And im rob matheson this is the news hour live from doha coming up in the next sixty minutes at least sixty one people have been killed following an earthquake thats hit the iran iraq border the lebanese Prime Minister speaks publicly for the First Time Since his resignation saad hariri says hes free in saudi arabia and plans to return to his country soon. Ignoring efforts to turn them back or henge of refugees are still streaming into bangladesh. People in the small town of southern in the springs in texas attended sunday service a week after a gunman killed twenty six parishioners in their church. And we begin with some breaking news a seven point three magnitude earthquake has struck on the iran iraq border with reports that at least sixty one people have been killed and hundreds have been injured across both countries the epicenter was in iran thirty kilometers southwest of the iraqi town of halabja rescue teams have been deployed to the region charlotte ballasts reports. Quiet sunday night in iraq and iran disrupted by violent shaking. With quake was centered on the iraq iran border merely iraqi town of halacha and it was severe seven point three in magnitude and only twenty five kilometers deep. Suddenly the glasses dropped off the table that was very strange the fan was shaking we were so afraid that we ran out of the house because our house is old the u. S. Geological survey immediately issued an orange alert saying deaths in damage should be expected then came the reports of fatalities on the iran side of the border in the town of cusses sharing it struck after sunset on sunday night when people use their phones in a makeshift assessment of the cost of this quite early reports suggest villages have been badly damaged and alex tricity cas iranian media say risk you teams have been deployed to would see if he seemed to in the waist. Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world several major fault lines cross the country and in two thousand and three a six point six magnitude quake lessened the historic city of bam twenty six thousand people die. Quakes may be frequent here the people are not immune from panic in iraq shops and most evacuated across kurdish territory it was felt throughout the region as far away as israel residents flee their homes from baghdad to kuwait they face an interrupted night with aftershocks still rolling through charlotte dallas aljazeera. Lebanons Prime Minister saad hariri has spoken publicly for the First Time Since his shock resignation eight days ago he says he is free in saudi arabia rejecting rumors hes being held against his will how did he also place to return to his country very soon zena harlow reports from beirut. This is the first time saud how did he makes public remarks since his resignation announcement more than a week ago from the saudi capital riyadh he sought to dispel reports that he had been detained the well being of lebanons Prime Minister and his freedom of movement have been open to question in a live interview he denied he was forced to resign and said he is a free man and. I submitted my resignation is not the regular resignation process for any Prime Minister but i had to take some security measures to return back safe and sound. The circumstances behind his decision to step down united a deeply divided country earlier people used. To show solidarity with. Some lebanese may now be convinced that he is not under house arrest others however havent changed their minds clearly wasnt comfortable situation physically look. What he was saying was very. Contradictory to many people. But if and when he does return it doesnt guarantee that lebanons latest political crisis will be resolved if i withdraw my resignation as Prime Minister of lebanon we must respect the distance in lebanon from the regional conflict we should pull out from the interventions in the region. A few years ago lebanon officially adopted a policy of staying out of regional conflicts particularly from the war in syria hezbollah has been accused of ignoring that policy by sending troops to fight alongside the Syrian Government allied has long resisted demands that would draw its forces and it is unlikely that demand now. Also singled out yemen accusing hezbollah of interventions that puts lebanon at risk. He said he resigned to save lebanon but the political vacuum his resignation. Ated has only destabilize the country is the top seventy politician in lebanon replacing him will not be easy democracy here is about consensus and a candidate has to be accepted by all rival camps for stability to prevail appearance said comments did little to ease the tensions instead he looked more like a pawn in the Regional Power struggle between iran and saudi arabia said of. Beirut jomar own as a policy analyst at the arab center in washington d. C. Hes joining us now from there thank you very much for your time do you think this latest interview gives us any more clarification about the circumstances of saad hariri in the saudi arabia. It seems that raises more questions than answers we got few clues of where he stands on some of the issues we dont have clarity on a lot of other issues but lets just focus on the political messages he sent obviously he toned down the complete chip in his rhetoric compared to his resignation a week ago and he was very cynical as against iran and other stuff he was very close on your t. V. He basically said the reason of the shift of the policy was yemen much of the other issues you mentioned before so i think a lot of anybodys still believe what happened in the last week while his own Political Movement is saying what say why theres a lot of us and american and u. S. And french and and other than the National Unity are also worried about his movement so we didnt hear the whole story and we have yet to see what will happen in the next days and weeks in this interview he did seem to make a condition of his possibly withdrawing his resignation and negotiation with hezbollah over its military actions in other countries given the level of apparent instability that this seems to have created in lebanon do you think hezbollah is actually going to be open to those negotiations. I mean the issue now hes much weaker than everybody believed that he was basically under pressure from the when he comes back hes not as strong as he left so hes struggling if he has a big popularity you know he is the more embraced by. Either by the older goshi or by the yemenis people but im not sure how much they will give up this point because they believe that the saudi prince the pressure and they should maybe come back so i think we the u. S. Pressure was effective on the saudis they thought the pressure he might come back but i dont see the political quests resolved any time soon but at least the the bush in the first of a little bit put some brakes on it now but it seems much more complicated but some of the issue he raise he has right easy hes right about them about the neutrality of the lebanese system there but his government those issues should be discussed but the issue is not by forcing the Prime Minister to resign over seas this is the question not the substance of the stock. We well know there has been a lot of speculation about our wider picture a wider proxy conflict as it were between saudi arabia and iran and this lebanon has been a focal point for that in the event that this circumstances in lebanon dont turn out to suit saudi arabia what do you think saudi arabias next step is likely to be. They dont have much option this is the issue and. The way i see it is they are trying to do it offensive or to push the two weakest link which is yemen and lebanon while in syria they are fine they are not even in the game they are not even trying to be an obstacle in iraq they are engaging the government but it wasnt so they are basically trying to do and i think of the two weakest link and the way i understood the saudi message so highly today is now they only focus on yemen so they want basically hezbollah out of yemen they want more neutral issue on the normalization of relations between beirut and damascus and it seems open to coming back to government but all those are details the big shift if we are not talking anymore about taking out of the equation we are not talking about a war all the rhetoric now has changed and you have a saudi retreat basically and this is i think the big question and they want to be maybe more. Aggressive on yemen but for me at least they seem to be more flexible in their but on now the u. S. Is very worried about syria they have an agreement was russia now there they dont want the saudi policy eleven not to impact that so i think they they came to the reality that you know you might have some trouble at home some thought they were more but the region is much more complicated than theres a limit to what you can do or you cannot do jomar on of the out of Center Washington d. C. Thank you very much. Saudi arabia has asked for an urgent meeting with the arab league to discuss allegations of military aggression by iran to iran denies claims that supplied a missile that was fired from yemen into saudi a week ago it also says it has nothing to do with a pipeline fire in bahrain that temporarily halted all supplies on friday saudi arabia has described the fire as sabotage and minister has blamed iran the Arab League Meeting for next sunday in cairo. Meanwhile frances president also wants a meeting to discuss irans activities but tech iran has rejected a request for direct talks on its Ballistic Missile production plants iran says the program is for defense and its unrelated to the deal with world powers to the development of Nuclear Weapons. The rebels in yemen are denying reports that the missile fired at riyadh was supplied by iran the news comes as the u. S. Joins the International Calls for an end to the saudi led kade thats worsening a severe food shortage United Nations says the closure of yemens borders is pushing millions of people close to starvation the u. S. Sees but rebel leaders say the missiles are homemade. We confirm to the world that the rocket unit of the Yemeni Military has been producing Ballistic Missiles for a long time now having learned from the russian scud missiles and also benefiting from Korean Technology and so weve become the new factories and producers of missiles and we are also further developing missiles that we had previously in yemen a senior u. N. Official says me and mars troops have systematically gang raped and tortured a woman the envoy has been speaking to some of the six thousand refugees who fled to neighboring bangladesh since august she says shes going to raise the mistreatment of it with the International Criminal court calling rape a weapon of genocide peter sharp has more the imposingly wide river now which separates my ma and bangladesh was the final hurdle for another wave of increasingly desperate Rohingya Refugees nearly two hundred people many of them women and children made their way to freedom paddling improvised rickety rafts kept afloat by empty plastic jerry cans scavenged along the way as they fled the country using homemade paddles and sheets of plastic it was a long and slow crossing some just paddled with their hands. On the final half of the rafs were intercepted by bangladesh frontier guards these people are not welcome here and for an hour the guards circled the rafs trying to persuade them to turn back and pushing them rather the refugees ignored them and pushed on to the shoreline. Theyve been travelling for weeks and with land for a mixture of exhaustion and relief on the faces of those whod reach safety traumatised by what theyd witnessed during the long march out of my mom for the children still too young to comprehend that they may never return to their homes. Each had their own story to tell. We built this raft with plastic jerry cans that we found in burned down villages. We couldnt manage boats as we couldnt afford the rent moreover i thought of our neighbors got robbed when they left the camps with the boat people they lost all their money and everything they had. It took us three days to reach safety one day to cross the hill one day to prepare the raft and a third day to row across the river. These are just a handful of the hundreds of thousands to have sought refuge in bangladesh many repeating stories of violence rape and murder carried out on the refugees a senior u. N. Official in dhaka raise the issue with the International Criminal court this week whether my own mom military can be held responsible peter shop al jazeera. Myanmars leader Aung San Suu Kyi has spoken out and assy on business meeting on gender discrimination and Girls Education but she remains silent on the military crackdown thats forced the ranger to flee her nation shes been criticized internationally accused of inaction over what the u. N. Says is ethnic cleansing instead shes described womens equality as one of me and was biggest challenges. Women are still missing out. In contests areas the social. Unskilled labor and. Incapable of making decisions is one of biggest challenge. To overcome social constraints. And economic. Development the clocks ticking for about four hundred refugees who are refusing to leave a decommissioned prison camp and mana silent papa new guinea Authorities Say the manhunt until monday to get out large sections of the australian run camp have been dismantled in a bid to force the refugees to leave the men are refusing to move saying they fear minus island locals could attack them about two hundred refugees have left already moving to new accommodation outside the facility. Plenty more ahead on the news hour including digging for gold the owners of a greek might you know caught between jobs versus the environment and transforming this into this the canyons turning rubbish into a rowboat and switzerland buying to place in next years world cup were going to tell you who else from europe will join the job with the details later in sport. That when a show of force aimed at north korea the United States and south korea have launched joint naval drills its in response to the rising tension over the norths Nuclear WeaponsProgram Three u. S. Aircraft carriers along with several south korean war ships will carry out the exercises over the course of four days its the first time in a decade the u. S. Has three carriers operating in the region. President donald trump says he backs the conclusion of u. S. Intelligence agencies that russia did meddle in the twenty sixteen president ial election but writing on twitter he slammed what he called the quote fools who oppose better ties with moscow trunks codification comes after he suggested he believed to be a putin when he said russia didnt interfere with the vote when he reports from hanoi two things dominated Donald Trumps visit to vietnam competing with china for influence in asia and offering conflicting messages about russian influence on his election win last year i believe that president putin really feels only feels strongly that he did not meddle in our election. What he believes is what he believes what i believe is that we have to get to work and i think everybody understood this that heard the answer hours earlier he spoke off camera with reporters and said Something Different following brief discussions with blood amir putin at the apec summit in downing he said he believes the russian president didnt meddle in the election comments were criticized by some in the United States government intelligence agencies have concluded that there was russian interference in the campaign in his meeting with the vietnamese president in hanoi trump said he believes a strong relationship with russia can help fix the worlds problems we have to get to work to solve syria to solve north korea to solve ukraine itself terrorism its now time to get back to healing a world that has shattered and broken those a very important thing donald trump backs himself as a deal maker someone who can make things happen and while much of this trip was about trade and business he also offered to help keep the peace between vietnam and China Vietnam and china are in a long running territorial dispute in the South China Sea along with other neighboring countries donald trump told his vietnamese counterpart. That he could help make things better while also touting u. S. Weapons contracts. You. Know. Really where. Were going to use. Donald trump says hes not interested in multilateral trade deals chinas president xi jinping whos also in vietnams capital says hes not interested in multilateral talks on the South China Sea when hey aljazeera hanoi. Trunks now in manila for a summit with Southeast Asian leaders and on monday hes going to meet the philippine president rodrigo deter but deter he has appeared to rebuff trumps offer to mediate in the South China Sea dispute in a forum in this sidelines of the summit to tell it he said the issue is better left untouched under his leadership the philippines has strengthened its ties with china. And you know. There is. So. But their lives and. Nobody for. Spains Prime MinisterMariano Rajoy is in catalonia for the First Time Since the Central Government imposed direct rule over the region it travel to barcelona to campaign ahead of decembers we general elections and hes praised efforts to honor spanish law in what he called difficult times john holl has more fr