what was unexpected is curt also discussed issues related to the russia investigation although he made clear he had no direct evidence of collusion first but the lobbyist roger stone had informed trump that wiki leaks a told him that they would release e-mails damaging to hillary clinton during the twenty sixteen presidential campaign mr trump responded by stating to the effect would that be great prosecutors allege russia supplied wiki leaks with those emails we could leaks denies that and also says no conversation with stone took place but that it had publicly announced that publication was imminent either way trump has denied for knowledge karen also said he suspects trump knew that a trump tower meeting would take place with russian nationals about getting damaging information on clinton during the campaign and alleged the trump lied throughout the campaign about his attempts to build a trump tower in moscow and the president's lawyers signed off on post congressional testimony about those negotiations you need to know that mr trump's personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to congress about the timing of

the moscow tower negotiations before i gave it to be clear mr trump knew of and directed the trump moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. he lied about it because he never expected to win cohen also made this tantalizing statement is there any other wrongdoing or illegal act that you are aware of regarding donald trump that we haven't yet discussed today yes and again those are part of the investigation that's currently being looked at by the southern district of new york there are also allegations about tax fraud on ford on the pulse of donald trump's charitable foundation this would have made uncomfortable viewing for the president if as was reported he was watching in vietnam even of the whole problem denies all the allegations shepparton see al-jazeera washington well the republican representatives at the current hearing

mainly focused on what they consider has a lack of credibility right in front of this committee you can't conflict your testimony sir europe at the lab the logical liar you don't know truth from the from truth from falsehood sir are you all you have right now to present hate is my time i offer a master with a plan i ask you a question i'll ask for an answer. has he has more from washington d.c. . it was hour after hour of striking testimony from the u.s. president donald trump's former personal attorney michael cohen one of the more alarming things came after the testimony was over we saw the chairman the democratic chairman of the committee come out and reporters asked him do you think the president of the united states committed a crime while in office and he said well after hearing the testimony i believe he did he's referring to the fact that michael cohen was able to produce a check from president trump that he said is reimbursement for paying off or pernod

freestar who wanted to disclose the fact before the election that she had had an affair with the president that is a crime the cohen is already pled guilty to the present the united states he admitted is an unindicted coconspirator with him in federal court in new york another thing that came out was the president's tax returns he's one of the only presidential candidates really for the last forty years who hasn't released his tax returns michael cohen was asked about that he said the president told him he didn't want to release his tax returns because he was afraid then they would be investigated i think tanks and it could trigger an audit the problem for the president is he said all along he couldn't return releases returns because he was already being audited so that calls that into question the bottom line this is just the beginning congress of played out the case why everyone close to the president needs to come before them in the near future be put under oath and say exactly what happened. steven rogers was a member of the donald trump for president advisory board during the twenty sixteen

campaign and he joins us now from new jersey stephen some pretty hard weds from cohen today did it change your minds about the president. it did not change my mind it did not change the mind of millions of americans would buy cohen gave us was most of what we already know in public to the takeaways however one is when he actually stated that there was no evidence of any collusion with russia which i thought was significant and then he went off and actually admitted that he and his attorney met with the democrats including the chairman of that hearing before he came on the air so it seems to me that the democrats orchestrated the greatest show on earth it's going to backfire there's really nothing new that mr cohen offered and i must tell you all the allegations he made not one shred of evidence even being asked by congressman for evidence he was unable to produce one

shred of evidence of his allegations well he did produce a check which he spoke about says being hush money that that was paid and i feel i must point out that a lot of the republicans in that committee hearing they were attacking cohen's credibility but not actually the substance of many of his allegations. well he's a convicted felon he's an individual who had a life time of cheating the government of lying to people of this even people and his motive right now would be to get even with the president for not getting a white house job i mean we all know that that went on and he probably wants to help himself in the future maybe he'll get a reduced sentence maybe there's a deal somewhere in the making but he really had no serious impact on the way the people in this country feel about the president look the president's polls are showing over fifty percent right now and i assume when he comes back from vietnam

they're going to be much higher and this will actually be on the last page of the newspapers in a few weeks even beyond some of the allegations around hush money and the wiki leaks allegations there were also comments about president trump's character what did you make of those. well when mr cohen talked about roger stone having a telephone conversation with president trump with regard to the weekly leaks and the e-mail dumps. mr cohen was asked will you do tape record people you do tape record people routinely and mr cohen said yes but when the congressman said well where is the tape recording of the stone trunk conversation he didn't have one so a lot of allegations were made by my cohen but with directly those the rectory involving president trump he had absolutely no evidence the president's character pretty good where the president was when mr cohen called the president

a racist i could tell you a pass to darrell scott from cleveland made it clear few months ago that president trump is one of the most friendliest presidents to the minority community we've had in recent times even that even calling the president a racist no evidence whatsoever he did also speak about president tom not expecting to win and suggested that perhaps some of this behavior took place because of that well i got a tale a lot of people did expect go president trump to win because hillary clinton was running over very well organized strong campaign i was one of the few who actually went on the air and believe that he was going to win because he was reaching out to communities all over the country that have been forgotten by the democrat party and frankly the republican party of the past so maybe you know mr trump believed he wasn't going to win based on that but he won and he's going to win again in two thousand and twenty stephen i want to ask you lastly

a you not concerned about president trump reportedly watching alison out as of this testimony and tweezing about coming from hungary i'm suggesting he is a little distracted when he's that to meet kim jong un to discuss nuclear weapons. not at all the president is well aware of his situation here in this country with regard to the democrats and the allegations being made at him but none of this for all these years he's been office has hindered his ability to do his job he's on the verge of doing something very significant in hanoi i hope and many people are hoping that he'll come back with perhaps a treaty that will end the war in korea officially i don't know but i could tell you it has not hindered his performance one bit he is delivering for the american people stephen raja's a member of the donald trump for president advisory board during the twenty sixteen and the campaign thanks for being with us on out of there. what.

plenty more ahead on this news hour and looting. running for their lives dozens of casualties after a high speed train crash in egypt. during the raid he was caught and arrested with a blood transfusion still in his arm. caught red handed five athletes are arrested in an anti doping raid got those details and scores. pakistan's prime minister iran khan has called for talks with india after the nuclear powers shut down each other's fighter jets in the disputed kashmir region pakistan says it down to two indian jets and captured one of the pilots india came straight shot down one pakistani aircraft and one can report from islamabad. what caused this indian fighter jet to crash is disputed between these two nuclear

rivals but it was evidence that pakistan and india were confronting each other in the skies above the borders and it prompted this appeal from pakistan's prime minister to india's leader mir and ramadi. sort of one year but we decided to take action today we only wanted to show india that we're able to and if you come into our land we will always retaliate to indian jets across the border and they were shot down i will say the pilots are with us the problem is where do we go from here. what are your target the pakistani air force says it shot down two indian warplanes after they crossed into its territory in the disputed region of kashmir one crashed in the district of. her firstly we need to clear the rubble and then deal with the injured after that the air force technical team will come and investigate what happened as of now we found two bodies. initially the

indian government said its plane was down to because of a technical fault we have unfortunately lost one day when. the pilot is missing in action. on this plane that he is in their custody we are sitting in the tension in this volatile region increased after a suicide bomb attack killed at least forty indian security personnel two weeks ago the pakistan based on group jaish e mohammad claimed responsibility on tuesday the indian air force carried out strikes close to the border of pakistan and pakistan administered kashmir the indian and pakistan governments have competing narratives about what's happening in the region analysts say the situation has the potential to escalate into full scale conflict this i think is being exacerbated by social media by television and by the speed with which information is being conveyed problem side all the other and there

is a lot of what you might call the nationalist flow that we see in any gothic when there is any kind all right lashon security. space around indian administered kashmir has been shut down and pakistan has closed all its airspace to commercial traffic there is a real atmosphere of fear in the disputed region all by kashmir many people particularly along the border are packing up their families and then leaving their houses because they are worried that more will come by pakistan and india now have two real options military which is what we think over the last few days or diplomacy in iran card algis there from about well i'm a lender mistry is a senior lecturer and pe studies and conflict management at lancaster university and he says there's reason to be hopeful for a diplomatic solution. there is a silver lining and their silver lining is that the progress the new prime minister

missed him around come is also extending the olive branch to indian side and so just saying that we should go for the nonmilitary means as one of your correspondents as a lady highlighted the bond is in india's court with in some degree of bravado on trying to lose a minute inside yesterday after the indian air force made the strikes against the pakistani side where there is a sudden degree of subdued kind of programmer of the moment justifiably what about what will happen to the parlor to is in the cost of the pakistani side so all that goes into sources that this rhetoric of war and this so it that we have will continue for a little while but the person missed in me is also giving in to the optimist and that is that this is going to be some degree of diplomatic back channel that is kept open and then tomorrow some community might intervene here at least twenty people have been killed and forty others injured after an accident in cairo central

railway station transport official say a train crashed into a barrier at high speed causing its fuel tank to explode egypt's transport minister has resigned after the accident alexey o'brien reports. security cameras in the station captured the moment of the crash. those waiting on the platform and gulped and flames others ran for their lives. yet i saw another it seems the trying lost control of the brakes it entered the station at very high speed hitting the pavement. it should have slowed down as it was about to enter the station but it came on too fast. well enough doctor to your i saw dead bodies many dead bodies seven bodies myself but there were a lot that we couldn't reach. investigators say the train's driver left his locomotive to fight with another driver who was blocking his way they say he failed

to put on the brakes i egypt is one of the oldest and largest rial networks in the region and accidents a common lying down badly maintained equipment and poor management. after this latest crash the minister of transport has resigned. in the i wish the speedy recovery of injured people i have directed the government team mediately move to the scene to follow up the situation and to hold the perpetrators accountable after the results of the investigation but many egyptians say it's the president who should be held accountable accusing him of failing to do enough to upgrade the rail system at least every year there's a major accident that claimed quite a large number of lives so this is not this is unfortunately not really the people are used here. the rail minister the transportation minister had made a request for a large amount of funding to upgrade the infrastructure of the ground network

particularly in upper egypt. not too long ago. believe oldest ones were were dispersed the prime minister has visited the site of the crash and is vowing a tough response the drivers being arrested but any action now is too late for the victims of this excellent and with many of the wounded in a critical condition the death toll is expected to rise and al jazeera still ahead on al-jazeera a circle of celebration supporters salute the reelection of nigeria's president but the opposition isn't so happy. five g. it's the talk of this year's my bottle wild congress we explore how the technology will change everyday life. and chelsea's ninety three million dollars pays the price for insubordination has that story and.

hello the rain is continuing to stream its way across much of china you can see it on the satellite picture making its way steadily towards the northeast working its way for shanghai giving some of us some rather heavy outbreaks of rain that will be more as we head through the next few days i think on says day it'll be the northern parts of the going she province where the rain starts and then continues along the northward that will gradually ritually though up towards the hunan province as we head into friday but still well to outbreaks of rain unlikely to be pretty heavy a bit further towards the south has plenty of dry weather to be found here you can see a handful of showers there over the southern parts of borneo that are making their way into piles of java and some entre this region again is looking fairly wet day but i think we'll also see those showers spread a bit further north as well so for some of us

a bit further north around catching we're likely to see some showers on thursday and for friday to meanwhile if we head up towards the northwest for many of us across parts of india the weather is fine and dry but in the north there is more in the way of cloud that's also affecting us in the northeast and stay still and through parts of bangladesh this is a region that's normally a draw at this time of year but we've seen heavy rain over the past few days and it looks like they'll be more as we had three thursday it's clearing away though and by friday it looks like we should return to the sunshine and it will be warm. weather sponsored by town in. this week's price a new method of cremation is helping him to tradition become more and line mentally friendly and we visit a danish community i mean you know i taken sustainability to new heights just over there among the rice and some so i don't know they are officially one hundred percent renewable. you can balance on this is that the energy right here right. on al-jazeera. the latest

news as it breaks i was after the explosions the police say the city is safe and the civilians why not try to get. with detailed coverage. young men are still volunteering to fight this policy other. from around the world it must be a different you know about is it through the street school through by many many people here in the bronx to rebuild. and again i'm. reminded of the news this hour donald trump says he is in no rush

for a nuclear deal with north korea as he meets can join one on the second and final day of the vietnam summit kim pledged to make every effort for a positive outcome he is having a one on one meeting with the u.s. president. donald trump's former lawyer has told a congressional hearing he believes the u.s. president is a racist a con man and a cheat michael cohen made several accusations against the president including that he personally ordered hush money payments republicans say cohen's testimony lacked credibility. pakistan's prime minister iran khan is calling for a dialogue after both india and pakistan say they shot down each other's fighter jets as i'm about says it's down to two indian pains and captured a pilot india says it shot down one pakistani aircraft and lost one of its own. returning to our top story let's take a look at north korea's nuclear program which has been shrouded in secrecy for years andrew chappelle explains. much of what we know about north korea's nuclear

arsenal comes from what pyongyang itself releases these pictures made available in the final months of u.s. president barack obama's administration provided startling images of potential progress for an intelligence agency scrutinize these photographs in detail to try and determine if this device was actually an atomic bomb and september twenty sixth north korea conducted its nuclear test and announced it had standardized the production of nuclear warheads the north has long maintained that its nuclear arsenal is necessary to deter an invasion by u.s. troops and even if the props aren't real u.s. intelligence officials would conclude six months into the trumpet ministration that north korea had successfully miniaturized an atomic weapon like this small enough to fit on a missile and after successfully test firing intercontinental ballistic missiles new u.n. sanctions were imposed and the u.s.

president warned of a five year fury and frankly power. well the world has never seen that's if junking didn't stop making threats when north korea responded by in veiling plans to fire missiles near the u.s. pacific island territory of guam and its military bases then in september twenty seventh teen photographs were released that set more alarm bells ringing in washington kim jong un inspecting what appears to be a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit on an intercontinental ballistic missile later that day a seismic event possibly to north korea that south korea says was manmade a six nuclear test its largest to date it created tremors that were felt in china and russia ugh you know. analysts have their doubts about the claims made by pyongyang because they can't be independently verified but these images have always sent signals to foreign adversaries and researchers who use them to make models like these created by the center for nonproliferation studies for the nuclear

threat initiative to estimate size weights and explosive energy of these devices from ground imagery we can extrapolate certain dimensions from missiles and design concepts from their nuclear weapons they display and we can try to understand better what the projections of their missile ranges are and what type of designs they're going six weapons have already been used in tests but what about the others well south korea thinks the north may have up to sixty with this kind of thermonuclear bomb being the most powerful and while there hasn't been another test in more than a year and north korea is talking to the united states korea watchers believe the north has continued producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium along with ballistic missiles enough perhaps for several more weapons able to be attached to rockets capable of reaching much of the world so many believe that it's probably a good thing these two are at least talking although cynics say it may well turn out to be little more than another photo opportunity. langkow is

a professor of korean studies at cookman university and he joins us now from seoul we've already seen trump call kim jong un a great leader and now he says he's in no rush for a nuclear deal just how is their relationship progressing. well i would say in loss of beauty and victory of the diplomacy north korean government is not necessarily very good in managing its country's economy even though they're getting much better decently but they're very good in many pilate ing great powers and we see it again because the moment when donald trump said and he did see three or four times that he is there is no need to rush it was a major success of the north koreans because after his flying through data mark they began to warty that vandy dormant trump ignoring the possibilities for that he doesn't care about regions far away from the united states is what many people

believe about him so when he's set about future of his possible conflict here that he will probably use military force against north korea and north korea's did like it they decided to move in time in their view time these are remarkable success because a second son it and at best it will produce only partial or leave very partial concessions from last year in a change for concessions from the united states above all most koreans would like to in time they will never ever side end their nuclear weapons because they have seen what happened to connell qadhafi in libya to saddam hussein of iraq was a remember the lessons of ukraine in one thousand nine hundred four ukrainians surrendered nuclear weapons being promised security by the russians and the americans. remember what happened to iranian do you right now so their logic is

simple not by you clear weapons we'll provide security but since the situation of the sort tense it makes sense to engage in negotiations underway seeing or in some seriousness at the moment actually of the of the cheerleaders walking very casually around the hotel courtyard and i'm curious yes what kinds of concessions do you think chung is looking for from the u.s. what are the red lines here in these talks. abril not attacking them if they've just been in time being engaged in the fort but unity is nice smiles and negotiations it will be a cave option young and it is increasingly likely that if you back a not for the united states park but for donald trump having said that an ideal outcome would be probably for. a year and for that matter for the vote in general even the that if you freeze its nuclear program dismantle some of the nuclear is

zero and production facilities sort of you'll be am able to produce more nuclear weapons they will definitely keep significant part of what they have produced in the change americans view not mind if the united nations security council view vault to believed the sanctions which have been introduced as essential economic sanctions if done basically door kill more economy but move north korea economic growth extremely difficult so exchange of sanctions leave being lifted for. a nuclear program be frozen or downsize it's an ideal world com but judging by those you have seen in singapore and that is obviously having around in hanoi it's not going to happen more slowly not scary as we have in time and donald trump if you get some additional points before the next elections because he tells them eric and vaulters look i am great i have secured negotiations in last thirty years they're

not testing they're not launching missiles there isn't force is fine previous presidents couldn't do it i did it vote for me under a lank of a professor korean studies speaking to us there from cell thank you andrea. well nearly five hundred venezuelan soldiers have deserted since saturday hundreds more have been accused of conspiring against nicholas murderess government have been tortured and face up to thirty years in prison for treason in america as only c.n.n. reports from caracas. for the last six weeks families of imprisoned government opponents have been coming to this human rights office to meet with lawyers among them the wife and mother of two national guardsman. on january twentieth luis mandy's and at least twenty seven others sergeants led a short lived uprising in caracas calling on civilians to join forces to overthrow

the government of nicholas my little. old one was captured and taken to the infamous counter intelligence center for interrogation. my husband was blindfolded beaten with baseball bats to people forced his legs open and kicked his testicles every day for weeks he was electrocuted until he passed out they threatened him by telling him my children and i would be next if he didn't confess but if he had the courage to rise up against this dictatorship i have to support him. sandra in one this is husband is now in a military prison awaiting trial for treason but she's still worried of reprisals. sergeant harry solano got away but not his mother and cousins and this is five family members were taken away by intelligence officers looking for the sergeant's whereabouts. first they took a sixty three year old mother his seventy three year old mother in law my nineteen

year old granddaughter and her boyfriend they electrocuted and beat them a sixty eight of them with plastic bags and sexually abused my granddaughter after they released them they took away my grandson a policeman it's been one thousand days since we've heard from him. the treatment received by members of the. military who rebel and their families is meant to keep them in line through terrorist says sandra oh no those who support the government of the high ranking offices but the rest are afraid to show discontent because if you do you are tortured imprisoned and murdered and if that weren't enough they persecute your family. in the last week more than four hundred members of the new israel as armed forces have deserted to neighboring colombia and brazil but the mass uprising to overthrow my daughter of an opposition leader one wide door has been pleading for shows no sign of materializing cuban trained counter intelligence services have reportedly infiltrated the armed forces and already afforded several

other plots to overthrow him and no one can tell at this point just how many soldiers are being held in military prisons the mother of junior sergeant and the despite is aware that her twenty two year old son will likely be made an example of and sentenced to thirty years in prison sandra can't bear thinking that her two small children may never grow up with their father. their only hope now she says is political change in venezuela you see in human i'll just got access six people have been killed in a helicopter crash in nepal including the country's tourism minister the aircraft came down in a mountainous area in the country's east rescuers reach the crash site after two failed attempts because of bad weather the helicopter belonged to nepal based dentist. the united nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions says saudi arabia has not cooperated with the investigation into the murder of

jamal khashoggi agnes cull the mob said riyadh's continued failure to disclose the location of his remains is unconscionable the saudi minister of state for foreign affairs told the human rights council in geneva that the kingdom will help with investigations but he made no mention of the crucial inquiry you a kid doesn't. know who we stress or result to go ahead in order to achieve protection of human rights in the country and also to support just causes regionally and internationally we will also cooperate with the un mechanisms related to human rights including the human rights council as well as supporting the works and contributing to the reforms and effecting their mandate a senior advisor to us president donald trump has met with turkish president. chaired sun and all was in ankara for talks focused on the middle east is the architect of a plan he hopes will bring stability to the region he said his soon to be released

proposal will require compromises by all sides. nigeria's re-elected president is appealing for unity hari has swept to a second time winning by nearly four million votes he's defended the voters as being free and fair but his main rival says he'll challenge the results in court. has more from a bridge or. supporters from nigeria's ruling party mark rivals from the main opposition party they say they are celebrating and that this is their way of making it clear president mohammed one saturday his election was more than fifteen million votes you can see. protests and that is an indication that. widely accepted election result of. absentee will promote good hands. of the main opposition leader abu bakar plans to challenge the results in court. with literature.