at a time. al jazeera. much more on that and everything else that we have been covering on our website, the address on your screen is now al jazeera.com. caucus day in iowa, the american people get their first official say in this year's presidential election, they are discussing the next steps in fighting zika, a deadly series of attacks in damascus over shadows talks to end the conflict in syria plus. >> ladies and gentlemen welcome to diverse t.v. >> reporter: one hollywood award show dials up the diversity. ♪

this is al jazeera america, live from new york city and big night almost in iowa and we are told the first contest of 2016 presidential race after 18 months hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of those t.v. ads that you're probably a little tired of iowa people will take part in caucuses tonight and candidates criss-crossing the state in a mad dash to get the latest support and the poll gives hillary clinton a slight lead on bernie sanders but it's within the margin off error. republican and donald trump has 28% and cruz had 23% and in second place and we are live in des moines so we know the lineal vote is key in this election and i understand you ran into the

former secretary of state at a coffee shop, what is she saying to people in the last few hours before the caucuses finally get underway? >> she had one key phrase rochelle and she said are you caucusing for me tonight and walked to the coffee shop behind us and were it not for the fact she was with her daughter chelsea and folks and security you would thought she was anyone else and walked person to person and grabbed a cup of coffee and really trying to engage people because the young vote is so incredibly important to this event over here. one of the things she wanted to stress she told people she wanted to manage expectations. >> i'm not going to over promise and not tell you, okay, and give you whatever you want, don't worry about it. i want us to be smart and put us on a path to the economy and broad based prosperity.

come caucus for me tonight. >> i will. >> reporter: this is an area, a very hip area downtown des moines called the east village where a lot of young professionals, all the young families live so it's really a particular niche of the voter population that she is trying to target rochelle. >> talk about the undecided voters how significant a chunk of the voting population are they? >> pretty significant. so according to the latest polls conducted by the des moines bloomburg 30% of likely caucus goers and a full 45% of gop caucus goers have not decided who they will side with during the caucus's and this is critical and historical per s - perspective, a poll taken at the moment and likely caucus goers walking in the precinct showed 1-5gop caucus goers and 10-11%

of caucus goers still had not decided and until the very last moment there is still time to grab a vote. >> we know although iowa is the first and that means that everyone's eyes are on it because you and i doesn't mean you go on to win the presidency so explain to us the significance of iowa this time. >> it's so significant because this is some of that testate and we have candidates in the namely donald trump and bernie sanders who 10, 15 years ago would have been considered fridge and now they are doing significantly well and if they do well in the state this adds more legitimacy and momentum to their particular campaigns rochelle. >> al jazeera with gerald live in des moines and thank you very much, a senior reporter at the center of public integrity and appreciate it so much and undecided voters he was talking about what is in their mind

especially if you can read minds what is in the mind in the last few hours as it leads up to the caucuses tonight? >> you have to remember that a caucus is markedly different from what a lot of people would recognize when they go to vote which is a voting booth and something, a screen that you touch or a box that you check and an iowa caucus or caucuses in any state it's a public pronunciation of who you support. so if you are an undecided voter you are going to have an opportunity or other people are going to have an opportunity for that matter to try and convince you or conjole you to vote one way or the other or trump or cruz or rubio or sanders and hillary clinton which is as neck and neck as it gets so it's really sort of like the family dinner table where all your friends and family and neighbors will get together and have a big old political discussion before any actual votes are cast.

>> who is the make or break situation for or is it that for anybody right now? >> in iowa it's very difficult to see this as something that is going to make any particular candidate as we all know in 2008 mike huckabee won the iowa caucuses on the republican and rick santorum won in 2012 and were they the nominee of the republican party? no they did not and it's very difficult to sort of ascribe victory in finality for any candidate if they win iowa but definitely could break several candidates and thinking ben carson if he does poorly in iowa it's not looking good for him going forward, rand paul would be another candidate and jeb bush to some extent even though he has a super pac and a group that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money with $58 million supporting him and if he finishes 5, 6, 7, 8 in iowa you can't see a path for him going in new hampshire, south carolina and some of the

later states. >> which sounds so shocking to hear that there is not a path forward politically speaking for bush and we will have to see how that turns out and we will have to see what he was saying of why this particular election and caucus is very significant for someone like donald trump and bernie sanders because i believe on our show we are saying a few years ago no one would have ever thought the candidates could do this well and let's drill down on trump, if he wins the iowa caucuses what does that mean? >> definitely propels him forward and seen the polls for many, many months saying donald trump is at the top nationally, he is at the top in iowa, but again it goes back to this is the first vote, this is the true first test of whether a candidate is flereflexing those polls and polls are a snapshot in time and iowa caucus very

different than answering a poll question either on your computer or the privacy of your home when you are on the phone with people taking the polls and one has to wonder if someone is coming in as an undecided voter in the living room or middle school where caucuses are taking place through iowa and enough people say i know you are a trump supporter or leading to donald and look at this candidate, maybe it's better for you. expect there are a lot of conversations going across the entire state where some trump supporters who may have definitely answered the poll or ted cruz supporters will people will try to poll them in another direction in order to get them to vote for their guy. >> all right, well it took months and months to get here and it's tonight at 7:00 central time and thank you so much and join us for live coverage for the iowa caucuses and begin the

caucuses at 7:00 p.m. their time central and ours is 7:00 p.m. eastern, more troubles and negotiations to end the five year long war in syria and 70 people were killed sunday and i.s.i.l. claimed responsibility and ceasefire talks on hold and envoy organizing the talks wants to meet with opposition and met with the government on sunday and al jazeera james base has more now from geneva. >> both sides are here in geneva and there are talks taking place, there are no actual negotiations the formal proximity talks with both sides at the same time here at the u.n. have not started and i think from the opposition side there is a little bit of fudge here because initially they said they wouldn't come to geneva unless certain conditions that are in the u.n. security council resolution that created this process were met, the lifting of sieges, the stopping of bombardment and the release of prisoners, none of those things have happened, some in the

opposition want to keep this process going, they don't want to walk away and so for now they are having meetings but saying those meetings are about dressing thaez concerns rather than actually negotiating and they can keep this fudge going for a few dayings but as i say there are some in the opposition delegation particularly the armed groups that say we really need to see something concrete on the ground in syria or we will walk away so i think a few more days of this slight confusion and then i think they will need to be a clear decision from the opposition whether they are going to stay and negotiate or whether they are leaving. >> al jazeera james base in geneva and 20 are dead following a suicide bombing in afghanistan, officials say a man got in line with police recruits in kabul and then set off explosive near the gate of a police building and 25 injured and taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. world health leaders in geneva

for an emergency meeting on zika virus and will announce in any moment if it's time to declare an international health emergency and the discussions will be taking place and margaret chan ahead of who will be making the announcement and stay on top of that. in 20 cases important in 20 territories across the americas and we have more from san juan puerto rico. >> centers for disease and control prevention in atlanta say there are five confirmed cases in pregnant women in the united states of zika and they are travel related. the women did not get the zika virus in the united states, got it where they went to and c.d.c. monitoring the situation and here in puerto rico there are 19 confirmed cases but they are changing periodically and it's not solid and it's hour to hour and talked to someone in the health department here in puerto

rico and let's listen to what she had to say. with the introduction of any new disease to the area there is anxiety of what does this really mean and unfortunately for zika we don't have that many answers. all these things we know that zika is an old disease and it made its appearance to the rest of the world in 2007 in the pacific and then it really exploded. >> now the reason that health officials are so concerned about the zika virus in pregnant women is there is a potential correlation between rare defect that causes a small skull or deformed head in babies, not confirmed as to whether or not that is actually true, scientists are still looking at it and trying to figure it out but again there is no vaccine for the zika virus and that is why today in geneva switzerland the w.h.o. world health organization is meeting to talk about whether or not they want to ramp up the ex escalation and call this an international emergency a global response,

they is been criticized in the past for not doing things like this fast enough in 2014 with the ebola crisis that killed 11,000 people and now they are meeting and expected to convene tomorrow again and we will see what they say about the progress here moving forward with the zika virus but four million people can contract it in the north american territory by the end of this year alone, robert with al jazeera. a lot of questions surrounding the zika virus and 80% of the people don't know they have it, symptoms are fever, rash, joint pain or muscle pain and conjunctivitis and transmitted primarily through mosquitos but reports of people getting sick from blood transfusions and sexual contact. there are no vaccines or medications to prevent or treat zika and get rest and water and

a se ase aseed -- aspirin can be taken and they closed the out breaks of chipolte and two months since ecoli was linked to the restaurant and began last october and spread to nine states. back behind bars police catch three escaped california inmates and looking for clues as to how they got free in the first place and caucuses begin in iowa, hillary clinton is back on the defensive though over her e-mails.

hillary clinton is dismissing concerns over 22 e-mails deemed top secret by the state department and shouldn't be a problem and called out for political posturing >> this is very much like benghazi and the republicans will continue to use it, beat up on me, i understand that, that is the way they are but after 11 hours of testimony answering every single question in public which i requested for many months i think it's pretty clear they are grasping at straws. >> not clear if e-mails were top secret at the time they were sent or classified afterwards. the last batch of e-mails about 7,000 pages will be released later this month and clinton is running neck and neck with bernie sanders in iowa and the caucuses are just the first in the nation and different in the

way that voters meet and decide and al jazeera mary snow reports. >> reporter: yes, it's well-known that iowa is the first in the nation to weigh in on the presidential race, but less well-known are the quirks behind its caucus system starting with how it became such a draw for white house holefuls. >> we have won a great victory today. >> reporter: in 1972 it was only by chance that democrats in iowa scheduled their caucus earlier than everyone else. 1976 republicans in the state joined them. >> i'm running for president. >> reporter: jimmy carter did well that year and went on to win the white house iowa had the first in the nation's status and drake university's dennis gold ford said with it comes a process that is unlike primaries where voters cast ballots over the course of a day. >> let the causes you are there

on sunday night and spend a couple hours and hope there is no blizzard, the car starts and there is nobody sick in the factually. >> reporter: public buildings like churches, schools and libraries are used by caucuses in the states 1681 precincts. in remote rural areas a caucus might be held in a private home. once inside rules are different depending on the party. republicans have the more straightforward process. after hearing from surrogates for candidates they write their choice on a piece of paper, votes are counted and reported to precinct officials and for democrats it's more complicated. >> people physically have to stand up for their preferred candidate so in this year's three-person race they will say everybody in favor of hillary clinton go though that corner and sanders go to this corner and o'malley go to the other corner and everybody who is still undecided or undeclared go

to another corner then these are called preference groups. >> reporter: in order to be viable a preference group has to have a certain percentage of support of those present at the caucus. if it doesn't meet the threshold the group is dissolved and others win over the members. >> and it will go over and if somebody is in a preference group for say hillary clinton sanders people may say come on you don't really support her and you really want to support bernie so there is lots of horse tradings like that, it's really interesting to watch. >> reporter: but iowa's system has its pitfalls and iowa had egg on is face in 2012 when party leaders declared a member of the republican caucus. >> first place we had governor mitt romney with 274 votes. >> reporter: only to announce two weeks later there had been a miss count and rick santorum was the actual winner and many argued that mistake cost

santorum all important momentum and this year iowa is making sure that history doesn't repeat itself. mary snow, al jazeera. on the democratic side barack obama, john kerry and al gore all won iowa and went on to win the nomination, obama's iowa win in 2008 established him as a frontrunner and republicans did not fair as well and they went on and lost the nomination but in 2000 bush won iowa at the nomination and of course the white house and helping three inmates escape a jail in southern california arraigned today and now all three of the men are back behind bars. >> reporter: the fugitives who escape the orange county jail are behind bars and focusing on potential conspir tears. >> investigating who may have helped in the escape and he has an english as second language teacher is accused of helping them with the planning phase and

investigators say her relationship with one of the suspects went beyond the classroom. >> she visited him several times and developed a relationship with him and it seems to be more than just a casual friendship relationship and so she started doing his bidding to some extent. >> reporter: the prisoner's eight days of freedom ended outside a whole foods on saturday that is when a man spotted a stolen van carrying at least two suspects and alerted them and this went out on police radios and he was arrested about a block away from the van with witnesses nearby. >> lay down, hit the ground, get on the ground, he did. he did. and they just captured him, handcuffed him, put him in the wagon and got the other one on the other side there. >> reporter: police later arrested jonathan who was hiding in the van. >> van at 5:00 can you stand by with the van, there might be

another person in there. >> reporter: the third escape person surrendered on friday. >> we told you we would capture the individuals. >> reporter: broke out of the orange jail on january 22 cutting through a steel grill and going through ropes made out of bed sheets, al jazeera. federal investigators are expected to release more details today about that fatal amtrak crash from last year, the may 12 derailment in philadelphia killed 12 and 8 people hurt and it may record black box data and transcripts with the interviews with the train's engineer. diverse cast of characters. >> change is inevitable so might as well wrap your mine around it and let's go. >> reporter: celebrates diversity in the oscars so white controversy.

justice department today plans to announce an investigation into the san francisco police department. this probe comes as the department faces scrutiny over the shooting death of mario woods in december and called racial attention and called for the chief to be fired. and this is a win for diversity a big change from what we will see at the academy awards and roxanne has more. >> ladies and gentlemen welcome to diverse t.v. >> reporter: with the words it summed up the tone of saturday

night sag awards and won two trophies two weeks after oscar voters decided not to even nominate him. queen latifa had best actress for playing bessie smith in hbo-bessie and said viewers want to see more diversity. >> it's important and paramount and change is inevitable and wrap your mind around it and let's go. >> reporter: act dress took home trophies for orange is the new black and accepting the comedy ensemble of the cast. >> this is what we talk about when we talk about diversity, race, color, creed, sexual orientation, i mean thank you so much. >> for performance by an actor in a leading role the nominees are. >> reporter: result of sag award are in stark contrast with

nominated no actors of color this year, for the second year in a row, sparking a debate across the industry and on twitter with the hash tag oscars so white. >> to some extent i have to say i think the academy is getting something of a bad wrap on this particular issue and people may be surprised to know basically in the last 15 years about 15 percent of the acting nominees have been people of color, that is not great given we have a country that has 35 or 40% people of color but that is not miniscule. >> reporter: during the sag award ceremony they responded with sag so black, one person tweeted i'm glad i wasn't the only one thinking sag so black, it's the academy that is out dated and lacks diversity. sag so black and i love it. >> we have become a society of trending topics, diversity is not a trending topic. >> davis and latifa nominated a

couple years ago and beast of the southern wild, selma, "12 years a slave" and best picture in the last few years so there is progress being made, i'm not saying it's great but there is progress. >> reporter: voting for the sag ended on friday more than two weeks after the debate erupted over lack of diversity in the academy awards nominations, roxanne with al jazeera. a new project on kick starters is bringing science fiction to your garden and check out this gardening kit for a level stating bonzi plan and the project raised more than $560,000 on kick starter, that is seven times the original goal which was $80,000 and creators say it works with magnets on the basin side the sponge mothball where the plant grows and they are 200-500 each, they are pretty cool and thank you for joining us, i'm rochelle kerry and let's go to al jazeera english covering the latest

talks in syria, keep it here. >> this is al jazeera. judge hello there i'm al jazeera. , syria's opposition takes part in its first officially session, at peace talks in geneva. a