cork, was at the facility in the 1980s. in a separate phone say. >> i don't know. all i know is, there are two crosses with the names on there. before the babies died i don't know where they're buried. they may very well be but i don't know. >> katherine, there i am. and there's my letters. >> in 2002 however sister sarto
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was able to help kathy find her medical history. she was born at vesper and immediately separated from her mother. she were eventually reunited after kathy's mother spent most of her life in a catholic work house. i asked about her, and they said she was dead. my mother is not dead, i hugged her in 2002, and said, i'm back, i'm your daughter and i love you. >> all these things happened long ago, the past isn't relevant to the present. but these women and many more like them that is the biggest insult of all. they have vowed t to take their surveys all across ireland, to find out how many have been
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buried in former mother and baby homes. some are victims of another scandal which in its own way is every bit as shocking. having a baby, an experience anyone could have hoped for but for this situation, the baby maria, separated by her unmarried mother by the nuns and adopted out of the mother and baby homes. >> it's faded over time. >> not before she was treated with a drug company, 's test for whooping cough, diptheria. >> do you think they were treating your life as a baby as sacred? >> no absolutely not. i see the concern for the preborn, i don't see it for the postborn.
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>> there used to be a home here in dublin, it's gone now. the ones who died were sold to doctors, their bodies used for medical research. the treatment is no means a revelation but it's come shooting back, the united nations criticized the irish state in the strongest terms, just lack of willingness to take on the catholic church a church which after all took babies from their mothers and then claimed to be caring for them. this isn't however only an issue for the catholic church. this home was run by the anglican church. victor remembers all the children being lined up for the doctors and nurses and he maintains, the state knew all about it. >> let's call it what it is. it is vulnerable children with no contact with their children
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or guardians for that matter. no parents taking responsibility, and a few medics and drug people coming in and having a field day and taking advantage of very, very vulnerable children in an enclosed setting where nobody knows what's going on. and if it all goes horribly wrong who cares, who knows and who is going to be held to account? >> this is a headache for the drug giant gsk. who is having to do with the legal consequences. what's come out is unsettling. maria has been told she was used for tests. many others bear the same scars but simply don't know for sure. the government has said it will hold an inquiry what happened in the homes. it is not clear whether drug testing will even form apart of it. lawrence lee, al jazeera, in ireland. now following up with the risk on rails. a few weeks ago we reported on
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the dozens of crude oil train derailments which have resulted in fires and death. a keys problem, a lack of oil regulations and updated tankers. now the u.s. department of transportation proposing new safety rules for transporting crude oil by rail, and phasing out old rail cars, some in service since the 1950s. "america macvicar. >> there is a train derailed right in front of the restaurant, caught on fire. >> all you could see was this huge ball of flame and there were cars laying everywhere. >> reporter: in april a train carrying 105 tankers of north dakota crude derailed in the middle of a workday when a rail bed gave away in downtown lynchberg. , following other incidents in
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alabama and north dakota. those fires involved bakken crude. all the more puzzling because most crude oil will not ignite or explode. the crude oil came from here, the bakken oil fields of north dakota, ground zero of america's domestic oil boom. spurring the railroads to create pliens o pipelines on wheels. hauling up to 3 million gallons of crude at a time. scott smith, chief scientists, is one of those attempting to solve the mystery of why bakken crude appears to be at the center of so many oil disasters. >> what makes bakken different is the clear colorless volatiles that ignite easily and explode.
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what happens is these clear and colorless dissolved gases and chemicals when you shake them up creates pressure. >> right. >> and when that pressure is subject to spark, a derailment, or changes in temperature, you get that explosion. >> reporter: you get disclose -- you get exploakses like this one -- explosions like this one. the oil industry has repeatedly insisted bakken is no different than similar kind of crude. but other independent findings support smith's findings. 27 trains full of chicago's cook county each week. a mayor of a suburb of chicago visited train derailments and is concerned a similar situation
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could happen here. what worries her most is the nonpressurized dot 111s that are being used to transport the crude. how would you of characterize the 111s? >> i referred to it as the ford pi pinto of oil tankers. >> because of huge profits for oil companies and railways, tens of thousands of these older and weaker cars, never designed to carry flammable material, have been pressed into service to carry bakken crude. >> until those are removed if service we won't have complete assurance of safety. >> to use ralph nader's
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terminology, they are unsafe at any speed. >> he is alt too familiar with d.o.t. 111. >> the american people have not been adequately protected since the 1970s when the d.o.t. ntsb released its first study. >> representatives of the railway rail car and oil industries declined to be interviewed. under pressure, the railways did agree in february to reduce oil unit train speeds in large cities. and the rail car industry says once the federal government finally issues new regulations it will build stronger tankers. sheila macvicar, al jazeera. >> ahead after the break: 100 days and nights later. the parents of those kidnapped nigerian girls still wait. what has their government done
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to free them from the clutches of boko haram? also ahead on the program, on the streets of the nation's capital, they call him mayor for life though he hasn't been the city's layered for years. dc's marion berry says, there's a lot more of his story than the old grainy video of his drug >> disappearing polar caps... >> in the arctic the prize promises to be much substantial >> untapped resources... >> the really big expense hasn't been tested in the arctic >> could climate change reveal new battlefields? >> countries are developing combat capabilities fault lines al jazeera america's hard hitting... >> they're blocking the doors... >> ground breaking... >> we have to get out of here... truth seeking... award winning investigative documentary series the battle for the arctic only on al jazeera america
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>> an informed look on the night's events, a smarter start to your day. mornings on al jazeera america >> and now a snapshot of stories making headlines on "america tonight." a 70 seat airline crashed. flames ignited several buildings in the area but no one on the ground was injured. another massive recall involving ignitio ig ignition problems. but this time it's chrysler. if the keys are bumped the engine could shut off cutting power to the steering and the braking. the owners will get recall notices by september. lawyers told
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jurors that theodore wafer feared for his life when renisha white came to his door to ask for help. a massive social media campaign to win the freedom of nigeria's missing girls. it's been 100 days sin boko haram fighters kidnapped nearly 300 gir girls from chibok in northern nigeria. after another attack 44 people killed in two bombings in the city of kaduna, there are increasing concerns that the insurgency is moving to other parts of the country. >> when you speak to the families of these missing girls they are trying to keep the hope alive.
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it's the only thing really left that they can cling onto. but in their town in their community of course many people are wondering whether these girls would ever come back. it has been 100 days and very little has been made public about the search and rescue effort. we understand that at least four parents of these missing girls have died in the past 100 days as a result of health complications, medical workers are linking to their ordeal. they understand seven other parents have died in further attacks by boko haram on their community. so a very grim mood in the village itself although once again some are still trying to cling on to the home that these girls will return on the streets of the capitol, abuja, keeping up their pressure and their protest outside the unity fountain in abuja. >> has boko haram become more
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emboldened, have there been more attacks across the country? >> we have seen in the last 100 days they have definitely stepped up their attacks, max impact attacks, explosions and bombings, further abductions. in fact human rights watch said over the past six months more than 2,000 people have been killed, as a result of boko haram ongoing violence. the government itself indicating that they have credible intelligence, that they are targeting the capitol abuja and there are indications they have been expanding their reach beyond their traditional base into abuja and further south into legos. >> there has also been a considerable silence from the president goodluck jonathan. for the first time he had met with the girls who had escaped and the families of those who are still missing. >> well indeed, finally the parents get to have a
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face-to-face encounter with president goodluck jonathan. it has taken quite some time, almost 100 days to the mark, after pakistani caves malala yousefsai came. what could have been a hostile encounter turned out to be rather civilized. >> we remain hopeful, we are prayerful. we believe the lives of these girls are very precious we believe they will be returned to their parents. we call on the government to a decisive military operation. >> parents seemed hopeful, the presidential reiterated to them the capacity to bring them back live and well, he will visit their community personally when those imirls are found.
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>> raya rage is our correspondent in abuja, thank you very much. so what is the government of nigeria doing to bring back the girls, i spoke to the ambassador, aday afuye. you understand of course this is the story that is generated international attention. what can you tell us about what nigeria is doing and how close they are to bringing back more of these girls? >> we're doing, i want to assure you that we are doing everything possible to bring the girls back. and safely, too. >> what has been effective? i understand that there has been an attempt by the nigerian military to gain greater control over the forest of the area where the boko haram has been known to hide out in. >> so far we have captured many of their bases, many of their leaders and we are getting very vital information from many of them. we have stranded border control,
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establishing a systemized border control, with cameroon, chad, niger, to ensure that these people don't cross the border. >> as recently as today, an explosion caused by boko haram. is there any sense that the military is in any way flailing trying to gain control over a very shadowy terrorist movement? >> let me make this clear. attacking boko haram, is not a sure business. this is a group that has struck over 1000 times, the armed force he are facing a worldwide global al qaeda challenge and it takes more than just one strike to deal with it. that's why we are making
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progress -- we are making progress, it may be slow to the world but it is steady and consistent. >> we understand that president jonathan has just met for the first time with the families and survivors of the initial attack on the girls. why did it take so long and what can he tell them to assure them the girls are going to come back? >> i can assure you that what the president told the parents of the girls was convincing, facing confidence what the president said. >> but many of them have express being frustration, we have reports as well -- >> who is the parent that will have his child his or her child gone for 100 days and will not be frustrated. but then we have been explaining to them as government to get these girls back, our objective is only to get these girls back, to make boko haram, confine boko haram to history. >> do you have a prediction of
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how long it will take to get the dpirls back? >> it is very difficult, but let to me you cannot say tomorrow or day after. but it is as soon as possible. these are complicated, there are so many facets of these boko haram issues, one i cannot disclose for security reasons but i can assure you my government is doing all in its power to ensure that these girls are back and boko haram becomes a thing of the past. >> thank you very much for joining us. when we return, targeted in a drug sting, years of trouble with the law and a drug sting yet here in the nation's capitol city, he is still the man they call mayor for life. correspondent sheila macvicar with the former mayor of washington, d.c. marion barry says there's more to his story than you think.
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>> a shocking america tonight investigative report... >> you take someones hopes and dreams of childhood, and then out right steal their money >> wishing to start a family >> we lost over $20,000 trying to do surrogacy in mexico >> but left with broken hearts and empty pockets >> how much money do you owe people >> around $350,000 >> praying on the vulnerable >> i have nothing to hide, if i was a scam artist, i would have cut and run from here >> surrogacy inc. an american tonight investigative report
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only on al jazeera america >> in the nation's most political city, he is at least in some neighborhoods clearly the most popular politician on the streets. which is no mean feat, considering that marion barry has had to 75 his owners did to survive his own celebrity. a big drug bust. "america tonight" caught up with the mayor now 78, a little bit frail. here is sheila macvicar. >> if there's one thing that everyone knows about marion barry it's this. in the mid 1970s amid the turmoil of the crack epidemic he is the mayor that got busted. >> set me up like this. >> this is the cbs evening news. >> his arrest was an item on the
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cbs evening news. >> misdemeanor drug charges. buying and using cocaine. >> marion barry was arrested convicted and spent six months in a federal prison. now as his long career winds down, barry wants you to know there's more to his story than "the bitch set me up." here is his story. >> i was born 78 years ago, in a small town in mississippi in a segregated society, dirt-poor. i lived in a house, in america think about this in mississippi, no running water, no electricity. >> and you worked in the fields. >> picking cotton, ten hours a day, $3 a day, can you imagine that 30 cents an hour in america? no.
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>> you write in your own book how you were saving money. you figured out ways to make money and save money even when you were living that hard life. >> well, god blessed me. because in my community i didn't have any role models, to stand up and say here's how you do it, you know? it's just inside of me. i felt at one, you can do things if you put your mind onto it. you can do incredible things if you put your mind on it. and secondly, that i didn't want to live this way. i didn't want to live in poverty poverty. had to bag groceries and sell rags and every little thing i could. once i got into power i was going to have some job program that every young person that wanted a job could work. >> barry's early life is full of surprises, as a teenager living in the segregated tennessee of
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the 50s and 60s he was an eagle scout a butting butting chement -- a budding chemicals. budding chemist. >> in memphis there were things you could do, a teacher, a preacher, a dentist, a doctor, a social worker. i wasn't thinking of being a doctor or dentist, i was dirt poor. i said i was going into science. i went into chemistry, perfected it, did very well in my studies. and that was that. i think chemistry teaches you logic. it teaches you a lot of things other sciences don't teach you. >> there's something about science about chemistry that is in a sense color-blind. you conduct the experiments, you get the results. it doesn't matter who the person is conducting the experiment as
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long as they know what they're doing. >> two part of hydrogen one part of oxygen is water, all over the world. whoever you are, whether you speak latin or spanish or french or english or some other kind of language, chinese, japanese. it's the same. it's a level playing field. >> barry was the first in his family to go to college. he earned a master's and started on a ph.d. before the tumultuous '60s and the civil rights movement drew him away. we met barry at the civil rights museum. student of the student no nonviolent coordinating committee . through the race riots of 1968,
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the board of education, the dc council, and in 1978 he was elected mayor. including his come back victory in 1994, barry served a record four terms. >> when you look back on your time as mayor here, what are the things that you are most proud of? >> oh, so much of it. washington was a sleepy southern town when i came in, in '65. i found people satisfied with the status quo. and so i was from outside. i didn't feel that way. i knew things weren't right. i knew that the developed downtown, i knew the developed our neighborhood. knew we had summer jobs everybody, people were working. that's not happening now. we are falling up on hard times here. >> times are still hard in the district where barry lives and now represents on city council. the eighth ward, ana
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costia, unemployment rates in ward 8 are among the highest in the nation. the poverty rate is stuck at around 35%. there are some signs of revival in a restaurant that barry favors and new development along the water but there's much work to be done. >> what keeps you going on in politics now? >> my desire to help somebody along the way. i like what i do. god's given me a gift of liking what i do. you have setbacks but i have a philosophy. a settle back is a setup for a come back. -- a setback is a setup for a come back. you got to pray hard, pray pray pray. you have other people that you see have achieved, every day, somebody comes up to me and said i got my first summer job from you. that makes you feel good. makes you feel good. >> when you look back at everything that you have done, not just when you were mayor,
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when you were in the civil rights movement, is there a moment that stands out for you as a moment that you think to yourself, that is the most important thing? >> one of the moments that stand out to me, i didn't understand at the time, my mother told me that she went to interview, she was a domestic, interview for a job in the south, the domestic help went to the back of the house. and they were called by their first names. my mother said, no. i'm good enough to take care of you, snotty-nosed kid and taking care of cooking for you and cleaning for you and et cetera, i'm good enough to go through the front door. and i understand at the time she told me about that and i didn't understand that later, that took a lot of courage. she lost a lot of jobs doing that. not only doing that, she also had told them my name is not
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mattie, my name is ms. commons. she lost some more jobs. i think agave me, it sort of happened to me, when i goth that sense of courage -- when i got that sense of courage. >> and respect, the need to demand respect. >> you got to do that. in order to get respect you got to give respect too, that works two ways. i've done so many things, god has blessed me. >> barry has represented ward 8 now for over a decade. in that time he's had brushes with the law and the irs. gone through alcohol and drug counseling and was even stripped of his committee assignments by the city council. through all that, he has maintained his popularity, and in the parts of the city where the times are hardest, he still is mayor for life. sheila macvicar, al jazeera. >> and now, a look ahead to thursday on "america tonight."
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>> this is a great example of a big company thinking they're above the law, they can do whatever they want to do and take your health care. they came in and ripped the heart out of our community. it is so bad that i got my afat self up and i'm going owalk to washington, d.c. about it. >> fed up and fired up over the closing of his town's only, north carolina, let his feet do the talking. mayor's on a mission to shame the company. they close the local hospital. >> an this hour, a new generation steps into a proud transition in buenos aires, story is next. >> al jazeera america presents >> i'm pretty burnt out, if i said that i'm perfectly fine, i would be lying.
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>> 15 stories one incredible journey edge of eighteen coming september only on al jazeera america >> what i admire so much about al jazeera america is that it is solely committed to journalism. >> you're not just giving the headlines, you're also not getting fluff. >> the gap between the rich and the poor is growing faster in san francisco. >> you're going to get something you're not going to get anywhere else, and you're going to get these in depth stories about real people. >> as an unsecured creditor could receive just cents on the dollar.
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>> chronic homelessness has always been a challenge here in new orleans. >> we recently did a story about a mother who was worried about the air her children were breathing. >> this is not standard household dust. >> florida is an amazing place to work as a journalist. >> the rocky mountain west is really an extraordinary part of this country. >> i worked in nashville for six years, i know the stories that are important to people there. overcrowding is such a big issue at this school. >> people in the outer islands of alaska picking up tsunami trash, really committed to what they are doing, and they have a lot more work to do. if you really want to tell peoples' stories, you've got to go talk to the people. >> real reporting. >> real news. >> this. >> this. >> this, is what we do. >> al jazeera america. >> finally from us this hour. buenos aires moves to its own
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rhythm, the rhythm of the tango. the end of the 19th century. the music for it became the sound track for the city and for romance as it swept the nation and now generations later the tango is alive and moving a new generation. as al jazeera's daniel schweimler gets groove in buenos aires. >> for years it appeared the tankso because dying . the composers merely statues in the cemetery. their music lives on, attracting an audience both foreign and local, as big as ever. this the
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argentine tango. >> for his personality he was universally liked. the 100 year celebrations are an homage of his music, a celebration of his style. >> a tango walk has just been enumerated, at the risk of sounding like the lyrics of an old tango song, buenos aires throbs tot beat, it pace homage to this fellow, as well as investing in the next generation of musicians and dancers. danitsa and manuel are tango dance teachers. practicing the dance
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of a nation. >> we try to pass on the essence of the dabs. >> there was a group of the university, all youngsters, all my age or younger, dancing tango classes, i got more and more involved until at the end i gave up my studies for the tango. >> all in the back streets of 19th century buenos aires, tango is now moving to the rhythm of the 20th century. daniel schweindler, al jazeera. tonight. if you would like to comment, log onto our website, aljazeera.com/americatonight. we'll have more of "america
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"america tonight." >> the u.s. scrambles to broker a zeal between israel and hamas. also increasing violence in ukraine as two military jets are shot down. hello i'm antonio mora, welcome to "consider this," those stories and much more straight ahead. prohibition against any u.s. carriers flying into or out of tel aviv.
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