On efferents to stop prostitution. Canadas Supreme Court voted to stop bans on brothels and street sollistation saying they compromise the safety of sex workers. The decision will take effect in a year. The big apple is getting in the holiday spirit with help from the empire state building. It is putting on its first christmas light show ever. The finale is set for christmas eve. Those are the headlines, consider this is up next. You can get the latest news online at aljazeera. Com. President obama took to the podium today to give the White House Press corps a postmore tell on the year. But what start ed as a look back quickly became a discussion of his biggest failures. Consider this identity is twir 14 look 2014 looking any better . Utah has allowed same sex marriage to gay and lesbian couples. Well talk to the clerk who started it all. And remember the comuns of the 60s and 70s . A surprising number of them are still around today. Hello im antonio mora. We begin with president obamas final press conference of 2013. Has this been the worst year of your presidency . The question quickly dodged but it largely set the tone for a barrage on the nsa, iran, the Winter Olympics and of course obamacare. You know what they say its the most wonderful press conference of the year. I firmly believe that 2014 can be a break through year for america. For more im joined by james warren, the washington, d. C. Bureau chief for the new york daily news. He joins us from our studio in chicago, illinois and michael roy, in los angeles tonight. Great to have you on the show. The press conference had the feel of lets get 2013 over and head to hawaii. The president s Approval Rating has been at an all time low. 56 of americans disproving of approving. Do you think this press conference helped at all, michael . I cant say absolutely that it helped. Reading the transcript, watching the president , like you said in your open, antonio, it seemed like he had half of his body already on the plane to hawaii. What dit do was round out a it did do was round out a bad year for the president but it didnt leave with a great amount of swagger. One of the telling take aways for me was a small item, when he talked about adding john podesta to the white house, the clear message is communication his dealing with the White House Press corps which is an issue all along. There is an antagonistic discussion behind the scenes. They asked him about his roftion and he said to be nicer to the press corps. And i said i would lose weight this year. The fact that the president didnt make any definitive answers to the nsa question only tabled it to january. Closing the year by the fact that the economy got better. There wasnt any bombshell about this. Lets talk about the nsa, he was asked about the federal judges decision where the United States failed to give an analysis in which the metmetadatastopped any terroris. Its possible for example that some of the same information that the Intelligence Community feels is required to keep people safe can be obtained by having the private phone Companies Keep these records longer, and to create some mechanism where they can be accessed in an effective fashion. People right now are concerned. That maybe their phone calls are being listened to, even if theyre not and weve got to factor that in. Of course none of this would have happened jim without edward snowden. The president said he would make some sort of definitive statement what they were going to do about the program in january, what do you think will come of it . What will he recommend . I think this included the notion that this panel several of high schoo whom are buddies, long term buddies of president obama, 63,000 word report, 46 recommendations unanimously held by a rather eclectic group of former snoops, civil liberty academics, several high ranking cia officials, rearts significant recommendation rather significant recommendations, they agreed on them. According to the source of mine who may or may not be one of the people on the panel, who sat down and mountain with the president i think in the situation room, he made quite clear that he is inclined to be very sympathetic to a good many of those. A real sex 801, the metadata, the collection of our phone records, despite what people may think, the nsa, according to my data, who may or may not be one of those five people, made clear to them in their discussions in their investigation that they would basically be pretty cool with that, they wouldnt have a huge problem. There are a lot of other things that will be push back from the nsa when it comes to their jurisdiction but on that i suspect the president ial will go along president will go along along. The president was questioned, sort of float that as a possibility and the president kind of avoided it saying hed leave it to the courts. And to the attorney general. Do you think its realistic, is this something thats actually being talked about . Well i mean its certainly being talked about outside the office of the attorney general, outside the white house. But i actually dont think its real ink right now. I dont think he wants to pull focus to another controversial move. This would anger not only republicans but democrats as well. Pulling focus on something not the president s agenda is not what he wants to do now. These are across the board. Last year at the press conference he said we are definitely going to have gun allocation. Legislation. That didnt happen. He was resolute that there would be something pretty definitive about the nsa, how can something definitive be definitive . I dont think he wants to bring attention to another issue. To michaels point, the pet did say he had hope for the country in the new year, 2014 needs to be a year of action, hes hopeful in the economy, budget deal is a good sign, mentioned immigration. What do you think . Given at least some of this rapprochement between the republicans and democrats do you think hell get things done this year . I think a couple of things. First of all hes a lame duck, the conventional wisdom would be, in the second term you got the first 18, 20 months to get stuff done and after that come those elections and then everybody is thinking about the next president ial election who is going to run on each side. So he probably has a pretty good sense of that. At the same time, as someone who helped edit the best obama biography so far, came to the notion that obama has already operated with certainly a different sense of time of the Political Class and the media class. Whether it was the way he decided to run his president ial campaign in some cases tactically against some top aids, or dont ask dont tell, he waited a few years and then got it through, on a couple of matters, notably immigration, theres a sense on his part that timing will be next year, Republican Leadership led by john boehner to get something done. They know ultimately if they want to win the white house again in our lifetimes that they cant keep alienate be. Yes, two quick things hell get through next year. Is the big thing on iran facing rebellion in congress, the iran yants say more the iranians say if more sanctions then forget pit. The president will speak to leadership after the holiday break and hes going osay we cannot do this now. Thats something about which he is going to be resolute is fighting this because he doesnt want to undo this six month window he has now. If iran is saying that i believe the president believes them. The president was on the defensive again, that he will absolutely keep in that americans buy insurance. But just near the deadline, another sanction, assuressers not happ insuressers nothappy about that. Shuj amount of fodder. The primary reason poll ratings have gone down. But at the same time he notes website problems are lessened. More and more people are signing up. I think critical constituency to look at are the Insurance Companies. They are in it for the money. They know particularly, they got to get a lot of young people to sign up or theyre going to have to jack up folks premium something fierce. Theres a firm bedrock belief on his part guide what he acknowledged, he used the word screw up, is that in the long term to pull this off, ultimately it is better than the alternative which is an awful status quo that all of us know ultimately is simply too costly. Were going to take a closer look at obamacare, jim, michael glad to have you join us. Thank you antonio. Sarah, she is in washington, d. C. Tonight sarah great to have you with us. I loved your last article about all this. Is it fair to say that the underlying message there was that it still is just total confusion about where we are with obamacare . It is. You know it is a complex insurance marked we have in the utters and that makes it very, very difficult to tell in january had the coverage expansion starts where well actually get a net gain or net loss of private insurance. The folks i talked to are a pretty confident that well well be at a net gain in january but its hard to know. Thats one of the things thats difficult for the Obama Administration here that they are going to make the case this is an expansion and a lot of people are getting benefits, youll have a lot of stories from people who had their coverage cancelled and have trouble accessing the services they had in the past. Its not clear on january 1 whether well have more people with insurance than fewer . Well probably have more people with coverage, the reason i make that distinction is medicaid has seen robust enrollment. 3. 9 Million People have been found eligible for that program and will be enrolling. Thats the issue though sarah, those not signing up for private insurance doesnt that create Economic Issues for obamacare . Its hard to say, they dont get the choice between the two programs. Its essentially how much you earn determines whether you go insurance. It is not if people are deciding on pled caid instead. What we are saying is that medicaid which does not have a premium and is a public program, is a more robust program. That makes sense, its easier for people to sign up for something that is not a monthly premium, where theyre not going to have to pay for the program. Cancelled policies and plans, cant find something more affordable all of a sudden now they are going to be allowed to get catastrophic insurance. Thats right. Thats what was announced last night by the white house, these folks who had their policies cancelled will essentially go without coverage and not face a penalty. Its really one of the biggest and perhaps only cracks weve seen in the mandate that weve seen from the Obama Administration, that the white house has been adamant that the ability to buy coverage is really important to get the Young Healthy people to sign up. One thing Health Economists will watch with this delay is the young people who have had their policies cancelled that they decide to sit out the marketplace and whether that raises premiums for everyone else. This is what the president had to say friday at his final press conference of 2013. What were talking about is a very specific population that received cancellation notices from Insurance Companies. The majority of them are either keeping their old plan, because the grandfather clause has been extended further or theyre finding a better deal, a significantly smaller subset than some of the numbers that have been advertised, that are still looking for options. So hes making it sound like its not a big deal. The whrows will say fewer than 500,000 people will enter the news year with their policies cancelled. Where do these cracks end up breaking the whole thing . Thats an interesting question and one thing i think well all be watching very closely early this next year. One point Health Economists have made, the people who are receiving cancellation notices that they will likely buy some kind of coverage. These are people who decided it was worth it to buy insurance before there was a mandate. So they think it is likely these people will continue to buy coverage. The question is, are the premiums affordable, do they think they can get a good deal in the new health care marketplace. Actually its a lot more expensive so im going ogo for a year and maybe risk the possibility of not having shealt insurance coverage. Now are Insurance Companies are not happy with this change. Health care better and cheaper, 65 thought by 2020 that health care will be better. 93 thought their own institution would improve. Knife thought would reduce cost by 11 11. 5 . I guess one question that comes up is, wouldnt they have said the same thing had obamacare not been in place, that in ten years things would be better . Thats a good points. One thing about the Affordable Care act that doesnt get a lot of attention is that actually half of the law is a lot of really big changes to the medicare program, the way that medicare which covers those over 65 pays for coverage. And what the healthcare law does is it startle dozens of experiments for paying doctors for value of the care they provide. Giving doctors more money for providing better kay and thats a big shift how we pay doctors right now, where we just pay for each Service Provided regardless whether it makes somebody healthier or not. Thats a big change to the health care system. One key question is do these little experiments scale up and become a force of change or will they force experiments and not make a big change how we pay for health care here . A very important question and well have to wait for the answer to that. Sarah cliff from the washington post, thank you for doing this for us. Thank you. Next, the Supreme Court many in mexico, well talk to the county clerk who started it all. And our associate producer hermella aregawi, whats trending . Documents of College Students a break. Ill tell you more coming up. What do you think . Join the conversation at twitter, aj consider this. Evey sunday night, join us for exclusive, revealing, and suprizing talks with the most interesting people of our time. This sunday, i spent my whole life thinking about themes and thinking about how to structure movies, so this is highly unusual. The director of the sixth sense, says there are five things we can do to fix education in america the United States has education apartheid, thats the facts. Talk to al jazeera with m. Night shayamalan sunday at 7et 4pt on Al Jazeera America ten years ago, not a single state in the country recognized samesex marriages. On thursday, new mexico became the 17th state to legalize them. The new mexico state ruling came months after clerks took the issue into their own hands, issuing licenses to people of the same sex. The man who start id it all is lirn ellins, a county clerk at dona ana county. He joined us back in august and he joins us now from las cruces, new mexico. You must feel vindicated. Youre the second person who asked me this. I dont feel vindicated bought i didnt have a vendetta. Im satisfied that my decision has been affirmed at the high court. I got some criticism but the overwhelming majority of response that i got was totally favorable. I didnt expect that, but thats what happened and that was very satisfying as well. Now what does it mean for new mexico . People can start getting married now immediately . Oh yes. The ruling was immediate. In fact, the court came down with its decision at 11 00 yesterday. And those county clerks that were not issuing licenses up until then began to issue them yesterday. There was no time requirement set forth, i. T. Just said go ahead it just said go ahead and do it, many of them have today. There is still some major opposition. Republican state senator bill sherer is trying to move to amend the constitution and repeal, do you think it will succeed . I think its a totally bad idea. You dont put minority rights up to the vote of the majority. If we had done that back in virginia some years ago when the Supreme Court said that interracial marriage had to be permitted under the constitution, that had been put to the vote of the people in virginia it would have passed it would have been forbidden. It is a still divisive issue. A county clerk in your region resigned because they didnt want to issue same sex licenses. I heard that, that a county clir resigned, because of their religion beliefs they could not in good faith issue those licenses and i respect that decision. Eight counties were already processing same sex licenses in new mexico before the Supreme Court decision. Do you think that could be a strategy used in other states, or was this because new mexicos constitution was unique, and you believed it allowed you to do this . Well, the eight counties that are at issue, three including my county did it voluntarily, i was the first county. This is a strategy that i know has been attempted by a county clerk in pennsylvania. He began issuing licenses but he was enjoined by one of the pennsylvania district courts. So whether this is a strategy that is successful or not i think depends on the state in which you are in. Lynn ellins, county clerk of dona ana county in new mexico, we appreciate your time. Thank you. As new mexico, ugandas passed a law that makes it illegal for same sex marriage. We are joined by Matthew Breen and by Academy Award winner ross adams, god loves uganda, on a shortly list for 2014 Academy Awards for best documentary. They had talked about the Death Penalty for homosexual acts. They now passed life in prison. This is actually something supported 50 people of uganda. At the very, very popular by the people of uganda. I think 97 of the people of uganda want this law and they got it. But its all fueled by the churches in uganda. I want to get to that in a moment. But how do they justify this . They justify this, they say that gay people recruit children. So they equate homosexuality with being a pedophile, with is absurd and rid