. >> "the week ahead". sunday 8:30 eastern. only on al jazeera america. >> journalists here in the al jazeera newsroom and around the world seven people die off the coast of citily.

>> it was a year ago that mohamed fahmy, bader mohammed, and peter greste were imprisoned in egypt. >> doha's news center marking the anniversary that the staff here and the rest of the world find it hard to absorb. it's been one year since the phone call to the newsdesk reporting the arrest of three news work journalist who is were just doing their job. >> all the charges against

correspondent mohamed fahmy bader mohammed, and peter greste were false. mahmy's wife speaking in desperation. >> my life is wrecked, and so are the lives of our children. the head of our family has been in prison for a year for no justification or crime. >> peter greste's family has spent christmas day in egypt getting an hour and a half to visit their son. >> he is truly amazing the way he has been able to draw upon his reserves of resilience, strength and, in fact, inspire us all to carry on. as we all know this has been a very very long struggle. >> it's a struggle that will carry on with journalists from other media organizations helping in the campaign. >> i think a lot of journalists and a lot of people have been

appalled at the three people, three men simply doing their job. who ended up in prison. we hoped maybe for a few days, a few weeks and now today it's a whole year. it's been a year that has seen protest spread around the world. the hashtag free aj staff went viral. it was not just journalist who is were appalled by events. world leaders have aired their voices. >> we've said publicly and privately they should be released. >> al jazeera has maintained their public campaign. >> we work in so many different places, and we should be taken as a professional institution not part of a political ideological or any other establishment. >> egypt's president al sisi

insisted it was an issue for the courts. their appeal process will begin this week. what is going on behind the scenes is less clear. president al sisi has suggested he would prefer to have the journalists deported, perhaps a sign he was aware of the damage that this case is doing to egypt's reputation. as 2014 comes to an end al jazeera's team remains in jail having committed no crimes. andrew simmons al jazeera. >> al jazeera's abdul al shamy was released in june. he said he's hopeful that our colleagues will be released. >> i think the most possible would be going through the judicial system because the head of the regime in egypt with fattah al sisi would not like to look like that he's interviewing, that's what he says all the time, that this is

all in the judicial system. he cannot interfere. i think to list them even as a way to walk out let the trial go on. i think that the egyptian regime wants to stabilize the country more. they want to hold things more in their own hands. they may possibly release the journalists to get more international support for the regime itself, and they would use that as a way to let say convince the outside world that there is a freedom in the country, and journalists can walk free. >> other world news, a second day of searches has failed and

they believe the malaysian plane to be at the bottom of the sea. >> another day of anxious waiting for relatives on the aircraft. in the morning they got a private briefing from search and rescue officials from where the airplane took off with 162 people on board. andreas sister-in-law was on board. >> we heard that the team will found the plane immediately. >> but nothing has been found. no evidence pointing to where the plane might be. >> more aircraft, and more ships were sent to a 200 kilometer stretch looking for any sign of the airplane. it's a bigger search area than supplied with more countries involved, more ships more

aircraft. australia has joined the operation. >> if the target is on land its ease year than if it's in an underwater location. but our valuation of the coordinates we received suggest that it is underwater, so our presumption is that the aircraft is under the sea. it can be expanded based on evaluation. >> officials say that they're looking at the profiles of the passengers and studying the x-rays of the luggage and cargo before this airbus took off on sunday morning. they're going to be looking at the maintenance records of this plane while they review their operations. later in the day indonesia's government's representative on this crisis. he said they're doing all that they can to find the missing plane. >> the many experience is to identify.

>> also in the afternoon surveillance spotted something in the sea, but as learned in the search from the missing malaysian airline plane earlier in the morning reports never led to the missing aircraft. al jazeera indonesia. >> 473 passengers have been successfully lifted from a ferry that caught fire near the italian coast on sunday. seven people are known to have died. simon mcgregor wood has more from the italian coast. >> reporter: after many hours adrift the separation to rescue the passengers has lasted more than a day. helicopters from the greek and italian navy nearby, once on board they're assessed by a

doctor. >> at the moment the situation is good. a doctor has been checking to see if some of the passengers need to be transported to the hospital or at the center we can establish the crew's terminal. >> the fire is now under control and all the passengers are off the ferry. it's thought that the successful would be turned to the italian port. a number of people were taken to the atoolan the italian port, and there have been a number of deaths. the italian navy say given the appalling weather conditions throughout this rescue operation, and the amount of time people have had to spend in the elements, it is a surprise there aren't more injured people and more fatalities. some of the passengers have described chaotic scenes when

the fire first broke out. others said that the ship's life boats were not working properly, the determination of what caused the five will fire will come later. >> well, the prime minister has declared himself confident that his center right coalition can prevail in a snap election over the left wing opposition series who currently lead in the polls. >> it's extremely unfortunate that you have an opposition which added it's votes with the golden dawn to provoke early elections. at the same time the greeks did

not want to have elections in the overwhelming majority. now we're going to go into elections, and i very strongly believe that the pro european forces and those forces who have been for the necessary structural changes in this country will prevail. >> the majority of whom say they don't want an election now will prefer stability under his continued leadership that frankly don't have much in the way of detail of just how they plan to turn things around in this country. in the meantime, the financial markets will be watching. they don't like uncertainty one little bit and the euro zone as a whole will be bracing themselves in a return to crisis in the new year. >> the "world health organization" said that the number of ebola infections in

west africa have passed 0,000. nearly 8,000 people have died from the virus. sierra leone has been hardest hit along with liberia and begin any. same with africa. nigeria'scy does not have >> getting water out of the tap is not taken for granted. the water has to be pumped and saved in a tank, which means to have a generator for when power goes off. >> it should not be difficult but the government, i don't know what they're doing. they--they cannot explain to us why we don't have water. >> access to water has long been a problem in a city of

20 million people. there is not enough government funding in the sector. many people have to resort to drilling more holes or those who are selling water. >> on average water goes for $0.15. and a medium-sized family needs four a day. it's a bill that adds up at the end of the month and not everyone can afford it. the demand is 540 million gallons of water a day, but the municipal projects are only able to provide 200 million gallons. this has led them to partner with the private sector. >> we must be able to develop water schemes. we arethat will cost $4.5 billion. no government can afford to fund that. >> water officials say they're not looking to privatization in

the traditional sense but activists in lagos are not happy with the new plans. their concerns range from price hikes to what they say is the shutting out of civil society groups. >> they're mostly transparency and participation. how it allows people to manage their own god-given resources. >> activists say plans backed by the world bank to privatize water has resulted in poor service. lagos is surrounded by water sources yet for decades municipal services have been unreliable. many say it will take a lot for them to trust the government's promise that this time its plans will work. al jazeera lagos. >> still ahead on the program the world marks one year since the colleagues were jailed in egypt, we look at how the president has used the media.

plus

>> it's a chilling and draconian sentence... it simply cannot stand. >> its disgraceful... the only crime they really committed is journalism... >> they are truth seekers... >> all they really wanna do is find out what's happening, so they can tell people... >> governments around the world all united to condemn this... >> as you can see, it's still a very much volatile situation...

>> the government is prepared to carry out mass array... >> if you want free press in the new democracy let the journalists live. >> the stream, >> your digital community >> you pick the hot topics and express your thoughts the stream it's your chance to join the conversation only on al jazeera america >> welcome back. a reminder of our top stories on al jazeera. all the surviving passengers have been taken off a ferry that caught fire near the italian coast. seven people died in the incident. greece's prime minister has called snap elections in january after parliament failed to support his nominee for president. the far left party is expected to benefit from the early polls.

journalists and campaigners around the world have held protests in solidarity for our three jailed colleagues in egypt who have been imprisoned for a year. their appeals are scheduled to be heard on wednesday. we have more on how the one-year anniversary played out online. >> the hashtag free aj journalists have been around for a year, and while we would rather have them out, it's good to see how it's been trending throughout the world. there is good strength particularly london, the netherlands were strong. the united states, and africa as well, where peter greste was based. he was based in nairobi before

being transferred to egypt. we're talking about 12:30 p.m. london, just we were looking at 317 tweets per minute with the free aj staff hashtag within it. to get that many per minute is a great move. we've got a few here.

>> so was so much going on, some tweeted saying saying: >> one year later the events that have shaped the aj staff campaign. it will include the release of peter, bader and mohammed.

>> this summer's war was the bloodiest ever. one of the worst events was a shelling of an united nations school. jane ferguson spoke to one family trying to recover from the bombing. >> suddenly losing the use of two limbs makes almost every task in life harder. what she misses most is playing

with her children. >> my life was okay. i used to play with my children. run with my children. i used to do everything. now nothing because it's not just my leg my arm. if i need someone to walk, i need someone to help me. if i want to drink water i need someone to open it with me. >> she lost the use of her leg her leg and the use of her arm during the war. it was one of the most shocking incidents of the bombardment. killing 17 people. many in her family were injured 37 both arm and old still bear the scars. but there is hope she can get the use of her arm back. her husband regularly takes her to physical therapy sessions. and the therapist says her willpower is crucial. >> her spirit is very strong, and her family and her

relationship with her husband and her children is very good. this helps a lot with the treatment. she helps herself more than we help her. because that have she'll have a speedy recovery. >> in the meantime she her husband must take on the role of both parents. this was the year that he and his wife never hope to experience again. >> this summer was different from all the other summers of my life. before the war the situation was difficult, and then the war came and i spent over a month in the hospital. i'll never forget 2014. i'm not optimistic that 2015 will be much better. >> the u.n. school where the attack took place has been running again for several months. children have returned to class and relatively normal lives. this woman's life will never be the same as this year ends for her, she hopes the next one brings healing.

jane ferguson, al jazeera, gaza. >> a reminder that we have all the latest news on our website including one of our top stories, of course, the missing air asia plane. that's at www.aljazeera.com. hi i'm lisa fletcher and you're in "the stream." journalists from around the world condemn egypt for its detention of al jazeera journalists on their one year anniversary of detention. assaulted on the streets of egypt. why so few cases have been investigated by authorities. and later an american citizen imprisoned during antigovernment demonstrations near death more to secure his release.