Program the Saudi Crown Prince is accused of sending a hit squad to canada to outlines claims of a thwarted assassination attempt. And u. S. Attorneys have the n. R. A. In their sights triggering lawsuits designed to dissolve the gun rights group. Uses the n. B. A. s biggest stall stands up to donald trump the president says he turns off when he sees social justice protests before but. He couldnt care less well hear from of this hour. As the people of lebanon grieve for the victims of choose days blasts the french president emanuel whos been touring neighborhoods devastated by the chemical explosion as despair increasingly turns to anger people have been demanding change with president back home adding his voice to calls for urgent reform the death toll from tuesdays explosion has risen to 149 but it is expected to rise about 5000 people are injured many of them being treated in hospitals that have been completely overwhelmed dozens of people still missing or unaccounted for and then more than 300000 people have been displaced from their homes shopkeepers and residents are still clearing up the rubble thats littering streets and homes up to 8 kilometers away from the blast site well emanuel mark owen has called for a transparent. Actual inquiry into beirut massive ports explosion the french president met with lebanese political leaders after surveying some of the damage from tuesdays blast but he was also mobbed by residents in the city who are furious at their government and are demanding accountability. What i know is that the people of lebanon have electricity shut down every day and its not working the provision of imports and exports has collapsed because of the Financial System so there are as for the short term that we need as we know the answer is to fight corruption reform the energy and electricity systems the customers we need transparency for imports and exports we need reforms for all the sectors and insist on these changes quickly. Or public anger against lebanons ruling class is growing many hold them responsible for the economic collapse of the country in there is a new one in our ports just from the lebanese capital the state has been noticeably absent from the recovery operation search and rescue teams are still digging through the rubble at beirut port the site of massive explosions that damaged or destroyed much of the lebanese capital families are desperate for news about their loved ones dozens are missing there is pain and grief zainab fears she will never see her husband allie again. Theres a still image still you know i dont know where he is i havent heard from him since 6 pm monday i want to know if hes alive or dead. Rescue experts from abroad have started to arrive to help a country that wasnt prepared to cope with a disaster like this. Hoping to each other with. The fund says theres still a lot of destruction we need to move the stock to building to find. Somebody. The blasts were felt kilometers away killing dozens and wounding thousands buildings homes shops all destroyed 300000 people displaced billions of dollars in damage investigations are focusing on possible negligence in storing tons of highly explosive material at the port officials have promised assistance and compensation to those affected by the explosions but driving around the city the state is noticeably absent and destroyed neighborhoods like this one it is the people who are helping each other they are cleaning the streets clearing the debris and distributing food and water to those in need public anger against the Political Class many believe is responsible for lebanons near economic collapse is not new decades of corruption in the glare triggered an antiestablishment Movement Last october weve been fortunate going used to the not being present for its citizens we dont have properly just city we dont have a proper garbage infrastructure we dont have proper water infrastructures and unfortunately the people have gotten used to it but its its its a time for change its weve been asking for change for quite some time and i think this last catastrophe is going to make change for the country much better the priority now is to help the victims many are still in hospital in Critical Condition calls for accountability and justice are growing louder for now people are focused to rely on themselves i need money to rule. Myself. And i need everything. I didnt want to be. So this is why im. I want to. Believe. Some may call it resilience but for many this is about survival nearly half the population of 5000000 lebanese were below the poverty line before this disaster the situation has since got worse. Beirut. Well lets course one of planets myths hes also following the story in beirut tend to just looking at zain is report there such a mixture of emotions people are going through right now still trying to process that the shock of what has happened while also trying to. Repair their lives. But we saw earlier on today when the french president emmanuel mccrum was down on the streets of some of the damaged parts of beirut people shouting for the return of the french mandate from the clonal power here before independence and its because the macro people turn to mark wrong because hes essentially stepped in to avoid. Political leaders mccrone was able to offer practical help in the terms of rescue in terms of rescue teams and Financial Aid in recovery and was able to offer moral support lebanons political leaders have not been able to offer anything theyve been conspicuous by their absence in comparison to emmanuel in micron so there is very real anger and very real frustration at the lack of assistance from the lebanese government to this catastrophe that has hit the capital city a wave that went out 3 kilometers across the city from the port smashing destroying pretty much everything in its midst a real anger tonight theres little help coming from the lebanese government nearly 150 People Killed but thats expected to rise thousands of injuries and then hundreds of thousands of people also left homeless one of people been telling you throughout the day about their immediate needs right now. What weve seen all day mainly armies of mainly young people with pickaxes shovels and brushes theyre out trying at least. To clean up almost everywhere you look every building look up to the glass has been blown out people are painting up. Plastic sheeting and windows to try and give them some sort of Privacy Protection from the elements those that have gone homes or shells of homes to go back to there are some 300000 people who do not have to go back to many of got relatives elsewhere in the country they might have been able to go into the mountains for cousins and relatives living up there but there are other people without anywhere to go enough frustration is manifesting itself tonight with a small outbreak of a protest near the Parliament Building not far from me here in the center of beirut an indication really of the stream frustration and powerless in a speech full of feeling because they arent getting any assistance i can also say that just in the last hour or so the lebanese authorities said they are they have detained 16 individuals in connection with their investigation into what led to this explosion but of course in the right top of the political tree we havent had any resignations or any admissions that they are responsible for what has happened here over the last more than 24 hours ago. Thank you very much from beirut bonnets ness. Well many people of blaming the entire system for what has happened the lebanese confessional political system for essentially leading the country into a serious deadlock of course this is before the current disaster there are 18 recognized sects in lebanon for muslim 12 christian the drew sect and then the due date judaism as well since its inception lebanons whole government governmental system has been built on power sharing between these different groups but it is from each group of maintain a power and influence through a system of Patronage Networks critics say its led to an entrenched and entrenched and corrupt Political Class which has paralyzed politics and prevented reform there are also concerns about the power and influence of hezbollah which is sponsored by iran and forms part of lebanons Coalition Government well lets now speak to rami curry whos a professor at the American University of beirut he joins us by skype from boston so rami obviously weve been speaking about whats happened in lebanon and people trying to cope with it but of course its really i suppose a symptom of a system that has long been broken and riddled by corruption and negligence there was a lot of fieri on the streets of beirut today is that likely to get worse. Its definitely going to get worse to keep this in perspective their sectarian powers or a system worked reasonably well in the middle of the last century there are the great face of nation building state building all across the arab world until around the 1990 s. Say the end of the civil war it was most people in lebanon of their lives were Getting Better broadly speaking and so people were in the room with the system but there is really in the last 25 years that the system has collapsed because it has become very corrupted and it has allowed a lot of external influences from all different parties to to d manipulate people d in lebanon and then just the expectations of the citizenry was so high in terms of basic Services Electricity water garbage education but even that the government could need it because the people in power were allowing corruption misconduct and inefficiency to dominate everything they did leading ultimately to the lack of any concern by the government for their own citizens which we see here with the explosion since the explosion happened very one or 2 lebanese officials trying to go there in town talk to people the minister of justice this morning was hounded out of the area where the where the explosion happened the people yelling out a revolution resign that people have no trust at all in the government and they certainly dont trust its investigation so how do you go from a situation where their government has lost all credibility with the people that was the case before this explosion happened to then having some sort of reformulated and its occultist and or at least to a new independent government thats i suppose stuffed with experts in technocrats that have not seen you know political and sectarian affiliation how do you go from one scenario to another. Well this is the great challenge facing not just lebanon but much of the arab world jewry a sudan palestine jordan iraq morocco many countries are facing similar challenges have you transition from a top heavy system of autocratic system into a more genuinely democratic system that is also equitable and its social in the economic policies theres really only 2 ways to do it either you get rid of the old system by force as happened in tunisia for instance and build a new democracy through consensus or you push the own system so hard that if you force it to share power 3 a negotiated transition with you which is whats happening in sudan right now sudan is the most exciting place that they are world because of this 3 year transitional period with a government system that is half civilian and military jointly managing the transition to a full democracy and that was forced on the military who had not salute power they did this because they saw they couldnt just keep shooting and killing their people who are demonstrating for simply decent Citizen Rights lebanons best hope is to do that at some point the power elite show 0 sign of being willing or able to do any of that this is the problem so were going to see a lot of political money as ashen interest just wanting you saying that the elite so far has been reluctant to because only see their interests are at stake so theyre not likely to relinquish until want to change the Current System but now that you have this this awful the south and its taken place can the humanitarian aid or assistance be contingent on some sort of serious reform could it be used to create to bring about a turning point and ive been. Sort of somebody cut into your statement could what happened to bring about reform im just wondering if any humanitarian assistance or International Aid could be timed to that being reform and serious political change in lebanon yes many activists and political personalities are calling for this ive written myself about a proposal d to have a joint government and private sector and Civil Society commission to oversee the disbursement of aid and to monitor its spending so that you dont have a being used to build a power station next to some ministers house or to buy your cousin a new car which has happened and the past so i think foreign aid the humanitarian day thats going to come in the it can be a crucial pivot to start forcing on the government a mechanism of Decision Making that is shared between the state and some of the few honest people there are honest people in the state there are good people in the government but they dont make the decisions and so you can give some of those good people in the government with the people that are sector working together another was you share sovereignty use you dishonor and i as an authoritarian system and you make it share power with others and together they make decisions for the benefit of all this is not only possible step for lebanon it can be a signal to the rest of the art world about again the transition mechanism and then this can continue for other sectors of life where Decision Making is done jointly thank you very much from me kerry for joining us today thank you. Youre watching the news hour live from london much more still to tell you about africa has passed a 1000000 coronavirus cases but there are concerns there still isnt enough testing in many countries on the continent. 75 years since the 1st atomic bomb and calls for a Nuclear Weapons free while. And then a bit later this formula one driver gets the green light to compete again off to contract in the coronavirus will have that story and much more quickly in the sport. The Saudi Crown Prince is accused of dispatching a group of hit men to canada to kill one of his top former intelligence officials sagal jobbery the allegation was revealed in a lawsuit filed by Brian Washington it men were allegedly sent by mohammed bin so money just days after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside the saudi consulate in istanbul in october 2018 jobbery is seeking damages from the crown prince for allegedly orchestrating an attempted extrajudicial killing and for violating International Law my counter is for following the story from washington and joins us now tell us more about the claims within the lawsuit. Well its 106. 00 pages in this particular lawsuit a that goes into extensive detail about the composition of the celeb hit squad the names of the individuals involved and the links between mohamed have been solved and the crown prince and those who allegedly was sent to assassinate side are jobbery he also speaks about a number of Text Messages that were sent from the crown prince to him which started off by asking him to return to saudi arabia to ease the transition between himself and the former crown prince and then it escalated into a series of threat saying that. Would be dealt with in one way or another so it is exhaustive detail in terms of this case that is brought before the d. C. Court all job really making very clear that he and a number of others who are mentioned in the documents are targets for assess the nation by a saudi hit squad under the orders of the Saudi Crown Prince and why was the case then filed on u. S. Soil instead of canada. Well there i was some u. S. Legislation that allows nonu. S. Residents or non u. S. Citizens to file claims against leaders in other countries who are alleged to have committed torture or and or extra judicial killings so there is the legal basis and the legal ability to be able to bring such a case but in addition. In his court papers alleges that the hit squad actually assembled in the United States before attempting to enter canada so this is a Crucial Point which obviously provides a linkage towards the United States and allows justification for the case to be heard here i must just mention briefly to that. 2 children are allegedly being detained by saudi officials in what he sees as human bait to do him out of hiding and only last month a group of u. S. Senators sent a letter to President Trump saying that because of our job rieslings to u. S. Intelligence in the past and his value to them the u. S. Has a moral. Systems to actually take argument against saudi arabia to get these children released and return to their father as yet theres been no official response from President Trump. All right thank you very much for the latest from washington mike hanna just to get a bit more analysis on this story now. And the center for conflict security and terrorism joins us live by skype from ashford in the u. K. Now if i can start by getting your initial assessment on some of the details and many of the revelations contained within this whole seat. Well i think the revolution too small steps so point to a tactic that algebra aryans job really is embarked on and that i think is not just to put pressure and get some compensation from the amount of billions and sunland it is because he wants to put pressure on the American Government to provide pressure on o. B. s to release his daughter sarah and his son omar who are now in custody. I think the other thing thats very interesting is that if the hit squad of the new alleged hit squad assemble in the us they were picked out for a by Canadian Border forces even t