Sreenivasan those are some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your life and become youre own chief life officer. Supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions and. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Sreenivasan around the world, people welcomed the start of a new year and all the promise it holds. But for some in shanghai, the year began tragically after a street celebration turned into a stampede that killed 36 people. Anxious friends and relatives filled the waiting rooms at hospitals in shanghai today. They sought information about loved ones caught in the deadly stampede during new years eve celebrations. As authorities looked for answers, people gathered at a makeshift memorial, and witnesses recounted the horror of the citys worst disaster in recent history. translated its too cruel. People in front of us had already fallen to the ground people were stepping all over them. People just needed to leave the site. Its peoples lives at stake. We felt death so close to us last night. We were horrified. Sreenivasan police today denied reports that the stampede started after people rushed to grab fake money falling from a nightclub in shanghais waterfront area. Chinese president xi jinping has demanded an investigation and new years Day Celebrations in the city have been cancelled, according to chinese media. cheers and applause thousands of miles from the tragedy, pope francis made a wish for no more wars. translated this proximity of god to our lives gives us true peace. Peace, the divine gift that we implore especially today. Peace is always possible. Its always possible, we have to search for it. But amid the revelry, there were new protests in places like boston where a small group of demonstrators staged a peaceful diein over recent Police Killings of unarmed black men around the country. The traditional times square ball drop, which this year drew a Million People. Meanwhile, the 126th annual rose parade was the center of attention in southern california. This year, one of the coldest on record, there was a new face involved in the old tradition. Joan williams rode the lead float, nearly 60 years after she was denied the honor because she is african american. The first victim of the airasia plane disaster has now been identified. The womans remains were returned to her family and laid to rest in a funeral ceremony in surabaya, indonesia. Where the jetliner took off sunday before disappearing with 162 people aboard. Recovery efforts to find more bodies in the java sea resumed briefly, until wind and rain hindered the operation. Nine victims have been found so far. But theres still no sign of the plane itself. North koreas leader kim jong un said his country is open to talks or even a summit with south korea. Kim made the remarks during a new years address on state television. North and south korea are technically still at war. Even as he indicated a willingness to talk, he blamed south korea for current tensions. South korean government should stop all war maneuvers and reckless military drills that it has made with Foreign Countries an turn its steps towards relieving the tension in the korean peninsula. Needless to say conversation cant be implemented nor the relationship between the north and south proceed when there are military drills to oppose one another in a warlike atmosphere. Sreenivasan south korean officials later called the move meaningful. The two nations last held a summit in 2007. The president of syria, bashar assad, made a rare visit to the front lines of the civil war over new years eve. State television aired footage of assad visiting different groups of soldiers in eastern damascus last night. He also sat down and ate with some of them. The damascus neighborhood has seen intense fighting in recent months. A britishbased Human Rights Group reported today more than 76,000 people were killed in fighting in syria in 2014. That makes it the deadliest year since the war began in 2011. In the u. S. , General Motors announced three new recalls today, on top of one yesterday for faulty ignition switches. The recalls affect 92,000 trucks and suvs. In the last year g. M. Has recalled about 15 million vehicles around the world for ignition and key related problems. The fastfood chain chikfila has announced it is investigating a possible data breach. In a statement on its website, the restaurant chain said it has received reports of potential unusual activity involving payment cards used at several of their locations. The locations were not disclosed and chikfila officials said they first became aware of the suspicious activity on december 19th. Still to come on the newshour. Imprisoned al jazeera journalists to be retried in egyptian court. How will minimum wage increases in twenty states help or hurt the job market . Economic strategies to keep new years resolutions. A look back on the major stories around the world and whats ahead for 2015. Microbreweries in south africa target a growing black middle class. And, the harrowing stories of chilean miners when they were trapped 2,000 feet below ground. Sreenivasan for 369 days, a trio of al jazeera journalists has been held in an egyptian jail. But today, with the latest ruling from egypts highest appeals court, their case took a hopeful turn. Outside the cairo courthouse, a crowd dominated by police and media waited for news on the al jazeera journalists appeals. In june, mohamed fadelfahmy, a canadianegyptian; australian correspondent peter greste; and egyptian Baher Mohamed were handed seven to ten year sentences on charges of publishing false egyptian news and aiding the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. But outside egypt, the trial was widely viewed as a sham and the verdicts sparked an international outcry. Supporters organized protests and social media campaigns, claiming the journalists were unfairly caught up in tensions between egypt and qatar, the owners of aljazeera. But the two countries have recently begun a public reconciliation. And in late december, greste thanked his supporters in a letter written from his cairo cell, saying we have created a huge Global Awareness of not just our cause, but the far wider and more vital issues of press freedom, the persecution of journalists, and of justice in egypt. Sreenivasan today, egypts highest Court Granted the three retrials. Lawyers for the journalists welcomed the decision, saying the initial verdicts were based on flawed evidence they assume that if you work for al jazeera automatically you are a member in the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not true and is illegal. Sreenivasan still, family members expressed disappointment that the three would not be released on bail. I was expecting, yes a retrial, but i was expecting with that, a release today, we were really hoping for that, we wanted mohammed to come with us home today. Sreenivasan and in doha, al jazeeras managing director pushed for an expedited retrial. translated we welcome this initial verdict and we request their Immediate Release without any conditions. Leaving them in jail, regardless of how long they are there, is another indication to the global media, al jazeera and all the journalists, that the press is still oppressed in egypt. Earlier today, i spoke with borzou daragahi, hes been covering the journalists detention for the Financial Times in cairo. Borzou, start by telling us what happened in court today. First of all i should just give a caveat, the journalists were not allowed into the courtroom this is based on speaking to Defense Attorneys as well as to members of the families of the defendants who were allowed into court they were, you know apparently it was a very short session, less than half an hour in which the defense lawyers were allowed to plead for their clients to arc on behalf of their clients and give various arguments as to why the case did not stand up to legal scrutiny. This is a court of , in the egyptian legal system its sole role is to scrutinize Court Decisions to see if they measure up to legal standards and if the case gets referred to a court of appeals, at the end of session there was an hour where the judge was deliberating and he came back we were told by Court Decisions we never actually saw the judge, that the case had been vacated so to speak. The verdict had to be cancelled and a retrial ordered vaz was there any explanation on why these individuals were not let out on bail . There was no explanation of anything. There was no explanation to the courts reasoning for vacating the previous june Court Decisions, and there was no explanation to why they werent released on bail. There was no real communication between the Court Officials and the public or with the defendants who were not in the court session, or to the defense lawyers. Srennivasan do when does the retrial start . Were not sure of that exactly. From my understanding, and speaking to the Defense Attorneys within a week the court of appeals will announce a trial date which should start within a month. So that means that theres no chance for these guys to be released from prison on bail until that first court hearing, which should begin within a month. Srennivasan how much of this is political versus legal . Theres a lot of speculation that this trial or the retrial hangs on the fate of the relationship between egypt and qatar who owns al jazeera. If you talk tow gyp shan officials, theyre very strident about the integrity of the egyptian judicial system and the independence of that judiciary. Many people are very skeptical about those claims. They see a lot of politics in the prosecution of this and other cases. And you know based on the comments of certain officials yeah this diplomatic spat between egypt and qatar is part of the problem in getting these guys freed and getting them out of jail and ending this whole charade i dont know what else to call it. Because these guys are clearly not guilty of anything other than being ode journalists. So you know it seems like that will be a big actor. But its not just a diplomatic dispute. Theres also billions of dollars at stake here. Because the qatari government, when the Muslim Brotherhood was dominant here, invested billions of dollars in the Egyptian Central Bank and now wants that money back. In addition, the qatari government has sued the or rather al jazeera owned by the qatari government has sued egypt for 140 million for damages pertaining to this particular case and other matters. And so theres this big financial dispute as well as a political dispute jz so the egyptian president could have gotten involved. He said that this is a court that should retain its independence. How independent is this particular court that this retrial was granted under . Well, many people that i have spoken to legal professionals in egypt say that the court of castian is known to be relatively free of politics, relatively independent, has a rather high relative degree of integrity compared to other parts of the egyptian judiciary and legal system. So it has a very good reputation. But in recent months recent weeks actually weve had leaks of audiotapes rather credible leaks showing high level members of the generals around al sysysisi openly discussing with each other how they would manipulate this court case or this legal matter or that. These have been aired on various internet stations and so on. And these have really raised questions about just how much and how the egyptian judiciary system is an independent or not. Srennivasan art borzou daragahi, thank you so much for joining us. Sreenivasan millions of workers across america just got a pay raise, thanks to new minimum wage laws that went into effect over the new years holiday. 21 states just increased their minimum wage. As a result, a majority of states in the country now require that wages be above the federal minimum of 7. 25 an hour. What those increases will mean is a matter of debate. The minimum wage has existed in the u. S. For over 70 years, yet economists are sharply divided over whether it helps lowincome workers earn a Better Living or hurts them by choking the number of jobs available. To sort out the debate, i sat down yesterday with two economists with two different perspectives. The federal minimum raise now is 7. 25. States minimum rages i range from 5. 75 to 5. 47. I stat down with different economists with two different perspective. Joining me Diana Furchgott roth with 21. Organize at the Manhattan Institute and Jared Bernstein with the center for budget and policy priorities. So first let me just start with the basic question, who is going to be affected by these increases in minimum wage . What were going to see is that people who have skills that are under the new minimum wage whether its 10 an hour or 12 or 15 those people are going to find it a lot harder to find jobs. And thats the real disadvantage of raising the minimum wage. The people with skill levels under that amount find it far more difficult to get employed. So i very much disagree with that assessment. I think theres going to be a lot of folks who will benefit from the wage increase. And in fact we now have literally decades of research underscoring that point. But more specifically the people are going to be affected are not as a somewhat typically thought teenagers or families of rich kids or something. Its adults over 80 are adults. Most of them work fulltime about a quarter of them are parents, so theyve got kids. About 70 have at least a High School Degree maybe ten percent have a college degree. So were really talking about the folks that you picture when you think of the lowwage labor force. People actually depend on their earnings, particularly this little bit of a boost in their earnings to make ends meet. Srennivasan diana, you were mentioning the 15 and 10. A lot of states increasing their minimum wages are not even at that 9 mark or 10 mark. Exactly yes. But when you have a minimum wage as we do right now a 7. 25 an hour, which adds up in costs to about 8 to the employer, you have to have skills of up to that in order to get hired. So whether the minimum wage goes up to 9 an hour or 9. 50 or 10 you do find that more and more people are squeezed out. And that they cant get that first job. If they cant get the first job, they cant get the second job. And its just immoral in the United States to say that people with no skills are not allowed to work. That if you have skills under a certain level, i are not allowed to work in the United States. Its unamerican. Its not who you are. Its very american actually, since the fair labor standards act of 1988 stro a wage floor on the economy, which we know is the minimum wage. I think what diana and i differ is in the following. Diana is talking about the thee ree of wage determination. If you raise peoples wages above a certain level, then somebody is going to lose their job. What is much more relevant in this case is the empirical evidence okay now that we have Something Like 26 states with minimum wages above the federal level about 20 21 now increasing their minimum wages as we speak, we have something that is quite rare in economics. Kind of a pseudoexperiment where we can look at all of these different changes over literally decades now, and evaluate the kind of claims that diana makes. And what we find is that they simply dont bear out. Srennivasan what is the best there was a new study that just came out in december like two professors at the university of california san diego medical diag. And it showed that when the minimum wage went up the last time, from 5. 15 an hour to 7. 25 an hour lowskill individuals earned about 100 a month less in the year following the 7. 25. And 150 a month less in the two years following that. And that fewer people were employed. So yes there are studies that show some things. Studies that show the others. There are teens that can get jobs at 7. 25 an hour who wouldnt be able to get jobs at 10 an hour. Right now only 3 of working americans are making minimum wage. You can do a lot of studies does it go up, and not find a whole lot of effect on most people in the workforce. Because 9 97 are making more than minimum wage, not because the law says so but because employers have to pay them more to stop them moving to other jobs. It increases inequality if poor people cannot find jobs. One point, that i factuallyly disagree with because there has been considerable studies, nothing theoretical empirical studies showing that the increase in the minimum wage has actually lowered in equality. And that makes a lot of sense. Because if you think about where all the growth has been going in the economy of really the last few decades its largely been eluding low and middle wage workers and going right to the top of the scale. The minimum wage has helped lift the bottom a bit and helped some of these lowwage workers get a bit more of their fair show of the growth that they themselves are helping to create. What about that idea that basically there will be a Ripple Effect in both directions. When you say for example that low skilled workers arent going to be able to enter the work divorce and hes also saying it might actually have a Ripple Effect in that if i have to now get 9 an hour, the person who already was making 9 an hour at grade number two or three, they will have to get a bump up as well. Everybody knows that you dont hire somebody if theyre not worth the amount. When are you paying more youre hiring a different kind of person. Look at chilis restaurant for example chilis restaurants are putting in place ipads and kiosks so you can order without service. So you change your mix of workers and technology. But again, the peop