something actually has your name on it. >> reporter: for now the project is still in the theoretical stages. gabriel elizondo, al jazeera, new york. ♪ global markets eke out of marginal gains despite more dismal economic news coming out of china. the fate of nearly 5 million illegal immigrants now in the hands of the supreme court. michigan's governor preparing for his state of the state address amidst calls that he step down over the flint water crisis. >> i will not be at the academy awards, and i won't be watching. >> reporter: and the big names sitting out this year's awards

in protest. ♪ this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm del walters, triple-bith gains right now for the dow despite word from china that the economy is slowing. beijing saying growth fell to 6.9%. while stocks in shanghai are up, they are now plunged to their near historic lows in recent weeks. meanwhile the imf predicting slow growth for china, and they say that will have a huge impact globally. but overall, they say it is a mixed picture, also saying despite the slowdown, the global economy will improve. >> the outlook for the coming year is a modest increase in the rate of economic growth around the world, and modest

improvement in advanced economies, a little bit higher growth in the euro area, marginally higher in the u.s. as well, and the beginning of a recovery in some of the -- those emerging and developing economies that are contracting very sharply this year. barnaby phillips is live right now in london. barnaby can you tell us how the u.s. and the global economy rsz fairing in this latest report? >> reporter: as you said, del, it's a very mixed picture, and if you wanted to be pessimistic, you can take things away from this report, if you wanted to be optimistic you could take things away from this report. yes, the imf is saying there will be modest global growth over the next two years, but they are also scaling down their estimate of that growth by .2% compared to what they were saying only as recently as october. modest growth in europe, in the

united states, growth of 2.5, 2.6% in 2016, 2017. bad news for china, as you were saying. bad news for brazil, a contraction there of 3.5% predicted in 2016, which will really weigh on the whole latin america economic area. for europe the imf said the refugee influx is now a major economic challenge that has to be tackled. >> we have been trying to get handle on how bad things are in china. what over all is the report saying about china? >> reporter: well, what it says is that what happens in china is going to have major international consequences. it predicts growth in china staying at over 6%, over the next two years. as we know most countries in the world would be delighted with that, but compared to the kinds

of double-digit growth that china has enjoyed, that does amount to a sharp contraction. what is the international impact? well, it compresses commodity prices. it hurts poor countries in places like africa that have been selling minerals so lucrative to china over the past decade, it also has an impact on the global oil price. the majority of countries in the world are not significant oil exporters. they are oil importers, and provided the benefits of low oil prices, low gasoline prices get passed on to the consumer, and that's a big if, well, then, low oil prices can be very good for countries and people in many parts of the world. the shanghai stocks today closing with a 3% gain, and that

helped the other asian markets bounce back. the european markets are about to close. right now germany, london, and france are all up. let's go to patricia sabga. patty what do you make of this report. >> reporter: the imf usually states the painfully obvious. they are usually the last to adjust their forecast, so think of it as a button on consensus. so many economists have been lowering their global growth for sometime now. the imf have done this for the third time in under a year, they have lowered their forecast on global growth, and that largely has to do with people adjusting their view of what is really going on in china. because china being the second-biggest economy in the world, it appetite for raw materials slows down, and that hammers the countries like brazil, and so many of those

african countries that barnaby was just talking about, and that has a ripple effect. >> so people are going to be confused. they are looking -- at the dow with triple-digit gains. why is that happening? >> this all goes back to market psychology, and of course the fact that we have seen market selloff so sharply since the start of the year. the news out of china today was not as bad as everybody expected. and investors are gloming on to the hope that wow, maybe this means china will engage in more stimulus. one thing that leapt out of me was the fact that you had a slowdown in fixed investment. that could have a knock-on effect, if you will, it could cause unemployment in china, and that would sap consumer spending

power. and beijing is trying to engineer this painful turn around from a manufacturing and investment driven economy to one powered beconsumer spending. and this is a very difficult task. >> oil prices once again, up ticking this time instead of going in the other direction. what do we make of this? >> okay. again, don't get lost in the day-to-day gyrations of the oil market. because, again, a lot of this can be sentiment, it can be looking for an opportunity to move in and get gains in certain places, but really the fundamentals of the oil market are no good. right now the world is awash in cheap oil and now iran has given the order to start pumping 500,000 barrels of oil a day into that supply, and the two things that would bring oil prices up, is you would have to

see massive build-up in demand. that is not going to happen. but you also have to have consensus to start cutting output. you have a serious rivalry within opec between saudi arabia and iran. and then you have to get everybody else on board, and as i have been saying, del, all you have to do is look at what is going on in syria, and the competing agendas, and that would give you some indication of how difficult it would be to get all of these players on the same page. >> is there a cause and effect? >> when you are taking a look at deficits, it's basically are you taking in more than you spend. so we have to look at tax revenues. the big question mark over the u.s. economy is how much of an island of stability is it?

earlier we saw some found from an imf official. and he talked about moderate growth, incremental, you know, things doing incrementally better. so the u.s. economy is chugging along, but not at a break-neck pace now. and we saw that retail sales were down in december. that was not very positive. we want to see consumer spending go up, but the big question is to what degree is the u.s. economy insulated from this global turmoil, because there are various channels that we can sleep in. >> is there a global fund of money that can pump money into the world markets to buy us out? >> the imf bails out countries. if a country is in a crisis, then they'll pump money into it. but usually there are very

painful strings attach. >> patty thank you very much. the supreme court saying it will review the president's actions on immigration, the actions to allow up to 5 million illegal immigrants to work in the u.s. this case now coming at the height of the presidential election, the justices could hear the case in april and a decision could come in late june. lisa why is the court taking up this case right now because it is so highly charged? >> it is indeed. the justices signalled that they wanted to take this case. they have even added a constitutional question. as you said this is an executive order signed by the president more thoon a year ago. it would have given some sort of temporary status to nearly 5 million illegal immigrants. these are mainly parents who

have children who are u.s. citizens. they would have been allowed to apply to work and get some other benefits. but texas and 25 other states sued, arguing that the president couldn't do this. a lower court did stall it. that's how we have ended up now at the supreme court. we have a statement from the texas attorney -- general, he said: on the other side, we have heard also from senate minority leader, harry reid: we will know of course this summer, which way the court goes. >> and lisa i have to ask the

obvious, but how is this going to effect the presidential race? >> certainly this is a very hot topic. we have started to hear from some of the candidates today. hillary clinton saying she hopes the court upholds the president's actions, says it will allow families to stay together, remove the fear of deportation. marco rubio saying the court should rule against the president, but saying even if it doesn't, if i'm president i will end this executive action. the court will rule in the height of the presidential race as well, and i'm sure it could energize one side or the other del. >> we understand that the president is talking about this, but as we await for that tape -- in fact this is the tape right now. let's see if there is sound. >> we had the opportunity to work together at the g-20 summit in turkey, and then had our

first bilateral meeting in manila at a-pac and [ inaudible ] events, i'm -- i emphasized at that time, the extraordinary gratitude the american people have for the strong and steadfast alliance between our two countries. i have said before that the frie friend ship between the united states and australia is also based on -- >> okay. we were hoping, lisa that the president might have something to say about the court's decision today. but have we heard anything as to what they think about the supreme court's decision to take up this case? >> well, they wanted the court to take up the case. they were pushing the supreme court to take up the case, because obviously if the court rules in favor of the administration, there is still

time left for mr. obama to put this into effect. but they are arguing that the states have no standing to bring this case. they did not want to bring in this constitutional issue, the court did decide to do that, so the white house cannot be happy about that, del. >> lee so thank you. the largest lbgt group in the country has now backed hillary clinton. many in the lgbt community say they fear if a conservative president is elected, last year's supreme court ruling in favor of gay marriage will be overturned. and if you logged on to twitter this morning, this is what you saw. users unable to share updates on their smartphones or computers. it's significant for the 300 million users, to use the site

as a source of global news. michigan's governor delivering his state of the state address tonight. why for many dealing with the water crisis in flint, is too little too late.

iraqi officialings -- officials are searching for three kidd naps americans. gunmen dressed in military uniformed carried out those kidnapping in brood daylight. no group has claimed responsibility. the hostages are the first

americans to be kidnapped in iraq in several years. the u.n. says between january 2014 and october of 2015, the u.n. says 19,000 civilians in iraq were killed. there is a new study out that finds that man made heat put in the oceans has now doubled. it sound that humans put as much heat energy into the oceans as we have in the 132 years before that. more national guardsmen are heading to flint, michigan today to help hand out thousands of bottles of water so residents don't have to drink the contaminated water coming out of their taps. andy roesgen has more.

>> reporter: michigan governor rick snyder will give the state of the state address tonight at the state capitol where he is expected to apologize again for this water crisis in flint, but he will be getting an earful. the red cross is in full-fledged crisis mode, knocking on doors seeing who needs bottled water. and the mood here is as bitterly cold as the weather. >> i'm not sure what to make of it, and i'm pretty sure i can't say on tv what i really think of it. but we're very afraid. we don't know what damage has been done to us. >> reporter: governor snyder apologized again, but accused hillary clinton and others for what he said were attempts at politicizing the crisis. >> and i said it was outrageous that the governor hadn't acted

and within two hours he had. >> reporter: regardless, residents are looking for answers. >> we don't know what to do. the governor has given us this and that, but we're still here, we're still hurting, and we still need a lot more help. >> reporter: as he people scrambled to get cases of water from the national guard, they are still feeling the effects. >> we start itching, you can't keep your skin oilily, you will start itching. >> reporter: the national guard set up in fire stations arrange the city, can't even keep track of the number of cases of water it has doled out. >> i was very surprised at the amount of bottled water on the ground, the amount of filters, how fast they are getting here. and how fast they are going out. >> reporter: this is a flint resident so moved by the crisis, he just joined the volunteers on monday. >> people can't even leave their

homes. and some just don't know where to go. >> reporter: residents are wondering how long this crisis will go on. >> sitterable. we live in america. >> reporter: protesters will be at the state capitol tonight to demand governor snyder resign. some even calling for a criminal prosecution. in the meantime tens of thousands of cases of bottled water are still going out every day. indiana is worried that a bird flu outbreak could hurt its economy. adding 156,000 chickens to the thousands of birds that already have to be euthanized. it is already effecting ten chicken and turkey farms there. indiana has a $2.5 billion poultry industry. muslim workers have to decide whether they change the way they pray or lose their jobs. the company says it's about

money not religion. >> reporter: each day in between assembling snowblowers and lawn mowers at plant in wisconsin, 53 muslim employees would stop twice each shift to pray. but on january 14th, the company said while employees will still be allowed to use prayer rooms in the plant, they will only be allowed to use them during two company-scheduled 10-minute breaks. >> i have been 35 years in america, and i have never heard a company that is not allowing its employees to pray five minutes. that is absolutely discrimination on its face. >> reporter: muslim employees say designating a set time for their prayer doesn't work for them, since under religious rules the time changes every day. >> if someone tells you pray on your break, and the break time is not the prayer time, it -- it would be impossible to pray. >> reporter: the ceo says he

heard complaints from non-muslim workers that muss limbs at the plant were getting special treatment. he also says allowing the extra two breaks for shift would mean shutting down production for those breaks, which could cost the company a million dollars every year. 43 of the 53 muslims said they don't plan on returning to work. the employees say they were essentially fired. >> no one was terminated. we were showing them what their options might be in the event that they voluntarily chose not to come back to work. and up next on al jazeera america, a growing list of actors say they are skipping the oscars and not just because of this year's nominations.

♪ take it easy >> music fans around the world remembers eagles cofounder glenn fry. he died at the age of 67 from complications after surgery. he not only started that legendary band but also had a successful solo career. he and the rest of the eagles were unaddicted in the rock and

role hall of fame in 1988. there is a growing call for a boycott of the oscars. for the second straight year, there is not single african american nominated. the buzz isn't about who is nominated but who isn't. the frustration over the lack of diversity now leading to a full-fledged boycott by some of the biggest names. spike lee and jada pain ket smith both saying they won't address this year's ceremony. >> begging for acknowledgment or even asking, diminishes dignity. and diminishes power, and we a dignified people, and we are powerful, and let's not forget it. >> i am the wrong person to have discovered this. >> reporter: her husband was passed over for his role in

concussion. along with idris elba, in beast of no nation. spike lee saying: his film was also passed over. ♪ >> the critically acclaimed straight out of compton did get one nomination for its all-white writing team, even though the film grossed $200 million at the box office. >> the fact that the motion picture industry like so many other institutions is very slow to change, not a very diverse institution. you have a situation where essentially, white males are dominating the -- the industry. >> reporter: and the president of the academy also expressed frustration over the lack of

diversity. promising to take action to alter the makeup of the group's membership. >> we are working inside the academy in order to make sure we have inclusion and especially in the area of membership. >> reporter: but that may not be enough some oscar night when a lot of potential viewers say they will boycott watching the show. >> the cincinnati reds say they will induct peat rose into their team's hall of fame. the hits leader continued to gamble even when he was seeking action. rose was given a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 for betting on the games. thanks for watching. i'm del walters in new york. the news continues live from london, next.

♪ u.n. describes the levels of violence against civilians in iraq as staggering, with 18,000 deaths in less than two years. ♪ hello, i'm barbara sarah. you are watching al jazeera live from london. just weeks after a deal was signed in morocco, libya has a unity government. losing steam, global concern as the world's second largest economy posts its lowest growth in 25 years. desperate