this top religious scholar says the stampede at the hajj was beyond human control as the death toll rises. you're watching al jazeera live from london. with me, david foster, and also coming up in the course of the next 30 minutes. it's standing room only as the catholic pope presides over mast in philadelphia. the final stop on his u.s. tour. nigeria's military is making gains and taking back control

from another town of the armed group boko haram. preserving our oceans. scientists working to reduce the impact of harmful fossil fuels on the world's water. hello. we begin in saudi arabia where the country's most senior religious scholar says thursday's stampede during the hajj in mecca was, in his words, beyond human control. saudi arabia says the death toll has risen to 769. another 934 muslims were injured during the annual pilgrimage. saudi arabia's king has ordered a view on how the hajj is organized. some blame the stampede on road closures and poor management. we're in mecca, and omar joins me on the phone with these words from the mufti suggesting that

this was an act of god in many ways, does that mean the investigation ordered by the king of saudi arabia is going to have less power now? >> reporter: no, david, it doesn't. he believes about the safety in this city. however he. >> omar, we're going it -- we'll try to get a better line through to you while i just give our viewers the thoughts of this mufti saying, quote, as for the things that humans cannot control, you are not blamed for them. you are not responsible for what happened. this is the sheikh that said the

interior minister is not responsibility i believe for what happened and he tried to deflect so the criticisms of the kingdom. he said many are envious for the kingdom for the religious leadership and economic and the cohesion of members. as omar was suggesting this is simply a religious opinion or an opinion from a leading religious figure and will not affect the inquiry, the wide-ranging inquiry that has been ordered by the king of saudi arabia, king solomon. we don't seem to be able to get pay proper connection with our correspondent. we will try to get him back later on. in the meantime, let's move on with other news. the pentagon has admitted that u.s.-trained fighters in syria handed over ammunition and equipment to a rebel group linked to al qaeda. awe unit of the new syrian forces vended 25% of their u.s.-issued pickup trucks and ammunition to the front, which

washington says is a terrorist organization. the equipment is part of a $500 million program aimed at training 5,400 rebels a year to fight syrian government forces. in july the first group of 54 u.s.-trained trained fighters and atracked and the second group was sent to syria last week. the announcement of the turnover of weapons, of course, was a major disappointment, but not exactly surprising. this is not the first time that these forces have had to contend with al nus ra and offense tyms that weapons moved into the area do have to be handed over to certain groups for safe passage. any solution has to have offense stepping down. if we want to accept syria is a divided country, perhaps there's

something else. the longer assad is there and the longer it's divided. we began the program about the 750 people was not the fault of authorities there. i was talking to omar on the hajj and working as a reporter there as well. we couldn't hear much of what you were saying at that point, omar. i know the line is much better. you were discussing whether the words of the mufti will dilute to some extent the inquiry that the king has ordered. >> reporter: i don't think so, david. he represents the highest religious authority in the kingdom, however, the ultimate power lies within the hands of king solomon and abdul who ordered a full vifgs and a review into all the hajj planing

to further. to me i read into this like he's not quite happy with what happened. now, in terms of what the grand mufti said i think what triggered a statement like that first is that as muslims we do believe in fate and destiny, but that didn't mean we shouldn't invest a tragedy like that. i think what prompted him to say such a thing, he was trying to defend saudi arabia in the wave of criticism that triggered after the stampede. there were calls by iran and other religious scholars to have the hajj organized by a number of islamic states. so i think that's why it triggered him saying what he said. i think the investigation is going to go ahead, and today there was a press conference by the saudi health minister saying that the investigation is going to continue and it will be transparent and declared within a few days. >> very good to actually hear

what you were saying. that's omar there in mechanic kae. pope francis is in philadelphia for the final leg of his u.s. visit. he began by celebrating mag with 1600 people and called on the church to place a greater value on women, though he has rejected the idea of ordaining women. pope francis will attend the world meeting of families conference where he will speak in support of catholic families. more than a million people are expected to attend on sunday. >> translator: during these days of the world meeting of families, i would ask you in a particular way to reflect on our ministry to families, to coupling prepares for marriage and to our young people. i know how much is being done in your local churches to respond to the needs of families and to support them in their journey of

faith. >> tom ackerman is with us live from philadelphia. wherever we see the pope going, he is celebrating in some religious fashion, but at the same time he's also delivering some kind of social message. >> reporter: yes, indeed. this mass that has just included the archbishop of philadelphia said that -- concluded by saying that we would name this city francisville if it con found the rest of the north america. it's a testament to the popularity of this pope with the crowd which which may amount to well over a million people by the end of day. the pope's words were directed at praise for the generation and generation of christians of catholics in this area who have ministered to the poor, to the immigrants, to the sick, and

even to the prisoners. that points up his next stop, because from this church the cathedral basilica of st. peter and paul, he will proceed to a seminary where he will meet with 150 seminarians. that points out one of the challenge of the catholic church in the united states, that tee klining numbers of priests, they've been reduced to numbers by about a third over the last couple of generations. right now the average age of a priest in the united states is 63. so picking up -- and as a result, of course, many churches have actually closed as well as schools. so the chang challenge for the catholic church in this country is how you deal with that, and of course one thing is to recruit more priests but also to get more of the people volunteers here. you can see hundreds and hundreds of civilians you might call them volunteers who have taken part in this world family

meeting to deal with the crowds and to basically deal with all of the logistics. really he was calling upon those people, the rank and file of the catholic church, to do more. i think we'll be hearing more about that when he talks at his next -- next occasion, next public occasion in a couple of hours in independence hall where the u.s. declaration of independence and constitution were adopted. he'll be talking about religious freedom, immigration, and welcoming his panics. the hispanic community of the united states. that is one of the principal points of this pilgrimage and this mission, you might say, to the united states. david. >> tom ackerman there in philadelphia. thank you. china's president xi jinping has promised $2 bill kwon for a fund to help fight poverty in countries.

he made the announce during his first ever traes on the united nations as president and said beijing would step up investment in the least developed countries by at least $12 billion by 2013 -- 2030. >> translator: looking to the future. china will continue to take a right approach to justice and interest putting justice before interest and join other countries in the concerted efforts to realize the agenda. china will establish an assistance fund with an initial pledge of 2 billion in support of developing countries. china will he is continue to increase investments aiming to increase the total to 12 doll billion by 2030. she's one of 200 leaders who afwreeed to work on new targets to improve the target of life worldwide. these are stainable goals covering pofrt to pollution. no poverty is in fact the first of the 17 goals.

zero hunger, that is another. the u.n. saying 1 in 9 people around the world is hungry. education is a priority. 103 million young people cannot read or write and more than 60% of them are girls. there are plans to do something about climate change. while improving life underwater is another major target, our environment editor nick clark in the u.k. has more on what that might mean. >> reporter: plymouth, a city that lives and breathes the ocean. it was the home port of famous explorers like sir francis drake. from here they left to discover to settle new lands from australia to america. the fishing boats still come and go and bring to market changes. >> the reliability of the cycles we thought we understood has changed. so when you used to predict

certain seasons of the year you would see certain spies in abundance, that went out the window. >> reporter: these days they're exploring what lying beneath. week in and week out fair weather or foul, a team from plymouth marine laboratory monitored waters of southwest england and feed the results into a global network of data. to get to grips with what's happening with the world,ists understand the difrn about natural cursing change and change brought on my humans. they achieve that after long-term, consistent observations. these waters have been monitor for 100 years. temperature changes, currents and plankton levels and now how climate change is affecting marine species. >> this observatory is quite unique with the number of parameters we're measuring. we're looking at sea beds as well as life in the water.

that's very comprehensive for the ocean and it's very good at standing things very naturally you and how they might change climate change. >> a crew is dispatched to conduct a maintenance check on an own to her monitoring ocean conditions. it takes data below and above the surface every hour. >> i think over 100 years we noticed .8 degrees centigrade temperature-wise in the seas around plymouth above the baseline average of 100 years. one of the main things that they do is allows us to take out the national variations to look for long-term trends. >> back on shore the plymouth marine laboratories are looking at the kind of intense co2 concentrations we might face in the future and what the effects are on organisms. >> if it's spending more energy dealing with the effects, it has less energy available for growth and reproduction. those kind of changes can affect

the success into the long term and also the success of generations to follow. >> the work being done by laboratories like this across the world may not provide a solution to climate change, but it will help us get to grips with what lies ahead. nick clark, al jazeera, plymouth, united kingdom. stay with us if you can here on al jazeera. we have this coming up. we explain why a law designed to unite iraq's militia and army with the hope of defeating isil appears to be stalling. we're off to jap's underworld where authorities are moving in on tokyo's criminal gangs. the only way to get better is to challenge yourself,

and that's what we're doing at xfinity. we are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. and this includes our commitment to being on time. every time. that's why if we're ever late for an appointment, we'll credit your account $20. it's our promise to you. we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around.

these are your stop storieses. saudi arabia says with the hajj stampede it was quite beyond human control. he made his remarks as authorities revised the death toll upwards to 769. the pentagon has admitted that u.s.-trained fighters in syria handed over equipment to a rebel group linked to al qaeda. the pope is in philadelphia and has been holding a mass for the final part of his u.s. tour. now croatia is a country that recorded its largest daily influx of refugees across it's border since the european crisis began. nearly 10,000 came into croatia on friday. it lifted the blockade and let

cards and trucks pass through from serbia on saturday ends the week-long standoff. the refugees are going through croatia after hungary built a fence along the border with serbia to block the path, and since the croatian border was blocked, refugees went south to use a different crossing point in a place called strovinski. they have 65,000 refugees have crossed into the country in the past ten days. hungary's policy of arresting and criminalized refugees through a new court system may be in breach of the geneva convention. we have the report from a court near the hungarian/serbian border. >> reporter: many refugees are by now settle inning western europe, but for others it is this place deciding their future. in the courts we weren't allow to film the man sitting opposite the judge.

the judge read back to him the journey he had described to the police. he's a syrian refugee. he left his wife and kids behind and got himself smuggled in on his way to germany. they said the smugglers said it was okay for him to go through a hole in the fence. he was promptly arrested under the new laws and is finished up in this court inside a police compound. 200 cases like his already and almost 1,000 more waiting to be heard. the establishments of this drill court comes against the backdrop of any number of countries and human rights organizations denouncing hungary's new fence as deeply immoral and illegal as well. hungary by contrast would argue that through the courts it can lend the fence a source of moral and legal legitimacy. is any of it legal? this lawyer represents an afghan

criminalized in the courts and thinks that the rules the judge follow agree understand by expert or parliament or ruling party are deeply politicized and in breach of the 1951 convention on status of refugees, which demands they are free from risk. >> translator: i didn't put the la before the parliament. the opposition had no chance to challenge the decree. it was the government's decision to expelling refugees to serbia is safe. in court he was told to stand. the judge said you will be expelled from hungary and sent back to serbia. the defense lawyer had to explain his options to him, but in this room things like pity or sympathy are nowhere to be seen. hasan is a criminal first and a refugee second. all the while hungary extends the fence across croatia into romania. soon the border with slovenia as well. the courts will no doubt be

extremely busy. laurence lee, al jazeera, southern hungary. a member of the armed group is to be prosecuted for destroying historic buildings in timbucktu. he's the first suspect to be charged with destroying monuments in the unesco world heritage city. through being attacked at a number of religious sites in mali in 2012, which they said were worshipped as idols. a number of houthi rebels were killed in yemen after a rocket attack. the district commander and s sergeant was killed on friday, and the saudi-led coalitions continued the air strikes against houthis in the capital sanaa. people living there are searching through rubble after an attack. saudi arabia has been fighting

houthi forces in yemen for six months. dozens of soldiers have been killed where more than 4.5 million people have died in ground fighting and air strikes. nigeria's military is making gains against boko haram in the north of the kubt country. banke is the latest town to be retain on friday. we have this update from borno state. >> reporter: the military says it is gaining ground every day on boko haram. it has captured one of the last major towns in the hands of boko haram, and it's conducting mopping-up operations driving from the capital to the front line. it's easy to see the relief on the faces of many nigerians coming up here hundreds of kilometers have driven for 16 hours nonstop to be here. people are relieved, and people have started to come back to their fans, coming back to their homes.

some places are safe and there are safe runs of people that fled their homes because of attacks of boko haram. right now the knee jeerian military says that obama fighters surrender in the hundreds because of the pressure being applied on them by the nigerian forces and from neighboring countries, from cameroon, niger and chad as well as this republic contributing to the effort to crush boko haram. the cleef of army staff said they're gaining much more on boko haram through intelligence and also the level of cooperation between these countries to defeat boko haram is very high and they foresee that probably in the next one month they will end the insurgency in northeast nigeria. iraqi politicians will talk about a law designed to bring national unity and hopefully defeat isil. the national guard is

controversial. we have the report from being. baghdad. seven weeks ago iraq ray prime minister announced the battle to retake ramadi city from isil forces, but the security forces haven't taken the capital of anbar province. also in that time a crucial piece of potential legislation designed to unite iraq's militia and army with the hope of defeating isil has stalled. the spokes man of the militia says the proposed national guard is ineffective and will destroy iraq and not unite it. >> translator: we want the national guard to be based on a national, federal, and elitist force to answer only to the commander in chief of the armed forces, the prime minister. we have a clear rejection to the law in its current form in which we don't want a national guard force divided by the air national guard's provinces. >> if the bill is passed if

current form, it could lead to the division of the arm by sect and promise. there are plenty of sign as cross baghdad, but there's a real fear that the national guard law could mean a kurdish, a sunni and sthee ya army that can face each other. there are political problems as well. sunni politicians say the shear ma lishgs ya are oppose the law because they want to take over the army. others are skeptical it will be discussed because of the political positions of the various parties. >> translator: sunnis believe that the military establishment is owned and run by the shia camp, and therefore they need for her force to stand up. they promote sectarianism instead of nationalism. it might lead to a political clash in parliament. they have taken advantage of iraq's political differences and

have held onto territory for over a year now. the syrian conflict and the chaos it's causing in the region benefitted the armed group. iraqi politicians know it needing to defeated but they're divided on how to achieve that. police are confident that two men arrested in connection with with a deadly bombing in bangkok are responsible. they were taken to the scene of the crime on sunday. one suspect reenacted events and 20 died in the explosion at a shrine. singapore is taking legal action against five indonesian companies it blamed for causing high level of air pollution. the city has engulfed by thick fog for a month. it happens in most years because of the dry season and caused by forest fire used to clear land there. japan's ukuza gangs could be

going through a shake up. there's turf wars reported that dominate part of japanese society. rob mcbride reports. >> reporter: in the shadowy world of the okuza, it threatenings to the biggest upheaval in years, and it centers on this man. he's the boss of jap's biggest crime syndicate, the yamaguchi gumi, being released pr prison several years ago. unhappy with the way he's running the organization, it is reported that a rival faction has now broken away. this writer has studied the gang for more than 40 years. the fear is it could have an impact on other groups given the fracture yus nation of the underworld right now. >> translator: the ukuz a's influence on politics and the

economy has been diminishing. the split is happening in this kind of climate and there's a danger it could lead to a turf war between the gangs. >> part of the problem is the link between organized crime and the larger economy. heavily dependent on the economy is the heyday is in the bubble years of the 198 0s time is tough with a number of members falling to an all-time low of less than 60,000 and more introduced to make it tougher. any companies now found to be doing business with organized crime gangs face being prosecuted and publicly named. it is part of a countrywide attempt by law enforcement to crack down on the gangs, but he's seen previous efforts come and go. >> translator: the police have said they're going to troy

destroy it and it shows how slopary the methods are. >> despite the ukuza's current problems, it shows they have a in that case for survival. all the news and background, aljazeera.com. >> for some reason as she was working this is what he did. withwolf whistles). the more peep that hear the story, the true story, no matter if you know nothing about the south, you knew that was long, you thought that child was brutalized that way. before you have reconciliation, you have to