tv News Al Jazeera December 7, 2014 12:00pm-12:30pm EST
12:00 pm
under fire. sunni leaders say their communities are being starting as part of the confronting isil strategy. ♪ welcome to al jazeera. lively from your head quarters in doha. also coming up, one small step towards closing guantanamo bay. six return for resettlement. >> the philippines escapes any major damage. plus...? >> i am nick collar in the peruvian amazon and how the rain
12:01 pm
forest is being harvested illegally. first, to some developing news we have out of syria state television reporting that israel has carried out two airstrikes inside the country. tho let's go to jane ferguson, life in the lebanese capitol, beirut. any more details emerging on the strikes? >> reporter: a syrian army statement responding to the attacks. the general command for the artery said these attacks are in response to what he calls "recent victories by the syrian government troops." so strong lang in response saying that essentially, the israelis are responding to their own victories in the field. now, we are not hearing of any more casualties the syrian government are saying there have
12:02 pm
been no casualty ins both of these strikes. there is no response, still, from the israeli government. >> all right, jane ferguson live for us in beirut. thanks very much. let's head to shirina from west jerusalem. jane saying there has been no response as dpret from the israelis. tell us a bit more about what you are hearing and, indeed, what we have seen in the past in terms of israel's involvement in syria. >> reporter: well, what we are seeing basically is a lot of israeli local media basically quoting the syrian government as saying that an israeli airstrike or several airstrikes were carried out, outside damascus. when we spoke to the israeli army, we were told by a spokesperson that the army is not commenting on any foreign reports, so they are neither denying or confirming that they have carried out an airstrike outside damascus.
12:03 pm
we just know these details from the syrian army. now, we know that in the past, syria has accused israel many times of carrying out airstrikes across syria. we are talking about two in 2014, one now, another one six months ago and four in 2013. every time, it's ever bevery di to confirm from the israeli side these attacks have happened. every time, they have refrained from commenting. there was one exception in may, 2013, when we understand there was an airstrike carried out in an area close to damascus, which apparently according to western and israeli officials who commented days after this attack that it targeted a weapons shipment, iranian missiles that were reportedly bound for hezbollah in lebanon. we don't understand the nature of the targets that were struck. it is not likely that we'll get a confirmation from the israeli
12:04 pm
army because it obviously would not want to say it's carrying outed airstrikes in syria. >> would lead to violence between syria and more attacks. syria has, in the past, said that it reserves it's right to respond whenever it sees fit according to sources inside syria, we know that the residents there heard several explosions and some media sources said that they saw two israeli warplanes flying over the areas close to syria and making their way north to damascus. >> reporter: all right, thank you. . let's bring you our other top story now, iraq, sunni leaders accusing the army of pushing out sunni populations on the pre-texas of fighting isil. a spokesman for the association of muslim slarz told access he believes the current tide of sectarianism in iraq and the rice of isil is partly the fault of u.s. policy.
12:05 pm
>> we have always said that the main problem is the occupation. the u.s. and all other countries supporting the aggression on iraq are to be blamed for all of the results and consequences of this occupation. every sectarian cleansing, demographic change and systematic killing is because of the u.s. and is being done with u.s. participation, even when the u.s. administration tries to distance itself. >> iran has been assisting iraq both politically and military airily in its file against isil. abre hib al jaffrey fighting what it calls the ugly face of isil. >> a strategic threat to both countries, the threat is the presence of isil on the iraqi territories, and this necessary he istates the importance of promoting our relations to the maximum and to have the maximum coordination in order to face
12:06 pm
isil. >> jane arafat has more now on how the two countries are working together to battle isil. >> these iraqis walking to karbula have faced attack every year in post-war iraq. this will be the first commemoration since isil seized large parts of the country. the ceremony marking the 40th day of killing for imam hussein. shiias and their commenrations have been isil's biggest target. the iraqi government is doing everything it can to protect those making the journey. >> there is a clear-cut military deployment to protect pilgrims from any pos illtable. i saw the officers and soldiers deployed along the road leading to karbola. >> iraqi government forces have been backed by shia malishas. iran has even launched
12:07 pm
airstrikes in iraq. after initial denials, the government said it launched the attacks. it's so sensitive, the iraqi ministry of defense continues to deny iranian air involvement. >> if they are supporting this, there are some beneficial effects. iran has clear security interests on its borders, protection of its borders, protection of its people, and isil is not simply a threat to the people of iraq, the people of syria, but the people of iran as well. so, i wouldn't be surprised if there are images and if there is involvement in the air the way there is clear involvement of the iranian revoluti revolutionae guards corps personnel on the ground. >> where some of the fiercest fighting is taking place, some sunni officials say they believe iran and pro-iranian iraqi forces are using the battle as an excuse to move out large numbers of sunnis. >> the central government in
12:08 pm
baghdad is totally sigh lengths. we fear of a foreign regional agenda to change diala demographically. we have met the security can commander but no positive steps have taken place on the grounds. >> iraqi officials say when people have been ordered from their homes after military operations, it's because security forces need time to clear the area of explosives. iran and shiia malishas have played a controversial role in iraq. they made clear with weakened security forces, they couldn't take on isil or secure baghdad without them. it's left the iraqi government treading a fine line between relying on iran for help and ma maintaining its judgment. jane arraf, baghdad. >> activists reporting al-nusra front is in full control of a military residential compound in dera.
12:09 pm
targeting sleeping quarters of soldiers and officers in the syrian army, the fighters are a step closer to the strategic town of szra before damascus progress. six guantanamo prisoners have arrived in uruguay to be resettle did. they were accused of being linked to al-qaeda but were never charged. jose mushika accepted them on humanitarian grounds. andy gallacher has more from miami. >> reporter: this is the first time any detain easy from guantanamo bay have been taken in by a south american nation. it was a humanitarian act. he was talking about helping out president obama who basically, he says, inherited a mess from the bush administration. they are talking about guantanamo bay, itself. this is a demonstration of how
12:10 pm
slow this process is. there were 800 am and now there are 136. it's very difficult for the u.s. to find host countries for these people to go. it's clearly obama administration wants to finally, close guantanamo bay. >> may take months or years the remember when president obama first came to power, it was one of the first things he did, signed an executive order to close t here we are six years later, and it's still open. >> typhoon haguput has winds of over 100 kilometers an hour. the powerful storm locally known as "ruby" knocked out power. two people have been killed in 900,000 have moved in to showers. the storm isn't as bad as typhoon haiyan who devastated vast areas last year. many are worried about the damage that will be left behind. >> this is edison 3 weeks old napping next to the radio, his
12:11 pm
family connection to the outside world. he and his mother are here with 1,000 other people huddled in the hallways of this government building. mostly women and children that came from villages near the proofvincial capitol. >> three families if from my coastal village came to this shower. it's noisey and full of loud children. we evacuate at every typhoon because our house might be blown away. >> two days before the typhoon made landfall, they were directed to shelters like this. >> with the tie off and on like this, the governor says it's all about preparation. and that's something he knows very well, and because of that, he's confident his province will have zero casualties. this province has achieved zero casualty in 18 of the 20 years, and every year, we have typhoons. so we have made it a religion essentially. >> the government is worried
12:12 pm
about the comic impact from his province, mainly from the strong winds of the slow-moving storm. even though they are not as strong as last year's tie off and on haiyan, these winds will stay longer, ripping down electricity lines. the panda bakery was the only shop with the doors open in the main market. to the owner, it was a risk worth taking. we are tom brady of the typhoon. we heard reports that it would be as bad as haiyan. so we put rocks on our roof. >> even though the governor is confident that people are prepared, no one will truly know the damage to this community caused by tie off and on hagiputh until the sunrises on monday morning. al jazeera. the philippines. still to come, taps have run dry in the mald dives as bottled water becomes the capitol's most precious commodity.
12:13 pm
12:14 pm
>> my name is elenor and for the last 25 years i was bernie madoff's secretary. >> an unimaginable story of betrayal. >> they lived this incredible life. it just never occurred to me that they were living on the dime of the clients. >> greed... >> bernie was stealing every nickel but he wasn't trading anything. >> ... and entitlement. >> you took my grandchildren's future away from them.
12:15 pm
welcome back. you are watching al jazeera. let's remind you the top stories. syrian state television is reporting israel has carried out two airstrikes. one near damascus international airport in the east of the capitol, the other in al demas, a town west of the capitol. sunni leaders in iraq are accusing the army of pushing out sunni populations on the pretext of fighting isil.
12:16 pm
a spokesman for the association of muslim scholars told al jazeera, he believes the current tides of sectarianism are partly the fought of u.s. policy. six prisoners have involved in guantanamo. they have been held in the detention center in cuba for more than a decade of in other news, israliated during attacks on the gaza strip. thing include one of an airstrike. most of the victims were children. human rights groups have accused israel of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in july and talk. more than 2000 palestinians were killed and at least 66 israelis, most of them soldiers, also died. mckyle lee is from the is raleigh human rights group. she said the investigative process is flawed. >> in the previous round of h t hostilities during or after
12:17 pm
operation kasled, 4 six military were open and 3 led to actual charges being brought and very minor ones at that. so, i mean the fact that military police investigations have opened bears no indication or makes no contributions to real accountability. mechanisms which we have criticized because these investigations. bent look at the most important problems and aspects of operation protective edge, issues of policy, issues of decisions of a much higher political and military evchelon >> itt authorities say they have identified the bodies of 1 of 43 missing students. his body was among the charred remains found near a garbage
12:18 pm
dump last month. more from mexico city. >> the positive identification of one of the 43 missing students is unlikely to ease or to satisfy the friends and relatives. a march through the next co city, they said that they refused to consider them dead and that they were demanding that the government produced their children alive and well as they also continued to demand the resignation through mexicans not just in the the state of guero. in the meantime, the attorney general is expected to give more details about the forensic studies that took place at the university of innsbrook in austria where 14 bone fragments were sent to try to get some positive identification. >> the preservation of the
12:19 pm
amazon rain forest is considered central in the battle against global warming. in this year, tillegal logging s continuing at unprecedented rates. nick clark reports from the peruvian amazon. >> illegal logging is so commonplace, they don't care about us filming him doing what he does. stealing trees off of forbidden areas with impunity. it is illegal. we shouldn't really be doing this. the police make us do all of this paperwork and we have to pay them off. they are constantly putting up obstacles. and this is where romelo's trees go, three hours' boat ride away, the saw mils of the town of
12:20 pm
pakalpa. much of the timber ends up in the u.s. and china, these 100 years old and more dest i have beened to become someone's hard word floor or garden table. >> the logging trade is a world of forged documents and faked entries on a massive scale. the world bank estimates that 80% of peru's total exports are harvested illegally. >> that's 8 out of 10 of these trees, i will is illicit. >> one after the other, the saw mills stretch 3 kilometers along the riverbank, trees supposedly taken legally from concessions but, in fact, cut from protected forests. >> these marblings are official codes for permits that the forest tree authorities give out to transport and sell wood. >> they are all ficticious? >> yes. mostly, they are ficticious. >> the independent environmental
12:21 pm
investigation agency found that the morning of paperwork and corruption is indemic. >> nobody has been sanctioned for this. none of the people, and we have all of the names of the people that were involved in producing the fake document occurs, in approving the mobilization of all of this timber. nobody has been investigated. >> illegal logging on this scale is very bad news for global warming. living trees suck up co2 to survive helping alleviate arrestbon emissions but this, of course, has entirely the opposite effect. here we are, a little more than an hour's flight from the climate change conference in lima. nick clark, al jazeera, for kalpa, peru. >> a cuban doctor who contracted e bobola has returned home. felix baez spent 16 days in a
12:22 pm
hospital where he received experimental treatment. he is free of the virus. he was one of 256 cuban doctors and nurses who traveled to west africa to help contain the outbreak people living in the capitol of the maldives will have to go without running water for at least another week. the city was only deal salination plants is being repaired after it was damaged by fire t nicole johnson reports from male. >> water has become the most precious commodity of all in male. it's the one thing everyone is talking about, how to get it, where to buy it, and the big question: when will it be available again? the army and police are handing out free bottles. three liters a day for everyone. >> we don't get enough water. we have to drive everywhere to collect it, and it's very difficult to carry. i live on the fourth floor. it's heavy to take up. we are living in very difficult times. >> every everyoafternoon long l
12:23 pm
form. some distribution points are open all day. the city needs 13,000 tongs of water every day, and it now has less than 10% of that. the real problem is water for washing and cooking. mreem don't have enough to clean with. some are starting to get frustrated. this is male's de sal ination plan that stopped working after parts caught fire. the parts have arrived but not the he can't pert tease to fix it. >> the current estimate is seven to 10 days before we can have the machinery up and running. and probably a minimum a week. it could be longer than that as well. >> so many people, that's not good enough. every day. i think the government should have a contingency plan.
12:24 pm
there is no baku plan, just help that's been flown in. 40 tons of water on this military plan from india. it sent a ship with a desalination plant on board. china, the u.s. and vir lanka have sent aid as well. it looks like people will have to put up with this bottled water for a while longer. at hope, taps run dry. male in the maldives. >> an egyptian court has it postponed the trial of morsi until december 14thths. he was prosecuted along 35 muslim brotherhood leaders. the defense argued he should be set free because he had been held in an illegal detention facility. he was removed from power last year by the military. bangladesh is holding a summit
12:25 pm
to look at ways to improve the textile and department center. the industry has been in the spotlight since 2012 when thousands were killed in the fire and collapse of two department fact odors. most survivors are waiting for compensation. >> reporter: three years ago, desperate to escape, she jumped for the from the fourth floor. doctors told her she broke two ripsr ribs, but her problems didn't stop there. >> the transfer said my wind pipe was damaged. he said it was turning completely black. he told my husband, i needed treatment. but we couldn't pay for what he recommended. >> afroza said she received only about a thousand dollars in compen sames. the money was quickly used up paying for doctors' visits. but the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with her. they tell her she has to go to
12:26 pm
taka medical college a public hospital in the capitol for a proper diagnosis. >> it's not simple for her to get the treatment that she needs. it's a three-hour journey from her home to taka medical college hospital. the buts ride costs $3 each way and she can barely afford the triptiously itself. >> at the hospital, a surprise: it's not good. insteeds of two broken ribs, she has five. untreated for twoiers, twlierm delays in paying compensation to survivors. >> why are they not taking responsibility for the people caught? why can't they be made to take responsibility for their labor chain? these workers are poor. they can't be expected to pay for such expensive treatment, themselves. >> the doctors say the broken bones don't fully explain what's wrong with afroza's voice and throat. one doctor suggested it might be
12:27 pm
cancer. the day the doctor said i became ill i tossed and turned ought night. i couldn't sleep at all because i was so scared. since then, it's been hard for me to focus on doing my household duties. >> after two years of suffering, afroza is hopefully, finally, about to find out what's wrong with her. already stretched to her financial limits. bangladesh. >> the 24th singapore film festival is showcasing works around the policiworld. organizers say it will help develop the local film industry. but as rob mcbride explains, not all movies are welcome. >> all of this is something when they come to this country -- >> in the film that caused offense, "to singapore, with loved" features leftists from the 1950s and 60s allegedly
12:28 pm
exiled abroad. government refused to allow a release saying it gave an unbap answered view. >> it was self-serving and that it was gliding over inconvenient facts and all. director ken kwek objected to the ban. preparing to open this year's film festival, he is no stranger to singapore censors you. one of his had a key scene removed for allegedly being racist? >> i think the artists in singapore tend to be gutsy. sensorship, it means we have to keep pressing for change. >> the debate about censorship comes as singapore comes to celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence, just the right moment, say opponents of censorship to re-examine with
12:29 pm
openness. the surge in pat tree on the typically may not be conducive to greater freedoms. >> reporter: 15 years since singapore got its speaker's corner led to encourage freedom of expression. it is as likely to be used for cultural event did as anything political. >> i roncally, singapore has just provided a platform for other people's politics. artists from the middle east attending the city's art fair have been displaying work that would cause offense back home, dealing with recent tissue length event did. >> they have a witness of this situation. they are the only one we can go outside of the country to show and make understand what's happened. to say usually what people cannot say. >> an unexpected message for singaporean visitors to take away with them. robert mcbride, al jazeera,
12:30 pm
singapore. you can keep up-to-date with all of the stories we have been covering in this program and throughout the day on our website. the address for that is aljazeera.com. there, you will find comment, analysis, individual quo on demand as well as belongs from our reporters. do check it out. aljazeera.com.
90 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
Al Jazeera America Television Archive The Chin Grimes TV News Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on