not to appear in congress however she defied this instruction appearing before the congressional committee behind closed doors then there was the case of the opening statements being leaked and certainly according to that statement she came out with both barrels firing insisting that those with questionable motives had caused her recall from the ukraine that the direct instruction of president trump she spoke about what she called a hollowed out state department and certainly added to the congressional knowledge off the events that led to that phone call between president trump and the president of ukraine that lies at the heart of this ongoing investigation importantly though she also opened a little bit of a chip in that white house boycott of the ongoing investigations it is now known that a number of other state department officials may be appearing in congress in coming

days among them gordon sunderland who was blocked from appearing by state department last week but now he's been served a subpoena is lawyers say that he is willing and ready to appear in congress to give his evidence that documents that were in his position though will not be presented as they are in the position of the state department. well still ahead here on al-jazeera extending the home to friendship the leaders of india and china probably saw a new era in relations plus. chaotic scenes in acquittals competitions thousands joy the day of protests to stay with us . hello that is already battering a japan is on its way of course to making landfall. this saturday but this is

a cloud associated with this storm system that is moving very rapidly to the north at about 24 kilometers an hour it will make fairly rapid progress as it comes on shore south today and then through saturday into sunday it will actually move really quite quickly through hong shoe but as you can see by then it will no longer be a typhoon the good news is it should be a lot weaker and become a tropical storm however it will have moved all sure but the rains will continue across the entire region so again we will be expecting a lot of rain in the next $2.00 to $3.00 days maybe as much as $500.00 millimeters in some areas by monday the storm will have kid out of the picture and it really should begin to dry up but remember we're looking at flash floods flooding and also the danger of landslides now from there we had farther to the south and compared to that looking fairly quiet. recross into a grand dong up into fusion and then we've got more showers through central regions and if up by monday we could see some showers working their way up into here by

province but it's a very unsettled picture across these coastal areas thunderstorms and into hong kong feeling cooler at $28.00 and some showers across into hanoi.

welcome back you're watching all. of our top stories turkish forces and their allies say they've seized control of the center of a key syrian town they were down 7 comes as ground troops push 30 kilometers to the north also more than a 1000000 people in japan have been told to leave their homes as typhoon haiyan based approaches tokyo the storm is expected to batter the capital with record amounts of rain and high winds. and the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine says donald trump pressured the state department to fire her and that she was removed because of unsounded insults claims marie event of it she testified before members of congress leading in the inquiry into president trump. now ron has condemned what it calls a cowardly attack on one of its oil tankers

a government spokesman says it's reviewing evidence after missiles apparently struck a ship off the coast of saudi arabia on friday it also promised to respond to whoever is behind the attack and that followed months of increased tensions in and around the strait of hormuz as a bag has more from tehran. at the time of the incident state media did say it could be a terrorist attack but now iran is proceeding with caution about this attack that took place 60 miles off the side of reagan city of the secretary of the national supreme security council has issued a statement he called the incident piracy an evil an incident that would not go on he said that the committee has been formed to investigate the incident but the available video did have some clues now we don't know what he's referring to in terms of those clues but he has said that ring in 10 cars have been targeted in the past and he said that the responsibilities of the consequences of this latest incident on the shoulders of those planners execute and supporters of this

provocative actions the government spokesman also has also issued a statement he said that it was a cowardly act and said that those behind it are trying to increase tensions in the region he also turned his attention to those countries that blamed iran for being behind the attack against the saudi oil facilities in september we asked them if they would condemn this attack against iran and if they would defend the right of shipping in international waters now iran is proceeding with caution they have said in the past that they are actors that are trying to increase tensions in the region that are trying to drag iran into a conflict with the united states something iran says that they want to avoid there hasn't been any independent confirmation of this incident but iran says that the tank. has been stopped and data shows it's on its way back but world powers will be looking at this latest incidents incident with concern because they will be concerned about the instability in security and destabilization and destruction to

shipping that could be caused by any conflict in the region. regional security concerns and trade imbalances have dominated the chinese president's visit to india sheeting ping is wrapping up what's been described as an informal summit with prime minister narendra modi there is old stuff to india revoke the special status of indian administered kashmir china has traditionally back to pakistan in its decades long dispute with india until vora has more from. indian prime minister took the chinese president on our guided tour of this istanbul city of my own which is where in fact 1700 years ago india and china had commenced trade and even signed a security pact however this time around if you talk about substandard outcomes or concrete solutions to some of their festering disputes not much has been achieved however the indian official say that the 2 leaders have managed to establish a personal rapport we should go a long way in the future to help them resolve many of these disputes including the

border dispute and trade deficit the indian foreign secretary although did say that the 2 countries have decided to set up a mechanism at the ministerial level so china can address india's concern india has a whopping trade deficit with china of over $51000000000.00 and the indian officials this time around said that they have chinese assurance that something will come out of these talks however the chinese president did not commit to anything as far as the whole was then is concerned there is also the issue of kashmir recently we've seen exchange of harsh words between the indian and the chinese government just a day or so before the chinese president came here he had hosted pakistan's prime the same wrong can and once again reiterated china's support to pakistan of course all of that comes in the background of india's decision in august 5 to strip indian administration made off its autonomy to china continues to back pakistan on that issue and it's interesting that while india also has the same dispute with china

which controls a part of me that india claims the indian prime minister apparently did not even raise that with the chinese president xi jinping will the u.s. and china have struck a partial trade deal that could be 15 months long trade war between the world's 2 largest economies in talks with china as far as premier. suspended. $250000000000.00 worth of chinese imports it was searched or schuster. we've come to a deal on intellectual property. financial services. a tremendous deal for the farmers a purchaser from $40.00 to $50000000000.00 worth of agricultural products another big issue that we've come to a conclusion on is currency foreign exchange we've also made very good progress on technology transfer and we'll put some of the technology transfer in phase one phase 2 will start negotiations almost immediately after we've concluded phase one

and paper that the man who oversaw donald trump's tough border policies is stepping down acting homeland security secretary kevin macca lead and had only been in the position since april he's the 4th person to say since trump took office the president said his replacement will be named next week national day celebrations are beginning in spain amid internal tensions over the upcoming sentencing of catalan separatist leaders earlier this month demonstrations in support of the leaders took place in the catalonian capital barcelona. is out those demonstrations . coomber ations national day are also taking place on the streets of barcelona the capital of the region of catalonia that's the region that attempted to secede 2 years ago while this event was organized by a pro nationalist civil society it's not the backing of 3 right wing national

political parties as well this year has certainly seen less of an attendance than the 2 years prior to this is well but people still are very much dedicated to this idea that the region should remain firmly as part of the country of spain however of course there is still a lot of support within the region that the catalan region should be able to have the right to be able to question that status and whether they should be able to have the right to be able to have another referendum on independence because those tensions are still playing out still 2 years on from that they haven't gone away and they do not look likely to get results anytime soon now protestors in hong kong are continuing to wear face masks during values despite a government ban they're refusing to back down by more action against the government. well this march is now breaking up and it comes after more than

a week of relative calm here in hong kong relative karma now many of the protesters are wearing face masks in defiance of course of that ban imposed by hong kong police more than a week ago warning that if people did wear face masks they risk arrest and also being heavily fined but that hasn't deterred some of these protesters now this march didn't pass without incident to m.t.r. train stations were attacked one of them had a pet food bomb showed it with there were no injuries also an outlet at starbucks was once more attacked it had its window shot at starbucks of course has become a popular target for these protesters a lot of the protesters here have also been talking about the common sort of come from president donald trump who says that he thinks that the protests are now in his words deescalating well a lot of the protesters don't know whether that means that the united states is now

showing the same sort of support that it did for the protest movement that's to say support from u.s. politicians as they had say several months ago now the protesters say they are going to gather again on sunday for unspecified action certainly the protests and not on a scale that we will see several weeks or even several months ago there is still violence but it's not as intense as it has been in recent weeks. though it could all there's been more fighting between police and indigenous communities protesting against austerity demonstrators swarmed president to repeal a law that ended a 40 year old fuel subsidy causing petrol prices to double at least 5 people have been killed since clashes began on repeller has the details from the capital quito . clashes between police and protesters in ecuador's capital city show no sign of relenting police used flash bangs. and tear gas to disperse the crowds then

let them go demonstrators say authorities have also used live ammunition against peaceful protesters. 6 the ongoing protests have paralyzed much of downtown. amidst the chaos and clouds of tear gas medical patients could be seen fleeing nearby hospitals they don't know mostly mushy numbers because the that's done before you see this we couldn't have imagined a situation it's horrifying to see people fighting one another on the floor if you look. after more than a week of unrest indigenous demonstrators continue to run from across the country to participate in the ongoing anti-government demonstrations some traveling from communities as far away as the amazon to join the front lines in a photo of him with a video of it but we've come from far away leaving our families behind and now we're here to participate in a national strike so the government can show us some respect. in a pre recorded message to the nation on friday president lenny modano asked for

a direct dialogue with leaders within the national confederation of indigenous communities in these it's imperative that we end the violence we need solutions to the issues of our country i'm calling on leaders to speak with me directly. outside ecuador's national assembly building demonstrators were once again met with sound grenades and tear gas several demonstrators as well as police officers were injured during the confrontation despite the ecuadorian president's call for a national dialogue tensions still remain very high here in quito demonstrators say that they're angry over the heavy handed response by authorities against peaceful protesters if anything these clashes between demonstrators and police only appear to be intensifying the indigenous leaders have agreed to sit down for talks with the president but with growing calls for the authorities to bring back order to the streets there's concern the violence could get even worse when measured up on the

jersey to do it for the. protesters in haiti have clashed with police in the capital port au prince a day after a journalist was found shot dead in his car the reporter and to him each other safe was killed while he was covering the search and violence has killed at least 20 people demonstrators are demanding the resignation of the president why is. the reasons why we're protesting are down to hunger misery insecurity unemployment impunity and corruption has been tied to 69 cases of corruption the father of corruption. the jovan was it has not kept his promises he should resign we want to new president so that we can have a better life. wildfire near los angeles is forcing around 100000 americans from their homes mandatory evacuation orders were issued when the saddle ridge blaze destroyed homes emergencies in the same area where 500 homes were burnt out 11

years ago kenya's star marathon runner. has become the 1st athlete to run a marathon in under 2 hours during a specially arranged event in the austrian capital he completed the distance in one hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds 2 years ago in italy who was just 26 seconds short of the target he succeeded this time help but excellent quality vienna and almost completely flat route. i've had just the man to run under 2 hours now that inspire him at many people to tell people that they're not human is limited then to it i'm expecting more of the artemisinin does all of tore down and that was after after that of the british. than he is an irish running right he explains why i could choke as achievement is not being recognized as an official record. there are 3 different reasons this one count with the world governing body i have left as an official world record the 1st of those is that good job he was the only competitor

it has to be an actual defacto competitive race to count that world record also while he was handed his drinks from a bicycle here in another fisher race you're going to pick them off the table at the end of them from a stationary table and thirdly and most importantly of all he had a team of rotating pacemakers the rules with the out of left specify that anyone any pacemaker that starts to recess to stay in you can't still be in and sell those and that's what had stood in front of him he had a team of $41.00 days makers he had 5 at least front of them at any one time to just behind him so he was essentially running in the center of an x. it was found in when tunnel testing to be the most efficient way of running aerodynamically and because of that it won't count as an official world record but i don't think too many people on the streets they enter were too worried about that as we saw history being made.

you want your deserve means the whole rob a reminder of all top news stories turkish forces on the rebel ice say that they've seized control of a key syrian cities town center where it follows 4 days of intense street to street fighting with kurdish forces in iraq ain the town as part of the 120 kilometer stretch that ankara wants to clear to create a so-called peace corridor or the u.s. has warned turkey of sanctions if the offensive continues. from the president on down we have communicated with the turks on this issue i spoke with turkish defense minister a car yesterday to express our strong opposition to turkey's actions and reiterated the damage this is doing to our bilateral relationship more than a 1000000 people in japan have been told to leave their homes as typhoon haiyan approaches tokyo the storm is expected to batter the capital with record amounts of rain and high winds concerns over safety have forced the cancellation of flights trains services and to brugge the world cup matches the former u.s.

ambassador to ukraine says donald trump pressured the state department to fire her and she was removed because of unfounded and false claims marie of out of it she gave testimony to members of congress leading an impeachment inquiry into president trump now they're investigating whether trump pressured ukraine's leader into investigating his democratic rival joe biden and his son iran has condemned what it calls a cowardly attack on one of its oil tankers a government spokesman said it's reviewing evidence after missiles apparently struck a ship off the coast of saudi arabia on friday it's also promised to respond to whoever is behind the attorney regional security concerns and trade in balances have dominated the chinese president's visit to india xi jinping is wrapping up what's been described as an informal summit with prime minister narendra modi there at all after india revoke the special status of indian administered kashmir china has traditionally back to pakistan in its decades long dispute with india and those

were the headlines here on al-jazeera but more news in half an hour but next it's inside story do stay with us. should foreign firms mind their own business over china's politics they coming under pressure from beijing for making political comments it considers sensitive some have had to apologize for voicing sympathy with hong kong protesters or face the consequences so where does that leave freedom of speech this is inside story.

hello and welcome to the program i'm peter dalby china has long been sensitive about what's said at home and controls everything that could affect its image now foreign business is a feeling the heat china's message is what schwartz you say if you want to do business here or pay the price and that could prove costly for many companies particularly from the united states that do rely on the chinese market they've been vulnerable to boycotts from chinese consumers and pressured by state media and online platforms to content considered sensitive ranges from sympathy with protesters in hong kong to adverts seen as racist and the latest with the u.s. national basketball association or n.b.a. has raised concerns over freedom of speach. so let's look now for the next moment or so at the companies that have to chinese pressure the n.b.a. faced fury from beijing after a team official tweeted support for protesters in hong kong the association

apologized after china threatened to stop broadcasting games apartments began to cut ties the u.s. tech giant apple removed an app used to track police movements in hong kong at the request of beijing it also deleted the taiwan flag emoji for users in hong kong and macau the u.s. a terrible t.v. show south park faced censorship in china after taking aim at its human rights record the us video game maker activision blizzard suspended the game or after he voiced support for the protesters in hong kong and some fashion brands have been boycotted for identifying hong kong and taiwan as countries. ok let's bring in our panel joining us from singapore on skype is victor tao an assistant professor at the china studies program at the university of hong kong in hong kong on skype joseph chain a convener of the alliance for a true democracy and finally also in singapore on skype as well is drew thompson

a visiting senior research fellow at the national university of singapore welcome to you all victor in singapore coming to you 1st why is the rhetoric surrounding this is you always been so very harsh. well i think this is consistent with china's a long standing policy that. like taiwan and tibet and other places that. the world is trying to and china. has always taken the very front with anything that if that is. separatism so in this case the tweet or the phone home that bike nation is in by the chinese being judgmental of chinese sovereignty and that's why the chinese government. i think it's too free and international opinion but having said that it has tried to trying to behave that way regardless of what in fact they have been very consistent there done the

same thing with the americans that i'm the japanese the filipino the south koreans and the norwegian i'm happy with you know all you this is not anything that is very surprising really just a change in hong kong when it comes to image how concerned is the central government in beijing very very much concerned because china is the largest trading country it has to sell its goes and it is very conscious of is in may and the whole party parquet is ready to be mobilized to protect it and general oppose our cause is are you saying that china and if you are friends you must not criticize time and then it is in may but if you are not a friend you criticize china and the party of parkas will mobilize the end time you have characters to exert pressure on you and it is very difficult for the single

gunman or singo and geo of copper ation to receive stepped forth with chinese authorities would like the sanctions to create a determines fast. drew thompson in singapore what are the main pressure points in these individual relationships here between the chinese government people companies that work with the chinese government and companies outside of china well i think companies outside of china that have sought to do business in china have always recognized that they would have to follow chinese rules and norms when operating in china and that's just been accepted since the beginning of reform and opening what's changed and has changed relatively recently is china's effort to export its form of politics and its form of governance abroad at to then pay attention to how companies behave externally and that's new because that then runs up against other

countries and other companies own values and now companies are forced to choose between their values or their country's values and china's which can be bass 3 different things to turn singapore will get on to the n.b.a. aspect of this in just a moment 1st though pull now pull is a multi-billion dollar international company it clearly has a relationship with beijing is that relationship good for pull or good for beijing . i think both are you think the whole country i mean both apple and. china chinese consumers and join a protest very much and at least making at the front line up and the relationship is wrote the all up. and then that is they all actually tracked on police whereabouts and deployment. from the police especially if it's actually endangering police officers because it enables the. more

violent rioters to be able to track where the police and was going then and to more places where the police presence is light and. the trail of destruction so i think it will be a better bet that apple has actually done the correct thing. to say let's just put everything could to just have chang in hong kong to sit on that idea of the app because that's what in singapore is talking about if you've got 243000000 i phone users in china is there a conduit for information about accurate truthful news is one app on the app store i.e. that one app becomes a portal to reality and what's really going on outside the country ok it's good it's good for beijing it's good for apple it's not good for the the users of apple products inside china. so it can be so i differ with the

pharmacy for you see the acts and the best stages to information off the air are fun to be rather use for all don't read people you hong kong because obviously people want to know where the troubles are and they want to avoid trouble spots i want to go to dinner i want to go to visit my friend obviously hit i have to alter i have to alter my plan if the police get is at that sport if there are classes for the police at that spot and it is significant to not act exelby the hong kong government and the hong kong police pause did not offer any objections to objects anscombe from the chinese authorities there are times authorities obviously are very sensitive about the situation in hong kong and it wants to exert pressure on a poll again to create

a balanced ration of you fat and if to terence effect the chinese authorities are aware that the protestants sest for the race money through crowd funding to try to influence international public opinion shot b.p. for the downloads from being summit in. the latter half of june and they are giving it the same thing on national day again to people a fair position and to criticize china so timely is there a sense of fear about the situation in hong kong thomson in singapore coming back to you if we are in effect saying that the chinese authorities lean on either other governments and or companies from other countries how do they do it too i mean what are the specifics that they they indulge in. so i mean obviously the chinese government has multiple means for influencing the decisions made both within china

and without obviously their 1st preference would be persuasion would be to have self-censorship have companies understand what the limits are not cross those lines so that's that's the number one preference but when that doesn't work they can use more coercion they can they can mobilize public sentiment they can make an example out of a company i mean it's worth noting with this and be a issue that there was one tweet out of probably millions on hong kong that keeping in mind that twitter is also banned in china that the chinese government decided to take this one tweet it can't even be seen by the chinese people and make a case out of it so clearly the n.b.a. was made an example of just as many other companies have been made examples of as well so they can put a lot of pressure both by isolating companies making examples up them and then threatening their access to the market i think it was remarkable how they could

quickly mobilize not just society and the number of chinese internet users to to express their displeasure with the n.b.a. but then to affect all of the private companies in china to end their marketing or to end their broadcasting rights that that's a really to me very shocking demonstration of their ability to control all aspects of their khana me and society and it really raises the question about what is a private company in china anymore if everyone is beholden to the government like this so to me that this is demonstrated just a tremendous capability to coerce and something that should be of concern to any other company that hasn't yet been made an example of time in singapore ok let's talk about the n.b.a. story clearly at some point down rule who's the boss of the houston rockets and be a team you. put out this tweet he deleted it so somebody managed to get the message to him or they chose to message him and say oh they had an e-mail conversation or

whatever and they said the tweet has got to go because you will cost us money is it a little bit sinister that that message was relayed to him and he reacted in precisely the right way but that message came presumably through cyberspace from thousands of kilometers away in some dark smoky office in beijing well certainly i mean we cannot be expecting that the chinese but anything less than i'd like to say they have been very consistent and that's the way they get it but having said that i would i would i would hope this is the. one up in the last series of days and the reason i say that is the does the n.c.a.a. unlike other companies there is only one m.b.a. and there's only so much leverage the chinese that one has all that the fans us do and i it was.