03/09/2017 BBC Weekend News

North Korea's most powerful nuclear weapons test to date sparks

The test of a hydrogen bomb - which could be mounted

on a long-range missile - is called a perfect success

REPORTER: Mr President, will you attack North Korea?

"We'll see," says President Trump as the US says any threat

to its territories will be met with a massive military response.

We'll be analysing what, if anything, will deter North Korea

from pursuing an ever more perilous path.

The prospect of a parliamentary battle over Brexit legislation

as the UK hits back at the Commission on progress

An exodus of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims -

we report from Bangladesh, where thousands have fled

This is the main land route for the Rohingyas

On the other side of the mountain is Myanmar.

A BBC investigation finds IS recruiters were trying to direct

would-be attackers a year before Westminster and London Bridge.

And Lewis Hamilton wins the Italian Grand Prix,

spoiling the Ferrari party at their home race.

Tensions over North Korea's nuclear programme increased dramatically

today after it carried out its sixth and most powerful

It claimed to have detonated a hydrogen bomb capable of being

mounted on an intercontinental missile.

In the last couple of hours, the US Defence Secretary has said

a threat to the United States will be met with a massive

Theresa May has called for urgent new sanctions

The blast detected near the Punggye-ri underground test site

in northwestern North Korea is said by experts to have had more

destructive power than the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city

of Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

We'll report from Beijing and Tokyo in a moment -

It was a perfect success, the newsreader declared,

as she announced North Korea was close to achieving

The country says it has detonated a hydrogen bomb

small enough to be fitted to an intercontinental missile.

This is Kim Jong-Un inspecting what North Korea

If true, it would mean that Pyongyang is now capable

of launching a nuclear attack on cities in the United States.

This unprecedented threat prompted President Trump to say,

"South Korea's talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work.

"They only understand one thing," he declared.

Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam,

or our allies, will be met with a massive military

response, a response both effective and overwhelming.

It's a strong message to South Korea's president,

who for months has said talking to North Korea was the solution.

Today he expressed outrage and disappointment.

TRANSLATION: North Korea has made an absurd tactical mistake

by committing a series of provocations such as launching

ICBM missiles and conducting a nuclear test which

on the peninsula and is threatening world peace.

South Korea is most worried because it has the most to lose.

And that's why even though military measures like these bombing drills

are held in the face of the threat from North Korea, it's hard to see

It's certainly our view that none of the military options are good.

The distance between North Korea and Seoul is very, very small.

They could basically vaporise large parts of the South Korean population

Here in Seoul, a city that is home to tens of millions of people,

we are only about 50 kilometres from the border with North Korea,

and at any given time, a mass of weapons is pointing

And that's why rather than take a military route,

the international community has been trying to put economic

And the impact of every move Kim Jong-Un makes is felt not just

in the Korean peninsula, but also across the sea in Japan.

The pod under the belly of this Japanese air force jet can sniff

This afternoon, it roared off towards North Korea to do just that.

It's less than a week since North Korea fired this

For Prime Minister Abe, this is becoming an unwelcome routine.

TRANSLATION: Together with the US, South Korea, China and Russia,

Japan will take determined action against North Korea.

North Korea may now have tested a nuclear device that is small

enough to put on top of a ballistic missile that

could be fired at the United States, and for the government

here in Japan, that is very disturbing, because it raises

In future, will the United States be willing to risk one

of its own cities, say for example Denver, in order to

This afternoon, the US ambassador rushed to see Japan's Foreign

Minister to reassure him. No action taken by the North Koreans will in

any way deter our commitment. Japan and the US may have the military

might to deter North Korea, but they have few other levers to pressure

Pyongyang. Only one country does, and that is China. China was quite

literally shaken by the blast. North Korea's nuclear test site is only 60

miles from the border. It will have sent a diplomatic jolt, too, coming

just before President Xie Jin Ping opened this international summit.

Although he made no direct reference, he warned of the

challenges to world peace. On state TV, the message was more blunt, with

an official statement strongly condemning the test. There can be

little doubt that the government here in Beijing is rattled. Once

again, it has had to order emerges irradiation monitoring along the

border, but despite the frustration, it may be reluctant to punish North

Korea too hard. China has recently been stopping cargoes of call and

seafood in line with toughened UN sanctions. But its biggest fear is

not nuclear weapons. It's the chaos that would come with the economic

collapse of the impoverished state is shrouded in darkness on the other

side of this river. John Sudworth, BBC News, Beijing.

I'm joined in the studio by our North America editor Jon Sopel. What

has the US reaction been like? Was an act of extraordinary defines that

we have seen from North Korea. The other thing worth pointing out is

that for all Donald Trump's talk of fire and fury, of US weapons being

locked and loaded, that seems to have had no effect on possibly could

have made things worse, so you have the US looking at some not very good

options. We've heard about the military solution not being great.

And so you have a situation where everything will still have to go

through China. So long as you have got China believing that a nuclear

North Korea is preferable to a failing state North Korea, then it's

hard to see any dramatic breakthrough. So not very good

options, but what are the most likely one is to be pursued by the

US? We have heard the Defence Secretary, Mattis, talking about the

decisive response. We have also heard them talking about the

possibility of stopping trade with any nation that is trading with

North Korea. That means China. That would set the global economy back

massively if it did happen. Maybe it is a way of saying to China, we are

really serious about this and you have got to do something. It may be

that there are back channels that are open and the Chinese are hurting

pressure, but as things stand, we have North Korea, whose military

capability is accelerated dramatically, and an American

president who is saying, the time for talking is over. That's not a

happy combination. Jon Sopel, thank you.

Here, the Brexit Secretary David Davis has said

that the European Commission is making itself look "silly"

by saying that talks with Britain aren't making progress.

The EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, says British people

need to understand the "extremely serious consequences" of leaving.

Theresa May faces a parliamentary battle this week

with the first Commons debate on Brexit legislation,

David Davis and Michel Barnier at last week's talks.

Today, Mr Davis insisted the UK would not be pressured into paying

We are basically going through this very systematically,

a very British way, a very pragmatic way of doing it, and of course he's

And he wants to put pressure on us, which is why the stance is this week

Bluntly, I think it looked a bit silly, because they're plainly

And yes, there were spiky exchanges between the two men

Mr Barnier has since spent the weekend on the banks

He told the conference here he does not want to blackmail the UK,

but added, "There are extremely serious consequences

of leaving the single market, and it hasn't been explained

"We intend to teach people what leaving the single market means.

"The future of Europe is more important than Brexit.

Meanwhile, the rows about leaving the EU return here this week.

The planned new law that is needed to make it happen will be

discussed in the Commons, and remember, the Prime

Minister's parliamentary predicament is precarious.

And that's why the debate on repealing this -

the act that took us into the EU - matters so much.

Labour says it will vote against the law as planned,

which will eventually be stored here, unless it's changed,

including the option of staying in the single market

during a transitional period after Brexit.

Whilst we accept the result of the referendum, we're not giving

a blank cheque the Government to do it in whichever way it

wants, because it's not in the public interest.

This means any rebellion from just a handful of Conservative MPs

would leave the Prime Minister in real trouble.

Discussions on delivering Brexit are getting rather blustery.

Chris Mason, BBC News, at Westminster.

Thousands of members of Myanmar's Rohinga minority

are continuing to flee across the border into

They're escaping a military crackdown after Rohinga militants

attacked police positions a week ago.

Nearly 73,000 have fled, and human rights groups accuse

the Myanmar army of atrocities and indescriminate violence.

The treatment of Myanmar's Muslim minority is the biggest challenge

facing leader Aung San Suu Kyi, accused by critics of not speaking

Sanjoy Majumder has the latest from the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

It is a long and torturous flight to freedom. The Rohingya who cannot

make it on their own are helped along, leaving them behind could get

them killed. So they labour on, bringing with them what ever

possessions they could carry. Some far too young to understand what

happened. This is the mainland route through which the Rohingyas are now

entering Bangladesh. On the other side of the mountain is Myanmar, and

they say they can slip in without being detected easily. But it also

means that they have a steep climb through the mountains and they have

to walk through the forests and wade through the streams before they can

get to one of the refugee camps. But at least they're alive. They've lost

their homes, their villages have been burned to the ground, and many

have seen their relatives murdered. TRANSLATION: My brother was killed.

They shot him in the chest. I couldn't even take him a proper

grave. I somehow managed to bury him just buy a house, and then I left.

It's hard to verify what is happening. No one is being allowed

in. But fresh plumes of smoke can be seen from the Bangladesh side,

presumably from burning villages. Bangladesh has now relaxed its

borders, and the floodgates have opened. Rohingyas are streaming in

by the hundreds every hour. Thousands of others are waiting to

cross over. Those who have made it our exhausted and overcome.

TRANSLATION: We've been on the road for four days. Our food ran out on

the first night, and we haven't eaten since then.

But space is running out for the new arrivals. They are squeezed into

camps, schools, or just out in the open. Their first hurdle was to make

it here alive. Now they have to figure out how to survive. Sanjoy

Majumder, BBC News, on the Bangladesh border.

Hospital managers in England have called for an emergency financial

bail-out, saying they are bracing themselves for the worst

NHS Providers, which represents the vast majority of health trusts,

says at least ?200 million of extra funding is needed to pay

But the Department of Health says the NHS is better prepared

for winter this year than ever before.

The chief executive of public relations company Bell Pottinger has

resigned ahead of the publication of a report

James Henderson stood down after complaints that the firm

stirred up racial tensions of behalf of President Jacob Zuma.

Bell Pottinger has accepted that elements of its campaign had been

A BBC investigation has found the so-called Islamic State

were secretly directing would-be extremists to murder people at both

London Bridge and Westminster nearly a year before each attack.

Recruiters pointed our undercover reporters to terror manuals

which showed how best to drive a car at crowds and attack

The Government says it's trying to suffocate IS's ability to recruit

Indiscriminate murder on the streets of London.

Exactly the kind of attack so-called Islamic State had been calling for.

Our investigation reveals the group were not only inspiring such plots,

but issuing directions to target both Westminster and London Bridge.

Last summer, our undercover reporter made contact

The authorities were fully aware of our communication.

After inviting us to talk on a secret messaging site,

IS agents pinpointed Westminster, promising, if you succeed

with an attack there, it would be huge and damaging.

He said that this was a very good target because it was crowded

He told me to just kill ordinary people, and that it wouldn't require

With hindsight, the instructions look like a blueprint

for the Westminster attack eight months later.

Khalid Masood used a car to mow down pedestrians and then

In July 2016, we were also in conversation with another

We were directed to terrorist guides on the so-called dark web.

One of them showed how to use a vehicle to kill people.

The other showed how to use knives and home-made

There was a description of how to create a fake suicide vest,

and how it can be used to stop the police from attacking you if you

The instructions bear all the hallmarks of the carnage

nearly a year later at London Bridge.

A van, knives, fake suicide belts and a stash of improvised bombs.

Hanif Kadir, a former Al-Qaeda fighter, now

tackling radicalisation, is alarmed at how quickly

encrypted communication can radicalise young Britons.

At that time in 2002, it still took me six to seven months.

If they'd have had this kind of technology, I would...

I would put my hand on my heart and I would say guaranteed

within a few weeks you could have somebody so enraged with revenge,

that's how they see it, that they would become a suicide

The Government has vowed to close down what it calls safe

space where terrorists can both plot and recruit.

I think the authorities have an unbelievably

Encrypted apps or anonymous web browsers or the dark net,

these places online that are very, very difficult to properly monitor,

And as their self-declared caliphate crumbles in the Middle East,

IS are still making the most of secret communications,

determined to inspire but also direct atrocities here in the UK.

And you see the full investigation - Terror by Text - on the BBC iplayer

from tomorrow and in the London region on BBC One on

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she believes Turkey

will never become a member of the European Union.

Mrs Merkel, who's trying to win a fourth term in office,

was taking speaking in a televised debate with her rival Martin Schulz

She said she will suggest calling off talks over Turkey's

The most devastating floods to hit South Asia in a decade have killed

more than 1,400 people and focused attention on lack of preparedness

for annual monsoon rains, as authorities struggle to get aid

Justin Rowlatt is in Bihar, one of the poorest states in India

and the worst affected by the floods.

They're mixing up huge pots of vegetable curry and dhal.

Food for those left destitute by the floods.

But you can rebuild a house or replant a field.

There are some things you never recover from.

So they came down here to get provisions, and the water

was just up to their knees, and then when they turned to go

back, suddenly there was this great surge of water came down,

and it dragged them away, dragged the father and the women away,

and the women managed to grab hold of the trees down here.

She said she watched as her father was swept away.

Sometimes I wish I had been washed away with him.

This was the worst flood in the region for decades.

Almost a metre of rain fell in just two days across a vast area

It came down the river as a great pulse of water.

Just look at this enormous embankment, and just imagine

for a moment the force needed to punch this hole into it.

And the fear is that climate scientists say extreme weather

events like this and the destruction they bring with them are only

And that is a terrifying prospect for vulnerable

With all the sport, here's Karthi Gnanasegaram

Lewis Hamilton has won today's Italian Grand Prix,

which gives him the outright lead in Formula 1's World Championship

The Mercedes driver started from a record 69th

Lewis Hamilton didn't need the drum roll. He knew Monza was his moment.

Starting in front for a record 60 night-time, his job was to stay

there. His biggest test was the start, just stay clear and

everything else would sort itself out. Races can deflate in second in

the scramble. Watch out for the championship leader Sebastian Vettel

in his Ferrari, up from sixth on the grid to third in the race. The more

places Hamilton could put between himself and Sebastian Vettel, the

war he could lead the standings by. Just when you think it looks easy,

the circuit reminds you didn't. For the most part, you would have to

look up to see dramatic manoeuvring, then Daniel Ricciardo took off. He

never caught Vettel, and no one was catching Hamilton, who crashed the

party in Ferrari country. Today the car was fantastic, and really a

dream to drive, and a big thank you to all of the fans that came out

today, and I look forward to coming back here next year. The love wasn't

mutual from Ferrari fans, but Hamilton can only without the love.

He now leads the drivers standings by three points. Patrick Geary, BBC

News. Bath have won a fascinating

encounter against Leicester on the first weekend of rugby

union's Premiership season. Manu Tuilangi opened the scoring

for Leicester in his first But Bath responded with three quick

tries before the break, including Semesa Rokoduguni almost

running the full Britain's Chris Froome

increased his overall lead at the Vuelta a Espana

as he continues his attempt to win the Tour de France and the Spanish

race in the same year. Froome, in the leader's red jersey,

finished ahead of his nearest rival, Vincenzo Nibali, and has a minute

and one second advantage Details of the rest of the day's

sport are on the BBC Sport website, including day one of cycling's Tour

of Britain and the latest Finally, the music world has been

paying tribute to the co-founder of the American band Steely Dan,

guitarist Walter Becker, Steely Dan had string of hits

in the 1970s, including FM, Reelin' In The Years

and Rikki Don't Lose that Number. Becker, along with Donald Fagan,

created a brand of jazz-influenced rock that became a defining sound

of west coast America in the '70s, selling more than 40

million albums worldwide. Stay with us on BBC One, it's time

for the news where you are.