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the bbc uncovers claims of rape, torture by one of the biggers evangelical churches. ♪ >> hello and welcome to world news america. the lebanese militant group hezbollah says a commander was killed in a strike in southern lebanon in a suspected israeli air strike. wissam tawil. this is an image released of the tawil on the left. hezbollah is an aaron-backed group that wields considerable military and political power in lebanon. it's designated as a terrorist organization by many western powers, including u.s. they said it hit hezbollah targets in response to cross

border attacks. it has raised fears of a wilder regional conflict. our responsibility has more. >> the attack that killed the senior hezbollah commander is another significant develop in the violence between israel and hezbollah. they released a picture. it shows how important he was inside hezbollah. we've seen that these attacks inside hezbollah, which is this powerful-ironnian backed organization against hezbollah has happened almost every day. there are fears that this could become a major confrontation in the region between israel and

hezbollah. israelies have warned hezbollah against raising the violence. they say they will retaliate and here in lebanon, there -- concerns this country could be dragged into military conflict. people still remember what happened in 2006 during the war between israel and hezbollah which was devastating for this country. there's a massive economic crisis here in lebanon as well. again, there's no public support forny kind of conflict against israel and i think hezbollah has been calibrating its attacks, perhaps trying to prevent a major response from israel. on the other side, some israeli authorities have been defending a stronger offense against hezbollah to try to stop these attacks and also to reduce the

threat posed by his blah and also to allow the return of tens of thousands of resident don't who have been evacuated from communities in northern israel. it is a very delicate and conchly indicated situation along the border amid rising fears of a major confrontation. >> u.s. secretary of state anthony blinken is in tel aviv for talks with israeli officials in efforts to decirculate tensions. he's expected to call for reducing the intensity of fighting in gaza. human rights groups say the humanitarian situation inside gaza is worsening three months into this conflict. the world health organization canceled a mission to bring medical supplies into northern gaza. a spokesperson told the bbc the situation and the only medical fate in central galsa is dire. the international rescue

committee says its -- it's pulled its medics due to increased israeli military activity in the area. president biden is reportedly not considering firing defense secretary lloyd austin after he and other pentagon officials failed to report his hospitalization to the white house for days. that's according to the bbc's u.s. partner cbs. details have been emerging slowly about the secretary's hospital visit. on december 22 austin had an elective medical procedure while on leave, returning home the next day. he was admitted to the intensive care unit at walter reed mel center on new year's day after suffering severe pain. on the second of january, he transferred his authority to department defense secretary kathleen hicks but not until three days did the department

officially tell the yours of his hospitalization. four days after austin's visit, the pentagon notified the white house and the public. on january 6, austin released a statement taking full responsibility of the delay. sect austin has resumed full duties and remains in hospital but the seekcy of his visit to the hospital has raced concerns about transpharynxcy issues from the nation's tom security establishment. joining us now is represent don bacon. a republican from nebraska and a men of the u.s. armed services committee. thanks for joining us. you're a former air forcier, well aware of the chain of command and so on. what's your view of this apparent communications breakdown? >> it was a failed judgment by the secretary of defense at a minimum to be out of pocket for three days where the white house did not know he was unavailable

for any kind of emergency, command and control communications and that his own department in d.o.d. did not know that he was also really unavailable and she was on vacation in puerto rico. it's a terrible mistake in judgment and i want to just relay the importance of this. you know, i used to work with nuclear weapons and russia and china have weapons today that can strike our country and indeed all of our allies within 15 minutes. we have to have a very confident nuclear command and control capability and you have to know where that chain of command is at at all times and for the president to not know who the number two person is in the military chain of command with the president being number one, that's terrible. with a nuclear command control,

that is a zero failed mission and it showed a disregard and a carelessness from our live here. it's not just our nuclear command and control. we have russia, china, i ran. the hutis shooting ships out in the red sea. we were conducting strikes against the aranian backed missions. it was a failure of judgment at minimum. >> so how should president biden handle this, do you think? >> i think it's a little early to say but thus far all we've heard from him is that he doesn't plan on relieving the secretary of defense and i think we should hear more. he hasn't really relayed to the american people the importance of having a clear chain of

command, not just for the public to see but really behind the scenes. the president should know where is that number one person in the chain of command for the military that reports to him and the folks beneath secretary austin should know they have someone to reach out to ask that that person, that leader will be there. i have not heard the seriousness of what happened being conveyed by the white house and they should do a better job. >> do you think should secretary austin himself be sanctioned or perhaps even offer to step down? >> i think it's early to say. i think -- i'm hesitant to ask for his resignation or for him to be fired but we've not heard from the white house or the secretary of defense in the pentagon. them communicating the sense of seriousness of what this is about. we are the world's superpower

with 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles, hundreds of bombers and submarine launch ballistic missiles. up to know where the secretary of defense is. he was missing at meetings in the white house and there wasn't the number two person there. who was in charge and how could they not know that he was unavailable for these various meetings? i want to hear the white house communicate just how important this is that they've learned this valuable lesson and that they're going to fix it. >> and if i can ask you about something else, the new bipartisan spending agreement that has speaker mike johnson and schumer announced yesterday. do you think that's going to be enough to get all of your republican colleagues on board and avoid that government

shutdown that's looming? >> it won't be 100% of the republicans. probably not 100% of the democrats but i believe you're going to get 3/4 or 2/3 of congress voting for this. i will support it. it was the agreement that speaker mccarthy at the time made with president biden. it's a balanced compromise that cuts spending by $2 trillion but it's within both the republican and democrat tolerance levels with those reductions so i think this was a smart consensus plan. we should have been able to do this back in september and october, frankly, but we allowed a few people to drag us around needlessly. i guess all along from the summer till now we were going to fall back on the agreement that mccarthy and biden had. it will have overall support in the house. >> thank you. we'll watch this space to see

what happens next. corningman don bacon, thank you very much for joining us. united airlines boeing jets were inspected on monday after an explosive depressurization incident on an alaskan airlines flight on friday. the part that blew out was find in oregon. the jet involved in the incident was already restricted from some flight paths after a pressured warning lit up on three different flights. it's the latest problem to hit boeing and their 737 max. they had two fatal crashes in 2019. the leader of a christian evangelical church sexually

salted, haim raped and tortured dozens of women over a 20-year period. pastor t.b. joshua who dieded in 2019 founded the church in nigeria. the alarm was repeatedly sounded but no action was taken. we have more. >> everyone here in the stadium, loves jesus -- >> t.b. joshua was one of africa's most famous residents. drawing presidents, accomplishes and millions across the globe. >> he had a huge amount of influence, not just nigeria, throughout mexico, nigh geea, singapore. >> members of his congregation claimed to have been cured of aids, cancer and a range of chronic conditions. >> negative for h.i.v. and

h.i.v.2. >> everybody wanted the privilege to go with, to meet this big giant. >> t.b. joshua's closest followers were known as di sipeles and lived together for years inside his compound in nigeria. >> that was psychological upon. we thought we were in event but we were in hell. >> allegations that the pastor repeatedly or cultured, remained women behind closed doors with the most recent incidents in 2019. >> it became so robotic, i disconnected from my body. i just became like a puppet. >> rape. became like a normaller the tying thing that he would do. like an animal being slaughtered. i was 1 years old. >> he would be calling girls in one after the other.

i straight ahead there almost 14 years. they were thousands. >> some women claim they were forced to have abortions inside his compound following the alleged assaults. >> i had three abortions at the synagogue and from speaking to other women, i'm not the only one. >> women that he rapes, he forces them into abortion. i never had a choice whether i could keep a potential child or not. people tried to speak up to expose him but nobody would listen. >> the jie northeastern senate -- >> t.b. josh away died in 2021. his wife evelyn is now leading the synagogue church of all nations. the becomes contacted the church with allegations of this report. they did not respond to them but

they said previous claims against t.b. josh away have been unfounded. today the church still attracts millions of viewers to its online platforms. >> some people, they are still living in fear for their lives, in fear for the retribution that will come. >> carrara, an american woman in her 30's, a former church insider took part in that bbc investigation. i spoke to her earlier. thanks for joining us and talking to us on bbc news. you became one of t.b. joshua's disciples and lived in his compound for over a decade. can you remember what it was that drew you to the group in the first place? >> well, i was invited by an canes from -- acanes from here in the -- acquaint france here

in the u.s. in california and i was drawn tot idea of finding my purpose in life, god's purpose for my life so that's what drew me to go to the church. >> and what was life like when you got there? did you find that purpose that you were looking for? >> in the end, i never found the expect purpose but life from, in the beginning what really drew me, what i saw was like the first day i arrived, there was a wednesday service going on, a church service and i was drawn to all the miracles that i was seeing and like this is exactly what you see in the bobby and will there is, you know, like, if anything, i really wanted to help people and save people or help them get saved and i was seeing it happen. i thought in realtime.

and living in the compound, i mean, in the begin, they were so inviting and so like, wow, you came all the way here from the u.s.? they were just really happy to see me there and it was almost like a honeymoon period where you're like everyone was so nice. and it was exciting because i was like, wow, this is kind of what i've been looking for and kind of seeing the word of god working but living in the compound, there was a lot of things that you didn't see. this was awful behind the scenes. everything that you see during the church services and later only when the television station started, it was a lot of -- that was the front and what you saw

on the outside but there was a lot of, i'd say, mental abuse and other kinds of abuse going on behind the scenes. >> did that happen to you personally? >> well, thankfully somehow i missed out on the sexual abuse but the mental abuse was, from the beginning it was mind control at its finest and you don't even know that it's happening to you. they start small with things like -- they called it recording. you get reported or you get in trouble for any number of things. that was the whole thing about being there. there were really no rules that hey, you come, you sign up as a disciple and let's say you're going to stay a year or whatnot and there were no rules saying

what you could or couldn't do. it was more of a things were insinuated. like you would get in trouble for things and that's how you found out you weren't supposed to do it like that and it was all on the premise that this was to keep from you sinning, help develop your character. so there was awls a way of explaining it away. what you told yourself was yeah, i'm here to have my character molded and we would be reported and even reporting each other to keep our salvation basically. >> and what do you home to achieve by sharing your experience with others at this point? >> to give myself a voice and other people a voice who are either scared to speak up,

whether from this same organization or other organizations that are all about control or force. mind control and mental and sexual abuse and people just signing it away as -- or just giving excuses for the reason why a person is able to continue doing these things but in the name of god. to really just give a voice to people and to tell my story. >> ok. well, carrara, you have -- kara, you have told us your story and been describing your experience there. it's important to add that we don't have any evidence has to atrocities still being carried out by the church at this time. we've been talking about your experience and what you saw there but thank you for joining

us on bbc news. >> thank you for having me. >> bbc contacted the synagogue church of all nations with the allegations in this report. the church did not respond busheled previous allegations against t.b. joshua have been unfounded. you can listen to the new season of "world of secrets" wherever you get your becomes podcasts. brazil is celebrating democracy in the capital city of brasilia, one year on from the january 8 riots that shook the nation. last year following unsubstantiatedded claims of voter fraud, thousands attacked the presidential palace and the supreme court. they called a coup and demanded the military overthrow the left wing president days after he took off. more than 2,000 people were arrested. then president is now under investigation by the country's

supreme court for allegedly masterminding the riots, something he denies. our correspondent joins us from sao paulo. how is this anniversary being marked by the president and by people in brazil? >> as you can see behind me, there is a loud and passionate rally taking place from sao paulo this evening, marking the one-year anniversary of the riots. this rally, though, is condemning that violence in the strongest possible terms and people here are rallying in favor of democracy and saying those who took part in those rallies from last year should never be forgotten. that was something we heard from president lulu as well. he said anyone responsible for

taking part in the riots last year should be punished and set an example. it was supposed to be a celebration of unity and triumph of democracy. there was an knockout that barriers around the congress would now be removed but there was still devive rhetoric. the former president bolsinaro reit rated his belief that the riott were set up by the left and current president lulu strongly accused his opponent for being responsible for the riots last year but also if the coup had succeeded. brazil would have been run down economically. >> thank you very much for joining us. and just hours after blasting off, the first american

spacecraft to attempt to land on the moon for more than half a century is facing major technical problems. engineers found the robotics had issues, keeping the space kraft operated towards the sun. they eventually reworked it but it looks like there's a failure within the propulsion system and they're now looking at what they can do next. it's set to touch down on the moon next month if narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. man: bdo. accountants and advisors. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪

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amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: and i'm geoff bennett. on the “newshour” tonight, israel kills militant group leaders in lebanon and syria as the u.s. secretary of state tries to stave off a broader conflict in the middle east. >> it's clearly not in the interest of anyone, israel, lebanon, hezbollah for that matter, to see this escalate. amna: defense secretary austin is in the hospital. why the white house and the public weren't told about it for days.