more ever "america tonight" of t here tomorrow. >> international outrage. >> the members of the security council strongly condemn this test. >> the u.n. considers new sanction he against norts againa over its nuclear test but will they make a difference. diplomatic divide. protesters in iraq demand the government cut ties with saudi arabia over its dispute with iran. but iraq's foreign minister heads to tehran offering to

mediate the crisis. >> deadly winter. >> we went to the war and god blessed me with a son. i lost him to the cold. i lost him to the war. >> syrian refugees increasingly facing new danger dying from the cold as temperatures plummet. and back to school. any is months after al shabaab gunmen killed 148 people at a kenyan university the school reopens. >> it is a bad thing that happened. but that does not stop us from continuing with our life. >> and new students are registering for class. good evening i'm antonio mora, this is al jazeera america's international news hour. tonight we begin with worldwide condemnation over north korea's claim it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. the white house called the test a provocation and u.n.

secretary-general ban ki-moon said it was a clear violation of international law. north korea's announcement caught its neighbors off guard and left them angry. tonight, both japan and south korea are vowing to make north korea pay for its actions. with the announcement came a good deal of skepticism. united states has doubts that north korea has the ability to detonate a hydrogen bomb. jamie mcintire has the story. >> exactly about what north korea debt inflated in that underground explosion unofficially the verdict is in. while the blast was big enough to register as an earthquake it was way too small to be an h bomb. the boastful announcement on north korean television claimed an ominous technological

achievement. a successful test of not just a nuclear device but a thermonuclear device. a miniaturized hydrogen bomb potentially an order of magnitude more powerful than any of north korea's three previous nuclear tests. it did not take long for the official scoffing from washington to begin. >> the initial analysis that's been conducted of the eeft evens reported overnight is not consistent with a north korean nuclear test. nothing to change our assessment military capabilities. >> reporter: while seismic sensors picked up a man made explosions that registered as a 5.1 magnitude earthquake the size of the blast was estimated at only 6 kilotons, 6,000 tons of tnt, a tiny magnitude of an h

bomb. >> in the next few minutes you will see an explosion -- >> when the united states detonated its first hydrogen bomb in 1952 as documented in this period news real the yield was 10 megatons, more than 10 times greater than the latest north korean nuclear test. >> the violence of the bomb is comparable to the energy of the sun itself. >> namely the nuclear device was miniaturized meaning in theory, small enough to be put atop a land based or submarine missile to target the u.s. nuclear arsenal admitted last year he has to take seriously. >> as combat commander it is a threat we cannot ignore as a country. >> shortly after the admiral's

comment it will north korea released imagery reportedly kim jong-un watching nuclear missiles, noting the single stage rocket appeared to travel only arelatively short distance. but whether north korea has taken the nuclear might to the next level or it's just another exercise in bell bellicose blu, it doesn't mean much, the most rudimentary nuclear bombs can still keep a superpower at bay. >> even a few nuclear weapon, the threat of you using a nuclear weapon an attacker's soil is enough to deter a foe. you don't need thousands to do that. >> u.s. officials say it dose appear north korea detonated a small nuclear bomb, not just the far more powerful and technically complex hydrogen

bomb. so what did north korea accomplish with its seemingly overblown claim? universal condemnation, talk of even tougher sanction he and lots of world attention. antonio. >> jamie mcintire at the pentagon. the u.n. security council held an emergency meeting today about north korea's nuclear test. al jazeera's diplomatic editor james bays reports from the united nations. >> in a typically staged manner, a crowd is set to celebrate a proud achievement. the announcer seemed almost gleeful as she detailed the fourth test. this time she said a more powerful and advanced hydrogen bomb had been tested. experts have cast doubt on that but either way it is a clear violation of international law.

>> absolutely cannot be tolerated. >> what explains the motivation of north korea in choosing this time to carry out or at least attempt a nuclear test, it's a country where one man has ultimate authority and kim jong-un directly signed off on the test. there's speculation it was timed ahead of his birthday. it's believed he will turn 32 on friday. in new york a meeting of the u.n. security council was hastily convened. ambassadors condemned north korea and said new action was need. >> the members of the security council will begin to work immediately on such measures in the new security council resolution. >> japan which rejoined the security council just a few days ago, and is one of the regional countries most fearful of north korea, says those measures must be tough, otherwise the credibility of the united nations will be at stake. so what else can the u.n. security council do?

there's already a strict sanctions regime in place. what else is there in north korea to sanction? and beyond that, everyone on the u.n. security council knows they need to tread carefully, they don't want to further provoke a leader who makes unpredictable some would say rash decisions and who has nuclear weapons however primitive. james bays, al jazeera at the united nations. >> qatar has been the latest country to side with saudi arabia in its dispute with iran. jordan, joobt an just a djibout. today iranian officials accused saudi arabia of work against iran in recent years opposing the nuclear deal and deliberat deliberately suppressing oil

prices. iraqi government is concerned the crisis could jeopardize its fight against i.s.i.l. but hundreds of shia demonstrators in baghdad called on the iraqi government to support iran and cut dies with saud ties with sa. >> translator: they don't know they are in front of the honorable iraqis weaker than a spider's net. >> the saudi embassy in baghdad is in the highly fortified green zone protected from protestors. mary beth long served at the first senate confirmed secretary of defense and mary beth, very good to have you with us. you have had extensive contact with the saudis. >> i think that they made the calculation that they could live with the consequences.

they obviously had him under arrest for quite a period of time and made the decision to execute him along with this is important 46 other individuals who were not shia but the message is much more complicated i think than just a message to the iranians. >> let's start though with the message to the iranians. do they the saudis have an increasing fear of iranian power in the region after the nuclear deal and how the iranians and the saudis are involved in proxy wars against each other in syria and yemen? >> absolutely and i think that's combined with the impression and the belief in fact that the u.s. has abdicated a responsibility for region that has basically left the region and that the saudis can no longer depend on its u.s. ally and it's increasingly demanded to act on its own. >> and on the internal side of the saudis how much of this is meant to dampen dissent in part of saudi arabia where there is a shia majority and where the

majority of saudi oil is? >> well, i think message internally was a bit more complex than that. i believe the internal message is the other 46 extremists, i think the message internally is if you choose to be an extremist, whether you are shia or sunni, there will be consequences to your action. certainly the eastern provinces are the most dangerous place but it's not as sectarian as some would lead to you believe. the other 47 were not shia per se and i think that the message is much more grand than that. it's i.s.i.s. extremists, you are on notice saudi arabia will deal with you. >> the after the fact apology, do you think iran allowed the burning of the saudi embassy in tehran or even actively encouraged it? >> i think even today the saudis

are listening to the iranians speaking with two voices. on the one hand you have rouhani and others apologizing and standing up to their international commitments. on the other hand you have the supreme leader and the yoat ayatollahs, to condemn saudi arabia. there was a pro cliffity for iranians to look away and allow what might have been a protest to escalate and for the embassy to be burned. this is not the first time that has happened to the saudis in iran or not the first time that others have suffered the consequence in iran. the gulf is responding correctly, the iranians did not respond correctly. >> you have seen others respond, has this strengthened the saudi position internationally? >> i think it has. i think it's also sent a message to the u.s. that we will increasingly act on our own because you are not here for us and i think it sent a message to

the iranians that you are no longer given basically an open field for your misbehavior. we will unite and we will let you know when you behave incorrectly. >> is there any doubt though that this conflict among these regional powers will weaken the fight against i.s.i.l? >> i don't think that one necessarily weakens the other. certainly it is a distraction as far as the u.s. is concerned because from our standpoint, i.s.i.s. is a more important threat. but what we are not doing is paying attention to what our neighbors and allies are telling us is that they are as worried if not more about iranian bad behavior about their support to terrorism about their assassinations of individuals and beheadings about their nuclear program about their proxy wars and about their influencing operations against them territorially, we're just not listening. >> former assistant secretary of defense mary beth long, very

pleased to have you with us. >> thank you. >> third day of clashes between i.s.i.l. and iran be iraqi officials, storage tanks have been set on fire. meanwhile the u.n. has struggled to convince the rival libyan governments to unify. sidhartha darr appeared in the latest i.s.i.l. video that shows the execution of four men. out on bail after being arrested on suspicion of belonging to a banned group and encouraging terrorism. coming up: north korea's nuclear history how its program has evolved and how the international community is responding to the possible threat. also, half a million people live inside the world's largest refugee camp, coming up the growing humanitarian and safety

concerns and what's being done to address them.

north korea's announcement that it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb immediately set off anger and alarm around the world. those closest to the bomb blast, china, japan and south korea have all weighed in on pyongyang's actions.

scott heidler is with us. >> the message is distinct. they are are following what's happening after this very closely. they have condemned what north korea has done as a provocation. they have said they have ratcheted up their surveillance north of the border and same rhetoric coming out of japan as well. both much these nations obviously very concerned about what happens in north korea. now in these two nations that i just mentioned the united states has also become involved and proclaim their support. on three different levels. on defense, on foreign relations, foreign policy, state department as well as executive. president obama has had a phone conversation with both the prime minister of japan and the president here in south korea. so right now, very much concerned about what's going to happen. all three levels of those conversations have pointed in one direction and that is that something needs to be done from the international community. something needs to be done in unity they say and is that going

to come from the united nations security council in the form of a resolution with tougher sanctions? that's in the works. or is it going to be something else? is it going to be something from these leaders here that are directly involved in what's hap happening in north korea. antonio. >> and scott more important is china's response because china is crucial to north korea and that response has been quite different than in the past. >> reporter: it absolutely has antonio. china is north korea' north kory biggest ally if you will. and what this latest incident appears to be is a further erosion of the relationship between the two nations. china just after 24 hours ago after this was announce they'd this is what north korea said was an h bomb test firing china said they didn't know about it and that's a difference from the previous test. the previous three tests that north korea has carried out because they gave china their ally a heads up this was coming so they could expect it so they

weren't taken off guard. they were. chinese officials called this test-firing this bomb a provocation like the other nations in the region but also went as far as to say it was an unsafe unwise action and that it could destabilize asia pacific region. so that's some pretty strong rhetoric coming out from an ally. what's interesting seeing is china's behind the united nations security council resolution and has been in the past but it's interesting if china does anything more on a bilateral level directly with north korea that is something we haven't seen as overt over the last couple of test firings, top-of-the-line. >> scott heidler, thank you. experts are casting doubts on north korea's claim to have tested its first ever hydrogen bomb they are not doubting pyongyang's nuclear power and ambitions. al jazeera's courtney kealy

reports. >> after a north korean news anchor announced the testing of a hydrogen warhead. nuclear weapon possessing powerful socialist north korea the great workers party of north korea. but worldwide expressed doubts about the her mit kingdom's grandiose claims. >> the characteristics of the seismic signals detected from this event are very similar to the characteristics of the seismic signals detected from the previous declared nuclear test. >> this is north korea's fourth test from its withdrawal from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty 13 years ago. north korea reactivated its

nuclear facilities and just months after that announced it had the nuclear weapons. called the united states our enemy and destroyer of world peace and vowed to turn the area into a sea of fire and hell. sad statement on what north korean leaders think of their own people. >> it is their failure to comply with their obligations and their failure to do what they were supposed to do under onl not ony international obligations but the agreement with the united states. and we hope north korea will realize the folly of its actions. >> by 2006 security council approved a resolution, since then north korea has often claimed to have extraordinary nuclear capabilities with the goal of building a warhead and making it small enough to fit on

a missile, capable of reaching the u.s. mainland. kim jong-un remains determined to expand north korea's nuclear arsenal. courtney kealy, al jazeera. >> christopher hill head of the u.s. delegation to the six party talks on the north korean nuclear issue he's the dean of the joseph ko rgbel school of international studies, he joins us from denver. north korea debt necessitates a nucleadetonates a nuclearweaponl before. will this be different or will history repeat itself and north korea will suffer a few consequences? >> well, there's a tendency to see history repeat itself and that has to do with the fact that there are just no good options. certainly there has been this condemn necessitatary language

from the u.n. that's good, but we're scraping the bottom of the barelbarrel when it comes to san he. we'll try to get to the chinese and try convince them that this is a serious matter that they really has to take responsibility on. >> even if the u.n. levies sanction he, chinese aid to north korea has grown significantly and pretty much keeps north korea afloat and undermines any sanction he the u.n. can impose. >> you've got it. in terms of implementing these u.n. sanctions there's some hope that china which is absolutely furious with the north koreans after all they thought they had a deal where they'd be a little nicer to them and the north koreans would agree thought to test. the chinese are pretty upset about this, and what wert way than to implement u.n.

sanctions. we'll have to see on that score. >> i understand the arguments that kim jong-un moved ahead to consolidate power and to see that the program is progressing to show north korea is strong. but why would he risk that crucial relationship with the chinese, who as you said are furious and completely surprised by this test? >> first of all being north korea, being north korean is to say i don't care what other people think. secondly, they often exaggerate their own position, and explain that everyone else has got to kind of come around to their will. so they'll look at china and they'll say well china really wants to keep us in the fold because otherwise they'll worry that we'll move over to russia. so we don't need to worry about china. so they have these kinds of internal discussions if you will that really don't bear much reality to what's going on out there. because they simply don't care and they simply don't understand it particularly well.

so you know one hopes that at some point they will completely miscalculate with the chinese. but so far they've been kind of right. they've been able to muddle through all these things so we'll have to see what happens thiin this one. >> how concerned are you if this were not a detonation of the hydrogen bomb that the north koreans are getting closer to miniaturized weapons that could be delivered by ballistic missiles? >> i'm glad you asked me that. apparently if they have not been success this time doesn't mean they are not going to try try again. the whole purpose of the test is to see what your vulnerabilities are to correct those and try again. i would not assume that the test is by definition unsuccessful. they may have found out a lot of information that will make it a success next time and especially given the fact that north korea has a pretty robust missile program. so they may be getting to that

fateful moment where they can put a warhead on a missile. >> they've had issue with those missiles. so in the general context of developing these smaller weapons, possibly, and better long range missiles, how much of a threat does north korea pose to the united states? >> well, if you're saying that you know they've had problems with the missiles and they've certainly had problems even with the nuclear tests, perhaps this is one of those, the thing about nuclear weapons is you put a weapon a missile you fire it and you can't make an assumption they are going to have a problem with that. you have to treat it as if they are not going to have a problem. so the thing about nuclear weapons it's a pretty serious matter no matter how many problems you have or technical problems you have with the systems. >> ambassador christopher hill, thank you for your insights. >> my pleasure. >> trapped families desperate

for food and fuel as winter takes hold. venezuela's socialist government swearing in legislators the government tried to bar from taking their seats.

>> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm antonio mora. coming up in this half hoir of international news, trove contra

germany mayor's statements. but first a look at the stories making headlines across the u.s. in our american minute. >> a plan to defund planned parenthood, the first time gop has gotten a health care defunding law to the president's desk. the leader of a native american tribe is calling for the armed protesters occupying a wildlife refuge in oregon to leave. demonstrators took over a government building as a show of support of two local ranchers for setting fire on government property. the chief justice of alabama.'s supreme court says the state's ban on same sex marriage is still in force. ray moore has ordered locals not

to issue marriage licenses to same sex marriages. in june the supreme court overturned the ban. ten people have died in the town of medaya due a siege by hezbollah backed forces. according to a human rights group, a siege cutting off food and medicine. elsewhere in syria as well as turkey, extreme cold is taking a toll. al jazeera's sue turtin reports. >> they thought they were safe. this kurdish family had fled syria and made this makeshift tent in southeast turkey their home. then the snow came. they didn't have the fuel to keep warm. their four month old baby died of hypothermia. >> we ran from the war and god

blessed me with a son. i lost him to the cold, i lost him to the war. >> now he fears his three-year-old son will also succumb to the cold. he calls on the world to witness their suffering. they buried the baby close to the tent. across the border, outside aleppo, families forage for fuel. it is a daily battle to stay warm and alive. >> translator: we're cold. we never warm up. it's always cold. and now it's snowing. we don't have food and we have no warm clothes either. the bombing is all around. my son screams when they bomb just near us. >> reporter: as many as 400 families live in tents here. desperately hoping that the syrian planes don't target their tents. this is the fifth winter that

syrian refugees have faced since this conflict began. it's the fifth year that syrian children and babies have fought to stay alive, as temperatures have plummeted. but it's the first year that there's been a glim are of hope that those behind the wall might be willing to sit down and talk. the shadow of syria's suffering will hang heavy over that negotiating table. nowhere is the situation more desperate than in medaya north of damascus. besieged by syrian regime forces and hezbollah fighters for over 170 days people here are starving. one doctor told al jazeera, one or two people die every day. only a lifting of the blockade can save them. their responsibility i is globa,

sue turtin, al jazeera. >> workshop accused of making defective life jackets that would have been sold to refugees. more than 1200 jackets were seized, made of material that does not float and can cause people to sink. the bodies of dozens of drown refugees have washed up on turkey's shores this week. the mayor of cologne, germany, said women could avoid assault by keeping strangers more than an arm's length away. germany police identified three suspects accused of assaults on new year's eve. today some of the victims spoke out. >> translator: all of a sudden, these men around us began groping us. they touched our behinds and

touched between our legs. they touched us everywhere. i was scared i wouldn't leave this crowd alive. >> police have described the group as arab or north africans. the defense department says it has transferred two guantanamo detain s to ghana. both men are yemeni citizens born in saudi arabia and captured in afghanistan. they are the first in a group of 17 detainees expected to be released this month. 105 remain at guantanamo bay, of those, 46 had have been cleared for release. nine months ago, al shabaab attacked garissa university, now students are registering for classes. malcolm webb was on campus as the new students arrived.

>> reporter: it was a place of learning that became the scene of a massacre. now, garissa university has reopened and students are arriving. nine months before, they were running for their lives. gunmen from the somali armed group al shabaab had attacked. now a steady trickle of new students were registering. yosjosephine speaks. >> it was a bad time but now is the time of our life. >> it took the whole day for special forces to arrive and end the siege. there are now 25 armed police stationed at the university. they stay inside this newly built barracks, the management

say that this is what's needed to prevent an attack and they say this is exactly the kind of security that they were asking for, for months before the attack happened. the principal was sleeping in his house within the university when he heard the first gun shots. al shabaab fighters have attacked many times in this part of kenya near the somali border so he knew he immediately new what was happening. >> the female dormitory now renovated is where most were killed and he says it could have been prevented. >> authorities locations, asking them for more for the university, but that was not heeded at the time. >> reporter: and the principal was one of several people who told us the many christian students living here from other parts of the country made the school a target for the attackers. he wanted to create a religious

divide. the government has appointed a new regional security chief after the attack. we asked him why the extra security was provided only now? >> i believe there was a bet of negligence, because whoever was in charge of the command in this area should have really heeded to all those requests. >> reporter: the day they were killed it came too late. those who survived have since troferred study elsewhere. but garissa is the only university in this part of kenya and the newcomers and staff, are excited to get back to normal. malcolm webb, al jazeera, kenya. >> al shabaab is accused of using a refugee camp in kenya to hide. temporary shell fer ter for somalshelter for somalis.in tond segment, paul brennan described

how the camp became how it is today. >> the camps at dadab now cover an area of 55 square kilometers. with more than half a million displaced people living the dadab was regarded as the largest refugee camp in the world. in 2014 a tripartite agreement between kenya somalia and u.n. hcr, kenyan forces have been taking military action against somali military for several years and kenya has previously alleged that the camp has been used as a highout for the terrorist group al shabaab. during the attack and siege of nairobi'nairobi'snairobi's westg

mall. paul brennan, al jazeera. >> ben raul inn rawlins, great e you with us. you begin the book at the white house trying to explain to the members of the nfc what life is like at dadab. in the book you really sound frustrated, how can describe the many faces of what's a city, it's really a city, got a population larger than the people who live in the city limits of miami or atlanta. how do you describe it to people who are watching? >> i think best way to start to think about it is five separate small cities each one about 100,000. kind of they look like moons, orbiting a town. the original town of dadab. and they are made of mud,

sticks, plastic, if you think of a slum, and then think of that slum cut up into a grid spread over the desert. and the desert's red and all of the houses, the roofs of the houses are mostly kind of steel, corrugated iron stuff like that. >> how hard is life there? because you do describe that theaters have developed, restaurants, hospital he even hotels, which is surprising. but most of the structures are rudimentary at best. >> all of the structures are temporary makeshift. the kenyan government doesn't allow any concrete, doesn't allow any major construction materials. there's no plumbing, there's no sanitation, there's no major roads. so this community as we describe exist but in a very thread bare fashion. >> and some of these people have lived there their whole lives, it was founded in 1992, some of the early children who are born there are young adults now. >> we are now on to our third generation in dadab.

the children their children are having children. >> how much hope is there for them? one of the characters you write them through the eyes of nine people who live there. some of them have made it to australia and been resettled but how much hope is there for the average person there? >> i think the way you survive in a place like that is you have to manufacture hope. so one day i would ask for example my -- one of the people in the book is called cairo, a young girl who dreams of going to canada through winning a scholarship. one day when it's going well, hope for the future, she talks about canada. another day she's very depressed, she didn't get the scholarship, she's very down, she says there's no hope for me no future. people are living in a pressure cooker. >> not that many kids get to go to school, fewer than half of them goat go to school. >> fewer than 40% go to primary

school and even less to secondary school. >> it's a dange dangerous places well. >> it's dangerous in some respect, possibly more than nairobi. >> and you can't trust -- >> the main danger is the police to tell you the truth. >> many people there are actual refugees from the al shabaab violence in somalia. so is it both a refuge from terrorism and an incubator for terrorists? >> i wouldn't say it is an incubator for terrorists, i would say there's a small terror presence, small presence of al shabaab but nowhere near what kenya talks about and the majority of the population are very hostile al shabaab. if they go back to somalia and discovered with a u.n. ration card, they are at risk of being slaughtered for being part of

infidels. >> it survives based on u.s. and u.n. la largesse. >> it does. yes. >> and the aid programs are partially responsible for the conditions there. >> it's very complicated but there is this thing called donor fatigue. the donors have set up these structures but they are not always financing them. at the moment the rations are cut because of all the rations for syria. people are trapped with nothing to eat and that is kind of our responsibility. >> that is a fascinating sad sometimes not too strange story. ben rawlins, city of thorns. thank you. >> it is morning in china where stock markets have been forced to shut down after plunging again. after the csi 300 index dropped

almost 5.5%. when the markets reopened, the circuit breaker stopped. adrian brown, the slan shanghai plummeted more than 7%, the shenzhen more than 7.5%. >> what has happened has been unprecedented. the opening session lasted just 12 minutes when trading had to halt, indices, shut down system, the markets then reopened. then just after 3 minutes the index dropped by more than 7% which meant trading had to be halted for the rest of the day. now why is this happening? a number of factors. the chinese currency is continuing to weaken. also, that provides evidence that china's economy of course is continuing to slow. it's further evidence of that.

also, the head of a major securities exchange is under investigation for corruption and insider trading and of course that claim by north korea that it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb fed into market insecurities. i would imagine behind the scenes the chinese government leaders are meeting to discuss what action to take next. because they have been pouring money into the market, buying shares in blue chip companies but it hasn't been enough to halt the slide on share prices. what eyes will be on now is what will happen on friday because that is when the restrictions on selling shares are due to come into effect. that means these restrictions came into force during the market turmoil in august. and the government said we would lift those restrictions in january 2016. so those who want to get rid of their shares can do so. but it's going to mean a lot of cheap shares a lot of cheap

stock on the market which is going to pull down prices even more. now government has said a few days ago that it wanted to limit the scale of those restrictions but it hasn't specified exactly what that will be. and that is feeding into the uncertainty. >> uncertainty has certainly made it a terrible week in china and it is having effect in markets around the world, adrian brown thanks as always. the world bank says the world could be battered by a terrible perfect storm. the bricks could all face economic problems at the same time. potentially putting added stress on world financial markets. despite that warning, the organization predicts global economic activity should grow nearly 3% this year because of strong actions by developed

countries like the u.s. tomorrow night the fierce debate over 8 do adolph hitler'n kamf, going on sale in germany.

now to our global view segment with a look at how news outlets across the world are reacting to various events. >> if korea herald notes, north korea's fourth nuclear bomb test the threat should not be taken lightly. the paper warns, the world should be aware, north korea must pay a price for this provocation. the jerusalem post says events in the middle east are moving so fast there's no time for on the job training for the next u.s. president. sitinciting i.s.i.l, and the resurgence of iran. and the irish times says, care must be taken when talking about the refugee crisis. focusing on the sheer number could make us immune of the real

suffering of real human beings. the bodies of 34 were found along turkey on wednesday, this is time to remember people not a time for more borders and guards. protests in hong kong in support of a missing bookseller. lee vo is the fifth person from the mighty current publishing house to vanish. the firm sold books critical of chinese leadership. concerned that he may have been abducted and taken to the mainland for punishment. al jazeera's rob mcbride reports. >> protesters are taken to foreign sons lat consulates. after it is found that lee vo holds a british passport.

>> concern about china issue. >> lee is one of five book sellers to go missing from a chinese book company specializing in titles about the chinese leadership which are banned in mainland china. china's failure to confirm lee is being held has led to rumors and conspiracy theories. lee could have made his own way to mainland china, from troubled business relationships even to sex workers. many law makes makers in hong kong are not convinced. >> until and unless he appear before us to be safe and absolutely safe, then we must utilize all our resources to locate him and to save him. >> with lee's bookstore now closed others seem to be taking precautions. local media says this chain has

taken banned titles off its shelves. at another bookstore the owner paul tang has no plans to remove controversial titles. >> only a bookshop owner so what would be next, whap next? if it will happen on me? >> as a seller of books rather than a publisher of them he believes he is safe. for now at least. rob mcbride al jazeera, hong kong. >> venezuela's president has reshuffled his president to deal with his country's economic crisis and a newly emboldened opposition congress. nicholas maduro, pro-maduro supreme court because of voter fraud allegations. one lawmaker who supports maduro says it's evidence the opposition has no legitimacy.

>> there is no conflict from rivalry, there is a violation of conflict, by the leadership of the national assembly to defy decision by the supreme court and that is all this is. we will take the necessary legal action because this should be documented. >> opposition leaders also angered maduro's supporters by ordering all of the late hugo chavez's portraits removed from the national assembly building. pope francis wished eastern christians a merry christmas. follow the example of wise men to search for the meaning of things and not settle for mediocrity. many orthodox christians celebrate the birth of jesus on thursday. dolche and gabanna, long

flowing robe like dresses and hijabs, used to cover a woman's head and neck. estimated at nearly $9 billion. conductor and composer pierre boulet has died at the age of 90. ♪ ♪ >> boulet conducted some of the world's greatest orchestras, including the new york philharmonic. he shunned the baton, preferring to work with his bea bay area h. that is it for this international news hour. i'm antonio mora. next half hour, tracking animal cruelty cases, i'll be back with more news in two minutes.

>> good evening i'm antonio mora. this is lo al jazeera america. doubts concerning nort north kos hydrogen bomb tests. in california a look at the storm damage from el nino flooding. >> also. >> we would like to see the hammonds released from federal prison as soon as possible. >> are opposition if federal property. >> i was raped while at st. george's in 1978.