only on al jazeera america ♪ >> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ good to have you along for the al jazeera news hour i'm david foster and a taste for what we have in the next 60 minutes, airline suspend flights in and out of baghdad after a plane is hit by a bullet. confrontation or consillitary to the eu. argentina disbans the intelligence agency accusing spies of trying to undermine her.

new york city shut down as a massive snowstorm blows through the northeastern coast of the u.s. ♪ all foreign airlines to baghdad cancelled flights into the international airport and worried about security and a passenger plane operated by fly dubai was hit by bullets that came into land at baghdad's international airport, all the passengers getting off there and nobody was hurt just evidence of rifle fire as we bring in jane who is in baghdad. how on earth could this have happened jane at an airport that is supposed to be one of the most secure anywhere in the world? >> well david, we are told that it was actually sniper fire that happened in an area just adjacent to the baghdad airport. now the airport has been

relatively calm. you will remember the early days of the war when they had pilots doing corkscrew landing and this is the first attack in a long time and it's not mortars or rockets and appears to be a sniper rifle and according to security and aviation forces a gunman beyond the wall of the airport and controlled by iraqi security forces appears to have used a sniper rifle and fired three or four shots that hit the plane as it was coming in to land. that is the big fear of course and that is why the representatives of regional and other foreign airlines are meeting as we speak with civil aviation authorities here to determine what the risk is. they are expected to resume flights at some point and iraqi airlines we have to point out continues to fly normally but certainly it has scared people quite a bit. >> jane, if i'm right and you know the area so well and you

will correct me if i'm wrong, as you say this landing strip, runway was close to the edge of the airport, is it possible to use another runway so it wouldn't be near the areas where the public has access? >> it would be possible. and the fact that iraqi airlines and flies to european destinations and is actually licensed to fly is taking off. and other private planes are taking off as well. we are told that a russian flight took off this morning, that is an indication that it is not seen as an overwhelming risk and, in fact, the military side of the airport appears to be operating normally but really as we have seen nothing focuses attention quite so much as gunfire hitting a passenger plane, a lot of this is the perception of risk and when the flights resume it will almost certainly send insurance costs sky rocketing and have a desired

effect of making people afraid to fly into baghdad any more. >> jane thanks. a car bomb in the capitol tripoli outside the hotel in the old city. it was in the past regarded as safe this hotel and embassys would send staff there. the u.s. president barack obama is on his way to ryahd to meet the new king salaman and he wrapped it up saying the u.s. could be india's quote best partner and cut short his visit to the new deli to pay respects of the family following the death of king abdullah. argentina president planning to dissolve the country's spy agency and announcement came after a scandal involving the death of a prosecutor who accused the government of

covering this up in 1994 and we have more. >> reporter: after more than a week of controversy and protests argentina's president announced a major shake newspaper the intelligence service and says it will bring transparency to the agency. >> translator: i have taken the decision for the secretary to be dissolved and for a federal agency of intelligence to be created and led by a general director and a sub director. they are appointed by the executive, and require the agreement to be able to function. >> reporter: prosecutor was found dead in his apartment last week a day before he was supposed to testify at an in inquery of the 1994 bombing of a jewish center in buenes-ares and killed 85 people and involved in a plot to cover up alleged role in the bombing for an oil deal.

some say the powerful spy agency operates with too much autonomy and has a murky history and she responded that her and her government are involved in a cover up. >> translator: no one is going to blackmail me no with unis going to intimidate me. i'm not afraid of them. they can say what they want and let the accusations if they want to and let the judges call me and prosecutors denounce me but they will not move me from what sentiment i always thought. >> reporter: police are continuing their investigation into the death of the prosecutor and to revamp a spy agency will be sent to congress. it will restrict the contact and influence between government officials and the new agency. i'm with al jazeera. greece new prime minister due to announce the rest of the cabinet minister in a few hour's time and party leader was sworn in on monday and formed alliance

with the right wing independent greek party and john is joining us now from athens. we know the finance minister and that is a crucial post. >> that's right, david. and we still, of course are waiting for the official announcement. we think that that is about an hour away. but we have heard at least five names from very senior sources within the party, one of whom has already confirmed he will be in the cabinet. now, if i may just give you a quick glance, the picture of the cabinet that is emerging to us is one of the highly technocratic and four of the five names are academic at universities in greece the one you referred to we believe will be named to be finance minister. he already has confirmed this on his blog and this is on.com.

the minister will be an economic professor from the university of creates whom we spoke to last week. we believe the foreign minister will be nicholas who is a professor of political science at the university of perez and deputy prime minister will be the university of perez economist who is very very close to one of the key advisors. that is a highly advising nonpartisan cabinet if it shapes up as we believe it is. >> what does it mean when it comes to saying the debt can't stay we have to change pretty much everything to do with the bail out we had, we are going to be we are going to refuse to carry on as we are. what would that cabinet mean? >> well david, it means two things, it means, one, that there is a big influx of new

blood in the political, on the political scene. the political personnel of this country, particularly at cabinet level has traditionally been dominated by party figures. this does not seem to be the case here. that is a major break with political tradition here in greece. the second thing that appears to be emerging is that the people who are being named to these cabinet posts, because of what we know from their previous positions from what they have told us in previous interviews that line up seems to be bearing out the agenda as announced in the preelection period in other words, breaking with the policies of the socialist and conservist coalition until now and has been one of the most outspoking critics of policy has it has been contradicted for 3-4 years and if he is announced in an hour's time we expect him to start with a clean slate, the negotiation with creditors as the party has promised that is

just one example. >> we will leave it there for now, john thank you. we have plenty more coming up on the al jazeera news hour closing guantanamo and why they are still in operation despite obama's promise to shut it down. forced off air and why some t.v. stations in democratic republic of congo are facing difficulties and in sport the longest losing streak in men's professional tennis end in a day of shock at the australian open. ♪ nigeria's fight against boko haram is controversial to say the least, hundreds of nigeria soldiers sacked and military saying they dismiss because they disobeyed others and others given the death sentences and soldiers say they were not given proper weapons or ammunition to night the armed group and we

spoke to some of them in the capitol abuja. >> reporter: these soldiers are meeting a lawyer to try and fight the dismissal from the army and say they were sacked because they were not ready to die fighting boko haram and they allege military bosses didn't give them enough weapons so they withdrew their positions under the orders of their commander and fighting in the state. >> we were not given the necessary weapons and equipment that would allow us to fight boko haram. we were given ak-47 with a bomb which i think this way so when we use the bomb it doesn't ex employed. mortar and the mortar bomb that too. it was supposed to be given to be issued to the unit were not issued to us. >> reporter: the military says

the men were not told to withdraw and had adequate weapons but they disobeyed orders. if their allegations are true it will raise questions about how the nigerian military is fighting boko haram, hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on this fight. the military is also facing other problems hundreds of other soldiers have been sacked sentenced to death for mutany and sentenced for corruption when there is a great need for soldiers to fight, on wednesday the leader claimed responsibility for an attack on the village in borno state on the third of january. human rights lawyer is representing the soldiers. >> in defending the soldiers with respect to the crisis in the military is going through. >> reporter: and so these soldiers hope to win their case

despite their predicament, they are optimistic that their former colleagues will beat boko haram. >> military are winning the war because some weapons, i think were removed from the front line some weapons that we were demanding for in the past were brought. >> reporter: winning their case will be difficult, no soldier has ever won a case from the military in these circumstances. i'm with al jazeera, abuja, nigeria. commander of the armed group resistance army made an appearance at the international criminal court and accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity and the first member of that group to face international justice. human rights group say the police killed dozens of protesters last week in democratic republic and demonstrating against changes to election laws and as al

jazeera's malcolm web reports the government is criticized of clamping down on press freedom. >> reporter: this is a popular television journalist here in the capitol and hosts a talk show that is critical of the government. he shows us where he was covering the violent anti-government demonstrations last week. this is the video his camera man filmed that day and demonstrators think the president is trying to change election laws to extend his rule. these protesters were pleased to see him there but after that he says he was stopped by a police major. >> translator: he took the camera and then fired his gun next to my head. he took the camera in the police car. i would not go away because he had my property. >> reporter: the intimidation doesn't end there. these television station has been off the air more than a week. it is owned by an opposition politician. the manager accuses the government of switching it off because it broadcast the

opposition's call for protests. >> translator: the government says you must have democracy but we cannot have democracy without freedom of the press, since it closed down there is no democracy and no freedom of press. >> reporter: during the protest the government also shut down the internet and text messaging services and radio france international was switched off for a day, this t.v. station belongs to the catholic church and it's popular and switched off by the government and now it's empty and seen more neutral than the ones by politicians but the priests that run it say the reason it was switched off because they aired the message of opposition calling for demonstrations. there were dozen more opposition stations still on air but the government had to close the two to prevent violence and looting. >> we cannot accept to use radios television to call people to commit the offense,

to call people to each other, to call people to loot if you do so we will stop you, that is our responsibility. >> reporter: back at channel consessa they pass the time watching football and the t.v.s will be back on soon but they say press freedom is under threat and the closers will lead to self censorship i'm with al jazeera in the democratic republic of congo. >> reporter: 43 students disappeared in the mexico city and families and friends still searching for any kind of version of the truth about what happened to them. adam has more from mexico city [chanting] they accuse the government of lying and killing the students. with each passing day skepticism and suspicion deepen over the story of how the students disappeared four months ago, one

student's remains have been identified. driving the suspicion inconsistencies in the evidence and reports that the federal police might have been involved while the army perhaps looked the other way. reports the government denies. >> translator: we seen the facts. nothing is clear. the government is contradicting itself. >> reporter: many people outside of mexico has the idea that federal police and soldiers took part in such a gruesome crime is literally unbelievable but this is taking place in a country where federal police and military are linked to thousands of cases of human rights abuse, torture rape and murder. it's not just leftest protesters with the story, this dump is where the government says the students were killed and burned. and they say that is science fiction. >> translator: it just can't be true. it would require tons of feel for such a fire tires and wood and that is not possible and the

site is too small and remains you expect from such a fire were not to be found so a lot of factions make it impossible. >> others still searching for the truth like these people looking for the students in mass graves among them family members of the missing and a sign of desperation and rejection of the government's story. meanwhile here in the capitol and across mexico protests continue, a call for the truth, a truth that may never fully come to light, adam with al jazeera mexico city. it's six years since the u.s. president barack obama promised to close guantanamo bay in cuba and it was the first executive decision after taking office. many detainees are still locked up there in this u.s. military prison. and roslyn jordan examines the barriers the administration faces in trying to close it

down. >> reporter: the first executive order barack obama issued as president, closing the prison at guantanamo bay cuba but that was six years ago, the prison is still open. president obama called that unacceptable during his state of the union speech. >> so it makes no sense to spend $3 million per prisoner to keep open a prison that the world condemns and terrorist use to recruit. >> reporter: despite obama's intentions congress passed laws that limit what he can do in his band the administration efforts to move detainees to an empty federal prison in the state of illinois and congress won't allow the detainees to be tried in federal court. just recently a group of u.s. senators introduced a bill that would suspend all detainee transfers for two years and ban all transfers to yemen. it's one thing to make a campaign promise but if you look at the security situation we are facing around the world right

now, now is not the time to be emptying guantanamo. >> reporter: then there is the problem that predates the obama administration the saddest of 35 men known as indefinite detainees. both the bush and obama administrations call these men too dangerous to release, some are unable to stand trial, either because they claim they were tortured or because the government says it doesn't have enough evidence to try them. some of those detainees can now ask a parole board to clear them for release, so far six of them including this person of kuwait have been successful. human rights lawyers say this process is slow but it is working. they add that it's unrealistic to think that the president could just release all of the detainees on his say so. >> i guess he could pardon and release them but i don't think he would do that for all of the people and it's not so much a

legal bar so much as a practical bar and i think he is being very, very careful. >> reporter: the challenge for the obama administration is to convince a skeptical congress and a good number of u.s. citizens that guantanamo poses as much risk to security as the men it's holding, roslyn in washington. millions of americans will soon be waking to a white out as a huge snowstorm bears down on the northeast and more than 7 1/2 thousand flights cancelled because of the winter storm and as kim vanell will tell us. >> reporter: new york's iconic covered and at times very visible, used to the cold commuters tried to get a head start on monday. even the ferry kind were prepared. all bracing the blizzard to get home and hunker down for the night. >> i'm going home now yes, i am. just came from work they closed early and going home.

>> reporter: junior valdez won't be going any where. >> i will be in my building for 36 hours straight 4 hour shifts at a time and 2 hour breaks in between and we will do this 4 hours and i will switch with a guy. >> reporter: mid afternoon new york city was nearly dark and come early evening time square has almost emptied. winter storm juno new york's mayor warned should not be under estimated. >> best thing is stay off the roads and off the sidewalks and i want people to start acting on as quickly as possible. >> reporter: that advice didn't reach everyone without snow chains there was little these drivers could do. >> crazy. >> reporter: it was slow going for those getting last-minute supplies. >> got to get stuff and got to do what we got to do. >> reporter: strong winds whipping up nighttime flurries making life difficult for

emergency services. millions will be waking to a sea of white, kim vanell al jazeera. 20 past 5:00 in the morning and still pretty dark and what they had to put up with richard, what do they expect now? >> the worst is just about there, david. as you look at the satellite imagery you can see the great spiral of cloud moving in the region and david points out this extends all the way down through the caribbean and we will actually see some cloud associated with that system down there. but here at the moment then we've got this system which is spiralling round, producing very heavy snowfall and nasty weather conditions and looking at some of the observations which have been coming through and if you take boston as an example here we've had temperatures at minus 9 and had winds 46 kilometers per hour put it together we have a wind chill of something like minus 24 so well quite

nasty conditions and it's this that will continue to see heavy snowfall continuing through the remainder of the day and the next few hours is when it's at its worst and accumulations, vast accumulations in the region and anything between 30-60 sent meters of snow and isolated areas could be looking at something closer to a meter, we will keep you posted on that. certainly over the next few hours terrible conditions here and up in record breaking it's 60 or 70 centimeters but it could happen but for the northeastern u.s. it's in lock down for the next few hours, david. >> richard thank you very much indeed from the weather to some more news and proposing to cut 5,000 jobs as part of a financial recovery plan and planning it says to scrap routes and sell off some of the assets airline and government working together only a plan that hope will save the carrier from

bankruptcy. indonesia suspended search and recovery efforts for the air asia passenger jet that crashed last month killing all 162 people on board and weather and poor visibility hampered navy divers efforts to recover the bodies and 70 have been recovered so far from flight 8501 which was on the way from indonesia to singapore but flight recorders have been recovered. the president elected as a so-called man of a people 100 days in term and his popularity is falling and we report from the capitol dakarta. >> reporter: he started his presidency with a bang not long after his inauguration the president ordered the sinking of fishing boats that entered the waters illegally and they were

not amused but he received public support for this. >> translator: they are catching more fish and nobody dares to enters water and when i gave orders to sink the shift at first nothing happened and i had to give the order three times before the navy followed it even though i'm the highest commander. >> reporter: execute five foreigners for drug smuggling even though it led to protests internationally. domestically his economic policies like cutting fuel supplies have played well but indonesia not impressed to cleanup institutions and nomination with a police chief charged and rumored to be the wish of the president's party leader and we were seen as having too much influence on the government. >> i think his main failure is he is a political pragmatist and

willing to deal with the devil, meaning he would be compromising on certain issues at the expense of grander ideas and the problem is now the question is how many devils is he willing to deal with? >> reporter: and this is the country's first president who does not come from the elite, although his ordinary background helped him to be elected, it does not provide him with a strong power base. and helped during the campaign and warning him not to vent to political pressure. >> translator: we know he is under a lot of pressure a lot of people vested interest are making it very difficult for him and different and people around him we as volunteers want one thing, a better indonesia. >> reporter: given five years to show he can improve life for indonesia but many want to see some results a lot sooner. already in his first 100 days the president was known as a man

of the people is being tested. and many of indonesia give him benefit of the doubt others are wondering if he has enough power to push for the changes he promised. i'm with al jazeera, dakarta. stay with us on the news hour and we have this coming up mysterious death of linko cast a shadow do of british relations and inquery that starts pretty soon reveal who actually killed him. australia or uae joining south korea in the asia cup and this is later on in sport. stay with us. ♪

♪ welcome back and top stories all foreign airlines flights to baghdad cancelled flights landing at the city's international airport because of security concerns. a passenger plane was hit by bullets as it came in to land at the international airport. greece's new prime minister due to announce cabinet minister in the coming hours and was sworn in on monday and he formed alliance with the right wing independent greek's party. a shortfall in pledged donations to rebuild gaza forced the palestinian refugee agency to suspend assistance to rebuild damaged home and 96,000 palestinian homes damaged or destroyed in israel 50 day

offensive on the strip last year. the u.n. agency received only 135 of 720 million dollars required to rebuild. and we have a spokesman for the relief work's agency joining us from from gaza and this is such a shortfall, what is it going to mean? >> it means that the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people will increase. it means the whole process of repairing the damage for tens of thousands of families will not be any more. we are out of money for that. this means also that what is required here in gaza it's in a great trace because of the whole of the story and the anger is driving every moment here on the strip and this is really very

dangerous to everybody. >> reporter: indeed take a look over your left shoulder and i think we see some children behind you in that bombed out building playing or just hanging out, just having those buildings there is a threat to life as well. >> yes, right now you can watch the consequences and the result of the war everywhere on the gaza strip. actually there is not real for this and we did not ask for billions of dollars or euro and the conference which i attended actually we asked for $724 million. right now the big blitz and problems in the community is they did not reach gaza. we received money from some and others but what about the billions of dollars that had been coming to us and reach out $35 million and we spent $77

million of them and paid for 66 families to repair their homes and shelters and to pay all these things and now we don't have money to continue that. so we declared that we have to tell the truth to the people also and to shout to the international community and tell them what is going on in gaza is unacceptable. we are in that need for the first quarter of this year for $100 million to continue at least the proper process that we started just a few months ago. >> if somebody made some money which they promised to pay back i would politely pick up the phone and i would ask them whether they were going to do it and if they were why they weren't going to do it so it's what happens when you call up a particular government or your contact in a particular government to say where is the money, where is the excuse? >> this is the question that

everybody is asking here in the gaza and we are afraid that tens of thousands of families that have been e vacuumkcuum -- evacuated from our schools and it has 300,000 people during the war and succeeded in evacuating most of them and right now we only have 13,000 people and we are afraid that tens of thousands of families will come back because we don't have money to pay for this and what that means is it will destroy the whole education system there in the gaza strip, besides those suffering in the winter and the children that died from everything at the health sector which is still in the place in the gaza strip, access to the outside war, no one has real access from gaza to get in and out. the export is not allowed. it's a catastrophe situation

here. >> thank you very much thank you. more on the situation in libya capitol tripoli where a group of five gunman attacked a hotel popular with tourists and reports they may have taken hostages at the hotel and three guards are thought to be killed and on thursday a car bomb went off outside that hotel. after months of fighting kurdish forces say they are now in full control of the border town kobane after driving out i.s.i.l. from there, it was a key battle grounds in the fight against the group, bernard smith reports. >> reporter: on a hill overlooking kobane this replaced iraq and the levante. >> kobane is bitter and bitter because of the air strikes of the international coalition, because of peshmerga forces and

other forces. >> reporter: for more than four months syrian kurdish and i.s.i.l. fighters have faced off in a street to street building to building battle for kobane. i.s.i.l. first laid siege to the town in mid september and prompted tens of thousands of people to flee across the border to turkey. by early october i.s.i.l. fighters controlled perhaps as much as half of the town of kobane but by then it was a show piece by the u.s. led air campaign in syria. u.s. secretary of state john kerry said it would be morally difficult not to help the town and 80% of coalition air strikes in syria have been on target in and around kobane around six a day, i.s.i.l. poured resources in the town diverting thousands of fighters along with heavy

weapons. at the end of october 150 heavily armed peshmerga fighters from northern iraq were allowed to transit through turkey to join the fight for kobane. according to the syrian observerry for human rights more than a thousand i.s.i.l. fighters and 400 kurdish fighters have been killed. much of kobane lies in ruins. the battle for kobane became symbolic rather than strategically important for the u.s.-led coalition, a test of u.s. air strikes alone without u.s. ground troops would be enough to stop i.s.i.l. advance and what have made a difference in kobane is the unique come combination of air strikes and what i.s.i.l. fighters never had to face before bernard smith in istanbul. the u.s. government says it has broken up a russian spy ring

in new york charges laid against a man who they accuse getting access to economic intelligence and to recruit sources. and we have more from washington d.c. >> reporter: three men are names in the criminal complaint, two of them however are thought to left the country with diplomatic immunity but this person did not and he is now in custody in new york accused of using his position as a banker in manhattan for a russian bank as a cover to supply intelligence to the russian foreign intelligence agency and it has to be said when asked to compile a report on the potential impact of u.s. sanctions on russian banks all he did is google the words sanctions, russia consequences and used that to file his report. the three men have done surveillance since 2012. in fact, f.b.i. says they were bugging an office in manhattan used by russian foreign

intelligence that russians thought was secure and documented conversations and one where his hand talked about the fact their lives were like a james bond movie and faces five years maximum sentence for conspiracy ten years for not declaring himself as an agent of a foreign government this is one of several resent incidents which russia and the u.s. are accused of spying. >> castro has broken silence over the relations with the united states. and students at the university of havana said he didn't fully trust the u.s. he did think the two nations should work together and should resolve their differences peacefully in accordance with international principles and rules. gabe has more. >> reporter: this is a statement that comes to the website and this is a state-run

media rendition here and this is a letter to the student led university, the university of havana and expected this announcement, this letter that was posted and came as a surprise and came a little before 10:00 p.m. local time in havana and in the letter it's not specifically about the talks, however, toward the end, part of the letter is four and gave what appeared to be an in endorsement of the talks and he did not have a trust in the united states and that in that sense also he said in support and sort of peaceful revolution to the long diplomatic and economic standoff between the u.s. and cuba. in the statement castro said he had not spoken to the u.s. a word about these talks but this

is anybody's guess and it could be that castro informed fidel castro about it but that doesn't mean fidel castro has spoken to the u.s. because he hasn't but clearly fidel castro retired since 2006 created a huge effect in the country and he is in all accounts not in the greatest of health. holocaust survivors are here and more than a million people and most jews were killed at the concentration camp between 1940-1945. the french president as well as the german and austrian presidents joined 300 survivors to remember the day of the liberation. inquiring in the death of the ex russian spy yanko happens in

london in a few hours, a critic of the kremlin and died from radiation poisoning in 2006. lawrence lee reports. >> reporter: it's a full 8 years since the image of the dying alexander yenko emerged and a shadow of uk and russia and he had a rare isotope and killed in three weeks. rush shaun agents including this man were blamed and it was an execution ordered by the states after it transports he had been working for the british security agency mi-6 investigating alleged links between russia government and organized crime. but to the fury of the widow marina the government refused to hold inquery, the man in charge of the in quest the death and

that was refused after not talking about the information. and after the jet was shot down over ukraine and they changed their minds and leaving many to decide the relations with russia got so bad there was no point in denying an inquiry to protect diplomatic relations, friends say it's about time. >> as the inquiry has an option of holding closed sessions where they will review the files of mi-6 whereas we know already from the judge there is a prim prima-facia evidence saying they sent it. >> reporter: inquiry will go in further with the uk and russia. this inquery has more power than in quest and this is not only to decide exactly how he died but

also to establish who it thinks the most likely culprits were and that inevitably is bound to put the russians under the spotlight and inquiring doesn't have the power to order them to come from moscow to give evidence any more than the british government can have him extradited for his murder. nine weeks of evidence and significant parts of it being heard in secret maybe the truth will come out which is all she said she wants, in moscow no doubt it will be billed as a pointless witch hunt lawrence lee, al jazeera in london. russia economy had a rough 24 hours, the u.s. credit standard and pores stripped the country on monday and stands on what is junk status. peter sharp is in moscow and went to meet some members of the russian public to find out what that means to them. >> reporter: and the bad news just keeps on coming. shoppers in moscow already squeezed by sanctions now looking on as the country's

credit rating tumbled into junk status. >> translator: i don't see any actions of the government. everything they say and write remains on the page. i don't see anything being done to get life back to normal. the realization that it's going to get worse before it gets better. >> translator: i think it's going to continue for several years. we are going to fall further behind then we will try to crawl out of it and will take many years. >> reporter: it will further batter the country's global image. so what are junk bonds? american investor purchased $1 million of russian bonds back in june last year those bonds would now be worst just $262000. that is a 74% loss in an investment made just six months ago. junk.

thomas is a market strategist for a major russian bank and said the hit on the country's status will have a damaging effect on economic growth. >> i think it's a very difficult situation and i think there is an acceptance that russian growth this year will contract quite sharply and that is one of the main concerns of the credit rating agencies it's the fact at the moment monetary policy and the policy of the central bank of russia is very restricted at the moment. >> reporter: the russian president was remarkably upbeat about the months ahead. and putin's confidence is looking less as the country is unabated peter sharp in moscow. few if anything organizations can claim to avert the deaths of 7 million people in the last 15 years but the global health partnership known as the alliance says it has done just that by vaccinating 500 million children.

and let's bring together donors both private and public for a funding meeting in berlin to ask for money for operations and needs $7.5 million in the next five years to vaccinate further 300 million children in poor countries and dr. carol cooper medical journalist live from london, this is a fantastic venture to be involved in. what sort of diseases are we talking about here? >> well we are talking about a whole range of childhood infections that are very much more fatal in the third world than here. for example pneumonia, measles, rubella and that doesn't kill the children but the off spring of the mothers and things like meningitis hpv and they are actually looking at over 100 or so vaccines. >> when you vaccinate somebody and depends which disease you are talking about do you have to

revaccinate or is that it for life? >> in some cases you have to have three doses for the pneumonia you need three doses, for others it's one dose and some it's two and depends on the vaccine. i think what is really important is there is a program to do that and so to actually give children and families in the developing words the sort of advantages we have in the west and actually take pretty much for granted. >> i was reading it costs 70 times the amount of money to buy a vaccine in 2015 than it did in 2001 just 13 14 years, it has gone up 70 times, how on earth is that possible? >> well i read that too and the answer is that we are not talking about the price of just one vaccine going up 70 fold we are actually talking about a whole program of routine childhood immobilizations and it started off the program with very few vaccines and now the

cost includes not just the cost of each vaccine going up but also the cost of many many more vaccines being included in the program. actually if you take that into consideration it's still very cost effective to vaccinate children in the developing world because you don't just save potentially millions of children's lives, you also benefit the health of others who are not vaccinated. a lot of these diseases once you have a good level of immobilization you're actually introducing what is called herd immunity and it protects those who are older adults who never had the vaccine and younger infants who have not had it yet so you are actually controlling the level of the disease altogether and there are also benefits because you are freeing up precious health resources for treating other conditions and you free up hospital cots and beds and if you look at measles

in myanmar and 50% are due to measles, if you save that potentially other conditions could be treated. so it's really not just improving the health of the child who is vaccinated it is actually benefitting the whole community. >> everything around it and obviously they need the money, nobody would deny that but if there was an unlimited pot what would you as a doctor as a family doctor and as a family person yourself what would you say the most important thing to tackle next would be in the poorer countries health wise? >> i would tackle conception and cancer as well as immobilization. because i think those are huge challenges. and if you save young children's lives then potentially we have an even greater population problem than we have and those people are going to get old and they are going to develop the kind of diseases we have in the west, heart disease and cancer. >> it's not as simple as it

sounds, is it carol thank you. >> no it isn't. >> you make health choices and there we are. thank you. we have the sport now and we are here. >> thank you so much rafal debt is out and beat in the quarter finals and never beat in 17 meetings and the longest streak on the tour and the 7 seated track wrapped it up in the grand slam champion and a come back in the third with two match points and went on to seal the win in the second australia open semi finals. >> i didn't play with the right content the right intensity and losing guard and playing very short. i make him play very easy. so you cannot expect to win matches helping the opponent to

play well so that is what they did. >> reporter: he will face andy murray and the number succeed has beaten australia nick and murray has taken the match 6-3, 7-6, 6-3. semi finals with straight set win over canadian and she is looking to win her first australian open title since 2008 will face a fellow russian, in the last four. >> well besides playing another russian i'm mostly facing opponent that wasn't necessarily a favorite coming into that stage and that is always a tricky situation because she is going to come into that match free and almost happy to be in that situation and that is dangerous. >> reporter: it's approaching full time in the second semi final, the ashun cup between host australia and united arrsh emirits and will face south

korea in the final and we are live at new castle and what is the latest there? >> reporter: our latest story is it looks like it will be an australia winning 2-0 at the moment and seconds to go at the stadium behind me new castle and they are nervous going in the semi final but a goal after just three minutes settled the nerves and of the capacity crowd, the 32000 crowd after that stadium in new castle. it got better and a party atmosphere 11 minutes later when davidson made it 2-0. as for the united emirites is the captain and constantly driving through the attack and in the second half he gave the soccar-roos some moments and the

team stepped off a little bit and didn't get the third killer goal and has something to work with in the lead up to the final and as it strands australia playing south korea in the ashun cup final on saturday. >> that is confirmed, australia will face south korea in the final, do you think australia can go all the way in this tournament? >> reporter: well, that is the thing, they came into this tournament as the favorite and everyone expected them to get to the stage at the very least and they should be able to go on and win it. there was as i say a few nerves going in the game but they are showing they can handle the pressure i guess timmy kay hill because a star and people thinking they were a little too dependent on experience and goals and didn't score today, it was coming other areas of the pitch and will please them but slightly concerned about how the uae managed to get to the australians in the second half and it's intriguing match up

with south korea and australia and top scorer with 12 goals against the stingy defense south korea who has yet to concede in the tournament and defeat on australia in a group status and should be a fantastic match and fantastic atmosphere i'm looking to it everybody looking to it in australia on saturday. >> reporting live from new castle. noo tunesia are through and they needed a draw to go through in the final group b match and he gave them the lead and crc equalized in the second half and got a 1-1 draw sending through group b runner up and tunesia on top and cape verde goes home drawing 0-0 in difficult conditions and andy richardson has more. >> reporter: conditions for this decisive group day between

zambia and cape verde were pretty awful for the players and massive thunderstorm hit at half time and much of the second half conditions close to unplayable and it did not make for a great day of futbol and finished 0-0 and results from both teams crushing out of the tournament. and it may have a tiny population but big futbol ambitions and close to qualifying for the world cup and devastating not to make it through the quarter finals and they won in 2012 when ecuatorial guinea and for the second cup of nations means tunesia and democratic congo goes from the group and they will play on

saturday. robert craft defended his team of ball tampering in the nfl playoff and craft believes the league should apologize to the superbowl finalists and the patriots take on the seattle seahawks. >> i believe the new england patriots have done nothing inappropriate in this process or in violation of nfl rules. if the well's investigation is not able to definitively determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs i would expect and hope that the league would apologize to our entire team. >> reporter: and that is all your sport and david back to you. >> thank you very much indeed. i'm going to take my leave but darren jordan is going to fill this seat and keep you up to date with all the global headlines here on al jazeera.

♪ foreign airlines suspend flights in and out of baghdad after a plane is sprayed with bullets. ♪ hello i'm darren jordan and you are watching al jazeera and also on the program greece new leader naming the ministers that will be asked to negotiate a new deal with brussels. argentina president moves to country's intelligence agency including rogue spies of trying to undermine her. new york city shuts down as a massive snowstorm blows through the coast of the united states. ♪