>> free them now. protestors demand the release of three al jazeera journalists who have now been in prison in egypt for a year.hello there i'm barb rabarbara serra. all passengers have been taken off a ferry that caught fire in the adriatic sea. eight died. no sign of an airasia

airplane that disappeared over the java sea. ftc and greek bailout. >> from london to sid any to san francisco, journalists and the world have stopped work and called on egypt's government to set our colleagues free. it was a year ago today that al jazeera'saljazeera's peter greste, mohamed fahmy and baher mohamed were arrested and imprisoned. andrew simmons has more. >> al jazeera's doha headquarters parking an anniversary we find hard to absorb. reporting arrests of three of the network's journalists in cairo. then 12 months behind bars for just doing their job! right across the world there were newsroom vigils, protests outside egyptian embassies.

associate them with what egypt described as terrorists. all charges against correspondent peter greste, bureau chief mohamed fahmy and producer baher mohamed were false. baher's wife speaking from her home in jeement spoke of frustration. >> my life is wrecked and those of our children. in prison for a year for no justification or crime. >> peter greste's parents had spent crimples day christmas day in egypt getting an hour and a half to visit their son. >> he's been truly amazing the way he has been able to draw upon his relevance of resilience and -- reserves of ridicule vet resilience and strength. inspiring us all to carry own as you know this has been a very very long struggle. >> a struggle of other media organization he helping in the

campaign. >> i think a lot of journalists and people, we're just people as journalists, have been appalled. they were simply doing their job in a diligent and professional fashion who have ended up in prison we hoped maybe for a few days, few weeks and now today it's a whole year. >> reporter: it's been a year that's seen protests spread around the world. the#freeajstaff went viral. including the u.s. president added their voices. >> we've been clear both publicly and privately that they should be released. >> al jazeera america has maintained its public campaign. >> al jazeera is a media institution. we work in so many different places and we should be taken as a professional media institution, not as a part of any political or ideologic or

any other establishment. >> egypt's president abdel fattah al-sisi insisted it was an issue for courts. their appeals process is due the start this week. what's been going on behind the scenes is less clear. though president i.s. se has suggested that hesisi last cialg mentioned he would prefer to have then deported. al jazeera's team remains behind bars having committed no crimes. andrew simmons al jazeera. >> owner mohamed lal shami was released last summer, being held without charges. >> wouldn't like to look like he is interfering into the judicial

system because he claims all the time, you know, at least from what he says to the egyptian people this is all in the judicial system, he cannot interfere in it. so i think it will possibly be at least even them a kind of, you know, a way to walk out and still let the trial go on because of all the pressure that has been going on. i think the egyptian regime now wants kind of to stabilize the country more. they want to kind of hold things more into their own hands so they would more possibly release those journalists in reward of getting more international support for the regime itself and they would use that as a way to let's say, you know, convince the outside world that there is a freedom of press in the country and that journalists can walk free. >> now let's go to the

continuing search for a missing airasia plane that disappeared shortly after takeoff on sunday. flight qz8501 was on its way to singapore from the indonesian city of surabaya with 162 people on board. the hem of the indonesian search team says it's likely the craft is at the bottom of the java sea. scott heidler has the latest from surabaya where the plane took off. >> another anxious day with the relatives of the rlg passengers. plane took off with 162 people on board. andres's sister-in-law was on board. >> we hope that mtion the team willthe team willfind the plane immediately. >> nothing has been found.

no evidence of what happened to the plane nor where it might be. just after first light more aircraft and more ships were sent to a nearly 200 kilometer stretch of the java sea looking for any sign of the airplane. it's a bigger search area than sunday's with more countries involved, more ships more aircraft. australia has now joined malaysia and singapore in the operation headed by indonesia. >> if the target is on land it's easier than if it's an underwater location. but or evaluation of the coordinates we have received suggest it is underwater so our presumption now is that the aircraft is under the sea. it can be expanded based on our evaluation. >> officials say they're look at the profiles of the passengers and studying the x rays of the terminal 2 that was taken of the bags on sunday morning they will also look at the maintenance records and later

on vice president has become the government's representative on this crisis and he session they're doing all that they can to find the missing plane. >> many we can't find air france in the atlantic needed a few months. we hope as far as possible. >> reporter: also in the afternoon an indonesian affairs indonesian air force official said something was spotted in the sea. every time it led to false hope of those waiting on word of their families. scott heidler surabaya, indonesia. >> all surviving passengers have been successfully lifted from a ferry that caught fire near the italian coast on sunday. eight people are known to have died while several others have been taken to the port city of

bari. to be checked out by medics. simon mcgregor wood has more. >> after many hours adrift the operation to residue passengers of a ferry had caught fire offer the italian coast has lasted more than aday. while helicopters from the greek and italian navies have befer been ferrying people to the nearby hospital he. >> a doctor has been checking to see if some of the passengers need to be transported to the hospital. or at the center we have established at the cruise terminal. jr. the fire is >> reporter: the fire is now under control. it is thought that the vessel will be towed to an italian port when the conditions allow. a number of the passengers were taken to the italian port of bari some injured seriously and

some less so. success described the conditions aboard the norman atlantic. >> nobody otell us what to do, i had to look for myself to find the life jaicts. i have to put it on my kids by myself, nobody was there okay it was a panic it was crazy. >> we had to jump into a boat and then we're about three hours in the sea because there was -- it was very, very unbelievably wavy. the ropes broke lots of times. we did two three statements otry and get up on the boat and we had to go up a rope ladder. >> the italian navy tells us that given appalling weather conditions throughout this rescue operation and the amount of:00 passengers had to spend exposed to the worst of the elements huddled together on the top decks of the you stricken ferry it's a surprise there are aren't more seriously injured people and more fatalities.

>> determining what caused the fire will come later. we can speak to simon live simon the italian ministry has just given an update. what did thy they say? >> yes basically announcing the conclusion of the rescue operation which has taken 36 hours in extraordinarily difficult conditions. but some questions remain unanswered barbara because the minltsminister of transport said the rescue of 427 people and all along you might remember the ship answer manifest, the list of -- the ship's manifest, the list of those on board was listed as 478. the italians are trying oplay it down simply, people may have rebooked at the last minute and that may explain the

discrepancies. that has led to some knowledge controversy that there may still be some missing. continuing to scour the lower decks of the vessel in case there are more bodies there. we understand eight is the latest confirmed number dead, one during rescue, six bodies -- sorry search bodies were discovered lower in the vessel during the course of searching searching on monday. so there is some uninternt whether this operation has actually found all of those who are on the vessel and there is some indication on monday night that some searching still continues. >> simon mcgregor wood with the latest in bari, thank you simon. still to come here on al jazeera, dozens killed, more missing after floods in sri lanka. and people in nigeria's largest

cities are being suffering for one of life's most basic needs. of thousands of people are without food, water, shelter. >> a special one hour look at global attacks on free press. tonight 9:00 eastern.

>> and that's a reminder of the top stories on al jazeera. journalists around the world have stopped work and called on egypt's government to free three al jazeera journalists. peter greste, mohamed fahmy and baher mohamed have been in prison for exactly a year. all surviving passengers have been successfully lifted from a ferry that caught fire near the italian coast on sunday. eight people are now known to have died.

and the head of an indonesian search team session a missing yaishedairasia plane is likely at the bottom of the java sea flight qz8501 was on way from surabaya to singapore with 161 on board. suicide bomb blast in iraq couple attack happened in the taiji area. northwest of baghdad. providing food and drings to drinks to samararra. samarra-bound knowledge pilgrims. >> body taken to home town of havaz in southwestern iran where he will be buried on tuesday.

ba you rein's main knowledge opposition party clashes between security forces and oips groups, sheik saman acknowledge head of the sunni party in the gulf kingdom. the israeli military says a palestinian man has been shot dead during ooh confrontation in the west bank. soldiers fired warning shots in the air to discourage a group of palestinians throwing stones at them near the city of navlas, israeli military says the incident will be investigated. 24 people have been killed and eight others missing following floods and mudslides in sri lanka 160,000 people have fled their homes and being

many thousands of hectares of land has been inundated. >> here in the north part of the country there has been a brief respite to the rain. residents say after nine days they see the sun poking out and quite welcome. the rains seem to have stopped for the moment. however the stagnant water the huge deluge of water that remains in termination of certain areas is still a problem. paddy fields like that which you seize behind me are still water logged forming part of the thousands of hectares of paddy land. agricultural four balls are still trying to assess the damages done so far. in other parts of the country in the central area the disaster management center says there are still landslide alerts in place. they are still not comfortable enough to tell people they can return to their homes.

people in high risk areas have been evacuated and the dmc disaster management center says they need to be aware and ready for the noobility possibility that more landslides will occur due to the amount of water that came down in the torrential rains house he homes paddy fields, there is very much sort of a sludge and mud that covers everything and in terms of the absorption of the water to the ground is still an issue. so in the short term things are looking up. there's a bit of a breather for people if you like, sort of affected more than 1 million people. however in the long term it remains to be seen. >> there's more rain expected in malaysia after at least ten people were killed and nearly 160,000 fled their homes. it's the worst flooding that the country has seen in more than adecade. rising floodwater has closed roads and hampered rescue

efforts. greece is heading for asnap election. that could have implications for whole of europe. prime minister andonis samaras be is standing for reelection. the rks syriza party is stand to gain. a human implication for the situation in greece which in turn has an impact on greece's creditors and the euro zone. >> yes presumably so barbara. the first few months at least of the new year are going to be pretty turbulent with greece very firmly back in the international spotlight as it tries to work its way towards a sustainable government out of a snap election, bearing in mind that that may well be a coalition of parties that have

never been in power before. and all of that creates uncertainty that the financial markets don't like and all of this happening at a time when greetionthatgreece is only beginning to emerge from six years of recession. take a look at the wide are picture, greece's position in the euro zone and how that may be affected. joining me is a journalist who writes widely on financial policy yergos scopopolis, let's talk about this, how difficult is it going to be for greece omeet its are international commitments in the new year, $7 billion or more worth of debt refinancing required and possibly without international funding. international lenders have already said they are suspending talks. >> this is one year old without any alternative, greece has to meets its obligations in the

frame of agreements signed with the european union the imf everybody knows that. the actual government, the opposition. mr. tsipras has declared that he will not act in a unilateral way. i think this is very important because he did not have the details but if you in a negotiation from the beginning you certify that you are not going to move in a unilateral way, this means adaptation to reality. >> are you suggesting then that syriza this left wirng party that has this very public platform of going to have to toe the line? >> in every country in the world every political party that claims government is trying to

unify to federate discontent. this is one thing. another thing when you come to power is to adapt to realities. this is not greek exclusivity. this is a role of politics. >> nevertheless, yergos, there is going to be a considerable amount of uncertainty surrounding the events of the couple of weeks the financial markets won't like this. do you see the possibility of talk again of gross leaving the euro zone, greksit as it became known? >> i don't think now because the landscape is very very different from the last general election. 22 of january everybody's waiting, mario draje the president of ecb to pass through quantitative easing, reactions of the german leadership. until the end of february france and italy has to write their

national budget in order to avoid disciplinary measures by the european commission. in france madam la penne is first in the polls, in italy the free opposition party and lega of norfa are change the return tot national currency. >> briefly what you are saying essentially grease is no longer the problem in the euro zone, the problem has moved to the center. >> exactly. because the center of europe even germany france and italy are risking a deflation spiral, a long recession like the japanese case, when japan suffered a long deflation recession and massive unemployment for years. >> we're going to have to leave it there yergos, thanks for your insights. barbara, back to you. >> jonah, thank you. the number of people

affected by ebola in sierra leone, liberia and guinea has passed the 20,000 mark, that's according to the world health organization. in liberia friern new cases were reported in december, a -- 49 new cases were reported in december. community health workers in monrovia have begun door to door campaigns to raise awareness about ebola. health minister has blamed the flareup on the number liberians traveling in and out of the country. cameroon's air force has launched air strikes for first time against nigerian based boko haram. five separate villages and the military in northern tip of cameroon. explaining some of boko haram's recent movements. >> the latest attacks may be attempts by boko haram the try and infiltrate nigeria's

neighbors as well cameroon, niger and chad. several attacks to seize and control some areas inside cameroon. it could also be a take back for cameroon's participation in the fight against boko haram in neercht nigeria. cameroon has contributed significantly in the international effort to dislodge boko haram in that part of the country, neercht nigeria. probably these attacks may be like a retaliation for cameroon's participation. perhaps boko haram is overly ambitious, perhaps countries like niger and cameroon. attacking the base of boko haram into cameroon this is not certain because up until now the nigerian thrortsauthorities havenigerian thorts authorities have not

dislodged boko haram. activity participate or commit more forces as nigerian troops are also doing their own part in fighting boko haram. we have seen over the last few months how nigerian forces have chased out boko haram in areas that have been controlled by the insurgents. there are other areas in the northeast part of the country place like borno and yorbi states. >> in nigeria largest city many people don't have proper access to water. the government admits it's providing less than half of the city's needs but it says partnerships with private companies will improve services. however, activists remain current, rowi ragi reports. >> water out of the tap is not for granted. like everyone the her compound her family had to dig a bore hole the get water. the water has to be pumped and saved in a tank which means

having a generator for when power goes off. >> it shouldn't be difficult but our government, i don't know what they are doing. the water wells corporation they just -- they cannot explain to us why we don't have water. >> reporter: access to water has long bean problem in the city of 20 million people. there's not enough government funding for sector. many people have to resort to drilling bore holes or relying on unsafe sources of water. water cellars are a fixture in most places in the city. aa jerry can ising rlg common. overall demand in the city is about 550 million gallons a day but municipal water projects are only able to provide some 200 million gallons. government says this is led to a

partner in the private sector. >> we must be able to develop existing water schemes. we are targeting 755 million gallons a day. that will cost about $3.5 billion u.s. dollars. no government can afford to fund that. are wholly on its own. >> water officials say they are not looking at privatization in the traditional sense but activists in lagos are not happy with the plans. price hikes to what they say is the shutting out of civil society groups. >> there must be transparency, there must be participation. water belongs to the people, water is commonly owned to manage their own god given resources. >> activists also argue that plans backed by the west world bank have resulted in poor services. lagos is a city surrounded by

water service and large lagoons. yet municipal service is largely unreliable. government's promise he that this time its plans will work. rari i.raga, al jazeera. >> more on aljazeera.com. a show about innovations that can change lives. the science of fighting a humanity and we are doing it in a unique way. this is a show about science by scientists. let's check the team of hardcore nerds. specialising in ecology and revolution. tonight the green game. san francisco's new stad