supported by u.s. air strikes make gains against isis. and in our signature segment, a georgia town's struggle to decide whether to allow a mosque to be built in the face of brutal isis attacks overseas. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's whye ar your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york, ari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good eveng. thanks for joining us. north korea today calledhe obama administration's clams that it was behind the cyber attack on sony "slander" and threatened to retaliate unless the united states agrees to conduct a joint investigation about the matter. its comments were included in a statement read on state- controlled television. american officials say the attack was similar to others carried t by the north koreans. chinese authorities have detained a 74-year-old american missionary, peter hahn.

the incident occurred sterday near china's border with north korea. saying hundreds of christian missionaries have been forced out of china since august. the united states has freed four more detainees from the military detention center at guantanamo bay, cuba. the four, all from afghanistan, were returned home after being released late yesterday at the request of the new afghan president, ashraf ghani. the u.s. has freed 23 prisoners from guantanamo this year. 132 remain imprisoned there. new htilities between israel and hamas. a rocket fired from gaza landed in israel yesterday, and israel responded by bombing what it called a "terror site" in za. it was the first israeli air strike in gaza since a truce went into effect in august. back in this country, the naonal labor relations board has filed formal complaints against mcdonald's and some of its franchise owners. the government alleges they fired or intimidated employees for taking part in union organizing and in protests

demanding higher wages. the complaints will be considered by administtive law judges beginning in march. another major security breach, this time at staples. the office supply chain says hackers apparently stole the financial information of 1 million of its customers throughout the summer and fall. they gained access to shoppers' names, credit card numbers, card expiration dates and verification codes. in milwaukee, there were dozens of arrests last night after protesters blocked traffic on a major highway during rush hour. the demonstrators were protesting the killing of an unarmed black man by a white police officer earlier this year. the officer has not been charged. the dead man, 31-year-old dontre hamilton, had a history of mental problems. he was shot 14 times. and an internal investigation revealed that the f.b.i. routiny mihandles, slabs or ses evidence. according to the "new york times," investigators examined me than 41,000 pieces of

evidence at f.b.i. offices across the country and found probls with nearly ha of them. the f.b.i. is now alerting prosecutors across the country that these errors may need to be disclosed to some defendants, potentially undermining criminal cases. >> sreenivasan: in recent days, pro-western kurdish fighters, backed by americanir per, have forced isis fighters in northern iraq to retreat from territory they seized last summer. fomore about this, we are joined by anthony cordesman of the center for strategic and international studies in washington. cordesman previously served in the state department and was the director of intelligence assessment in the office of the secretary of defense. >> sreenivasan: so what happened in the past few days? >> what happened is that a combination of syrian and iraqi kurdish forces, backed by u.s. and other airpower, opened up a

line where yazkis-- these are a minority group who have been stranded on a mountain range for months-- could actually move out along the ground. now, this was impoant not only because the yazdis for the first time were given a secure ground route to escape, but there are estimates up to 8,000 kurdish troops were involved, that they were able to make effective use of air support, that this is the largest operation so far as an offensive ground-air operation against the islamic state. >> sreenivasan: so strategically it's iortant because they are able to maintain control of a region? >> well, it's important because they were able to operate a significant ground force with air support. we need to remember that again and again, we've been told it's going to take two to three years to create an effective combination of kurdish, iraqi, and sui iraqi forces that

could actually liberate the parts of iraq occupied by the islamic state. this is not a decisive victory. the islamic state is still making some gains in the south. it hasn't affected the situaon in syria. there still has been no really effective operation by the iraqi ground troops, except in a refinery area in beiji. these are very eay days in a very long but low-level struggle. >> sreenivasan: speak of iraqi ground troops there, have been reports there have been almost mass desertions in some sources from shiite forces that signed up. they were crucial in order to take back certain gains isis has made, but is iraq slipping again from maintaining that moral and maintaining that troop force that can hold off isis? >> we have to understand there are an awful lot of reports here, and some of them are more accurate than others.

there were a lot of shiite militias involved. these are not forces that can really stay on the ground. they had only limited capability to push islamic forces out. they were helpful in defense. the core is the iraqi army, frankly, collapsed under the previous prime minister, a comnation of corruption, ad leadership, almost everything that could go wrong did. we are w trying to salvage some nine brigades out of a force that once had 46 brigades. >> sreenivasanall right,so ose happening in the mosul area now? >> well, the fact is iremains under the control of the islamic state. the air campaign, efforts to ut off the illegal export of petroleum-- all of these have weakened the islamic state. there is really a problem with power. almost all of it has to come from local generators. there are problems with water. there are no real jobs in the rea, and, oddly enough, it's

the iraqi central government that is paying for the schools that the islamic state now supervises. so you have some elements of a state from the islamic state but the situation in mosul and the areas it controls seems to be steadily deteriorating. >> sreenivasan: anthony cordesman joining us from washington, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: and now to our signature segment. a new pew poll shows that americans feel much less favorably toward muslims than they do towards jews, catholics and evangelical christians, and the u.s. justice department told the newshour weekend yesterday that a significantly higher percentage of discrimination ces it is investiting involve sites where muslim worship. the newshous wiiam brangham cently visited a rural georgia town that approved the opening of a mosque, but only after a large public outcry and the

threat of a lawsuit. >> reporter: nasser omer is an accountant, husband and father of two grown kids. this indian-american is also a devout muslim, and, as such, he tries to get to his nearest mosque as often as possible to pray. >> for muslim men, it is mandatory to pray five times a day in congregation. that is the reason we need to go to the mosque. >> reporter: omer lives in kennesaw, georgia, a rural community of about 30,000. it's just over 25 miles northwest of atlanta, a quiet town, one where confederate flags fly freely. there are at least 40 churches in kennesaw but no mosque, so omer-- one of perhaps a hundred muslims in town-- has to drive to the neighboring town of marietta where there are a couple of mosques. how far is the nearest mosque for you to go to now? >> it'about ten miles from here, and it takes about 30 minutes from my home to the mosque, one w. after the prayers, again, 30 minutes to come back. >> reporter: a few months ago, omer and a few other muslim families decided they'd like to

open their own small mosque in their own town. ey fnd this strip mall wch had multiple vacancies, the pre was righ- and so they filed the paperwork to open a small storefront mosque right here. this pentecostal church had done something very similar a f months bore. to help them with the process, they enlisted a local muslim community leader, amjad taufique. he'd helped set up another mosque in marietta. so, why does kennesaw need a mosque? >> well, i mean, muslims try to make it five times a day to the mosque, and, in this day and age, it's a little difficult to be there five times a day. but usually, if you are close enough-- five, ten minutes' drive-- you can go there early in the morning prayers, in the evening prayers at least. and you build up the community. >> reporter: at first, the application process was routine. the zoning board okayed the idea, but, as word got out about the proposed mosque, some opponents showed up in force at the next planning commission meeting. cris eaton welsh, who thinks the mosque shou be approved, sits on the kennesaw city council. >> from my understanding, there

were over 200 people that showed up to the meeting, and there... >> reporter: and that's unusual? >> very unusual, you might have three people, five people. >> reporter: is that right? normally three people show up? you had 200 this time? >> 200 people show up this time, and it was: "youan't let this in our community, they're going to practice sharia law," and lots of fear, and, i believe, misunderstanding in the community. >> reporr: it certainly didn't help that the day before the city council was to holtheir next meeting to discuss the mosque, the islamic militant group isis released another video showing the beheading of another american, this time aid- worker and former u.s. army ranger, peter kassig. welsh says this ongoing violence by some muslims in the middle east made any moves by a muslim group in georgia seem suspicious to some people in her community. >> and they're seeing it every single night on the news, and... and i think that instills... >> reporter: seeing isis and al-

qaeda, beheadings... >> isis and al-qaeda, uh-huh. >> reporter: and so they thought that this was going to be an outpost for isis? >> yes, absolutely. >> reporter: over the last couple of days, we've been asking people around town what they think of the proposed mosque, and the reactions have been split about 50/50-- half the people for, half against. the interesting thing though is the people who are against the mosque were very reluctant to talk with us abo it on-camera. people who support the mosque, howeve they were very eager to talk >> you know, they have every right to worship where they want it really doesn't bother me. i mean, hope it goes through for them and, you know, i pe it's successful. >> i don't have a problem with the mosque coming to town. i think that this country's built on religious freedom, and i think that we should respect that. >> i do have prejudice... prejudices like everybody else that's been formed with all the 9/11 and everything that's been going on. i'm a live-and-let live type of person. and as long as people are good citizens-- like i try to be-

it'skay with me. >> i don't want sharia law in georgia. >> reporter: we were able to track down one critic who'd speak publicly. chad legere works at a fie- proofing company and lives in a eighboring georg town. he says from what he's seen of groups like isis and al qaeda, he can't trust the intentions of any muslims. do you know the people who are behind this mosque? i mean,hey say, "we've been living in this communy for decades, we've raised our families, gonto schools, and we've never shown a trace of violence." does that example not convince you that they might have different inteions than you think? >> like i said, prove it. go on record condemning isis. i haven't seen it. and definitely not on a idespread level. y are christians running around scared? why did they... why did they need to put a mosque inside a shopping center? what's the next step? wal-mart's? we going to have a mosque at every wal-mart? >> what they've seen in the news media is a small, you know,

group of people acting upon themselves, calling themselves muslims and doing the things that are heinous crimes. and we as muslims in america, you know, definitely do not condone those acts atll. we condemn those acts. we are against those as much as anybody else. >> reporter: you mentioned that you condemn these acts, and this is one of the things that we heard from people is that they feel that the american muslim community doesn't do enough to condemn the acts of isis and al qaeda. what is your response to that? >> i'm really, you know, trying to do this for past so many years. it's just don't know how else can we go out and reach out to the community and tell them that we've done that and continue to do that. there are web sites which gives links after links after links where muslims, not only in the united states of america but all around the world, have condemned these acts. and we continue to do that because this is really not islam. >> i'm a practicing catholic.

you know, i don't understand their religion, but i know that our founding fathers meant it when they penned the constitution, and that means that whether i agree with it or not, they've got the right to be there. >> reporter: but city council member welsh says the anti- muslim vitriol only got worse when the city council had to finally vote to approve or deny the proposed mosque. welsh, who by day is a chiropractor, wife and mom of two young girls, says the day of that vote was a scary one. >> the monday of the vote, around 4:00 in the afternoon, i was here in my office, and a police officer came over in the middle of myatient hours and said that she needed to speak to me. and i was like, "i'really busy." and she said, "no, i have to talk to you now." and my facebook information, my children's pictures, my office phone number, my home address, my office facebook page had all been released onto a hate site. and sending me some very graphic torture pictures of isis and

saying, "this is the kind of thing that you're trying to bring to our community, what kind of person are you?" and at that point, i got a little rattled. >> anti--islamic protesters demonstrated outside kennesaw city hall. >> reporter: the police escorted welsh over to city hall for the vote. protesters had already been gathering, many from out of town, and they were happy to speak out. >> to me, it is a threat to my freedom, my children and everything i own. and that cludes my life and the life of my children. >> they're training their kids how to do terrible things to mericans, and we're trying to stop it. >> reporter: that night, the city council voted down the proposed mosque, 4-1. welsh was the only one who voted in favor. the city council didn't give any reason why they rejected the mosque proposal, and none of the council apart from wsh would talk with us. the mayor of kennesaw has said that the debate had nothing to do with religion. instead, he said it was based on concerns about proper zoning, parking and traffic congestion. but atlanta attorney doug dillard says those can't be the sole reasons.

>> so parking, traffic, hours of operation, all that kind of thing can be dealt with, but they cannot be, in and of themselves, a reason to deny the application. >> reporter: dillard is building a lawsuit against kennesaw on behalf of the mosque group. he represented two other mosques in two other georgia towns in recent years who'd been denied permits to build or expand, and, both times, he helped the mosques move forward. dillard says kennesaw, just like those other towns, is violating both constitutional and federal protections aganst religious discrimnation. dillard says just look at that pentecostal urchhat was allowed in that other strip mall. heays kennesaw can't greenlit a christian chch and then turn around and deny the muslim mosque. >> i think the reason for the opposition is that this is a group of muslims. they don't want them to wship in kennesaw, period. they don't care where you put them. >> reporter: but do you have any evidence that that's the case? >> only through their actions having approved christian and opposing the muslims, and if you look at the opposition-- "terrorists go home"-- it's

pretty evident that the opposition is uninformed and is putting forth an argument that's not lawful. >> reporter: on top of dillard's proposed lawsuit, the u.s. justice department told the newshour it was also looking into the situation in kennesaw. given the immense blowback and that the mosque was voted down, do you wish you had not stepped out and publicly declared yourself in favor? >> i don't like the publicity, i don't like the spotlight, i don't like any of that. i still think it was t right thing to do, for me. and i would still do it again. >> reporter: facing a possible lawsuit and a possie federal investigation, the kennesaw city council last week made a dramatic turnarod. the four members of the council who'd voted no asked that their votes be withdrawn and changed to yes votes. that made for a unanimous approval of the mosque's permit.

if nothing changes, supporters of the mosque say they'll drop their lawsuit and hopefully soon begin work preparing the site. >> sreenivasan: you probab heard that during his news conference yesterday, president obama took the apparently unprecedented step of only taking questions from female reporters. >> leslie clark. roberta ravmenton. >> sreenivasan: it might be a very small example of how the president, often criticized for his caution, is now doing things his own way as he begins his last two years in office. for more, we are joined by peter baker, white house reporter at the "new york times." so is ts press conference an example of this new president obama that we're seeing in the last six weeks? >> yeah, that's a good question. the truth is i was in the rm, had my qution readyo go, and i didn't even notice that it was only women being asked. the truth is, there are a lot of strong, powerful, and incredibly talented women in the white house press corps so it's hardly

an unusual thing to have them ask questions of the president. but what's interesting, of course, is the president is coming off a period where he's supposed to bin lame duck mode,aving lost rather decisively the midterm elections. instead he cut a climate deal with china. he issued an immigration order that is pretty sweeping and the dig diplomatic opening with cuba. he wants to show he's not a lame duck and we'll see how far he can take it. >> sreenivasan: what are the calculations, at least from the white house, that you're hearing that went into this? clearly it wasn't a surprise that he had all these things lined up, and was it dependent on how the midterm elections turned out? >> each of these, of course, is a different thing. he had a trip to china scheduled for after the election, regardless of how the election turned out, and they've been negotiating the climate deal for quite a while. this cuba deal has been in the works for 18 months. i don't think it's dependent on the election. i do think the eltion, though, at least according to his aides, has given him a sense of feeling liberated not just from the

campaign but even from his own democrats. unhe's been taking on his own fellow allies in congress on a couple of occasions sensthe election. he no longer feels wedded to them in that he feels he has to worry about their election chance because the campaign is over. he can take on republicans when it comes to thing like immigration. he can take on the democrats when it comes to things like the tax deal and spending deals they have been working on. it's going to be interesting to see how he takes this next two years, whether this is a new president obama, whether there is a temporary moment, but it's certainly been a fascinating few weeks. >> sreenivasan: and this isn't too dissimilar with what president bush did in his last two years right after a pretty bad election result then, too, midderm. >> after his second midterm, president bush came out having lost both houses of congress and took away a message exactly the opposite of what the winners of that election thought it was. they thought it was a mandate to get out of iraq. he doubled down. he sent more troops. he changed the strategy. he said we're going to take one more st at winning this thing

and i don't care if there is a political price to be paid. the violence went down substantially the next year and he was ableo leave behind an iraq at the end of his term that looked a whole lot better he had in front of him at the end of at midterm. he didefy, in eect, the result of that midterm. it is what some people thought was the result of that midterm just as president obama seemsto be taking his own course forward regarding of what the midterm elections would have him do. >> seenivasan: how much of this is politics and how much an interest in what your personal legacy will be when you're president >> i think if you get at this stage of your presidency, you're six years done. the largest legislative achievements are usually behind you and start to look for other ways to make a difference. you start to think about how history will view you. of course, president obama talked for a long te about reacng out to rogue actors like cube anorth korea, iran, and so forth. cuba seemed to be an opening that he could, in his view, anyway, would make a difference that will stand in the history books. >> sreenivasan: peter baker

frothe "new york times," tnk you. >> thank you, happy holiday. >> this is pbs newshour weekend, saturday. >> sreenivasan: you probably haven't given it a lot of thought, but, for centuries, music largely consisted of monks singing hymns with a single melody-- what's known as monophony. experts believed music changed about 1,100 years ago. but, now, for the first time, after a chance discovery, they actually have proof of it. martha fairlie of itn reports from london. ♪ >> reporter: written more than a millenium ago but groundbreaking at its time, this two-part chant was a cutting edge composion. it is the earliest known example of polyphonic music, where more than one melody is sung together. ♪

and its discovery on a 10th century manuscript at the british library has excited music historians. >> what's fascinating is we know people were singing in two different voice paths, sometimes three at this time. nobody thought to write the music down. and this is the first time we found an example from such an early date of the music actually written down. >> reporter: the score had been overlooked and partially obscured by an official library stamp, but it was discovered by a cambridguniversity ph.d. student while he was an intern at the libry. and in st john's college chapel, the ancient sound has been revealed once again. ♪ monks near dusseldorf are thoughto have penned the chant to german patron sainboniface, starting a choral tradition that still survives 1,100 yers later. ♪

>> sreenivasan: some more news before we leave you tonight. the obama administration reportedly has asked china for help preventing north korea from launching cyber attacks. cuban leader raul castro today thanked president obama for opening a new chapter in relations, but he said communism there would endure. the c.d.c. is reporting widespread outbreaks of the flu in 29 states. this year's vaccine does not protect against one prominent strain of influenza making the round but health experts say get vaccinated anyway. i'm hari sreenivasan. e you backere tomorrow night.

captioning sponsod by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> male announcer: travels & traditions with burt wolf is brought to you by the bmw european delivery program, a way to experience the roads that bmw was made to drive. bmw european delivery program. and by globus. for over 75 years, globus has been showing travelers the world. [carol of the bells playing] ♪ [we three kings playing] ♪ >> wolf: christmas is celebrated in cities throughout the world, but what takes place in the austrian city of vienna