Poorest countries in the world. Reporter why do you come back to congo . I love the people, i love the potential of this place. And i think we have a bright future. Woodruff all that and more on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff political and ethnic tensions in turkey were at the boiling point today after deadly bombings in ankara over the weekend. Jonathan rugman of independent Television News reports on the days developments. Reporter it was the biggest bomb attack turkey has witnessed, the single biggest blow to its stability in decades. And even the death toll is disputed, like so much else. The prokurdish opposition says 128 people were killed. The government says at least 97. Saturdays attack was upon this peace demonstration of kurdish and leftist protesters. Two explosions were followed by police teargassing survivors, which only fed the assumption that the state, or dark forces within it, were behind the violence, though turkeys Prime Minister said today that the so called Islamic State was the prime suspect. translated it was definitely a suicide bombing. We have strong evidence for that. I. S. Has a possible motive. By setting kurds against turks, it may be encouraging its twin enemies to go to war with each other instead. At this funeral of one of the kurdish victims in istanbul today, the mourners chanted that turkeys president was the murderer. All this under the watchful gaze of riot police. In the mainly kurdish southeast, you hear the same cry the president s a murderer. translated why are they carrying out these massacres against revolutionaries, socialists and those that are in favor of peace . Why do we never have a politician or a member of government suffering from these attacks . This clearly shows who carried out this massacre. Reporter just up the road from that funeral, turkish troops are advancing after airstrikes against the kurdish p. K. K. The governments up for re election in just three weeks time, and by appearing strong, its not letting this National Security crisis go to waste. Woodruff the violence in turkey has spiked since another bombing in july that killed 33 people. That sparked renewed fighting between the military and the kurdish p. K. K. Rebels. In afghanistan, fighting intensified today as Taliban Forces attacked a new city. This time, the battles centered around ghazni, southwest of kabul. Last month, the taliban captured and held kunduz in the north, for three days. Also today, nato announced two u. S. And two british soldiers died in a Helicopter Crash sunday in kabul. Government troops in western syria made fresh advances today with the help of russian air support. The ground offensive aims to regain a stronghold of president Bashar Assads a village that would give them access to a main highway. Meanwhile, russian jets again hit targets across central syria. But as the air war intensified, president Vladimir Putin claimed russias role is strictly limited. translated by no means do we want to get involved in any interreligious conflicts in syria. We have only one goal, which is to support the lawful authorities and to create conditions for political settlement. This is what we have based our actions on from the very beginning. And this is what we are guided by now. Woodruff the u. S. Military answered russias air Campaign Today by air dropping ammunition and other supplies to rebels in northern syria. This was another day of bloodshed and death in and around jerusalem, with a spate of new stabbings. Within a few hours, two israeli policemen and two civilians were attacked in separate incidents. Two teenagers were shot dead by police. Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu accused israeli arab leaders of helping incite the violence. In economic news, computer giant dell is buying Data Storage Company e. M. C. In the tech industrys largest takeover ever. The deal is valued at about 67 billion. It will help move dells focus away from traditional hardware, like personal computers, to storage and business services. Wall made a modest advance today as investors waited for Third Quarter profit reports. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 47 points to close above 17,130. The nasdaq rose eight points, and the s p 500 added two. And nine former american prisoners of war have returned to japan, seven decades after the end of world war two. The veterans, all in their 90s now, traveled with their families today to yokohama, to honor fellow servicemen who died in captivity. More than 130,000 allied troops were held prisoner by the japanese during the war. Almost a third of them perished. Still to come on the newshour whats next for Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, found guilty by an Iranian Court. Syrian refugees in jordan, desperate to find their next move. Some even going back to syria. School discipline. Is there an age too young to be suspended . President obama faced one of the toughest lines of questioning since taking office in an interview with steve kroft on 60 minutes last night. When asked about Hillary Clintons use of a private email server, while serving as secretary of state, the president said the controversy was politically motivated. I think it is that she acknowledged as a general proposition, when we are in these offices, we have to be more sensitive and stay as far away from the line as possible when it comes to how we handle information, how we handle our own personal data. I do think that the way its been ginned up is in part because of politics. And i think she would be the first to acknowledge that maybe she could have handled the original decision better, and the disclosures more quickly. Woodruff also this weekend l Committee Investigating the benghazi consulate attack spoke out on cnn claiming the republican lead panel was targeting clinton rather than conducting an objective investigation. Hillary clinton has a lot of explaining to do. We, however, do not need to shift resources to hyperfocus on Hillary Clinton welch didnt need to deemphasize and in some cases drop the investigation on different agencies, different organization, and different individuals. Woodruff all that and a looc president ial debate on tuesday. Its a perfect time for politics monday. Im joined by tamara keith of npr and amy walter of the cook political report. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Woodruff a lot to talkabout. So the president as we just heard, he has weighed in now, said Hillary Clinton made a mistake but said she has acknowledged it. And we just heard the former staffer, tamara, for the Benghazi Committee said that what they were doing was politically motivated. It was too targeted on her. Is this going to mawk a difference, do you think, on this issue . Is it going to go away as a result of this . This is absolutely not going away. The Benghazi Committee is going to have a hearing scheduled for about a week from now, a little more than a week from now where Hillary Clinton is set to testify. She will have more fuel to be able to say look, this a partisan thing. But theyre going to ask her tough questions and shes going to sit there and have to answer them for what could be a very, very long hearing. And the emails are going to keep coming out in monthly doses. So just because she had a couple of desent news cycles doesnt mean that this goes away. It is also very muddy in peoples minds at this point. Woodruff so amy, even withty motivated and this former staffer, it doesnt make any difference . Yeah, i agree with tamara. You still have the fbi investigating. Was her classified material on here that she willingly passed on. Was she hacked by her email server hacked by a foreign government. We still need answers to those questions plus the drip drip drip of emails coming out. The one thing it provides Hillary Clinton and we may see this tomorrow at the debate is the opportunity to rally democrats behind her. Where she is able to say see, democrats, i know you have been a little bit, maybe a little bit questioning about me, maybe not as enthusiastic as you should be. But guess what, the reason republicans are doing this is they dont want me to be president. They dont want me to talk about these issues. They dont want us to bring up they though they cant beat me so they bring this issue up in order to try to defeat me. I must say when i interview democrats about this, and i did at least a dozen, maybe 20 man on the street interviews just last week, all of the democrats i talked to said it doesnt bother me. Woodruff huh. So the rallyins talking about you are saying is already out there. They are convinced that it is part of the vast rightwing conspiracy that Hillary Clinton coined. Woodruff so the democraticdw night. First time we will see them together. Mean time there are new polls out. We can show you the results of this, going in, Hillary Clinton up in some of the primary states. This is nevada where the debate is going to be held, coincidentally. You see clinton up 50 to 34 over Bernie Sanders. In south carolina, shes also up 4924, with an even bigger margin. Then nationally, those are cnn polls. We have a cbs poll nationally showing her up 46 to 27. Tamara, you know, looking at this, does this give her such a big advantage that what, she becomes a target tomorrow night . Did you think she wasnt going to be the target all along . Woodruff exactly. So what ch . Well, the polls obviously dont change anything here. Those states are more diverse than the states where Bernie Sanders is now winning or right on her heels. New hampshire and iowa. But those are the two first states and they have sort of an outside influence on things. Woodruff amy, what do youth . About the debate tomorrow night, she definitely is going to be the person that everybody is focusing on. The question is how aggressive are her o possible ents in making that case. Is bern ye sanders as she said this weekend going to show consistency, and not so vailed reference to the fact that Hillary Clinton has taken multiple positions on the issues over the course of her career, that she most recently came out against the keystone pipeline, against the trade promotion pact, pacific pact. You know, is he going to be that aggressive, is Martin Omalley going to be that aggressive or are they going to sit back a little bit and try to make the case about themselves, not make it about her. Woodruff what do they havet. I mean, somebody like Martin Omalley is barely registering in these polls. Tamara, what is he need to do . In many polls hes an asterisk or a hyphen. He doesnt even have 1 percent. What he needs to do, just by being on that stage, he will do a lot of that. People will figure out who Martin Omalley is. Theyll learn his name. But he also needs to be impressive. He needs to Say Something that gets people excited. And what he has been saying and it seems likely he will continue to say is hey, look, im a new generation, blank blank, im younger than those other people and he talks a lot about his executive experience. I would expect him to do that again. Woodruff is there that muchg these candidate sphs. Not so much now that hillary has come out decisively on two big issues trade and the keystone pipeline. Woodruff moving west. Moving. I dont think you will see that much difference. Although you may see somebody come up and talk about her vote on iraq which now she said was a mistake. I do think its style statistics. And the difference between this debate and the Republican Debate is the Republican Debate, the republican primary is truly wide open. So there was an opportunity for somebody like a marco rubio, Carly Fiorina to rise up because you have republicans truly searching around for anybody trying to figure out who these people are. On the democratic side, she is the frontrunner. She has very high Approval Ratings among democrats. Democrats do not look like they are looking for somebody else. So if you are Martin Omalley, if you are Bernie Sanders, you have to give them, them meaning the voters, a reason to look away from Hillary Clinton. Woodruff i cant get the twg what is going on in the house of representative representatives, they cant agree on the speaker, what is your reporting tell ug. I checked in with i a spokesman for paul ryan, the chairman of the house ways means committee, former Vice President ial come knee nominee. He is the one that it seems line everyone wants. The spokesman said check my twitter. Woodruff new answer. On twitu even request i have no updates and i dont expect any updates for the whole week. Woodruff could this begin te republicans. Absolutely. The person who is actually most in danger of this being a problem is absolutely Mitch Mcconnell who is the majority leader of the senate. The house demight all this disfunction is likely to say in republican hands. There are just too Many Republican controlled seats that are too safe. The problem for republicans is the senate where they have at least seven seats in state thation bar ago obama carried. Theeses are very marginal states where the republican incumbent is trying desperately to not look too partisan. If we see washington truly meltdown, republicans get the blame, its those senators who are going to take a lot of the suffering, not the house folks. And that is the danger, i think, really for republicans. Woodruff fascinating becaust now just on the house. Right. Woodruff amy walter, tamara. Appreciate it. Washington post reporter Jason Rezaian is spending his 447th night in a jail in iran tonight. News that an Iranian Court convicted the journalist came yesterday, but little else is known about the ruling or his fate. Jeffrey brown has more. Brown irans judiciary announced that an appeal could be filed but gave no specifics on the details of the ruling. Rezaian was tried on espionage and other charges. He did not accept our invitation. For its part the Washington Post is calling the ruling, quote, an outrageous injustice, join meeg is the newspapers Foreign Editor douglas jehl, thanks for joining us. Do we even know at this point what Jason Rezaian has been convicted of or what sentence he might face . We know none of that. We know only that he has been convicted. But what charges, what penalty, and, indeed, what basis iran claims to offer for convicting jason of these crimes, they have never been stated. Brown and is there anyway o, whether he knows any of this or knows the situation . Well, his mother, his wife and his attorney went to the court today and n tehran to the revolutionary court to seek clarity. And they were turned away. They were told that the translator wasnt available. That they could be given no further information at this time. A presump shun is that jason does not know. Brown now even though thisi, your is up sition all along has been that this is really playing out in the political sphere, correct . Explain what you think is going on. I think thats right. I think this is played out very, very slowly in the Iranian Courts for 15 months now but its clear that ultimately the Decision Makers are going to be irans Senior Leadership. Its the Senior Leaders who have the power to overturn a decision in court. They have the power to pardon someone like jason. They have the power to bring him home. And in recent weeks weve seen very strong signals from irans president ru hani and others of what they want. They have made clear theyre willing to move towards freeing jason and other americans if the United States is willing to free iranians held in american prisons in return. Brown well, so what has kep . The United States hasnt really responded to those overtures from iran. At least not in public. We dont know if there has been further discussion behind closed doors. One thing that has prevented it from happening, though, is that until now, the matter has remained in the courts. If there is any glimmer of hope from todays announcement as outrageous and cruel as it was t may be that this sham of a juddishal process is nearing its end and the political steps are about to begin. Brown what about tensions i, conservatives are perhaps sending a message to rhu hani, so called moderates in the context, of course, of the recent knew clear deal and other things. I think it is clear that Jason Rezaian, an innocent journalist has been caught up in a much, much larger struggle insid