she is the first german national winner after stephi graff. delegates from syria's main opposition group are travelling to geneva where the u.n. has opened talks that it hopes will end the war there. the opposition is yet to commit to direct negotiations with the government. even so the developments are giving a glimmer of hope that peace efforts may actually be getting off the grounds for the first time since two earlier rounds of talks collapsed in 2014. the conflict began almost five years ago and it has killed at least 250,000 people. millions of syrians have been forced to flee. many of them like the refugees you see here have risked their lives to reach europe. the war has allowed islamic state in iraq and the levant to capture territory and has drawn in the u.s. and russia as well as regional powers. our correspondent joining us from geneva where those talks are taking place. i suppose it is a progress of sorts that these talks are even taking place right now. >> reporter: yes. we've seen the talks start but only with one side, with the

she is the first german to win a tennis grands slam title since stephi graff in 1999. as always, there is more on our website at aljazeera.com. there are all the stories we're following there. count down to caucus day acknowledge the course of this country's political future. just three days before the iowa caucuses and the democratic and republican establishments are scared to death with donald trump leading the gop and bernie sanders on the verge of an upset against hillary clinton, party insiders are in trouble. tonight we'll talk about how the final days of iowa campaigning debating and not debating might affect iowa caucus-goers support. democrat and presidential nominees. but we're going to begin with the republicans and this debate last night in des moines, an event donald trump boycotted after a spat with fox news. texas senator ted cruz was running second in the polls had the most to lose and delivered a flat, poor performance. analysts say florida senator marco rubio and former governor jeb bush did better. here is a lock at some of the highlights. >> this is

it postponed her effort to tie stephi graff's record of 22 grand slam wins in the tennis era. serena's next attempt to tie graph will come in may at the french open. now, let's go to jeff skeverski with more in sports. >>> cha-ching, eagles offense lineman lane johnson is the highest paid right tackle in the nfl. he signed a 6 year contract worth 6 # million dollars. -- $63 million. 35 is guaranteed. johnson is under contract until 2021 he is being groomed to take over at left tackle or jason peters. for now, he believes big things are ahead for the eagles. >>> it's definitely optimistic when we have great young players here and veteran leaders like celek he is a warrior. there will be changes moving forward, but i think we have a new taste in my mouth and we'll do good things moving forward. . let's hope so. earlier in the week, eagles locked up brent celek and zack ertz. he called it a dream come true, he wants to retire here. he got the news on his birthday. >>> itself so excited i probably had tears coming out of my eyes, i went downstairs and sat on my couch and thought a