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tv   News  Al Jazeera  October 6, 2015 10:30am-11:01am EDT

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this year's nobel prize for physics. they have been studying the movement of mysterious tiny particles which are called nutrinos. plenty more for you on line at aljazeera.com. ♪ a hospital was mistakenly struck. we would never intentionally target a protected medical facility. >> the commander of u.s. forces in afghanistan calls an air strike that hit a hospital a mistake, the tough questions he is facing this morning on capitol hill. washed away in south carolina, the danger now is downstream where rivers are rising and dams are under pressure. and engines are now being
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blamed for the disappearance of a ship during hurricane joaquin. officials are still trying to figure out what happened to the 33 people on board. ♪ this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm stephanie sy. the commander of u.s. forces is on capitol hill this morning revealing more about a deadly air strike on a doctors without borders hospital in afghanistan. general john campbell faces some hard questions today. mike viqueira is live in washington. mike, general campbell, addressed this head on in his testimony. >> reporter: you are absolutely right, and the shifting explanations over the course of the last 72 hours since that tragedy in northern afghanistan in the battle for kunduz, the
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hospital being struck by a gunship, killing 22 individuals, including 12 patients, 12 staff and 10 patients, including three children in northern afghanistan. this testimony was originally intended to talk about the draw-down in u.s. forces and president obama's time line. taken on new urgency in the wake of that tragedy. and general campbell clarified some of the statements. he said the afghans requested the air support during this battle but that has to go through a rigorous chain of command, and this is campbell's way of saying the u.s. is taking on more responsibility, more than he has lead on in the last couple of days. >> to be clear, the decision to provide fire was a u.s. decision made been the u.s. chain of command. a hospital was mistakenly struck. we would never intentionally
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target a protected medical facili facility. i must allow the investigation to take its course. i ensure you that the investigation will be thorough, objective and transparent. >> in the meantime, general campbell says he has directed more training to try to ensure that something like this does not happen again. >> mike, doctors without borders released a statement ahead of the testimony. what are they saying? >> well, more scorn from doctors without borders. they are calling this a war crime. the administration rejects that. they say they are going to wait for the investigation before casting blame. however, in a statement out this morning, doctors without borders says in part, nothing can excuse violence against patients, medical workers and health
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facilities. this attack cannot be brushed aside as a mere mistake or inevitable result of war. and they are calling for an independent investigation. >> yeah, they say that they had given the u.s. the coordinates. mike, general campbell also talked about the obama administration's dision on the remaining u.s. troops in afghanistan. what did he have to say in that regard? >> reporter: in a way this is amazing that this is going to be reopened by the obama administration. president obama as recently as march said this is final, that all u.s. troops were going to be out, save those protects the u.s. embassy in kabul, which the end of 2016. now that is being rethought. the afghan army simply cannot stand up by itself. general campbell said as much this morning. he said they require brood
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support, and is concerned about their long-term viability, and now the president is reconsidering troop levels in afghanistan post 2016. the "washington post" reports as many as 5,000 could be left in the country after that date. stephanie? >> a lot of news coming out of that testimony. i know you'll keep us updated. thanks, mike. russia says it will consider expanding its air strikes from syria into iraq if it receives a request from baghdad. and russian air strikes have hit isil targets here palmyra. nato is again denouncing russia for violating turkish air space. moscow calls it an accident. >> i call on russia to avoide avoidest -- avoid escalates tensions with the alliance. i'm also concerned that russia
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is not targeting isil, but instead attacking the syrian opposition, and civilians. >> moscow says saturday's air space violation lasted just a few seconds and was due to poor weather. the kremlin says it is looking into claims of a second violation. the skies are clear in south carolina this morning, but the threats are not over. officials are closely watching dams across the state. more than a dozen have given way since saturday, and officials are concerned that more could burst, sending water flooding communities downstream. this morning hundreds of roads and bridges remain closed in the wake of the storms that killed 13 people. robert ray is live in columbia south carolina, robert are homes there evacuated? >> reporter: they are. mandatory evacuation in this neighborhood, but some of the residences are trickling back in
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to see some of the damage their homes have endured. a lot of these houses we are hold were literally -- the water was all the way up to the roof top. this is gill creek. it runs for quite a while, but this is not supposed to be gill creek. gill creek is about 200 yards to my left, but it has now taken over the streets here. unfortunately there was a bam breach just a couple of hours ago. that is not too far from here. so some of the neighbors are concerned that water from the breach will even add to the amount that is on the ground here. let's listen to what one resident said earlier. >> this is devastating for columbia. this has been one of the worst things we have seen in the entire time i have lived here. you have people who are displayed from their homes, people who's businesses are wrecked and i don't know how
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long it will take to overcome this. most of these houses here on the lake have at least 3 or 4 feet of water in them. >> reporter: stephanie, the thing is too, about columbia, the state capitol, is there are over 300 road closures still. the infrastructure just can't handle what occurred over the weekend here. officials still telling residents and people to just stay off of the streets if they can. national guard, 2,000 national guard members are rolling around here to make sure things are safe, and that people are not driving into -- you know, what used to be a residential area and are now rivers. because as we know vehicles can easily be swept away in just a few feet of water. and i can't stress this enough, but this is a neighborhood, this is not a river. a river shouldn't be here right now, steph.
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>> are you getting a sense of when things may return to normal. we see the skies have cleared there. presumably the waters will reseed. what about the water supply and power outages? >> reporter: yeah, there are still power outages all over columbia. there's no power in this neighborhood. yes, people are not supposed to to be drinking the water still. there is a boil order. you know, we done know what is in this water right now. raw sewage, bacteria. it may look beautiful, sunny skies, first time we have seen that in a week and a half, but nothing is back to normal here, and frankly, officials can't really tell people when they are going to, because it's flash flooding still. at any moment one of these rivers or streams could have a breach and the second that happens, we're in another flash
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flood situation. it's still minute-to-minute scenario, but unfortunately, there's no real answer as to when people get back to their life, and certainly those people that have had flood damage in their homes and businesses, that's not going to happen any time soon, steph. >> i can only imagine the devastation that awaits those residences. robert thank you. let's bring in kevin corriveau. kevin you heard robert talk about the dangers of those dams breaking. how serious is that right now? >> right now, it's very serious, because the rain only stopped yesterday. the rain was inland hundreds of miles, and it is going to take a long time for that water to go towards the coast. it was about 5:00 am when all of any rain ended for north and south carolina, so now we're talking about nice conditions, and those will last we think for the next seven to ten days. so that is very, very good news
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there. what is not good news is all of these flood warnings still in effect for south carolina as well as north carolina, and still around columbia, what is going to be happening is we did have record-breaking rain in columbia, and the region, that water has to make its way down towards the coast. it is not just going to be soaked into the soil. so what is going to be happening is we're going to see these cresting rivers slowly make their way down towards the southeast, we'll see some crest at major flood level today, some crests tomorrow down here, and it is going to take probably down towards the coast, by the weekend we'll be seeing major flood stages down here. so that's how long the water takes to make its way down towards the coast. these are some of the three major rivers that we're watching right now. some of the flood gauges have been wiped out, so we don't have some information across this region.
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for today, temperatures will be fairly good. as i said, steph, over the next couple of days, things will be beautiful. we have two weather systems coming, but we think they are going to bypass and not make an effect on south carolina. so that's good news. >> yeah, that is a relief. thank you. the national transportation safety board is launching an investigation to help in the search for a cargo search missing in the bahamas. the coast guard found the remains of one crew member monday in a survival suit. >> it's a major marine casualty, so the ntsb has an agreement with the u.s. coast guard, and we'll being looking at all of the factors that have effected the safety. what happened, why it happened, ultimately to prevent this from happening again. >> officials say the ship suffered some sort of mechanical
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failure leaves it stuck in the path of hurricane joaquin. no sign of the other crews. the white house says president obama is considering a range of gun-control options, following the mass shooting at a college in oregon. >> the president is under no illusions that there is a law that can be passed that can prevent every incident of gun violence, but there surely is something that congress can do to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and others that shouldn't have them. and that will have a corresponding impact on the frequency on these kinds of incidents. >> president obama plans to be in roseburg, oregon on friday, and meet privately from the familiar list of he is shooting victims. palestinians call for a day of rage as tensionsest indicate in the occupied west bank.
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and the european union ruling that could change the way u.s. tech companies do business.
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tensions are high today in the west bank where israeli security forces and palestinians clashed this morning. hours ago israeli officials destroyed the homes of two palestinians accused in attacking on israelis. four israelis were killed in shooting and stabbing attacks last week. israeli forces in turn killed
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four palestinians during violent protests. i spoke with the former israeli console general. >> when i said no one wants escalation, i meant the decision makers, neither in israel, nor in the palestinian authority, whether these decision makers on the palestinian side, at least have control over how events unravel, is difficult to say. right now, if we look back five six years, and say what has prevented terrorism from escalating, what has prevented clashes, skirmishes -- clashes, i'm sorry -- skirmishes and so on, it has been clashes between the israeli security forces, and the palestinians, the u.s.
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palestinian security forces. and that is no longer the case. so while decision makers are adverse to any escalation, you are right, there are people on both sides who think this should -- this should be answered more forcefully, and that will obviously and almost inevitably lead to more bloodshed and escalation. >> the palestinian authority, abbas has condemned the violence. israel's prime minister said he would use an iron fist against attackers. prosecutors plan to announce details into their investigation into corruption at the united nations. the probe has lead to charges for several officials. the case centered on john ash, the former president of the u.n.
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general assembly. james bayes is live at the united nations. james this seems to have come out of nowhere. what details do you have? >> reporter: we're getting more detai details right now, and we'll get more in the next hour about these allegations about john ash. it's a one-year job, one of the big offices in the u.n. system. it's claimed that he, while he went about his official business, went on some visits and some engagements in return for bribe money. a total of more than half a million dollars in bribe money. they are also looking at all of his earnings and exactly what was in his bank account, and it is also alleged he underreported his income to the tax authorities by $1.2 million. it's claimed that some of the money was used for family holidays to build a basketball court at his home, and to buy
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rolex watches, so very serious allegations against a senior former u.n. official with a very important job, allegations also against other figures, including a billionaire chinese property developer who it is claimed paid some of these bribes to john ash. >> who brought these charges? was it the new york prosecutor? and who is john ash, what was his role there? >> it was an fbi inquiry and the charges will be brought by the attorneys office in new york within the next hour. this is a mainly ceremonial role, but important, because the u.n. general assembly represents all of the countries and territories of the world that are members of though united nations, 193, and he was chosen for the role of president because he had done a lot of service here at united nations
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for antigua, his country. he was here last week when all of the world leaders were here, treated then as a dignitary. our understanding right now is he is now behind bars, stephanie. >> james bayes at the u.n. on this developing story. thank you. a european court's decision today could make it a lot more difficult for american tech companies to do business with europe. it ruled that european law fails to protect its citizen's personal data in the united states. the ruling is a victory for this man. he has fought for years to get the european law thrown out. >> in the beginning we were just putting facts up on the website, what we got from facebook, the little complaints were drafted over two nights, and suddenly you are in this whole privacy
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debate. >> reporter: the case eventually ended up in the european high court, the 27 year old student argued that his data protection rights were violated when facebook transferred his information between european and u.s. servers. companies are allowed to transfer that data under a so-called safe harbor deal. but it has been ruled that the provision does not adequately prevent officials from peaking into the information. >> mass surveillance of all of my content surely is not protecti protection. >> reporter: before the european court's ruling the u.s. mission to the e.u. issued a statement that said:
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but more than 3,000 companies, including apple, google, and microsoft we lie on the safe harbor agreement. the ruling could force tech companies to significantly change the way they do business in europe. the reality over fantasy sports leagues.
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schools in one texas district are scrambling to replace a u.s. history textbook this week, after a student told his mom it referred to slavery as immigration. >> it has africans and african american as workers, implying pay as if we had come here willingly and were paid to do our job. >> his mother posted this video on facebook pointing out the error. the school district is now removing the textbook from its classrooms. the publisher, mcgraw hill responded, saying it would change the book's digital version only. an employee for one of the biggest fantasy sports site has admitted to winning money. >> stephanie here is the crux of the issue. daily fantasy sports you use an
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imaginary pool of dollars to buy real life players for your lineup. people who do well, often are good at identifying undervalued players. in this case critics think this employee knew which companies were under valued based on his company's data. he admitted to inadvertently releasing player data before the start of week three slate of games. he won $350 at a rival site that week. a spokesman say there is no evidence that employee used that information to win that prize money. both sites released the following point statement on monday, quote, both companies have strong policies in place to ensure that please do not misuse any information at their disposal and strictly limit access to company data to only
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those employees who require it to do their jobs. the incident has raised concerns about the fairness of the loosely regulated industry. the chances of other personnel profiting is slim. >> their main concern is probably, you know, the concern of players throwing games or different things like that, and that certainly is reduced by fantasy sports where individual players are selected as opposed to team outcomes. >> reporter: but government officials are increasingly skeptical. new jersey governor has called for an investigation into whether these fantasy sites are actually unregulated online gambling. >> how is it any different from sports betting? >> now that you can't go a day without seeing these ads it has lead to a lot of people looking up saying what is going on here. >> reporter: the two companies
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have temporarily banned their employees from playing on oversights. they were already barred from playing on their employer's sites. it should be noted that the value of this type of insider information and questions here is not clearly defined. there are plenty of sites that evaluate data for free each week. >> yeah, it may be tough to trace the root of where he got his information. >> exactly. all right. we are getting a stunning new look at a momentum time in space travel. nasa has released thousands of photos from his apollo mission to the moon. they had cameras strapped to their chests during their trips to the moon. the apollo archive includes some never-before seen shots.
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thanks for. watching, i'm stephanie sy. the news continues next live from doha. >> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ hello again from doha, everyone. this is the news hour on al jazeera. isil has said it is responsible for two explosions in the yemeni city of aden, which killed 15 soldiers. also ahead. the top u.s. commander in afghanistan has called the air strike on a hospital in kunduz a mistake. protests in this the occupied west bank as palestinians call for a day