Five years. Good morning everybody. Welcome to Al Jazeera America. Im David Shuster in new york. Former russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khordorkovsky in prison for 10 years is free and speaking out. In his first media interview since his release the highprofile critic said he is not planning to go into politics. His comments were made to reporters in berlin, where he is reuniting with his family. Putin pardoned Mikhail Khordorkovsky in a pr mood taking a lot of people by surprise. More from berlin. This is the moment days ago they must have thought was impossible. A family finally reunited. A day after Mikhail Khordorkovsky was released from gaol, he was back in the arms of his parents. He gave more details about conditions in prison. Because for a year and two months and 2. 5 years, but during these years i had long meetings with relatives and all the other times i was on a prison regime and had no long visits. Accused of tax evasion, Mikhail Khordorkovsky spent the last decade in detentio
We are less than 48 hours into 2014, and the northeast is bracing for its first severe winter storm of the year. Its expected to wallop a wide stretch of the eastern see board from washington to new england. The powerful storm is threatening to bury parts of new york and boston under a foot of snow, a winter storm warning has been issued. The storm could become a blizzard with the metro area experiencing facenumbing temperatures nearing negative 10 degrees. New york governor is considering closing the major highways as a precaution and in massachusetts they are preparing for the worse, declaring a snow emergency with 18 inches expected in some parts of the state. In advance of the storm boston mayor closed city schools through friday. Erica pittsy is live for us. Snow ploughs and trucks are ready for a significant storm. Good morning, erica. Good morning stephanie. In new york city trucks filled are out prepping the road. Thats likely the case. Since this storm expected to dump a foot
Day . Tonight the United States is trying to save the middle east peace talks. A short time ago the state Department Released a statement denying an agreement had been reached and also denying that the talks had broken down palestinians are threatening to walk away after israel broke a promise to release prisoners. Israel wants a promise that the peace talks will be connected. We talk to two families connected to the conflict. In the face of a man he nef met avi never met avi sees himself. Thats the man he was named for. His uncle avi was kidnapped and killed. I was born a year to the day after his murder. I bear his name and live under the shadow of his murder. 30 minutes down the road. This woman looks through photos of her son. 33 years ago kareen killed a vcks is uncle avis uncle. This weekend israel were supposed to release him. The deadline came and went. Translation theres nothing dearer than a son, not a brother or a father. Nothing can replace a son. The victims are linked the
Means of intimidation and perhaps they have a military option in mind. You noted that they raised the force and asked the russian side to pull forces back from the border. Did they agree to do so . If not, what reason did they give . Secondly, both sides talked in recent weeks about the possibility of federalisation in ukraine as a means of protecting the russianspeaking population. The russian side seems to have a farreaching concept of federation, one giving veto authorities over national and foreign policy. Did you make headway in narrowing the gap on this core issue and what are the next steps, thank you . Think you very much. As i said earlier, both sides made suggestions on how we can deescalate the security as well as the political situation in and around ukraine. Yes, we talked very seriously and at length about the impact of the massing of truth and the importance of including the drawdown and redemoiment of some of those troops with respect to the process moving forward. We b
Minimum wage set to rise to 15. Five taliban fighters held at the Guantanamo Bay in cuba for years have been exchanged for one american prisoner Bowe Bergdahl. Republicans accuse the Obama Administration of violating laws regarding transfers and settling a dangerous precedent. The white house fought back today. Prisoner exchanges are not uncommon in armed con flicts. Without getting into specific assurances they included a travel ban, information sharing on detainees between United States and qatar, and allowed the defense secretary chuck hagel and the Security Team to determine that the threat by the detainees to the states would be mitigated, and the transfer was in the u. S. National security interest. Among those denouncing the swap is hamid karzai said to be angry about the deal. Randall pinkston joins us from washington. What other rehabilitations have reactions have we heard . A lot of criticisms from the chairman of the house, mike rogers, and a member of the senate armed commi