is the fastest way those softness any facial problem mr toilettes eye witness documentary on al-jazeera. i have the right to speak i have freedom of speech just as other people do with. donald trump accused of attempting to intimidate the former ukrainian ambassador as she testified at the impeachment inquiry. on comedy in this is all just here on live from doha also coming up. lankans are voting to elect a new leader with ethnic divisions on the royce after the deadly easter sunday

bombings plus. the outrage. anger across iran as the government types fuel prices by 50 percent and. my. prayer is bringing home a course in the u.s. orders a retrial for a black man on death row for killing a white woman 22 years ago. we begin in the u.s. for president donald trump is facing accusations of intimidation after attacking the latest impeachment witness on twitter as she testified before congress on friday many of out of it was the u.s. ambassador to ukraine until she was recalled earlier this year the inquiry is looking into whether trump withheld military aid to ukraine. in exchange for

a promise of an inquiry against his political rivals but coleman al-jazeera castro has more from capitol hill. president trump has said he too busy to watch the impeachment inquiry hearings threatening to end his presidency but he found time friday to catch some of the hearing unfolding on live t.v. and he tweeted about the witness on the stand his former ambassador to ukraine a woman he ousted from the post as we sit here testifying the president is attacking you or twitter. and i'd like to give you a chance to respond read part of one of his tweets everywhere maria on average when it turned bad but would you like to respond to the president's attack that everywhere you went turned bad i mean i can't speak to what the president is trying to do but i think the effect is to be intimidating you vonnegut is a career diplomat who served more than 30 years under presidents of both parties in

a july phone call the basis for the current impeachment inquiry trying to told the president of ukraine she was quote bad news and would go through some things it was it was a terrible moment a person who saw me actually reading the transcript said that the color drained from my face i think i even had a physical reaction it didn't sound good sounded like. a threat democrats say trump's attacks on you of on a bitch amounts to witness intimidation and possibly an additional impeachment charge against the president trump defended his mid hearing tweet saying he had no intention to intimidate i have the right to speak i have freedom of speech just as other people do but they've taken away the republican's rights given of each testified she was recalled from ukraine without cause in may she'd been drunk fully accused of undermining trump she said and was the target of a smear campaign conspired between trump's private attorney rudy giuliani and

corrupt ukrainian officials or continues to amaze me is that they found americans willing to partner with them and working together they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a us ambassador you gonna bitch says she still doesn't know why she was ordered home on the next plane she was gone by the time the white house pros security aid to ukraine and trump pressed the ukrainian president to announce investigations into his political rivals republicans say democrats have been unable to directly tie trump to an impeachable offense the problem of trying to overthrow a president based on this type of evidence is obvious but that's what their whole case relies on the game with 2nd and 3rd hand information but now complicating the president's defense is this new evidence of possible witness intimidation in the form of trump's tweet that materialize before the public's very eyes democrats have

tried to build up a review of on of it as a sympathetic witness and now trump himself may have helped them make that case while putting his own presidency in greater jeopardy heidi joe castro al-jazeera washington. well more closed door testimony from the inquiry is a marching u.s. embassy official says he overheard a phone call between trump and the american ambassador to the e.u. she had returns and has more on that from washington d.c. david holmes as he accompanied us as u.s. ambassador gordon some of them to a lunch following someone's meetings with various ukrainian officials including the president and then skin during that loves someone decided to phone donald trump on his cell phone to update him on how things were going and don't trouble speaking so loudly holmes says that he could actually hear dog trump's end of the conversation and he heard from immediately are so are they going to do the investigations and

someone said yes they'll do anything for you that they love you words to that effect and as far as holmes is concerned what they were talking about was the investigations into joe biden and his own home to biden and on to biden's business dealings with an allegedly corrupt energy firm after that conversation there holmes took the opportunity to ask someone so i just don't really care about ukraine or words to that effect and someone said well he cares about the big stuff so firms are small big stuff i mean like the war with russia and so on and said no is really concerned about is the investigation into the bidens and what complete eclipse benefit him. in some ways this isn't new we already knew the donald trump had asked the lenski to open an investigation in to buy them from the july transcript or partial transcript of the phone call but it does add then to how involved the trump was in trying to get selenski to open an investigation into the bias in how

involved he was into whatever someone and rudy giuliani were up to in ukraine despite donald trump's constant. stations that there was no quid pro quo months ago there's no quid pro quo on this on this phone call but it adds to that impression certainly from those around in the administration by terms that as far as they were concerned they came to the conclusion that there was some sort of quid pro quo about one thing and also certain about golden someone's testimony on wednesday the current basta more interesting because he did mention it in his last 2 appearances in congress there is yet another thing he may have to be have to remember and he may be in some some trouble as a result meanwhile a former advisor to the us president has been found guilty of 7 offenses including lying to congress and witness tampering roger stone was charged earlier this year during the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election he's been found guilty of lying to congress about his contacts with wiki leaks joining the

election antecessor it's to push one of his associates to back up his lies he'll be sentenced in february possible hayne has the latest. it didn't take the jury long just about 7 hours to find roger stone guilty of all 7 counts obstructing official investigation lying to congress intimidating a witness basically this goes back to the election during the elections don't put out messages on social media that something was going to come with what you well then wiki leaks started with leasing e-mails that were half from the democratic party the intelligence community now believes that that was done by russian hackers so congress as part of their investigation into potential interference called stone and he said it wasn't me it was this other guy there's no evidence that i was coordinating between wiki leaks and the trump campaign for the prosecution brought out texts and e-mails of witnesses they said in fact he was trying to get information from wiki leaks and he was conveying that to the campaign including up

to then candidate donald trump the most serious charge here is the potential of intimidating a witness there this witness had messages from stone where he quoted the godfather movie about the mafia and threatened to get rid of the man's dog so now what happens well in february stone will be sentenced he faces up to 50 years in prison but the way federal guidelines work it likely face much less time than that of course no stones going to be looking for his longtime friend and associate donald trump to give him a pardon right now he's probably his best bet to stay out of prison israel says it's carried out more airstrikes in response to rocket fire from gaza it's just turned 6 am there in these pictures. were farts towards beersheba. more don't suppose a cease fire with. islamic. truce.

before. the story comes in. let's head to asia now and gunmen in sri lanka have fired on buses carrying muslim voters but no casualties have been reported it happened shortly after polls opens in the presidential election there ethnic tensions have been high since the easter sunday bombings former strong can defense minister go to buy rajapaksa is being challenged by a minister in the current government so this. one has got more on this now from bernard smith he's live for us in colombo a burner at the polls are now open of course but the voting spin that somewhat overshadowed by these a gun attacks what morkie tell us. all of this was an attack overnight on a convoy all around 100 buses carrying muslim and tunnel voters who've been displaced by the civil war from where they live now to where they were originally

registered to vote we understand shots were fired stones were thrown at this convoy an attempt to make some sort of roadblock was made but nobody was injured in the convoy carried all i have to say compared to sri lanka elections in the past this is actually a pretty calm and peaceful election campaign that hasn't been a lot of reports of votes on to me to intimidation although this clearly was an example of it overnight nevertheless as i say those people able to go on to vote what will it turn to that force itself no burners we've got some 35 candidates in this election but in effect it's all really coming down to 2 men is it not. yes down to gazza by rajapaksa and such if premadasa got supply rajapakse he is was a former defense minister towards the end of the civil war in ounces candidacy in the wake of these to sunday's suicide bombings that killed 263 people and he

announced his candidacy promising to return security to sri lanka so it's that's events that has really dominated this election campaign premadasa on the other side he also of course has talked about security he is though the candidates supported by the ruling coalition he says he's promising free school uniforms promising improves in education as well as security but he's got an uphill struggle because he's connected to the ruling government which is which is was found to fail so miserably in terms of rio responding to intelligence reports that warned of these the sunday bombing but were ignored by the government so the opposition or the opposition candidate rajapaksa is playing on knots and he's hoping to win votes on people disaffected by the current government is going to be very tight 50 percent plus one wins the election but with $35.00 candidates then it will go

probably go down to 2nd and 3rd preference votes before we know who wins i'll. bet it's not live in colombo thank you very much. now rainy and protested in multiple cities after the government's hike the cost of fuel by 50 percent the move prompted fears of rising inflation the spike to iran promise and the revenue will go towards families in need charlotte bellus has this reports that her mobile phone video out of western iran shows people chanting fuel prices go higher the poor get poorer i the image repeats in the northern city of mashad except the words are dictator let go of our country. and near the border with iraq they repeat turn your car off while blocking traffic i a sunset fell across iran protests grew against a rising petrol prices and fuel rationing was the government introduced the hikes

on friday saying it was to help pay for subsidies for $18000000.00 families in the had that served as that of the 1st payments will be handled within the next week or 10 days and transferred to the families in model year a strong president believes that if there is going to be petrol price reform all of the new revenues will be paid back in full to the people's money but for many it was a shock motorists must now pay about 13 seems police or it's a 30 percent jump they're allowed 60 liters of fuel per month anything over that they pay double for as a national with i hadn't heard the news i came here and filled 3 leases and then i noticed the price was $90000.00 rails then i asked and they said the price is now $30000.00 reales per liter motorists fear the consequences will be far reaching they're on the to iran in tehran and the rest of iran everything is dependent on fuel prices if the price of fuel goes up in the night by day the price of rent will

go up as well as other living expenses including fruit and vegetables it affects everything which is very bad i really believe that it will paralyze a classless society. the laboring class the fuel price hike in rationing stems from multiple issues iran has huge energy reserves but a limited refining capacity to get it to the pump the government is fighting fuel smuggling to its neighbors iran has some of the cheapest prices in the world today heavy subsidies and the full of its currency the economy has been in freefall since u.s. president donald trump pulled out of the iran nuclear deal last year. why did they make this decision because they don't have money left we are under sanctions they want to take the money out of the people's pockets they have a budget deficit they have to take it from my in your pockets to be able to run the country. president obama didn't shed implemented fuel rationing in 2007 in an effort to curb consumption iranians resisted and this time it's no

different charlotte ballasts al-jazeera. was more still to come on al-jazeera including a ahmad backing during chile's protest further change despite a major government to sanction and find out why south korea could be forced to reconsider its 7 decade long military alliance with the us. hello there has been a real cool off across sections of the middle east over the past week and as will cool weather on the way plenty of cloud and the some snow in the forecast as well northern sections of iran look at this to 6 celsius in tehran meanwhile to ease

cloudy skies in kabul and then the rain beginning to work its way southwards across into northern sections assad eurabia and by sunday very extensive and pushing across you can see much of q ways and also across into iran some snow again those higher elevations the time it is really coming down over the next few days in kuwait city 27 in southie by monday 22 the average is 28 so probably feeling pretty pretty cool with that temperature of 22 and that re not surprisingly it will work its way southwards across the arabian peninsula and so we will see some showers here over the next couple of days across northern side you cross bahrain and also on into cattle because if you coastal showers around amman in terms of accumulations well it may not be the sort of accumulations we see more tropical regions around the world but it is significant in some of these shows they will be very isolated but we could have some very heavy downpours. meanwhile across in the south africa we've got more rain chiles to the eastern cape but really the very heavy rains across that about africa could see as much as 300 millimeters. whether

sponsored by qatar and. the time holders there are. they don't believe the 2 state solution do you still believe in the 2 state solution we listen what i just said was that pakistan would never start a war i'm anti-war we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on the soldiers 00. 0. 000.

this is al-jazeera a quick reminder of the headlines for you this hour u.s. president omar trump is facing accusations of intimidation after attacking the latest impeachment witnessed on twitter as she testified before congress or evanovich was the u.s. ambassador in ukraine trumps accused of pressuring ukraine to investigate his political rivals gunmen are showing to have fired on buses carrying tamil and muslim voters but no casualties have been reported it happened shortly after the polls opened in the presidential election. a chill as governments is promising a referendum on a new constitution it's a key demands of protesters been rallying for more than a month demonstrators are also demands a greater economic equality a lot in america as a service in yemen has more from santiago less than 24 hours ago chile's rival political parties finally arrived at what many call as stark agreement to redraft

a constitution that will replace the one that is a hangover from the beach a dictatorship it had been a key demand for testers and yet as you can see people are still back on the streets. and there are many reasons 1st and foremost they say that urgent reforms in health education pensions and better salaries can't await the estimated 2 years that it would take to rewrite a constitution. for example pensioners i live on $200.00 a month i need to buy medicine and food but who cares the government is heartless. others say they simply don't trust their politicians and want to see the small print of the deal but the biggest complaint has to do with the agreement that would require an article of the constitution to be approved by 2 thirds of the delegates many say that would continue to give the wealthy minorities too much power but it looks as if it's excessive 2 thirds is the same limit that we have under the

current constitution put there to ensure necessary reforms don't pass the government had a hope that by caving into demands for a new constitution the under arrest or at least the large number of protests on the streets would diminish and while some do say that it's a positive step that does require compromise most of the people here believe it's just simply not enough. meanwhile in bolivia security forces have shot and killed 5 protests in the cover. it's the single most violent incidents from the process that have followed president havel merola since resignation and then certain governments has taken charge but running is calling for a democratic transition of power have continued friday's killings from the death toll from bolivia's protests to 50. the u.s. is calling on south korea to pay more towards the cost of stationing u.s. troops in the country the demand was made during

a high level defense meeting in seoul it's left some in seoul questioning the u.s. is commitment to their relationship fearing north korea may feel emboldened katty lopez what he n. reports. a yearly security meeting between allies from the u.s. and south korea smiles and courtesies to begin but later fears that their military alliance may be threatened over money. president donald trump wants $5000000000.00 a year from sought for having $28000.00 u.s. soldiers stationed in south korea that's more than 5 times what a pays now but korea is a wealthy country and could and should pay more to help offset the cost of defense . some south korean legislators have called the demands unacceptable and disappointing but the defense minister is being more diplomatic by going to south korea and the u.s. have reconfirmed the common goals of the complete denuclearization of north korea

and the stabilizing pace on the peninsula. the presence of u.s. troops isn't tended as a deterrent to north korea but the demand for more money has led some in south korea to question washington's commitment to its alliance with some critics calling for a fool us withdrawal their. own agreement half way reached half way in terms of partial withdrawal accompanied by some increase in your mouth but not total in the full amount that the us requires. the u.s. is also pressuring south korea to reverse its decision to end an intelligence sharing agreement with japan but fears that move initially triggered by trade disputes could end up helping north korea and china. trump has long accused nato allies and japan of not paying their fair share of defense cost but by putting pressure on south korea many fear the u.s. is also straining their decades old alliance katia lived with the yuan al-jazeera.

south african airways workers have gone strike to demand higher wages and to protest against job cuts that he destroyed because force these struggling states would carrier to cancel dozens of flights south african airways hasn't turned a profit since 20 a month and the noise on state bailouts says the coats will cost more than $3000000.00 u.s. dollars per day for me to miller has the latest from johannesburg. just some of the workers who have gone on strike have come out to protest nearby the overtime boat international airport to their outside the south african airways offices and the aim here used to bring the airlines operations to a standstill people here are asking for an 80 percent increase in pay the airline is offering $5.00 but people here say their protest goes beyond a payroll this is also about the outsourcing of workers and giving out

contracts when the money can be saved by the airline if the airline uses the people its employees this is very much for the people here about an airline that is in disarray its has set of a quarter 3 quarters of a $1000000000.00 the company is technically insolvent people here say this is about tackling corruption looting and mismanagement we are really in a situation where we have no choice as unions we've tried everything within our power we've taken to say it's across on the issue of corruption in the end for trying to force them to implement forensic reports they've actually foretells imports or they've wasted money that they didn't have fighting unions when they should have actually simply just implemented the forensic reports in a in a show of showing that the trying to clean up the airline this is the 1st day of

strike action by workers. and south african airways has been forced to cancel dozens of flights both within south africa and some international flights people here say they're prepared to stay as long as it takes and do intend continuing with strike action into the coming week so that rikan airways has been at pains to try and resolve the impasse saying that it can't afford for the strike action to continue it says it's losing up to $3000000.00 every day that workers stay away. germany isn't shining the fight against climate change into law the lower house of parliament approved measures including a $60000000000.00 spending package carbon targets and increased taxes for flights but the bill still needs to be approved by the house john mccain has more from berlin getting this particular proposal through parliament is proving very

difficult for the grand coalition because there are many elements of what's been proposed which many people in parliament just don't agree with the upshot of this is that this is going to cost somewhere around $60000000000.00 in the next few years and it involves the government of missing but its previous aspirations its targets to reduce emissions are not going to hit the time frame they said that they would several years ago what's in this particular package well fines for companies that are particularly polluting in terms of c o 2 but incentives for those that are not the devil is in the details and those who oppose this particularly the opposition parties in the bundestag that's the lower house of parliament well they say on one side the greens say this is nowhere near protection enough for the environment whereas the free democrats and the liberal party well they say this is going to punish and penalize business but this is not

the end of the story because the green party will be able to challenge these proposals in the other house of parliament the blunders and there if they choose to they can block a great deal of this potential legislation the question for them will be as a green party that prioritizes protecting the environment are they prepared to vote down something which on the face of it is teared and geared towards protecting the environment that is for the future for now i'm going to merkel and her colleagues will be breathing a sigh of relief that at least in this house most of the proposals have been passed . and finally a u.s. courts has built the execution of a black man just days before it was due to be carried out its 51 year old will be reid's had been convicted of the murder of a white woman in 1996 but the texas appeals court says new evidence of his innocence must not be considered john hendren has more from austin in texas when

rodney reed awoke on friday morning his days were numbered numbered to 5 he was scheduled to die by lethal injection at the hands of the state of texas on wednesday nov 20th that is for the rape and murder of stacy stites in 1996 but late on friday the texas court of criminal appeals issued a stay demanding that new evidence be considered among other things his lawyers got an affidavit from a friend of the victim that seemed to corroborate his story that he was having a long term affair with stacy stites and that that would explain why his semen was found on the victim when she was found dead in another explosive piece of evidence an inmate in jail along with the fiance of stacy site says that that fiance confessed to her murder he has since through his lawyers denied that he has done so but that of another piece of explosive new evidence this happened just hours before

the texas parole board recommended a 120 day stay of the execution so that they could consider new evidence or the court's consider consider new evidence that is a very rare thing 566 people have been executed in the state of texas since it reinstituted the death penalty in 1982 the parole board has only asked for a stay 5 times it's only been granted 3 times and now rodney reed hopes to be the our. faces. and these are the top stories u.s. president donald trump is facing accusations of intimidation after attacking the latest impeachment witness on twitter as she testified before congress many of out of it was the u.s. ambassador in ukraine trump is accused of pressuring ukraine to investigate his

political rivals as we sit here testifying the president is attacking you or twitter. and i'd like to give you a chance to respond or read part of one of his tweets everywhere marie of on average when turned bad but would you like to respond to the president's attack that everywhere you went turned bad i mean i can't speak to what the president is trying to do but i think the effect is to be intimidating israel says it's carried out more airstrikes in response to rocket fire from gaza overnight stew rockets were fired towards beersheba it raises more doubts about a cease fire with the palestinian armed groups islamic jihad's the truce was agreed on thursday after the worst cross border fighting in months killed $34.00 palestinians gunmen in sri lanka have fired on buses carrying muslim voters but no casualties have been reported it happened shortly after polls opened in the country's presidential election ethnic tensions have been high since the easter

sunday bombings bernard smith has more from colombo we understand shots were fired stones were thrown at this convoy an attempt to make some sort of roadblock was made but nobody was injured in the convoy carried all i'd have to say compared to sri lanka elections in the past this is actually a pretty calm and peaceful election campaign hasn't been a lot of reports of votes on to me to intimidation although this clearly was an example of it overnight nevertheless as i say those people able to go on to vote. and chile's government is promising a new referendum on the new constitution it's a key demands of protesters who've been rallying for more than a month now the current constitution was enacted string the military dictatorship all the show up to date stay with us and al-jazeera the news consider continues after talks officer. as i put it up from

questions to my special guests and challenging them to some straight talking political debate here on al-jazeera. you've seen. catalonia is a region in the northeast of spain it is partially autonomous but in recent years independent sentiments have risen among many cattle and in fact karla's puts them on the former leader of the regional government challenge madrid and called for a referendum. on barcelona. that executive office i came here over 2 years ago to discuss with the president. his plan for independence this is what.