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tv   News  Al Jazeera  June 16, 2015 5:00am-5:31am EDT

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>> this radio carbon dating method can tell us if trade of ivory is legal. >> it could save a species... >> i feel like we're making an impact >> techknow's team of experts show you how the miracles of science... >> i'm standing in a tropcal wind storm... >> ...can effect and surprise us... >> wow, these are amazing... >> techknow, where technology meets humanity! only on al jazeera america taking you to an egyptian court expected very soon to deliver its final verdict on the death sentence for deposed president mohamed morsi ♪ good to have you with us here on al jazeera, i'm david foster and also coming up in the next 30 minutes al-qaeda in yemen says sheikh nasser al-wuhaishi has been killed in a u.s. drone strike and i.s.i.l. suffers setback in two years as kurdish forces take control of a town and the u.n. report says its own
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peace keepers have been sexually exploiting the very people they were sent to protect. ♪ starting in egypt about 15-20 minutes ago the court went into session and see the presiding judge going through some of the points made at the original trial describing mohamed morsi as wanting to achieve his satanic goals, conspiring with those outside the country. we have heard nothing yet about the sentence yet because morsi was given the death sentence in a trial not so very long ago probably and the decision had to be referred to the grand mufdi of egypt who would give his opinion and the court received his opinion 24 hours or so ago and has been considering it and we are waiting to hear what the
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sentence is that the court hands down, whether, in fact as some suggested the charges may well be thrown out. we know nothing about that at the moment. so as we look at this we have seen a few pictures of mohamed morsi himself behind bars in a cage at the site of the court to the right of the judge as you are looking at him now. a sentence to death once again remind you over mass jail break in 2011 uprising and let's bring in egyptian journalist and you have been watching the entire proceedings and you think very little of what has been happening and nothing you have seen today changes your mind? >> no not at all. actually one of the things i'm really appalled by the long speech made by the judge which is actually given now before
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voicing the verdict because according to my knowledge as far as i know this goes against its a violent flagration of procedural law and no judge is allowed to make such speeches and the reason for that is to eliminate any doubt of politicalzation of the ver digit so i'm listening to a long political speech by the judge. >> as we look at the judge here and you made it plain he shouldn't have done this and should have gone straight to the ruling of the court and this is not just about mohamed morsi for the sake of our viewers who have not been following in this closely, this is a great many other people as well. >> the greater picture and this is not about the trial of mohamed morsi, mohamed morsi it's about a lot of other things, it's a trial for an
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attempt to change the distamay of the people, it's a trial for the revolution itself for what happened on january 21st and let's level on that let's be frank about this. it's not just a trial for mohamed morsi. >> we will be back with you a little bit later. you will be keeping an eye on proceedings in that court in cairo as for we. we have our monitors here in the studio and we will let you know as soon as we know what the result of that hearing is. al-qaeda in yemen has confirmed that the leader sheikh nasser al-wuhaishi has been killed in bombing and named the former chief rami as the new leader and u.s. is believed to launch 100 strikes in yemen since 2002 and here is al jazeera carolyn malone. >> reporter: sheikh nasser al-wuhaishi was four al-qaeda members who launched al-qaeda in yemen in 2007 and two years
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later it merged with saudi arabia to be al-qaeda in the saudi arabia with sheikh nasser al-wuhaishi as the leader and tried to blowup a plane going to michigan with plastic explosives in underwear and said they trained and funded him. the u.s. state department added sheikh nasser al-wuhaishi to the most wanted list in 2010 as a global terrorist who was responsible for approving targets, recruiting new members and allocating resources to carry out attacks. under sheikh nasser al-wuhaishi's leadership they carried out a number of attacks on yemen security forces including this on a military post on a province in 2013. the group also claimed responsibility for the attack this year on charlie hebdo magazine that killed 11 people
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and as sheikh nasser al-wuhaishi rejected calls to join islamic state of iraq and levante he spent many years with bin laden and loyal to al-qaeda to the end, carolyn malone, al jazeera. while in syria kurdish forces cutoff main supply line of islamic state of iraq and levante and retaken the town and it's i.s.i.l.'s direct link to the self declared capitol of rakka and thousands escaping the violence heading to the border town and this is where bernard smith joins us now and it's extraordinary to think how this has all changed hands and the fact these people have been trying to get away now in the hands of a pro-kurdish group so what does that mean for the people there and the bigger picture, the fight itself? >> we can't unfortunately make a
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direct link with bernard at the moment and we are working on this but he sent this a little bit earlier and try to get him back to talk about the bigger picture after we hear from bernard place on the turkey syria border. >> reporter: 14 months i.s.i.l. controlled the syrian town on the border with turkey. not anymore. these are fighters from the syrian kurdish ypg and their flag now flies over this border crossing. three-week assault by ypg forced thousands of people to cross to turkey. u.s. led coalition air strikes have helped the ypg push through. the price these people have paid are homes turned to rubble. >> translator: we lost our home ten days ago, fierce fighting forced us to leave to save our children, before that life was okay. >> reporter: we were terrorized by i.s.i.l. and left because of
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heavy bombardment and i will never go back because in there you die 100 times a day. >> reporter: they had it in its sights as a strategically important connection between turkey border and the capitol in raaka 80 kilometers away and i.s.i.l. lost control of the only main road to their city. this is the fourth time that turkey opened the border and most of these people have been waiting at least 24 hours to get through. they are carrying everything they can manage. for the most part they look relieved to have made it through and will be processed by turkey authorities and allowed into turkey. turkish police caught these i.s.i.l. fighters trying to escape with the crowds and losing this city is the significant defeat for i.s.i.l. since it swept through northern syria two years ago and for the kurds it means for the first
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time control of an increasingly large area of syrian territory along the border with turkey. and we have got communications with you now i hope i can see or hope you can hear me and when it comes to the fact they have this large part of syria and relatively large compared to what they had before what does that mean to the overall picture where you are? >> well it's the one thing that really concerns the turkish government, david, they have always said that they fear the creation of some sort of kurdish atonomous and they used the syrian fighters with the pkk where there has been a delicate peace process going and it stalled at the moment and turkey very concerned about the consolidation of what it sees as
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the consolidation of kurdish influence in that part of syria and deputy prime minister. >> i'm going to but in this is the court in cairo. we see there the judge is presiding and i wasn't listening myself but told by the people who were monitoring this that the death sentence against former president mohamed morsi has been upheld. the death sentence against former egyptian president the deposed egyptian president mohamed morsi has been upheld. this is in the case of accused of helping foreign militants to free what are called islamist during mass prison breaks in 2011 all part of the arab spring and mohamed morsi is sentenced in another case to 20 years in prison.
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for arrest and torture of protests in conflict outside the presidential palace. so as we are listening to the points that the judge wants to make the real thing at hand is the fact the death sentence has been confirmed and went to the grand mufdi, the high religious authority in egypt. he handed his opinion back and this is what the court has had to say. egyptian journalist and former editor of the newspaper who has been with us through the course of the last few hours. any surprise they said, yes he will die, you will die for your crimes? >> no surprise at all. personally i expected this because i mean the whole -- all the events that preceded the verdict actually showed the way to where the regime was going to
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take their case to. i mean it was very obvious right from the beginning that the regime wants to give an example of what is going to happen to anybody who tried to. >> i'm sorry i have been given wrong information. i've just been told, can i confirm this with you that the sentence is not death, it's life in prison, can i just confirm that with my editorial sources here? it is a life sentence we understand. >> well, as i told you before we get back to camera i told you regardless of the verdict whether it's going to be confirming the death sentence or life imprisonment the whole trial in my view shouldn't have been taken, i mean the whole thing shouldn't take place in the first place because there was no legal ground to make such a case.
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there is no case. >> that is an opinion of you and those people who believe he shouldn't have been put on trial, obviously others in authority at the moment believe the opposite and let's talk about the sentence. >> what about the law, are we talking about the law or are we talking about politics and he should have been tried. >> let me ask you this the fact that he has not been executed although we erroneously did report the sentence had been upheld and now has life in prison what difference will that make to those people still protesting about the regime changed the take over the coup call it whatever you like what difference will that make to their ability to speak out? >> i don't believe it will impact the opposition in egypt. i mean the opposition on the streets will not be impacted by any verdict coming down on mohamed morsi or his fellows.
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i believe that the position on the streets, egyptian opposition have taken such attitude not just for mohamed morsi but for the future of the country. we are talking about politics that have died have been murdered we are talking about total absence of politics, real politics in egypt and this is very serious and talking about the future of the country, not the future of mohamed morsi. >> the current president of egypt abdel-fattah el-sissi has been meeting leaders and angela merkel most recently and presumably heard because united states made its opinion known that there are other countries who felt the death sentence was unfair do you think the courts would have been swayed by what they heard from outside? >> yes i believe so. i believe so. i believe that the pressure is coming out from overseas and foreign purchase has played a
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key role in changing this penalty to life imprisonment and this is also so unfortunate, i would have hoped that the court wouldn't be impacted and effected by any political pressure either from domestically or externally. >> he has a chance still to appeal, am i right about that he can appeal against the sentence? >> theoretically yes. >> what about appeal on conviction. >> yes. >> just the conviction or the sentence? >> according to the law he still has a chance to appeal this verdict. this is the thee retinal part of it but does he stand a chance in any up coming appeal i doubt it. >> according to the muslim brotherhood itself and now a banned operation in egypt is it operating at an under ground level and does it have a large membership or is it fractured
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now? >> recently muslim brotherhood have been impacted seriously by the security blows that have been dealt by the regime against it and it is and can see it's a serious breach and serious division within the group itself itself. every one talks about all gods and new generation, the new generation which calls for the total change of the regime even if it takes using violence as a means to self defend themselves. >> we are looking at pictures on the screen of that courtroom and from what i saw earlier the judges have left and there is a crowd of cameramen both video cameramen and photographers as you can see holding up their apparatus in front of the prisoner's cages and one assumes
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they are getting pictures of the defendants there, life sentence for mohamed morsi, emafraid i can't give you very much information if any on the others there but mohamed morsi may still be behind those bars so we were talking about what is happening now. how did it get to this point? let's bring in gerald tan. >> reporter: mohamed morsi was sworn in as egypt's first elected civilian leader in june 2012 a leading member of the muslim brotherhood he promised a government working for all egyptians and a change from the days of mubarak but politically and economically the following 12 months proved challenging and some say there were more than 9,000 protests nationwide while mohamed morsi was in power and ap pointments said he was a puppet of muslim brotherhood and allowing social problems to turn into skrie -- crisis and fuel
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shortages were part of everyday life and he was praised for reigning in the military but criticized for actions that consolidated his power in november 2012 he announced a controversial decree in aiding him to push through a new constitution. >> translator: the revolution has happened and will not stop and judiciary is a respected institution along with loyal members and those who wish to hide within the institution i will be watching them. >> reporter: went on strike until mohamed morsi was forced to tear out the decree and actions sparked further protests and polarized egyptians and on june 30, 2013 millions lined the streets of cairo supporters to hold the rule saying he was legitimate because he had been voted in. opponents demanding his
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resignation calling his time in office a failure and mohamed morsi addressed the nation conceding he made mistakes. >> translator: how can we make sure our january 25th revolution and the achievement of its goals and protecting legitimacy is not stolen from us? the price of legitimacy is my life, my life. i want to take care of our people's lives. >> reporter: but for me egyptians it was too late the military agreed. on july 5, 2013 the man mohamed morsi appointed as defense minister abdel-fattah el-sissi led a coup to remove mohamed morsi from power, the interim authority launched the crack down on supporters and more than 1400 people were killed. mohamed morsi and many of his followers began a long wait in jail. gerald tan, al jazeera. so just to recap and i don't know if we can see the pictures we see here of some defendants
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in that egyptian court, that was the judge handing down his ruling but mohamed morsi previously sentenced to death over a prison break in 2011 and former egyptian president will not now face the death penalty. it has been commuted to life in prison. now, other news here on al jazeera houthi rebels arrived in geneva for u.n. brokered talks to end the war in yemen and delayed in djibouti and opened the talks on monday calling for immediate ceasefire. and we are in geneva and he sends us this. >> reporter: the u.n. envoy is going to have separate talks with the houthis and members of the yemeni government and not expecting them to have face-to-face talks because of the huge political divide but we
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do understand the united nations is willing to have both parties agree on some sort of a ceasefire to be implemented in the coming days so that international aid can flow into yemen. then they will start talk about the secureity arrangement and see if houthis will pull out of the area for the international community to have monitors on the ground. the third phase of this whole process would be basically to start talks about how to move forward, whether all the parties in yemen are willing to form a national unity government draft a new constitution and shape and agree on the shape of the state. u.n. envoy to talk to staffan de mistura and spokesman says he will tell senior officials of use of what are called barrel bombs is unacceptable and syrian state t.v. says they shelled
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government held areas in aleppo and at least 23 people were killed and more than 100 people were hurt. eight female students killed in bomb attack in iraq and two more injured by what is called an improvised explosive device and essentially a homemade bomb and the attack was northwest of baghdad. allegations surfacing now that success australian made payments for illegal migrants and talking about paying people smugglers and tony abbot will not confirm if the australia navy paid to take asylum seekers back to indonesia. bangladesh opposition party called a nationwide strike on wednesday in response to a supreme court decision to uphold the death sentence for the
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secretary-general and found guilty of war crimes said to have been committed in the 1971 war with pakistan. the u.n. says its own peace keepers have been sexually exploiting the very people they were sent to protect. according to a report about a third of the abuse involves people under the age of 18. diplomatic editor james base has more. >> reporter: in haiti where u.n. had a peace keeping mission for over a decade the report found u.n. soldiers had transactional sex with more than 200 women and money and gifts and baby care and medicine and electrical goods were handed over by the soldiers and for decades there have been allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by u.n. peace keepers and it's clear it's still going on. one victim of a rape in haiti ten years ago reported the attack to u.n. and never heard anything more. >> translator: children used to stand around the camp waiting on
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soldiers to give them bread and cookies so i sat there too and one of them called me over and i thought he was going to give me something to eat, when i got there he pulled me inside the barb wire and covered my mouth and raped me. >> reporter: secretary-general laid out policy of 0 tolerance but they say the system is not working and particularly anger by one section of the report that says staff with long mission experience stated there was a general view that people should have romantic rights. >> it makes one sad to think that the u nieed eded eded -- u.n. which is the gold standard for gender equality and for ending sexual violence around the world would even consider for a split second the notion that its romantic to have a relationship between a peace keeper and the civilian anyone in the civilian
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population they are sent to protect. >> reporter: i asked the spokesman for u.n. secretary-general why ban ki-moon doesn't name and shame the countries involved. >> it's his intention to do just that, to name the contingents. i think if you look at a continuum over the last few years the transparency has increased, it hasn't increased to a level probably we should all be satisfied with. >> reporter: on tuesday a major review of u.n. peace keeping operation, the first in a decade will be published and al jazeera has learned that too will raise the issue of sexual abuse by peace keepers and it will urge more accountable. james base, al jazeera, united nations. nepal reopened some historic sites that had to be closed after the earthquake and kathmandu is a popular tourist attraction and a unesco world heritage site. and good news in some ways for a country that has been seriously
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damaged and let's hear from kathmandu. >> an early 16th cent kri palace damaged badly by the earthquake and now 53 days after the earthquake the government says that this palace along with many of the other sites in nepal will be open for tourism and gets the gdp from tourism and the government is in a rush saying it's safe fortourism and some places have been untouched by the earthquake but the public has to be extra cautious and in some sites artifacts are still being salvaged and dangerous areas have been quartered off to keep people safe and some government officials went on to say this could be disaster tourism with an educational twist but as you can see artifacts which have been salvaged are left in the open
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exposed to the elements. these pillars and struts are over 300 years old and these are the things that conservationists say need to be kept safe. jeb bush is running, the former governor of florida officially launched his bid for the white house and bush republican and brother and father served as we all know as u.s. president and andy gallagher reports. >> may i present to you the next president of the united states of america, jeb bush. >> reporter: she no stranger to florida and served two terms as state governor and comes from the foremost political families and has not been governor for nearly a decade but apparently he has been watching from the sidelines and as anticipated now wants to take center stage. >> here is what it comes down to, our country is on a very bad course and the question is what are we going to do about it?
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the question for me the question for me is what am i going to do about it? and i've decided i'm a candidate for president of the united states of america. [cheers and applause] the 62-year-old promised a brighter future declaring america deserves boat tear but had a difficult few weeks and questions over whether he would have supported the war in iraq revealed an unprepared jeb bush and initially he called the questions hypothetical and days later he said he would not have supported the war knowing what he does now but none of that dampened the spirit of supporters. >> no other candidate as prepared and ready to take on challenges as we face as a country. >> choose jeb bush right now it's the time of jeb bush to become the president of united states. >> people rising up. >> reporter: it is reported that jeb bush has raised close to $100 million but plans to offer a pack for citizenship for
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undocumented workers may aid him from the party conservative voters. he is also a politician who could help the republican party win hispanic votes and business leaders in the latino community say they will be watching his campaign closely. >> he is one of several candidates obviously on the republican primary and know there are several on the democratic side and i think the more they enter the more conversation takes place and hopefully the conversations revolve around our economy. >> reporter: notably absent from the official announcement were father and brother and both former presidents and the posters do not carry the family name either and the bush legacy is something that could hold jeb bush back. over the past few weeks jeb bush continually insisted he is his own man but his name is both a help and hint -- hindrance but
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will win this 2016. this is a long road for jeb bush and a positive campaign and one of 11 candidates vying for his party nomination andy gallagher, miami, florida. >> all there at al jazeera.com. today florida's former governor officially entered the presidential race, a guy named john e bush. he's comfortable using his nickname jeb. over night. a big flashy presidential appearance was made in new york, her name is hillary, she's with respect known, with virtually 100% name recognition. a lot of o