nature he then sent it in accordance with protocol to the acting director general of national intelligence saying that he should then pass it on to the congressional committee having reviewed the matter now legally the acting director general has one week to pass and on to the relevant congressional committee in this case the house intelligence committee he did not do so having consulted the justice department which then decided that he should not release the information as it did not deal directly with the intelligence community so here you have the intelligence oversight man getting into a direct spat it would appear with the acting director of national intelligence and with the justice department which is prohibited that information from being released so certainly congress now has a lot of ammunition should it go down the route of legal action which we heard from

the chair of the house intelligence committee is a possibility thank you very much mike hanna in washington claire finkelstein is professor of law and flaws of the at the university of pennsylvania law school and joins says on skype from philadelphia great to have you on the program thank you very much now i want to ask just in the grand scheme of things how significant are these allegations and what kind of repercussions could we see from this or is it something that's likely to be swept under the rug as we've seen so many times at the at trump's white house. this is an enormous story possibly the biggest story of this presidency because 1st of all it's arguably the 1st time that a whistle blower action has been filed against the president if indeed that's what this action is as we now are coming to understand. and there are extensive protections that are required by law for whistleblowers to enable them to

bring important information of corruption to light so 2nd of all there would be as part of the story obstruction of justice potentially on the part of the white house actors in the white house or even the president because it appears as though there is potentially a coordinated effort going on to ensure that congress at in shifts committee in particular does not receive the copy of this complaint. and that's a very very serious matter for the president if indeed it's borne out that he had anything to do with directing the office of national intelligence not to produce these documents and directing the attorney general's office to it so it vies the office of national intelligence and finally there's a very important separation of powers issue here because tonight the washington

post has broken a story that the promise that the foreign leader that was made to the foreign leader had to do with ukraine so this may have had to do with the promise to give military aid to ukraine to help its independence in its fight against the kremlin and that the president has been withholding that aid which congress voted for to preserve democracy in order to dig up dirt and job. biden's son that is the president would be refusing to carry out congress's will for the purpose of digging up political dirt on a political rival and that would be any normal streets of law and of the duties of the president to safeguard the nation and they have there is a hint of truth to these allegations and what we've seen happen the developments we've

seen from the time the whistleblower wanted to file the complaint what kind of repercussions could we see from this. well 1st of all this could be a campaign finance violation because if the president is indeed again this is alleged we don't know and the story is breaking very quickly but if indeed the president was seeking to gain a political advantage over joe biden by withholding military aid from ukraine in order to get dirt on joe biden's son he would be seeking in effect a campaign finance violation because seeking anything of value to improve his chances in the election and using his political office to do it would be a particularly it would be a camp in finest violation and it would be a particularly serious one because he would be using his office as president to

gain this event which so it's not surprising that if this is indeed the story that's emerging that the white house would be very very concerned to make sure that the details of the whistleblowers complaint did not make it into the hands of the house intelligence committee. claire finkelstein great to get your analysis thank you very much thank you. well the. news hour including another proposal to end the violence in syria is vetoed the u.n. and those behind it are doing so for the 13th time. and i'm just wait for britain's prime minister the supreme court will give its judgment next week over his decision to suspend parliament. and in sports football's world governing body says it's time for iran to change the way it treats female fans.

the leader of israel's opposition blue and white party benny gantz says he should be the next prime minister he appears to have rejected the current prime minister benjamin netanyahu as offer of a power sharing unity coalition making a 3rd election in less than a year more than likely israelis went to the polls on tuesday and with 99 percent of the votes counted gets a center right party has $33.00 seats it's just ahead of netanyahu conservative party which has 31 seats. both are well short of the 61 seats needed for a majority in israel's parliament president driven rivlin now asked to decide who has the best chance of forming a coalition he says he'll do all he can to avoid a 3rd vote are you force that has the details from. a symbolic handshake between rival would be prime ministers benjamin netanyahu and benny gantz choreographed by israel's president reuben rivlin at a memorial for shimon peres

a man who held both positions really doesn't have direct political power but he does have influence and in the current deadlock a lot of freedom of action in who to give the 1st chance of forming a government and the show me i hear loud and clear the voices calling for broad and stable national unity government and i cannot gradually to you mr prime minister a drawing that call this morning now you know who recalled the deal done between peres and his political rival yet section near to share the premiership on a rotating basis in the mid 1980 s. a clear hint that he was seeking something similar after conceding earlier on thursday that he didn't have a way to form a right wing government and appealing directly to grant's binny we must set up a broad unity government as soon as today the nation expects us to both of us to demonstrate responsibility and that we pursue cooperation this is why i call on you binny let's meet today at any time to start this move which is the need of the hour

but benny gantz is in no hurry rejecting netanyahu the proposition that his likud join a government as part of a bloc including 3 other right wing and religious parties and making it clear that he expects to be prime minister. we will listen to all but not surrender to any dictates the negotiations will be led by me responsibly and with reason in order to achieve the best results for all israelis within the shadow of this political situation we will keep to our principles there will be no shortcut. it's senior figures in his blue and white alliance with more direct selling netanyahu as presents is what is preventing a unity government and it's time for him to step aside is just the start of a bumpy bruising and unpredictable path towards coalition the opposition is already accusing benjamin netanyahu of obstructing it some see that and you know who's public approach to guns as a way of setting him up to take the blame if coalition talks fail all together and leaving behind it all the 2 things as you know is corruption cases is 1st pretty

indictment hearing is due in october the 2nd and if all else fails a possible 3rd election in less than a year are a force that al jazeera westerners russia and china vetoed a u.n. security council resolution demanding a truce in northwest syria it calls for an end to hostilities in a that's the last rebel held province russia is the assad government's main ally and this is the 13th security council veto in relation to this is syrian conflict our diplomatic editor james bass has more about the bands here are you going to use your features you will see it was clear by the time the russian ambassador arrived at the security council that he was likely to yet again use his veto on a resolution about syria. 3 members of the security council kuwait germany and belgium have been working on a resolution calling for a cease fire need lived for over

a month their draft allowed for what they called counterterrorism operations but only if they didn't breach international law is there a chance for last minute negotiations to avoid a russian veto at this stage we do everything possible to reach our goal and that is to protect civilians and have international humanitarian law being observed i'm afraid we will witness another very sad day for syria as your know the situation in syria is worse than they were in the real tragedy in the council chamber as predicted russia backed by china were the only ones to vote against the resolution this the 13th russian veto on the issue of syria it is deeply regrettable that the council was not able to agree to a cease fire resolution that would have saved lives and if there is especially as the assad regime and its allies prepare to launch another offensive on the people

of. russia then put forward its own rival resolution it failed to pass with only russia and china voting in favor throughout the syrian war which is now lost it 8 and a half years 2 of the main things that have kept sad in office are russian air power and russia's unwavering support for its ally in the un security council it live province is the last target of the assad regime the bard meant is likely to continue and for the people of it more than $3000000.00 of them there is nowhere to flee to james bays al-jazeera at the united nations. but a new deal between turkey and russia has been waged on a demilitarized zone and in a province its dimensions will be different from one agreed in sochi last year but it will once again depends on the cooperation of the armed groups on the ground they know how to has more from. the revolution hasn't died in syria's north west these people were forced from their homes in the recent russian backed syrian

government offensive that took control of the northern countryside of hama province and many towns in it lips else including. at least half a 1000000 syrians have been displaced since the end of april. we the people of hong kong we are not asking assad to allow us to return to our town we will never accept his role our revolution will continue until the downfall of this criminal regime it's been relatively calm since the august 31 cease fire but many people living in fear it's only a matter of time before president bashar assad's forces resume their military operation that has already killed more than $1000.00 civilians the syrian opposition believes there is a deal to prevent the humanitarian crisis from worsening. there was an agreement between turkey and russia to create a demilitarized zone free of weapons and fighters on the international terrorism

list the zone will be patrolled by russia and turkey the syrian interim government will take over governance from high atop. which will have to be disbanded. the situation and it was discussed this week between serious power brokers who support opposing sides but work together under the so-called aston a process turkey made clear its priority is to prevent a humanitarian crisis and a large influx of refugees into the country russia and iran focused on the fight against those they call terrorists but it seems they found middle ground there made . by. the other side of the. ongoing process in egypt as you know it's. off because there is pressure. but the people there many syrians have taken to the streets demanding high at the lead

a sham leaves adlib they accuse the armed group of abusing power and failing to defend territory h.t.s. is considered a terrorist organization by the international community because of its links with al qaida. was the reason why last year's deal between turkey and russia on the creation of a demilitarized zone and it was never implemented it refused to cooperate forcing it to withdraw would have required mainstream opposition factions in gaging in a internal war that would have weakened their position vis a vis pro-government forces it's not clear if h.t.s. will cooperate this time or whether there is a time table to this apparent deal between turkey and russia but it seems a large scale offensive has been put on hold for now and russian president vladimir putin is openly discussing limiting anti terror operations and it lip. beirut. the u.s. has expelled 2 cuban diplomats for what it calls influence operations the officials

opposed to the cuban mission to the united nations in new york the state department hasn't given any details about the accusations nor released the diplomats names travel for other officials that the mission has also been restricted now this comes just days before the u.n. general assembly gets underway. embratel a supreme court hearing on the legality of the prime minister's deficient is a spend parliament ahead of the banks a deadline has ended it will linger is expected early next week john has more from london. boris johnson on maneuvers visiting soldiers promising more money for the military ahead of an election whenever it comes promising also progress on breaks it i don't want to exaggerate the progress that we are making but we are making progress and what we need to do so people understand we need to find a way whereby the u.k. can come out of the e.u. and really be able to do things differently not remain under the control of the

e.u. in terms of law 'd and trade policy. johnson's plans may yet and ravel after a 3 day emergency hearing supreme court justices will soon rule on the more fulness of the government's prohibition of parliament on thursday they heard evidence delivered by council from one former conservative prime minister john major against the current conservative prime minister john says the in a skeptical inference to be drawn is that the progression is from that not exercising its right to disagree with the government at that estate as it sees fit it's an inference the government says that is not for the courts to judge we should actually start by recognizing that the pro geisha was a proceeding in parliament which falls within the ambit of article 9 of the bill of rights and we don't have to get. the government will hope of course that the supremes court upholds the english high court's decision that the prohibition of

parliament was a purely political not a legal matter but the court could just as easily side with scottish judges who ruled that under the circumstances they could get involved because they said of the real motive behind the suspension of part. the silencing of employees over bricks it was a decision that in effect meant boris johnson had lied to the queen. away from the courts there are sometimes questionable efforts to reach a new bricks a deal the e.u. had demanded full written proposals from the u.k. by the end of the month an artificial deadline said the u.k. and they go over instead a set of notes with a final offer still to come papers for now until we have looked at them in detail not correct to rise beyond 1st the british government has few obvious cards left to play on breaks it and the pressure may grow next week when the supreme

court delivers its verdict on a whole al-jazeera london while the french president says it won't be europe's fault of the u.k. leads the e.u. without a deal speaking to time magazine a man like ron says he'll put his country's needs 1st while negotiating we should look at the situation as it is british people decided to leave not the european people british people this deadlock is a british deadlock is not europe in the uk is the final curtain will be the british one because they always have. the possibility to read the whole article 50 nobody should forget that i mean at the bone of time if they don't have a good decision to send they can with the article 50 so no deal we always be at the end the british decision. and still ahead a knowledge of their point made somalia's new elite force ready to take on al

shabaab. and of we'll tell you why billions of birds have vanished in north america in just the past 4 decades. and also here from the formula one driver who is called time on one of the sport's greatest ever comebacks. however the weather is set fire across much of china lots of sunshine across the region at the moment a little bit of cloud down towards the southwest into vietnam up towards the southwest and parts of china but for the most part this glorious sunshine 3233 celsius for hong kong over the next couple of days is fine dry and sunny further south we do still have some wet weather continuing across the philippines not as white as it has been recently but it's still there nevertheless you can see this

line of cloud coming out across the southern parts of vietnam pushing into the gulf of thailand and the much autonomy we'll see some rather wet weather as we go through the next few days some of these showers along the spells of rain just flooding their way down to northern sections of somalia full of that cloud of rain across the by a single some wet weather plenty of wet weather across much of in the south towards a northwest where the other rains are of course starting slowly but surely they are starting to retreat sinking a little further south which and east was but still some very heavy rain into much of the day with a protest. cross that the western ghats as well mumbai still seeing some really big downpours or as a secular nation hit was he going to linger over the next day and not solidify the north it's a funny thing is i would the next day out say the tells of flooding the goods about . the weather sponsored by catherine is. al-jazeera will meets 2 arab women with roots in the middle east both still

successful lloyds of rule over the last 5 years i've achieved a great deal of partnership with the country's leading from the never forgot where they came. to try to put forward a different takes than the stereotypical image of muslim women arabs aboard the businesswoman of the council on al-jazeera. world leaders from un member states to preparing to take their seats for this year's general assembly president rouhani and president trump will attend. growing tensions between the u.s. . the e.u. just will multilateral efforts provide solutions to a global refugee crisis escalating laws and climate change before it's too late join us for extensive coverage of the un general assembly.

again you're watching al-jazeera and here's her reminder of her main stories this hour iran's foreign minister says there will be an all out war of the u.s. response to attacks in saudi arabian oil facilities by taking military action against his country the attack was claimed by yemen's who the rebels but the americans and saudis say iran was behind it. canada's prime minister justin trudeau has apologized for a 2nd time after another photograph and video emerged of him wearing blackface makeup the deepening scandal is threatening to derail his reelection campaign. and the u.s. justice department is being accused of playing a key role in a portably withholding a complaint against president donald trump by

a whistleblower the u.s. media is reporting that this relates to a phone call between trump and a foreign leader. now dozens of people have been killed in 2 separate attacks in afghanistan at least 18 people were killed in a taliban suicide bombing outside a hospital in zabul province and 20 died in a government airstrike in province. be gives us the latest from kabul. a blast that reduced buildings in the city of color to rubble the taliban says it was targeting the local headquarters of afghanistan's intelligence agency but the provincial hospital next door took the force of the explosion it soon became clear from the schools of casualties that civilians among them hospital staff were the main victims with no hospital to treat them survivors had to be transported by road to neighboring and most you can found there are many civilians who are martyred

mooned it and you cannot even see one military officer among them but taliban has stepped up its attacks head of the upcoming presidential elections and there's also reportedly been a rise in u.s. military strikes. but an air attack wednesday night in one province is now the subject of claim and counterclaim. 1 in cook county district they have been burying their dead it's close to the tora bora mountains a traditional stronghold for different groups of fighters. the local governors office has said there was a drone strike on a nice old hideout killing a number of men about at least. but these people say they were villagers to fill it with gone into the mountains to collect pine nuts when you were. one of those killed were civilians each of these houses has lost 2 or 3 men. their grief is mixed with and go all the security services all of the government should listen

to us these men stop this cruelty. then others join in with the chant death to america. while most of the bodies have been brought back for burial the villages say some people are still missing. but the ones that are good about my message the government is to stop it you shouldn't kill civilians in email. take stop killing ordinary people. in a statement the u.s. military has said it carried out a drone strike on an islamic state target and that it was investigating claims that civilians have been killed what's clear is that in another violent 24 hour period there have been attacks by both the taliban and the u.s. military and that once again civilians have been killed and maimed robert bright al-jazeera kabul. the number of u.s. soldiers in somalia has increased under president obama trump one of their jobs has

involved training a local group to become an elite force to take on our fighters our correspondent mohammed oddo got a firsthand look at the so-called light big force in training. these are the new frontlines in the fight against al shabaab in somalia. and these are the men taking the fight to the armed groups strongholds the united states has at least $500.00 switches in this country but it's trained and paid for somali troops to form the deneb unit or lightning falls. apart from our operations against al shabaab fighters to retake territories and of you control we also target their assassins bomb builders and those who kidnapped foreigners in our country we also try to raise these spies and those who provide them with other supplies of. somali government officials say these elite forces comprised of soldiers from almost all of somalia's colognes deneb units of killed some of those about seeing the leaders

and in areas that were taken from the al qaeda linked group they're winning the support of local people how they would out sent me the money and things are much better than before in terms of security we're not living in fear anymore the soldiers eclipse and we're forever thankful to the government the den a brigade was launched as a 150 pulse and unit roughly 5 years ago but has since grown to become one of somalia's most used military forces while u.s. forces in somalia cut out al strikes and drone attacks against al shabaab fighters it's these forces who've been carrying out the bulk of the ground assault against the group official say the plan is to develop done up into a full so free fall of the soldiers capable of removing all shabab fighters from towns and villages across the country. the regular somali national army is involved in the fighting. we have achieved many victories we spent a lot of time preparing for the current offensive against al shabaab but it was

worth the wait we have liberated many towns and villages in the past months. the somali national army needs more recruits to both states wrong's this training camp in the small town of central somalia is just one of a few across the country by next year 22000 african union peacekeepers expected to begin pulling out of somalia and it will fall to these soldiers to take over the top keeping security and fighting. al central somalia. police in the u.s. state of georgia say they have dismantled a child trafficking ring that was exploiting girls as young as 811 people have been arrested including a u.s. and an australian citizen as well as parents relatives and acquaintances of some of the 10 victims the suspects face up to life in prison. al-jazeera

staff had rallied in solidarity with our colleague mahmoud hussein who has now spent a 1000 days in a gyptian jail the journalist is accused of defaming the state and spreading false news but he's yet to be formally charged or face trial or a burden manoli has more. no formal charges no trial and no conviction mahmoud hussein has been locked up in the gyptian jail for 1000 days egyptian government prosecutors accuse him of broadcasting what's described as. receiving foreign funds to defame state institutions. hussein strongly denies the allegations and soldiers al-jazeera the journalist base in qatar flew from doha to cairo for a holiday almost 3 years ago after he landed he was stopped questioned and detained hussein has been helpful long periods in solitary confinement in the

notorious tora prison in cairo and refused medical treatment when he broke his arm echoing international outrage the u.n. has been calling for his release saying he's been exposed to cruel inhumane and degrading treatment according to egyptian law he should have been freed within 24 hours but he was kept in prison. amnesty international says detainees are trapped in the revolving door of egypt's arbitrary detention system it says the gyptian authorities practice of reordering the detention of detainees on blatantly fabricated charges just as are about to be released is an alarming trend that illustrates extent of egypt a cage justice system over the past few years gyptian police have arrested several al jazeera employees former director of news at al-jazeera arabic. and a law. was sentenced in absentia to the death penalty for endangering

national security journalist ahmed mohamed fahmy and peter greste day were all imprisoned for over 400 days while 7 other colleagues were sentenced to 10 years or denied accusations of spreading what egypt cools false news situation press freedom . problem. there was a massive crackdown in the media. broadly. just in. egypt egypt is ranked one of the lowest in the world for press freedom freedom which mahmoud hussein and dozens of other journalists continue to be tonight. a man the al jazeera. thousands of protesters are gathering at rallies across the world

as part of a global climate strike these demonstrations in sydney are demanding the government take drastic action on greenhouse gas emissions the country is the world's largest exporter of coal coal and liquid natural gas the campaign comes on the eve of the united nations climate action summit in new york. but research has found that billions of birds are disappearing from north america a study published in the journal science shows wild avian populations in the u.s. and canada have dropped 29 percent since 1970 that's from just over 10000000000 to 7200000000 grassland birds have been hit particularly hard with more that hof the population gone and it appears that humans are to blame the studies cites factors including widespread habitat loss due to climate change and urbanization as well as these of chemicals for farming that kill insects aravind be is an avian consider

conservation scientists with the bird conservancy of the rockies and he joins us live from fort collins colorado on skype good to have you on the program thank you very much firstly we briefly outlined some of the reasons why these birds are disappearing sadly could you expand a little bit more on what what is having the greatest impact on the bird population . well the study does not adenovirus this if it causes more identifies the patterns of change but what we can say is that more than half the birds that have been lost are associated with farmland and range land ecosystems these are the places we produce our food so. it goes to show that the trends in which we are producing our food meaning more intensive agriculture with heavier inputs of pesticides and herbicides in orders.